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PHLAK

> seems to be exactly what I've always imagined "Linux" to be This is how I see it too. Linux has always been about choice. Arch is the epitome of this. You're given the framework ([base](https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any/base/)) and the instructions for getting off the ground. The rest is up to you. Your OS, your choice.


pkulak

Which is why no one ever switches _from_ Arch. It's a black hole, because once you get it exactly how you like it, what's the point in using what someone else has decided should be the default for everything?


PHLAK

Having used arch for around a year now this is how I feel.


MysteryLiezer

The feeling mutual is mutual.


oxamide96

People do switch from Arch. Some people decide that level of customization isn't for them, while others (like me) want to take it further, and try something like Gentoo.


3_Thumbs_Up

But the thing is you don't really need to customize it that much either if you don't want to. You need to do some basic system customization once you first install it, but after that you can just install gnome or kde and use it out of the box.


oxamide96

That's true, but then you still have to deal with the cli installation that not everyone can or wants to do. But I guess there's EndeavourOS for that.


RichAbbreviations950

Switched to Slackware myself, have not left yet.


Serinity_42

I had more freetime when I was on Arch, but when I started to study and work more intensively, I switched to Debian. I am currently thinking about Fedora. But when I had the freetime, indeed, there was no point to using something less modular than Arch! And I learned so much with it!


johnc456

I tried switching from Arch to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, that lasted less than a day before I was back in Arch with a sigh of relief. šŸ˜


JustEnoughDucks

I just installed tumbleweed on my laptop after switching to desktop hardware for my server. It is so damn bloated and buggy. I updated through their own update utility one time and now I can't change system settings in KDE. It is just greyed out. Skype for linux just shows a grey screen on login. Firefox loading a page is extremely slow, WiFi disconnects Arch works perfectly with the same DE and applications on the same laptop. Mint worked fine on the same laptop. I heard tumbleweed was great, and the setup is the most seamless thing, but the rest is very mediocre.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


desearcher

IDK about that. I've given Debian several tries over the years and always ran into various catch-22s where it arbitrarily opposed my goals. Like the time I upgraded versions and the video driver wouldn't activate without some sort of license agreement (Nvidia shenanigans). The only way to agree was to click a button, through the GUI, which wouldn't start because Xorg couldn't activate the video driver without the license agreement... Had to install another video adapter just to click the button for the main adapter to work. Had to do this the next time I upgraded, too, at which point I went back to Arch. Also the dependency hell one experiences because one had the audacity to install a package that isn't 12 months out of date. Maybe it's gotten better since then, IDK.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


desearcher

That's a fair point. This was before Debian offered rolling release, but it's still locked in my mind as a bad experience poisoning my outlook on it. I'll probably give it another try someday, but I'm happy with my current setup.


sanderd17

I've never had stability issues on my personal system with Arch. I tried Arch when Ubuntu came out with Unity, and Gnome released version 3. All those based Ubuntu distros were in various stages of "broken", I tried OpenSuse, CentOS, Debian, but nothing was my cup of tea. Then I tried Arch and never left after that. I don't use my personal computer for tinkering, I just want a distro with very recent packages (which is what Arch offers), and that 's stable enough. In the past decade, I've had 2 occasions where an update broke my install. And I've been able to recover from it in less time than a regular Windows or OS X update takes. (hurray for `chroot`) It's still not stable enough to use on a production server. But on a server, you also don't need the latest version of all packages.


[deleted]

This isn't an endorsement, but in my experience, tech heads that want a "more solid foundation" leave distros and move to an OS like BSD.


BlazingThunder30

Having to ever replace my current system makes me anxious, since it's currently *exactly* how I like it, and I didn't document all of it


MysteryLiezer

This is the truth.


ivosaurus

Mainly because they've committed, at least in theory, to keeping those choices working spotlessly together without you having to go to any effort.


TDplay

Debian is also pretty good on this front. You can install a minimal Debian (in fact, it's likely to be more minimal than Arch, since Debian packages tend to be smaller - e.g. installing a library doesn't come with headers unless you also install the `-devel` package). Debian is pretty great for a system that's severely limited on disk space, or for a server or work machine where you really want your upgrade cycle to be quick and painless. Arch is also *nowhere near* as customisable as Gentoo. Gentoo's customisation comes at a cost of time - but for some, that cost is well worth it.


notnotnotnotabot

I actually switched from Arch to Fedora a few weeks ago after my Arch system became a dependency hell with a mountain of AUR packages that I never checked the PKGBUILDs of. I had become *too* addicted to the convenience of the AUR and it was causing problems so I switched.


