KrispeeIguana,
@KrispeeIguana@lemmy.ml avatar

Arch Linux with NVIDIA is definitely not great for newbies, especially for people who can’t keep up with the distro. If left unupdated for too long, your system may break. Even if you update every day, you could break something. You just never win with a rolling release distro like this. My only saving grace is that I run with an AMD gpu and so far, that thing has just worked.

My tip for anyone switching to Linux is to switch to AMD. Even if NVIDIA is better overall for performance and features, even if the last time you tried AMD on your windows system it was slow and a bit buggy, on Linux, AMD just works, without extra steps.

yianiris,
@yianiris@kafeneio.social avatar

How can a system that wasn't broken, without any changes/updates/upgrades ever break?

Its browser maybe will not be able to display some webpages correctly.

This myth/fear that arch breaks is based on ignorance and people who don't read output during an upgrade, it otherwise never happens.

AMD gpu vs Nvidia .. 1-0
Intel gpu boots without linux-firmware pkgs.
Nvidia, old and new, you get what you deserve.

@KrispeeIguana @Pantherina

KrispeeIguana,
@KrispeeIguana@lemmy.ml avatar

My point is less that leaving Arch alone breaks things and more that updating after a really long time can break something. It also kinda defeats the point of using a rolling release distro. I can see how you thought i was spreading misinformation though. My bad for poor wording.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

For nvidia use ublue. Its immutable so it will always work. If not, roll back

zcj,

Why can’t everyone just agree that tumbleweed is the best distro already?

yum13241,

Because the amount of software it has available can’t hold a candle to arch. It’s not bad though, and if arch disappeared I’d switch to Tumbleweed.

I use EndeavorOS btw

furycd001,
@furycd001@lemmy.ml avatar

I’ve only ever had two problems with Arch based systems…

  1. Nvidia drivers…
  2. Installing poorly create aur packages…
Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

For nvidia I cant recommend anything but ubluw

mypasswordistaco,
@mypasswordistaco@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I don’t see the problem

Sanyanov,

Arch is easy to install; it’s a headache to manage.

If you want a stable Arch, you need to check the updates and take very granular control over packages and versioning.

While some nerds may like tinkering with their system in all those ways, for regular user Arch is simply too much effort to maintain.

UnfortunateShort,

It is actually very easy:

  1. You setup auto-snapshots (almost trivial)
  2. You update
  3. Evaluate
    3.1) Repeat goto 2
    3.2) Rollback goto 2

The only problem here is that snapshots (and btrfs for that matter) are not the default behaviour. I would really appreciate Endeavour having this as the default setup. It is very likely what you’d want.

Sanyanov,

True, but if snapshots turn from first line of catastrophe response to a regular tool, this is not a good experience.

Also I believe Garuda has enabled snapshots and btrfs by default.

UnfortunateShort,

Yes, Garuda does, even with bootable snapshots, but it’s otherwise not as clean as Endeavour. As far as I can tell, mkinitcpio/GRUB2 or their setup thereof causes more problems than it solves. My system was bricked multiple times until I switched to a dracut/systemd-boot setup, which works flawlessly since quite a while.

As for the user experience, there are 0 distros you should perform a (major) upgrade on without taking a snapshot first. I had broken systems after apt upgrade. From my point of view rolling vs versioned release are basically occasional mild vs scheduled huge headaches.

corship,
Sanyanov,

Useful, but still it kinda makes you read through all the update news, which is…why?

I’d like to just hit update and not bother.

corship,

Then you’re on your own. What the duck 🦆 do you expect to happen if you can’t even invest the 10sec to skim over a message (in the few events that there even is one) to see if it affects you and any manual intervention is required.

Sanyanov,

A fully functional system, just like any other normal OS?

You hit update - boom - you get one, seamlessly, with no breakages and no other user interaction. And that’s how it works pretty much everywhere - except, you know, Arch.

If you’re fine with it - that’s fine, go ahead and tinker all you like. But don’t expect others to have the same priorities.

corship,

Yeah just like the FORCED Microsoft updates that broke like hundreds of businesses?

notebookcheck.net/Microsoft-reimburses-travel-age…

Dude go touch some grass

Sanyanov, (edited )

Man that’s news from 2016, like, it’s a bit rare occasion, y’know. You’re way more likely to get borked by Arch even after reading all the instructions, and it did happen numerous times.

