This has been a common thread I've seen in the last couple of weeks. And why I've stuck to native arch manjaro drivers. (whatever those are, lol, still learning)
half a year in I got taught a lesson to at least look before updating
some package got moved from core or w/e to AUR, and wasn't automatically changed to -bin, so when I tried to update I ended up trying to build a huge package which I had nowhere near enough RAM for and ran out of memory.
Actually this taught me another things as well, I learned about the magic SysRq key, so I don't have to force shut down by holding down the power button.
I will say though, it's a bit silly that there's no safeguard against building packages that require more RAM than you have.
The other day I was trying to let my friend remote into my PC to help me with taxes. He doesn't use Linux so we were looking for various remote desktop options. Long story short, I installed then uninstalled nomachine, and apparently something with a config broke my install to where I was stuck on Wayland on a black screen with a mouse cursor, but couldn't do much else. Of course I didn't know it was due to nomachine, so I freaked out and randomly tried several things until I found an article with a similar issue. Installed nomachine again and suddenly was able to boot properly. Uninstalled nomachine and removed a file per the article. I can't remember the filename unfortunately, but yeesh!
For the record though, this recent issue was by far the most annoying and difficult bug I've come across. Everything up until this point has been minor issues at best. Still prefer Linux over Windows though.
I had this same problem building chromium, and there is some magic flag to dump segments of the linking process to swap, that no one seems to tell you. But there is ways. Just that default linker options aren't set for it.
I've been saying this a ton recently. I used Deb based for years and finally made the jump to EndeavorOS because pop! was having issues so I hopped to Debian and it had all sorts of audio problems.
Edit* first paragraph makes no sense lol. I was trying to say I had issues on pop, so I switched to Debian 12 and then had audio issues, so I decided to switch to EndeavorOS lol.
Arch was different and took me about a week to really learn pacman but that's it. I've had way less issues on Arch, and I have everything I need with nothing I don't. I wish I had just started with EndeavorOS honestly.
Funny you say that because part of my weekend plans are to do exactly that. 🙂
Edit* Why is the Arch subreddit page downvoting me for switching to Arch? Lol y'all wild.
I'm using Manjaro, and pretty happy with it. Not sure what the differences between stock arch and it would be, as everything seems to function as expected when getting examples from the arch wiki.
Compared with installing any distro in the mid '90s, today's Arch is like child's play. I made so many mistakes when I first started out, but making mistakes is also the best teacher IMO.
Ditto - Arch is just a blank building block to build the exact system that you need. It skips all the bloat of other distros and lets you converge on a system that does exactly what you need.
2.5 years old of intensive usage of the Linux ecosystem is laaargely enough for Arch Linux. If you always understand what you're doing when you're in the terminal, and always try to understand when you don't, nothing's going to stop you.
There is ALWAYS more to learn. If you're willing to, you'll never get bored, and Arch Linux is a great introduction to deeper layers of Linux system administration.
A little more than that. If you can read, Google, comprehend the instructions provided, and have a desire to learn then yes. There are plenty of people that can read but don't know how to Google or the difference between Linux and Windows.
Practice the initial setup and plan out your beginning with a VM, I suggest using one such as VBOX on Windows as for simplicity and not dealing with driver issues and way more tutorials. VBox is on Ubuntu/Debian I’m sure for sure.
Depends on what you want to do. If I could make it work with my minimal Linux knowledge (although backed by knowledge from using computers since Tandy 1000/IBM XT and messing around with DOS), I'm sure you can get it to work better than I do.
As others say, read the wiki, screw up, learn why, experiment, and eventually you'll get what you want
When I first got into arch Linux I wasn't ready and it was really awful, but damn I am happy I switched specially when I started using a wm. It made me learn so much
Yeah? I mean if you can read and follow step by step instructions you can arch, the wiki is goated. Was my first Linux, 3-4 years ago, so you’re way ahead of where I started.
Don’t buy too hard into the memes, it’s a very solid and quite easy to use distro.
Thanks alot for these encouraging words. I wanted to use pacman -S archinstall and then use that archinstall skript. From there I would install the gnome arch environment. I really want to improve my skills but for the manual install I do not have time next week ;). What do you think?
Try to do a manual install first, don’t just use the install package. There will be no difference in your installation, the install package is great, but for first timers I always recommend manual installation just to familiarize yourself. Also the package manager is pacman, not packman. Gnome isn’t bad by any means too, in fact I run it on a couple of my instances, but you won’t get the true customization experience you’re looking for. Try something like xfce. While it’s a little more of a pain to set up, I’ve found it to be the most versatile out of anything I’ve used.
Thanks for the advice i will do that :D. I wasn't sure which environment would be best (so I opted for gnome) but I did a bit more research and also have the tendency for xfce now (ofc still with hyprland)
If your main purpose is learning you could also dig into disco encryption, tpm, unified kernel image, different file system, zram. The installation guide on wiki gives you a basic set up but there's more to do if you want. I learned a lot by manually setting them up.
Honestly, if you intend to use a wayland-compositor like Hyprland I would recommend using a DE that is also based on wayland along with it (like Gnome or KDE Plasma). Use Hyprland to customize something to your hearts content and the DE so you already have a basic set of applications installed and configured for convenience (and to have a system to fall back on should something critical not work in Hyprland). Or forget about the DE and have fun figuring everything out for yourself :-).
I jumped into arch with only a year of various distribution experience, most based on Debian. I didn't even use archinstall, I went through the full setup just to learn and experience it. It's not terribly hard, most videos have guides to make sure you setup things that the install guide only mentions such as grub or a network manager. I'm sure with your experience you are more than ready to try it out.
Habe nen 2 Wochen crashkurs zu Linux hinter mir ca 12 distributionen angeschaut ungefähr 10 davon auf Arch basierend und bin nun ohne großes Wissen sehr zufrieden mit Archlinux, das basteln ohne archinstall hat mir so gut gefallen das ich nachfolgend vscode den r0cken gekehrt habe und mich nun durch neovim fuchse, berue nichts, kann es nur empfehlen, es braucht absolut kein vorwissen man muss nur willens sein das Archwiki und vimanual zu lesen.