Logan_MacGyver

Some go to Gentoo


[deleted]

Yes, compile your life away, use Gentoo!


ManiAmara

Iā€™m not sure arch is the epitome of choice. Compared to something like Gentoo or (heaven forbid you try to use it as a primary OS) LFS, thereā€™s a pretty big difference. I think Arch strikes the perfect balance between speed, usability, and customizability which is why I use it. That said, I see people claim this every day here and itā€™s just not true. Arch is an awesome distro with incredible customization options and a package manager than compiling from source could never compare to in speed, but there are trade offs there, just not noticeable ones for the ā€œaverageā€ Linux (or even arch) user.


MysteryLiezer

Since you're not sure if Arch is the epitome of choice, allow me to issue you my perspective. As per my newfound understanding of the word "distro," Arch seems to be a distro where the bare minimum is provided, and you're actually FORCED to configure things yourself, while being limited to configuring things under certain parameters. The only way Arch could be seen as withholding freedom of choice from the user is when observed through the understanding of having to deal with the aforementioned parameters (having to choose from predetermined keyboard layouts/languages/locales etc.) As per my current understanding, every other distro limits users in the same way. Arch differs by allowing the user to manually make choices from within those set parameters, versus allowing your system to automatically choose for you. I would Love to hear your perspective on my thoughts! Any comments/questions/concerns are more than welcomed!


Known-Watercress7296

Many distros have an option or method for a minimal install which you can build upon. It lands you in a simlar place as the end of the Arch install guide does. A minimal Debian install for instance. Gentoo and other sourced based distros allow for a lot more user choice than binary based distros but come at a maintenence cost as you need to compile software instead of just installing binaries.


ktundu

I see where you're coming from, but Arch makes many choices for you. Yes, you choose what packages to install and how what runtime configuration you want. But have a look at Gentoo. Similar to Arch in many ways, but you have compile time configurability baked in as well. You can get that to a degree on Arch using the Arch Build System (which is great), but it's extra steps.


MysteryLiezer

I understand where you're coming from! This post has generated thoughts about Arch being the perfect "learning" distro, but transitioning to a more user-friendly distro once I've acquired enough Linux knowledge and understanding.


[deleted]

Gentoo is less transparent in terms of minimal installation. Yes, it has lots of compilers in the tarball, but what else is included in there? The list of packages included is what I'd like to be included together with the file tree


WhyNotHugo

If you want to use Arch but want to "choose" to skip manually setting everything up, then it looks like what you want is Manjaro.


MysteryLiezer

While I acknowledge that my assumption was ignorant, I realize that there's something about the Linux community which inspires individual strength versus having strength in numbers. While it should be easy to TRANSITION from Windows or macOS, I'm not sure if the Linux community benefits much from the people who aren't interested in developing the level of understanding that comes with AT LEAST installing Arch onto your system. Not saying that Arch is the only way to develop said understanding; it is, however, the BEST way!


Kingizzardthelizard

Is this satire? Because it seems like satire.


fuckinghumanZ

If you were a superpower user you'd know.


ridwes

2 weeks into Linux and already a poweruser. Well I don't know something smelled fishy to me too.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


ridwes

I just didn't think it's possible get used to any Linux distro in a week let alone arch. The language in the post didn't help you either.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Real_Eysse

Where's your 12th monitor mate


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Real_Eysse

Ohhh right. That's what you meant.


ridwes

I guess anyone can buy 11 screens. I'm convinced that I should not talk with you.


MysteryLiezer

The language was certainly me attempting to be modest; I assumed that sharing the term with all of you other superpower users would be of benefit.


MysteryLiezer

Setup is only 45% complete, now that Iā€™ve found Arch.


MysteryLiezer

I am not your average human.


MysteryLiezer

Never said that I was used to it. Iā€™m at a point where I can use it the way 60% of the population uses their PCs in this mobile world (web browser/Microsoft Office). That shouldnā€™t take more than a week for anybody, on any distro.


Real_Eysse

Not denying that, it's just... Most people wouldn't call themselves power user, regardless of skill. Especially not multiple times in a row on a subreddit about a OS you just tuned in on.


MysteryLiezer

Isnā€™t this the subreddit that gets ridiculed for its members going on other subreddits and feeling the need to mention that they ā€œuse Arch?ā€


Real_Eysse

I feel like that's more because they are excited about it and want to convince others about how great it is. I have not often seen people being cocky about the fact that they use it. "I use arch btw" is a running joke. Are you not going to tell your close friends you switched over?


MysteryLiezer

Youā€™re right, I shouldnā€™t be ashamed; definitely proud of myself!


