I see your point about spending the time in there....but, tell me you don't have kids, a job, own a house that needs maintenance and go to school without actually telling me. In my 20's that shit was cool man, spending time troubleshooting and feeling amazing when shit finally worked. Now I just need it to work. Sometimes we just don't have the time. When I have my 40 minutes of peace at the end of the day, I just want to use my machine, not spend time working/learning.... I just did that for 15 hours today.
but... are you still using linux? Might you use Manjaro or Endeavor (or Archman... whatev)? Maybe this isn't you, but, after Win95, 98, 2000, XP, 7, 8, 10.... The people who used this excuse to stick with Windows usually had to learn a new operating system despite themselves. I won't tell you what happened to the poor bastards who tried to stick to DOS! Maybe you were just talking about Arch specifically, but I've heard the same reasoning about Windows again and again, and it makes me skeptical.
You only need to configure everything once and then never worry about it again. That's what I did two years ago and I still use the exact same setup today. The only thing I changed since then was my nvim config to use NvChad
I was fortunate enough to be up for a challenge when I decided to switch to Linux, so I chose Arch as my first distro ever, and it turned out to be an awesome experience. Even though I knew next to nothing about Linux or anything related, I started learning bits and pieces from the wiki and configuration videos on RUclips. Surprisingly, I picked up things relatively quickly, and that was about 13 months ago. It sparked a deep interest not just in Linux but also in IT in general, coding, scripting, and many other aspects. It was truly a blessing that came at the perfect time for me, and now I find myself getting quite proficient in coding. I'm eager to continue improving until I can confidently apply for a real job in the IT field when my skills are ready. So, Arch has given me so much, and I can't express enough how grateful I am for this distro. That's why I personally recommend Arch to anyone considering switching to Linux or anyone looking to learn new things!
You could try and apply for a classical support job, they don't pay the big IT bucks, but if you have decent knowledge of Windows (and Office), know how to find a solution in the web, and are not afraid to learn, then it is the best you can do to enter the field and (l)earn on the job. Since you have some knowledge on Linux systems (which is rare if you consider the fact that 2% of all gamers on steam have any Linux system running, and most Windows users are terminally afraid of the terminal), getting into server related stuff is going to be easy for you, since it just the same -gui and more detailed knowledge on how to configure.
I would've started with arch but you see the computer i wanted to test out linux on is 16 years old and runs just a tad bit faster than a centipede. So lubuntu it was!
Finna do the same here! Wish me the best on making it work on my laptop and main gaming PC! Arch rlly seems like an awesome distro where it allows me to learn how OS works
I think macos is a highly misunderstood OS as people think about it by seeing how most of the users use it, not how you can use it. I barely use gui applications, I used brew at the beginning as the package manager now switching to nix. I learned to use the terminal fluently because of macos (if I used linux instead it would be the same) and it made me love unix/linux systems. Now I feels like home in every linux distro thanks to macos having a proper terminal and unix file system unlike windows.
I distro-hopped from PopOS to Ubuntu to Manjaro in the first 2 weeks of using Linux. Then after about 2 years, I hopped to Arch, installing it the "hard" way, even though the installer was already available. I've been using it for over a year now, and it's hands down the best. It goes well with my minimalist mentality. Arch users rise up... and sudo pacman your hourly update!
Honestly it fits well with engineering mindset where you are curious how everything works and are willing to debug and problem solve, def not for common folk.
As far as distro hopping goes, I am proud of maintaining stability for over 5 years now, as I have resisted the temptation to frequently switch between Linux distributions. My primary daily driver is Linux Mint Cinnamon edition, which I find to be reliable and well-suited for my needs. However, I must confess that I still enjoy tinkering and experimenting with various Linux distros in VirtualBox. It allows me to satisfy my curiosity and explore new features without compromising the stability of my main system. For my productive work environment, I stick with Linux Mint, where I've implemented some user-level customizations to enhance my workflow and overall efficiency. This setup ensures that I have a consistent and dependable experience for my essential tasks while also indulging in the joy of discovering and testing other distros in a controlled environment.
I personally found myself having problems using Arch and anything Debian-based personally. I've been using Nobara lately, because that's essentially Fedora with a ton of gaming, media consumption, laptop GPU, and peripheral tweaks done for you. Plus being able to just install RPM packages and to use the copr for user repositories without having to compile anything is really nice.
Same. Linux Mint is the best "just works" distro out there. I love it since everything works, every program I could ever want will have a .deb file ready to go, nothing breaks, it's all a great time. I keep the hopping contained to my QEMU-KVM virt machines.
Relatable, Linux Mint is stable as hell (from what I experienced). Worked better for me than Ubuntu. Currently using the Debian Edition, has some drawbacks on the installer side and additional drivers, but especially because I have used Arch before, this was no challenge. Really a great distro
I first tried Linux around 3-4 years ago - Mutahar made a video about Manjaro and I thought "why not?". There were just so many issues that I couldn't even begin to try and fix myself/troubleshoot as I barely understood the system, but I liked pacman package manager - the commands were quite simple. A week later I tried Linux Mint due to those issues, thinking a different distro would be better but I didn't vibe with it, and switched back to windows for like a year. Then I had the itch again and decided to go with arch, since that's what one of my friends was using and while the first install was painful (6 hours total, had to restart 3 times due to forgetting to run grub install and not knowing that I could just chroot), it felt really good to have a working xfce system, making it look cool and most importantly, understanding what's installed. Since then I distro hopped a couple of times to gentoo, void, mint, nix, but I always returned to arch due to package management, not having to make compromises or just simply due to familiarity.
Yup, when I first started with Arch it took weeks to get everything running smoothly, that was a stressful if rewarding learning experience as a newbie. Had another hump with a first Wayland based installation on new hardware recently. But in the intervening years? Must have gained thousands of hours of productivity havinng vim and a wm dialed in exactly how I wanted it. No regrets.
My (and many others') motto as of recent has been "the best software (distro) is the one that helps you get done what you need to get done", a productivity mindset. For many, that is arch! I really liked arch back when I ran it. Back when I customized my window manager setup like crazy to be a clean as humanly possible. But, after all that, I found that I spent a lot of time worrying about my distro and not the work I needed to get done on it. Since then, I have switched back to Windows on my desktop, and put Debian (my beloved) on my laptop, and my productivity has increased. Debian is boring, yes, but with most of my work being done on a browser anyways, the fact that I don't really need to worry about updating and most software is available in the stable repos means when I open my laptop lid the first thing I do is my work, not updates or customization (I run a pretty basic but nicely themed MATE desktop) or anything else. Very little housekeeping. But again, use the tools that help YOU get done what YOU need to get done!
I kinda agree with you. For me that's still arch. Sure at the beginning it's slower since you need to get used to the tools and tweak them, but in the end it causes me to actually know my tools. But that's not really why I use it. I use it because it's simply fun tinkering. Not everything has to be about productivity and work. You also need some time to come down. If you don't like tinkering, don't use arch. If it's your goal to be more productive, don't use Arch. For me personally that's simply a side effect of using arch and not the reason
@@zekiz774 I used to be a tinkerer, and many like you still are. All depends on what a computer is to you. For me, it’s become a means to an end less than a hobby. It’s what it can do that interests me. The rest is for comp engineers and software developers. Having fun with it is important tho!
@@_moosh Not really for comp engineers either tbh, at least as far as personal OS goes. There are some arch fanatics, but everyone just uses Windows as their main OS. The ones who care about foss and want most out of their OS (the minority) just use mainstream distros like Ubuntu or Fedora. I've never actually cared enough to fully switch to Linux on my desktop (running Debian on my laptop though, which is only used for work) especially since there's now Windows subsystem for Linux, so I don't have a good reason to do it. Even for Unix classes at university we would just connect to a uni network from home and use putty+xming to use remote desktops. I do like xfce more than windows gui, but not enough to justify the hassle of migrating. And I mean, yeah, it's really good being able to use tools like awk and to make bash scripts for everyday stuff, like renaming files and so on, but powershell is pretty powerful nowadays, and you can just install all those Unix tools on Windows anyway, plus as mentioned there's WSL. Basically every Unix tool is also on Windows, and we have package managers too, so it's not bad, and I'm used to it, so I don't bother with Linux, I tried to but gave up. Sysadmins and ppl who work on servers also would never use arch, but rather ubuntu or debian, redhat is also popular in enterprise uses. Arch is only for hobbyists, which isn't bad, but it's not suited for professional use.
I enjoy Arch too but people with this take are largely ignorant as they are already at the end destination. That is to say, they have the experience to understand what terminal, file manager, window manager etc they prefer, and so they can do it themselves and curate their own experience. New users don't have this knowledge or exposure, and so they need to go through the journey of using different distros which have different out of the box experiences with whatever desktop environment, window manager, and apps they use. Saying Arch is the easiest distro within the first minute of a video is such a misrepresentation. Yes it is the best, but you need to progress through the steps to understand why. A project like Arco understands this perfectly with step one being a full iso, step two choosing a different desktop environment, step three trying a standalone window manager, step four building an iso and picking specifically what you want.
From my experience, I learned how Linux works just by using Arch. This is because when something doesn't work, you need to investigate and learn why this is happening. Arch is mainly for users who are willing to take the time and effort in learning and don't be frustrated when not an easy solution is around the corner. Maybe you are more into having a distro that just works and don't want or have the time to learn and fix it for yourself.
@@williamalexanderbernalgonz6536 The wonderful thing about Arch is that they expect you to go through this, so documentation is thorough. Such that they recommend checking the recent news on their site even before doing kernel updates and stuff. Not sure if other distros do this, but they for sure don't emphasize it
This is why I love EndeavourOS. Just set up Arch the easy way with none of the Manjaro/Garuda downsides, and it even has some installers built into the welcome screen for someone starting out.
I switched away from Arch because I was tired of packages breaking on updates. By breaking I don't necessarily mean something like an unbootable system (which happened once too, thanks GRUB), but issues that would make a certain program behave incorrectly or a library update that would tank gaming performance/break compatibility with some other program. In the end I found that Gentoo is the perfect distro for me. It is a rolling release just like Arch but it doesn't update nearly as often and there is a greater focus on testing and stability. And for the packages that I want to be as up to date as possible like the graphics drivers, I can choose to have the "testing" (or even the git equivalent on the AUR) branches of these packages while still having the rest of my system still on the "stable" branch. And choosing compile flags both on the system packages and on the kernel also comes in handy from time to time ;) Overall I do agree that Arch is one of the best distros tho, it is like a "just works" distro for the power user.
I was running Arch for awhile but eventually all my tinkering left me with several desktop environments, multiple experimental graphics drivers, custom arch repositories, multiple ghc versions, and some broken aur packages that were difficult to uninstall. A few updates broke xmonad for me, as well as several critical programs for getting my work done. Uninstalling programs left the system in a weird state too. I decided I wanted to start fresh and keep it fresh, so I switched to NixOS unstable. It's got more packages available than even the AUR, it's still a rolling distro so everythings always up to date, and any time you make a configuration change it's like having a clean install. Also, if there's a system breaking issue you can always roll back to a previous generation. I then took my configuration.nix file and put it in a git repo, now my desktop, personal laptop, and work laptop all run the same OS with the same base programs and config. It's had a pretty big learning curve for me, but the stability, reproducability, and peace of mind was worth it.