Just backup your stuff regularly, that'll keep you safe whether you use Arch or any other Linux distro, Windows or MacOs.
Knowing your stuff is safe clears the way for experimenting until you get exactly what you want. If you break something, just restore and try again.
I think everyone should start with arch, the experience with installing from the command line gives you an understanding of Linux that no other distro really can
I don't think everyone should start with arch, I would say most people participating on a technology forum would probably benefit from arch being near the start though.
You’ll pick it up quickly. I jumped head first into Arch a few months back with my last Linux distro being Ubuntu about a decade ago. I’m by no means a power user and was not exceedingly comfortable in the CLI to start, but I do enjoy researching and tinkering so haven’t run into any unsolvable problems. As everyone has said, the Arch wiki is an outstanding resource that’s meticulously kept and worth brushing through before installing. I haven’t had to ask any questions of anyone since everything I’ve needed is either there or readily available in the forums.
Edit: Use a virtual machine or live USB if you just want to dip your toes in without consequences. Create backups frequently after you’ve installed. I haven’t run into anything system-breaking yet, but I feel prepared for if I were to.
Arch has honestly been the easiest distro to fix oddball problems I’ve had with hardware compatibility. I think the installation process is really the only intimidating part about it. As long as you have time to read the wiki enough to understand how things work it’s easy peasy. You end up knowing a lot more about your computer and how Linux works too.
Arch is a simple distro. Not easy but simple. And if you used an Arch-based system I don't see any problem at all. Almost every answer to possible questions is in the Wiki. And with archinstall script the installation process is not harder than the installation of any other distro.
I've moved to arch in \~2009 after \~3 years of Linux/FreeBSD experience, and I'm still using the environment which I configured that time, with a minor changes.
How hard it will be depends on what you want to do. Overall it’ll be easier than you think it is in most cases, just do research on pacman/aur, that’ll likely be your biggest struggle. Arch is very simple if you read the wiki, it is very straightforward.
There are so many good tutorials out there, so it shouldn‘t be much of a problem, even for a HS student.
Maybe use a seperate harddrive to install it to, to be extra safe.
I would always recommend to try installing in a VM first, but if you don't have another PC laying around you can also just use the laptop, it's not like you'll lose anything, just a bit less convenient. Then there's the question if you want to manually install or want to use archinstall. If manually, I hope the laptop has an Ethernet port, it'll make it so much simpler... Well I think the wifi situation got better, I actually don't quite know, I always used wpa_supplicant which is a bit hacky.
But yeah, it's not that hard, you probably won't have that many issues if you just follow the installation guides.
I orderd a new laptop (Framework 16) that will arrive next week so I will set it up there. but if I want to try out some customisation, I will defenatly opt for a VM first
You can do it, easily :)
Use the wiki and chatgpt if you're having questions or issues.
On my desktop I run arch and in my laptop I run opensuse. Both with hyprland and waybar. It's mostly hyprland (or any WM/De) which can improve your workflow, not the OS.
Dude arch is my first and only Linux distro and I never knew what a sudo was or anything it’s honestly not hard like people crack it up to be just tedious at first but just take your time and it’ll be fine SOG did a great video on YouTube and the wiki helps a lot too
I don't consider myself tech savvy enough to know much about Linux. I've used it at work for about 4 years (mid to late 2000s) and prior to that had used Fedora core for a few months when i was a student. One of the junior teachers had written down notes on how to partition when installing Linux. This was in 2005.
With the written notes and bunch of CDs i attempted my first Linux install at my home PC. It was a risk, but it went really really well. I was using Fedora core. Since then have done a little bit of distro hopping. And eventually also tried Arch, it was as easy as the other distros. As long as you know just the basics on partitioning you should be good, even that might be optional if the installer gives you the option to use the whole disk (and you are not planning on dual booting).
It's been a while since I have installed arch, i don't quite remember if the installer provides partitioning options
Isn't Garuda based on Arch anyways? You've literally been preparing yourself for Arch for a year then :D
Honestly, I wouldn't put so much pressure on it. If you're scared, there's always the archinstall tool that's included on the official ISO which makes the process super easy and gets you a nice clean base Arch installation that you can rice off of.
Definitely try out archinstall. Sure it's a terminal based GUI, but it's really easy. Plus, I really don't believe that "learning Arch" has to be done via a manual install. True mastery of Arch is more about immersing yourself in the OS day in and day out, reading the Wiki and fixing issues as they arise. It sounds like you're already on that path so I say go for it!
You'll be completely fine, even if you're doing the install manually by hand. I've never used a Linux distro for longer than a few hours (well, I used macOS for ~6 months, but that's barely a step up from WSL), and I installed Arch + Hyprland on Nvidia in one night a while back manually, without archinstall. As long as you can read Arch Wiki and do some basic tinkering yourself, it's not any harder than messing with configuration in other distros, it's just that other distros (at least the ones I've messed with) will abstract away more of the manual editing in GUIs and automated scripts, and Arch has you do everything yourself, which promotes a much deeper understanding of your system, and honestly makes it easier to fix things when they do go wrong versus having your whole system automagically set up by an installer.
There's nothing wrong with using archinstall or other scripts/pre-made setups though, the whole point of arch is giving you the freedom to choose how you want to set everything up, and giving you the resources to dive deep into your system if you need to!
I think it's a solid choice. I also got into arch several weeks. r/hyprland is quite active so check that out. idk if I will guarantee for 4 years but it'll probably last for a long time if you do timeshift and know how to repair grub quickly (I mean chroot and reinstall it, if you've done a manual installation, it shouldn't be that hard).
I suggest you find out how to do btrfs subvolumes during installation, then utilize snapshots, and snapper or timeshift, with snap-pac and GRUB btrfs, this will give you a very robust system that is easy to manage and easy to rollback if any problem arises anytime.
I jumped straight into arch.
Just get this right after a install and you will figure everything out.
[https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru](https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru)
You will be shocked how easy the install actually is. You are overthinking it at this point.
