So I installed Arch Linux... Is this it?

SentientFishbowl@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 449 points –

I'm a little bit underwhelmed, I thought that based off the fact so many people seem to make using this distro their personality I expected... well, more I guess?

Once the basic stuff is set-up, like wifi, a few basic packages, a desktop environment/window manager, and a bit of desktop environment and terminal customisation, then that's it. Nothing special, just a Linux distribution with less default programs and occasionally having to look up how to install a hardware driver or something if you need to use bluetooth for the first time or something like that.

Am I missing something? How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it's set up it's just like any other computer?

What exactly is it that people obsess over? The desktop environment and terminal customisation? Setting up NetworkManager with nmcli? Using Vim to edit a .conf file?

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Welcome to realizing the Memes are all bullshit and its just a solid distro that's worth using for the simpleness. Just go use your computer like the average user is and roll with it

Yep, all this «how do I learn linux» stuff is weird. You don't learn your OS, you use it. Did you need to «learn» Windows? You just launch it and click your browser / file manager / media player and browse, manage files and watch or listen to your media files.

You can just use your PC as you would regularly use your PC and find solutions once you face some issues. Yes, Linux issues are different from Windows issues.

You got downvoted but as a Systems Engineer when I get home from work, I want my OS to get out of my way. All these other people are crazy.

This x 1000. I’ve had a buddy razz me over using plain, simple Debian because it’s not bleeding edge and the packages are out of date in some cases. bro I don’t care I just want to play some games and occasionally use LibreOffice for some stuff.

Yep. If I could have a true steamOS that had no desktop mode that would be 60% of my home life. I have an 1135g7 32gb ram laptop for Mint.

Modern operating systems have made it take very little knowledge to connect to WiFi and browse the internet. If you want to use your computer for more than that, it can still take a longer learning process. I download 3D models for printing, and wanted an image for each model so I could find things more easily. In Linux, I can make such images with only about a hundred characters in the terminal. In Windows, I would either need to learn powershell, or make an image from each file by hand.

The way I understand "learning Linux" these days is reimagining what a computer can do for you to include the rich powers of open source software, so that when you have a problem that computers are very good at, you recognize that there's an obvious solution on Linux that Windows doesn't have.

I get your point, but for your specific example windows powertools gave my .stl files thumbnails if that is what you are referring to.

You joke, but I was there, 3000 years ago… and DOS, Windows and Lotus 1-2-3 courses sold like hot cakes. Yeah, people had to learn Windows until a critical mass of people knew it so knowledge would self propagate.

Didn't bother going through the hoops and installed EndeavourOS which is arch-based with some additional default applications.

For me, the best thing of Arch isn't the distribution but the Arch wiki. An impressive piece of documentation.

Arch wiki is superb, couldn't have installed or configured Arch without it.

Which btw is the reason many people ended up with Archlinux... after the x-th time looking up some configuration issues on another distro and landing there.

And the Arch User Repository is really handy when you need some more users.

That's not a typo but a jest to the security implications, isn't it?

It was a joke on the dual meaning of "user repository" which I didn't think about that deeply but that would have been smart.

The Arch build system is just as impressive IMO. I've written Debian and redhat packages for at least two decades and Arch packaging is just so much easier to handle. The associated tooling for creating and managing build chroots is excellent as well.

That's the main reason my software is in the AUR but nowhere else. I tried to make a deb package and failed so many times so I just gave up.

EndeavorOS is essentially Arch with a gui installer and a few optional pre-installed packages.

You already announced you use Arch... So you're doing good

Most distros are very similar - it's mostly the same software just using a different package manager.

This is why "which distro should I use" is the most annoying question in this community.

It is definitely annoying but I think it's understandable from people that are coming in from the outside.

There is a pretty big difference in terms of usability between Arch and everything else because of the rolling release model and the AUR. Lots of things you would have to manually install from a git repo or track down a PPA for can be installed like a normal package.

So what you're saying is that the package manager is very different?

My point stands - once things are installed your "Linux Experience" is pretty similar.

NOTE: I've used words like "most" and "similar" and "pretty". Do not ignore these words. They have meaning.

I would say it's not very different, just one league above all the others that I've come across.

The three things that stand out in my opinion is how much their package manager can query packages, it's rolling release and the number of packages they have in the AUR.

It makes Arch the most complete and up to date Linux distro,
with the exception of a user friendly forum,
that doesn't look like the nazi soup kitchen from Seinfeld,
and an installer.

(BTW)

I use Manjaro and little bit of Artix.
If I would recommend anything, it's either EndeavourOS or Manjaro.
They're Arch-based and friendlier.

I stopped using Arch because I got banned from their forum for changing my username.

Now actually use it for a couple of years. Then you'll see whats special about it.

For me personally, Ubuntu was breaking on every dist upgrade, the software was always out of date or not available in the repos. Been running arch for 5 years, same install, even transplanted it over to newer computers without issues. When some package is missing, I can throw together a PKGBUILD with chatgpt and put it on the AUR for others to use. It fucking rocks and is extremely sturdy while allowing me to do with it whatever I want.

But yeah, besides that, it's just a linux. The individual things it does well are not even exclusive to arch. Ideally, you should not think about your OS at all and it should be out of your way, while you do something on it.

