this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
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Arch is aimed at people who know their shit so they can build their own distro based on how they imagine their distro to be. It is not a good distro for beginners and non power users, no matter how often you try to make your own repository, and how many GUI installers you make for it. There's a good reason why there is no GUI installer in arch (aside from being able to load it into ram). That being that to use Arch, you need to have a basic understanding of the terminal. It is in no way hard to boot arch and type in archinstall. However, if you don't even know how to do that, your experience in whatever distro, no matter how arch based it is or not, will only last until you have a dependency error or some utter and total Arch bullshit® happens on your system and you have to run to the forums because you don't understand how a wiki works.

You want a bleeding edge distro? Use goddamn Opensuse Tumbleweed for all I care, it is on par with arch, and it has none of the arch stuff.

You have this one package that is only available on arch repos? Use goddamn flatpak and stop crying about flatpak being bloated, you probably don't even know what bloat means if you can't set up arch. And no, it dosent run worse. Those 0,0001 seconds don't matter.

You really want arch so you can be cool? Read the goddamn 50 page install guide and set it up, then we'll talk about those arch forks.

(Also, most arch forks that don't use arch repos break the aur, so you don't even have the one thing you want from arch)

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[–] NaevaTheRat@vegantheoryclub.org 16 points 1 week ago (20 children)

What are people doing that breaks their computers? I have used arch for like 15 years now and nothing ever goes wrong?

The closest would be on my desktop sometimes nvidia drivers are in a state that breaks display reinit on wake from sleep but my thinkpad is always fine.

Seriously who are you weird computer vandals going around and breaking everything all the time? What do you do?

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[–] kitnaht@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Honestly Arch is fine as a beginner distro for the right person - The benefit of arch is the rolling release model and the fact that it's closer to edge than other distros. No; I don't want to use that package that's 6 months out of date -- Compile it myself? Well, then why would I run a 'stable' distro then?

Someone being on Linux instead of Windows is enough of a win for me. I'm going to praise whatever way they want to approach it, none of this purism shit.

Likewise, SteamOS is based on Arch because of the way it's architected in the first place. It's fine to want that. Now...if this were Gentoo on the other hand...

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[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I never see Fedora recommended enough, but it's really good for beginners. And by that I mean people new to computers, not just Linux. GNOME is a good looking by default, intuitive to use, simple DE.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org -1 points 1 week ago (3 children)

GNOME is explicitly what kept me exclusively on Windows for about a decade - and what made me gunshy about Android & iOS. It's totally impossible to drive anything important, doing anything of value required a DOS prompt and arcane commands that had no relation to their exact counterpart in Windows, and it's just utterly revolting to me.

Cinnamon is the only DE that made me feel comfortable daily driving Linux.

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I mean, you are right, and way more people should be using openSUSE :P

I will say Arch-derived distros are a good experience if you want to learn how the terminal and other systems work. They're engineered to be configurable; the documentation is great. But if you just want to use your computer without opening too many hoods, it's fundamentally not an optimal system.

Another thing is that many people just want their new laptop to work, and for it to game on linux. Sometimes it does not just work. If you start pulling in fixes and packages that are not supported on your distro, you can screw up any distro very quickly (and this includes the AUR, unofficial Fedora repos and such). If the community packages these, stages them, tests them against all official packages, and they work out-of-the-box... that's one less hazard.

[–] rtxn@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Counterpoint: if you have the ability and willingness to learn how Linux works, un-fucking a broken Arch installation will teach you more about the system than spending months with a stable distro. I know because my first serious daily driver was Manjaro.

[–] rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Agreed. I've learned most of what I know about computers by fixing broken stuff. Like you, my first serious daily driver was Manjaro. And after dealing with broken systems time and time again, I'm tired, boss. My daily driver for the last 2 years has been Mint and I love it to death for how stable and functional it is. But the lessons I learned along the way with other distros have been invaluable.

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As someone who wanted to jump in with both feet on my journey to using more than just Windows & mobile OSes, I actually started from Arch. Well, sort of. If you have a beginner who wants to try Linux and actually wants to know the discomfort they'll experience, give them Archbang.

It works on very basic hardware requirements, does very well as a live distro, and was honestly an important step in my personal journey that has ended me up in a place where I keep two systems - one with Windows 10, and a separate computer with Linux Mint.

Obviously, I'm not in the place many people are. But I just wanted to toss in my 2 cents. Arch itself is not for beginners. Archbang can be, especially if you have a user who's open to a live distro and doesn't want to try dual-booting yet (and only has one computer). I think that the project deserves more visibility and support than it gets.

[–] NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Mamma says you're ornery bcz you have all them teeth and no toothbrush.

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