stolen from linux memes at Deltachat
Arch user here.
My recommendation to noobies is always Linux Mint even though I don’t use it.
I use Arch, btw.
Yeah I think Arch is fine, but I’d never recommend it to a new Linux user.
Most Arch users (myself included) don’t recommend Arch to n00bs or even light seasoned Linux users if they already are happy with their setup.
But the meme is the meme and I like bullying Arch elitists.
Even I wasn’t cruel enough to banish my mother to arch. She uses fedora on her desktop (because she liked gnome) and Linux mint on her laptop because I wanted her to make sure she still wanted to switch after trying it for about a month.
She wanted to jump head first but it would have been a pain to go through four installs if she didn’t like it.
Indeed, besides most linux distributions are fairly equally lightweight and can be customized. I tried 4-5 distros this past January (Arch being one) when I got my new gaming laptop and they all booted in ~9.5 sec for example, and perform equally well in general, they had fairly similar RAM load with the same desktop environment.
Arch is about managing the system as a hobby, which is fine.
One problem here is that new users install Endeavour/Garuda but don’t know how to manage updates safely about pacnew/pacsave/etc. So the system might slowly “rot” without them knowing about it because new components use old configs, etc…
I also recommend Mint to new users. I don’t use Mint, nor do I use Arch.
Arch is about managing the system as a hobby
You’re thinking of Gentoo.
As a Gentoo user currently vacationing in Arch-land I’m not sure whether to feel insulted or affirmed. Imean, it is but some might say that to disparage it or its users 😅
For me: Gentoo is a meta distro, you are the distro maintainer then the power user of that specific distro you created for yourself which can definitely be fun. Arch is more like: let’s give you one instance of a Gentoo distro when you are tired of being the distro maintainer.
Tbf I don’t think many people know about pacdiff. The way I found out about it was by looking up a warning about pacnew/pacsave during an upgrade, because I was bored. Very random.
Arch is about managing the system as a hobby, which is fine.
Only the installation takes more time, maintenance is no longer than the noob friendly ones.
Hey, you’re on the wrong Lemmy instance. :P
Yeah but this account is 4 years old and you know us Arch users like to flex.
I so want to join that one :D Brilliant name.
… Then go back to Gentoo and stay anyway >:P
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So glad you asked. I’d like to report that I actually do use Arch Linux. Most people can’t, so you know, I’m kinda a big deal. I don’t have anymore time for questions, though. It’s update night.
I use both, but Mint is strictly better if you want a no-fuss system that just works and will continue to do so
As a seasoned distrohopper, can confirm. When I try something new, I always ask myself: Would a noob be ok with the fact that in this distro you have to do things this way. In Fedora, Debian, Manjaro and so many other I always end up saying “no” more than a few times. With Mint, you just don’t bump into these situations very often. IMO, Mint is the best starter distro for most users. If you know your friend is very technical, you can recommend something else.
I finally tried out Linux Mint this year at work (we use Fedora for some of our different tasks). It arms like such a nice experience out of the box, and I’d put it on a family computer in a second.
Isn’t archwiki one of the most comprehended wikis for Linux distros out there? If anything, the arch-wiki (to me) has often too many answers for the same problem than the other way around.
The Arch wiki is great, but Arch is a terrible platform for newbies, unless they go into Linux with the intent to do a deep dive into the structure behind a Linux OS.
I switched like ten years ago because I wanted to learn the details, but in all honesty I still feel like I barely understand anything. Not sure how normal this is, maybe I’m unusually dumb, but I feel like what I’ve really learned is how to troubleshoot and solve issues by reading documentation and tinkering, rather than understanding what I’m actually doing. I’ve had a stable system for years but I kind of feel like if a typical arch forum poster looked my system configuration for five minutes they’d be like wtf are you doing.
Is actually great since it forces you to learn which saves you much more time in the long run.
But most people can’t see past their nose.
Edit
Can’t believe somebody got offended by this…
couldve stopped at the first sentence, but had to keep with the stereotype i guess ;)
??
