Arch is aimed at people who know their shit so they can build their own distro based on how they imagine their distro to be. It is not a good distro for beginners and non power users, no matter how often you try to make your own repository, and how many GUI installers you make for it. There’s a good reason why there is no GUI installer in arch (aside from being able to load it into ram). That being that to use Arch, you need to have a basic understanding of the terminal. It is in no way hard to boot arch and type in archinstall. However, if you don’t even know how to do that, your experience in whatever distro, no matter how arch based it is or not, will only last until you have a dependency error or some utter and total Arch bullshit® happens on your system and you have to run to the forums because you don’t understand how a wiki works.
You want a bleeding edge distro? Use goddamn Opensuse Tumbleweed for all I care, it is on par with arch, and it has none of the arch stuff.
You have this one package that is only available on arch repos? Use goddamn flatpak and stop crying about flatpak being bloated, you probably don’t even know what bloat means if you can’t set up arch. And no, it dosent run worse. Those 0,0001 seconds don’t matter.
You really want arch so you can be cool? Read the goddamn 50 page install guide and set it up, then we’ll talk about those arch forks.
(Also, most arch forks that don’t use arch repos break the aur, so you don’t even have the one thing you want from arch)
Arch is for control freaks, which means it takes a lot of work and patient to get it to work for your specific needs. If you don’t have the time and patient for that (which is more then understandable) then you shouldn’t use it.
Nah that’s gentoo
Nah, maybe 10 years ago or so. Now you install it with a script and it just works.
Installing packages on Arch is way, way easier than doing it on Ubuntu, the OS that for some reason people keep recommending for newcommers.
And since installing packages is about the only thing that you do with your OS as a beginner, that’s a big deal
Everyday I see people saying they are having issue with Linux and its always because they went straight to arch and used archinstall. They have no idea how any of their system works and when they run into an issue thry do a full system reinstall.
I started with Arch
btw
Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.
I’ve got 25 years of Linux usage under my belt at this point, and I’ve settled on Debian for all PCs, servers, and anything else. Stability is so much more important to me than bleeding edge software, but for those things that absolutely need the latest and greatest, there’s Backports and Flatpak.
I started off as a Redhat person (this is before RHEL and Fedora existed, so the distro was just “Redhat”), then after Redhat started their shenanigans, I spent a decade or so distro hopping. I even became an OpenBSD user for a couple of years. But now, I’m all Debian. Sane defaults, stable, no bloat, quick setup. I can get on with my day. I understand the Arch obsession, but I feel like I’m long past that level of interest in tinkering at this point.
Preach greybeard
Im like 2 grub breaks away from going back lol
I never liked debian or it’s derivatives, but since moving to Selfhosting most of my services and needing sane defaults on my server (I’m a noob with server stuff) I’ve circled back to LMDE after 20 years of using primarily bleeding edge and DIY distros.
I like it, it’s nice that it’s set and forget and doesn’t need constant attention like my bleeding edge stuff always did.
LMDE is great. I run it on my Thinkpad T14 G1. Runs like a champ, and after installing
tlp, it manages to eke out almost 7 hours of battery life with a questionable battery.I’ll be switching from Windows 10 to LMDE on my desktop gaming PC at some point soon this year. I have no intention of letting Microsoft dictate what I can and can’t do on my custom PC that I built with my own hands. W11 further reduces that capability.
As a fellow Mint enjoyer who is too fucking old to be fixing their desktop all the time…yes
Debian is just the carcinization of Linux.
Debian is the stable friend who might not have all the answers at the moment but can help you with whatever you need to do, and does it without ever asking for anything in return.
Debian is love, Debian is life.
Mamma says you’re ornery bcz you have all them teeth and no toothbrush.
Any windows power user or dev on a mac can follow a wiki, read a bit and learn.
Good for beginners? I didn’t describe a beginner right here. Anybody with experience in computing will find arch straightforward and satisfying. Heck, a CS student would probably go through a first install process faster than I do after 5 years.
What are the concept involved? Partitioning, networking, booting… These are all familiar fields to tons of very normal computer users.
Arch was my first distro after going back to Linux. I really liked learning the inner workings of a computer and an OS.
I know plenty of people who just want a plug&play experience with the only input for the install being name, password and date. For them, I would never recommend Arch, simply mint or pop_os would do just fine as the only thing the computer has to do is open up the browser.
I just want more Linux users, not specific distros. In the end if you know your way around Linux, the distro choice doesn’t matter, you just choose a package repo
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Even following ‘beginner’ tutorials is hit or miss
It’s gotten worse than it even used to be, because more than half the “tutorials” I’ve run across are clearly AI written and basically flat out wrong.