I had similar thoughts until I tried Gentoo two years ago. It's more stable and doesn't feel like DIY-mess. It may sound counter intuitive but Gentoo looks like more thoroughly developed system. Package dependencies make more sense and everything works as a whole. At the same time you have more granular control over things you need. I suggest you to try and use it for a while.
@@finoderi so? Every system has an automated way to build a package. I've only ever used Ubuntu LTS forks for the last decades for a simple reason: semiconductor manufacturer tooling by Ti, Altera, Xilinx and whomever else is specified either for RHEL/CentOS or for Ubuntu LTS. No other options. And still you avoid. Compiling Chromium or Firefox is bound to take half a day. Imagine compiling KDE. I don't want to have to dedicate computational power to that every week when I could be using the system instead.
@@SianaGearz On my Ryzen 3600 with 32 Gb RAM Firefox compiles in just 21 minutes and LibreOffice - in about 35 minutes. Never tried to build anything Chromium-based though. I use brave-bin package from an overlay. Anything else compiles in minutes as well. gcc is an exception but it updates semi-annually. KDE updates usually take about half an hour. Building time is not a problem on a modern PC.
@@finoderi good to know, thanks. I have a comparable pc (Ryzen 5500, 32GB.) What about storage consumption for sources and libs and things, and scratch space for builds? And also while building Firefox doesn't take too long, downloading it takes no time at all... Up to some time ago I worked on a 1 megaloc c++ application but on systems like Phenom 2 x6, i5-3570 that took more than an hour to build. I haven't built it on this PC yet. But looking at say Chromium codebase fills me with dread, it's the scope of an operating system and then some.
As a Arch Linux user I agree. I also love how Arch Linux just works especially for programming and it keeps getting updates. Better than Windows, Debian, and Ubuntu. Great video by the way thank you. Also love the video about Java Script because I really hate Java Script especially when the web becomes bloated especially on a slow Wi-Fi so as a Software Engineer and Web Developer your channel is so underrated we need more devs to explain why simplicity is better than bloated software.😊😊😊😊😊😊🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
Hi Eric, I used Arch Linux for the past couple of months and actually really liked the DIY-like approach. It taught me how computer-illiterate (and still am to some extent) by tinkering around in the terminal and manually setting up every facet of a computer I used to take for granted. What gets me, is that whenever I have to install Arch onto a system with different hardware (say an NVMe with different partitioning or doing partitioning at all), I've run into issues that sink my time into the details of the system rather than my work. It screwed up a lot of my workflow pandering around with installing Arch on my main machine so I went with OpenSUSE for an out-of-the-box solution. I definitely have an appreciation for Arch Linux, but my brain is absolutely fried from the countless acronyms and commands. Not quitting Linux (Molecular simulation programs are annoying to configure on a Windows system, hence why I switched), but I completely agree that Linux isn't for everyone. The tiling manager is much better on Arch, and I even had a Vim/Zathura VimTeX compiler that worked really well. Anyways, keep up the videos, nice commentary as always.
In my opinion the best way to use Arch Linux for work is from a fast external SSD. Saves you from ever having to reinstall on any PC / laptop you might be using in the future. I agree that installing Arch Linux on a new system without such a solution can be a time sink, especially if you care about encryption.
If you can figure it all out, Arch is a seamless experience and it really does get out of your way. Some hardware may be a little extra work, but getting over the hump is well worth it.
Totally agree. I've used Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Tumbleweed, Fedora, Manjaro and now I'm on Arch Linux. I've installed the distros on the same laptop, so I can make a comparison. Arch, along with Fedora, is the most stable distro, so I don't believe what is said about Arch's alleged “instability”. Debian-based distros are often outdated and server-oriented, not desktop-oriented. Fedora works great and I like it very much, but its main function is to be the upstream of RHEL, not a distro for desktop users, and also I had to tolerate outdated programs when any Windows PC could install the latest version. Tumbleweed is bloated and, like Fedora, seems to me mostly a distro for testing programs to be used elsewhere. Manjaro is by no means comparable with Arch. In conclusion: Arch Linux is the best solution in a GNU/Linux environment. And btw, thanks to Arch I can do data analysis without the outdated Anaconda distribution.
Idk what makes you tell that fedora is not for desktop users... Been using it for years actually, as my main distro (school, gaming, programming...) Could you elaborate?
@@augustinvangeebergen3098 In the past I used Fedora for a long time too, and I liked it; however, I'll let Red Hat elaborate. In the article "What's the difference between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux?", published in its website, the company states: «The Fedora project is the upstream, community distro of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat is the project’s primary sponsor, but thousands of independent developers also contribute to the Fedora project. Each of these contributors, including Red Hat, bring their own new ideas to be tested and debated for inclusion by the larger community into Fedora Linux. This also makes Fedora an ideal place for Red Hat to put features through its own distinct set of tests and quality assurance processes, and those features eventually get incorporated into a version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux». This is all perfectly legitimate, but I don't want to use, in my personal laptop, a distro that, at least in part, is used to test software that will later be used by the project’s primary sponsor for its goals. I need a distro that is aimed at the concrete and specific end user, and from this point of view too, Arch Linux shines; however, as the Arch Linux FAQs state, «You may not want to use Arch, if [...] you are happy with your current OS». So, if you like Fedora, don't change it! Have a great day.
I'm interested to understand what you mean by " can do data analysis without the outdated Anaconda distribution". I'm an analyst using Arch but haven't explored this possibility yet.
@@simhz2221 In the past I used Python through Anaconda but 1) I got several issues and 2) I was forced to use less updated software than the Arch repos' packages. So, I got rid of Anaconda, I activated virtual environments and now I use software from the official Arch repos and, when needed, I use pip. No more issues and I can use the latest version of the software.
arch linux is easier to download than ubuntu, linux mint, and a bunch of other popular distros in my experience, the only distro i like more is kali linux
I used Manjaro for a year and a half. And I've had multiple occasions when I thought to myself, "god damnit I hope I had Arch". Whether it was because an AUR dependency was not yet updated in Manjaro's repos, or because a particular crash-inducing kwin bug kept my desktop unstable for a month. I finally had enough in early 2023 and switched to EndeavourOS (which is basically just Arch), and never once up to this point have I thought, "man I hope I still have Manjaro". So yeah. The distros I use now are RHEL (for servers), Fedora (for our CI environments), Alpine (for containers), and EndeavourOS (for daily drivers). Alongside Debian (which is a valid alternative to RHEL, depending on preference and external constraints), these are the distros I am happy to recommend to people. Manjaro belongs in the dumpster.
Gentoo Linux for me is time consuming when compiling. The only package that is not compiled on my system is Firefox. Gentoo’s documentation is super nice. As a gentoo user, I see LFS Users as the crazy ones
LFS “user” here It’s a toy, plain and simple. The “distro” VERY quickly becomes unusable if you are not incredibly Vigilant about maintenance. Like maintenance on arch or other rolling release distributions is one thing, but on LFS it’s hell. (That being said by the time you have LFS installed assuming you understood what you were doing, you can nearly always fix it c:)
I am a programer and my experience on arch hasnt been that good. I remember trying to install tensorflow or torch on arch, it wouldnt install cause arch had python 3.12.4 which was not supported by tensorflow or torch at that time. It was so annoying. Whereas in debian shit just worked. I had a stable python version and any other programing language for that matter. Stuff from nginx to virtual machines to docker containers ran smoothly and flawlessly. So for me debian is my go to choice when i want to learn something and not worry about support and stability
I started on endeavorOS to learn Linux. Worked like a dream. Loved the AUR using Yay and the rolling releases updates. I never understood why people called it hard.
I've used arch before, installing software from the aur is trivial when it works, but sometimes a build fails then you have to trouble shoot the problem, which can be a real headache, and arch isn't the only rolling release distro out there.
I´m doing the opposite, coming from Arch to Ubuntu, I'm having a lot of troubles with my Fstab on Arch, because when I use Windows or other distro some days or week, when I go back to the Arch partition, the Fstab doesn´t let the Arch boot, because of UIID ids some weird bug with my motherboard. That was really annoying
I was struggling to find the words to express my love for Arch but yours are a perfect fit for me. Same experience here. I use a different window manager but the result is the same!
Arch is good and I consider Arch and Debian to be the main useful distros that most people should use depending on their use-case but personally I prefer Void as it's more clean and minimal and it's a very up-to-date rolling release but not as bleeding edge as Arch and doesn't have the Arch bloat.
Or you could do as I do and shill Artix while using a riced dwl on it for true minimalism without soystemd and ex-11. Edit: in all seriousness it's great that you use Arch, and I hope you may continue in your Linux journey well. My views on the aur, the wiki, and the bleeding-edge nature of Arch are similar to yours. God bless.
i tried so many distros starting with arch. i found it too difficult at first so moved on to mint, fedora, nobara, debian and probably more until i landed up trying arch again and finding it actually let me do what i wanted to do making it actually easier than the other distros
I love arch but unfortunately I still have to use dual bot because I work with music production and Linux lacks tons of plugins, but I do everything else on arch, and I've been using the same config for almost 10 years.
I’ve been using the Arch wiki long before I even considered trying Arch. It’s very well-written and at least partially applicable to most distros out there.
I just installed Arch for the first time ever (which I now use btw) - I am using it with KDE as I am not the best with TWM and remembering kb shortcuts yet but I have already noticed that it feels faster than Ubuntu, Fedora etc. It feels really, really good. I am using x11 as Wayland had huge windows for some reason and I cba with that. All good so far!
People who have other hobbies and interests going on in their lives, which is almost everyone on the planet, cannot not be bothered learning any of that shit. Nor should they. Hence, point and click focused OSes that work out of the box are of far more benefit to them than Arch will ever be.
As much as I love Ableton and unlocking Xbox achievements for games on the PC, I haven't truly "liked" Windows since Windows 7. It was simple, simple enough. Windows 10 and 11 don't even feel like operating systems. My current Windows 11 install is still from my original Windows 7 install from a long time ago, which was upgraded to Win10 in 2018 and finally 11 in 2022, so recently when I did a fresh install of Windows 11 for the first time in my life on my girlfriend's PC, I got to see just how awful Windows became. Her install of Windows 11 Pro (which I acquired separately, did not come with her PC) had SO much garbage pinned to the start menu, and even after turning off all the check boxes for weird features it asks you to enable during the install, it was automatically backing up her files to ONEDRIVE? The moment I figure out how to get Ableton (with low latency driver) or my Waves plugins working on Arch, I don't need Windows anymore.
You did not mention the fact that sometimes stability is a factor and this is where Debian comes in. Debian is not bleeding edge like Arch, but often with good reason. Running a piece of software that requires a certain library version? Well that sucks for you because Arch is bleeding edge. On Debian they tend to spend more time to really be sure no packages are broken with updates. For a server this is kind of important. Life did improve though with Docker.