Smug sense of superiority. You’re special and do things the right way because everyone else is too dumb.
Jesus fucking christ what a bunch of drama queens
you’re doing a really good job of breaking this stereotype, bub
To be fair, your original comment would have been more likely to push people towards trying Arch if it didn’t have the last sentence.
You can’t invite people to your party by antagonizing them.
Is actually great since it forces you to learn which saves you much more time in the long run.
It is great when you have time to learn, but when you are trying to troubleshoot while understand basically nothing of the wiki … it is not good.
Can’t believe you got so offended someone was offended you edited your comment…
to be fair, i wasnt offened :) just wanted to point out the irony
Most people want a functional OS, they don’t care about the benefits of NetworkManager over its competition. Figuring out every possible configuration setting and finding the right combination to get everything working as intended takes forever.
Some people are into that, and power to them, but most people aren’t.
I run Debian and I regularly look at the Arch wiki.
It is most comprehended, but for newbie it is too comprehensive. Its overwhelming, I tried to troubleshoot why I boot to black screen even the installation said its successful and there’s no error. I saw solutions that want me edit grub, edit xorg … and some other file that I never understand.
I understand the wiki is very good and very important, its just not newbie friendly.
That’s the issue. Arch and it’s wiki are labyrinths for beginners.
For anyone not interested in tinkering all-day long they’re better off using fedora, debian or suse.
True
Weird shot at the Arch wiki, which is truly great. I turn to it regularly despite not using Arch.
Wiki do not have answer
?? The arch wiki is one of the greatest Linux resources out there. Sure there may be situations where it doesn’t have the answer for something, but for a new user? It has all bases covered.
It’s actually really great… if you know how to interpret and apply the information on it to your situation and adapt as needed. A good new user experience it does not make however.
On one hand, the archlinux bbs had the only exact reference to the issue I was having. On the other hand, no one could replicate it enough to figure anything out. :/
I agree. I don’t use Arch (I have in the past) but I use Arch Wiki heavily.
My first ever distro was Arch, over a decade ago.
I just consider it my trial by fire, everything has been smooth sailing since because anything else is easier!
Red hat, 25 years ago learned to recompile the kernel to make my sound card/modem work.
Especially a decade ago before archinstall
These days it is comparatively easy.
I will always recommend Debian or Debian based distros to anyone new to Linux. They’ll find their way to arch eventually
Arch btw
For a total newbie, probably Linux Mint or PopOS are the best options. But EndeavourOS is getting there. There shouldn’t be any issues during the installation if one sticks to the defaults. Only thing is, it doesn’t come with a graphical package manager out of the box. But once that is installed (I think anyone will be happy to write a single terminal command, at least), I don’t see why it’s any harder to use than any other distro.
Mint, with any DE, does come with a graphical package manager. It’s as easy as any appstore. The only confusion is it suggests both it’s original and flatpack versions to install.
I think you are talking about EndevourOS there.
Yeah, I’m talking about EndeavourOS. I don’t see what got you confused.
Reading it in a linear fashion, you drop one distro after another without much distinction. I believe it’d be better if you serve EndOS it’s own paragraph since it’s so different.
Bruh
What ‘bruh’?
It isn’t hard to drop a <br> before one starts explaining a completely different OS.
I use Ubuntu. It generally tends to be boring stable, which is kinda what I want out of my OS these days. I can still customize it, and even break it if I really get bored, but it’s nice to have things just work for the most part.
I still have an old laptop running v16 Ubuntu iirc. Basically using it as a sort of media centre.
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Yep, games being designed to support Ubuntu first is a big reason why I’m so far into Ubuntu. I could easily switch if I needed to since I’m both a programmer and very comfortable with Linux but for me, it does everything I need an OS to do.
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If the arch wiki doesn’t have the answer, I just give up
The most unrealistic part of this
heres the thing: as a decade+ software dev, I never want to even think about my distro.
I just want Linux terminal style commands, and Linux style ssh shit to just work in the most middle of the road way as possible. I’m trying to get a job done, not build a personality.