Yup, Arch is by far the distro I have had the fewest amounts of technical issues with. Yes, you need to know what you are doing or be willing to read docs, but there’s no magical bullshit, maintainer capriciousness and lack of planning happening like I have unfortunately witnessed all too often while using other distros.

Makes sense. Do you find that by having the same install for so long (including transplanting it) that you have accumulated a lot of bloat? One of the things I really enjoyed about a fresh install was that I knew there wasn't a build-up of digital junk files, but with Arch fresh installing every once in a while just seems impractical.

I've been using Arch for about 15 years or so, and yes, I build up cruft... in my home directory ;-). The system itself is remarkably good at keeping tidy. The one spot to keep an eye on is /var/cache/pacman, as that's where it stores every package you download before installation and it won't delete it without you asking it to.

Any new config file will be saved with a .pacsave extension, so you'll want to keep an eye out for those, but that's basically it

Which is a good point to remind people to install pacman-contrib and make running pacdiff regularly a habit...

Not in any bothersome way. But if you really want to reinstall often that is valid as well. You can very easily script the arch install process to get you back to the same state far easier than other distros as well. Or you can just mass install everything except base and some core packages and reinstall the things you care about again which almost gives you a fresh install minus any unmanaged files (which are mostly in home and likely want to keep anyway).

The main trash you accumulate are config files in you home directory because they stay after the package is uninstalled. And they just sit there not hurting anybody.

Most of the junk accumulates in /home and I did a cleaning once, where I got rid of a couple hundred GB there, from stuff that was either already uninstalled or still installed but unused for years.

In the other root directories, I didn't find much tbh. My / (excluding home) takes up 40GB and I don't think it was significantly lower years ago as the bulk of it comes from necessary program files.

Any major Linux distribution has a system for building packages, it's not something special to Arch. In fact, Arch's great advantage of the aur repository actually becomes a disadvantage by introducing instability and insecurity into your system when you add programs from that repository. It's amazing that people criticize Windows security with .exe's and then install packages from external repositories with the security of "trust in the repository". How can you trust code with root access to the system just because it's in the aur repository? That's the main question I would ask Arch users.

It's a choice. We know that it's riskier to use stuff from AUR. Which is why it's highly recommended to read the PKGBUILD before installing the package. The basic Arch install doesn't even include an AUR helper. That said, AUR is typically very reliable for packages with a decent userbase. It's mostly due to the community aspect. Bad actors are caught relatively easily as the PKGBUILD is available to look at.

Any major Linux distribution has a system for building packages

I have built packages for all the major ones. Non arch packages are a pain to build and I never want to do it again. In contrast arch PKGBUILDs are quite simple and straight forward.

How can you trust code with root access to the system just because it’s in the aur repository?

Because you can view the source that builds the packages before building them. A quick check to not see any weird commands in the builds script and that it is going to an upstream repo is normally good enough. Though I bet most people work on the if others trust it then so do I mentality. Overall due to its relative popularity it is not a big target for threats when compared to things like NPM - which loads of people trust blindly as well and typically on vastly more important machines and servers.

It's amazing that people criticize Windows security with .exe's and then install packages from external repositories with the security of "trust in the repository".

As with almost every case of these sorts of comparisons, these are likely separate groups of people holding separate groups of opinions.

I don't use Arch anymore, but when I did I found that the AUR was really useful to quickly install niche applications that would take ages to be approved on to an official repository. Often those would be made by the application developers themselves or members of the community. I would personally vet the packaging script myself, but I'm sure many wouldn't - and that's fine. As with most software, there's some trust involved and often you assume that if you're installing from a reputable repository it's going to be fine. If people aren't vetting the installation scripts and are installing from random repositories, that's really their problem. I'm glad the possibility existed and it's the one thing I've missed in distros I've used since then.

Not sure if sarcasm or actual disinformation. You're not supposed to trust the aur, that's kinda the whole point of it. The build scripts are transparent enough to allow users to manage their own risk, and at no point does building a package require root access.

Well there is far less malware on Linux tbf so comparison is not completely accurate. But same caution applies, try to vet and understand what you install. That part is also easier with the AUR as it's transparent in the packagebuild what it does unlike random exes with closed source. It's also a large community with many eyes on the code so unless it's a package with few users then it's gonna get caught pretty quickly.

there is far less malware on Linux

That's a common misconception. Linux is the most popular OS for servers. There are a lot of malware for Linux, probably even more than for Windows.

I think you're missing the context. We're not talking servers here but desktops. Arch is typically used on desktop systems. The threats that face desktops and servers are not the same. Same goes for risk and potential damage. Also please provide a source if you're trying to debunk "common misconception".

That is, you admit that most aur users delegate that function to other eyes instead of auditing the external code they are installing. A user repository outside of the official distribution repository is not a secure means of installing packages on the system, which may have root access to the system and the source code may change with each package update. Do you think that every time there is an update to a package that is not widely used, others will audit the source code for you? For that reason I stopped using Aur and by extension Arch, as their software catalog outside of aur is small.

Your comparison was with random exes on the most targeted, malware infested operating system out there.

Many eyes are always better than no eyes. I'm not saying you shouldn't vet the code stop misinterpreting but no one knows or catches everything by themselves. That's why security needs transparency. If it's as insecure as you're saying we would have way bigger problems but we don't. AUR is not as safe as the Arch repository sure, but definitely safer than installing random exes on Windows. It's a flawed comparison you're making.

