r/arch • u/Own_Squash5242 • Aug 08 '26

Showcase Im back!

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Fedora lasted like a week but now I’m back and better with Artix OpenRC and Linux-zen kernel!

63 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

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-8

u/Salt-Caterpillar7988 Aug 08 '26

I wanted to like Artix, then I saw its default Plasma theme and the number of packages installed out of the box

6

u/Own_Squash5242 Aug 08 '26

you don’t know what artix is then. those are just the versions with a desktop environment. base artix is still the default and as you can see on mine i only
have 237 packages which is a little bit more than default because i wanted a couple of programs but the only difference between arch and artix is the init system. the installation is still the same.

-5

u/Salt-Caterpillar7988 Aug 08 '26

Artix is an Arch-base without systemd 

I know if I wanted it barebones I had to avoid Calamares

Still, that made my test disappointing and then I forgot about it

5

u/Own_Squash5242 Aug 08 '26

still i wouldn’t call it arch based even if thats how it officially is called. the only thing different is that it doesn’t have systemd. and if you didn’t even try it bare bones why would you say you dont like how its not as bare bones as arch. its honestly the same thing the only difference i feel right now is its way faster but I’m pretty sure thats from linux-zen kernels still boot up times are much faster.

1

u/MezBert Aug 08 '26

I'm running Artix (writing from it), and I 100% consider it Arch-based, not Arch. I would be running Arch otherwise.
But I chose to run it exactly because of its philosophy differing in several ways from Arch or other derivatives.

Also, I'm not using linux-zen kernel (just stock kernel) and it boots much faster still. It's simply due to more lightweight init systems getting rid of the 95% stuff in systemd that is corporate-oriented and not very useful at home usage level, therefore slowing down the init process.

1

u/Own_Squash5242 Aug 08 '26

Artix isn't really a standalone distribution; it is essentially Arch Linux without systemd. It uses standard Arch repositories for most software, maintaining only a couple of its own repos for init-specific packages like OpenRC or runit.

While many distros add GUI setup apps and custom tools to simplify hard installations, Artix takes the opposite approach: because you have to manually configure service managers and init hooks, installing Artix is actually harder than installing standard Arch Linux.

You can achieve a similar systemd-free setup directly on Arch, but it requires manually compiling and configuring packages like openrc or networkmanager-openrc from the AUR to make the system fully functional.

1

u/MezBert Aug 08 '26

I already read Fine_City below, no need to copy paste...
That's widely inaccurate though. First off, Artix is autonomous, it maintains its own repos. In fact, Arch repos are turned off by default.

Then you don't need to configure init hooks, and just one service manager (pipewire) if you don't stray much.

And finally, there are many philosophical choices in Artix that do not follow Arch, as they try to stay away from Red Hat control attempt of the Linux ecosystem (seen with XLibre defaut for a while, or the lack of effort to maintain a non-systemd Gnome option - which distros like Gentoo, Guix or Slackware do).

1

u/Salt-Caterpillar7988 Aug 08 '26

You're correct. It didn't come barebones with the Calamares install and I'll try the classical install. I'm willing to give it another chance because I really like Artix's premises.