I like it because I know my ways around Arch, which I've used for a long time in the past. I liked Alpine less, whenever I've tried it, which last time was about two years ago. When I got 'new' hardware, and wondered if I just should go on like before, or look at what has happened elsewhere, broaden ones horizons, so to speak.
Being fast is no problem when running from and IN RAM, which it can do. But so is Antix, which turns Debian into a screaming pig on fire. In the end, it felt like it had too many annoying 'guardrails'(Distro conventions, expectations) while having much less ready-made stuff to offer than Debian.
With 32GB RAM, boosted even further by ZRAM layered on top of all of it, it's not that important anymore. Especially when using https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon which puts the "OS-within-the-OS" (any relevant browser) into RAM too, or rather it's profile, which speeds things up really good, while at the same time lessening the load on your SSD, and I/O in general.
Rock solid and stable, like the rest of the system too. In spite of being called 'Gamer distro'. (On my hardware and config, nerdy naysayers don't need apply, kthxbai)
Addendum: I've reskimmed the two articles you linked, and can only think of you were holding it wrong :-) Several points, one I think I've already written about to you.
That trying out distros in whichever VM is almost useless for evaluating performance, because fucking VM! Also the used drivers are different. The only thing they are useful for may be testing the general installation process in advance, to see if anything wanted is missing, the defaults, if they are changeable to ones own preferences, or whatever.
The perceived slowness of the installer on bare metal. Again: Waddya talkin' äbbout?!
It all went by in a whoosh, and then it was ready to use. Maybe that W520 is crappy somehow? My install was on a machine from the same company, but different model.
M910q tiny with Kaby Lake Core i5-7500t, 32GB. Whoosh! Zoom! Motion blur!1!!
Needed internet connection, metered?!
I have flat rated and unlimited redundant fibre into my homes.
Who cares about Distrowatch? That is not a reliable indicator of popularity, because it can easily be manipulated.
I already told you once. I'm a sweet summer child, born in 1969.
And yes, I did. But was useless due to lack of apps, and me already spoiled by the BSDs, which I've 'riced' hard, long before that became a meme by way of Gentoo.
My articles are published by an outlet which puts them in front of the eyes of millions. I get so many internet randos telling me I am wrong every day that if I even attempted to track them all I'd go insane.
No, I do not remember. I do not even try. The people with the abusive responses, the ones who use obviously-fake names, the ones who mock and belittle, are the ones who get the least attention.
The people who provide a real name, who engage, who provide citations and evidence, those I pay a little more attention to. You do none of these.
You just rant at me, and what you say doesn't add up. If you'd tried BeOS on x86 and you actually remembered, then you would see that any and all modern Linux distros are giant sluggish lumbering things which need trillions of CPU cycles before they even display a busy indicator.
So, no, I do not think you are serious or credible. All you do is go "it works for me" and "computer go brrrrrrr lol" and this is not worthy of the reply I just wasted a few minutes on replying to.
Apart from your repeated rants about the trauma you have suffered from early BTRFS, which goes against my (later) experience with it, and therfore against my grain, your comparison of the speeds of various distros triggered me the same way.
> If you'd tried BeOS on x86 and you actually remembered,...
I did, and I do remember. It was exceptional at its time, but more or less useless, depending on your needs, and availability of applications. On contemporary hardware Haiku isn't that exceptional anymore. Maybe it could, if it had drivers which would actually make full use of the underlying hardware capabilities. However, the beta isn't usable as daily driver, at least not for me. I could make better use of even Genode. I'm not pulling that out of my ass, I actually tried, and compared. For several days, each.
How long do you evaluate and compare?
> All you do is go "it works for me" and "computer go brrrrrrr lol"
Yes. Because it did, from the beginning. Feeling like a revelation comparable to the one you hold high so much. That Beos-thing during its time. Except I'm having way more available applications, and no crashes.
Now what?
You probably going to continue distro-DJing in virtual machines, thinking that would mean something?
How should I provide evidence, when much of what I did is deeply NDAed(nothing about Cachy, more like firmware, toolchains, optimization), 'otherwise unavailable', or would lead to doxxing myself? (Which I don't really fancy).
Streaming on YT, Twitch, whatever, doing a systems walkthrough, running Phoronix testsuite, or SPEC with overlayed Gamescope?
Being fast is no problem when running from and IN RAM, which it can do. But so is Antix, which turns Debian into a screaming pig on fire. In the end, it felt like it had too many annoying 'guardrails'(Distro conventions, expectations) while having much less ready-made stuff to offer than Debian.
With 32GB RAM, boosted even further by ZRAM layered on top of all of it, it's not that important anymore. Especially when using https://github.com/graysky2/profile-sync-daemon which puts the "OS-within-the-OS" (any relevant browser) into RAM too, or rather it's profile, which speeds things up really good, while at the same time lessening the load on your SSD, and I/O in general.
Rock solid and stable, like the rest of the system too. In spite of being called 'Gamer distro'. (On my hardware and config, nerdy naysayers don't need apply, kthxbai)
Kasheex!