Of course, they’re ALSO the “answers” that get pushed by Bing/Google so even if you run into someone who is willing to follow documentation, they’re going to get served worthless slop.
One thing I will give arch is that if there’s a wiki entry for something, it’s at least written by a human and is actually accurate which is more than I’ve found ANYWHERE else.
You’re focusing too much on the installation process, if installing Arch was the whole of the problem things like Endeavor would be a good recommendation for newbies, but they’re not. Arch has one giant flaw when it comes to being beginner friendly, and it’s part of what makes it desirable for lots of us, and that is the bleeding edge rolling release model. As a newcomer you probably want something that works and is stable. Arch is not, and will never be, that, because the core philosophy is to be bleeding edge rolling release. If you’re a newcomer who WANTS to have that and doesn’t mind the learning curve then go ahead, but Linux has enough of a learning curve already, so it’s better to get people started with something they can rely on and afterwards they can move to other stuff that might have different advantages/disadvantages.
We’re talking about the general case here, I’ve recommend Arch to a newcomer in the past, he was very keen on learning and was happy with reading wikis to get there stuff sorted, but realistically most people who’re learning a whole new OS don’t want to ask questions and be told RTFM, and RTFM is core to the Arch philosophy.
just because a given person could make it work, doesnt mean they want to. i personally can fix a lot of these issues, but i dont wanna have to bother. i just want to accomplish the inane bullshit i turned my computer on for.
i just think an arch recommendation should always come with that disclaimer. newbies have to know what to expect else they will associate that experience with linux in general.
the wiki could be way better honestly…
Only gets better if we make it better.
that, or having good documentation could be a requirement
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The first Linux I used wasn’t part of any distro. A few years later I compiled Slackware to run bind and Sendmail.
Last year I tried Arch in a VM. I got to where it expected me to know what partitions to create for root and swap and noped out. It’s not 1996. I don’t have time for those details any more. No one should. Sane defaults have been in other distros for decades.
one of the main points of arch is for people wanting to learn these details. its not for everyone.
if you want a distro to just work, i second the suggestion from the other dude. get a debian based one.
Debian welcomes you 💫
The install guide is not 50 pages-long, common!
Admittedly, the installation for Arch Linux is not that difficult.
It’s the General Recommendations that become bullshit.
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What do you mean by “become bullshit”?
the arch experience is weirdly weird honestly. arch is not hard to use, the wiki documentations are pretty extensive. but still there are people who dont even know how to use a wiki. what people needs to do is not learn how to use arch, but learn how to change their perspective on arch instead
I’m not completely up to speed with the core principles of Arch, but I think it revolves around KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). Meaning that Arch doesn’t hold your hand with nice GUIs. Instead, it tries to make the command line interface as easy to understand and use as possible. So if you run into a problem, you’re more likely to understand how to fix it, or at least what the root cause is. Which is not a given when you’re used to distros with more abstraction like Ubuntu. Then again, this design concept is not for everyone.
I don’t think arch does much to make commandline easier to use it understand - instead I’d say it aims to teach you how to use it, because it might be easier than you realize, but importantly it tries to tell you why. Instead of just giving you the command to run, the wiki explains various details of software, and the manual installation process tells you which components you need without forcing a specific choice. As a result, hopefully after using arch you’ll know how your system works, how to tweak it, and how to fix issues - not necessarily by knowing how to fix each individual issue, but by understanding what parts of your system are responsible and where to look.
is the basic arch CLI commands any different from discord bots? it feels easier to use if you think its same as playing with a discord bot. using CLI isnt some kind of programming
is the basic arch CLI commands any different from discord bots? it feels easier to use if you think its same as playing with a discord bot. using CLI isnt some kind of programming
Thanks for the hearty chuckle, zoomer.
Bash and all other shell languages are programming languages. The terminal is just a REPL for a language primarily meant to be used as a REPL for managing your OS.
learning CLI commands is 10 times easier than HTML
If you’re mindlessly pasting commands, sure… but you have zero idea what your fucking with if you think bash is simpler than HTML.
In the context of maintaining an Arch distro you will absolutely need to understand that executing CLI commands is in fact programming.
hard disagree on this… while for people who don’t know it it might look like programming, it’s really not much different than editing config files (which people who don’t know it will assume is programming too).
Sure, the language used by bash can be used to write massive programs. But in 99% cases using the CLI is like using a gui with a button and a text field - type some text into the field and then click the button, letting whatever software you’re running take the content of the text field and do something with it.
way closer, in fact, to executing a discord bot command, than to actual programming as in software development (what i’d argue people think of when talking about programming)
They’re a liiittle harder but yeah basically
this guy is so damn right i cant argue. arch isnt hard to use, whats hard is experiencing different things and learning
I use Debian ftw.
