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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funnily enough, i see it as one of the advantages of arch, and a reason i'll keep putting up with the constant updating for the forseeable future - nvidia support has gotten way better recently, and since arch has very recent packages i haven't had nvidia issues in quite a while now.
Once it all lands in debian i'll consider giving debian another shot on desktop... but that'll take a while.
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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)
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I started with real arch and loved it. Different strokes different folks
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Nope, you're missing the point entirely. It's about versions not frequency. For example Ubuntu 16.04 used python 2, despite python 3 having been released for 8 years at that time and other distros like Arch having migrated to python 3 years before. Now, Python 2 still got regular updates that Ubuntu released, but Ubuntu 16.04 was maintained until 2021, whereas python 2 reached EOL in 2020, that means that for 1 year Ubuntu was using a deprecated and unmaintained version of python.
One could also make the argument that Arch broke a lot of stuff when they did that upgrade, and there's an argument there, but it's not as simple as receiving less frequent updates.
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then someone comes along with a bread making robot. so convenient! unfortunately the documentation is on a 300 foot long paper scroll.
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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.
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That does sound like a bit much for my daily driver; I'll have to check it out in a VM sometime. It warms my heart that a distro community can have such longevity, and I think the simplicity has to be a big part of that.
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I use Debian ftw.
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Gentoo's my daily driver.
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Debian SID?
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You're going to be horrified to discover the software versions the military use.
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sometimes issues crop up with bleeding-edge updates, just keep an eye on the forums before updating.
So to me, that sounds not ideal for someone new to Linux.
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Literally never had Endeavours 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 Endeavours, 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.
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If you even write one line of bash you are programming. The way you're describing it only makes sense if you're using the terminal like
dmenu_run. You metaphor breaks down the moment someone so much as usescd. Even worse once you throw a pipe or redirect in. All of this you absolutely will have to do when installing Arch.Its absolutely irresponsible to tell people that installing and running Arch Linux is like talking to a discord bot.
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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.
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I want linux to be as welcoming as possible to everyone and the newbie qiestion of what distro to use will come up a lot. I dont think it's helpful in any way to bicker about why my choice in linux is better. We should be giving them the tools to make the best decision for themselves
What if we built a beginners linux community (Linux, Where Do I Start -> LWDIS) and point to all the distros communities, and on those distro specific communities they had beginner friendly install, setup, rice, maintenance instructions and advice along with a difficulty rating. I don't know if stickies are a thing here but could be helpful in keeping relevant info on top. This could be a place for fanboys to shine on there favorite distro while keeping the basic inclusive LWDIS community free of bickering about distros that might cause confusion and turn people off.
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Depends on the person. Someone who just wants a stable desktop that works? No. Someone who wants to learn how Linux works, and likes to tinker? Yes.
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I'm in the void.
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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, 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.
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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 this, 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.