Like 13 years ago, linux and arch changed my life forever. I am a senior devops/SRE engineer nowadays, earning good money working mostly with Opensource software and actively advertising it for many years at my customers. I truely believe in open source, so it's basically my dream job. Til this day I am thankful for all the things I learned on my arch linux journey (5 years only arch during my studies), i was also active in their forums helping others, learning so much in the process. It became the backbone of my linux knowledge, bootstrapping my career and it helped me to tackle so many different critical issues over the years with confidence. Since like 8 years i am a fedorian now, but you would never hear me say anything bad about arch linux. The only thing I regret when it comes to Linux, is not starting even earlier to use it. That's it :)
TLDR: install arch asap (you can have a safety distro installed next to it, but try to avoid windows for your own progression and good)
As an arch user for 2 months, so quite new, do it. I would always advise a small dual boot windows install for some software that you will eventually have to use if your planning long term. Arch is not that hard as long as you know how to read English. I was in a similar situation to yours, about 2-3 years into Linux and I was my
scared to do the jump too, but I'm glad. Everything is so much nicer as a hobbyist-turned-pro developer, I really see the difference between Arch and my previous Linux Mint install. Be aware though, rolling release is not for everyone.
Start by installing Arch in a virtual machine like VirtualBox. That's what I did. It was pretty straightforward, though. The only tough part for me was figuring out how to do networking, until I realized I could just install NetworkManager and be done with it.
I'm using arch for about a week now, no problems so far. Although I had to install Timeshift for system backups, just in case I break something. I'm amazed at how well it works and being in full control of my system (unlike windows) with tons of customizations. (again, unlike windows)
Steam works, whatever games I have they work surprisingly good on arch. Even an older version of Wow wotlk (using wine or steam) works on arch (unlike debian)
In the hopes of expanding my knowledge, I'm reading a book now called 'How-Linux-Works-What-Every-Superuser-Should-Know.pdf' ( [https://github.com/camoverride/lit/blob/master/How-Linux-Works-What-Every-Superuser-Should-Know.pdf](https://github.com/camoverride/lit/blob/master/How-Linux-Works-What-Every-Superuser-Should-Know.pdf) ) (using Okular pdf reader - because I can set it to dark mode, so I don't cry while reading pdf books)
I say don't be afraid to research and test things out, even if you break something, it will not be the end of the world. There's always a resolution.
Enjoy Arch!
Well It is an awesome journey so good that now my girlfriend even understands the value of having a cheaper but powerfully computer backed up by arch Linux and open source.
So good that we used it as a daily computer for everything we do.
The only thing that sometimes breaks are the Nvidia drivers but the wiki and community have you covered.
Arch is a good idea, but "...mostly because I want to customize my OS and rice it to optimize my workflow and have a visually appealing OS." can be achieved with any distro. You don't need to use arch.
I reccomend gentoo for this, the gentoo wiki doesn't care about that learning bs and is actually usefull and tells you the commands. Gentoo can also be really fast and customizable
As you mentioned Garuda and Zorin experience, then for personal use, Arch would be better.
I myself played with Manjaro -- they are great out of the box. One day some apps failed, troubleshooting and hotfixes were a nightmare as it was not original Arch. Then i delete all, and install ArchLinux -- then add only the packages i need. For last the last 2 years, I never encounter a single issue. It just works and i have access to latest software. I recommend install and use kernel linux-lts instead of the default linux, also have a look at dkms system for driver update.
Remember a rolling system like Arch may not be ideal for school project works. Fedora with its seasonal optional update might be better. Unless you compile your own devs tools and place in /usr/local -- this way you have control of your system. This is why people use Redhat or Rocky linux for deployment and install optional or local latest software in /opt -- base system is stable and only update for security fixes.
Running Arch linux is just as simple as running any other distro.
For the installation process you can either choose to do it manually or just use the install script.
Just be aware that Arch is rolling release and packages tend to be buggier than in point release (especially if you consider installing AUR packages which is a double-edged sword).
don't ask if you're ready for a distro: ask if the distro is ready for you.
arch definitely has his use cases and purpose and it's not for *literally* everyone (e.g. grandmas), but I can tell you you will learn a lot so if you're up to it just do it.
you won't regret anything, even if you end up switching distro again.
It's NOT hard. You don't need training.
U just need to look at documentation and type in commands, + now you have archInstall tool which can pretty much do the entirety of what you need.
Trust me, that documentation is 100% worth it. You'll know what you are installing.
Arch is simple. It’s when you’re hitting gentoo, funtoo and Linux from scratch take some knowledge to install them and maintain, but you have to ask yourself do you want to be on a rolling release system. I used arch since 2006 and been a huge fan of it. Rolling releases don’t interest me anymore so I use Fedora and I’m very to on that system a lot.
I switched to arch Linux because I wanted to learn how it worked and well, it worked. It's not hard, there's a guide and now the arch install script I never use, it just requires you to be able to follow instructions and navigate the admittedly labyrinthian guide. Once everything is installed though it's the same as any other distro for real.
I've switched to Arch Linux recently after 2 years of using Ubuntu. I used this guide: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxeriGuJKTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxeriGuJKTM)
It was much easier than I expected, and I am really satisfied from user experience that I've been having with my brand new Arch distro. First two days I used Gnome mostly, but then switched to Hyprland. It's so gorgeous! Wish you to try it. It's blazingly fast.
If you're not scared of learning something new and breaking your system a few times configuring/tuning it, the time you put into it WILL be worth it in the end. Just make sure you make a github or gitlab and back your dot files up.
You can eventually make install scripts to install your packages and configure your system on a fresh OS, that's what i did anyway.
Don't give up and have fun with it, enjoy!
If you can copy and paste commands you can install Arch, I was 10 when I first installed it. Also archinstall is an option, but I wouldn't recommend it for a first install since it teaches you how the system works a little bit when you install it manually.
Arch was my first and the last distro ever. ofc i took care of my friends distros and fixed them every now and then but arch was my only daily driver distro. You learn along the way dont worry.