If you're paranoid you should be on an immutable distro cause xz backdoor was in some official repos. Repo maintainers do not catch everything either it was just a mere coincidence someone caught it(again thanks to transparency & many eyes on code) before mass deployment. Installing anything with root access is a risk. Going online is a risk. But there are ways to mitigate risk. Some security you're always gonna have to trade for convenience.

Been running arch for 5 years, same install, even transplanted it over to newer computers without issues.

To be fair, I pretty much do that with Windows 10...

Most of the time it is achieved with the phrase: "I use Arch, btw". 😉

Don't forget shitting on Arch-derived distros.

We save that for Manjaro, endeavor and the others are pretty cool

Yeah I know. Derivate distros are cool only if they don't stray too far from Arch. How dare a distro do something different.

Keep it up, it's a super cool look (and healthy) for a distro to hate on its own downstream.

You fell for the meme lol.

Arch is great if you want very high levels of customization without having to get into compiling and coding, like with Gentoo or NixOS.

I think of it as the distro equivalent to custom keyboard kit, you get all the parts and can swap them out as much as you want. But you're not designing and fabricating your own circuit board and microcontroller, writing your own custom firmware, getting a custom case modeled and fabricated, etc.

There's a reason "I use Arch, BTW" Is a meme.

OP forgot the socks. Classic mistake.

there's arch socks?

I think they're referring to the socks you're supposed to wear when programming :3

o shit I was expecting merch lol

The meme is mostly a relic from the days when installing Arch was a very involved and mostly manual process -- it wasn't to the level of LFS, but you had to configure most of the base system, and it would leave you with a pretty bare-bones setup (no GUI by default, etc). So it was a pretty big hurdle and successfully installing it did give you a bit of nerd cred, though even then the "arch BTW" meme was tongue in cheek.

These days it's just one of the most well-supported rolling release distros, and it's got automated installers and GUI spins just like any popular distro. The two biggest assets are the AUR and the wiki.

NixOS does kind of feel like the spiritual successor in terms of effort to set up, and in that immutable OSes are kind of the next big thing, like rolling release was fairly unconventional when Arch was taking off.

I use Ubuntu but the Arch wiki is top notch and has helped me solved a lot of problems, especially technical issues like VFIO. I think you’re right that Arch love largely started as a meme to celebrate getting it installed, kind of like the jokes about being unable to exit VIM.

How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it’s set up it’s just like any other computer?

Well, do you already have a personality that isn't based on Arch? If you do, get rid of it.

I think you might be missing the part where memes are not real. aur is useful. arch wiki is useful.

What exactly is it that people obsess over? The desktop environment and terminal customisation? Setting up NetworkManager with nmcli? Using Vim to edit a .conf file?

Welcome to the crowd! Eventually, you realize that an operating system is just an operating system: something you use to get work done, and the less you notice it, the better it's doing its job. The pride of setting it all up mostly ends very shortly after you're done. At that point, you realize that pretty much all distros are the same, give or take.

That said, there are always moments that make you realize that your OS is amazing. When you're faced with a new and difficult task that you don't know how to achieve, then you look at your distro's documentation and solve it in a few elegant steps. And I'm not an Arch user, but that's when the Arch wiki will really be your friend, as well as all the other resources that Arch has for its users. I can't think of examples of these kinds of moments because they're so rare, but those are the moments that feel great and really make you appreciate your OS.

Yup, that's it.

Next, join us at !gentoo@lemm.ee spend a day or 2 setting everything up and compiling every package from scratch, rice your setup, and realize that even that is barely different from Ubuntu to use once you've actually got everything set up.

Maybe Linux From Scratch feels a bit more special, but I never got to the finish line with that one, even as a teen I had better things to do with my time lol

This amuses me, since I literally went from Gentoo to Arch because it felt like the same bleeding edge distro without having to wait for the compile time for half of the packages.

That said, I generally don't recommend Arch (or Gentoo) to newbies. It's great when it works, but the number of times I've had to troubleshoot some random dependency issue because I took more than a week to update my system would scare any newbie away. It's a bit like the parable of the cobbler's kids having the worst shoes, or the mechanic always driving a project car - when you have the skills to fix something, you're willing to put up with a lot of bullshit that a normal person wouldn't.

I think it's not a newbie but a general user issue. I have learned to recognize the linux newbies for whom Arch is a good fit over time... just by watching which people distro hop until landing with Archlinux.

PS: And among the typical distro hoppers is really a big chunk of them... because for a lot of them distro hopping is just a symptom of wanting to make the mandatory big system upgrades every few years at best worth it by trying something new. Those should actually get a rolling distro as a recommendation much earlier.

The graduation from Linux from Scratch is to be able to make your own mini-distro. I reckon anybody who gets that far is above petty feuds about the install process or packaging in this or that distro.

The AUR is pretty awesome. If a piece of software exists on Linux, it's in the AUR. Even software that doesn't have a native Linux version can sometimes be found these, e.g. repackaged versions of Electron apps for Windows.

And once you start really customizing your system, you'll see the value of the Arch Wiki. If there's something you can do on Arch, the Wiki probably has a well-written guide for it.

100% its the Wiki and AUR!

