stolen from linux memes at Deltachat

  • Neil@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Arch user here.

    My recommendation to noobies is always Linux Mint even though I don’t use it.

    I use Arch, btw.

      • 3laws@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Most Arch users (myself included) don’t recommend Arch to n00bs or even light seasoned Linux users if they already are happy with their setup.

        But the meme is the meme and I like bullying Arch elitists.

        • nexussapphire@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Even I wasn’t cruel enough to banish my mother to arch. She uses fedora on her desktop (because she liked gnome) and Linux mint on her laptop because I wanted her to make sure she still wanted to switch after trying it for about a month.

          She wanted to jump head first but it would have been a pain to go through four installs if she didn’t like it.

    • ProtonBadger@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Indeed, besides most linux distributions are fairly equally lightweight and can be customized. I tried 4-5 distros this past January (Arch being one) when I got my new gaming laptop and they all booted in ~9.5 sec for example, and perform equally well in general, they had fairly similar RAM load with the same desktop environment.

      Arch is about managing the system as a hobby, which is fine.

      One problem here is that new users install Endeavour/Garuda but don’t know how to manage updates safely about pacnew/pacsave/etc. So the system might slowly “rot” without them knowing about it because new components use old configs, etc…

      I also recommend Mint to new users. I don’t use Mint, nor do I use Arch.

        • RiikkaTheIcePrincess@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          As a Gentoo user currently vacationing in Arch-land I’m not sure whether to feel insulted or affirmed. Imean, it is but some might say that to disparage it or its users 😅

          • gbin@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            For me: Gentoo is a meta distro, you are the distro maintainer then the power user of that specific distro you created for yourself which can definitely be fun. Arch is more like: let’s give you one instance of a Gentoo distro when you are tired of being the distro maintainer.

      • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        Tbf I don’t think many people know about pacdiff. The way I found out about it was by looking up a warning about pacnew/pacsave during an upgrade, because I was bored. Very random.

      • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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        1 year ago

        Arch is about managing the system as a hobby, which is fine.

        Only the installation takes more time, maintenance is no longer than the noob friendly ones.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I remember when this was the joke with Slackware.

          I think I’m remembering right.

          I’ve never used arch. If I get another laptop one day I’ll give it a go.

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      I finally tried out Linux Mint this year at work (we use Fedora for some of our different tasks). It arms like such a nice experience out of the box, and I’d put it on a family computer in a second.

    • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      As a seasoned distrohopper, can confirm. When I try something new, I always ask myself: Would a noob be ok with the fact that in this distro you have to do things this way. In Fedora, Debian, Manjaro and so many other I always end up saying “no” more than a few times. With Mint, you just don’t bump into these situations very often. IMO, Mint is the best starter distro for most users. If you know your friend is very technical, you can recommend something else.

  • SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    Isn’t archwiki one of the most comprehended wikis for Linux distros out there? If anything, the arch-wiki (to me) has often too many answers for the same problem than the other way around.

      • Christian@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        I switched like ten years ago because I wanted to learn the details, but in all honesty I still feel like I barely understand anything. Not sure how normal this is, maybe I’m unusually dumb, but I feel like what I’ve really learned is how to troubleshoot and solve issues by reading documentation and tinkering, rather than understanding what I’m actually doing. I’ve had a stable system for years but I kind of feel like if a typical arch forum poster looked my system configuration for five minutes they’d be like wtf are you doing.

      • sederx@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Is actually great since it forces you to learn which saves you much more time in the long run.

        But most people can’t see past their nose.

        Edit

        Can’t believe somebody got offended by this…

    • TwinTusks@outpost.zeuslink.net
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      1 year ago

      It is most comprehended, but for newbie it is too comprehensive. Its overwhelming, I tried to troubleshoot why I boot to black screen even the installation said its successful and there’s no error. I saw solutions that want me edit grub, edit xorg … and some other file that I never understand.

      I understand the wiki is very good and very important, its just not newbie friendly.

    • Hugging Stars@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      That’s the issue. Arch and it’s wiki are labyrinths for beginners.

      For anyone not interested in tinkering all-day long they’re better off using fedora, debian or suse.

    • seth@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The Arch wiki is one of the most impressive documentation resources I’ve seen and I’ve only [needed to] scrape the surface so far. Almost every minor unexpected issue I ran into along the way had a detailed solution and the only issue I haven’t been able to resolve is getting all the buttons on my mouse to work…but did find out it’s Logitech’s weird receiver codes that are the issue and they don’t release drivers for Linux.

  • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    heres the thing: as a decade+ software dev, I never want to even think about my distro.

    I just want Linux terminal style commands, and Linux style ssh shit to just work in the most middle of the road way as possible. I’m trying to get a job done, not build a personality.

    • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Exactly. That’s why i use Mint. I don’t want to think about my operating system, I want to get stuff done.

      • Zikeji@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I used Arch for AUR, but with flatpak getting more popular these last few years even the more niche stuff I had to rely on AUR for got a flatpak. So I’ve been trying out immutable distros like Fedora Kinoite.

      • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I only ever have Mac stuff from employers, but it is nice hardware and linux-like enough for me to be happy.

        Probably also helps Mac that every windows machines provided by an employer is some random HP buttbook that looks and preforms like it could be from 2021 or 2012, who knows

        • geophysicist@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          I interpreted “middle of the road” as doing nothing special, just normal tasks done a normal way and therefore hoping everything just works so you can focus on work

  • CancerMancer@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    A lot of new users are coming to Linux not because they like tinkering with their setup but because they are tired of Microsoft tinkering with their setup. For these people Arch will probably never be the answer. That’s ok, we should encourage all Linux adoption and the best way to do that is to start with the simple and familiar.

    • milkjug@lemmy.wildfyre.dev
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      1 year ago

      I mean, who doesn’t love to have candy crush and facebook automatically bundled with their OS? I mean, I had a fantastic two years waiting for the never combine taskbar feature to be released. The never-ending prompt to make edge my default browser is also utterly refreshing. m$ is so ahead of the game, they even anticipated my needs by shoving onedrive prompts in my control panel. How about that Office 365? Have you tried it yet? No? Well you’re missing out my man, in case you change your mind I’m going to put it right there in the front page of settings so you’ll never miss it.

    • skqweezy@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I switched a few weeks ago, it was because my computer is slower than a toaster and windows was tanking it down even more I installed xubuntu, well I must say it’s ok, after I finished setting stuff up I realised I should’ve just gone for debian with xfce (I tried to install kubuntu-deskop on my xubuntu installation just to try how would kde run on my pc, it ran as well as windows did, but was just a tiny tiny bit faster, the way I installed it was probably bad and it could’ve been the way I installed it tho)

      And yeah, I definitely love tinkering with stuff so this wasthe obvious choice

  • baduhai@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Wiki do not have answer

    ?? The arch wiki is one of the greatest Linux resources out there. Sure there may be situations where it doesn’t have the answer for something, but for a new user? It has all bases covered.

    • KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s actually really great… if you know how to interpret and apply the information on it to your situation and adapt as needed. A good new user experience it does not make however.

    • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      On one hand, the archlinux bbs had the only exact reference to the issue I was having. On the other hand, no one could replicate it enough to figure anything out. :/

    • Titou@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      im pretty sure the OP never took a look at Arch and just follow the hate movement

  • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I use Ubuntu. It generally tends to be boring stable, which is kinda what I want out of my OS these days. I can still customize it, and even break it if I really get bored, but it’s nice to have things just work for the most part.

    • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I switched to Debian Stable after using Ubuntu LTS for 6 years, and recommend Ubuntu for beginners. It is stable, best community support, boring and good ol’ reliable, which is perfect to learn Linux and get accustomed to it. Even corporate support and game developers target Ubuntu first. Considering it runs smoothly on a 6 year old midrange Intel laptop chip, nobody is getting that 200% performance boost with other obscure fancy distros.

      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Yep, games being designed to support Ubuntu first is a big reason why I’m so far into Ubuntu. I could easily switch if I needed to since I’m both a programmer and very comfortable with Linux but for me, it does everything I need an OS to do.

        • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          Debian Stable is really, really close for gaming, since Ubuntu LTS itself is based on Debian Unstable branch, if you choose to upgrade with more Linux knowledge in future. Nobara is dedicated to gaming.

          Honestly speaking, I keep W10 on SSD for games if any works in a wonky manner on Linux. Takes like 30 seconds to log off Debian, boot into Windows, fire up a game, get back to Linux when not playing.

  • milkjug@lemmy.wildfyre.dev
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    1 year ago

    Ex arch btw user here. I noped out and wiped after thinking I had it all nailed down, then I tried to connect my Bluetooth headphones and I came to a grand awakening. I am too old for this shit.

    Installed Tumbleweed and been happy ever since.

    • KISSmyOS@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My “I don’t have time for this” moment came when I tried to set up Nextcloud on Arch:
      https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Nextcloud

      Meanwhile on Slackware:

      Configuration
      
      (1) Add the following in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf
      
        Alias /nextcloud "/srv/httpd/htdocs/nextcloud/"
        
            Options +FollowSymlinks
            AllowOverride All
            
              Dav off
            
            SetEnv HOME      "/srv/httpd/htdocs/nextcloud"
            SetEnv HTTP_HOME "/srv/httpd/htdocs/nextcloud"
        
      
      (2) In /etc/httpd/httpd.conf, enable mod_rewrite and PHP by uncommenting
      "LoadModule rewrite_module ..." and "Include /etc/httpd/mod_php.conf",
      then restart httpd.
      