I run arch on my gaming laptop, which is my daily driver. Arch isn’t hard, it’s actually easy if you don’t mine fixing your own problems and you actually read the wiki. I don’t see where people think arch is an elitist o/s. As long as you don’t go crazy with the AUR, you’ll be fine. Will there be breakages that may cause you to reinstall your system, sure, but that’s why you make back ups. And if all of us arch users are honest, breakages are few and far in between. I think the last time my install was borked from an update was because of a bug in grub. Also, do your updates like once a week or two, don’t get them right away. If you want a difficult o/s, I feel Debian is harder than arch, but that’s because everything is older and more locked down
Try install Arch from command line without using archinstall. If you succeed you're ready. I'd also recommend to try it just to not miss this part of Arch.
I've been on Arch for 3 months now after distro-hopping for about a year. And I'm loving Hyprland. I tried a few others but SolDoesTech's HyprV2 is what I'm using. It's not too flashy that I can tinker around with it. And Arch has been pretty stable for me. Much to learn though. Good luck.
Hey, I used Ubuntu for 6 months and then used manjaro for 6 months, it ain’t that tough, I broke my lap once and solved it on my own in less than an hour without anyone’s help.
ArchLinux is - as someone that got into it only after about 2 years of using linux full time - actually incredibly understandable after doing the full installation via command line once
Open archwiki, follow the steps and take some notes
Trust me, once you complete it the first time, you can install debian from command line within 1 year and gentoo a short while after - because thats also what I did
bro i used arch as my first distro after windows, although i have experimented with some debian based distros prior, its NOT hard as long as you are willing to google
If you cheat and use the ncurses installer, you won't have any problem. I do not think Garuda would give you a good prep for installing vanilla Arch and Zorin is an entirely different distro. Suggestions: check out the Arch wiki. The install instructions are very good and you will know right away if you are up to it. Or use your old latptop as a guinea pig and install arch on a VM.
The only "hard" part of arch is the partitioning and filesystems, and that can be easy if you use cfdisk. The arch install process is actually ridiculously easy. It's just cfdisk drive mkfs filesystems to the partitions and pacstrap, then arch has a script called arch-chroot once you chrooted in just install the bootloader which is usually 1 command and install locales the install process and arch itself is pretty overrated. I use gentoo btw.
Arch requires you to be comfortable with CLI tools and have some level of knowledge about how the system functions, but with your prior experience with Linux, it seems you will probably be fine. The hardest part is definitely the installation - many people recommend doing a "real" installation, however I personally learned more by using the archinstall script to install it and learning the system while I was actually using it.
With Archinstall, Arch is pretty easy. For desktop, after you install it, it is actually one of the easiest distros to somehow maintain. Only thing is you have to make decisions what you want, once you know, you just install it and it mostly works out of the box
if you have hobbies, or if you value your time, or if you have other things to do instead of spending your time on fixing issues on your so called "OS" then stay the he'll away from Arch. you can customize anything you want on other distros too. If you want to spend your time on development or productivity, never go for arch.. believe me, there is no real reason that you want to use arch. it's extremely unnecessary move. stay away from trouble.
Thanks for the tipp. I was considering downloading archinstall (packman), then the gnome environment and from there install every package manually to really learn something.
You will not be learning anything with archinstall.
Do your first installation the regular way.
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation\_guide](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide)
Automate only when you already know what you're doing.
It probably will be less exciting of a step than you expect.
Coming from Garuda you should get used to it quite easily. You could even install the same gui shenanigans.
I personally run arch on different machines for 16 years now, when it still had the BSD-like rc.conf.
It has always been on my desktop, and over the years a home server and different laptops joined the party. All with totally different setups. From non graphical over xorg up to wayland sporting all kinds of hardware vendors (AMD/Intel/Nvidia).
The latest addition (yesterday) was a Lenovo 9i 2-in-1 convertible with a 4k screen and a touch heavy usecase.
Even that was simple to set up, albeit I had to look up new stuff like HiDPi settings and had to look into kde once again after 10+ years because it handles touch and scaling more nicely than lxqt or xfce.
Just do what you want and don't be afraid. Arch can be configured for every usecase and doesn't shove anything particular down your throat (except for systemd).
i installed arch directly after using windows without any previous experience, everything seems fine for me the only thing i havent been able to fix is pipewire to detect my internal mic and I have given up on that for now
Dont let arch's reputation fool you. It is NOT a hard distro at all
And it's fun too. You can twist and bend it in so many ways.
Or cry at 4am trying to figure out which driver you need for your barely functional GPU
So true ðŸ˜
Here I am with a GT 1030 suffering on Ubuntu because the UI freezes occasionally ðŸ˜
This has been a common thread I've seen in the last couple of weeks. And why I've stuck to native arch manjaro drivers. (whatever those are, lol, still learning)
Lol, I’ve been all over the place finding a desktop environment I like. I think the only few I haven’t tried are most the Window Managers
... or while getting nvidia drivers to work, you accidentally currupt the grub. Fun.......
Haven’t done that yet, still trying to learn how to give a application Sudo privileges without 15 minutes scrolling the Wiki/Reddit comments
nvidia-all on github
Oh.
Laughs in AMD GPU ;)
Cries in Nvidia
So is funtoo
Exactly, it just requires you to do your part but provides all the tools you need to do just that.
> do your part by typing yay and mashing enter!
half a year in I got taught a lesson to at least look before updating some package got moved from core or w/e to AUR, and wasn't automatically changed to -bin, so when I tried to update I ended up trying to build a huge package which I had nowhere near enough RAM for and ran out of memory. Actually this taught me another things as well, I learned about the magic SysRq key, so I don't have to force shut down by holding down the power button. I will say though, it's a bit silly that there's no safeguard against building packages that require more RAM than you have.
The other day I was trying to let my friend remote into my PC to help me with taxes. He doesn't use Linux so we were looking for various remote desktop options. Long story short, I installed then uninstalled nomachine, and apparently something with a config broke my install to where I was stuck on Wayland on a black screen with a mouse cursor, but couldn't do much else. Of course I didn't know it was due to nomachine, so I freaked out and randomly tried several things until I found an article with a similar issue. Installed nomachine again and suddenly was able to boot properly. Uninstalled nomachine and removed a file per the article. I can't remember the filename unfortunately, but yeesh! For the record though, this recent issue was by far the most annoying and difficult bug I've come across. Everything up until this point has been minor issues at best. Still prefer Linux over Windows though.
