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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Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.
Im like 2 grub breaks away from going back lol
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Wait, immutable distribution don't have a packet manager? But you can still install flatpaks?
They still do. But projects like bluefin are striving to get rid of it entirely. Flatpak installation is not package management, they are containerized applications.
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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)
Petulant counterpoint: SteamOS 3.0 is based on Arch and is a good newbie distro
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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'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 subject views as facts. Is Arch Linux the right fit for a newbie to Linux? The right answer is "it depends", not "never".
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The first Linux I used wasn't part of any distro. A few years later I compiled Slackware to run bind and Sendmail.
Last year I tried Arch in a VM. I got to where it expected me to know what partitions to create for root and swap and noped out. It's not 1996. I don't have time for those details any more. No one should. Sane defaults have been in other distros for decades.
one of the main points of arch is for people wanting to learn these details. its not for everyone.
if you want a distro to just work, i second the suggestion from the other dude. get a debian based one.
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"Conveniently?" I'm not making a case against Arch.
I just don't understand how someone can claim that Arch is a "distro template".
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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)
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.
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Linux From Scratch or Slackware too.
Bit of a different beast. Not something I would daily drive though. Slackware perhaps. But gentoo other then the docs being top notch and the learning experience being fairly streamlined. It is also a good distro for daily use.
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I just don't understand how someone can claim that Arch is a "distro template".
Cause there's like six other distros based on it. The point is that a package manager especially is a huge part of what differentiates the general experience of using a distro.
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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)
And no, it doesn't run worse
Flatpaks that aren't official products of the source project sometimes have interesting issues pertaining to their permissions, are harder to set as the handler for files, harder to enable usage of system tools, don't follow system themes, are harder to start or use from the command line, and yes start slower than native apps.
I like the idea that even stable distros can have latest stuff easily or distros which don't package a given project. I use a few myself. It is certainly annoying that it ends up teaching people about what dirs they need to share with flatseal, flatseal, desktop files, and the command line for something which is supposed to simplify things.
Kinda feels like less work to use rolling release with a more comprehensive set of packages.
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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)
That depends on what the beginner's goal is. Arch could very well be a nice beginner distro, as could Gentoo or Slackware or any other "hard" distro if you're determined to learn. My baptism of fire was on Slackware in the 90s (which I'm still on), long before "beginner distros". Trying and failing was a big part of the fun. If you're determined to learn, I don't see any issue with starting with a distro that doesn't hold your hand.
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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.
That was in 2004. So yeah, it went well, as I'm still running Gentoo.
The installation went ok, but it took ages. I had Compaq Armada E500: Single core 900MHz Pentium III and 256MB of RAM.
I had help from my friend who explained in detail what we were doing and why during the installation process.Next time I needed to install Gentoo I did it by my self. I had the Gentoo Handbook open on other machine and I followed it carefully. I was surprised by how smoothly the install went.
Few weeks ago I once again installed Gentoo onto a new machine. 36-cores (two Xeons) and 256GB of RAM. It's always funny to compare how much more powerful my newest machine is compared to my first Gentoo machine.
Oh and welcome to Gentoo.
If you need any help the forums are a great place to ask. -
Uff, great, so I still have 3 to 4 years to teach it to my son
Thanks for that age recommendation 🫡
Was feared he’s already behind
IMO learning the basics of computing, go for as early as possible. Especially with this new generation of kids.
2 months ago she didn't even know how to use a mouse properly, and now she's a whiz. The funniest is when you try to show her something on the screen and she tries to click it like it's a touch-screen and I have to be like "no, use the mouse!"
It's a struggle to get started, but once they have that foundational knowledge they pick things up so quickly.
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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
Not every kid will be able to do this.
She's just a regular kid. She has trouble with multiplication tables and likes to play outside. She also has difficulty reading. It's not like she did it totally unassisted. But she did everything. I'm also not implying that "every kid should be able to do this!" like you seem to be implying.
I'm challenging the notion that IT'S SO DIFFICULT to do, especially when I've seen a young kid do it myself.
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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 subject views as facts. Is Arch Linux the right fit for a newbie to Linux? The right answer is "it depends", not "never".
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.
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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)
Haha yeah that was the counter example I was thinking of. I agree completely --- you could make a Gentoo from source beginner distro, and I think you could make it reasonably "idiot proof," but it would still be a bad user experience most likely (too much time spent compiling).
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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
a lot of it applies to other distros though. its a lot of help in a pinch.
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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 subject views as facts. Is Arch Linux the right fit for a newbie to Linux? The right answer is "it depends", not "never".
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.
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Not every kid will be able to do this.
She's just a regular kid. She has trouble with multiplication tables and likes to play outside. She also has difficulty reading. It's not like she did it totally unassisted. But she did everything. I'm also not implying that "every kid should be able to do this!" like you seem to be implying.
I'm challenging the notion that IT'S SO DIFFICULT to do, especially when I've seen a young kid do it myself.
I get that challenge part, I installed Arch ( pre script days) to see what the fuss was about, it was not that difficult if you follow steps.
I'm just parroting what teachers have been telling me; that the newer generation lacks problem solving skills and other skills (on average). No doubt there are awesome parents out there fostering learning and you will have some kids engaged, but we do have a situation where parents aren't following through on what the kids should be doing at home to help them in their future, and use the iPad or game console as a babysitter.
Ask any teacher that has been doing this for a while and the trend they are seeing. -
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)
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.
