I don’t even notice Debian, which is exactly how an operating system should work.
And yet…
I love this
Here’s the thing. When I talk to friends interested in Linux, it’s always Debian or Fedora that I suggest. I think they draw a good line for what the average user wants and needs and they’re stable. In fact, I used Fedora for a long time, and all my homelab stuff runs Debian. It wasn’t until computers themselves became a hobby that I switched to Arch. And I think that’s likely the cutoff. If you’re a computer user, stable distros are great. If you’re more a hobbiest… Well, the Arch wiki can own your free time.
Debian is where the jaded users end up when they lack the will to flash another usb stick.
“I’m good, fuck it.”
Sounds lovely for making a swiss-army-knife of distros.
“Man I wish I could do more with my new computer” – Fedora
“Yeah I just want to breathe some new life into this old laptop and have it last me until the end of time” – Debian
NixOS has entered the chat
Normal distro -> arch -> gentoo -> nixOS -> QubesOS -> Debian pipeline.
The only problem with Debian is that I want packages from this century.
Thats what you think you want but by the time you’re at the end of the pipeline you just want a computer that works.
In my experience that means packages from this century. Eventually you do need a new software for something. Trying to get software from 10 years ago to agree with software released in the last 6 months leads to breaking things or finding myself doing Linux From Scratch on top of debian or ubuntu.
It turns out if everything is new everything really does just work. That’s why I use Artix (child of Arch). It’s less pain. You just have to ignore the myth that these systems are “hard.” Graphics cards and Steam work out of the gait. There is a reason why StreamOS is built on Arch.
No more compile hell in the rare case you need to compile because the AUR does the same thing, but in a single command line resolving all dependencies. It’s like compiling without the experience of compiling.
Just make sure you always
pacman -Syubeforepacman -S {package}. No exceptions. Or in rare cases you may have to chroot from a live disk andpacman -S linuxto fix your initramfs. If you do that one thing nothing ever breaks.So far, that’s exactly why I’ve stopped at Nix.
Everything is declared exactly how I want it. If something would break, it just bails on the update. If I want to set up a new machine, I just clone my config and build it.
I’m not sure what could be more “just works” than that.
When I went 24.11 it exploded in some fantastic manner. None of my boot menu rollbacks worked. I spent a long ass time trying to recover the upgrade. I eventually realized it would be a lot faster to wipe, reinstall, re-import my old home and configuration.nix and I was back up.
25.05 didn’t even flinch, just worked.
Now I’m patiently waiting for postmarket to sort out LTE modems on phones before I buy an old pixel and install nixos on it :)
The literal ArchWiki says you may not want to use Arch if you are happy with your current OS.
based
This is good, i hope somebody printed this and hand it over to Arch Linux cult
Almost every interaction with a boomer involving their computer/phone
The zoomers and gen-alpha aren’t doing much better. Just ask the average teen what a filesystem is and how to find a file without it being organized in some sort of media gallery app.
As a millennial, I often feel like I’m surrounded by tech illiterates on both the upper AND lower sides of my age bracket.
You are absolutely right
It’s dumb as hell to most here, but ordinary users their own ideas on what a desktop should look like that often doesn’t agree with the intelligentsia. Just let them have it.
The computer in the picture is infected with adware
Unpopular opinion: install community distros, not corporate ones. That way you can support the developers for their hardwork. Redhat doesn’t need our money, they already make enough of it. I use CachyOS, btw.
I just switched to CachyOS and I’m really enjoying it so far. My journey so far has been Mint > Bazzite > Kubuntu > back to Mint > CachyOS and for the first time I don’t have any real complaints. There’s a voice inside my head telling me to jump to just standard Arch though. Not really sure why. Have you tried standard Arch? If so, how does it compare to CachyOS? I probably won’t end up switching, I haven’t had any issues yet and I’m a computer problem magnet and certified idiot, so I’ll probably stick to what works, but something draws me to pure Arch.
Standard arch is just a downgrade from cachy if you just want a functional computer and not have to think about it.