I started with real arch and loved it. Different strokes different folks
Literally never had EndeavourOS break in any way.
Last time might have been the GRUB issue that affected all of Arch. If you use GRUB that is, since it’s not the default on EndeavourOS. Next time might be old package repos being shut off, but only if your install is older, plus there’s already the second announcement with simple instructions regarding that on Arch News. Also, it will just block updates.
I’ve put two people without any prior knowledge on EndeavourOS, didn’t hear any complains either. I myself had no prior knowledge in Linux and hopped from Kubuntu to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed to Garuda Linux in short succession. I only switched to EndeavourOS after Garuda repeatedly broke. Been on it for 2 years without an issue I think.
I know this is not a representative study and as a computer scientist, I do grasp things quickly, but I strongly oppose the notion that EndeavourOS is not beginner friendly.
I wonder if there is something like a graph or diagram that shows the different parts that comform a distro.
Like a visual aid where you can see what combination of parts or components you are choosing on a distro.
Does something like this exist?
It’s a really simple system meant to ‘just work’ and provides an idiot sheet you can copy and paste from for those who don’t ever want to RTFM
as long as the system isn’t doing anything important Arch is great for noobs fucking around, it’s high grade spoonfeeding and doing what you are told.
Power users use RHEL, Ubuntu, Gentoo. Governments, armies, tech giants and that kinda stuff, Arch is more for newbies karma farming on r/unixporn for lolz
“I didnt read the changelogs”
I have never read the changelogs and I have never broken my EOS install ever.
Weak bait.
- Arch users everywhere: You MUST read the Arch news files before updating.
- Also Arch users when updating: Oops, I forgot to read the news file.
- pacman when updating: I have pre install hooks but I don’t print the news files updates by default because that’s probably bloat or something.
Make it make sense
while you do have a point, i’m still having issues with taskwarrior printing it’s update notifications, even after opening an issue and the maintainers patching it.
The thing is, i use arch on 3 different devices, and i don’t need to see every news entry 3 times, so yes in my case having it as default in pacman would indeed be bloat.
That said, there is PLENTY of places where I think arch could have saner defaults. but the beauty of arch is that it is made to be configured exactly the way you like it, so you really can’t fault arch as much in this case, compared to other distros that try to take all decisionmaking away from the user.
You can never be 100% certain the news file didn’t update between the three invocations. If you aren’t refreshing that page between invocations then you aren’t actually using Arch the way it was designed.
well you can never be 100% certain your laptop won’t spontaneously die either.
for any new arch user, i do recommend keeping an archiso live USB around in case something really does happen - since every arch user should know the basics of how it works, it should be easy enough to recover as well.
knowing that, i really only check the news out of curiosity, since i’m not a grub user i haven’t had arch be unbootable since i started using it years ago. even if it did i’m confident enough it’d be a quick fix.
Then I never want to see you telling someone they should’ve checked the news file before updating!
In 9+ years of literally never reading the changelog the ONLY time ive had arxh break was when grub did that unbelievably retarded update where it broke compatibility with itself and they did not put a goddamn hook to automatically update the install on bootloader.
That was solved in about 10min with a liveusb and replacing grub with systemdboot, which honestly I should have done a long time ago anyway it has a nice, easy, clean, simple configuration file instead of whatever the fuck they call that absolute monstrosity grub uses
I stopped using grub after that pain in the ass
Granted that for most newbies doing archchroot from a live USB is complicated enough to reinstall. In any case, as you said, systemd-boot works fine and it’s the default now in EOS so who cares.
For example a friend of mine decided to reinstall bazzite because he changed his GPU from nvidia to amd, when and uses the default drivers… Yes a simple search in bazzite’s download page shows the three coands that have to be executed to rebase the system to the non nvidia one if you like having extra space but… A full reinstall is crazy.
That was solved in about 10min with a liveusb and replacing grub with systemdboot
Try explaining that to a newbie
I am not a newbie and wouldn’t even know how to do it without using a manual (archwiki)
2 requirements for arch:
- Not fearful of CLI
- Able to RTFM.
- Willing to spend a whole day on your first install
that’s it. That’s also not MOST PC users. Just suggest popos or mint or that one “gaming” distro and let them enjoy it.
If they want to nerd out after they’re used to Linux they will learn the CLI. If they want to, they’ll find Arch or whatever DIY/rolling whatever distro.