But does it really suck? I mean, the opposite could be said for debian if you need a newer version of a package than what debian has installed. Need a newer version for a package? too bad. Debian is stable.. aka old software. Maybe you can use the software when Debian upgrades in 2 years, but that's 2 years of waiting. The only distro that somewhat seems to be tackling this issue is NixOS, but I personally didn't like NixOS. I personally rather deal with flatpaks or dockers than use NixOS.
Arch linux is truely the only distro I've really used. Ive tried stuff like ubuntu and manjaro, but it was always on other machines or as a dual boot to try out. One day I decided, "lets just wipe everything and install Arch on my main machine" (after a bit of research of course). If im going to use linux, i want to actually learn it
I’ve had to fight Arch for the same reason I’ve had to fight every other distro out there: dependencies. You’re either installing ALL of the dependencies, or you’re installing every package manually. There is no middle ground. Drives me crazy sometimes.
I took the plunge yesterday and partitioned some space off for Arch on my Acer laptop, running windows 10. I've used Linux since I was a kid, and remember my dad's frustrations getting things going prior to properly fast high speed internet, and mobile devices you can refer to. He had to take notes on paper. I managed to set it up with help of my phone, in that it acted like a wired connection, and I could also refer to stuff when I needed. I like that it doesn't hold your hand and you have to customize it, but also that every step I had to take or modify worked, or worked with some research. My brain hurts, but it's been fun so far. Running i3-wm right now, but the Hyprland and eDEX UIs look really cool, too, and it cuts down on the bloat
Maybe I'm weird, but I compile as much from source as I can. Of course, I also like to modify programs on occasion because sometimes they lack features or have features that annoy me.
I pretty much have the same sentiments that you had in your video. Yes, there is a "time sink" and a learning curve, initially - but one thing so great about Arch is that it's build on "simplicity". The AUR would not be as great as it is, if it wasn't for how simple the PKGBUILD system is (not to mention, how simple the Arch package format is, as a whole). I currently have an Arch install on a Thinkpad X220 that has been going for 8 years, an install on a Thinkpad T480 that has been going for 5 years, and my main desktop has an Arch install running for 3 years (with no breakage or annoyances with it). Yes, learning it and getting it up and going can be a pain and take time, when you're new to it, but with how reliable my systems have been ++ while being super up-to-date, I can't really let go of Arch anymore 😅 this is THE Linux distro for me (at least, on personal machines). The time sink/learning-curve is only at the beginning, after that- you can install whatever you want almost without thinking about availability, dependencies, or compatibility (unlike what you get in fixed released distros). It saves you a lot of time, in the long run… it also saves you from a lot of "reinstalls to fix things".
I think I mostly agree with you in this. I don't use arch, I use fedora i3. I think that learning the i3wm, plus now configuring my desktop with polybar and rofi was an amazing experience, as it is learning nvim. Now I don't really have the need to change at all, because this works for me. You actually convinced me that arch is not that bad as they make it to sound. What actually scares me is if something breaks, but I don't think that's a real problem most of the time.
I hope so much before arch then I found arch was so much more stable and easy to fix ubuntu I don’t have problem with it but is not compatible not even with basic environment is not that customizable and basic programs that don’t want to install and had to do so much extra to make things run and spend more time fixing it than getting what I log in to do then my dad was like had you try arch I was like I use black arch a few times he told me to just try vanilla arch never went back again I went from ubuntu to mint to parrot even kenopi at one point then arch was just so much easier to fix I don’t find things don’t break often and when they do the solution is pretty easy is the only os I’ve tried that I haven’t had to reinstall is so flexible and customizable you have so much freedom on it the os bends your will lmao literly reminds me of this meme
I treat my Arch install like a project car in my garage. With 'simple' tools (Helix) I wrote my bar myself and am looking to expand into my own WM in a few months, but when its time to go to work I hop in my Corolla (Ubuntu) and head to the office (VSCode).
Hey! You finally gave Hyprland a shot! I am a Hyprland user too! And, I figured out that the animation configuration is as easy as making a 3D Bezier curve! So, yeah! Pretty awesome Wayland compositor! I also like Wayland, because all the cool programs are on there! Like, on Xorg you have Dunst, which is lazy at best, but on Wayland you have SwayNC, which is a notification daemon with full protocol support, and a notification tray with a do not disturb toggle built in! And not to mention that everything on Wayland compositors uses CSS, which is super powerful!
I like Hyprland a lot, I'll probably do a video on it later. Only thing I don't like is my battery life dropped a lot after switching for some reason. Trying out all the cool new tools available was one of the best parts.
@@EricMurphyxyz A new Hyprland update just dropped like an hour ago btw. According to the changelogs: "The biggest performance update in Hyprland's history! CPU idle reduced by half. GPU usage reduced around 2-4 times."
I was in the same boat for a while. Initially tried ubuntu, manjaro, recently hopped back into linux with mint. After running into a ton of issues I made a bootable with the arch iso and went for it. Installing wasn't as hard as people make it out to be, and like you said I almost never run into issues that can't be easily resolved with a quick search. Runs cleaner, runs games better, looks better, and it's all more light weight. Only thing I can say is that the AUR can be devastating for noobs. But it's a lesson everyone's gotta learn when you attempt to install a program that has a bad release and you end up having to revert to a backup.
I avoided Arch for years because I was nervous to learn it and thought it would take a ton of time.... It's literally the easiest, and best Linux experience I've had. Yeah there's a setup process but then after that you just can use it and update it weekly or whatever. End of the day I've had nearly no issues vs Deb based where I had constant issues after a few months. Been on EndeavorOS and now Arch for 8 months or so now and have no desire to distro hop and again no issues.
Frankly, the AUR is a two-edged sword. The main Arch repos are kept at bleeding edge, but the AUR is left to volunteers with some cool item they want to share. Meaning you have to be careful of outdated "packages" there. And yes, I deliberately quoted "packages" because the main repo has packages. What the AUR has are kits guiding your computer to download what just might be each and every file of the app separately, or at least seems to be, sometimes compiling stuff from sourcecode, and build its own package which it then installs, completing the process. Yeah, this can sometimes be fun to watch go on in the terminal, but while easy, it's still a lengthy, time consuming process you have to wait for your computer to go through. Often while you stand by to poke the "enter" button again whenever prompted in order to keep the process moving. So you can't just set it in motion, leave the computer to it's work and expect it to be finished when you get back. It won't be. In the case of Canon printers, their drivers are listed in a manner that tells the AUR that this is a newer version than that when this and that are actually two different drivers, each for a different set of printer models. So the AUR will only give you the one with the highest numbers in the naming protocol because the AUR thinks that it's the current version and that all other Canon printer drivers are just outdated versions of the same one. This means that the best way I found to install that dirver is to first install an AUR app called debtap, which makes locally stored Arch packages out of locally stored Debian packages. Then you can install the new Arch package. And while I have that printer installed, I have to remember an extra step to each and every every system update. If I forget to tell it to skip cnijfilter2, it'll "update" my printer driver to what it thinks is a newer version but is actually a different printer driver than the one I use. Should I forget and let it do so, I then need to uninstall that driver and install my debtap-generated package again. But it's probably a better idea to delete that once installed and if you need to re-install the thing update debtap and make a new arch package out of that .deb. Just in case of dependencies in the package. Of course, this may work well for drivers, but go for something like a WYSIWYG web authoring app, and any debtap package of that is inevitably damned to Dependency Hell. Even if you could keep on top of keeping its dependencies in place, you wouldn't want to as that would roll back shared dependencies and break other software. Basically, it's a means for developers who want to offer their goods to Linux users to get them to Arch users. Also for drivers of peripheral hardware. It may be easy if you use yay for the job, but it's a major time-suck to install anything from the AUR. I love Arch as my disto of choice for many of the same reasons mentioned in this video, but let's be hones about the AUR.
my first linux experience was kali linux in a vm and after finding some limitations of it I decided I'd learn arch because I figure if i can learn arch other distros wont be hard. After a real struggle with the install I absolutely love it
I just went back to Arch from Fedora. I wanted to use the easy button and just slap an OS on my new laptop a couple years ago. Finally got tired of fighting things and went back to Arch.
I dont understand why Arch has this reputation for being difficult, it just is not. Its the least likely to break, there are GUI installers for arch all over the place, and more than any distro Arch truly lets you essentially build an entire operating system to your liking. It both 'just works' out of the box and ALSO lets you make anything out of it if you want to. It truly is great. I use arch btw
i'm kinda back and forth on linux but bought a second drive to run Arch(had problems dual booting with windows on the same drive before) and I'm surprised all the games I've tried on steam work. Just a tip if you're having problems getting steam games to launch: try different proton versions in settings and when you switch settings restart steam(not the whole pc)
I installed endeavour a couple days ago after months of fiddling with mint,xubuntu and kubuntu as my first 2 distros ever .The MOMENT i saw it run an FSCK right upon start up,solve dependency conflitcs by itself the relief was IMMENSE ,and of course it recognized the ancient windows 8.1 era sound card on my desktop with no tinkering which was a relief coming from ubuntu
I switched to Arch a week ago and I have been loving it, but I really do hate people who like to say that "Oh Arch is so easy, I don't know why people say it's hard" as if the Wiki itself doesn't state otherwise. Arch is intuitive, easy, fast, and productive... for tech savvy people. You need to learn how an OS works to be able to use Arch, and that's exactly what Arch is for: a distro for the enthusiasts who is interested in, and is willing to learn about their OS. Most people couldn't be bothered to do that, they just want an OS that can serve them. Arch is great for what it is, an extremely customizable distro that gives power to the user to do whatever the user wants. Let's not act like Arch is something that it isn't.
I tried Arch. I started with Fedora, to arch, to Manjaro and they all had the same issues. (No audio to my speakers, Nvidia drivers wouldn’t install properly, I couldn’t use my full refresh rate and a whole lot more) I’m sure I couldn’t fixed all this stuff if I wanted to spend hours and hours going through the wiki and trying stuff. But honestly, it was just tedious and I couldn’t use my computer for what I wanted to. So I switched to pop_os and have no (major) issues with it. Everything just works out of the box. Maybe I’ll try Arch again in the future. But for right now I’m happy with Pop.
You don't use computers, you customize them for yourself. That's fine, but what do you do with your perfectly optimized desktop? Office productivity? Video editing? Gaming? No, you just tweak and configure and optimize and pat yourself on the back about how perfect your Arch system is. For what? What do any of you actually do with your computers? Small business networking? VoIP? Security research? Drawing up contracts for a construction company? Creating custom CRM alternatives for industry-specific Windows and software contract-locked business applications? No, you just fight over which distro is better. Arch is too niche to be viable for end-users without a bastard operator from hell IT guy, and you all know what kind of person he would be in a professional environment. The Nick Burns SNL parody.