I’ve run vanilla arch for quite a while. CachyOS is a ton better. Arch is barebones and you have to do everything yourself. If you have the time and patience to do it, then more power to ya. I’m a dad of two, one of which is on the spectrum. So, I wanted something like Arch that just works and doesn’t require too much maintenance, and cachy has been just that.
I’ve not had a single major issue with it in the 3 months it’s been running on my machine. Just your normal Linux annoyances. I love how the gaming package on cachy is literally one click of a button. Also, it’s a lot faster
Thanks for your input. I’m going to be a dad soon, so I should probably stick with cachy then.
Dude, fucking congratulations 🎉🎉. And yes, your PC should never take time away from your kids. I love taking care of mine, they’re so much fun. I love that my PC just works. And if Cachy gives me any trouble, it’s gone and will be replaced with something immutable like Bazzite. I legit want my machine to JUST work with minimal issues. I have had Bazzite on a laptop I have for close to 6 months now and it’s rock solid and a true just works distro.
Thanks man, yeah I’m pretty excited. I’ve always wanted kids, it’s crazy to think I’m finally going to have one soon.
For sure, family always comes first, especially kids.
Which ones are corporate besides Redhat and what’s the relation to this post?
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed sends it’s love.
i was happy with Arch on my server.
then, i installed NixOS on it.
update: i’ve set it up to a usable state, it’s a minecraft server
Arch on my server
Sane people usually go bungee jumping or cave diving to get their irrational danger kicks.
Eh arch is perfectly stable for server use.
Can even get a debian experience by not updating ever.
I also use arch on my servers and it’s really stable. Until today that is. I updated one of my systems and it broke Nvidia docker runtime.
nvidia
I found your problem
Yes I know but I need Cuda :(
I find that questionable even for ml workloads but you do you. :)
Am I the only one that feels like saying “you do you” is more insulting then telling someone to just go fuck themselves and they are a raging idiot.
It just comes across as the most possible condescending possible response possible in the English language.
Been running my mail server on arch for six years and counting. Best decision given the circumstances!
Installing Arch on a server is certainly a choice
Somehow it never broke (1.5 years of usage). the reason i installed nix was because arch worked but felt too messy, full of random systemd services i made and put in random places
Mines running strong even through hardware changes for 6 years now
This is the way.
the right distro for you is whatever works for you. you don’t order a steak just because your friends get one, when you really want those succulent linguinis.
succulent linguinis
Dibs on band name
This comment just gave me a flashback to one of my first big business trips from almost 20 years ago for some training in another state.
I got fettuccine Alfredo (or linguine alfredo or whatever version that place had) at whatever nice restaurant we went to and they brought that shit out in a punch bowl!!
I remember it was good, I ate a lot, and that it didn’t feel great after. I cannot remember if I finished it though. There’s gotta be no way, but I do know back then at occasional large meals (everything from Thanksgiving down to business trips) I would eat like 3 times what I will now.
I was a fedora boy until I met endeavoros and kde.
Now I’m a straight up hoe.
But are you a well loved and taken care of hoe? Cause you deserve to be.
Tried it all and ended up with Mint again. Forever the best distro.
Hell yes! Mint 4 life!
I am convinced that I will try Arch or similar some day in the future simply because of SteamOS switching over to being based off of it. But for now, I develop software for embedded Linux systems all day at work. When I get home it’s either family time inside or it’s playing “engineer turned farmer” in my back yard. Literally digging in the dirt and building stuff out of wood. Feels good man.
Dn it, am.on Mint, currently thinking about going Fedora with plasma
Do it…You know you want to.
After a couple of decades of wandering the Great Distro Desert in search of The One, it seems I have landed and Fedora Plasma as what I want in an OS. I’ve been running Fedora for the past few years now. I’m currently looking into Kinonite for that atomic goodness. It appears good so far.
Edit: You can choose the Cinnamon Spin if you enjoy that DE. I found Fedora Cinnamon to be snappier than the Mint version.
And I thought all Arch users already switched to Nix OS (BTW)
I want to switch to Nix… the idea of Nix is compelling. In practice every time I try and test it out I remember that I’m an idiot with a keyboard and I should stop.