On every other distro, once you want a program not in the package manager, it will likely be broken by the next update. On arch 99.995% of the time it will be in AUR and you can just make a simple PKGBUILD when its not, so your updates will automatically recompile all of your personal projects!

Well these days we have flatpak to solve the "not in the repo" (or 'old version in the repo') problem.

Only for (some) desktop applications. The AUR has everything, including CLI tools, configurations and even some niche scripts

Exactly. I hate when people constantly bring in Flatpak, because I'd be happily using Debian, if I could have Qtile Wayland with Qtile-extras and Hyprland in the repos with all their dependencies. But that's never happening, especially for Qtile. These are window managers, you can't package them in a Flatpak. And what about niche cli tools, as you mentioned? Or what about the latest Neovim on Debian? Yes, there's a Flatpak but do you really want to mess with a Flatpaked CLI app? I know I don't.

I used the Arch wiki to get gamescope working on Pop OS. It's a great resource regardless of your distro. In many cases the info on there is not even Arch-specific.

Do people really make Arch their personality? Ive been using Arch-based distros since forever and never really met someone like that. I thought it was just a meme.

I like the minimalism and ability to control more parts of your system as opposed to an automated install process doing everything for you. But you don't have to do that much manually. The main pacstrap step basically sets up your whole system anyway. It's not that different to other mainstream distros. I have always just used it like any other distro.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the bleeding-edge packages and AUR are nice features too. And being rolling release to a lesser extent, just my preference.

I thought it was just a meme.

I see way more complaints about 'elitist Arch users' than I ever do comments from actual elitist Arch users.

Also, I never saw anyone saying anything about a "year of the Linux Desktop". It's just a meme.

Both were a thing in discussions many years ago. That's why they became a meme.

But since then it's basically only used ironically because people quickly noticed they're a meme.

It was certainly said seriously in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was the kind of phrase you'd find in computer magazines that came with a Linux CD-ROM stuck to the cover.

This guy from Intel claims to have been the first to use it in 1999, but I think it was a more widely used hype phrase around that time, when desktop Linux was becoming just about usable.

It's become a meme now. And I certainly don't take it seriously myself. It's more in fun to me as anything serious. (I don't use Arch by the way).

If you can't joke about yourself about something you do, then you may have a problem and should perhaps consider some therapy perhaps.

FOSS is my personality and Arch is my distro

Funnily enough one of the points where Arch distinguishes themselves from other distros is that they're not strict about only including free software in their repos and are completely fine with including proprietary software alongside foss. There's Parabola if you want Arch but with a strong political line on free software

Use it as your daily driver and get really comfortable with it. After this, complain loudly when you see someone doing anything in a different way. Then say "I use Arch btw"

You've just made your first post regarding Arch. The cycle is complete.

The thrilling thing about arch is you get to put together your own user land applications, especially things that could form your desktop environment, audio stuff, etc.

I agree it is not that complicated. If you want more thrill, here is what I recommend:

gentoo Linux

has the option to compile everything from source. This isn't just for bragging rights. This resolves a whole class of software breakages that can happen on other distros (especially when using old or less common applications).

  • It gives you the option (emphasis on optional) to use openRC, an alternative to systemd.
  • patch any software super easily, working nicely with the system
  • customize compile flags on a global level
  • have package manager manage software that isn't available in repos, or easily write a package script for it (technically AUR can do this, but gentoo more powerful)
  • works like a charm with heavily customized setups, such as musl, or less common architectures like arm or risc-V

NixOS

Takes it a step beyond gentoo and uses a functional, lazy approach in package management. Every package is fully reproducible, has a kind of isolated environment. Your entire setup is reproducible and declared with a single file.

---- below this line is torture. Not recommended

slackware

Idk how it works exactly, but package management looks like a manual pain

Linux from scratch

A book where you create your Linux installation from scratch, compiling every single component until you reach a working system

Notable mentions

  • Alpine Linux: uses musl and busybox by default. Extremely lightweight. Some things will not work, but you get the thrill of running a couple MB distro
  • void Linux: ok I'm tired of writing so I will not explain that one

Slackware avoids the issue of package management completely.
You just install the entire repository up front, which resolves all dependencies.
If you need software that isn't in the repo, you can install it any way you like from wherever you like, there's no real package manager that gets in the way. Usually you compile it with Sbopkg, a helper script very similar to Arch's AUR helpers. It comes with rudimentary dependency resolution in the form of queue files, which just list what needs to be installed in the correct order for any given source package, and then does it for you.
A more modern approach I follow is to use Flatpaks.

nix sounds cool but it also sounds like a PAIN to use until it gets proper support

It has a lot more support than you think. As a gentoo user, I am jealous of nixos often seeing more support than gentoo, when gentoo is older and seemingly easier to support. But nix seems to have a bigger hype nowadays.

Gentoo, while source-based and having an interesting approach with USE flags, does not come with NixOS' strengths.

I'd even say that Gentoo's packaging might be better in some aspects than that of nixpkgs, which does feature options that you can change via overrides but generally isn't as modular as Gentoo's system. But the mistake a lot of people – and I'd say you as well – make is that they look at the wrong parts for comparison, and don't understand what makes NixOS so powerful. It's not the sheer amount of packages or how they're built, but rather the module system, the declarative nature and the option for rollbacks at the "package manager" level. Yes, these features come with increased complexity. However, I recommend not to look into what people have published in GitHub as their configurations, as these are rather general and as such more complicated than one needs for casual use.