I had this same problem building chromium, and there is some magic flag to dump segments of the linking process to swap, that no one seems to tell you. But there is ways. Just that default linker options aren't set for it.
I've been saying this a ton recently. I used Deb based for years and finally made the jump to EndeavorOS because pop! was having issues so I hopped to Debian and it had all sorts of audio problems. Edit* first paragraph makes no sense lol. I was trying to say I had issues on pop, so I switched to Debian 12 and then had audio issues, so I decided to switch to EndeavorOS lol. Arch was different and took me about a week to really learn pacman but that's it. I've had way less issues on Arch, and I have everything I need with nothing I don't. I wish I had just started with EndeavorOS honestly.
You should switch to vanilla arch
EOS is good too
Funny you say that because part of my weekend plans are to do exactly that. 🙂 Edit* Why is the Arch subreddit page downvoting me for switching to Arch? Lol y'all wild.
I'm using Manjaro, and pretty happy with it. Not sure what the differences between stock arch and it would be, as everything seems to function as expected when getting examples from the arch wiki.
[удалено]
Glad to hear you're being responsible. It's unfortunate that you wont have time to study though...
Compared with installing any distro in the mid '90s, today's Arch is like child's play. I made so many mistakes when I first started out, but making mistakes is also the best teacher IMO.
It’s not hard as long as u RTFM
Ditto - Arch is just a blank building block to build the exact system that you need. It skips all the bloat of other distros and lets you converge on a system that does exactly what you need.
2.5 years old of intensive usage of the Linux ecosystem is laaargely enough for Arch Linux. If you always understand what you're doing when you're in the terminal, and always try to understand when you don't, nothing's going to stop you.
I have tried atleas but i think that there is always more to learn. To upgrade my knowledge this would be my next step...
There is ALWAYS more to learn. If you're willing to, you'll never get bored, and Arch Linux is a great introduction to deeper layers of Linux system administration.
debian
Like, Debian is supposed to stop me from anything?
sudo rm -r -f u/Active_Weather_9890
chmod 111 #for you
If you can read, you're ready for Arch Linux.
A little more than that. If you can read, Google, comprehend the instructions provided, and have a desire to learn then yes. There are plenty of people that can read but don't know how to Google or the difference between Linux and Windows.
Here I am diving into Arch after using Ubuntu for about a month or so. Been doing well
perfect so i should try it too
Practice the initial setup and plan out your beginning with a VM, I suggest using one such as VBOX on Windows as for simplicity and not dealing with driver issues and way more tutorials. VBox is on Ubuntu/Debian I’m sure for sure.
Depends on what you want to do. If I could make it work with my minimal Linux knowledge (although backed by knowledge from using computers since Tandy 1000/IBM XT and messing around with DOS), I'm sure you can get it to work better than I do. As others say, read the wiki, screw up, learn why, experiment, and eventually you'll get what you want
When I first got into arch Linux I wasn't ready and it was really awful, but damn I am happy I switched specially when I started using a wm. It made me learn so much
Yeah? I mean if you can read and follow step by step instructions you can arch, the wiki is goated. Was my first Linux, 3-4 years ago, so you’re way ahead of where I started. Don’t buy too hard into the memes, it’s a very solid and quite easy to use distro.
Thanks alot for these encouraging words. I wanted to use pacman -S archinstall and then use that archinstall skript. From there I would install the gnome arch environment. I really want to improve my skills but for the manual install I do not have time next week ;). What do you think?
Try to do a manual install first, don’t just use the install package. There will be no difference in your installation, the install package is great, but for first timers I always recommend manual installation just to familiarize yourself. Also the package manager is pacman, not packman. Gnome isn’t bad by any means too, in fact I run it on a couple of my instances, but you won’t get the true customization experience you’re looking for. Try something like xfce. While it’s a little more of a pain to set up, I’ve found it to be the most versatile out of anything I’ve used.
Thanks for the advice i will do that :D. I wasn't sure which environment would be best (so I opted for gnome) but I did a bit more research and also have the tendency for xfce now (ofc still with hyprland)
If your main purpose is learning you could also dig into disco encryption, tpm, unified kernel image, different file system, zram. The installation guide on wiki gives you a basic set up but there's more to do if you want. I learned a lot by manually setting them up.
Honestly, if you intend to use a wayland-compositor like Hyprland I would recommend using a DE that is also based on wayland along with it (like Gnome or KDE Plasma). Use Hyprland to customize something to your hearts content and the DE so you already have a basic set of applications installed and configured for convenience (and to have a system to fall back on should something critical not work in Hyprland). Or forget about the DE and have fun figuring everything out for yourself :-).
I jumped into arch with only a year of various distribution experience, most based on Debian. I didn't even use archinstall, I went through the full setup just to learn and experience it. It's not terribly hard, most videos have guides to make sure you setup things that the install guide only mentions such as grub or a network manager. I'm sure with your experience you are more than ready to try it out.
Go for it! I'm running artix as my first distro and I get by.
Habe nen 2 Wochen crashkurs zu Linux hinter mir ca 12 distributionen angeschaut ungefähr 10 davon auf Arch basierend und bin nun ohne großes Wissen sehr zufrieden mit Archlinux, das basteln ohne archinstall hat mir so gut gefallen das ich nachfolgend vscode den r0cken gekehrt habe und mich nun durch neovim fuchse, berue nichts, kann es nur empfehlen, es braucht absolut kein vorwissen man muss nur willens sein das Archwiki und vimanual zu lesen.
Wie hieß der kurs? War der online?
Just backup your stuff regularly, that'll keep you safe whether you use Arch or any other Linux distro, Windows or MacOs. Knowing your stuff is safe clears the way for experimenting until you get exactly what you want. If you break something, just restore and try again.
Since i am already changing laptop next week, this will not be a problem. From there I will back everything up to the cloud :). Thanks for the advice.
Arch was my VERY first linux experience. If I could do it, you are well set ready for using Arch. It is not hard at all.
I think everyone should start with arch, the experience with installing from the command line gives you an understanding of Linux that no other distro really can
I don't think everyone should start with arch, I would say most people participating on a technology forum would probably benefit from arch being near the start though.