Touching grass is what I do when you take steps to intervene in your system to make an update work.

I see you are an Arch maximalist, but that goes beyond reason. Even Arch proponents are normally not as aggressive on the topic, and admit Arch is too complicated in that regard.

corship,

You’re just going to shift goalposts every time I’ll post something.

Not recent enough. Not enough cases. That’s different.

And lastly you’ll just claim I do it because I’m an arch maximalist, despite not knowing anything about me :)

radioactiveradio,

Is there an easier way to install Arch? I know there’s Archinstall but my dumbass messed that up somehow.

hex,

I used endeavourOS and it was super straightforward

g7s,

When you boot up the arch iso, you can use a script called arch-install

Bene7rddso,

I know there’s Archinstall but my dumbass messed that up somehow.

CalicoJack,

EndeavourOS is it. It’s basically a better version of archinstall, especially if you’re planning to install a DE.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

EndeavorOS or other. Artix maybe? But never used any of those

cows_are_underrated,
@cows_are_underrated@feddit.de avatar

Archintstall sometimes produces problems(at least I had problems with it). Make sure that you have the current iso version of arch on your stick and try again.

radioactiveradio,

The problem I was facing was manually creating partitions. Should I use Gparted to make them first and then use archinstall, or does it not work with manual partitions?

cows_are_underrated,
@cows_are_underrated@feddit.de avatar

It should work with both ways. First time I did them with archinstall(but didn’t like that it created a separate partition for my home directory). Second time I manually partitioned my drive and then let archintstall use that.

gamma,
@gamma@programming.dev avatar

If you use EndeavourOS, know that you shouldn’t ask for support on the Arch forums, its a policy they have.

datendefekt,
@datendefekt@lemmy.ml avatar

I’d just recommend Fedora.

I use Fedora BTW.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Same. Kinoite-main from ublue, works out of the box

jeremyparker,

Oh you mean the IBM Enterprise Linux upstream? Is that ok to use on a desktop computer?

(I’m just kidding, Fedora’s great.)

iAvicenna,

Well there is always Scientific Linux if arch doesn’t quite cut it

TangledHyphae, (edited )

So if someone starts using EndeavorOS daily, can they claim to be an arch user? Edit: I’m now wiping my laptop clean and using it as my daily driver from now on. This is probably my first experience with Plasma, and I am loving it way more than gnome so far.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Yup my best Plasma experience was on Manjaro, Arch based KDE is just good. But actually modern KDE at all is just good, so no Kubuntu or damn MXLinux XD

TangledHyphae,

Oh my God the more I use it the more amazing it is already. The customization in the Plasma appearance settings is exactly what I’ve missed this whole time. I feel like I’ve wasted all these years now. Better late than never I s’pose.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Hahahaha. I tried out Mint once, crashed randomly so no Mint. Then Manjaro and it was great but said to be shady. So MX Linux which was also great but software was outdated. Then KDENeon and Kubuntu, broke both, then Fedora KDE, broke that too.

Now I am on Fedora Kinoite, KDE is all user folders so everything is still customizable.

You may want to disable file indexing as its really weird and crashy. For security also CUPS and bluetooth, no GUI switches poorly

TangledHyphae,

I’ve done a lot of bluetooth work and know how terrible it is as a protocol, but do you see any issues with only using it for a speaker/earphone, assuming no other devices even within a valid proximity of the transceiver? If nothing can hijack or manipulate or listen to the session, is it that insecure? I disable it and use wired earbuds when I’m mobile for that reason.

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

You can be tracked as you glow like a flashlight in the dark. But its not insecure I guess, but dont use it for keyboard to be sure.

TangledHyphae,

I’m a ham radio guy, so I’m licensed by the FCC to transmit 1500 watts in the ham bands. Talk about a flashlight glowing. It’s on my todo list to make a good antenna for directional finding of signals.

g7s,

Yeah, but don’t tell other arch users you are using EndavorOS… jk!

corship,

Nvidia?

More like:

Nie-wieder!

Uiop,

ha! german…

g7s,

Guter

cows_are_underrated,
@cows_are_underrated@feddit.de avatar

AMD beste.