Void is far from torture. It is just as easy to set up as Arch, if not more so.

I agree, I organized the post wrong. Void should've been up, but it's also a notable mention that I can't write a lot about since I did not do too much with it.

For some reason I really love how you ran out of steam on this post. Take my upvote, and may you make many whole-enough-assed posts in the future.

Alpine Linux: uses musl and busybox by default. Extremely lightweight. Some things will not work

I use it daily, which things won't work? Honestly it's "just a distribution", you'll have the same experience with it as OP has with Arch.

Bunch of random small things gave me issues. Sdkman (kinda like a Java version manager) and transmission on arm64 on wireguard would not work either.

I ran transmission and WireGuard for ages before I recently switched my server over to x86, worked fine?

Idk about Sdkman though, I don't do Java development, but if it's written in Java itself I fail to understand why it wouldn't work 🤔

My setup was really weird. I was running it under a network namespace. Maybe that's why? The app would run like normal, but it would not successfully create any connections. I replicated the same setup on glibc and it worked.

Arch isn't cool anymore you should switch to gentoo

The cool kids are going back to Slackware.
When you've set that up correctly on modern hardware and got Gnome to run, it's a real achievement.

Gentoo isn't cool anymore. You should switch to funtoo, so you can have fun too!

How do you like it? I've been trying to get people's opinions on it but haven't found any users yet.

It is a lot of fun! Right now I'm back to arch, since I don't have a lot of time, but funtoo does right those older decisions in gentoo which do not make sense in these day and age. And the updates are fast, really fast, since they use git!

The downside is the docs aren't as good. Not even close. The wiki for gentoo is a great source of information.

Ha ha, you fool, you fell for the classic blunder!

It’s just a meme, dude.

Not the only meme I fell for... Anyone know the best way to unload 5 thinkpads that originally shipped with Windows 7??

People like Arch because to many it feels more truly like your system than other distributions.

It isn't that Arch is in some way more customizable than other distros, rather it's that if there is a package on your Arch system, its probably there because it was your choice to put it there in the first place, and so the system can feel more representative of you given it only contains the things you want or need and nothing more from the get go.

Great, isn't it? You just set up a system you like for you to use, without any bullshit.

Good now wipe it and install NixOS. You're ready.

Not too familiar with it, in what way would you consider it better?

It is better in all the ways. Newer packages, no imperative config, reproducible.

Replaces the Archwiki with basically 0 docs, a large chunk of your Linux knowledge no longer applies, you can't compile from source (even if you mostly don't need to), everything is different, the nix language kinda sucks until you "get" it, etc.

Replaces the Archwiki with basically 0 docs

Arch wiki is still relevant, I still use it as a reference on my NixOS box.

a large chunk of your Linux knowledge no longer applies

Your pacman and pacur (or whatever the name of the air helper soup de jour is this week) will no longer apply. Most of my linux knowledge was still applicable. You have all the same programs that run in the same way as they do on arch.

you can't compile from source

Sure you can. Want to compile everything from source? Just turn off using the cache. NixOS is a source based distro.

everything is different

Also no. I use the same programs I can get on most other distros.

the nix language kinda sucks until you "get" it, etc.

If you have ever used another functional language its fine.

I recently installed Nix alongside with Arch. I feel the same. After years of using Arch I spent two days to get everything configured the same as in my Arch, and I haven't finished it yet.

But I have nvidia hardware :(

nVidia drivers on NixOS are easier and more pain free that on any other distro I've used.

Yes, and that's the point of Archlinux. It's nothing special, at least in the way it is configured. You make it special. You build your distribution more or less. You are the opinionated one, not the distribution. I think what people are "obsessed with Arch" is, that you have to manage it yourself and you build it yourself. It is the philosophy that is appealing I guess. In example not much is automated. Stuff is described in the wiki and community and it is expected that you learn the stuff and understand and then do it yourself, instead relying on automated and preconfigured stuff from a regular distro.

On my main system I use EndeavourOS, which is basically Arch, but with some pre-configs and opinions, and comes with some automation tools.

Arch is for the most part comparable to Debian unstable/sid, but instead of a normal repository, it instead depends largely on a massive 3rd party repository (the AUR), and for some reason people think that's a feature.

In my experience the AUR is useful but almost unnecessary, and if you want to use flatpak you can get away from using the AUR entirely

I'm gonna comment and say that's the point.

You start out with bare minimum and install what you need. As you go you generally have an idea of what is and isn't on your system. It's not as annoying as Gentoo with all source compiling, not as anal as nix.

If something breaks, you go to ArchLinux.org and 95% of the time it's mentioned on the front page so you follow the instructions and move on. It's a very transparent distro, little drama to follow unlike Ubuntu/canonical or fedora/redhat.

It used to be harder to install and which gave some street cred, but they simplified it a bit which is nice.

The Stans give an unbalanced look at arch. I use arch because I want the latest packages, I don't want to segment my packages between my repos and tarballs when there's a game stopping missing feature on a package pinned to a 2yo version. I don't want to learn a whole scripting language to carefully craft my OS like nix either. I want a current OS that's easy to fix and easy to install packages so I can go back to what I was doing.

What exactly is it that people obsess over? The ricing?

Please refrain from using racist terms. Here's a good thread about it.