Nah, I looked at it and it doesn’t interest me. I like arch because, contrary to popular belief, it is quite stable (as in non crashing, not package versions) if you only install exactly what you need. I had way more stability issues on the more standard distros since they had so much extra stuff. Debian for servers every day though.
Nix looks interesting in theory, but is a lot of work and too opinionated for me. Far from an expert though and have nothing against those that like it or any other distro.
The words stable and reliable should have formal definitions.
As someone considering getting Arch, what is unstable about the package versions? I thought the rolling release was a selling point, but does it actually make things more unstable?
“unstable” as in changing regularly. Not in any way to do with how reliable it is (as another comment mentioned, that’s a better way to differentiate).
I’ve had far fewer problems updating arch (once I had a clean system anyway) than I ever did trying to move through distribution updates on various other more “standard” ones.
So the updates don’t tend to break things? Is it just annoying to constantly update?
It’s extremely rare. Big breaking updates are normally shown in the arch news. Usually they just require a command or two to remove a conflicting package before the update. I think there’s been a few in the last year, but on the flip side I never got a clean distro update on anything but Debian and they usually took a lot more effort to clean up.
Where it may be “unstable” is if a specific program updates (upstream) with some major change or other, whereas another distro might hold off a while.
Makes sense, thank you!
Not the same person, but my updates take like 30s (if I don’t go looking at what changed) and happen whenever I want. We’re not talking windows updates here, just
sudo pacman -Syu, seeing the list of what’s changing (etc firefox went up a version? Cool), and then saying “sure” if it looks good to me. Don’t even need to restart all the time, although I tend to do updates before turning my pc off anyway so I nearly always do.Packages tend to use the latest stable version of their software, unless you choose a beta branch instead, so if anything I think I’ve run into less broken software than on Debian-based distros because you don’t get bugs that were fixed a week ago but haven’t made it into the official apt repository version yet. If there is a bug, you can just not upgrade that package if you know about it in advance or just downgrade it until they release a fix (I’ve never had to do this but iirc you can pin a version in pacman).
Not suggesting to jump ship if you’re happy with your current distro, but arch is a great learning experience to set up and once you have a good system running it’s absolutely rock solid. Just don’t expect to install it in fifteen minutes like other distros, if you want a good install you have to do all the reading yourself (arch wiki is priceless) to make informed choices because you’re entirely responsible for piecing together your own OS.
Thank you! That makes sense. I’m on Windows 11 and therefore not happy with my current “distro” 😅 I know Arch isn’t recommended for beginners, but I hope that if I take it slow and read a lot, I might survive.
I think you can definitely survive it as a beginner if you’re both patient and happy to learn about your OS, but most people recommend trying another distro first so you don’t have to learn everything up front all at once and that’s good advice imo. Even if you’re happy to learn everything thru the wiki and want to jump into the deep end, I’d probably recommend checking out other distros on distrosea first just so you have an idea of what’s out there and what you like/dislike.
You’ll have to read about and then make a choice for every component of your system, from the filesystem to the kernel to all your user space programs and DE, so you’ll make better choices if you’ve seen some of the options in action imo.
I should also mention I’ve heard the archinstall script trivializes installing arch so if you want an easy way in you could use that - id probably keep this in mind or better, put your arch iso on ventoy along with a second choice of distro in case you get overwhelmed and just want your computer functional again.
Good luck tho, if you choose to do it I hope you have as much fun as I did! Don’t be afraid to ask questions on whichever of the Linux communities are relevant, but definitely expect a lot of “just use mint” answers if you say you’re installing arch as a new Linux user lol.
Naw, archer users either become cachy users OR nix. It’s a pipe line with a y junction.
I want to (and previously tried it out for a bit) but the difficulty curve (more like a difficult brick wall) is hard to deal with
If everything is the way you like it, you are winning. Keep on winning.
Dosent even have to be the way you like it. It only has to be the way that lets you get work done. If you can get work done on your thinking sand tool then it is a good tool.
The funny thing for me is I swapped to fedora after my last attempt to use arch failed spectacularly.
I’ve found I’m at a point where I just want my device to work and work well
Just means your over 25
/me a 42 year old that uses Arch
I take that personally.
