this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
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 recommend Arch to Linux beginners, though. It'll take quite a bit of tinkering to get to work and you have to develop a pretty detailed understanding of the whole thing. Which is absolutely fine, of course, if this is what you want to do. But if you just want something that works with minimal hassle, try Mint.
Yes, I find this obsession with Arch on Lemmy very weird. It's certainly not a distro for beginners. Ubuntu (let the hate flow), Mint, Fedora, and many others would be better choices.
If it is what you like, fair enough but I feel that it is encouraged around here as a default for both beginners and advanced users, which is bizarre. It's too complex for beginners and not optimisable enough for very advanced users. I don't hate it but I hate to see it become the standard.
From my personal experience Arch is several months ahead of other distros and depending on the package and sometimes has everything you need already included for gaming.
I believe this is due to the Steam Deck.
However for ease of use, I agree there are other better distros. Fedora is only 2ish months behind arch in terms of graphics drivers and Ubuntu… has the latest proton from steam and lutris since proton isn’t installed from the local app stores.
Source for that? It's one of those weird, wild affirmations that go around regarding Arch. Ahead in terms of what? Integrating the most up-to-date kernel or something?
Is it because of the rolling release model? But it's not the only one to have rolling releases.
This comes from personal testing of games. There was a DX11 bug intel igpus where UE4 games crash instantly on boot. I was able to work around this by forcing dx12 in arch, but when I moved to fedora it wasn’t working, that was until about 2 months later after an update. Since I don’t know exactly how far behind fedora is in terms of graphics drivers I said it in ambiguous terms.
Yeah, I'm not sure supporting MS proprietary 3D rendering APIs is the goal of any Linux distro? It's like saying: look my distro is ahead because excel runs on it. I might be missing the point here. If you can have the same reasoning with Vulkan, that would make sense tho
Have you not heard of the Steam Deck and Proton? Running MS APIs through a compatibility layer is the main goal for Linux gaming for the past few years, as it allows legacy games that had no hope in getting a Linux native port (or a terrible Linux port) to run in Linux, through the Proton Compatibility layer.
The apps I was using were running with DXVK, but due to a bug with intel iGPU driver which affects both Windows and Linux users, it didn't work. A Intel Mesa update patched the bug, and my game worked better. When I moved back I was on an older driver and had to wait for it to be added in.
Aaaaaah it's gaming! Oh dear, I feel old. OK, so Arch gets the compiled drivers for gaming related HW before other distros? I guess, given the community of nerds (no offense), that would make sense. Thanks for clearing that up.
Still wouldn't be ahead of the compilable distros. I urge you to switch to LFS, the real beginners distros. ;)
I wouldn't worry too much about not knowing this. The steam deck is still relatively new and proton/dxvk is improving at such a blinding pace compared to the rest of Linux that my head is still spinning.
From my limited understanding, because of Arch's rolling releases and Valve basing the steam deck on Arch. DXVK the compatibility layer for DX games to vulkan is managed by the distro. How this works is magic is still magic to me. I also think graphic drivers gets pushed on arch early too, since it's a rolling release.
However I am in complete agreement, Arch isn't beginner friendly, I personally like Manjaro and find it friendlier, but that's like having a pet cat, and it's a Bob cat. Sure it's not a Lion, but it's not a Kitty.
I find Mint to be the most obvious choice for beginners who don’t use Lemmy.
Anecdotally, Mint broke file permissions and then the mounting points for my home server setup. And I find Cinnamon to be quite ugly imho.
I tried Fedora and Debian and much prefer those two vs Mint. Also, KDE is incredibly beautiful on the Steam Deck.
P.S. Fedora and Debian work with secure boot OOTB. Helpful for a laptop install. I know you can make it work with Arch and Mint as well, and there's issues+opinions with secure boot, but I just wanted something to work. I am not as adept with linux and the guides assumed a particular level of experience with it.
I installed Mint in my Windows user moms computer she loves it.(on windows it was unusably slow) It is a drop in replacement for beginners who want to use linux almost exactly the same way they have used windows. Fedora is good(and my fave) and not too unintuitive for beginners aswell but if someone wants to switch to linux but "keep using windows" Mint is the answer, not to mention all the extra software preinstalled to make stuff work out of the box.
You're doing god's work, well done
An the thing is, I don't use linux myself 😁. Lemme explain, I tried Nobara on my gaming desktop and loved it but was not geting the performance I was hoping for so I reinstalled the nvidia drivers. I fucked up and couldn't get to the graphical UI anymore. For some ungodly reason not even live USB without the simplified graphics mode I formatted my drive thru the simplified live usb mode to nsft and installed Windows on it. To this day Linux literally can't be installed on my Computer. Same bug. Plus Wayland isn't quiite ready for nvidia cards yet, meaning I will do Linux on my next PC that will also have an AMD GPU.
I used to use Arch Linux. It's really good, honestly, especially if you want to know how the OS components work from inside or make something custom. For anything else, I would recommend Debian and its non-snap-based derivatives (Linux Mint Debian Edition or Tuxedo OS, or KDE Neon).