Thanks for pointing this out.

Of course! Thanks for being cool. It always sucks to learn a term you've been using has a shitty meaning you didn't intend, and some people react to that realization quite poorly as we can see below lol

Ricing comes from car customization. It's only racist if you make it racist.

It's like saying "bad driver", it's racist if you say "all Asians are bad drivers" or mysoginist if you say "all women are bad drivers" but "bad driver" by itself is none of that.

Please refrain from not shutting the fuck up. Here's a good example of what everyone should do when being told to be upset about something because you say so.

Please enjoy your ban whenever a mod sees this. kirby-wave

Oh no, a minor inconvenience.

Always baffles me that people like this exist. Are you this abrasive to people in real life too?

they would probably be very quiet about it irl and post paragraphs about it later that day

It's nice that you think I've got enough self control to wait for later in the day.

The moment the confrontation ends I'll be writing my totally unbiased account of events on r/AITA so I can get immediate vindication.

Well, I wouldn't be as snarky about it because getting heated IRL is inconvenient.

But I've got no problem telling someone to fuck off if they imply something I said is offensive when it is obviously not conveyed in any context where offence would be justified.

Arch is too easy to set up nowadays for it to be a "thing".

Maybe 15 years ago when the process was slightly more complicated but even then it's always been paint by numbers.

Even Gentoo isn't that difficult, just time consuming.

Arch offers a combination of rolling software updates, a simple but easily customized base, pacman for the package manager, the AUR, a barebones installation process by default, good documentation, and active development. That may or may not be a good combination based on your goals.

Other distros offer a different combination of characteristics. Those characteristics are a starting point and you can get to the same destination no matter what you use. The trick is figuring out what starting point is closest to your destination or which starting point makes the journey fun for you. For some people, Arch is that. For plenty of people, Arch isn't that.

You're forgetting the finest feature - you have to tell everyone in the real world and online that you use arch btw.

I like to do this to irritate people because I have a steam deck.

"I got a steam deck for Christmas. It runs arch, btw"

That must be fun, when you're not busy doing crossfit or planning your vegan meals.

Yes, you are missing the fact that it's mostly not people making Archlinux their personality, but people making meme'ing about "Archlinux users" their personality. For the vast majority it's just an OS.

I like operating systems as boring as possible. Let it manage the underlying system while I focus on work. I think you just convinced me to try Arch now.

That's basically it. Some Arch users are genuinely just picky about what they want on their system and desire to make their setup as minimal as possible. However, a lot of people who make it their personality just get a superiority complex over having something that's less accessible to the average user.

How can I make using Arch Linux my personality

That cracked me up x)

Anyway, I'd say it's good that the OS is out of your way once set it up. Even though I don't use Arch directly, I like how comprehensive the AUR is (even though there may be repositories more packages, like nix and whatnot), think the ArchWiki (like the GentooWiki) is a very useful resource, even if you use a completely different system.

Am I missing something?

Yep. You got meme'd -- Arch is a distro like any other.

a lot of people base there personality off it because they installed it from scratch and customize it exactly how it fits them. ofcorse that's not going to be everyone because everyone is different.

This is probably true of most distros.

This is why I still don't know more about computers. Lol. Switched to using Linux as my primary years ago, thinking "I'll learn more about how computers work, and become better at this by forcing myself to use Linux." Found Ubuntu, it worked well, then found mint, it worked so well I never needed to actually do anything, and switched to fedora when I realized how much I like Gnome, and still never needed to actually do anything, because shit just works. Once you've made the switch, Linux is super unobtrusive. It's just sorta there, in the background, doing everything for you while you play YouTube videos or watch porn. Lol. I still don't know much about computers, but I now recommend every switch, because seriously, almost no one is computer illiterate enough not to be able to use mint or Fedora.

If you want to learn more about computers by using Linux, I suggest something like Gentoo. Don't know if it's still the case, but I started with Gentoo back in 2003 and it took me 3 days until I even had a GUI. Learned a ton in the process about Linux under the hood and how it all works together. Thanks to Gentoo I have a well paid career as a Senior Linux System Administrator.

That being said, i should mention that I grew up with DOS, so I didn't have the same apprehension as some people, when it comes to the command line and editing config files.

Exactly the same here. I was originally exposed to Linux around 1996 with red hat but didn't really learn it until around 2004ish when I spent a couple years on Gentoo. I now consult and work with Linux systems and Linux based integration projects.

I started with config files on an AIX system I had to maintain vs DOS though

Let me ask you... Why would you do something like that? I mean, Arch is just a piece of software, why would you wanna be obsessed with or turn it your personality?

Don't you have anything more meaninful to worry about?

You'll know it when you feel the satisfaction of getting to enter pacman -Syu in the terminal several times a day and a new update or two comes in. lol

Fresh packages all the time without any hassle or snaps/flatpak/appimages, and theoretically never needs to be reinstalled. What's not to love.

OP was pretty fucking snarky though, ngl. Some of us enjoy using arch based distros without being walking memes, and far more people complain about people talking about arch than actually talk about arch these days.

Nobody's raving about the install, that's just useful for people who don't know what makes a Linux distro.

It becomes your personality after a few years because every update might break anything, and you need to regularly maintain random shit. Also if you forget to update regularly, the chance of everything crapping out rises exponentially.