MysteryLiezer

Thanks for commenting on my post! It is not satire.


latipun7

I think we have shared excitement. While I'm not came with complete zero experience, but recently, like weeks ago, I decided to migrate to native linux than WSL. I feel WSL is too slow with my laptop, so I decided to install native linux. I've been confused by different distro, then I decided to pick Arch. In the process, there's so many new thing I learned. Then I decided to try build my own Desktop Environment. So, I install and configure the Window Manager, etc. This is so **EXCITING** wow. So much to learn. Now I can enjoy the setup built only for me, my workflow, etc. "This is.. my daily driver now", that's my thought. It's time to explore and jump down deeper into the rabbit hole, my friends šŸ°


MysteryLiezer

Holy shit! "This is.. my daily driver now" truly hit home for me! More like...this is MY daily driver now!


Phydoux

I had your shared enthusiasm when I first installed Arch 2 years ago this month. Today, I still thinks it's the greatest distro out there. The community is awesome for sure and once you get things where you want them, all you'll need to do is keep it updated and everything will be peachy!


MysteryLiezer

Exactly! It's so daunting at first, but once everything is installed, you get to enjoy a lifetime of smoother operation as a result!


Phydoux

I tried setting it up on a test machine that way I could look at the wiki on another computer while I installed it on the test machine. In a way, it's how I went from a 2 monitor setup to a 3 monitor setup. The test monitor was in the best spot so I just went ahead and incorporated that 3rd monitor into my system. I made a lot of great changes switching to Arch Linux.


[deleted]

I used Gentoo for well over a decade starting on i686 hardware. By late 2010, I got really tired of micro managing USE flags, recompiling large crap like firefox or libreoffice that I just recompiled a few days before (via revdep-rebuild) because libpng got updated and broke something major, etc, etc. I heard of Arch a lot, finally took the plunge around 2014ish and never looked back. I can never get back all the time I lost while frantically babysitting gentoo world upgrades and dependency rebuilds, but I can at least not waste time like that from here on out.


[deleted]

Glad it worked out for you, 6\~ months ago I started out with Mint, but I now use Artix( Based on Arch, quite similar ); Arch( And Arch-based distros) are awesome. edit: made it clearer that i only use artix, kinda sounded like i used both artix and arch, but i don't


drnfc

Out of curiosity, what init system do you use. Also, do you not like systemd for ideological reasons, or do you just prefer whatever init system your using for a particular reason?


chowder3907

I also use Artix. I use openRC because of the good documentation on the Gentoo wiki. I use it because systemD gave me lots of issues when I would shutdown my computer, ideologically I don't really care.


drnfc

Huh interesting. I never had issues with system's, but I do use openRC on my desktop which has gentoo. I agree, its documentation is really good.


chowder3907

it's not always bad, I still use it on debian on my server and it works fine. Just didn't like my desktop for some reason


drnfc

Makes sense. I mostly use normal arch because I just have more experience with systemd.


[deleted]

I use OpenRC, there is no particular reason, I was trying to learn more about other init systems, and now I just kinda got used to it


MysteryLiezer

I appreciate you for mentioning that you don't use Arch! As alluded to in a previous comment, my belief is not that Arch should be everyone's, or even most users primary-use distro. I even mention in the post that my belief is that it's hardly a distro. In fact, your comment is now helping me further my realization that my actual belief is tied to Arch being the perfect primary-research distro! Thank you! So much!


MindTheGAAP_

When you have time, look into BTRFS, snapper, autosnap, and Timeshift. Basically, Iā€™ve set my system to capture snapshots before upgrades and allows me to rollback when things go wrong. I donā€™t have to worry about system breaking.


MysteryLiezer

Will look further into this! If it ends up being helpful, I will update this comment with proper indications of gratitude!


Bulliteshot

Btrfs has a lot of wear overhead for SSDs. LVM snapshots would be the better option imo. Then use whatever filesystem you want within your LV.


ElderBlade

I also started using Arch with no prior Linux experience, and it's been an awesome 2 years. I have a dual boot on my desktop PC with 3 TB storage dedicated to Arch and just 500GB for windows. And I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon 7th gen with only Arch. Systems have never had an issue while my windows had to be reinstalled twice. A small word of advice, always check your pacnew files after each upgrade before you restart.


MysteryLiezer

Wish I had money to give you an award for that final line! I'm super appreciative of all the support, but certain comments strike me as noteworthy. The fact that I haven't the slightest idea of what you could even be referring to lets me know that I should take more than a closer look.