Personally I've tried to switch to Linux mainly because of it's open source privacy protecting nature. Recently I decided to dual boot my Windows 10 LTSC with Arch. The installation was relatively smooth, using a youtube video as a simply explained tutorial showing each command and explaining what it does (way better than the wiki). From then onward it was issue after issue. I first tried running KDE with my NVIDIA GPU, it was just terrible with lag and stuttering so I switched to Cinnamon which has been pretty good. From then onward I had a lot of issues with things that just work on Windows. A lot are actual issues, others are not liking how some things are done. I am still continuing my Linux Arch journey as when Windows 10 ends support I am not planning on using 11. Still though in what my journey has shown, Windows as an OS is better than Linux in almost every case.
but secure boot is a pain in arch ... compared to fedora and i still need windows for school who need secure boot to be enabled .... (at least windows 11) plus i dont have the time or want to do everything myself, i just want my system to work as of the box ...
I installed Arch w kde and hyprland bc I wanted it to ONLY have stuff I really want to be there... Idk if it is actually like that or if other distros would come with the same stuff bc of also using Kde or whatever, but it's been surprisingly quick(er than I thought) to get everything set up and reeeeally fun to learn a bunch of new stuff... also, windows would consume, in idle, like 5gb of ram, while my arch install stays around 1,6gb until I actually start using it, or even less depending on the interface, pretty cool.
As a Linux noob, arch has been my 3rd distro. Started with mint, then debian, and figured "everyone hates on arch for being complicated, but people rave about the customization". And they ere right. The arch wiki and aur make things simple though. It's not my daily driver for my desktop, but it is my daily driver for my laptop. Love arch, it just works.
You know, I've been going on and of for years from windows -> some linux distro -> windows -> another linux distro and so on and so forth. Recently, I've gotten so darn sick of windows (thanks to work computer) that I've said "F it. Even if I hate ubuntu I'm just gonna use that because I hate it less than windows". Now, I had considered Arch but never gotten into it because people gave me this idea that it only breaks a lot. But after seeing your showcase of your system, I got really inspired. After work, I'm getting into the wiki for the weekend.
You are indeed right in many of your statements, but in one, you are utterly biased and wrong: The part about that one would not really learn anything in Ubuntu (-like) Distros, because you put it on the same level as windows, which means either the Company behind it has to fix things, or you just cannot get past some clicks in a GUI. Just because in Arch you are forced (and able) to configure and fix nearly everythin by yourself. It is just wrong to put a closed source OS like Windows on the same level as Ubuntu (-like) Distros, because in fact YOU CAN change system behaviour completely under the hood, which you cannot with a system like Windows. Of course, it often is more of a hassle than with KISS-principle based Distros, but you can. And you can find tutorials for it. In fact as a newbie you will learn MUCH about Linux and stuff, because Ubuntu (-like) Distros are so much different than Windows on their own. In things, you might not even think about today, because you made the switch so long ago. You have to address problems in another way than with Windows. And, in fact, you still have the freedom to change literally everything you want. And sometimes, you have to do stuff like that, e.g. if Caninocal (or someone comparable else) did not provide a solution for your specific problem. But you won't be the only one with that problem, which leads to solutions you can google, then follow a howto, learn new things on the go and get it solved. There is just no way to say, that you won't really learn Linux stuff, if you do not use a KISS-based Distro, because there is no common ground for learners. Everybody starts at a different level. When you switched to Arch, you already learned some stuff from other Distros. You completely ignore that fact here, you actually deny it because you wanted back to windows because everything was so bad. But you constantly show examples, what you don't like about other distros, which for themselves are things you learned, right? And because YOU learned that, you eventually switched to Arch and found your way there. But your way is not everybodies way. Infact everybody, who has found his homebase with a specific distro, could make a video like you, completey making the "this is the only way"-concept pointless. Everybody learns, everybody draws his own conclusions out of things, and everybody finds a distro he/she likes, because of things they learned in the past, making the switch to Linux for the first time. And that Distro has not automatically to be Arch by any of YOUR personal findings, except, of course, for you. And that is awesome, for you. Arch is awsome for me, too. In Arch, you indeed have to learn more, but it is not the only place to learn and not the only way. Linux indeed is for everyone, that's the concept. But Arch is not for everyone, and has not to be. It is one Distro to like, that you like, that i like, and so many others. And it is still open for everyone. But it is just not everybodies cup of tea.
Just wanted to say that because of one of your videos, I have been using Arch for months now and It’s been just amazing. It’s light, it works and I enjoy it. I used Ubuntu and Mint and some how I managed to break them on more than one occasion although I would not say it’s the distro‘s fault, I just did stuff i was not supposed to do and this is exactly why I love Arch. The fear people put into you that Arch is unstable and it will break makes you pay attention and not just implement stuff without trying to understand. In that process you learn something and you maintain a stable system.
I have tried so many Distros at this point and I think Arch is probably the easiest one I have used you type a command archinstall and it guides you through each step very easy and the desktop environments are just beautiful, great video!
This is a pretty shitty justification video tbh...yeah its easy for you to configure all your stuff but recommending it to others who don't have the time to spare to do all that is stupid. I just recommend EndeavorOS instead of Arch proper, because the installer takes care of a lot of things and the team behind it really knows what they're doing, unlike Manjaro
Ive been using Arch for about 2.5 years. Its great! It took me a while to figure out what was going on but I can render my animations through command line. Play Steam games with raytracing Control and Cyberpunk 2077 and it runs great! I have qtile for production and i3 for playing games when I need the system to run really efficiently. Ill never go back to windows
gaming at arch is much much muchhhhh! easier then at ubuntu and mint/mx/manjaro and so on..... :D arch is too nice for beginners for linux gaming just use garuda lts and your fine with rolling releases and without bugs :D dont use dual boot arch and windows ... windows can bug sometimes at bootloader and crush you grub distro hopping is useless arch can allwhat you need!
I recently reinstall arch and after installation I can't restart or reboot my pc, it's stuck on that turn off black screen, and when I hard reset it I cannot access grub or anything, what's going on, that's a mastery for me XD
Reasons I use Arch btw: 1-The Arch wiki 2-The Arch wiki 3-The Arch wiki 4-The Arch wiki 5-The Arch wiki 6-The Arch wiki 7-It's the best rolling release distro 8-The AUR
I just switched to Arch and told all my friends, but mainly because I'd run into issues on Fedora, Mint, or other issues and then I'd not know where to start to fix if there wasn't some guide online. So now I switched. Also, learning to rice
I wouldn't recommend new users to use the AUR, it's a minefield without a map, Official repos and Flatpacks are the SAFE way to install any Program that a user may need.
Why do people call it "touch typing", wouldn't it be better if we call it "blind typing"? When I hear "touch typing" I think of typing on a touch screen.
I started messing around with Linux at the start of this year, initially used Mint. Anytime I had issues, my google search would almost always bring up the arch linux wiki, and that always had the answer. I then looked into Arch, saw people say it was difficult and all that. Being new to Linux I was initially scared off by that. As I had more issues, and the wiki had the answer I said screw it and installed arch. Since then its been smooth sailing, and it has been fun tinkering with it and all. Installing packages on Arch is so easy, and keeping them up-to-date is easy as well. I don't have to mess around with stuff, just search for it then install it. For me though, the do it yourself mentality is what is going to keep me using it for the foreseeable future. I'm learning stuff about Linux as a whole, and that is why I started using Linux.
Now i get the toxicity of the community. I have Vanilla OS and i am absolutely in love with it. So yea i can see how people can get emotionally about there distro and why it is the best. Vanilla works for a noob like me how switched 3 monts ago from windows to linux. Everything works, but after watching this video i really want to learn arch. Customize everything and do everything your selve, and in the end you know exactly how everything works, i can see the satisfaction in that. DIY is always better than haveing something pre made.
Im happy for me this progressed naturally. Used popOS for a year, tried my first tiling manager, hopped to a slimmer distro, understood linux better and finally went arch. A few months in found Artix and thats been my end game. Tried nix recently but bloaty and f systemd!
Tiling windows manager with arch is a deadly combo in past I used arch with every other flavour out there but something or the other would break I would switch back to debian but that has serious packages issues . Finally I decided if I can't make arch my os then am gng back to windows where I can be a obedient pet of Microsoft. But God has other plans I finally installed i3 learned in's and out of arch and i3 now gained confidence switched to hyprland. And there's no turning back ever since
I decided to install it on my laptop since I'll be doing a full switch from windows once 10 support is dropped. And gotta say it feels nice to get things working. And the wiki is just beyond good.
I raw dogged arch as my first Linux distro, and installed it "properly". Took several hours, but when I was done i immediately told my friends "I use arch btw"
yea arch is basically you set it up the way you like and it just works, i don't remember ever having an issue with updates or things like that, like unless i'm doing something stupid there's not going to be an issue
Alright! Alright! Alright!!! I'll switch to Arch! Sheesh.
🥶
Kidding. I love it.
The first rule of Arch Linux: you always talk bout Arch Linux
Thats the fandom
The first rule of actually arch linux
Archinstall works
The first rule of arch club....
@@dumbdavinchi3638 whatever distro you use... it sucks!
@@brovid-19 Thanks I use pop os btw, considering hopping to manjaro
I like Linux mint
I see your point about spending the time in there....but, tell me you don't have kids, a job, own a house that needs maintenance and go to school without actually telling me.
In my 20's that shit was cool man, spending time troubleshooting and feeling amazing when shit finally worked. Now I just need it to work.
Sometimes we just don't have the time. When I have my 40 minutes of peace at the end of the day, I just want to use my machine, not spend time working/learning.... I just did that for 15 hours today.
Exactly. People just don't realize this until they're old enough.
Father of 3, wife, job. I use mint BTW.
but... are you still using linux? Might you use Manjaro or Endeavor (or Archman... whatev)? Maybe this isn't you, but, after Win95, 98, 2000, XP, 7, 8, 10.... The people who used this excuse to stick with Windows usually had to learn a new operating system despite themselves. I won't tell you what happened to the poor bastards who tried to stick to DOS! Maybe you were just talking about Arch specifically, but I've heard the same reasoning about Windows again and again, and it makes me skeptical.
You only need to configure everything once and then never worry about it again. That's what I did two years ago and I still use the exact same setup today. The only thing I changed since then was my nvim config to use NvChad
I have the same experience, i don't have time for endless forum searches for a fix.
I was fortunate enough to be up for a challenge when I decided to switch to Linux, so I chose Arch as my first distro ever, and it turned out to be an awesome experience. Even though I knew next to nothing about Linux or anything related, I started learning bits and pieces from the wiki and configuration videos on RUclips. Surprisingly, I picked up things relatively quickly, and that was about 13 months ago. It sparked a deep interest not just in Linux but also in IT in general, coding, scripting, and many other aspects. It was truly a blessing that came at the perfect time for me, and now I find myself getting quite proficient in coding. I'm eager to continue improving until I can confidently apply for a real job in the IT field when my skills are ready. So, Arch has given me so much, and I can't express enough how grateful I am for this distro. That's why I personally recommend Arch to anyone considering switching to Linux or anyone looking to learn new things!
You could try and apply for a classical support job, they don't pay the big IT bucks, but if you have decent knowledge of Windows (and Office), know how to find a solution in the web, and are not afraid to learn, then it is the best you can do to enter the field and (l)earn on the job.