I had to help a friend install the VMware kernel modules, since VMware is weird and VirtualBox sucks for virtualising Windows. I had to guide him through it step by step, making sure his commands were exact.
He's only started using the terminal properly. Hell no, I'm not going to recommend Arch to him.
It's because it's bleeding edge, extremely well documented and extremely popular. Bleeding edge is exciting and you're gonna end up on the arch wiki anyway regardless of distro, so you may as well go to the source.
Do mind though it doesn't mean it's easy, like at all, and I fundamentally agree, there's a million better choices for first timers.
Absolutely not. I've never used a distro that required me to check the forums or wiki of another distro.
What now? I feel I have fallen asleep and just woke up at a marketing meeting at my job.
I've ended up on the arch wiki a few times on non-arch distros, it covers many generic Linux tools very well
Being on NIX I'm very jealous of the volumes of documentation for Arch. Found my way to the Arch wiki a few times.
In what way?
Compared to gentoo for instance, packages are not compiled depending on the HW they are installed on. So, not enough resource optimisation and customisation for some users
Of course, any distro is customisable if you spend the time to do it voluntarily, but by default it's not the way it works
I suppose, although you are getting very little performance improvements compiling from sources. Like very, very little. Considering that you will be waiting for emerge a lot, there's a good handful of folks that consider it a net positive.
Absolutely, it used to be important, now it's more of a hobby for me...
Yet, for some people who love to have everything under control, Arch is a step below the fully optimisable distros. That's why I think it's maybe not for the ultimate Linux extremists among us :) Although there is definitely some respect to give to people who completely mod Mint or Ubuntu, they're among the bravest
Have you tried Funtoo?
Not yet, thanks for bringing it!
I don't know enough about Gentoo to understand what it is saying but it sounds like it is totally the same but makes dealing with the compiler options a lot easier? Do you think it's a good first pick over Gentoo? For "advanced Linux" I mean not a first timer lol.
I find it a bit weird to try to make gentoo more 'user-friendly'. It kind of defeats the point... I have to try tho before being able to answer
I moved from Gentoo to Arch years ago and was unable to notice any performance difference. There may have been one, but it wasn't perceptible to me.
For very specific uses, it can be useful. Some scientific SW, niche applications, or if you have older HW. Most of the time, it's a flex now (I use gentoo BTW, what about that?)
If you absolutely need to compile everything for your system, you can do that with ABS
There is a certain kind of beginner I would recommend Arch to, those rare folks who really do learn best from the bottom up. Candidates must also see "computers" as a hobby, and have separate hardware from their daily driver they're installing/learning Linux on.
Honestly, I'm still not sure I would recommend Arch to those people. I think most of those people would be better off on something like Gentoo or NixOS (depending on the class of weirdo we're talking about). Arch in my experience is just more painful than it needs to be. Like, honest to god, there is no reason the user should have to fiddle with the keyring when updating... Figure it out.
Sure. If you want to tinker and look under the hood, Arch is great. But if you just want stuff to work, there are better alternatives.
I've been living in Mint for a decade now, it's as close to "just works" as I've seen a desktop computer get.
Last used Linux over 10 years ago when I was in college for ITNA. It didn't work out for me and I drive trucks for a living now lol. Computers/gaming has always been my hobby though. Decided a few weeks ago to try out Linux again on a spare computer I have. Started with EndeavorOS and broke it somehow. Went to mint for like a week and couldn't get used to it for some reason and decided to try EndeavorOS again. Been using it for about a month now as my primary and only using the windows PC for gaming and it's been great. Does take some tinkering and googling to get it how it want it from a fresh install though which I've had to do a couple times now because of hardware failures lol
Mint all the way
Endeavor OS solves most of those problems. Out of box experience is fantastic, and the installer is the best I've ever used.
That being said, I still wouldn't recommend it due to the Arch package maintainers willingness to break userspace.
You will do a system update and it will break something. Most recent for me was Python packages. I updated my system and suddenly pip stopped working because they decided to follow PEP-668 and force the user to install packages using pacman.
The rationale given was allowing the user to install packages outside of the distro's control can potentially break system tools like Fedora's DNF, which is python based.
Now, I've done this on Fedora, it's not fun. But you know what else? FEDORA DOESN'T EVEN ENABLE THIS FEATURE YOU FUCKING IMBECILES.
It was annoying at first for me too but they tell you how to bypass it, so can't you just use the flag
--break-system-packagesand make it an alias for pip?I think it depends on what the said beginner is after. If they just want something that works then sure archlinux isn't the best option, but if they want learn more about linux then there's nothing wrong with installing arch. When I was new to linux, I found the beginners install guide on the archwiki to be very helpful and learnt a fair bit about how things work. I think you then have a good overview of how your system works and therefore have a better idea of what needs fixing when things break.
Mint all the way
Debian unstable FTW!