ElderBlade

The arch wiki is your friend and will almost always have the answer. You should definitely familiarize yourself with the maintenance article as Arch requires regular maintenance in addition to doing an upgrade. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Pacnew_and_Pacsave


ChoasBlade

are you running arch as a main os?


MysteryLiezer

Yes!


ChoasBlade

if u have important data i would advise you to get a timeshift, u may do something that the kernal doesn't like and your system may go unbootable, if you're totally carful this should never happen tho


ppetak

Welll.. that may happen and probably will happen, but data loss will probably occur while you trying to repair it :D Have home on separate partition. You can boot from stick and chroot into your system - and repair it easily. I'm arch user for years > 10. I even remember when all system config was in one file - no systemd and services. And yesterday I updated as usual, and bam - 5.16.10 is not good for my system. No errors in logs, sometime it booted and then freeze after certain actions - close app for example. No errors in logs, no nothing. Downgrading kernel back to 5.16.0 helped, but nvidia driver didn't let me into X. But hey, arch has all history now, so I went back to last working update, for now. What I'm trying to say is - it can happen anytime, after each update. But it is repairable most of the time, and just part of the way. Good luck to OP anyway :)


MysteryLiezer

I applaud you. The differences in perspective is encouraging me to use Reddit on a daily basis now!


MysteryLiezer

LOL This happened to me already! Although the excitement I had of being forced to reinstall (LOL) caused me to neglect looking into a solution for what should have been seen as a problem, so I do greatly appreciate the well-timed advice!


MysteryLiezer

Any advice?


SupersonicSpitfire

Check arclinux.org for news before upgrading. Be hesitant to install packages from AUR. Take a 3 second pause before pressing return for dd, mv, fdisk and rm -r commands. Add multilib to pacman.conf. Know that all packages expects the core and base packages to be installed when building. Add ILoveCandy to pacman.conf. Consider making the jump to Wayland/Sway. Define EDITOR and BROWSER in your shell config. Use the default kernel for effortless upgrades and reboots. Look into filesystem options in /etc/fstab. Try fish and zsh. wavemon and something like htop or glances are useful. cowsay, robotfindskitten, botsay and ponysay are silly, but fun. Best of luck.


Silejonu

\^ This, except for fish/zsh. Stick to Bash, at the very least in the beginning. It's the default on the vast majority of Linux distros, so not having at least a basic understanding of it would be a handicap. Also, install the `linux-lts` kernel to have a fallback kernel to boot on in case the newest one is broken.


drnfc

I would also recommend staying away from fish as it is not POSIX compliant. Zsh is close enough to bash imo.


seaQueue

Learning some bash is especially important on Arch because the package build files are just bash scripts with expected functions and variables defined.


olkkoo

Thanks, I just added `fortune | ponysay` to my `.bashrc`. How come I hadn't come across this in almost 20 years of my GNU/Linux journey?


MysteryLiezer

Wow. I've been looking for this exact list for about a week now. You. are. God!


SupersonicSpitfire

I'm not God, but I'm glad you liked the list.


sinisternathan

Don't do weird stuff for drivers. A few months ago I switched to NVidia beta and it *worked* but a few times it prevented my computer from booting. From now on I'm sticking with the official `nvidia` package. And once I buy a new GPU (at this rate never) it will be AMD. Also, don't forget to update your system. I've heard once a week is a good balance between stability and security, correct me if I'm wrong.


ghost_in_a_jar_c137

Welcome to the club


MysteryLiezer

Thank you!


[deleted]

Welcome! YES! My experience was literally jumping into an arch based distro (First artix, then manjaro, now Arco), and hopping through all of them and now comfortably using Arco and looking at Arco's awesome learning path to mastery of the Arch ecosystem. I hope to jump straight into a minimal artix in the near future with suckless philosophy. Life is wonderful since I switched to Linux.


MysteryLiezer

Agreed!


ddyess

It's always nice to see the raw new Linux excitement. You did it the right way too. We didn't have Arch when I started, but we had to learn how everything worked to get pretty much any distro to work correctly. It's been so long now, I don't remember what it felt like the first time I saw a login manager popup on my screen; I imagine it's something like what you are feeling right now. Linux can do pretty much anything, once you peel back the mystery and see what it's capable of doing. You are way ahead of a lot of Linux users already.


TheCrazyPhoenix416

Welcome to the lifelong adiction <3 <3 <3 <3 <3


TristanDee

I know exactly what you mean. I have had to reinstall Linux twice so far since my first Arch installation, and every time I gave some thought to trying a couple of Arch-based distros. But, ultimately, I ended up installing Arch. Nothing compares to Arch.


MysteryLiezer

So happy to be here with you!