      • boomzilla@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        I just installed Nextcloud on Arch and the official packages caused the most headaches I ever had within my 3 years of arch. In contrast I installed the official Jellyfin and Prometheus Server packages and they ran OOTB.

        I ended up with not using the official packages but extracting the tar.bz2 into /var/www/nextcloud and slightly modifying the nginx config from their site. I had to move the inclusion of the MIME-Types file to a different block for nextcloud to deliver its CSS, SVGs and images. It wasn’t exactly straight-forward too considering permissions. I found it a beast compared to many other server software.

      • milkjug@lemmy.wildfyre.dev
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        1 year ago

        ngl, I love how “I don’t give a fuck” the slackware authors are, they didn’t even bother with https on their official website.

    • Pantherina@feddit.deOP
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      1 year ago

      Its probably just one package. I guess for example pacman -S plasma-desktop plasma-meta flatpak fish plasma-wayland-session sddm sddm-kcm && systemctl enable --now sddm does the trick.

      Archinstall with the entire plasma desktop is probably also nice, or just EndeavorOS which will be preconfigured

      • milkjug@lemmy.wildfyre.dev
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        1 year ago

        I actually did the whole KDE shebang with archinstall. I never really expected that Arch btw deigned it too opinionated to just provide an audio and Bluetooth interface. Instead I have to choose between pulse audio and pipewire and bluez and a bunch of others. I just didn’t have the patience nor time to look into what and why these options are presented, and this was after I already wasted days figuring how to get my pc to boot with my 12th gen Intel and Nvidia gpu combination.

        Turns out there’s a bunch of kernel finagling you absolutely have to do first before it even decides to boot from the gpu and not the igpu. Oh well.

  • ѕєχυαℓ ρσℓутσρє@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    For a total newbie, Linux Mint or PopOS are probably the best options. But EndeavourOS is getting there. There shouldn’t be any issues during the installation if one sticks to the defaults. Only thing is, it doesn’t come with a graphical package manager out of the box. But once that is installed (I think anyone will be happy to write a single terminal command, at least), I don’t see why it’s any harder to use than any other distro.

  • ComradeSharkfucker@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I will always recommend Debian or Debian based distros to anyone new to Linux. They’ll find their way to arch eventually

    Arch btw

  • drkt@feddit.dk
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    1 year ago

    My first ever distro was Arch, over a decade ago.

    I just consider it my trial by fire, everything has been smooth sailing since because anything else is easier!

      • Holzkohlen@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        25 years into the future and my biggest issue regarding sound is having to tell pipewire to stop going into standby since I do not enjoy the white noise coming from my speakers if it does.

  • araozu@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If the arch wiki doesn’t have the answer, I just give up

  • dannii_montanii@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Arch wiki is the reason I started using Arch. After fixing an install from something I found there for like the 10th time I thought “Why not give it a try”

  • ⲇⲅⲇ@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I don’t have any issue with Arch, everything works. But when I try other distros, they are mostly messed up.

      • ⲇⲅⲇ@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        Many distros do their own packaging on their repos, adding dependencies and custom-builds with custom configurations, and this often breaks my OS. On arch, this doesn’t happen to me. What’s your experience?

        • jozep@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Arch also does its own packaging on its repos.

          However you are right that Arch tries to stay as close as possible to the source. This is fondamentally different than the debian (and thus all debian-derived distros) way of packaging where they aim for a fully integrated OS at the expense of applying their own patches to many packages.

          The patches can sometimes bring issues since they can bring unexpected behaviour if you come from Arch and sometimes will help the end user tremendously since they won’t have to configure every piece of software to work on their computer.

          This is really two way of looking at the issue: Arch is make your own OS and Debian has a more hands off approach.

          • ⲇⲅⲇ@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Yeah.

            Arch also does its own packaging on its repos.

            I know, I said “custom-builds with custom configurations”, I mean the custom configurations many distros add.

            I also feel like Debian is very clean, but I still miss the big community under Arch, their wiki and AUR…

            • jozep@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Custom configs is for people who might not want to tinker as much so maybe it’s not for you if you prefer Arch.

              To answer the question you asked previously, yes I had issues with custom configs from Debian. One I remember is mupdf being launched by a bash script and thus not understanding why did I have two PIDs (one for bash, one for the mupdf binary) when starting.

              For context this was important because I needed to know the PID of mupdf to send a SIGHUP to update the view.