#1

I am a refugee from Arch Linux.
My server provider (Kimsufi) recently stopped supporting Arch as a server distro, so I needed to distro hop and found myself trying a few options. I have used Debian and Centos in the past, but an interest in Astrophotography led me to the Fedora Labs Astronomy but I prefer a more minimalist approach with SpectrWM and Alacritty so I need to improvise.
I have spent a couple of weeks getting used to the Workstation (Gnome) and in particular BTRFS and DNF and I have also been playing around with my remote server which hopped to Fedora Server at the same time as my desktop switched from Arch.
I have decided to reinstall, starting with Fedora Server as my base and build up a minimalist desktop install with SpectrWM and Alacritty as well as my usual tools and applications. I think documenting this process as an alternative to Arch would make an interesting article and possibly attract others to starting minimal rather than going straight to a Desktop based Spin

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#2

Hello @nekon ,
Welcome to the Fedora discussion, and in particular the Fedora Magazine discussion category.
+1 from me, I think there are several community members who are likely interested in such an article. Once another editor gives their +1 they can make a tracking card at https://teams.fedoraproject.org/project/asamalik-fedora-magazine/timeline. If you haven’t done so already, would you please follow the directions found at https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-magazine/contributing/ to get set up to contribute as a writer. Welcome aboard!

#3

I’m in favor, but let’s make sure to not make it come off as negative about Arch or an attack on them.

#4

Most definitely, we don’t do distro bashing here! But an article on how to setup a minimal Fedora Server (or CoreOS) install would be welcomed, and a minimal that reflected the desired state of an Arch Linux installation seems totally in line with using Fedora.

#5

Absolutely not!
I love Arch, and for your desktop or laptop PC, rolling distros make some good arguments, servers, less so, but thats what I ran anyway, despite the Arch Wiki saying “don’t be stupid!” when it came to Arch as a server distro.
I used Arch, for seven years, so I must have found it pretty useful!

I think the angle would be that starting from Fedora Server is pretty much akin to starting from the Arch ISO, whilst the Workstation (Gnome) is more like Manjaro etc. You install Fedora Server, then configre Xorg, then configure keyboard, Touchpad/mouse, ALSA, arandr etc. Then get yourself a Window Manager (I’ve been through most of them too!) and my terminal emulator of choice is usually uRXVT or Alacritty, although Kitty looks promising and I may give that a try.

Rather than a line by line set of instructions, I think the broad brush strokes are more important, together with hints and gotchas. Plus info sources, problem solving and maybe my reasons for WM over DE.

Its looking increasingly likely to coincide with a new desktop PC build (i7-10700k but onboard graphics, MSI490, 1TB M2) so that would be good from point of view of needing lastest drivers etc…

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#6

I like this idea, currently I run the server environment (manually added) from the workstation base image, but the other way around works as well. It is good to show how it is done.

#7

That’s pretty much my usual set-up Jan, a LAMP stack run native for dev, but I use WM instead of DE; Nvim, NerdTree, etc and Terminal instead of Netbeans or VS Code (I once thought I could never leave Netbeans). I then test on a VM identical to my Kimsufi Server (cheap… very cheap, but surprisingly good specs - 2 x Xeon3520, 4c/8t, 2.66GHz, 2 x 240GB SSD). I mess around with the grown-up languages (C and derivatives) but mainly its PHP and Symfony.
I also have a project to try to get .NET running on a Linux server on an existing website for a sports club I belong to, but I keep pushing that one backwards, sounds like far too many square pegs and not even enough round holes to me!

#8

I have packaged a .net project on Linux. It had some challenges but is doable.

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#9

+1. @nekon I created a card for your article and assigned you. Happy writing!

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