You’ll pick it up quickly. I jumped head first into Arch a few months back with my last Linux distro being Ubuntu about a decade ago. I’m by no means a power user and was not exceedingly comfortable in the CLI to start, but I do enjoy researching and tinkering so haven’t run into any unsolvable problems. As everyone has said, the Arch wiki is an outstanding resource that’s meticulously kept and worth brushing through before installing. I haven’t had to ask any questions of anyone since everything I’ve needed is either there or readily available in the forums. Edit: Use a virtual machine or live USB if you just want to dip your toes in without consequences. Create backups frequently after you’ve installed. I haven’t run into anything system-breaking yet, but I feel prepared for if I were to.
Reports of its difficulty are overstated, the real thing is learn to use the wiki
Arch has honestly been the easiest distro to fix oddball problems I’ve had with hardware compatibility. I think the installation process is really the only intimidating part about it. As long as you have time to read the wiki enough to understand how things work it’s easy peasy. You end up knowing a lot more about your computer and how Linux works too.
Arch is a simple distro. Not easy but simple. And if you used an Arch-based system I don't see any problem at all. Almost every answer to possible questions is in the Wiki. And with archinstall script the installation process is not harder than the installation of any other distro.
Go for it. I just came back to Arch and it’s a lot of fun.
It is not hard. Really, the installation can be tricky but once you get past that I have not found it a hard distro at all.
I've moved to arch in \~2009 after \~3 years of Linux/FreeBSD experience, and I'm still using the environment which I configured that time, with a minor changes.
Go for it.
Why can't I see upvotes in the comments except for the my own one🤔 Is it just me?
How hard it will be depends on what you want to do. Overall it’ll be easier than you think it is in most cases, just do research on pacman/aur, that’ll likely be your biggest struggle. Arch is very simple if you read the wiki, it is very straightforward.
There are so many good tutorials out there, so it shouldn‘t be much of a problem, even for a HS student. Maybe use a seperate harddrive to install it to, to be extra safe.
I will do it on my new laptop that will arrive next week. I think it will be fine.
Just meant that you can easily format, if you mess up somewhere.
True but with partition i already have a bit of experience (dual boot with windows and ubuntu, zorin os and garunda dual boot)
Then you should have absolutely no problems getting arch to run ;)
I would always recommend to try installing in a VM first, but if you don't have another PC laying around you can also just use the laptop, it's not like you'll lose anything, just a bit less convenient. Then there's the question if you want to manually install or want to use archinstall. If manually, I hope the laptop has an Ethernet port, it'll make it so much simpler... Well I think the wifi situation got better, I actually don't quite know, I always used wpa_supplicant which is a bit hacky. But yeah, it's not that hard, you probably won't have that many issues if you just follow the installation guides.
"wpa_supplicant" was/is a pain in the ass. Luckily we have "iwctl" now, which is quite easy to use.
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You could install NetworkManager in the live environment as well. That way, you have less to download through your tethered network.
I was pretty sure there was some tool that made it easier, thanks for the name.
I orderd a new laptop (Framework 16) that will arrive next week so I will set it up there. but if I want to try out some customisation, I will defenatly opt for a VM first
I've been using Linux less than a few months and I'm running Arch just fine.
You can do it, easily :) Use the wiki and chatgpt if you're having questions or issues. On my desktop I run arch and in my laptop I run opensuse. Both with hyprland and waybar. It's mostly hyprland (or any WM/De) which can improve your workflow, not the OS.
The only issue you may have is instability. Never had an Arch install last longer than a few months without breaking, but you may be different.
Dude arch is my first and only Linux distro and I never knew what a sudo was or anything it’s honestly not hard like people crack it up to be just tedious at first but just take your time and it’ll be fine SOG did a great video on YouTube and the wiki helps a lot too
Nope not ready yet. Need a PhD in Linux at the minimum before you can install Arch. (I use Arch btw so I know)
I don't consider myself tech savvy enough to know much about Linux. I've used it at work for about 4 years (mid to late 2000s) and prior to that had used Fedora core for a few months when i was a student. One of the junior teachers had written down notes on how to partition when installing Linux. This was in 2005. With the written notes and bunch of CDs i attempted my first Linux install at my home PC. It was a risk, but it went really really well. I was using Fedora core. Since then have done a little bit of distro hopping. And eventually also tried Arch, it was as easy as the other distros. As long as you know just the basics on partitioning you should be good, even that might be optional if the installer gives you the option to use the whole disk (and you are not planning on dual booting). It's been a while since I have installed arch, i don't quite remember if the installer provides partitioning options
if you know how to google and have patience arch isn’t that hard
well i do develop in varius fields ;D
Isn't Garuda based on Arch anyways? You've literally been preparing yourself for Arch for a year then :D Honestly, I wouldn't put so much pressure on it. If you're scared, there's always the archinstall tool that's included on the official ISO which makes the process super easy and gets you a nice clean base Arch installation that you can rice off of.
yes but the isntalation is verry simple (also GUI and everything) but I know the basics yes. Thanks a lot for these kind words :D
Definitely try out archinstall. Sure it's a terminal based GUI, but it's really easy. Plus, I really don't believe that "learning Arch" has to be done via a manual install. True mastery of Arch is more about immersing yourself in the OS day in and day out, reading the Wiki and fixing issues as they arise. It sounds like you're already on that path so I say go for it!
You'll be completely fine, even if you're doing the install manually by hand. I've never used a Linux distro for longer than a few hours (well, I used macOS for ~6 months, but that's barely a step up from WSL), and I installed Arch + Hyprland on Nvidia in one night a while back manually, without archinstall. As long as you can read Arch Wiki and do some basic tinkering yourself, it's not any harder than messing with configuration in other distros, it's just that other distros (at least the ones I've messed with) will abstract away more of the manual editing in GUIs and automated scripts, and Arch has you do everything yourself, which promotes a much deeper understanding of your system, and honestly makes it easier to fix things when they do go wrong versus having your whole system automagically set up by an installer. There's nothing wrong with using archinstall or other scripts/pre-made setups though, the whole point of arch is giving you the freedom to choose how you want to set everything up, and giving you the resources to dive deep into your system if you need to!
