
Antergos Linux Project Ends - ricjac
https://antergos.com/blog/antergos-linux-project-ends/
======
axaxs
This makes me sad, but not completely unexpected. I worked on Antergos a while
early on and had a lot of fun. That said, at least 2 of the core devs went
more or less MIA for months at a time as they got busy with life, counting
myself. My hats off to the team but specifically Gustau and Dustin, who
trudged along the entire journey through the years. Seriously great developers
to work with.

As an aside, I just checked the geolocation server I'd setup for the
installer.

03:14:51 up 1357 days, 3:43, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05

It's been up 4 years continuously on a Scaleway ARM box. I can't recommend
them enough for such projects.

~~~
subway
Does that mean part of your infrastructure saw no kernel patches in 4 years?

OS uptime gave me pride in the 90s. Today it's usually a bad sign.

~~~
trishmapow2
Is live kernel patching not commonly used these days?

~~~
subway
Not really. It's technically possible with Ksplice, but almost no distro
actually supports it.

Beyond the kernel, you have various libs and binaries that will be replaced
during upgrades. All can usually/mostly be restarted without a reboot, but
just upgrading packages alone won't guarantee all running processes have been
updated.

~~~
genera1
> but almost no distro actually supports it

Ubuntu supports it officially, so does Fedora. From my experience it works
more or less fine on CentOS, so probably RHEL too. For Suse there is kGraft,
so basically >90% of install base supports live patching.

~~~
usr1106
> Ubuntu supports it officially

I don't think it's part of the usual Ubuntu distro. I understood you need to
register to get it. And it's free (as in beer) only for limited use cases.
Don't remember the details.

------
koltax
I have been using antergos for over 4 years, having dual booted it on with
windows on 3 different computers. I always liked the fact that it took just
15-20 minutes for me to start working.

Arch purists may scoff on these spin offs, but they miss the point. The appeal
was that even though I know how to set up arch on my own, it takes about 2
hours or so. Setting up nvidia was also a pain. With antergos, you can just
sit back, and get a nice working system quickly.

Will definitely miss it

~~~
jchw
Maybe Manjaro fits the bill?

[https://manjaro.org/](https://manjaro.org/)

I never used Antergos but last I used Manjaro it seemed pretty good.

Personally, I’m looking to see concepts like GuixSD and NixOS be extended and
remixed. I’m imagining a world where you have a control panel that changes
declarative settings then commits them by rebuilding the system...

~~~
jplayer01
Manjaro is fine, but I preferred Antergos because it used the Arch Linux
packages, meaning I always had the latest ones. AFAIK, Manjaro is behind by
like a month? In which case, why even bother with rolling release?

~~~
narimiran
> _used the Arch Linux packages, meaning I always had the latest ones._

This is provably false, as I can witness from my recent experience where Arch
has 14 month old, long superseded, version of a package, while other Linux
distros (including Manjaro, but also Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, openSuse, etc.)
use the most/more recent version.

\----

> _AFAIK, Manjaro is behind by like a month? In which case, why even bother
> with rolling release?_

Even if this were true (and it isn't, see the sibling comment), I've seen
responses like yours and I don't understand them.

Where would you draw the line when it comes to rolling? You say that one month
behind is too long. Is 2 weeks ok? One week? 3 days? 1 day? 12 hours? Why does
it even matter?

To answer you from my perspective:

I "bother" with Manjaro because I like the rolling distro philosophy, but I
also value stability. If those two weeks of delay will bring me packages which
are better tested and more stability overall - I'm all for it.

Oh and I don't even update as soon as an update hits the stable channel, I
regularly decide to wait at least a day or two to see if others have any
problems with the update.

For other people, who are more impatient (and more adventurous), Manjaro
offers two other channels: testing and unstable.

~~~
cosarara
> This is provably false, as I can witness from my recent experience where
> Arch has 14 month old, long superseded, version of a package, while other
> Linux distros (including Manjaro, but also Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, openSuse,
> etc.) use the most/more recent version.

Would you mind telling us what package that is?

------
zamalek
That's a picture-perfect exit. They have honestly disclosed the reasons and,
most importantly, the continuance plan for loyal users. It's a shame they
shined the brightest at the end.

------
monetus
After this, is manjaro the only wizard I can point people towards for arch?
(If you can call it that)

Edit: found this script at least.
[https://github.com/MatMoul/archfi](https://github.com/MatMoul/archfi)

~~~
zdxt
There is also ArcoLinux.

~~~
monetus
Thanks a lot, I didn't know about this.

------
ac29
As a long time Arch user, what's the attraction to these spinoffs?

Seems to me they are mainly pitching being easier to install, but the Arch
installer (or lack thereof) is perfectly fine in my opinion. You get the
benefit of understanding a little better how your system is installed as well.

