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)
What kind of beginning you mean? If you start to learn linux than use Arch or Archman specifically. If you just want to use Linux as desktop go other alternatives.
But but but SteamOS!
A beginner to what, to pacman, to arch, to rolling distro, to linux, to unix, to a PC, to using man-made tools …
I made an installation to an old pc once, I though it would last a while, and since the users could barely understand what an on/off button does, they just wanted google and facebook, so it was a wm with two browsers, daughter already knew what chrome was, and in the login shell I wrote a script that each new day it booted it attempted pacman -Suy --noconfirm then once a week the cache was emptied and the logs trimmed.
That was before covid, a couple months ago I met her, she said it has been working fine every since.
So there is your dinner
PS Actually it wasn’t arch it was artix with runit but that is about the same
LINUX IS AN EXPERIENCE NOT SOMETHING TO ENDLESSLY DEBATE ABOUT.
It was my second distro after mint. It’s very fun to learn as long as you got time to kill.
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’d just like to vent that these kind of discussions are one of the big turnoffs of the Linux community in general. People speak “in absolutes”.
You either do it this way or you’re a dumbass. You either use the distribution I like or you’re doing it WRONG. You shouldn’t use Arch because you’re not experienced enough, you should use Mint for an arbitrary amount of time before you graduate to the good stuff.
You friends get way too worked up over other people’s personal preferences and push your biased and subjective views as facts.
Is Arch Linux the right fit for a newbie to Linux? The right answer is “it depends”, not “never”. Would I recommend Arch to my mom? No. Would I recommend it to my programmer colleague who already lives in the Powershell? Sure, why not.
I think the difficulty with Arch is not about using the command line, but about knowing the Linux ecosystem.
People coming from OS X or Windows probably don’t know the difference between a WM, or a DE or what Display server they should use.
They don’t know if they need to install a network manager or setup sudo on a new system.
These things come from experience of using a Limix system even a mainstream one like Ubuntu.
Different people deal with things in different ways. Some (most?) people feel like learning linux is undesirable or a chore, while others embrace the sense of discovery and exploring a new and exciting thing. After using Windows for decades I don’t want the same experience, I want something completely different.
Before I installed Linux I played a bunch on a virtual machine. I installed several distributions, desktop environments, hardware compatibility. I ended up landing on EndeavourOS more than a year ago. Never borked my setup, never had update problems, never had a problem I couldn’t solve (more like Arch Wiki solving it for me).
I like to learn things by doing things, I like to fail fast and learn from the mistakes. EndeavourOS provided the exact experience I was looking for and would recommend it to someone with a similar mentality. I wouldn’t recommend Arch (or arch based distros) to people who aren’t tech savy, but people make it seem more complicated and brittle than it actually is.
Is Arch Linux the right fit for a newbie to Linux? The right answer is “it depends”, not “never”. Would I recommend Arch to my mom? No. Would I recommend it to my programmer colleague who already lives in the Powershell? Sure, why not.
Yup, i had a lot of people tell me that arch wasn’t a good beginner distribution, and had some friends try to talk me out of it. But i was planning to move to Linux for over a year and had set up Linux servers in the past. Just hadn’t used one for my main PC. I’ve been on arch for over a month and it’s been fine. I still wouldn’t recommend it to every beginner but I’m not going to say it’s never appropriate.
I know someone who was fed up with Windows recently, and they decided it’s finally time to switch to Linux. Me and another person recommended Linux Mint, but they got many other recommendations for Arch. They went with Arch, and it hasn’t gone boom yet, but I’m not sure if it’s a matter of time or what.
I have heard Arch is more “stable” these days than it used to be, but I’m not sure.
I use Ubuntu myself except for on my ThinkPad where I use Mint, and I’m gonna switch to Mint on my desktop eventually.
I’m in the void.
quick, quick, explain in one sentence whether the newb should go with musl of gliMBc … hurry … the screen is about to turn black and the installer will be gone
go musl with no hassle wink wink
There’s a good reason why there is no GUI installer in arch (aside from being able to load it into ram).
This is the dumbest conceit of the arch community. I learned Linux using Fedora back when regular usage required more know how than installing arch does and it was enormously helpful to have something you could click and install and THEN learn in a functional environment. Also following the guide isn’t THAT hard its just a waste of effort for a million people to do so.
I remember installing Debian before Ubuntu was born using an ncurses type interface and spending five minutes selecting the packages I want to install, (only for it to tell me that one package was incompatible with another and the installation couldn’t proceed!) but being able to do it somewhat graphically made it so much easier than simply by text.
An OS stays out of your way and lets you do what you need to do. Having to essentially create the basics is unproductive and a waste of the user’s time.
Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.
I’d rather use windows 7 than ever go back to Debian … something with 7 being the last good version of anything ;)
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
It makes sense because if you are a veteran, you probably already have your workflow streamlined, so you don’t need new software in the repositories.
Im like 2 grub breaks away from going back lol
IMO every distro should have a rolling release option. Kind of like how OpenSUSE has the normal version and Tumbleweed. You have normal version for when you need the OS to work (you’re new to Linux, it’s your main personal/work computer, it’s a server, etc) and then you have the rolling release option for when you’re willing to give up stability for the newest versions of everything as soon as possible.
I’ll tell you, nothing bricks as hard or as irreparably as Windows. I have never had to actually reinstall Linux due to some problem (though it’s a good practice security-wise).
Even when you removed the french language pack?
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.
SteamOS
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?