/me adjusts my knee high socks.
42 and wearing long socks like that? You need help bud’
Once you hit 40 your knees need all the help they can get.
Unpopular opinion: I love Ubuntu. No, I don’t use snaps at all. I have an Nvidia GPU and it’s literally the only OS working out of the box. Yes I tried Debian, I’m too busy to fiddle with drivers. No, I can’t get rid of the GPU, I depend on it for critical workflows. I love the minimalism of Gnome. Never liked KDE/Cinnamon honestly, they’re too busy for my tastes. For 15 years I’ve tried other distros and I’m always back on Ubuntu. I’ll ride the purple penguin to my grave.
Downvotes only please.
It certainly seems like public opinion changed the tast ten years or so. As an ubuntu user, could you confirm or deny these claims I’ve seen? One is that firefox is a snap even if you try to install it with apt. Another is that they show ads to get paid ubuntu in the terminal output?
I can confirm them both. I’m considering moving to Debian because of this.
You can uninstall snap and use flatpak for those apps but it was a slap in the face when Firefox suddenly was replaced by a snap through apt
Oh that’s a bit underhand, especially when they must be well aware that snap can be unpopular.
If you really like Ubuntu, Linux mint Ubuntu version comes with the snap defaults removed.
You got me there, firefox is the only snap I really use. Probably can be removed and replaced with apt version but honestly I don’t care much. I tend to clean reinstall frequently and I leave as much in the default setup as I can.
If it works, it works. But it does cause me to have another step to update everything, which is slightly annoying. And yes I don’t like Canonical’s insistence on snaps. I just try to avoid them really.
Ads, certainly never seen them.
True and true.
If you do a minimal install, it will still force apt to install snapd and snaps for certain packages, including Firefox. It can be worked around, but it’s very hard to keep snaps out of your system. This is why I dumped Ubuntu and never looked back. Fedora is my happy place, now.
I tried
I cannot downvote a GNOME lover
I’ve had 0 problems out of Debian since bookworm.
That said, I daily drive Nix and use Ubuntu LTS for servers because I’m too lazy to keep up with it otherwise.
I thought Canonical got on board with spying ages ago. May I do not recall correctly.
Historically they have had a lot of funding problems. There’s been at least two or three times where they’ve partnered with somebody for marketing opportunies. And the egregious things were over a decade ago now. They decide to market with somebody, put an ad in there default desktop, or install a default application, or collect user data from dash, being open source it’s been noticed immediately and they end up rolling it back. Hell, it’s the reason half the forks exist.
Sure, people still get edgy about everything they do at this point but realistically they’ve not been all that bad. But I wouldn’t trust them with closed source for a second.
At current I think they’re only collecting some super basic user information and it is opt out. And to me from a server standpoint I don’t really care what they’re doing at the desktop level. I don’t even really care about snaps because I’m not installing anything on that box that would use snaps. It’s like firewall, kubernetes, and some monitoring tools. They’re not doing command line spying on my kubectl.
They’re a good choice for a headless server. They’ve got a nice long LTS with support for years. Their agile on security fixes. And they keep their repos pretty current.
My second choice would be Debian. They have an LTS service where people are only encouraged to pay. But imo their repos aren’t anywhere near as up to date.
Joke’s on you, downvotes aren’t a thing on my instance, you’ll take my upvote and you’ll like it
Trying to help with the downvote situation. Glad you decided on a distro that works for you and you’re not succumbing to the pressure.
I moved to fedora after a decade on Arch.
Feels like home.
I’ve been running cachyOS for the last few months…
i’ve heard a bunch of people talking about cachyos
i use endeavour os, and when i get my pc back (i moved and haven’t been able to build it yet) i’m planning on installing base arch
so, what are the upsides to cachyos?
As a gaming-oriented distro, CachyOS is ready to use right out of the box. It’s similar to Endeavor, but goes a few steps further with its opinions. I’d still be using it if it weren’t for AUR’s serious malware problems.
hmmm interesting. i might use it, but now i need to know more about the AUR’s malware problems. i haven’t heard of them and am now kinda scared
I tried arch at one point :3 im back on pop!_os tho
