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)
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.
Is Arch only for people who know how to seek help? Maybe. But it absolutely is not a distro template. It's a distro.
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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.
yet another case for how nearly everything is better than manjaro
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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 do not recommend Arch to new users but I really wish people would have a point when they post.
There is no 50 page manual to install EndeeavourOS or CachyOS, the two distros mentioned in the graphic. Both are as easy to install as Fedora and maybe easier than Debian. They both have graphical installers and lead you by the hand. In fact, when it comes to EOS, its entire identify is making Arch easy to install and to provide sensible defaults so that everything works out of the box.
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Meanwhile random people just using SteamOS and being happy.
yea, but I feel like it's worth saying that steamdeck (where most of the steamos instances are) runs primarily in steam mode, and runs immutable OS by default so it's pretty hard to actually mess that up. Plus steam manages most updates for you instead of you managing the updating yourself, which also helps remove the skill factor.
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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.
To go in reverse order: iOS & Android are related because they're Linux/UNIX. They're not CP/M based. As a result, my level of trust and respect are always near-zero.
I'm glad you have a different experience with GNOME, someone ought to. I guess it wouldn't be the standard if no one could use 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
That's... not how it works, for distros or for actual swimming. Usually when someone who can't swim is thrown into deep water, they drown and/or reinstall Windows which is much the same thing.
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To go in reverse order: iOS & Android are related because they're Linux/UNIX. They're not CP/M based. As a result, my level of trust and respect are always near-zero.
I'm glad you have a different experience with GNOME, someone ought to. I guess it wouldn't be the standard if no one could use it.
Android technically uses the Linux kernel, but is not GNU+Linux, and has had all the good parts of Linux taken out. I didn't know iOS was based on Linux, but it's even worse than Android, locks you so much into Apple's services and spending money. Freedom over your device is the point of Linux, and iOS fails at that even more than Android, at least with Android you can install custom ROMs.
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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)
Tbh I think endeavor os is a pretty nice beginner way to get into arch--it was my introduction to arch and the aur.
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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)
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.
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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.
it wasn't my choice but i recently installed Fedora for a beginner. (They made their research, read about different distros and chose Fedora.) It was surprising to see how intuitive everything is. A beginner can indeed start using Fedora with no previous Linux experience.
By "beginner" i mean somebody who used one or some of these: windows, macos, ios and android. It's especially easy, i think, for tablet users.
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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)
This is funny. I feel like I see a "which arch is better" post almost everyday now.
A lot of people I think would be well suited to be on Bluefin or Bazzite. I really can't sing the praises of it enough. It has a ton of well developed resources and the Appstore is flatpak centric. It really does give you that ChromeOS like experience for the average user.
End users should really be nowhere near package management. They should just be able to run the apps they want and expect them to work.
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yet another case for how nearly everything is better than manjaro
I have a couple of systems on Manjaro now that used to be Mint and they have been solid, just as they were with Mint.
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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.
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.
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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 never saw what was so hard about arch. But not doing anything weird so maybe I missed all the bad stuff? Wiki is nice.
Nixos, now there's a distro for beginners, lol.
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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)
why are you making shit up tho, whos install bricked, mine has no issues, neither does any other linux newbie ive talked to, it has an easy to use gui to setup and then it just works?
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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.
tailscale works without issues on cachyos, i use it so i can ssh to my computer and have automation on my iphone to turn it on when using ssh apps like neoserver. (it drains battery if always on)
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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 mean, Manjaro wasthe first distro I truly used regularly.
But I'm no stranger to command lines, so there's that.
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SteamOS falls into the category of about 2 arch forks that have a reason to exist.
Don't know about Cachy but Endeavour is not even a fork. It's just Arch with a fancy installer.
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why are you making shit up tho, whos install bricked, mine has no issues, neither does any other linux newbie ive talked to, it has an easy to use gui to setup and then it just works?
My main issue with linux rnow is davinci, and houdini, davinci is easy to pirate, but no redgiant, etc. The effects I use can be remade following tuts or with other addons, symbol bitmapping, and pixeldither. But houdini specifically is just so expensive for hobby use, im addicted tho. I will never make money off that shit if I magically do ill spend 2.5k on the perpetual license. Cant find anyway to pirate an up to date version.
I thought piracy would be easier on linux but it seems to be much harder to find resources if they even exist. Nice for foss stuff tho.
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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)
The real problem: Define beginner distro
Every user is starting from a different point. There is no such thing as a beginner distro. You can say this distro is good for people who can grasp the idea of a command line or this distro is good for people who have no idea command line interfaces exist, but that doesn't differentiate between beginner friendly or not.