Since you have some knowledge on Linux systems (which is rare if you consider the fact that 2% of all gamers on steam have any Linux system running, and most Windows users are terminally afraid of the terminal), getting into server related stuff is going to be easy for you, since it just the same -gui and more detailed knowledge on how to configure.
I would've started with arch but you see the computer i wanted to test out linux on is 16 years old and runs just a tad bit faster than a centipede. So lubuntu it was!
This comment has convinced me, Arch it is, cheers dude.
Starting with arch expedites the learning process by magnitudes. I did the same.
Finna do the same here! Wish me the best on making it work on my laptop and main gaming PC!
Arch rlly seems like an awesome distro where it allows me to learn how OS works
I think macos is a highly misunderstood OS as people think about it by seeing how most of the users use it, not how you can use it. I barely use gui applications, I used brew at the beginning as the package manager now switching to nix. I learned to use the terminal fluently because of macos (if I used linux instead it would be the same) and it made me love unix/linux systems. Now I feels like home in every linux distro thanks to macos having a proper terminal and unix file system unlike windows.
Macos is fine. Apple is trash for selling overpriced hardware, pro laptop with 8gb of ram
I distro-hopped from PopOS to Ubuntu to Manjaro in the first 2 weeks of using Linux. Then after about 2 years, I hopped to Arch, installing it the "hard" way, even though the installer was already available. I've been using it for over a year now, and it's hands down the best. It goes well with my minimalist mentality. Arch users rise up... and sudo pacman your hourly update!
Thanks, this comment reminded me to pacman -Syu again :)
The only problem with your comment is that you use "sudo" instead of the CHADier, glorious "doas"!
Same but the order of distros is a little bit different and I also went through OpenSUSE
Sudo still is bloated BS...
@usersomeone5287 Yep! Steam broke one Debian installation I had as well. It broke the X server to be more specific...
people think "ugh, you *have* to do everything yourself"
we think "yay, we *get* to do everything ourselves"
Based hcnone pfp
Honestly it fits well with engineering mindset where you are curious how everything works and are willing to debug and problem solve, def not for common folk.
As far as distro hopping goes, I am proud of maintaining stability for over 5 years now, as I have resisted the temptation to frequently switch between Linux distributions. My primary daily driver is Linux Mint Cinnamon edition, which I find to be reliable and well-suited for my needs.
However, I must confess that I still enjoy tinkering and experimenting with various Linux distros in VirtualBox. It allows me to satisfy my curiosity and explore new features without compromising the stability of my main system.
For my productive work environment, I stick with Linux Mint, where I've implemented some user-level customizations to enhance my workflow and overall efficiency. This setup ensures that I have a consistent and dependable experience for my essential tasks while also indulging in the joy of discovering and testing other distros in a controlled environment.
I think that's the best way to do it! Nothing wrong with trying out other Linux distros as a hobby.
I personally found myself having problems using Arch and anything Debian-based personally. I've been using Nobara lately, because that's essentially Fedora with a ton of gaming, media consumption, laptop GPU, and peripheral tweaks done for you. Plus being able to just install RPM packages and to use the copr for user repositories without having to compile anything is really nice.
Same. Linux Mint is the best "just works" distro out there. I love it since everything works, every program I could ever want will have a .deb file ready to go, nothing breaks, it's all a great time. I keep the hopping contained to my QEMU-KVM virt machines.
Relatable, Linux Mint is stable as hell (from what I experienced). Worked better for me than Ubuntu. Currently using the Debian Edition, has some drawbacks on the installer side and additional drivers, but especially because I have used Arch before, this was no challenge. Really a great distro
I first tried Linux around 3-4 years ago - Mutahar made a video about Manjaro and I thought "why not?". There were just so many issues that I couldn't even begin to try and fix myself/troubleshoot as I barely understood the system, but I liked pacman package manager - the commands were quite simple. A week later I tried Linux Mint due to those issues, thinking a different distro would be better but I didn't vibe with it, and switched back to windows for like a year. Then I had the itch again and decided to go with arch, since that's what one of my friends was using and while the first install was painful (6 hours total, had to restart 3 times due to forgetting to run grub install and not knowing that I could just chroot), it felt really good to have a working xfce system, making it look cool and most importantly, understanding what's installed.
Since then I distro hopped a couple of times to gentoo, void, mint, nix, but I always returned to arch due to package management, not having to make compromises or just simply due to familiarity.
Yup, when I first started with Arch it took weeks to get everything running smoothly, that was a stressful if rewarding learning experience as a newbie. Had another hump with a first Wayland based installation on new hardware recently. But in the intervening years? Must have gained thousands of hours of productivity havinng vim and a wm dialed in exactly how I wanted it. No regrets.
My (and many others') motto as of recent has been "the best software (distro) is the one that helps you get done what you need to get done", a productivity mindset. For many, that is arch! I really liked arch back when I ran it. Back when I customized my window manager setup like crazy to be a clean as humanly possible. But, after all that, I found that I spent a lot of time worrying about my distro and not the work I needed to get done on it. Since then, I have switched back to Windows on my desktop, and put Debian (my beloved) on my laptop, and my productivity has increased. Debian is boring, yes, but with most of my work being done on a browser anyways, the fact that I don't really need to worry about updating and most software is available in the stable repos means when I open my laptop lid the first thing I do is my work, not updates or customization (I run a pretty basic but nicely themed MATE desktop) or anything else. Very little housekeeping. But again, use the tools that help YOU get done what YOU need to get done!
I kinda agree with you. For me that's still arch. Sure at the beginning it's slower since you need to get used to the tools and tweak them, but in the end it causes me to actually know my tools.
But that's not really why I use it. I use it because it's simply fun tinkering. Not everything has to be about productivity and work. You also need some time to come down. If you don't like tinkering, don't use arch. If it's your goal to be more productive, don't use Arch. For me personally that's simply a side effect of using arch and not the reason
@@zekiz774 I used to be a tinkerer, and many like you still are. All depends on what a computer is to you. For me, it’s become a means to an end less than a hobby. It’s what it can do that interests me. The rest is for comp engineers and software developers. Having fun with it is important tho!
@@_moosh Not really for comp engineers either tbh, at least as far as personal OS goes. There are some arch fanatics, but everyone just uses Windows as their main OS. The ones who care about foss and want most out of their OS (the minority) just use mainstream distros like Ubuntu or Fedora. I've never actually cared enough to fully switch to Linux on my desktop (running Debian on my laptop though, which is only used for work) especially since there's now Windows subsystem for Linux, so I don't have a good reason to do it. Even for Unix classes at university we would just connect to a uni network from home and use putty+xming to use remote desktops. I do like xfce more than windows gui, but not enough to justify the hassle of migrating. And I mean, yeah, it's really good being able to use tools like awk and to make bash scripts for everyday stuff, like renaming files and so on, but powershell is pretty powerful nowadays, and you can just install all those Unix tools on Windows anyway, plus as mentioned there's WSL. Basically every Unix tool is also on Windows, and we have package managers too, so it's not bad, and I'm used to it, so I don't bother with Linux, I tried to but gave up.
Sysadmins and ppl who work on servers also would never use arch, but rather ubuntu or debian, redhat is also popular in enterprise uses. Arch is only for hobbyists, which isn't bad, but it's not suited for professional use.
I enjoy Arch too but people with this take are largely ignorant as they are already at the end destination. That is to say, they have the experience to understand what terminal, file manager, window manager etc they prefer, and so they can do it themselves and curate their own experience. New users don't have this knowledge or exposure, and so they need to go through the journey of using different distros which have different out of the box experiences with whatever desktop environment, window manager, and apps they use. Saying Arch is the easiest distro within the first minute of a video is such a misrepresentation. Yes it is the best, but you need to progress through the steps to understand why. A project like Arco understands this perfectly with step one being a full iso, step two choosing a different desktop environment, step three trying a standalone window manager, step four building an iso and picking specifically what you want.
I couldn’t use arch before I managed to successfully do LFS, then when I came back to arch it was like I could see the matrix.
For me personally, the headache of learning arch is definitely worth it.
From my experience, I learned how Linux works just by using Arch. This is because when something doesn't work, you need to investigate and learn why this is happening. Arch is mainly for users who are willing to take the time and effort in learning and don't be frustrated when not an easy solution is around the corner. Maybe you are more into having a distro that just works and don't want or have the time to learn and fix it for yourself.
@@williamalexanderbernalgonz6536 The wonderful thing about Arch is that they expect you to go through this, so documentation is thorough. Such that they recommend checking the recent news on their site even before doing kernel updates and stuff. Not sure if other distros do this, but they for sure don't emphasize it
This is why I love EndeavourOS. Just set up Arch the easy way with none of the Manjaro/Garuda downsides, and it even has some installers built into the welcome screen for someone starting out.
Great video! My experience has been quite opposite although I used endeavour not arch itself. PopOS did for me what arch did for you.
I use Popos for a year now and it’s just awesome
Shows how unique the experiences are. I use Endeavour daily and never had issues with it. It just works
I had the exact same experience except the PopOS part, I just didn't try it yet.
I switched away from Arch because I was tired of packages breaking on updates. By breaking I don't necessarily mean something like an unbootable system (which happened once too, thanks GRUB), but issues that would make a certain program behave incorrectly or a library update that would tank gaming performance/break compatibility with some other program.
In the end I found that Gentoo is the perfect distro for me. It is a rolling release just like Arch but it doesn't update nearly as often and there is a greater focus on testing and stability. And for the packages that I want to be as up to date as possible like the graphics drivers, I can choose to have the "testing" (or even the git equivalent on the AUR) branches of these packages while still having the rest of my system still on the "stable" branch. And choosing compile flags both on the system packages and on the kernel also comes in handy from time to time ;)
Overall I do agree that Arch is one of the best distros tho, it is like a "just works" distro for the power user.
i use gentoo too btw
I was running Arch for awhile but eventually all my tinkering left me with several desktop environments, multiple experimental graphics drivers, custom arch repositories, multiple ghc versions, and some broken aur packages that were difficult to uninstall. A few updates broke xmonad for me, as well as several critical programs for getting my work done. Uninstalling programs left the system in a weird state too. I decided I wanted to start fresh and keep it fresh, so I switched to NixOS unstable. It's got more packages available than even the AUR, it's still a rolling distro so everythings always up to date, and any time you make a configuration change it's like having a clean install. Also, if there's a system breaking issue you can always roll back to a previous generation. I then took my configuration.nix file and put it in a git repo, now my desktop, personal laptop, and work laptop all run the same OS with the same base programs and config. It's had a pretty big learning curve for me, but the stability, reproducability, and peace of mind was worth it.
Hi! I am using NixOS as of this week. I set up Impermanence. It forces your whole OS to be declarative. Have you tried it? I am loving it!
Doing everything by yourself is better than trying to fix someone else's shit.
I had similar thoughts until I tried Gentoo two years ago. It's more stable and doesn't feel like DIY-mess. It may sound counter intuitive but Gentoo looks like more thoroughly developed system. Package dependencies make more sense and everything works as a whole. At the same time you have more granular control over things you need. I suggest you to try and use it for a while.