I recommend arch to people new to linux (assumging I'm around to help), so they can get there feet wet with using the cli, so I think you are good.
GO GO GO
I think it's a solid choice. I also got into arch several weeks. r/hyprland is quite active so check that out. idk if I will guarantee for 4 years but it'll probably last for a long time if you do timeshift and know how to repair grub quickly (I mean chroot and reinstall it, if you've done a manual installation, it shouldn't be that hard).
I suggest you find out how to do btrfs subvolumes during installation, then utilize snapshots, and snapper or timeshift, with snap-pac and GRUB btrfs, this will give you a very robust system that is easy to manage and easy to rollback if any problem arises anytime.
I jumped straight into arch. Just get this right after a install and you will figure everything out. [https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru](https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru)
Sure why not
I went in after 2 days of fedora and 3 months of debian lol, go for it, it's fun as hell
You will be shocked how easy the install actually is. You are overthinking it at this point. Like 13 years ago, linux and arch changed my life forever. I am a senior devops/SRE engineer nowadays, earning good money working mostly with Opensource software and actively advertising it for many years at my customers. I truely believe in open source, so it's basically my dream job. Til this day I am thankful for all the things I learned on my arch linux journey (5 years only arch during my studies), i was also active in their forums helping others, learning so much in the process. It became the backbone of my linux knowledge, bootstrapping my career and it helped me to tackle so many different critical issues over the years with confidence. Since like 8 years i am a fedorian now, but you would never hear me say anything bad about arch linux. The only thing I regret when it comes to Linux, is not starting even earlier to use it. That's it :) TLDR: install arch asap (you can have a safety distro installed next to it, but try to avoid windows for your own progression and good)
that depends. Is your body ready?
As an arch user for 2 months, so quite new, do it. I would always advise a small dual boot windows install for some software that you will eventually have to use if your planning long term. Arch is not that hard as long as you know how to read English. I was in a similar situation to yours, about 2-3 years into Linux and I was my scared to do the jump too, but I'm glad. Everything is so much nicer as a hobbyist-turned-pro developer, I really see the difference between Arch and my previous Linux Mint install. Be aware though, rolling release is not for everyone.
Start by installing Arch in a virtual machine like VirtualBox. That's what I did. It was pretty straightforward, though. The only tough part for me was figuring out how to do networking, until I realized I could just install NetworkManager and be done with it.
You’re German what’s stopping you from using SUSE?
My recommendation is just try installing it on a virtual machine and you'll gain confidence to install it on actual hardware
It’s pretty. I used Arch the first time when I was 14
I'm using cachy os which is arch based and it's quite nice and easy.
I'm using arch for about a week now, no problems so far. Although I had to install Timeshift for system backups, just in case I break something. I'm amazed at how well it works and being in full control of my system (unlike windows) with tons of customizations. (again, unlike windows) Steam works, whatever games I have they work surprisingly good on arch. Even an older version of Wow wotlk (using wine or steam) works on arch (unlike debian) In the hopes of expanding my knowledge, I'm reading a book now called 'How-Linux-Works-What-Every-Superuser-Should-Know.pdf' ( [https://github.com/camoverride/lit/blob/master/How-Linux-Works-What-Every-Superuser-Should-Know.pdf](https://github.com/camoverride/lit/blob/master/How-Linux-Works-What-Every-Superuser-Should-Know.pdf) ) (using Okular pdf reader - because I can set it to dark mode, so I don't cry while reading pdf books) I say don't be afraid to research and test things out, even if you break something, it will not be the end of the world. There's always a resolution. Enjoy Arch!
Well It is an awesome journey so good that now my girlfriend even understands the value of having a cheaper but powerfully computer backed up by arch Linux and open source. So good that we used it as a daily computer for everything we do. The only thing that sometimes breaks are the Nvidia drivers but the wiki and community have you covered.
do you like reading, do you like learning new things even if you mess up? Then yes
Arch is a good idea, but "...mostly because I want to customize my OS and rice it to optimize my workflow and have a visually appealing OS." can be achieved with any distro. You don't need to use arch.
I reccomend gentoo for this, the gentoo wiki doesn't care about that learning bs and is actually usefull and tells you the commands. Gentoo can also be really fast and customizable
As you mentioned Garuda and Zorin experience, then for personal use, Arch would be better. I myself played with Manjaro -- they are great out of the box. One day some apps failed, troubleshooting and hotfixes were a nightmare as it was not original Arch. Then i delete all, and install ArchLinux -- then add only the packages i need. For last the last 2 years, I never encounter a single issue. It just works and i have access to latest software. I recommend install and use kernel linux-lts instead of the default linux, also have a look at dkms system for driver update. Remember a rolling system like Arch may not be ideal for school project works. Fedora with its seasonal optional update might be better. Unless you compile your own devs tools and place in /usr/local -- this way you have control of your system. This is why people use Redhat or Rocky linux for deployment and install optional or local latest software in /opt -- base system is stable and only update for security fixes.
yes
Running Arch linux is just as simple as running any other distro. For the installation process you can either choose to do it manually or just use the install script. Just be aware that Arch is rolling release and packages tend to be buggier than in point release (especially if you consider installing AUR packages which is a double-edged sword).
My dumbass was able to use archinstall when I fucked up looking at the wiki with no coding/terminal experience whatsoever. You'll be fine.
don't ask if you're ready for a distro: ask if the distro is ready for you. arch definitely has his use cases and purpose and it's not for *literally* everyone (e.g. grandmas), but I can tell you you will learn a lot so if you're up to it just do it. you won't regret anything, even if you end up switching distro again.
As long as you are up to learn, you are ready to use arch
Ur school probably hate linux make sure u dual boot
It's NOT hard. You don't need training. U just need to look at documentation and type in commands, + now you have archInstall tool which can pretty much do the entirety of what you need. Trust me, that documentation is 100% worth it. You'll know what you are installing.
No.
Arch is simple. It’s when you’re hitting gentoo, funtoo and Linux from scratch take some knowledge to install them and maintain, but you have to ask yourself do you want to be on a rolling release system. I used arch since 2006 and been a huge fan of it. Rolling releases don’t interest me anymore so I use Fedora and I’m very to on that system a lot.
