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 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 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 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.
A beginner to what, to pacman, to arch, to rolling distro, to linux, to unix, to a PC, to using man-made tools …
I made an installation to an old pc once, I though it would last a while, and since the users could barely understand what an on/off button does, they just wanted google and facebook, so it was a wm with two browsers, daughter already knew what chrome was, and in the login shell I wrote a script that each new day it booted it attempted pacman -Suy --noconfirm then once a week the cache was emptied and the logs trimmed.
That was before covid, a couple months ago I met her, she said it has been working fine every since.
So there is your dinner
PS Actually it wasn’t arch it was artix with runit but that is about the same
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.
Android looks at SteamOS from the distance
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.
And nice gui apps, default settings, nice community and cool branding.
Didn’t both distros have Btrfs auto snapshots. Same as Garuda. Anything broken? Just a reboot, arrow keys, and rollback.
EndeavorOS is not automatic but you can set it up with one terminal command.
I would, however, recommend Arch if you’re a Linux novice looking to learn about Linux in a more accelerated pace.
Or Void Linux.
are there any good tutorials or something for void. I’m very interested because the name is cool but haven’t found a good resource for learning.
I’m very interested because the name is cool
Lol I love the honesty
I think their documentation is pretty solid, for everything else the reddit/internet searches can solve it. But as with EVERY DISTRO on this planet, the archwiki can be applied! You just need to know what are the differences from void to arch. (no systemd for example)
For novices Void is worse because it does not have the Arch wiki. The Void Docs are brief and you will inevitably end up reading the Arch wiki anyways, except you will run into Runit specific bs.
Runit specific bs? You mean being simple and sane? lol And yes reading documentation is true for both. Also be aware of context.
It’s a good beginner distro if you want to stumble, fall, and learn things. It’s not a distro where everything is all good right out the box. For that, maybe try something like Linux Mint Debian Edition or Bazziteos
Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.
I’d rather use windows 7 than ever go back to Debian … something with 7 being the last good version of anything ;)
Debian is just the carcinization of Linux.
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
Im like 2 grub breaks away from going back lol
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.
LINUX IS AN EXPERIENCE NOT SOMETHING TO ENDLESSLY DEBATE ABOUT.
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.
“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!
Removed by mod
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
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.
I stopped using grub after that pain in the ass
Literally never had EndeavourOS 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 EndeavourOS, 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.
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 CS 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.
Arch can be a good first distro to anyone who knows what a computer is doing (or is willing to learn)
just because a given person could make it work, doesnt mean they want to. i can personally fix a lot of these issues, but i dont wanna have to bother. i just want to accomplish the inane bullshit i turned my computer on for.
i just think an arch recommendation should always come with that disclaimer. newbies have to know what to expect else they will associate that experience with linux in general.
You’re focusing too much on the installation process, if installing Arch was the whole of the problem things like Endeavor would be a good recommendation for newbies, but they’re not. Arch has one giant flaw when it comes to being beginner friendly, and it’s part of what makes it desirable for lots of us, and that is the bleeding edge rolling release model. As a newcomer you probably want something that works and is stable. Arch is not, and will never be, that, because the core philosophy is to be bleeding edge rolling release. If you’re a newcomer who WANTS to have that and doesn’t mind the learning curve then go ahead, but Linux has enough of a learning curve already, so it’s better to get people started with something they can rely on and afterwards they can move to other stuff that might have different advantages/disadvantages.
We’re talking about the general case here, I’ve recommend Arch to a newcomer in the past, he was very keen on learning and was happy with reading wikis to get there stuff sorted, but realistically most people who’re learning a whole new OS don’t want to ask questions and be told RTFM, and RTFM is core to the Arch philosophy.
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.
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 think it’s also incorrect: the basic premise of arch is minimally configured, do whatever you like… no installer is going to allow a user to do everything they want, so that’s kinda not “the arch way”… it’s not some gatekeeping BS, it’s just not what arch is about, and that’s fine… that’s why there are spinoff distros that disagree and make their own - this is FOSS after all
Everyone has a right to go their own way. Everyone has a right to have an opinion on how you go your own way.
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.
What kind of beginning you mean? If you start to learn linux than use Arch or Archman specifically. If you just want to use Linux as desktop go other alternatives.
SteamOS
Yep, as long as Valve keeps it up to date and as long as newbie users don’t figure out what Sudo does it will be fine for them.
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.