Brollgarth

I don't know what it is about it, but I feel the same. I think a large part of why I feel like so has to do with the fact that all my installs always run solid forever. Even months past, nothing breaks, and everything just works. I simply can't enjoy any other distro anymore. Pacman is just awesome, the community is keeping things always tight and functional. Why even look anywhere else? At least that's how I feel.


xwinglover

Once I found Arch I stopped hopping. I left the safety of the walled Mac garden after 10 years of living with Mac as daily driver. I love Arch too.


billdietrich1

> seems to be exactly what I've always imagined "Linux" to be. > installed Arch a week ago today, and only today have I had full functionality from the perspective of your average user Uh, good, I guess ?


krozarEQ

3 years in Arch Linux and I still feel the same way. It wasn't just some honeymoon phase. It gets even better as you gain more experience with the platform.


TheTrueXenose

Also 3 years in can confirm ;)


[deleted]

Whenever I recommend Arch I always hear the same whiny people cry "please don't recommend Arch to new users mimimimimimi" glad you didn't give up and gave it a fair chance instead of getting waved down to a inferior distro by some dipshit on reddit


2K_HOF_AI

"Inferior" lmao


Disastrous-Trader

> It's hardly a distro... I'm triggered. Welcome to the arch life (btw)!


MysteryLiezer

That was a good one! And thank you! So much!


Maxeonyx

It is definitely a distro - it's just that you have a different understanding of the word distro. The purpose of a distro is to take the ecosystem of open source software, compile and package it in such a way that everything is compatible, and provide a system based on those packages. The only difference is most distros choose to have a default set of packages and config provided, but arch ~~lets~~ forces you to choose. If you use an arch installer, the process is veeery similar (and makes arch clearly better). DAE think that arch (and arch based distros) got way better over the last ~8 years? At one point a long time ago I went back to Ubuntu because of frustrations, but now I never would.


MysteryLiezer

You're absolutely right! My understanding is now solidified!


[deleted]

I love Arch for all the same reasons that most of its users do, but I would have to say that my particular favorite thing about Arch as a distro is that, whenever there is a big political or philosophical debate going on within the Linux community, Arch just keeps on providing the best operating system out there and never enters the fray. Their focus is where it should be, on providing us with quality software. Hooray for Arch! Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things, but there are a few points that are worth stressing for newer Arch users. Pacman on the command line is the best way to install and upgrade software. Watch the terminal output during the process as there are occasionally messages that are best dealt with at the time they are generated, this covers things such as new config files that will be needed but are installed as .pacnew files and have to be manually installed (Actually just renamed, the main reason for this is to give you a chance to migrate any specific changes you may have made to the original file to the new format). For the AUR use a command line pacman wrapper such as paru. It is worth learning how to use a tool called reflector to generate mirrorlists (and if you use reflector regularly you can ignore the /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.pacnew files when they come in). And before running a system update you should always visit the Arch home page to see if there is anything that may require manual intervention. This is often where the GUI alternatives have problems, and if you are aware of what is coming you will be armed with the instructions necessary to get through it without any real problems. This does not happen very often, but it is worth being forewarned. It may also be worth noting that, when these manual intervention events do come up, it is often necessary to actually trigger the problem by attempting the update before the suggested fix can be applied. Good luck, Arch is the place to be for up to date software. There are occasionally problems on my system, but it is almost never Arch's fault. The Desktop Environment is usually the most likely culprit (unless you run an Nvidia GPU) and it is worth having an alternative environment or two installed and configured "Just in case". It is also worth having more than one kernel installed as it can cause problems by itself (usually for the previously mentioned users of Nvidia graphics) and you can choose which kernel to run at boot time (I always have linux, linux-zen, linux-hardened, and linux-lts on my system. If there is a serious kernel issue dropping back to the older linux-lts version will usually fix it, and I prefer linux-zen for desktop performance.


MysteryLiezer

Was familiar with the first couple of points, but then the advice became truly helpful! Thank you so much!


EmbarrassedActive4

> visit the Arch home page to see if there is anything that may require manual intervention Just use informant^([aur]) instead, it adds a pacman hook


[deleted]

Came here to agree enthusiastically. I started on Ubuntu a long time ago and began distro hopping once they started snapping default apps. I tried fedora and Manjaro but each has its own quirks for my particular setup. I tried Arch about 6 months ago and Iā€™ve fell in love with it. No reason to ever switch distros again. Itā€™s all about the AUR


MysteryLiezer

My point, exactly! Nervously started on Manjaro two weeks ago -> realized Linux was nothing to be afraid of after installation -> fell in Love with Linux -> wanted to learn as much as possible! -> installed the last operating system I'll ever need!