I hope you're using something like btrfs, because rollbacks are a must.

Sorry you've had such a rough go, just remember your experience isn't everyone's experience.

Sure, and not every arch user ends their comments with btw.

But that was consistent across multiple years, devices, and derivatives. It's usually a 5 min fix/workaround, but it's still annoying.

It's like owning a screw driver, a really nice professional grade, well forged screw driver, with a molded grip handle.

Does it do anything that the $1 cheap knock off screw drivers can do? No, its just a screw driver.

If you use it every day, you may grow to like all the tiny features and comforts and customizations, or maybe not.

ArchLinux is a tool just like embedded linux systems, does basically the same thing as every other OS, its not life changing, but if you may grow to like its little details just like a custom screwdriver.

Does it do anything that the $1 cheap knock off screw drivers can do? No, its just a screw driver.

I got a chuckle out of that

No longer using Arch, but I can tell you what I liked about it:

  • it basically only does what you explicitly tell it to, making the setup very flexible. There's no stuff the OS hides behind its own tools really (resulting in little to none "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" situations).
  • It is very up to date and the rolling release generally works well, there's no pain with changing releases or anything.
  • The package manager, including creating your own packages, is dead easy and fast. Caveat is that once you look deeper into it, it gets more complex as you need to keep a container for clean building around. Still, with the right tooling, it's very manageable.
  • As already mentioned, the documentation is very good.
  • Packages are very close to upstream, in most cases just being something like "./configure; make; make install".
  • Generally very unopinionated.

I'm trying out Arch on my laptop atm, and tbh the only real advantage (at least for me) is that the packages tend to be a lot fresher than on Debian-based distros. The question is how many of your packages you really need to be that fresh.

I think a lot of Arch users feel like wizards because they connected to the home wifi using the command line, but if you've tinkered with (/broken then had to fix lol) other distros, you will have done all this stuff before

I find OpenSUSE Tumbleweed a good solution for up-to-date packages without slow install times or hours spent compiling and configuring things. It's straightforward but current.

Arch is perfect, it's like THE Linux. It's not really opinionated about anything, it just helps you do it. Hell you can "pacman -S apt" and slowly become a debian

That's the magic of it: latest software, rolling release, edit some config files, do anything you want, spend half your time tweakin'

I mean if you want to be blasé about the fact not everyone has the same technical skills as you, sure…

It's a linux distro, just like all other linux distros... Idk what to tell ya

Before the install script, i setup arch manually and added the gnome package that bringd DE and all the good Gnome stuff with it. it was then just the same as any other Gnome DE really. People taut the AUR, but OpenSUSE has same with their software.opensuse.org where packages maintained as experimental or community can be accessed (or by adding OPI). Since OpenSUSE had built in snapshotting, rollback and GUI admin (plus curation to do cleanups and maintemamce already OOTB) I uninstalled Arch. The ArchWiki though, that thing is a masterpiece

I think arch peaked in its popularity in 2016 or so. It felt like an elitism thing was going on around that time that has 1. Faded off and 2. Been dispersed into other distros because as it turns out there are other good choices, too.

Besides. How are you going to become a rising influencer rehashing the same old takes as the prior generation of dorks? Can’t keep people coming with Arch is the greatest YouTube videos forever.

You must have missed the small print that says "Personality not included". Linux is simple, individual character is hard.

Those people are mostly just a meme, I rarely see people actually doing that anymore, although I'm sure they exist. If you want my personality out of it, spend more time customizing. You can look into optimizations, theming, or delve into window managers if you really want to make it your own. There's a lot of options.

I prefer a minimal install of Debian personally. Someone should make a rolling release apt-based/debian-based distro and I'd hop right on it. Technically Kali is one and I do daily drive that, but it's not something I can really recommend to people as a general use distro.

Anyway if you want something more tangibly different (and difficult to install) try running OpenBSD :)

Debian unstable: am I a joke to you?

Huh, is it actually rolling release and cutting edge? I thought it was just Debian + 1 or 2 versions ahead.

I tried it out because of the memes and stuck with it because there wasn't a bunch of extra stuff I don't need distracting me. I kinda forget I'm using arch btw

I also felt a little underwhelmed, I thought the installation would be more difficult.

If you are not in it for the memeing I find it to be a great distro.

I think any person with ability to read and follow instruction can install arch in 15 minutes (excluding waiting for things to download), there is nothing special about it.

now start using it for a while and you will notice the difference!

you will see you have all of the latest versions of programs, that other distros wont have for 6 months!

you will learn that the AUR has every package you could ever want!

you will see that the Wiki has extremely comprehensive answers to every question!

If you want a challenge that may or may not be worth it, try configuring NixOS. And I mean really get into it, try to configure everything using Nix. It's very time consuming but not boring, each configuration varies person to person (i.e the way you organize it) so it can be quite fun if you have the time.

Also nixpkgs (what Nix and NixOS use) has like, all the packages

I’ve been using Debian for many years now. The hardest part about switching my desktop to arch (partly to try something different, partly for later kernel / tools) was not that arch is difficult, but that I need to type ‘sudo pacman -S’ instead of ‘sudo apt install’ to install new packages. It is functionally the same in my day to day use which is fantastic.

