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
I’ll tell you, nothing bricks as hard or as irreparably as Windows. I have never had to actually reinstall Linux due to some problem (though it’s a good practice security-wise).
Even when you removed the french language pack?
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.
I remember installing Debian before Ubuntu was born using an ncurses type interface and spending five minutes selecting the packages I want to install, (only for it to tell me that one package was incompatible with another and the installation couldn’t proceed!) but being able to do it somewhat graphically made it so much easier than simply by text.
An OS stays out of your way and lets you do what you need to do. Having to essentially create the basics is unproductive and a waste of the user’s time.
I started with EndeavourOS, which is basically Arch, and had a great experience.
I did have someone knowledgeable help guide me a bit at first, but eventually I learned how to find solutions myself on google, and use the Arch wiki.
I must have broke my installation a dozen times, but used Timeshift to bring it back from the dead… And I learned so much about how Linux works in the process. Wouldn’t have done it any other way.
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 subjective views as facts.
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.
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.
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.
Once it’s installed Arch is just as easy to use as any other distro. It’s “unstable” because it’s rolling release, sometimes issues crop up with bleeding-edge updates, just keep an eye on the forums before updating.
I’ve only had to deal with a broken system a couple of times, both were 100% my fault, and both were fixable without reinstalling. Even when something breaks it’s pretty forgiving, as long as one is paying attention and not afraid of reading documentation.
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.
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.
I think the difficulty with Arch is not about using the command line, but about knowing the Linux ecosystem.
People coming from OS X or Windows probably don’t know the difference between a WM, or a DE or what Display server they should use.
They don’t know if they need to install a network manager or setup sudo on a new system.
These things come from experience of using a Limix system even a mainstream one like Ubuntu.
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 things, 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. I wouldn’t recommend Arch (or arch based distros) to people who aren’t tech savy, but people make it seem more complicated and brittle than it actually is.
I started with Arch
Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.
I never liked debian or it’s derivatives, but since moving to Selfhosting most of my services and needing sane defaults on my server (I’m a noob with server stuff) I’ve circled back to LMDE after 20 years of using primarily bleeding edge and DIY distros.
I like it, it’s nice that it’s set and forget and doesn’t need constant attention like my bleeding edge stuff always did.
As a fellow Mint enjoyer who is too fucking old to be fixing their desktop all the time…yes
LMDE is great. I run it on my Thinkpad T14 G1. Runs like a champ, and after installing
tlp, it manages to eke out almost 7 hours of battery life with a questionable battery.I’ll be switching from Windows 10 to LMDE on my desktop gaming PC at some point soon this year. I have no intention of letting Microsoft dictate what I can and can’t do on my custom PC that I built with my own hands. W11 further reduces that capability.
It makes sense because if you are a veteran, you probably already have your workflow streamlined, so you don’t need new software in the repositories.
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.
Preach greybeard
Debian is the stable friend who might not have all the answers at the moment but can help you with whatever you need to do, and does it without ever asking for anything in return.
Debian is love, Debian is life.
I’d rather use windows 7 than ever go back to Debian … something with 7 being the last good version of anything ;)
Im like 2 grub breaks away from going back lol
The level of disillusion in the thread is insane. At no point in time is it a good idea to recommend Arch and it’s derivatives to Linux newbies. They will 100% wreck their install in the first two weeks. Even I, as a pretty experienced user had to wipe my arch install after failed update attempts, luckily I had a separate home partition. Anything else like fedora or tumbleweed will provide packages that are very up to date, but that are also tested. For example I don’t fear that updating my fedora install will completely brick the networking of my system like what happened to me on arch.
Ironically I wouldn’t recommend any Ubuntu derivatives as for some reason, every single time I’ve installed Ubuntu or one of its variants like PopOS they ended up messed up in some way or another, albeit never as critical as Arch did to me numerous times. Probably some kind of PPA issues that make the system weird because it’s always the fault of PPAs
Ubuntu or one of its variants
Even Mint? Seems to be the go-to recommendation for newbies.
Never was able to try mint, I only did once but the installer didn’t work for some reason, probably Nvidia related so I don’t blame mint for it.
“I didnt read the changelogs”
I have never read the changelogs and I have never broken my EOS install ever.
Weak bait.
- Arch users everywhere: You MUST read the Arch news files before updating.
- Also Arch users when updating: Oops, I forgot to read the news file.
- pacman when updating: I have pre install hooks but I don’t print the news files updates by default because that’s probably bloat or something.
Make it make sense
while you do have a point, i’m still having issues with taskwarrior printing it’s update notifications, even after opening an issue and the maintainers patching it.
The thing is, i use arch on 3 different devices, and i don’t need to see every news entry 3 times, so yes in my case having it as default in pacman would indeed be bloat.
That said, there is PLENTY of places where I think arch could have saner defaults. but the beauty of arch is that it is made to be configured exactly the way you like it, so you really can’t fault arch as much in this case, compared to other distros that try to take all decisionmaking away from the user.
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.
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.
Then I never want to see you telling someone they should’ve checked the news file before updating!
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That was solved in about 10min with a liveusb and replacing grub with systemdboot
Try explaining that to a newbie
I am not a newbie and wouldn’t even know how to do it without using a manual (archwiki)
You would, it’s very very straightforward they made it very simple. I literally walked multiple non-technical users through it when it happened because I have moved some of my friends and family to Linux. I won’t say that it wasn’t tedious and that it wasn’t annoying for them but they got through it just fine
I stopped using grub after that pain in the ass
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.
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.
people who unironically recommend anything arch-based (haha yes steamos is based on arch, yes you’re very very clever, i’m sure you can even figure out why it’s an obvious exception if you think about it for a minute) are just detached from reality and simply want to be part of a group.
The only time arch is suitable for beginners is installing it in a VM to learn linux via brute force, after you’ve gotten used to going through that process you’ll have a very solid base of knowledge for using a more suitable distro.
As a (currently) CachyOS user, I would like to point out that their custom mirrors don’t always reflect the newest version of packages, too. So if your package has a bug you may have to wait an extra day or two for it to reflect the fixed version after it drops. That or manually install the git.
Just make love with Timeshift and for the love of god don’t use topgrade if you don’t know what you’re doing. Thankfully, because of rule number one, Timeshift told me the topgrade nightmare was over and tucked me back into bed with a glass of warm milk and a bedtime story.
idk I’m kind of a fucking idiot and I started with Manjaro.
On the contrary, I’d still argue it’s a good distro for beginners, but not for newbies. people who are tech-sawy and not hesitant to learn new things.
I jumped straight into EndeavorOS when I switched to Linux, since arch was praised as the distro for developers, for reasons.
Sure, I had some issues to fight with, but it taught me about all the components (and their alternatives) that are involved in a distro.
So, once you have a problem and ask for help, the first questions are sorts of “what DE/WM do you use?.. is it X11 or wayland? are you using alsa or pipewire?”.
Windows refugees (like me) take so many things for granted, that I think this kind of approach really helps in understanding how things work under the hood. And the Arch-wiki is just a godsend for thst matter. And let’s be real, you rarely look into Arch-wiki for distros other than Arch itself, since they mostly work OOTB.
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
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True, between arch and gentoo wiki you can hardly find any other information that is worth your while.
I do not recommend Arch to new users but I really wish people would have a point supported by evidence 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 point and click install as Fedora and maybe easier than Debian. The better hardware support makes the install much more likely to succeed. 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. And of the 80,000 packages in Arch/AUR, less than 20 of them are unique to EOS (mostly theming).
There are lots of things to complain about regarding Arch related distros. Or maybe there isn’t if we have to lie about them.