Is it the distro where you have to compile everything from source? Please i don't have 128GB RAM and an 18-core CPU here.
@@SianaGearz ...And never heard about Arch's ABS it seems.
@@finoderi so? Every system has an automated way to build a package.
I've only ever used Ubuntu LTS forks for the last decades for a simple reason: semiconductor manufacturer tooling by Ti, Altera, Xilinx and whomever else is specified either for RHEL/CentOS or for Ubuntu LTS. No other options.
And still you avoid. Compiling Chromium or Firefox is bound to take half a day. Imagine compiling KDE. I don't want to have to dedicate computational power to that every week when I could be using the system instead.
@@SianaGearz On my Ryzen 3600 with 32 Gb RAM Firefox compiles in just 21 minutes and LibreOffice - in about 35 minutes. Never tried to build anything Chromium-based though. I use brave-bin package from an overlay.
Anything else compiles in minutes as well. gcc is an exception but it updates semi-annually. KDE updates usually take about half an hour.
Building time is not a problem on a modern PC.
@@finoderi good to know, thanks. I have a comparable pc (Ryzen 5500, 32GB.) What about storage consumption for sources and libs and things, and scratch space for builds?
And also while building Firefox doesn't take too long, downloading it takes no time at all...
Up to some time ago I worked on a 1 megaloc c++ application but on systems like Phenom 2 x6, i5-3570 that took more than an hour to build. I haven't built it on this PC yet. But looking at say Chromium codebase fills me with dread, it's the scope of an operating system and then some.
btw, i use nixos
NixOS is over engineered... It has the opposite philosophy of KISS
yessir!
_The true red pilled based gigachad supreme distro worth shilling for!_
The comment I was looking for 😂❤
As a Arch Linux user I agree. I also love how Arch Linux just works especially for programming and it keeps getting updates. Better than Windows, Debian, and Ubuntu. Great video by the way thank you. Also love the video about Java Script because I really hate Java Script especially when the web becomes bloated especially on a slow Wi-Fi so as a Software Engineer and Web Developer your channel is so underrated we need more devs to explain why simplicity is better than bloated software.😊😊😊😊😊😊🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓
I believe the strongest part of it is that Arch truly enables you to learn and understand your OS and how the computer works.
I also use Arch btw
Hi Eric, I used Arch Linux for the past couple of months and actually really liked the DIY-like approach. It taught me how computer-illiterate (and still am to some extent) by tinkering around in the terminal and manually setting up every facet of a computer I used to take for granted.
What gets me, is that whenever I have to install Arch onto a system with different hardware (say an NVMe with different partitioning or doing partitioning at all), I've run into issues that sink my time into the details of the system rather than my work. It screwed up a lot of my workflow pandering around with installing Arch on my main machine so I went with OpenSUSE for an out-of-the-box solution.
I definitely have an appreciation for Arch Linux, but my brain is absolutely fried from the countless acronyms and commands. Not quitting Linux (Molecular simulation programs are annoying to configure on a Windows system, hence why I switched), but I completely agree that Linux isn't for everyone. The tiling manager is much better on Arch, and I even had a Vim/Zathura VimTeX compiler that worked really well.
Anyways, keep up the videos, nice commentary as always.
In my opinion the best way to use Arch Linux for work is from a fast external SSD. Saves you from ever having to reinstall on any PC / laptop you might be using in the future. I agree that installing Arch Linux on a new system without such a solution can be a time sink, especially if you care about encryption.
If you can figure it all out, Arch is a seamless experience and it really does get out of your way. Some hardware may be a little extra work, but getting over the hump is well worth it.
Same bro, i want my game on outside os drive but it's hard like its not like windows just ask "where to install this crap" when installation 🤣
Totally agree. I've used Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Tumbleweed, Fedora, Manjaro and now I'm on Arch Linux. I've installed the distros on the same laptop, so I can make a comparison. Arch, along with Fedora, is the most stable distro, so I don't believe what is said about Arch's alleged “instability”. Debian-based distros are often outdated and server-oriented, not desktop-oriented. Fedora works great and I like it very much, but its main function is to be the upstream of RHEL, not a distro for desktop users, and also I had to tolerate outdated programs when any Windows PC could install the latest version. Tumbleweed is bloated and, like Fedora, seems to me mostly a distro for testing programs to be used elsewhere. Manjaro is by no means comparable with Arch. In conclusion: Arch Linux is the best solution in a GNU/Linux environment. And btw, thanks to Arch I can do data analysis without the outdated Anaconda distribution.
Idk what makes you tell that fedora is not for desktop users... Been using it for years actually, as my main distro (school, gaming, programming...) Could you elaborate?
@@augustinvangeebergen3098 In the past I used Fedora for a long time too, and I liked it; however, I'll let Red Hat elaborate. In the article "What's the difference between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux?", published in its website, the company states: «The Fedora project is the upstream, community distro of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat is the project’s primary sponsor, but thousands of independent developers also contribute to the Fedora project. Each of these contributors, including Red Hat, bring their own new ideas to be tested and debated for inclusion by the larger community into Fedora Linux. This also makes Fedora an ideal place for Red Hat to put features through its own distinct set of tests and quality assurance processes, and those features eventually get incorporated into a version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux».
This is all perfectly legitimate, but I don't want to use, in my personal laptop, a distro that, at least in part, is used to test software that will later be used by the project’s primary sponsor for its goals. I need a distro that is aimed at the concrete and specific end user, and from this point of view too, Arch Linux shines; however, as the Arch Linux FAQs state, «You may not want to use Arch, if [...] you are happy with your current OS». So, if you like Fedora, don't change it! Have a great day.
I'm interested to understand what you mean by " can do data analysis without the outdated Anaconda distribution". I'm an analyst using Arch but haven't explored this possibility yet.
@@simhz2221 In the past I used Python through Anaconda but 1) I got several issues and 2) I was forced to use less updated software than the Arch repos' packages. So, I got rid of Anaconda, I activated virtual environments and now I use software from the official Arch repos and, when needed, I use pip. No more issues and I can use the latest version of the software.
arch linux is easier to download than ubuntu, linux mint, and a bunch of other popular distros in my experience, the only distro i like more is kali linux
I used Manjaro for a year and a half. And I've had multiple occasions when I thought to myself, "god damnit I hope I had Arch". Whether it was because an AUR dependency was not yet updated in Manjaro's repos, or because a particular crash-inducing kwin bug kept my desktop unstable for a month. I finally had enough in early 2023 and switched to EndeavourOS (which is basically just Arch), and never once up to this point have I thought, "man I hope I still have Manjaro".
So yeah. The distros I use now are RHEL (for servers), Fedora (for our CI environments), Alpine (for containers), and EndeavourOS (for daily drivers). Alongside Debian (which is a valid alternative to RHEL, depending on preference and external constraints), these are the distros I am happy to recommend to people. Manjaro belongs in the dumpster.
Gentoo Linux for me is time consuming when compiling. The only package that is not compiled on my system is Firefox. Gentoo’s documentation is super nice. As a gentoo user, I see LFS Users as the crazy ones
Tinkering no-lifers.
LFS “user” here
It’s a toy, plain and simple. The “distro” VERY quickly becomes unusable if you are not incredibly Vigilant about maintenance. Like maintenance on arch or other rolling release distributions is one thing, but on LFS it’s hell. (That being said by the time you have LFS installed assuming you understood what you were doing, you can nearly always fix it c:)
I am a programer and my experience on arch hasnt been that good. I remember trying to install tensorflow or torch on arch, it wouldnt install cause arch had python 3.12.4 which was not supported by tensorflow or torch at that time. It was so annoying. Whereas in debian shit just worked. I had a stable python version and any other programing language for that matter. Stuff from nginx to virtual machines to docker containers ran smoothly and flawlessly. So for me debian is my go to choice when i want to learn something and not worry about support and stability
I started on endeavorOS to learn Linux. Worked like a dream. Loved the AUR using Yay and the rolling releases updates. I never understood why people called it hard.
I have tried about 50+ distros and then stayed on arch for years now
I've used arch before, installing software from the aur is trivial when it works, but sometimes a build fails then you have to trouble shoot the problem, which can be a real headache, and arch isn't the only rolling release distro out there.
I´m doing the opposite, coming from Arch to Ubuntu, I'm having a lot of troubles with my Fstab on Arch, because when I use Windows or other distro some days or week, when I go back to the Arch partition, the Fstab doesn´t let the Arch boot, because of UIID ids some weird bug with my motherboard. That was really annoying
I agree, use whatever suits your workflow the best
I was struggling to find the words to express my love for Arch but yours are a perfect fit for me. Same experience here. I use a different window manager but the result is the same!
Arch is good and I consider Arch and Debian to be the main useful distros that most people should use depending on their use-case but personally I prefer Void as it's more clean and minimal and it's a very up-to-date rolling release but not as bleeding edge as Arch and doesn't have the Arch bloat.
Or you could do as I do and shill Artix while using a riced dwl on it for true minimalism without soystemd and ex-11.
Edit: in all seriousness it's great that you use Arch, and I hope you may continue in your Linux journey well. My views on the aur, the wiki, and the bleeding-edge nature of Arch are similar to yours. God bless.
Haha. Hyprland is definitely bloated, I want to try out dwl eventually :)
i tried so many distros starting with arch. i found it too difficult at first so moved on to mint, fedora, nobara, debian and probably more until i landed up trying arch again and finding it actually let me do what i wanted to do making it actually easier than the other distros
I love arch but unfortunately I still have to use dual bot because I work with music production and Linux lacks tons of plugins, but I do everything else on arch, and I've been using the same config for almost 10 years.
New to arch just finish 6 hour install. ❤❤❤ Thank you
I’ve been using the Arch wiki long before I even considered trying Arch. It’s very well-written and at least partially applicable to most distros out there.
A lot of 45 year old men wearing women’s clothes use this
I just installed Arch for the first time ever (which I now use btw) - I am using it with KDE as I am not the best with TWM and remembering kb shortcuts yet but I have already noticed that it feels faster than Ubuntu, Fedora etc. It feels really, really good. I am using x11 as Wayland had huge windows for some reason and I cba with that. All good so far!
People who have other hobbies and interests going on in their lives, which is almost everyone on the planet, cannot not be bothered learning any of that shit. Nor should they. Hence, point and click focused OSes that work out of the box are of far more benefit to them than Arch will ever be.
So different people like different things. That's really deep man.
As much as I love Ableton and unlocking Xbox achievements for games on the PC, I haven't truly "liked" Windows since Windows 7. It was simple, simple enough. Windows 10 and 11 don't even feel like operating systems. My current Windows 11 install is still from my original Windows 7 install from a long time ago, which was upgraded to Win10 in 2018 and finally 11 in 2022, so recently when I did a fresh install of Windows 11 for the first time in my life on my girlfriend's PC, I got to see just how awful Windows became. Her install of Windows 11 Pro (which I acquired separately, did not come with her PC) had SO much garbage pinned to the start menu, and even after turning off all the check boxes for weird features it asks you to enable during the install, it was automatically backing up her files to ONEDRIVE? The moment I figure out how to get Ableton (with low latency driver) or my Waves plugins working on Arch, I don't need Windows anymore.
