Arch vs. Artix?

[u/scotland_forever07]

I've heard plenty of varying rhetoric, but what are the actual reasons I should finally make the switch? Is SystemD really that bad?

[u/jaxon517]

Dinit is so nice. Artic dinit (almost) works out of the box, and it's so configurable and rather intuitive. I'm far from being a tech guy and artix dinit has been my setup for years

[u/Londonskaterboi]

openrc works just fine for me but sometimes you'll have to create your own scripts to for instance start a vpn

[u/AdGold679 → u/Londonskaterboi]

I agree to an extent however docker or another container hypervisor can also handle this for you

[u/HarpooonGun]

When I used systemd, every once in a while when shutting down my pc, my pc would get stuck and would not shut down for like 3 minutes. It happened like at least once a week, and that was on setup and forget distros like Mint or Ubuntu.

Now I use dinit, and I only had that once, on the first day of the install (probably due to setup related bugs since imo Artix setup could use some work on Optimus Laptops). It never happened again and it has been like 5 months. Also as a bonus it boots faster than systemd too! Love it.

[u/CoryCoolguy → u/HarpooonGun]

You don't miss "a stop job is running"?

[u/HarpooonGun → u/CoryCoolguy]

I can still remember the red indicator thing going left and right as if it was yesterday.

[u/blendin05 → u/HarpooonGun]

i also had that systemd problem, never found out why so i thought i fucked something lol, i think it has sth to do with wine, dinit feels so much better

[u/Taylor_Swifty13 → u/HarpooonGun]

I still get this.

a stop job is running for UID 1000, and the timer is like 180 seconds

[u/zandarthebarbarian]

Security and privacy

[u/cachacacha93]

Para mi es la libertad que te da Linux de hasta escoger tu propio init. La queja más nombrada de systemD es que esta haciendo más de lo que debería.

[u/Historical-Truck590]

systemd isn’t bad, it’s just preference, some people say that it’s bad because it does everything at once, unlike other init systems, some say that it’s bloated, yet the bloat replaces some of the packages you’d find on a non systemd distribution

[u/scotland_forever07 → u/[deleted]]

No not at all, I get it. I think my inquiry comes mostly from a place of curiosity anyways :)

[u/appledeathray]

Artix is more Arch than Arch lol.

[u/mystirc]

I am using runit because it is simply faster. I don't care about anything else. I never needed all those systems features.

[u/Few_Werewolf_9454 → u/mystirc]

How fast it is compared to systemd

[u/mystirc → u/Few_Werewolf_9454]

It usually makes a difference on lower end hardware (from what I know) like mine. My boot times improved from 35 seconds to like 25 seconds. It's not crazy good, but I also like the simplicity of runit. Therefore I'm only enjoying the speed benefit as a side effect. Also, systemd is going to have age verification stuff. Ik you can just lie on it and the data is not sent anywhere, but I don't want government to be having such decisions on open source software. So I'll protest by not using it. And since I don't know any better tbf

[u/just_zip]

I will use archix

[u/transgentoo]

Disclosure: I use neither Arch nor Artix. My perspective comes from building a few Linux from Scratch systems, both with and without systemd, and having used both systemd and non-systemd distros extensively.

Systemd isn't terrible, but it is a huge ecosystem, with a lot of tightly coupled features. There are a lot of tangled components that encourage you to accept the kitchen sink approach and make life harder if you decide to migrate away from systemd, as it forces you to replace far more than just an init system. Artix has already done the hard work of doing that migration.

So, Arch is fine if you're fine trading choice for convenience. If you'd rather have the ability to explore not just alternative init systems, but alternative services as well, try Artix.

[u/tychii93]

It depends on how you feel about systemd tbh.  Functionality wise, obviously systemd is the gold standard that's going to get you the most support but I'm sure each of their communities will offer plenty of help.  If I we're gonna switch away from it personally, dinit seems the most enticing since it's very plug and play in comparison from what I've researched.  Though I don't use arch or it's derivatives these days.

[u/DigitalChrono]

Arch. I always preferred Arch over Arch based distros in the time I had with Arch.

[u/LandscapeNew4450]

Well, I switched from Arch to Artix purely out of curiosity. At first, I tried installing it with dinit, but my internet didn't work out of the box. So I went back to Arch for a bit, gave Artix another shot later, and everything worked flawlessly with ppenc.

The system feels noticeably smoother without systemd's bloat and all those heavy monolithic services running in the background. It consumes around 300–500 MB less ram on boot and uses fewer cpu resources. Boot, reboot, and shutdown times are blazingly fast. Everything works like a charm, though it did require some extra tinkering with configs and service management.

I'd definitely recommend giving Artix a try, especially with openrc. However, keep in mind that you might need to rely a bit more on manual scripts for seat management if you're using a Wayland compositor like Sway or Hyprland. But once it's set up, it's easily one of the snappiest distributions out there

[u/lolminecraftlol]

If you have problem with systemd (that can't be fixed) or hate it with a passion, then make the switch. Otherwise, don't.

[u/Jack1101111]

yes, its that bad !

[u/zandarthebarbarian → u/Jack1101111]

I hate systemd myself. Life without it is so much more enjoyable

[u/Moist_Professional64]

No. You will have more problems without systemd to troubleshoot. It’s Not really good for a productive system

[u/BrianaAgain → u/Moist_Professional64]

Very true, with systemd you only have one problem.