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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Mint has worked consistently for me on the PC it's installed on.
Second this. Am not a huge fan of ubuntu itself and I have had issues with other debian based distros (OMV for example) but mint has always been rock solid and stable on any of my machines. The ultimate beginners distro imo.
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Timeshift has turned my system breaking updates and tinkering into a non-issue. I just set up all my systems with it right off the bat. One snapshot per day, one weekly, and one monthly.
Since doing that, I've never had to toss a totally borked install.
I really need to set it up, not because I have issues but because having backups feels so nice.
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And I started with Gentoo...
did it go well? I have been running gentoo for a month and think I'm done distro hooping but holy hell it took me multiple attempts to properly install it.
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https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/proton-vpn-gtk-app/ doesn't list a particular version of python in deps.
Seems like the proton team made a mistake /shrug. Not exactly a system breaking though, it's a third party piece of software not being kept up to date.
Normal enough procedure for you and me, not for someone who's learning Linux and has no idea what any of that means and needs proton VPN for work.
This is what people need to get through their heads, you're an expert in the field, this comic applies https://xkcd.com/2501/
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To me, every distro that seriously requires you to read through all changelogs before updating is BS, and it doesn't solve a basic problem. No one but in their sane mind will do this, and the system will break.
That's why, while I respect the upstream Arch, I'd say you should be insane for running it and trying to make things stable, and mocking people for not reading the changelogs is missing the point entirely. Even the best of us failed.
Arch is entirely about "move fast and break stuff".
It is not as overwhelming as you make it sounds, you don't need to read the whole changelog every time you update just check Arch news page and they state any manual action an update might need.
I run arch since like 1 y and I almost never had to do such manual actions. You can see on archlinux.org news it's not that bad although I can totally see why it is not suitable for most people -
Stable doesn't mean what you think it means. Stable means not updated.
I‘d rather have a system that is stable and a few months out of date than a system that is so up to date that it breaks. Because then I cannot, in a good conscience, use that system on a device that I need to just work every time I start it.
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What do you define as breaking? I ran arch and cachy and never once had a breaking issue.
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.
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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?
He's exaggerating, Arch has never broken the system with an update, but it has broken some components in the past. Most of the time you just rollback the package for a couple of days and you're fine to update again, but you can't expect a newbie in Linux to know that. For someone who's already having to adapt and learn a lot of stuff just to get their daily use adding instability to the system is a recipe for disaster.
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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.
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
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People are recommending arch to beginners? This is genuinely the first time i hear of this trend and Ive been into linux for over 20 years now.
Not once have I heard arch pushed to beginners at my local LUG or any LUG ive attended in other cities or countries.
People usually recommended Ubuntu in the past or Mint. Occasionally Fedora. Then Elementary had some steam. Nowadays the landscape is much more diverse I think.
Maybe there is some folks on the internet who get a kick out of recommending hard things to people who need easy things. To gatekeep and create an exclusive feel. But i think if youre seeing that regularly then you need to reasses where youre spending time. Because core Linux culture has never been that since i can remember. We have always embraced that different distros are appropriate for different use cases. And that has always been our strength.
Unfortunately it's not, on Reddit and now on Lemmy I see lots of people recommending it, they think the installer is the problem so they recommend something that has a GUI installer but is Arch afterwards, without realizing that creates more problem than it solves. And when pressed they even say stuff like "I started with Arch and was fine".
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i wouldn't wish apt on my enemies. terrible habits with all the ppas and piping curl to bash in every forum post
I literally consider Debian to be less functionally stable than arch because of Apt. I've had apt completely eviscerate systems and then just bail out leaving you with a system that has a completely empty /bin with seemingly no easy way to recover.
Meanwhile pacman has literally never done that, and even on systems that became horrifically broken due to literal data corruption I was able to just chroot in, download a static built pacman, and reinstall all native packages with a single command... It's nuts how much more reliable and repairable arch ia but people act like it's frail just because it gets updates more than once every century
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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
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.
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It's the best beginner distro for those beginners who want to learn about linux.
I agree, there's a lot of people in this thread who seem to know exactly what is good or bad for a new user. But I don't see many being sensitive to what the user might actually want to achieve. New users are not a homogeneous group.
If the user wants to both use (stably) and learn (break stuff) simultaneously, I'd suggest that they start on debian but have a second disk for a dual boot / experimentation. I don't really use qemu much but maybe that's a good alternative these days. But within that I'd say set them self the challenge of getting a working arch install from scrath - following the wiki. Not from the script or endeavourOS - I think those are for 4th/5th install arch users.
I find it hard to believe that I'd have learned as much if ubuntu was available when I started. But I did dual boot various things with DOS / windows for years - which gave something stable, plus more of a sandbox.
