Arch is simple, but not easy.
Other distros might be easy, but not simple
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
495 points (100.0% liked)
linuxmemes
23841 readers
1634 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack users for any reason. This includes using blanket terms, like "every user of thing".
- Don't get baited into back-and-forth insults. We are not animals.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn. Even if you watch it on a Linux machine.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, <loves/tolerates/hates> systemd, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
5. π¬π§ Language/ΡΠ·ΡΠΊ/Sprache
- This is primarily an English-speaking community. π¬π§π¦πΊπΊπΈ
- Comments written in other languages are allowed.
- The substance of a post should be comprehensible for people who only speak English.
- Titles and post bodies written in other languages will be allowed, but only as long as the above rule is observed.
6. (NEW!) Regarding public figures
We all have our opinions, and certain public figures can be divisive. Keep in mind that this is a community for memes and light-hearted fun, not for airing grievances or leveling accusations. - Keep discussions polite and free of disparagement.
- We are never in possession of all of the facts. Defamatory comments will not be tolerated.
- Discussions that get too heated will be locked and offending comments removed. Β
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
Important: never execute code or follow advice that you don't understand or can't verify, especially here. The word of the day is credibility. This is a meme community -- even the most helpful comments might just be shitposts that can damage your system. Be aware, be smart, don't remove France.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Language is beautiful.
But not simple. Or easy...
I mean, have you seen archinstall? its pretty easy and straightforward. Unless you have a phobia against terminal screens.
At this point it's easier / more comfortable than a windows install. No waiting between steps, no unnecessary options, easier disk layouts.
And you get a pacman!
sometimes you can't even install windows without manually putting drivers on the install media
You'd like to think people just do this to assholes, but the number of innocent noobs that get recommended Arch is too damn high.
of innocent noobs
Don't know about you, but I only recommend arch when someone says they want the most costumisable distro. No matter if they just mean the DE, if they are too dumb to realise the difference between a DE and a distro, they shouldn't be on Linux anyway.
That's not a matter of being dumb, just that they never had a reason to question the difference. The proper way to answer that if you think there might be confusion is to recommend arch and note that they might just care about the DE, in which case there are simpler options. Otherwise you're just being an ass.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Valve over here puttin' everybody on Arch
For some reason archinstall never worked for me. EndeavourOS is a joy to use. (i know it's a separate distro but besides branding and installing, there's no difference at all)
Separate distro
Purple Arch πΏ
I love purple Arch.
Pretty much, lol (with a GUI installer too). I like how it looks so I think that's a good thing x)
EndeavourOS represent! πͺπ Much easier install plus some pretty sick wallpapers, all without being hostile to users like ~~Windows is~~ some proprietary operating systems.
some pretty sick wallpapers
The actual state of Linux distributions.
That's endevour's job. Also i think they have most user friendly community after mint community
I donβt quite understand what youβre getting at here.
load more comments
(1 replies)
everything is simple once you know how to do it. i think a lot of the arch recommenders likely donβt realize how difficult some of these things can be the first time. itβs the same with any kind of specialized knowledge i think. itβs one of the reasons why teaching can be difficult. but the arch community has been super helpful in my experience
It's a general problem with the community in my experience. People keep saying it's "simple", then whip 3 terminal commands out of their pocket nobody without extensive knowledge would understand (or be able to tell if they do something wrong). They just don't realize how much knowledge they possess in comparison, and/or how little others are interested in gaining said knowledge (not because they're ignorant, but simply because they got other priorities in life).
The community really needs an "injection of normies" for some people to wake up from their elitism trip.
Tacit knowledge really is a problem in the Linux community, but also in the rest of society.
People keep saying it's "simple", then whip 3 terminal commands out of their pocket nobody without extensive knowledge would understand
People do the same thing for all Linux distributions though. You'll see people telling you to run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade like you'll see people telling you to run pacman -Syu.
Not arguing that Arch is easy, just that this specifically doesn't feel like a counter argument.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Another thing that I hadn't really thought about before reading another comment in this thread is that the arch wiki install guide (and other pages) are written with the assumption that you want to understand what you're doing. And I think for many people that's just not the case. Which is fair enough, not everyone enjoys tinkering with software. Just like I'm currently paying someone to build my new pc for me because I really don't enjoy doing that. But there have been a few places within the arch install process where I had to research some background info to know what to optimally do for my use case instead of taking a guess and hoping it works out. And that's quite a barrier, I see people struggle with similar things all the time at work. If any research is required beyond what your step by step guide is telling them, many people will give up.
It's true. Simple things like "be sure to review AUR scripts before installing" are so easy to say, but incredibly difficult to really explain what you're looking for that could be problematic.
honestly, I've had arch on all my machines for 5y now. the install was simple, as long as you followed instructions to the letter.
the rolling release is beautiful. i never ever have to go through the install again
Used Arch for a few years as well. Recommending it to newcomers who do not specifically ask for a learning experience is just vile.
Specifying intent in the meme would've been too much text in my opinion though. In general I think unless specified one shouldn't expect newcomers to be into learning tech, but into ease of use.
And your shift key is still not working?
I have a machine which has a much older installation. I've destroyed the pacman folder on the var partition accidentally which made my pacman stop working since it had no db and no idea of what packages were installed. I still managed to restore it with some weird scripts after that and is still working fine after like 2 years.
Arch is freaking resilient, but mostly because I didn't want to reinstall since everything else is working xD
You say that but when I tried it refused to connect to the internet no matter what I tried
The worst part about "simple" is defining what that means for the person. Depending on what they mean, there are a lot of different answers.
(And a good chunk of those are just Debian with different branding).
As others have said, EndeavourOS is pretty damn easy too. Personally I'll stick to Arch for desktop, deb stable for servers/lxc's, and deb sid for mostly screwing around and sending some reports in so stable can be stable.
load more comments
(8 replies)
Why not just direct them to Gentoo?
well it is simple, but you also gotta be competent as per the wiki :P
It's fairly well documented and the up to date packages are very convenient.
It can also be pretty confusing installing debian and having to find how to install packages that aren't out of date.
Imo take a few hours to power through the wiki installation guide and it's really not too bad + you're equipped to fix issues as they arise. It's not Gentoo. When Ubuntu breaks for a new user, it's a nightmare too.
So I think I disagree, it's been easier to use than Fedora, Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Elementary in my experience. I use Gentoo too but that is indeed simple in the challenging sense.
Arch is a nice middle ground between Ubuntu and Gentoo.
Plus, with EndeavourOS users can have their cake and eat it too.
This. Easiest distro for newcomers, provided that they are willing to learn, because of the amazing documentation.
Arch is a pain in the ass distro. Don't recommend Arch or Arch based stuff.
You can build a custom system with any base distro. You can install Debian or Fedora "Arch style"
I mean, it is dead simple after all
Manjaro was my "throwing into the water"-distro and it worked very well getting me swimming. YMMV.
Oh yeah, it's the community thinking about switching frustrated by the Linux culture that are unfriendly, not the Linux community itself being incredibly unwelcoming to anyone who doesn't "get it."
No one said everyone who wants to switch is unfriendly. I do concur that a lot of people in the Linux community act like dicks though.
I mean as long as it's elementary OS that might be okay
view more: next βΊ