~~~
ubercow13
One reason is that I learned how to install a system that way with Gentoo 15
years ago and I don't need to learn it again now. It's still a slow process
even when you know what you're doing (though I still usually do it the slow
way)

~~~
ac29
I, too learned how to Linux with Gentoo ~20 years ago, and while that semi-
from-scratch approach still appeals to me, Arch 2019 is not Gentoo 2002.

I find myself doing an Arch install once a year or so, and I'd say it takes
about 20 minutes to get to my prefered desktop from completely un-initialized
hardware - I remember Gentoo taking days!

~~~
8draco8
The complexity of installing Gentoo is the same as Arch, the only thing that
slow downs the process for Gentoo was compiling all the packages. 2002 CPU
speeds wasn't helping either.

------
gchamonlive
This is for me huge news... I think of Antergos very fondly. I donated when I
first installed it and was constantly amazed by it.

Showing Antergos off at work, people was also impressed and almost everyone on
the team switched to Antergos from Ubuntu (and this is no small feat). It
lowered the entry bar into arch without lowering quality and this is something
that is really valuable. It made switching to an arguably a better distro for
development (latest packages, the vast aur repository, incredible Arch wiki
support...) time-effective: where before I couldn't imagine myself as SysOps
recommending arch to the frontent designer, now I can just go "oh, try this,
installation is almost as easy as Ubuntu".

I had a small share of grief with Antergos too. With my laptop I had to
disable "nouveau" drivers so that I could boot to a stable installation
environment using Nvidia 150M GPU and upgrading my home setup to Nvidia from a
Radeon GPU killed my previous arch installation and now it won't boot from
their live iso.

But what it enabled me to do at work, prompting this switch from ubuntu to
arch, is something I can't measure in value. I would love to be able to
maintain this project (is it open for public fork?), but I have neither time
(maybe a workday a week) nor the preparation to do so, and the community would
also have to create momentum in the direction of adopting this project...

Anyway this is sad, but in no way I could hang this over antergos team's
heads. I can only be grateful and wish them good luck in their lives, they
deserve all the internets they can get.

------
Jnr
Manually installing and managing Archlinux years ago was the best Linux
tutorial I could have asked for.

Before switching to Archlinux I started with Ubuntu and other Debian based
distros. The problem with using those is that it wraps many things in nice
automated packages and scripts and you don't learn much. And understanding how
Linux works can be quite useful at times.

~~~
gchamonlive
That is unfortunately not scalable. It is nice to have for example a team of
devs using the same distro. It makes it easier to help one another, debug the
system and install packages. I at work couldn't have prompted the team's
switch from ubuntu to arch without Antergos. It basically made widespread
adoption of Arch with little compromises possible.

~~~
Jnr
If your team is not ready to deal with the occasional problems that come from
using Archlinux then just stick to Ubuntu. It is perfectly usable distribution
and you can always get the latest development software using custom repos,
Snap packages or even running it from some Archlinux lxc container.

~~~
gchamonlive
I am ready to support their installations, I do it happily. I just can't
justify wasting a couple of hours every time I need a fresh install just to
get the bare os up and running.

Automation is something good!

I can't really recommend Ubuntu for for teams that are experimenting with
tools. Lots of tools can't be installed with apt and therefore have to be
updated manually. Arch with yay is convenient enough to justify base system
setup automation.

Also, I stay away from snap whenever possible. I have seen several tools I use
(ripgrep for instance) pulling support from snap that makes me uneasy using
it.

------
eigenspace
Funnily enough I almost installed Antergos a couple weeks ago but then decided
to subject myself to the full fat command line Arch install instead.

------
aesthethiccs
Thanks to antegros my life changed for the better now it will go away, i'd
rather the maintainers offered a subscription for distros just so they can
maintain quality distributions over donations.

------
AdmiralAsshat
It's a shame to see it go. I never used it, but the fact that it used vanilla
Arch packages under the hood was certainly preferable to Manjaro's "don't call
it Arch" approach.

I worked on a similar "batteries included" distro based on Fedora that shut
down. Fortunately, by the time it ended Fedora had come a long way towards
making initial setup easier for newcomers, and our distro was mostly redundant
sans a few extra packages and theming.

On the other hand, Arch still lacks a friendly installer.

