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this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I wouldn't go as far as calling Arch the antithesis of easy (tho you are right that it's like a toddler you have to constantly babysit. Don't like that part, but I wanna say that's most rolling releases, no? Plus I haven't found a stable release that i jive with either, so nothing left but to tolerate it), but then again, that varies from person to person. After all, I struggled much more with Pop_Os! (in general) and Fedora (more growing pains than anything) than I ever did with Arch, and I'm an idiot when it comes to computers--pretty good at looking up answers to problems tho lol
Issues are pretty mixed IMO. There are ones beyond our control like the GRUB one and the backlight one, can't really do much about them (but I'm not gonna pretend it's only an Arch thing. Every distro messes up once in a while) except sit tight until there's a fix...or well, you could try and fix it yourself, but then we lead to the other thing, in my expierence, anyways: 90% of issues happen because the user messed with something. Not even something obvious, i mean mucking about within the systems guts for one reason or another without knowing what you're doing. I've since adopted a golden rule: you don't bother the PC, it doesn't bother you. Personally, haven't had problems besides the backlight one, and even that was fixed quickly.
Regarding Tumbleweed and Fedora, they're good options, but installing nvidea drivers isn't super straightforward. Would have still recommended Fedora, or even better, Mint if they hadn't said they were looking for a Rolling Release, actually. Nobora should be easier, or so I've heard. Never actually tried it myself.
I can understand your point of view, and I'll admit "the antithesis of easy is an over-exaggeration. I'd like to argue against the isldea of arch being too similar to other rolling releases, or semi-rolling like fedora. Though you're right, they can all be road wanderers at times
As for the things out of our control like grub and the kernal screen bug, they didn't hit fedora, tumbleweed, or many other semi-rolling or rolling releases. This is, of course, due to the fact that arch is here to find these problems first. Also, the others don't have as many manual interventions like the repo migration, or the package migrations that happen a few times yearly. This is entirely within the control of arch, though I do like how it's handled
That last one is a philosophical idea which I agree with, don't mess with what could be configured for a reason, but if you don't follow the mailing list you may find your system breaking more often than the others.
Though arch is fantastic, and no matter what I try out I seem to always find my way back to it, It is a uniquely challanging toddler to babysit
That Arch basically tanks a lot of those problems so that other rolling distros don't deal with them is something that i hadn't considered till now, tho you are right there.
Yeah, I've tried going to Tumbleweed or other distros, and I just keep coming back to my XFCE + Arch combo. Dunno, it just speaks to me ig.