Can we please, PLEASE for gods sake just all agree that arch is not and will never be a good beginner distro no matter how many times you fork it?
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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.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
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On the contrary, I'd still argue it's a good distro for beginners, but not for newbies. people who are tech-sawy and not hesitant to learn new things.
I jumped straight into EndeavorOS when I switched to Linux, since arch was praised as the distro for developers, for reasons.
Sure, I had some issues to fight with, but it taught me about all the components (and their alternatives) that are involved in a distro.
So, once you have a problem and ask for help, the first questions are sorts of "what DE/WM do you use?... is it X11 or wayland? are you using alsa or pipewire?".
Windows refugees (like me) take so many things for granted, that I think this kind of approach really helps in understanding how things work under the hood. And the Arch-wiki is just a godsend for thst matter. And let's be real, you rarely look into Arch-wiki for distros other than Arch itself, since they mostly work OOTB.
The Arch-wiki was my main reason for switching to arch. When I used an ubuntu based distro I felt like I had to rely on forum posts to figure out anything whereas with arch everything is documented incredibly well
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Some functionality (menus, networking) working not as expected, random glitches, bugs, instabilities...also, now coming from the experiences of others (wasn't there at the time), one time even GRUB had an update that broke it on all systems with Arch, forcing many to halt updates. In my eyes, from personal experience and experiences of others, it got a reputation as a quite messy system.
Oh wow yeah I had forgotten about the grub update, the only way to not have a bricked computer was to be active in the arch communities because they didn't remove the faulty package even though it was known to brick computers
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Ubuntu or one of its variants
Even Mint? Seems to be the go-to recommendation for newbies.
Never was able to try mint, I only did once but the installer didn't work for some reason, probably Nvidia related so I don't blame mint for it.
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What are people doing that breaks their computers? I have used arch for like 15 years now and nothing ever goes wrong?
The closest would be on my desktop sometimes nvidia drivers are in a state that breaks display reinit on wake from sleep but my thinkpad is always fine.
Seriously who are you weird computer vandals going around and breaking everything all the time? What do you do?
sometimes nvidia drivers are in a state that breaks display reinit on wake from sleep
Hmm, got a question for you about that. What did that appear as for you? Just a black screen and nothing else if it went to sleep?
I had a recently installed app fuck something in my settings so my display is going to sleep after 10 minutes, and when I wake it up I get a normal appearing lock screen with a login. If I login, the screen goes black and all I can see is the mouse cursor. I think about 1 time in 10 it will have no issues and I get back to whatever I'm doing.
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Clearly you've never used it for an extended period, or If you have you never installed packages from the AUR.
Wrong on both fronts!
I've been using Manjaro exclusively for at least 4 years and I have several AUR packages installed!
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"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
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AFAIK no systemd -> no flatpak -> don't recommend to newbs. Say what you will about flatpak, but it is the official distribution method for some popular pieces of software and large GUI software generally works better through it (in my experience) - think Blender, GIMP etc.
No software worth its salt offers only flatpak installation. I don't use flatpak at all and Blender works flawlessly. I'm not sure what a flatpak version could possibly do any better than the version I use.
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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.
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Arch can be forked into a beginner distro, just look at SteamOS, but one of the major advantages of Arch is the AUR and to be able to use it you have to have packages in the same (or similar) enough version to Arch, and THAT is not beginner friendly. But having an Arch fork that can't access the AUR loses most of the reason people would want to use Arch, so you end up with distros aimed at beginners that are also running bleeding edge packages which is a recipe for disaster.
Cachyos can access aur? Thats what Paru is for? I could be mistaken, still very new
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sometimes nvidia drivers are in a state that breaks display reinit on wake from sleep
Hmm, got a question for you about that. What did that appear as for you? Just a black screen and nothing else if it went to sleep?
I had a recently installed app fuck something in my settings so my display is going to sleep after 10 minutes, and when I wake it up I get a normal appearing lock screen with a login. If I login, the screen goes black and all I can see is the mouse cursor. I think about 1 time in 10 it will have no issues and I get back to whatever I'm doing.
Yeah black screen with mouse cursor is the thing. If I check the logs it'll complain about errors trying to get display foo. Can switch to a TTY session and kill shit and get display back if I restart X.
nfi why the mouse cursor still works.
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Or Void Linux.
are there any good tutorials or something for void. I'm very interested because the name is cool but haven't found a good resource for learning.
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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)
Mint has been nice
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Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.
Debian is just the carcinization of Linux.
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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)
I started with EndeavourOS, which is basically Arch, and had a great experience.
I did have someone knowledgeable help guide me a bit at first, but eventually I learned how to find solutions myself on google, and use the Arch wiki.
I must have broke my installation a dozen times, but used Timeshift to bring it back from the dead... And I learned so much about how Linux works in the process. Wouldn't have done it any other way.
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are there any good tutorials or something for void. I'm very interested because the name is cool but haven't found a good resource for learning.
I’m very interested because the name is cool
Lol I love the honesty
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Nah that's gentoo
Arch is for people who want bleeding edge and the aur. Gentoo is for people who really hate one particular thing that everything tries to use or have a system with very specific requirements.
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Admittedly, the installation for Arch Linux is not that difficult.
It's the General Recommendations that become bullshit.
with archinstall as part if the ISO now it is genuinely easier to install than most other distros.
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AFAIK no systemd -> no flatpak -> don't recommend to newbs. Say what you will about flatpak, but it is the official distribution method for some popular pieces of software and large GUI software generally works better through it (in my experience) - think Blender, GIMP etc.
also systemd is just assumed in 99% of Linux tutorials and questions.
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If your distro can't be forked into a "beginner distro" then it's fundamentally flawed IMHO*.
To be clear, I've used Arch as my daily drivers for a while, and while it's not the best fit for my needs (I use Debian mostly), there's nothing that I experienced that was incompatible with a "beginner" distro.
I'm sure you could make a "beginner" Gentoo distro but it's really so counter to its purpose I don't see it happening.
(something something ChromeOS)