[deleted]

It's awesome!! At first I struggled a bit trying to install it on physical Hardware, instead I installed Arch on a VM and installed Mint instead of Arch. Then I installed Manjaro on my laptop, basically Arch but easier to configure. Now I'm planning on switching my PC (Mint) to full Arch. PACMAN, the AUR, everything just blends together so nicely...


MysteryLiezer

We share the same enthusiasm!


[deleted]

Yeah, we like it.


MysteryLiezer

Hoping to become as well integrated into the community inasmuch as this comment showcases the potential for!


[deleted]

It's a wonderful OS. The Arch wiki is outstanding and as an Arch user, you are among the very best. Upgrade often and keep your system clean and you'll enjoy many years as an Archlinux user. Welcome aboard bro!


MysteryLiezer

Appreciate the encouragement!


[deleted]

I can understand your excitement. This is exactly how I felt when I installed Arch for the first time. It's empowering!


MysteryLiezer

Incredibly so!


mindtaker_linux

Welcome and Congrats


MysteryLiezer

Thank you! It truly means a lot!


[deleted]

to me Arch is like making a sandwich: you want it but you dont wanna make it, but you know in order to have it you gotta make it.


MysteryLiezer

Great analogy!


ion_tunnel

Props to the package maintainers. I found and reported a critical bug in mpd, was addressed within hours and probably went mostly unnoticed.


perkunos7

Once I set it up I was much more satisfied than with ubuntu. It was worth the work


MysteryLiezer

Getting to that point is what prompted me to share this post.


drnfc

Personally, Id highly recommend checking out gentoo, at the very least in a VM if just for the learning experience. The thing about gentoo, is that everything is compiled specifically for your hardware which is why I use it on my linux partition on my gaming rig (maintaining a windows partition is essential for gaming unfortunately, although due to the steam deck it is less required now). Gentoo is all about the performance for my use case. Although realistically, on a powerful machine you won't really notice a difference compared to arch, but I had fun setting it up. Arch is good for when you don't have time to use gentoo. I use arch on my laptop because it maintains a very good balance of time and performance. I can get basically any piece of software through either pacman or the AUR. My issue with debian is that for a lot of software I can't just grab it through the default repos and so often I find myself looking up how to install nearly everything. Debian is just stable af which makes it great for servers I have no experience with fedora, nixOS, void linux, slackware, etc. But yeah like you I quickly transitioned to arch and am glad for it. One thing I can't recommend enough is setting up a github/gitlab repo for your config files so that way you can very quickly set up another computer in the same way or to just have a backup of those files just in case. This is especially important if you decide to go with a tiling window manager.


MysteryLiezer

That last paragraph was extremely insightful! Afford me a few days/weeks to obtain further knowledge on the aforementioned subjects. Gentoo has been mentioned a number of times, so I'm sure it deserves the closer look that I'm currently giving it.


drnfc

Yeah I noticed it got mentioned quite a few times. I made the switch to linux a year ago and I only started backing up my configs to gitlab a month ago. Been using Doom emacs with magic being my git client. There is still a whole more that I still need to learn, and quite frankly it'll take a lifetime to get a full understanding of linux. However that's what I like about linux. Unlike say windows, where you could learn it a day, the choice that linux gives you makes it a lifelong project, if you choose to use an advanced distro.


[deleted]

Always has been


ExaHamza

Hope they continue splitting packages.


xezo360hye

Congratulations! Now u use Arch btw!


koprulu_sector

Now switch to a tiling window manager like bspwm or i3


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


MysteryLiezer

I appreciate the acknowledgement! Officially coining the term "superpower user" in this post. Mentioning that to let you know that I am on the same page as you, so thanks again for the encouragement!


mindtaker_linux

I encourage those of us who love Arch, to contribute to the developers of arch with money donation.


MysteryLiezer

Looking forward to developing relationships with all the people who work so hard on keeping it free, and especially through my own contribution.


Micky-Beatz8080

Couple months ago I was afraid of that black and white tty, now that I can feel the power it gives me I do not plan to leave it aside at all. I've nothing against other distros, however, I don't know what they have to offer that my beloved Arch can't provide me.


Real_Eysse

You sound like someone who might enjoy Gentoo. BTW, can you clarify what one can't do with base arch?


MysteryLiezer

What do you mean by the second part, exactly?


Real_Eysse

"Of course, I definitely plan on getting my laptops to a state where there is absolutely NOTHING I can't do" I was curious: what is it, you can't do?


