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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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)
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L [email protected] shared this topic
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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 computer 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.
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Meanwhile random people just using SteamOS and being happy.
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Honestly Arch is fine as a beginner distro for the right person - The benefit of arch is the rolling release model and the fact that it's closer to edge than other distros. No; I don't want to use that package that's 6 months out of date -- Compile it myself? Well, then why would I run a 'stable' distro then?
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I mean, you are right, and way more people should be using openSUSE
I will say Arch-derived distros are a good experience if you want to learn how the terminal and other systems work. They're engineered to be easily configurable; the documentation is great. But if you just want to use your computer without opening too many hoods, it's fundamentally not an optimal system.
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I never see Fedora recommended enough, but it's really good for beginners. And by that I mean people new to computers, not just Linux. GNOME is a good looking by default, intuitive to use, simple DE.
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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.
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Mamma says you're ornery bcz you have all them teeth and no toothbrush.
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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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GNOME is explicitly what kept me exclusively on Windows for about a decade - and what made me gunshy about Android & iOS. It's totally impossible to drive anything important, doing anything of value required a DOS prompt and arcane commands that had no relation to their exact counterpart in Windows, and it's just utterly revolting to me.
Cinnamon is the only DE that made me feel comfortable daily driving Linux.
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SteamOS falls into the category of about 2 arch forks that have a reason to exist.
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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?
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Agreed. I've learned most of what I know about computers by fixing broken stuff. Like you, my first serious daily driver was Manjaro. And after dealing with broken systems time and time again, I'm tired, boss. My daily driver for the last 2 years has been Mint and I love it to death for how stable and functional it is. But the lessons I learned along the way with other distros were invaluable.
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the wiki could be way better honestly...
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And I started with Gentoo...
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That's really interesting, because I've had a very different experience. Almost anything I wanted to do could be done through a GUI, which looks pretty.
I'm not sure how Android and iOS relate, they are mobile OSs, and both have their flaws, although some more than others.
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Only gets better if we make it better.
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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.
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I agree. There are only two types of distribution, rock solid plug n play and hobbyist/pro .
macOS is my daily driver, but I am a self hosting hobbyist (a bad one) and the moment you become involved with the command line of a multi user operating system, you need a level of skill, curiosity and patience that 99% of people don’t have and don’t want.
Even following ‘beginner’ tutorials is hit or miss, because of the different distros, assumptions, pre requisites, repositories, and so on.
I am a hobbyist, and I don’t mind digging around, but there are several times where I’ve put in a hour or more on what would be a 5 minute job for someone who was fluent - and even then sometimes I’ve got nothing to show for that hour.
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I went from noob to arch about 3 months ago, and only had to reinstall twice after I broke things. Couldn't figure out how to get my vpn and tail scale to play nicely together, even if I only used one at a time. After the 2nd attempt/reinstall I just gave up on tail scale, and haven't had any show stopping bugs/issues since. Sure would be nice if rustdesk played nice with Wayland tho.
I didn't realize archinstall existed until I had to reinstall, so I can see why a terminal based install from scratch might scare some people away.