I think the only universal recommedation for. any user, any distro, is "figure ourt a decent backup policy, then try to stick to it". If that means buy a cheap used backup pc, or raspberry pi and set it up for any tasks you depend on, then do that. and I'd probably pick debian on that system.
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Counterpoint: if you have the ability and willingness to learn how Linux works, un-fucking a broken Arch installation will teach you more about the system than spending months with a stable distro. I know because my first serious daily driver was Manjaro.
Counter-counterpoint: Newcomers have enough things to learn and worry about without having to worry about unfucking a broken Arch installation.
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I can not agree more not everyone that uses arch is like this but every one of the Linux users that wants to be elitist about their distro runs arch based on how hard it is.
If you want to be low level to learn you run Linux from scratch. If you want bleeding edge you run tumbleweed or debian sid. If you want to run a distro that is only mildly harder to configure than a debian bootstrap install but less hard than running debian or redhat back in the 90s just for bragging rights you run arch.
every one of the Linux users that wants to be elitist about their distro runs arch based on how hard it is.
Which always makes me laugh because I use Arch mainly because I'm a lazy ass and want something easy to maintain.
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To half the users in this thread, normal people use computers as a means to an end.
"If you're not prepared to get your hands dirty this OS is not for you" you've already lost me, this is unhinged behaviour. You have one life and you choose to spend it fixing your computer so it will do the same things except slightly differently.
But I know this is an unpopular opinion for Linux users.
It's about as unhinged as someone assembling their own bicycle really. Most people (well, in a reasonably bikeable place, i.e. not in the US) just use their bikes for commuting or whatever, and don't want to assemble a bike (I sure don't). Some people like tinkering with their bikes though. That's totally fine.
If you're not prepared to get your hands dirty, don't buy bike parts you have to assemble yourself. And don't install Arch. You are correct in the assessment that Arch isn't for you (or me).
There are bicycle repair shops, but there are no Arch repair shops. You have to be able to fix it yourself. OP is correct: Don't recommend Arch to people who can't do that. Recommend something that doesn't push bleeding edge untested updates on its users, because it will break and the user will have to fix it themself.
tl;dr: Arch existing is fine, in the same way any tinker hobby is fine. What is not fine is telling people to use it that just want to get work done or won't know how to fix it.
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it's a good beginner distro because getting thrown into deep water is how one learns to swim.
archinstallmakes it easy enough to install. some configuration may be needed, but that's the point of Arch as a learning process! still, i'd recommend Fedora, Tumbleweed, or even Debian (it's out of date but some people prefer UIs that don't change very often and it still offers 32-bit for your grandpa and his old laptop that's now too slow for Windows 10/11) over Arch.Arch is good for beginner sysadmins/programmers/CS students. Fedora and Tumbleweed for enthusiasts who want the latest software but aren't trying to be that hardcore. Debian for people who have old laptops and only want to learn GNOME/XFCE once and never have to re-learn it with every update.
Gentoo is a good example of a distro that's absolutely not for beginners. Arch, on the other hand, really isn't all that bad.
it's a good beginner distro because getting thrown into deep water is how one learns to swim.
It's exactly like getting thrown into the deep end, if you don't know how to swim you'll drown. No one learns to swim by getting thrown to the deep end, and you're more likely to have a bad experience and be discouraged from trying it again.
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Not every kid will be able to do this. Most kids are so used to phone apps just installing and working they haven't built tech curiosity skills. And from the teachers in my family, the current 9 years olds struggle with reading and thinking skills
That's a problem and I remember talking about it in the 2000s when everything started to become user friendlieness. plug and play, just works and so-on, worst part is stuff being locked down and harder to jailbreak.
It'll be fine though, I'm sure AI will install their OS for them, I won't have a clue how it did it, but it'll probably be better than I could do.
You'll just add "without backdoors" to the prompt and it'll be secure too.
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Unfortunately it's not, on Reddit and now on Lemmy I see lots of people recommending it, they think the installer is the problem so they recommend something that has a GUI installer but is Arch afterwards, without realizing that creates more problem than it solves. And when pressed they even say stuff like "I started with Arch and was fine".
Yeah that latter part of "it was easy for me" in particularly stinks of the elitist attitude i was mentioning. I think its a sign of someone thats not really trying to help but rather to make themselves seem smarter.
If you see lots of it here then I guess this post is fair. But i will standby my remark that if you're seeing a lot of this kind of mentality then you need to reasses where you are hanging out...
Maybe go to a local LUG instead. People are a bit more desperate to actually help others at those usually.
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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
That was solved in about 10min with a liveusb and replacing grub with systemdboot
Try explaining that to a newbie