You did not mention the fact that sometimes stability is a factor and this is where Debian comes in. Debian is not bleeding edge like Arch, but often with good reason. Running a piece of software that requires a certain library version? Well that sucks for you because Arch is bleeding edge. On Debian they tend to spend more time to really be sure no packages are broken with updates. For a server this is kind of important. Life did improve though with Docker.
But does it really suck? I mean, the opposite could be said for debian if you need a newer version of a package than what debian has installed. Need a newer version for a package? too bad. Debian is stable.. aka old software. Maybe you can use the software when Debian upgrades in 2 years, but that's 2 years of waiting. The only distro that somewhat seems to be tackling this issue is NixOS, but I personally didn't like NixOS. I personally rather deal with flatpaks or dockers than use NixOS.
Debian Testing? Or Stable?
Very happy that I found the first RUclipsr that I can completely agree with regarding Arch Linux. Subscribed! :))
Arch linux is truely the only distro I've really used. Ive tried stuff like ubuntu and manjaro, but it was always on other machines or as a dual boot to try out. One day I decided, "lets just wipe everything and install Arch on my main machine" (after a bit of research of course). If im going to use linux, i want to actually learn it
most people hate it , but i love the fact that i build my own system
networks
partitions
installing kernel
installing DE
@@TerminalKitty at least (if u installed urself) u gained some knowledge
I’ve had to fight Arch for the same reason I’ve had to fight every other distro out there: dependencies. You’re either installing ALL of the dependencies, or you’re installing every package manually. There is no middle ground. Drives me crazy sometimes.
I took the plunge yesterday and partitioned some space off for Arch on my Acer laptop, running windows 10. I've used Linux since I was a kid, and remember my dad's frustrations getting things going prior to properly fast high speed internet, and mobile devices you can refer to. He had to take notes on paper.
I managed to set it up with help of my phone, in that it acted like a wired connection, and I could also refer to stuff when I needed. I like that it doesn't hold your hand and you have to customize it, but also that every step I had to take or modify worked, or worked with some research. My brain hurts, but it's been fun so far. Running i3-wm right now, but the Hyprland and eDEX UIs look really cool, too, and it cuts down on the bloat
Maybe I'm weird, but I compile as much from source as I can. Of course, I also like to modify programs on occasion because sometimes they lack features or have features that annoy me.
💪
I totally agree. It’s easiest out of all the distros. A learning curve but just home.
I pretty much have the same sentiments that you had in your video. Yes, there is a "time sink" and a learning curve, initially - but one thing so great about Arch is that it's build on "simplicity". The AUR would not be as great as it is, if it wasn't for how simple the PKGBUILD system is (not to mention, how simple the Arch package format is, as a whole).
I currently have an Arch install on a Thinkpad X220 that has been going for 8 years, an install on a Thinkpad T480 that has been going for 5 years, and my main desktop has an Arch install running for 3 years (with no breakage or annoyances with it).
Yes, learning it and getting it up and going can be a pain and take time, when you're new to it, but with how reliable my systems have been ++ while being super up-to-date, I can't really let go of Arch anymore 😅 this is THE Linux distro for me (at least, on personal machines). The time sink/learning-curve is only at the beginning, after that- you can install whatever you want almost without thinking about availability, dependencies, or compatibility (unlike what you get in fixed released distros). It saves you a lot of time, in the long run… it also saves you from a lot of "reinstalls to fix things".
Exactly. I haven't reinstalled since I first installed it (although I probably should to clean things up).
Windows 10 + WSL2 = everything a dev needs + PC games.
im so glad i found Arch back in 2008 still a "new" distro at the time, a only had been out for a few years. been hooked on it since
I think I mostly agree with you in this. I don't use arch, I use fedora i3. I think that learning the i3wm, plus now configuring my desktop with polybar and rofi was an amazing experience, as it is learning nvim. Now I don't really have the need to change at all, because this works for me.
You actually convinced me that arch is not that bad as they make it to sound. What actually scares me is if something breaks, but I don't think that's a real problem most of the time.
I hope so much before arch then I found arch was so much more stable and easy to fix ubuntu I don’t have problem with it but is not compatible not even with basic environment is not that customizable and basic programs that don’t want to install and had to do so much extra to make things run and spend more time fixing it than getting what I log in to do then my dad was like had you try arch I was like I use black arch a few times he told me to just try vanilla arch never went back again I went from ubuntu to mint to parrot even kenopi at one point then arch was just so much easier to fix I don’t find things don’t break often and when they do the solution is pretty easy is the only os I’ve tried that I haven’t had to reinstall is so flexible and customizable you have so much freedom on it the os bends your will lmao literly reminds me of this meme
I feel the same thing, but with Mint. It just works, and its comfy enough to make troubleshooting easy
I had the same repository issues with Debian, and that's why I use Arch. I like it because everything I install just works
Just switched over to arch a couple days ago I installed it the hard way and i am having fun learning how to use arch and customizing my desktop
I treat my Arch install like a project car in my garage. With 'simple' tools (Helix) I wrote my bar myself and am looking to expand into my own WM in a few months, but when its time to go to work I hop in my Corolla (Ubuntu) and head to the office (VSCode).
Hey! You finally gave Hyprland a shot! I am a Hyprland user too! And, I figured out that the animation configuration is as easy as making a 3D Bezier curve! So, yeah! Pretty awesome Wayland compositor! I also like Wayland, because all the cool programs are on there! Like, on Xorg you have Dunst, which is lazy at best, but on Wayland you have SwayNC, which is a notification daemon with full protocol support, and a notification tray with a do not disturb toggle built in! And not to mention that everything on Wayland compositors uses CSS, which is super powerful!
I like Hyprland a lot, I'll probably do a video on it later. Only thing I don't like is my battery life dropped a lot after switching for some reason. Trying out all the cool new tools available was one of the best parts.
@@EricMurphyxyz A new Hyprland update just dropped like an hour ago btw.
According to the changelogs:
"The biggest performance update in Hyprland's history!
CPU idle reduced by half.
GPU usage reduced around 2-4 times."
Hey, I recognized some of that broll! lol.
Great video
Thanks! Left a link to your video in the description :)
@@EricMurphyxyz Oh, it didn't bother me. I thought it was cool.
I was in the same boat for a while. Initially tried ubuntu, manjaro, recently hopped back into linux with mint. After running into a ton of issues I made a bootable with the arch iso and went for it. Installing wasn't as hard as people make it out to be, and like you said I almost never run into issues that can't be easily resolved with a quick search. Runs cleaner, runs games better, looks better, and it's all more light weight.
Only thing I can say is that the AUR can be devastating for noobs. But it's a lesson everyone's gotta learn when you attempt to install a program that has a bad release and you end up having to revert to a backup.
I avoided Arch for years because I was nervous to learn it and thought it would take a ton of time.... It's literally the easiest, and best Linux experience I've had. Yeah there's a setup process but then after that you just can use it and update it weekly or whatever. End of the day I've had nearly no issues vs Deb based where I had constant issues after a few months. Been on EndeavorOS and now Arch for 8 months or so now and have no desire to distro hop and again no issues.
Frankly, the AUR is a two-edged sword. The main Arch repos are kept at bleeding edge, but the AUR is left to volunteers with some cool item they want to share. Meaning you have to be careful of outdated "packages" there.
And yes, I deliberately quoted "packages" because the main repo has packages. What the AUR has are kits guiding your computer to download what just might be each and every file of the app separately, or at least seems to be, sometimes compiling stuff from sourcecode, and build its own package which it then installs, completing the process.
Yeah, this can sometimes be fun to watch go on in the terminal, but while easy, it's still a lengthy, time consuming process you have to wait for your computer to go through. Often while you stand by to poke the "enter" button again whenever prompted in order to keep the process moving. So you can't just set it in motion, leave the computer to it's work and expect it to be finished when you get back. It won't be.
In the case of Canon printers, their drivers are listed in a manner that tells the AUR that this is a newer version than that when this and that are actually two different drivers, each for a different set of printer models. So the AUR will only give you the one with the highest numbers in the naming protocol because the AUR thinks that it's the current version and that all other Canon printer drivers are just outdated versions of the same one.
This means that the best way I found to install that dirver is to first install an AUR app called debtap, which makes locally stored Arch packages out of locally stored Debian packages. Then you can install the new Arch package.
And while I have that printer installed, I have to remember an extra step to each and every every system update. If I forget to tell it to skip cnijfilter2, it'll "update" my printer driver to what it thinks is a newer version but is actually a different printer driver than the one I use. Should I forget and let it do so, I then need to uninstall that driver and install my debtap-generated package again. But it's probably a better idea to delete that once installed and if you need to re-install the thing update debtap and make a new arch package out of that .deb. Just in case of dependencies in the package.
Of course, this may work well for drivers, but go for something like a WYSIWYG web authoring app, and any debtap package of that is inevitably damned to Dependency Hell. Even if you could keep on top of keeping its dependencies in place, you wouldn't want to as that would roll back shared dependencies and break other software.
Basically, it's a means for developers who want to offer their goods to Linux users to get them to Arch users. Also for drivers of peripheral hardware.
It may be easy if you use yay for the job, but it's a major time-suck to install anything from the AUR.
I love Arch as my disto of choice for many of the same reasons mentioned in this video, but let's be hones about the AUR.
my first linux experience was kali linux in a vm and after finding some limitations of it I decided I'd learn arch because I figure if i can learn arch other distros wont be hard. After a real struggle with the install I absolutely love it
I just went back to Arch from Fedora. I wanted to use the easy button and just slap an OS on my new laptop a couple years ago. Finally got tired of fighting things and went back to Arch.
I dont understand why Arch has this reputation for being difficult, it just is not. Its the least likely to break, there are GUI installers for arch all over the place, and more than any distro Arch truly lets you essentially build an entire operating system to your liking. It both 'just works' out of the box and ALSO lets you make anything out of it if you want to. It truly is great. I use arch btw
i'm kinda back and forth on linux but bought a second drive to run Arch(had problems dual booting with windows on the same drive before) and I'm surprised all the games I've tried on steam work.
Just a tip if you're having problems getting steam games to launch: try different proton versions in settings and when you switch settings restart steam(not the whole pc)
I installed endeavour a couple days ago after months of fiddling with mint,xubuntu and kubuntu as my first 2 distros ever .The MOMENT i saw it run an FSCK right upon start up,solve dependency conflitcs by itself the relief was IMMENSE ,and of course it recognized the ancient windows 8.1 era sound card on my desktop with no tinkering which was a relief coming from ubuntu
I switched to Arch a week ago and I have been loving it, but I really do hate people who like to say that "Oh Arch is so easy, I don't know why people say it's hard" as if the Wiki itself doesn't state otherwise. Arch is intuitive, easy, fast, and productive... for tech savvy people. You need to learn how an OS works to be able to use Arch, and that's exactly what Arch is for: a distro for the enthusiasts who is interested in, and is willing to learn about their OS. Most people couldn't be bothered to do that, they just want an OS that can serve them.