~~~
8draco8
Antergos was pretty much friendly installer of Arch. They was just packaging
all Arch goodies in user friendly box. Despite the fact that I don't like Arch
I liked the idea of Antergos and was checking it every once in a while to
check what has changed in Arch world.

------
ricjac
Funnily enough, distrowatch.com have already removed Antergos from their list.
And looks like acrolinux has climbed up a little to 18th spot.

I personally will be still using Antergos for a little while longer. Then
trying out arcolinux.

------
antouank
So sad to read this.

Been using antergos on my pc and laptop for couple of years now, best distro
I've used.

Is manjaro now the only alternative for a simple arch setup?

------
jonotime
Very sad to hear this. Not sure where I will go from here. I used to live
vanilla Arch (and still do on small servers), but once I found Antergos 5+
years ago there was no turning back. Soon I have another look at manjaro or
arco perhaps.

------
dman
I have really grown to like Antergos over the last two years. Deepin on
Antergos comes the closest to a Linux that is so polished out of the box that
it exceeds Windows / Linux in visual and product polish.

~~~
pnutjam
Try OpenSuse, their KDE environment has an excellent level of polish.

~~~
dman
I have, Deepin is on another level - trust me!

------
Inversechi
Sad times :( Was my first dive into arch and I enjoyed most of the journey.

------
hankzter
Ahhh can the installer perhaps be merged into Arch? I know and love kiss but
the installer is super nice!

------
rurban
Impossible to read/scroll on my Android phone

------
I_am_tiberius
That's a pitty. The perfect distro for me.

------
highhedgehog
Damn, I just installed it 2 days ago.

What should I switch to?

~~~
bevax
You don't need to. As they describe in a blog post, it essentially turns into
plain Arch.

------
milleramp
Wow sad to hear, glad I chose Manjaro.

------
usr1987
nothing will be missed some dude will fork it in his basement since it does
not come with some tool he wants and he will make his own to show the world he
is elite!

------
mastrsushi
Oh God, now I'll have to fall back on one of the 10 other Arch distros!

------
LinuXY
I've never quite understood the allure of wanting to reinvent the wheel by
creating a "distribution." There was one time where the Linux kernel did not
support enough abstraction or a project was brought under some less open
licensing that these niche "OSes" made sense. I would much rather see less
package managers rolling other projects' packages and more unity on a single
declarative platform. Today it's systemd vs SystemV, apt vs yum vs pacman
vs... ad-infinitum. The Linux kernel is finally at a point where not every
snowflake needs to be made. I'm waiting for the day where the concept of a
distribution is rightfully pedantic. Maybe by then we may have a real shot at
Linux on the desktop. A collection of packages not an OS does make.

~~~
pushpop
Distributions were never meant to describe distinct OSs. The term literally
describes a collection of packages: or “distribution of packages” to be more
precise ;)

The point of distros was never about a limitation of abstraction at the kernel
level. It was about different ways of packaging or user space tools; or about
what tools came pre-configured as part of that particular package of
Linux+tools. This is as true in the very early days of Slackware and Debian as
it is now.

Personally I like the variety out there, I call it “choice”. I don’t like
Ubuntu Desktop - I’m not taking anything away from those who do but it’s just
not a platform I feel at home on. If the choice were “Ubuntu or nothing” then
I’d probably be running FreeBSD. But because we have choice it means I can run
whatever opinionated flavour of Linux I want and you can run whatever
opinionated flavour you want - even if our opinions differ - and thus we all
still run Linux.

The whole “Linux on the desktop” argument doesn’t make much sense anymore. We
now have WSL, Chromebooks, Netbooks, Android tablets and GNU user space tools
that run on OSX via homebrew and/or Docker. Not to mention various hardware
vendors who do take Linux compatibility seriously on their laptops (even if
they may not always ship Linux “out of the box”). Plus many of everyday GUI
tools we use these days are now web applications because of how platform
agnostic the wider computing landscape has become. So while we haven’t seen a
surge of GNU/Linux desktops in the traditional Windows sense, I do think Linux
/ open source has already won in terms of breaking up the Microsoft monopoly.

