Linux

Meanwhile random people just using SteamOS and being happy.

This post is a little cringe. Endeavor OS is a great Arch Experience for those who want a little preconfiguration and a GUI install. I've since moved onto doing it the arch way, but EOS was a great foot in the door and I know for a fact I'm not alone. Ive learned more about Linux in 2 years going from EOS to Arch (and running a proxmox server) than I would have running some "beginner friendly" distro. Really wish folks would stop gatekeeping.

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)

I would, however, recommend Arch if you're a Linux novice looking to learn about Linux in a more accelerated pace.

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.

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.

Veterans will always go back to Debian. It is inevitable.

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.

Is Arch only for people who know how to seek help? Maybe. But it absolutely is not a distro template. It's a distro.

My first distro was an Arch fork and I moved to vanilla Arch a year later. My problems in that time have been minimal. Personally, I am glad that someone recommended that I use an arch-based distro as a beginner. Mind you, I came in as a modestly computer-literate Windows refugee willing to learn. I think for those types of people it can be appropriate to recommend Arch-based distros.

So, yes, if you are not willing to google a problem, read a wiki, or use the terminal once in a while, Arch or its forks are probably not for you. I would probably not recommend Arch as a distro for someone's elderly grandparent or someone not comfortable with computers.

That said, I do not know that I agree with the assertion that Arch "breaks all the time," or that I even understand what "Arch bullshit®" is referring to. This overblown stereotype that Arch is some kind of mythical distro only a step removed from Linux From Scratch has to stop. None of that has been my experience for the last 4 years. Actually, if anything, it is the forks that get dependency issues (looking at you, Manjaro) and vanilla Arch has been really solid for me.

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.

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

Linux Mint.

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?

idk I'm kind of a fucking idiot and I started with Manjaro.

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.

The real problem: Define beginner distro

Every user is starting from a different point. There is no such thing as a beginner distro. You can say this distro is good for people who can grasp the idea of a command line or this distro is good for people who have no idea command line interfaces exist, but that doesn't differentiate between beginner friendly or not.

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.

EndeavourOS is the best 💪

I started with mint more than 10 years ago because a friend of mine told me it was one, if not the best, distro for newbies (that was a fucking lie). Idk how mint is doing today but back then was kind of a mess and dealing with it wasnt easy, so i dont really know how or why i switched to debian for a while. With debian i had a lot of problems with some software, mostly proprietary drivers for esotic hardware i was running back then due to me buying the cheapest laptops available, so i started distro hopping for a while. Every distro but fedora was debian based so it felt a lot like a more of the same experience and I felt stuck in a loop where i was eventually gonna reinstall my whole system after breaking something i didnt even know existed.

Then one day i found arch. Installing it wasnt as easy as clicking install on the live system's guy, but just by following the wiki general instructions i didnt have any issues the first time. It felt good. Building the system block by block helped me understand how things work, the package manager was the best i had seen and the newbie corner basically had the solutions for all my screw-ups, even more than ask-ubuntu did. Everybody in the community was super helpful (even some of the devs). Then there was the AUR, with almost every piece of esotic or proprietary software i needed, much easier than adding some random guy's repositories to apt or enabling backports on debian. Also i found out that i prefer having a rolling release. With arch i learned how to use and maintain my system, and i just stuck with it.

That said, just how some use linux just to brag about it with their normie friends, many many people use arch to brag about it with other linux users (like my friend did), mostly beacause arch has the infamous reputation that it is hard to install, hard to maintain, easy to break. Which is actually not that bad considering that all these people are gonna end up posting in the newbie corner lol.

Truth is that arch is not harder than any other distro. It only comes down to your will to learn and RTFM What i think worked for me was the transparency. Nobody said it was as easy to use as windows, but nobody in the wiki said "dont do this unless you are an experienced user". Arch is not another fork of ubuntu pretending to be "even more user friendly", it's just arch.

I think the problem is about distros like antergos (rip), manjaro, garuda, endevour trying to oversimplify something that only needs you to RTFM only ending up breaking something they tried to automate and hide behind a curtain that wasnt meant to be automated and was meant to be learned to manage, by hand

EDIT: spelling. I'm a non-english speaker, if you find any more errors just tell me and i will correct them (or clarify something better)

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).

2 requirements for arch:

1. Not fearful of CLI
2. Able to RTFM.
3. 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.

SteamOS

We, long-time users of Linux, all have our opinions based on various preferences. The thing is that a lot of these preferences are pretty technical, like Ubuntu having snaps, Fedora and Mints' flat pak policies, etc...

For the average user, they will not know what this is or even see a difference between the systems at first. The linux community would do better if we could have a unified front on distro recommendations. People will switch distros as they learn and their curiosity grows.

I think, we should ask people to pick based on their DE preference. If they want something like windows, let them have Mint or Kubuntu, if they want something closer to mac, let them have Ubuntu. I say this as someone who likes Fedora Plasma spin.

Everything else, is just information overload and will give users decision paralysis.

Our goal should be conversion of users. Once our numbers start growing, then things will pickup. Just imagine if we had office and adobe products here. How many people would be able to switch. I still use windows on my work computer as there is a single app holding me back.

To me, every distro that seriously requires you to read through all changelogs before updating is BS, and it doesn't solve a basic problem. No one in their sane mind will do this, and the system will break.

That's why, while I respect the upstream Arch, I'd say you should be insane for running it and trying to make things stable, and mocking people for not reading the changelogs is missing the point entirely. Even the best of us failed.

Arch is entirely about "move fast and break stuff".

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 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.

why are you making shit up tho, whos install bricked, mine has no issues, neither does any other linux newbie ive talked to, it has an easy to use gui to setup and then it just works?