You should go for a distro that matches what you want out of your system. You want stable? Find some strong LTS distro like Ubuntu. You want ULTRA STABLE? Go for an immutable distro. Do you want to use your system for gaming? Go for a distro with wide gaming support, built-in drivers with options for proprietary drivers.

It's less about what base distro you're using and more about what you like about that particular flavor of distro.

For example, I use my PC for gaming mostly, but also coding. I switched from Pop! (Ubuntu based) to Garuda (Arch based) and I love it because it's really good for gaming, comes with Mangohud, Gamemode, Steam, Heroic, controller drivers, graphics drivers, etc, all optionally pre-installed. I also really like KDE apps because they're performant and slick so I got the Plasma version.

Anyway, yeah, focus less on "this distro is Arch based" and more on what each distro can provide you as far as your personal tastes.

When I went in I had very specific expectations and Arch lived up to them. Had an idea of what I wanted for a DM, and an idea of what I wanted out of an operating system, and it met my needs. I would still be using it like that except for the fact that I had to change it out to be able to run the proprietary software for my university, and I just never bothered to reinstall/reconfig it. If I were to do it again, I would make some script to set it up with all my necessary programs so that it is robust.

I really like Arch because it’s bare metal but not too much => it’s very easy to choose the components you need for your installation and exactly fine-tune your experience without spending too much time with something like Nix/LFS/Slackware.

  • it’s community supported, lightweight, fast, and easy to use when you know what you’re doing (wow this sentence is dumb but you get me right?)

I can only use Arch, because I know how I set it up.

Preinstalled distros, even arch based seem overwhelming to me nowadays. I just prefer to set up Arch Linux myself so I know what minimal steps I did and what package I have

That's like seeing the Otaku gang, deciding to give this Anime a go, watching Dragon Ball and asking "what's so special about this?".

Some people make some random thing their personality, others enjoy the same thing without making a big fuzz about it. Arch is great because of the wiki and the AUR, other distros have their own pros and cons.

The one benefit Arch has for me (even though I no longer use it as I found I'm not too fond of rolling releases), is that the AUR with an AUR helper takes care of getting any Linux packages installed. No need to copy commands off a github repo or something like that.

I have used a number of distros over the last 15 years. Once I found one I liked, I stuck with it. I understand the package manager, some of the special features of the distro I use and I don't really have time to relearn this every couple of months on new distros.

If I want a different "feel", I change my DE. But that's about it.

Ya, its just some people over exaggerated a bit. As long as you don't do stuff that obviously tries to mess with core system stuff it should be fine.

You have reached the pinnacle of Linux, every other distro you try from now on will seem bland. 🧗🏼

What do you mean by people being obsessed over Arch?

Archlinux is Linux, it's just a minimal distro that allows you to only use whatever you want to use. I have no idea what's with being obsessed over it other than «use arch btw» which became a local meme recently.

afiak the prase "i use arch btw" is mostly sarcasm,
instead of genuine appreciation.

its mocking the stereotype of arch users that constantly bring it up to sound smart or feel supperior.

think of arch like "vintage car culture" with a touch of minimalism.
its restricting and breaks all the time,
but thats kinda the point because fixing it becomes a part of your lifestyle.

I use it precisely because it doesn't break all the time and is less restricting... Don't know where you got the idea it is not.

I also feel like it "breaking all the time" was part of the stereotype itself. I stopped using Arch because it was stable for almost 3 years and part of the point of using it in the first place was learning Linux by fixing stuff that broke - except that stuff never broke so I grew bored of it.

I tried it and was underwhelmed, but also overwhelmed.

I love the idea of choosing everything I want, but Arch also meant the pain of learning to install everything I actually need first.

Is there a minimalistic distro that installs all just the essentials (drivers, services like DHCP, a package manager, desktop GUI), and then I choose from there?

I have been a GNU/Linux user for about 15 years. During that time, I have alternated between Arch and Gentoo.

Gentoo is very time consuming and complex, and Arch is a pain to keep clean. However, the ability to customize the system to your preferred configuration is a big draw for both.

For a light user like me, patching and customizing to PKGBUILD is just fine. Personally, I sometimes wish for something like the USE flag in Portage.

Am I missing something? How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it's set up it's just like any other computer?

IMO there's nothing about Arch, or any other distro, that makes it worth using, beyond whatever goals you have. If Arch helps you accomplish that goals, great. If not, pick a different distro that does.

In my case, I want to use the latest version of software and use my own configs without inadvertently breaking stuff, based on some arbitrary set of assumptions that distros like Ubuntu or Fedora have made about how their own distro should be used, and Arch has been the easiest way to do that for me.

Also, as others have said, AUR and PKGBUILDs

I'm using Arch because you start with nothing and you can make any system you want. I have disk encryption, btrfs as a filesystem, secure boot with my own custom keys, I'm running self-build kernel, I'm using apparmor and I can use any program from AUR, etc. Thats my personality. Things that you can't see but are important to me.

On other distros some of these things would be very hard to do. Especially without Arch Wiki.

Most who use Arch prefer to use a customized tiling window manager instead of a desktop environment. I tried using i3, and I do understand tiling WMs, but they're not really for me and I won't be able to do a crazy design out of them.

I just wanted a distro built to my specs, up to date, uses pacman, not run by a for-profit company, with good documentation. The hype is mostly Reddit elitism and gatekeeping. I like that nobody has slipped branding and extra bookmarks into my browser.