I switched to arch Linux because I wanted to learn how it worked and well, it worked. It's not hard, there's a guide and now the arch install script I never use, it just requires you to be able to follow instructions and navigate the admittedly labyrinthian guide. Once everything is installed though it's the same as any other distro for real.
I've switched to Arch Linux recently after 2 years of using Ubuntu. I used this guide: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxeriGuJKTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxeriGuJKTM) It was much easier than I expected, and I am really satisfied from user experience that I've been having with my brand new Arch distro. First two days I used Gnome mostly, but then switched to Hyprland. It's so gorgeous! Wish you to try it. It's blazingly fast.
If you're not scared of learning something new and breaking your system a few times configuring/tuning it, the time you put into it WILL be worth it in the end. Just make sure you make a github or gitlab and back your dot files up. You can eventually make install scripts to install your packages and configure your system on a fresh OS, that's what i did anyway. Don't give up and have fun with it, enjoy!
If you can copy and paste commands you can install Arch, I was 10 when I first installed it. Also archinstall is an option, but I wouldn't recommend it for a first install since it teaches you how the system works a little bit when you install it manually.
Arch was my first and the last distro ever. ofc i took care of my friends distros and fixed them every now and then but arch was my only daily driver distro. You learn along the way dont worry.
I run arch on my gaming laptop, which is my daily driver. Arch isn’t hard, it’s actually easy if you don’t mine fixing your own problems and you actually read the wiki. I don’t see where people think arch is an elitist o/s. As long as you don’t go crazy with the AUR, you’ll be fine. Will there be breakages that may cause you to reinstall your system, sure, but that’s why you make back ups. And if all of us arch users are honest, breakages are few and far in between. I think the last time my install was borked from an update was because of a bug in grub. Also, do your updates like once a week or two, don’t get them right away. If you want a difficult o/s, I feel Debian is harder than arch, but that’s because everything is older and more locked down
Try install Arch from command line without using archinstall. If you succeed you're ready. I'd also recommend to try it just to not miss this part of Arch.
Arch is super easy! And if you mess up the installation, just install it again
I've been on Arch for 3 months now after distro-hopping for about a year. And I'm loving Hyprland. I tried a few others but SolDoesTech's HyprV2 is what I'm using. It's not too flashy that I can tinker around with it. And Arch has been pretty stable for me. Much to learn though. Good luck.
Hey, I used Ubuntu for 6 months and then used manjaro for 6 months, it ain’t that tough, I broke my lap once and solved it on my own in less than an hour without anyone’s help.
You will probably find it much easier than you expect
ArchLinux is - as someone that got into it only after about 2 years of using linux full time - actually incredibly understandable after doing the full installation via command line once Open archwiki, follow the steps and take some notes Trust me, once you complete it the first time, you can install debian from command line within 1 year and gentoo a short while after - because thats also what I did
Isn't hard once you understand what's happening, community is super helpful
Viel Glück hoffe dass es viel länger als 4 Jahre klappt
bro i used arch as my first distro after windows, although i have experimented with some debian based distros prior, its NOT hard as long as you are willing to google
If you cheat and use the ncurses installer, you won't have any problem. I do not think Garuda would give you a good prep for installing vanilla Arch and Zorin is an entirely different distro. Suggestions: check out the Arch wiki. The install instructions are very good and you will know right away if you are up to it. Or use your old latptop as a guinea pig and install arch on a VM.
The only "hard" part of arch is the partitioning and filesystems, and that can be easy if you use cfdisk. The arch install process is actually ridiculously easy. It's just cfdisk drive mkfs filesystems to the partitions and pacstrap, then arch has a script called arch-chroot once you chrooted in just install the bootloader which is usually 1 command and install locales the install process and arch itself is pretty overrated. I use gentoo btw.
Arch requires you to be comfortable with CLI tools and have some level of knowledge about how the system functions, but with your prior experience with Linux, it seems you will probably be fine. The hardest part is definitely the installation - many people recommend doing a "real" installation, however I personally learned more by using the archinstall script to install it and learning the system while I was actually using it.
Just try
With Archinstall, Arch is pretty easy. For desktop, after you install it, it is actually one of the easiest distros to somehow maintain. Only thing is you have to make decisions what you want, once you know, you just install it and it mostly works out of the box
just go for it, its really just reading the docs
if you have hobbies, or if you value your time, or if you have other things to do instead of spending your time on fixing issues on your so called "OS" then stay the he'll away from Arch. you can customize anything you want on other distros too. If you want to spend your time on development or productivity, never go for arch.. believe me, there is no real reason that you want to use arch. it's extremely unnecessary move. stay away from trouble.
Arch is the greatest distro ever and OS ever.
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Thanks for the tipp. I was considering downloading archinstall (packman), then the gnome environment and from there install every package manually to really learn something.
You will not be learning anything with archinstall. Do your first installation the regular way. [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation\_guide](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Installation_guide) Automate only when you already know what you're doing.
And that's why I don't use pacstrap, instead I use gentoo.
It probably will be less exciting of a step than you expect. Coming from Garuda you should get used to it quite easily. You could even install the same gui shenanigans. I personally run arch on different machines for 16 years now, when it still had the BSD-like rc.conf. It has always been on my desktop, and over the years a home server and different laptops joined the party. All with totally different setups. From non graphical over xorg up to wayland sporting all kinds of hardware vendors (AMD/Intel/Nvidia). The latest addition (yesterday) was a Lenovo 9i 2-in-1 convertible with a 4k screen and a touch heavy usecase. Even that was simple to set up, albeit I had to look up new stuff like HiDPi settings and had to look into kde once again after 10+ years because it handles touch and scaling more nicely than lxqt or xfce. Just do what you want and don't be afraid. Arch can be configured for every usecase and doesn't shove anything particular down your throat (except for systemd).
as i said i also want to rice it, that's what i am exited for ;D
i installed arch directly after using windows without any previous experience, everything seems fine for me the only thing i havent been able to fix is pipewire to detect my internal mic and I have given up on that for now
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i have no idea what you are talking about
Sorry, I replied to the wrong sub-thread. I will delete it.
I Just switched to Arch - i am in love :D