Laborer2125,

I’ve used Ubuntu for many years, it is a good start for beginners. Although my new recommendations is Mint.

BigTrout75,

Bah ha ha! All the main distros are amazing these days. You really can’t go wrong with most. And if one doesn’t work, just pick another of the top 5.

baggins,

Install Debian. Everything is based on it.

shapis,
@shapis@lemmy.ml avatar

It’s a hard sell explaining to new people that they will have software up to a couple years out of date.

skqweezy,

Yet they scream when their 6 months old un-updated windows install wants then to update

shapis,
@shapis@lemmy.ml avatar

Yet they scream when their 6 months old un-updated windows install wants then to update

The problem isn’t the OS being out of date I wouldn’t think, it’s the applications they actually use. Flatpaks are kind of a solution but not really.

skqweezy,

Yeah, I just wanted to say that if anyone says “this distro is a bit older but it’s really stable and good for use” it’s scaring away people without them even needing it updated since they’re used to getting told by Microsoft that “you have to to update to the newest”

The point about updating apps is also useless to them, as long as it works they will use it, my dad used windows xp with office 2003 until 2021 when the computer finally died, I told him countless times to update to a newer os but he refused every single time

iegod,

That may be true for some users but there are those in decent quality looking for a more technical experience. Development comes to mind; you probably should use the latest versions in some cases.

skqweezy,

Yeah, but developers probably already know what is Linux, either from them learning about it at school or just by other developers

But developers probably already know something about their os, they don’t just use what they get on a computer or a laptop, most of us probably messed with some deep settings of whatever system we use, i. e. something that a regular user won’t do

Sanyanov,

My brother is a Linux first-timer, and he specifically asked me to install Debian after I explained that it’s stability-focused, but as such sacrifices functional updates and is only globally updated once every two years.

Some people need latest and greatest (i.e. here’s your Arch), some need stability over everything (i.e. here’s your Debian), some don’t need extremes and strike a balance somewhere in between (i.e. everything else).

I use Manjaro (Arch-based) on main PC and Debian on a work laptop. Main PC should better enjoy all the benefits of all things new (while standing a week or two behind bleeding-edge to not cut itself, which is Manjaro’s selling point) while work laptop is mission critical and can work perfectly fine with what Debian has to offer, so, Debian it is.

uis,
@uis@lemmy.world avatar
Grant_M,
@Grant_M@lemmy.ca avatar

Mint BTW

Da_Boom,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

Bruh, if you’re going to insist on someone installing arch, at least sit by their side and walk them through it.

Having installed arch multiple times before, I can get a base system with networking and desktop environment up in half a day to a day depending on which DE.

LordKitsuna,

Or, just use Endeavor OS and be done with it. It uses the Upstream repositories, the only thing in their customer repositories are some desktop wallpapers and a theme so you can safely remove it without breaking anything. It’s a great way to get a base system in a known good configuration up quickly and from there the arch Wiki can help you tweak things to your desire it’s a much better way to learn than just throwing someone into the deep end of the pool

Pantherina,
@Pantherina@feddit.de avatar

Is that… fast? Haha but yes of course it helps

Da_Boom,
@Da_Boom@iusearchlinux.fyi avatar

I’m not saying it’s particularly fast, but having someone who knows what they are doing drastically reduces the time.

I could probably make it quicker if I set up a bunch of scripts for initial installation.

That said the whole point of arch is DIY, lightweight - people forget the kinda of people arch is for, then complain about how long it takes to install. If you complain about install times, then the distro is not for you. (For more about the point of arch, see the arch way principles.design/examples/the-arch-way)

But it can be a great platform for learning about the inner workings of your typical Linux system, and that’s why it’s great. If you’re willing to learn and look things up it can be the best option.

If you want it here and now with no fuss ,it’s the third worst system to use- followed by Gentoo and lastly, LFS.

And heck once it’s installed you can be as pedantic or as lazy as you want - my main system has had the same install of arch for multiple years - it’s a mess and I havent really maintained it well, I just fix it when it breaks and use it like a regular system. It’s just the set up process that takes the most effort.

Scary_le_Poo,
@Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org avatar

I can have windows up in 15 minutes

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