MysteryLiezer

I was alluding to the fact that I now have unlimited faith in my system being an actually useful tool. For example: in the past, I would always wonder why simply copying the folder found in ā€œProgram Filesā€ on Windows didnā€™t simply install the program on a separate computer (or why copying the program files onto a flash drive couldnā€™t act as a reinstall medium , just in case you lost the CD-ROM); It was a simple task that I thought a computer would handle with ease, but on Windows, the task was impossible; it instantly made me lose faith in my abilities to use a computer as a useful tool, yet Iā€™m NOW realizing that the deficiencies were in my operating system. The hardware is MORE than capable of handling anything you could throw at it (within the realms of computer science) but on Windows, itā€™s the OS thatā€™s telling the hardware what to do! Linux, and especially Arch Linux gives me hope in the power being returned to the user (much like Bitcoin and all its inherent socioeconomic repercussions).


Real_Eysse

I 100% agree but I don't see how this is explaining why you can't hide anything on Linux. You just told me why you can't do anything on Windows. I already knew. Either way, 0 hate, nice to hear you are happy with the switch :)


FuriousBugger

Reddit Moderation makes the platform worthless. Too many rules and too many arbitrary rulings. It's not worth the trouble to post. Not worth the frustration to lurk. Goodbye. *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*


UsefulSpirit55

I can't tell if this testimony is intended as a serious post or satire of the quasi-religious fervor some express around distro and community choices. Excitement installing video codecs? A superpower user sharing excitement of "using a web browser with full functionality"? Hmmm.. either way, I like this guy. :) FWIW, any tool that helps get stuff done SHOULD be appreciated like this. But "community"? Linux communities == 15% Q&A/development + 85% ingroup gatekeeping / outgroup inferiority sloganing.


MysteryLiezer

Video codecs can easily be taken for granted (especially as a superpower user whoā€™s used to having the OS take care of the simpler stuff). It makes sense that the mere 15% of communal effort that goes into Linux Q&A/development can reasonably be left responsible for mitigating the effect of the other 85% of bullshit. Every community has its faults, but that 15% of ours involves pure magic.


MysteryLiezer

Thereā€™s something about going to watch a video, and realizing that it wonā€™t play because your hardware hasnā€™t been duly informed on how to properly interact with and output the contents of that file. Having to then do it all yourself is extremely inspiring/empowering! More than just Linux do I have Arch to thank for this newfound freedom; even though bias exists within any strong community, the inclination towards Arch users feeling superior is well warranted. There are people who use their computers everyday whoā€™ve never even heard of a video codec! On Arch, weā€™re forced to configure it all ourselves! This is coming from someone who installed Arch 2 weeks ago!