Exactly. That’s why i use Mint. I don’t want to think about my operating system, I want to get stuff done.
This is me too and why I no longer use Arch btw.
I used Arch for AUR, but with flatpak getting more popular these last few years even the more niche stuff I had to rely on AUR for got a flatpak. So I’ve been trying out immutable distros like Fedora Kinoite.
Same here fam
This is why I got a MacBook (unpopular opinion here)
I only ever have Mac stuff from employers, but it is nice hardware and linux-like enough for me to be happy.
Probably also helps Mac that every windows machines provided by an employer is some random HP buttbook that looks and preforms like it could be from 2021 or 2012, who knows
Macs are not really what I think of when reading “middle of the road linux”
I interpreted “middle of the road” as doing nothing special, just normal tasks done a normal way and therefore hoping everything just works so you can focus on work
Arch wasn’t my first distro but it was my first daily driver. Found it easier than both mint and Ubuntu personally.
Arch wiki is the reason I started using Arch. After fixing an install from something I found there for like the 10th time I thought “Why not give it a try”
Basically, most of the points there fall into some of 3 categories:
- Your hardware is crap:
- WiFi not working;
- Nvidia failed;
- You ability to read/follow simple instructions is crap:
- WiFi not working;
- Messed up installation;
- Nvidia failed;
- No answer in the wiki;
- Lies/outdated:
- Updater broke system;
- Troubleshoot everything;
- No answer in the wiki;
This guy Arches
I use Arch and I lol’d.
Could that user possibly be an arch user?
About 3, idk what’s going on with my system, but sometimes after a big yay update, the kde login fails (something about the plasma environment failing to boot or idk I have not debugged it correctly yet), then after a reboot systemd-boot fails to load it and the efi entry dissapears. I’m forced to arch-chroot and reinstall the bootctl. After doing so, sometimes I have to do it again and other times it logs correctly.
Again, not debugged it correctly but it’s not like I did any kind of weird change to any config, just installed some flatpaks, some steam games, and lutris for League, which in the end is basically wine, and a yay update provoking this behaviour is pretty bad.
I’ve had this happen. I never did figure it out, personally. I distro hopped a bit and eventually ended up back on Arch and it didn’t happen again, so I guess it was a bugged install?
Journalctl might be a great friend here.
Yeah, I’ve taken the routine of logging into tty3 before kde to pipe the journal tal output into a file to debug only the error if it happens. Yeah I know I can fine tune then output to get only the last execution and so on and I have done it, but it was not that clear and this happened after a work day and I wanted to fuck off and chill so the next time it happens I’ll be more through.
Just Linux stuff xD
Yeah, I feel that man. Hopefully it doesn’t happen again though.
If I have to edit a config file, this means the OS is a failed piece of garbage
I could say inability to edit a config file is worth reevaluating of what is a failed piece of garbage here… But it won’t be fair. If you don’t want to deal with configs, go ahead and use chromeos or something :P
Jokes aside, pop-os is great ootb.
I’m wondering why “I use Funtoo btw” didn’t become a meme, and arch did. Gentoo is objectively better at letting the user customise everything compared to arch
I’m pretty sure it’s because less people use it. They make fun of Gentoo taking longer to compile stuff on install/update, but that’s pretty fast nowadays. What really takes up time is making all the choices. I remember hours of selecting obscure kernel options and choosing use flags “what is ncurses? Do i need ncurses? What is sdl? Do i need sdl? …” I mostly use Ubuntu now, because I got no more time for that.
I honestly had no idea how to do use flags and just gave up on gentoo since a lot of things I wanted to install needed me to tinker with them somehow, but I might try again later on.
There are binary versions of heavy stuff at least. Although, yeah, it kinda becomes tedious once you get into more or less obscure options… Mine was compiling everything with musl (for some reason)
Gentoo had their own meme: Gentoo is for ricers.
That’s a classic.
Currently on second day of troubleshooting installation. (Hopefully) 5 days to go till I finally get to boot