Arch is great for what it is, an extremely customizable distro that gives power to the user to do whatever the user wants. Let's not act like Arch is something that it isn't.
I tried Arch. I started with Fedora, to arch, to Manjaro and they all had the same issues. (No audio to my speakers, Nvidia drivers wouldn’t install properly, I couldn’t use my full refresh rate and a whole lot more) I’m sure I couldn’t fixed all this stuff if I wanted to spend hours and hours going through the wiki and trying stuff. But honestly, it was just tedious and I couldn’t use my computer for what I wanted to. So I switched to pop_os and have no (major) issues with it. Everything just works out of the box. Maybe I’ll try Arch again in the future. But for right now I’m happy with Pop.
Arch has always a space in my heart ❤, it was the third distro i've tried when i first got into linux
You don't use computers, you customize them for yourself. That's fine, but what do you do with your perfectly optimized desktop? Office productivity? Video editing? Gaming? No, you just tweak and configure and optimize and pat yourself on the back about how perfect your Arch system is. For what? What do any of you actually do with your computers? Small business networking? VoIP? Security research? Drawing up contracts for a construction company? Creating custom CRM alternatives for industry-specific Windows and software contract-locked business applications? No, you just fight over which distro is better. Arch is too niche to be viable for end-users without a bastard operator from hell IT guy, and you all know what kind of person he would be in a professional environment. The Nick Burns SNL parody.
Personally I've tried to switch to Linux mainly because of it's open source privacy protecting nature.
Recently I decided to dual boot my Windows 10 LTSC with Arch.
The installation was relatively smooth, using a youtube video as a simply explained tutorial showing each command and explaining what it does (way better than the wiki).
From then onward it was issue after issue. I first tried running KDE with my NVIDIA GPU, it was just terrible with lag and stuttering so I switched to Cinnamon which has been pretty good.
From then onward I had a lot of issues with things that just work on Windows. A lot are actual issues, others are not liking how some things are done.
I am still continuing my Linux Arch journey as when Windows 10 ends support I am not planning on using 11. Still though in what my journey has shown, Windows as an OS is better than Linux in almost every case.
I really wanna switch from Windows to Linux, but can't cuz lots of apps I use are made only for Windows. _Sigh_
There are likely alternatives that work on Linux, or are good enough for the majority of use cases
@@moussaadem7933 I was sadly talking about more specific games that I play, which even if they do have alternatives it's not the same thing :(
@@ninjakiwigames5418 understandable
but secure boot is a pain in arch ... compared to fedora and i still need windows for school who need secure boot to be enabled .... (at least windows 11) plus i dont have the time or want to do everything myself, i just want my system to work as of the box ...
i got basically same story, i tried all the linux and arch was the one i stuck with
I installed Arch w kde and hyprland bc I wanted it to ONLY have stuff I really want to be there... Idk if it is actually like that or if other distros would come with the same stuff bc of also using Kde or whatever, but it's been surprisingly quick(er than I thought) to get everything set up and reeeeally fun to learn a bunch of new stuff... also, windows would consume, in idle, like 5gb of ram, while my arch install stays around 1,6gb until I actually start using it, or even less depending on the interface, pretty cool.
As a Linux noob, arch has been my 3rd distro. Started with mint, then debian, and figured "everyone hates on arch for being complicated, but people rave about the customization". And they ere right. The arch wiki and aur make things simple though. It's not my daily driver for my desktop, but it is my daily driver for my laptop. Love arch, it just works.
You know, I've been going on and of for years from windows -> some linux distro -> windows -> another linux distro and so on and so forth. Recently, I've gotten so darn sick of windows (thanks to work computer) that I've said "F it. Even if I hate ubuntu I'm just gonna use that because I hate it less than windows".
Now, I had considered Arch but never gotten into it because people gave me this idea that it only breaks a lot. But after seeing your showcase of your system, I got really inspired. After work, I'm getting into the wiki for the weekend.
You are indeed right in many of your statements, but in one, you are utterly biased and wrong: The part about that one would not really learn anything in Ubuntu (-like) Distros, because you put it on the same level as windows, which means either the Company behind it has to fix things, or you just cannot get past some clicks in a GUI. Just because in Arch you are forced (and able) to configure and fix nearly everythin by yourself.
It is just wrong to put a closed source OS like Windows on the same level as Ubuntu (-like) Distros, because in fact YOU CAN change system behaviour completely under the hood, which you cannot with a system like Windows. Of course, it often is more of a hassle than with KISS-principle based Distros, but you can. And you can find tutorials for it. In fact as a newbie you will learn MUCH about Linux and stuff, because Ubuntu (-like) Distros are so much different than Windows on their own. In things, you might not even think about today, because you made the switch so long ago. You have to address problems in another way than with Windows. And, in fact, you still have the freedom to change literally everything you want. And sometimes, you have to do stuff like that, e.g. if Caninocal (or someone comparable else) did not provide a solution for your specific problem. But you won't be the only one with that problem, which leads to solutions you can google, then follow a howto, learn new things on the go and get it solved.
There is just no way to say, that you won't really learn Linux stuff, if you do not use a KISS-based Distro, because there is no common ground for learners. Everybody starts at a different level. When you switched to Arch, you already learned some stuff from other Distros. You completely ignore that fact here, you actually deny it because you wanted back to windows because everything was so bad. But you constantly show examples, what you don't like about other distros, which for themselves are things you learned, right? And because YOU learned that, you eventually switched to Arch and found your way there. But your way is not everybodies way. Infact everybody, who has found his homebase with a specific distro, could make a video like you, completey making the "this is the only way"-concept pointless.
Everybody learns, everybody draws his own conclusions out of things, and everybody finds a distro he/she likes, because of things they learned in the past, making the switch to Linux for the first time. And that Distro has not automatically to be Arch by any of YOUR personal findings, except, of course, for you. And that is awesome, for you. Arch is awsome for me, too. In Arch, you indeed have to learn more, but it is not the only place to learn and not the only way. Linux indeed is for everyone, that's the concept. But Arch is not for everyone, and has not to be. It is one Distro to like, that you like, that i like, and so many others. And it is still open for everyone. But it is just not everybodies cup of tea.
Just wanted to say that because of one of your videos, I have been using Arch for months now and It’s been just amazing. It’s light, it works and I enjoy it. I used Ubuntu and Mint and some how I managed to break them on more than one occasion although I would not say it’s the distro‘s fault, I just did stuff i was not supposed to do and this is exactly why I love Arch. The fear people put into you that Arch is unstable and it will break makes you pay attention and not just implement stuff without trying to understand. In that process you learn something and you maintain a stable system.
I have tried so many Distros at this point and I think Arch is probably the easiest one I have used you type a command archinstall and it guides you through each step very easy and the desktop environments are just beautiful, great video!
Not really when livebooting just arch without the desktop window manager
This is a pretty shitty justification video tbh...yeah its easy for you to configure all your stuff but recommending it to others who don't have the time to spare to do all that is stupid. I just recommend EndeavorOS instead of Arch proper, because the installer takes care of a lot of things and the team behind it really knows what they're doing, unlike Manjaro
Ive been using Arch for about 2.5 years. Its great! It took me a while to figure out what was going on but I can render my animations through command line. Play Steam games with raytracing Control and Cyberpunk 2077 and it runs great! I have qtile for production and i3 for playing games when I need the system to run really efficiently. Ill never go back to windows
gaming at arch is much much muchhhhh! easier then at ubuntu and mint/mx/manjaro and so on..... :D
arch is too nice for beginners for linux gaming just use garuda lts and your fine with rolling releases and without bugs :D
dont use dual boot arch and windows ... windows can bug sometimes at bootloader and crush you grub
distro hopping is useless arch can allwhat you need!
Excellent video. Thanks for sharing Eric.
I recently reinstall arch and after installation I can't restart or reboot my pc, it's stuck on that turn off black screen, and when I hard reset it I cannot access grub or anything, what's going on, that's a mastery for me XD
Reasons I use Arch btw:
1-The Arch wiki
2-The Arch wiki
3-The Arch wiki
4-The Arch wiki
5-The Arch wiki
6-The Arch wiki
7-It's the best rolling release distro
8-The AUR
This just reads like 'I don''t know what man pages are and have never bothered to read them'.
I just switched to Arch and told all my friends, but mainly because I'd run into issues on Fedora, Mint, or other issues and then I'd not know where to start to fix if there wasn't some guide online. So now I switched. Also, learning to rice
I wouldn't recommend new users to use the AUR, it's a minefield without a map, Official repos and Flatpacks are the SAFE way to install any Program that a user may need.
Why do people call it "touch typing", wouldn't it be better if we call it "blind typing"? When I hear "touch typing" I think of typing on a touch screen.
I always thought because you find the home keys by touching some indent on the F and J keys
It was invented before touch screens existed and before computers in general existed.
@@EricMurphyxyz now I get it
I started messing around with Linux at the start of this year, initially used Mint. Anytime I had issues, my google search would almost always bring up the arch linux wiki, and that always had the answer. I then looked into Arch, saw people say it was difficult and all that. Being new to Linux I was initially scared off by that. As I had more issues, and the wiki had the answer I said screw it and installed arch. Since then its been smooth sailing, and it has been fun tinkering with it and all. Installing packages on Arch is so easy, and keeping them up-to-date is easy as well. I don't have to mess around with stuff, just search for it then install it. For me though, the do it yourself mentality is what is going to keep me using it for the foreseeable future. I'm learning stuff about Linux as a whole, and that is why I started using Linux.
Now i get the toxicity of the community. I have Vanilla OS and i am absolutely in love with it. So yea i can see how people can get emotionally about there distro and why it is the best. Vanilla works for a noob like me how switched 3 monts ago from windows to linux. Everything works, but after watching this video i really want to learn arch. Customize everything and do everything your selve, and in the end you know exactly how everything works, i can see the satisfaction in that. DIY is always better than haveing something pre made.
Im happy for me this progressed naturally. Used popOS for a year, tried my first tiling manager, hopped to a slimmer distro, understood linux better and finally went arch. A few months in found Artix and thats been my end game. Tried nix recently but bloaty and f systemd!
Tiling windows manager with arch is a deadly combo in past I used arch with every other flavour out there but something or the other would break I would switch back to debian but that has serious packages issues . Finally I decided if I can't make arch my os then am gng back to windows where I can be a obedient pet of Microsoft. But God has other plans I finally installed i3 learned in's and out of arch and i3 now gained confidence switched to hyprland. And there's no turning back ever since
I decided to install it on my laptop since I'll be doing a full switch from windows once 10 support is dropped. And gotta say it feels nice to get things working. And the wiki is just beyond good.
Fr arch just works
I raw dogged arch as my first Linux distro, and installed it "properly". Took several hours, but when I was done i immediately told my friends "I use arch btw"
yea arch is basically you set it up the way you like and it just works, i don't remember ever having an issue with updates or things like that, like unless i'm doing something stupid there's not going to be an issue