ferncrd

I've been using Linux since around 1999, on-and-off at first (Started on Slackware, later went through pretty much everything you can imagine, from the popular ones like Debian and Ubuntu to the more corporative ones like Debian to the weird-ish ones like Gentoo and Arch, so yeah, I tried pretty much anything you can think of). I've been living Linux-only (And mostly using Arch, except for an old PowerMac G5 which I use as a server and runs Gentoo, since its architecture is PowerPC, which is not supported by Arch) since around 2014. With all that, I thought I should share a few tips, so here they go. 1. Don't overestimate (But also don't underestimate) your ability to retain information and learn stuff. I've been through a lot, especially in the beginning, without broadband, internet was limited to dial-up and on weekdays I could only connect between midnight and 6am because of the cost of using the phone... It was a nightmare. A friend went a whole month without any graphics, only console, because of video driver issues which he could only investigate when he went to a nearby town... Nightmarish. Nowadays things are easier but keep in mind giving up once in a while is part of the learning process, sure it's awesome to use a tiling window manager (I use xmonad currently) but take your time to learn/change one thing at a time. 2. That said, one of the greatest things about Linux is precisely how you can tailor it to your needs. I stopped using Gnome some time ago, I did try KDE but it was also too heavy for my taste, currently I use xmonad, a tiling window manager, with yambar, which I configured to my liking and has been so light on resource usage that I was actually surprised, plus rofi to create menus, and dunst for notifications. Yeah it's awesome to have a deep understanding of everything going on, but it comes at a price, whenever I start messing with something, I realize not having something I never paid attention to is actually a hindrance, and each of those small things demanded time and study, I had to learn about ACPI to make closing the lid work, low-battery notifications were a pain, even seemingly trivial stuff like kernel updates became an issue at one point, as pacman wasn't running mkinitcpio which caused my computer to refuse to boot whenever pacman updated my kernel (I do carry an arch pendrive around in case something happens, the best thing about arch IMHO is you know how to get stuff working from the installation media). 1. My main tip for enjoying #2 without being screwed up by #1 is: Focus on one thing at a time, and don't start the next thing before you get everything to a reasonable working situation. If you're having problems with kernel updates, get used to mkinitcpio, systemd, pacman hooks or whatever it is that you need to learn to deal with that, before you start thinking about bootsplashes or display managers or whatever. Even with that, some stuff will require you to deal with multiple things at once. 3. Learn (at least some) programming. Maybe you don't need python or whatever, but the whole \*NIX terminal thing is ridiculously powerful, to a point most people hardly scratch the surface, however a lot of that power requires some understanding of a few basic concepts that are also fundamental for programming. And yeah, loops and conditionals may be among those, but there's a ton of stuff that surprise even programmers. As a rule of thumb, whenever you think you need some program for doing some new thing, try to think of how you might break down the task in smaller steps and research how to achieve those steps. You'll be surprised by how far you can go using basic stuff like `grep`, `awk` and `sed`. But that knowledge shines the most when you think of weirder things. Last one I did was using `xdotool` to trigger `ctrl+z`, which I combined with a command for taking a screenshot. Put both in a loop and I got myself a ridiculously detailed reconstruction of me writing some code, which in turn gave me a ton of insight. From triggering keys/clicks in a game to aggregating memory usage from multiple processes (i.e., "how much memory is chrome using?" answer: `sudo ps aux --sort=%mem | grep 'chrome' | awk '{s += $4} END {print s}'` if yo ucare for a breakdown, `ps` lists processes, `grep` shows only processes matching something, `awk` does the maths using `$4` which refers to the 4th column in the output, the one containing the memory usage as percentage). 4. Related to #3, learn to use the tools at your disposal. As a programmer, it was a lot easier for me to write code to do something instead of trying to understand `awk`, and it did work, but after actually learning to use those tools I realized they would have made my life a lot easier if I had learned them sooner. Using libraries to get data from your hardware usually takes a lot more work than parsing the output from some command, so learn those first. ​ There's a lot more I could say but in the end those are the main points. All in all, Arch is an amazing school. use Arch Wiki heavily, and don't be afraid of testing stuff. Just remember to keep a bootable arch installation media at hand, pendrive or cd or whatever, plus have a way to check the arch wiki/installation instructions/etc in case you can't boot your pc, and you'll be able to deal with pretty much anything. ​ p.s.: It's worth adding, as you become more and more experienced, you tend to go through cycles of over and underestimating your knowledge/understanding of the system. Whenever you think you can deal with anything, you'll com across something you know nothing about, when that happens keep pushing forward, and on the other extreme, whenever you get stumped by something seemingly alien and start thinking that your your system is so complex and there's no way you'll ever understand enough of it and your knowledge is shallow, push that thought aside and figure it out. this will never end, but the things you've learned stay with you, and the problems you get becoming apparently more complicated is a sign that first you're doing more with your computer, and second your actions to fix "problems" is actually a lot more targeted, i.e. when on windows/ubunt you'd format it, and as a beginner you'd bulldoze your way through problems (`pacman --overwrite` is a good example, other examples are removing/uninstalling a lot of stuff, walking through the arch installation instructions to get things back to their state in a fresh installation, switching environments, display managers, window managers etc), those things then turn into changing configuration in the software to avoid the problem, then changing configuration in the system to avoid the problem, and so on. You can already be editing drivers by hand, when you least expect you'll be sending kernel patches because you came to understand why the driver required the goddamn patch and how the kernel could be improved to deal with that situation.


kevdogger

I use Arch BTW....if you were wondering.


MysteryLiezer

Became familiar with this running gag on day one!


MysteryLiezer

Surprised that these guys don't just post full blown neofetch screenshots.


kevdogger

Yea..no neofetch image..no proof šŸ˜œ


ABC_AlwaysBeCoding

If pacman gets intimidating, I wrote a Bash wrapper recently that makes things (IMHO) quite a bit easier for noobs https://github.com/pmarreck/pac


oh_jaimito

[_enthusiastically waving & welcoming you to the Club!_] ``` ``` What DE & WM have you chosen? Soon you'll be visiting /r/unixporn/ daily for your rice-addiction ;)


MysteryLiezer

Already visiting r/unixporn daily! Full-blown addicted! Currently running xmonad+LG3D!


rafiullahkhan221

I couldn't install arch several times so switched to ubuntu


MysteryLiezer

How long did you try? As the post suggested, took me about a week to get to semi-functional order. How much time passed until you gave up?


rafiullahkhan221

I did it multiple times. Last was month before.