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Yes, I remember once I needed to print something on my laptop and I realized I hadn't set up printing yet on my Arch system (a non-trivial process that requires

Yes, I remember once I needed to print something on my laptop and I realized I hadn't set up printing yet on my Arch system (a non-trivial process that requires at least 30 minutes of time reading the Wiki) because I hadn't printed anything in years. The thing I was printing was an important legal document for my startup, and it was very frustrating to my other founders that everyone on their Macs had already printed and signed their copies right away but me. Now, if I want to print something on Mint/Ubuntu, all I have to do is just plug the printer into my USB port, and it Just Works. We also had an intern who could code but never used Arch who spent the majority of his first month learning how to set up and use Arch. Not very productive time spent. Arch is fine if you're looking to use a hobby distro (I had the showstopper problem once where I was trying to work remotely and couldn't connect to wifi but I didn't have wifi to read the Wiki to figure out how to troubleshoot it and so I was screwed -- after all, who remembers how to use wpa_supplicant by heart from command line?), but for getting shit done, it's far from ideal. This was a simple auth based network too where my Mac user founders were just typing in the username and password they got from the receptionist and they were good to go. Meanwhile, I was still trying to figure out what the hell mschapv2 is, unable to get any real work done for at least a half hour. By the time it was working (I was using the GUI wifi frontend recommended on the Arch Linux and it still required me to manually select from every permutation of encryption possible instead of autodetecting like any friendly OS does for you -- how would the receptionist possibly know if the network uses WPA2 Personal, WPA2 Enterprise, ...), my brain was already wore out from the troubleshooting and frustration and so I really wasn't able to write as much code as I wanted to -- we had to leave shortly after anyways, so effectively, I got nothing done. I also remember Arch choking on connecting to a wifi network that had an ampersand (&) in the password. I was stuck using NetworkManager because I needed to connect to wifi in command line to unbreak Xorg (NVIDIA driver update hosed it), and while I was perfectly able to connect to this wifi network from the GUI (the only one I had access to in the vicinity -- this was a desktop computer), I just couldn't connect to it at all from command line no matter what escape sequences I tried (quotes, \&, etc.) and no amount of troubleshooting trying to Google and read Arch Wiki and manually copying and pasting on my 4" phone screen (since I had no Internet access otherwise) could fix it. Even the guys on Arch Linux's IRC channel were stumped. Yeah, I'm just going to continue using Mint.

pritambaral 9y ago
I agree Arch should not be used for mission critical stuff. I have been in situations similar to yours. I run Arch, and I've had to deal with printers (and more exotic hardware) under urgency, I've had to connect to weird WiFi networks where the network admin was some guy who knew only how to click buttons and take screenshots, and I've absolutely had to figure out how to do things from a cli without internet access. ---- About the printing business: if you know you don't have something set up in Arch, and you know it will probably take a while to do it, and you don't want to spend that time ... you should definitely use something else for it while you can. This is without all the caveats of the general business of getting printers set-up and running on any OS. About the intern: why would you even ask an intern to set up and use Arch when all they needed was a working Linux distro? That's just using the wrong tool for the job. It's almost like asking an intern to learn how to drive simply to travel to office every day. About the network auth: 1. The GUI tool you used was the same as on every Linux distro: NetworkManager (or a NetworkManager client by you DE, like KDE does). 2. If it was WPA2 Personal, you'd have just a password. If it was WPA2 Enterprise, you'd definitely have something more than just a password; and enterprise Wi-Fi is convoluted enough that it requires detailed steps even on Windows 7. The NetworkManager GUI never asks for a username when WPA2 Personal is selected (because that wouldn't make sense). About your last issue: 1. NetworkManager is the network management software all Linux distros use with GUI. 2. NetworkManager now has a cli, but perhaps that wasn't the case then. 3. It is always wise for a system administrator to know their tools; or at the least, how to use their tools. `wpa_supplicant`'s manpages could have told you what to do when you couldn't reach Arch Wiki. ---- And yes, Arch is a system that needs an admin to manage it. That is how it's designed and built. Look at the second entry in the official FAQ: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questions#Why_would_I_not_want_to_use_Arch.3F https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questi... I'd pre-configured my Arch system for the day when I'd need to connect a printer to it. And when I needed it and I connected it and it worked, it worked. When it didn't, and it was urgent, I asked someone else to print using their system. This is a common scenario with Windows 7 too. When a network posed me troubles, I have always debugged it and solved it. When I needed to figure out how to do something on the cli without internet, I relied on the manpages and the `--help` outputs and my sysadmin knowledge in general. And I'm okay with that, because it gives me the freedom to have my system my way and because I can do that. When I'm asked by someone to pick a distro for them, if they do not want to manage their system to such low levels, I recommend Ubuntu. It's just a matter of picking the right tool for the job.

pritambaral 9y ago

I agree Arch should not be used for mission critical stuff. I have been in situations similar to yours. I run Arch, and I've had to deal with printers (and more exotic hardware) under urgency, I've had to connect to weird WiFi networks where the network admin was some guy who knew only how to click buttons and take screenshots, and I've absolutely had to figure out how to do things from a cli without internet access. ---- About the printing business: if you know you don't have something set up in Arch, and you know it will probably take a while to do it, and you don't want to spend that time ... you should definitely use something else for it while you can. This is without all the caveats of the general business of getting printers set-up and running on any OS. About the intern: why would you even ask an intern to set up and use Arch when all they needed was a working Linux distro? That's just using the wrong tool for the job. It's almost like asking an intern to learn how to drive simply to travel to office every day. About the network auth: 1. The GUI tool you used was the same as on every Linux distro: NetworkManager (or a NetworkManager client by you DE, like KDE does). 2. If it was WPA2 Personal, you'd have just a password. If it was WPA2 Enterprise, you'd definitely have something more than just a password; and enterprise Wi-Fi is convoluted enough that it requires detailed steps even on Windows 7. The NetworkManager GUI never asks for a username when WPA2 Personal is selected (because that wouldn't make sense). About your last issue: 1. NetworkManager is the network management software all Linux distros use with GUI. 2. NetworkManager now has a cli, but perhaps that wasn't the case then. 3. It is always wise for a system administrator to know their tools; or at the least, how to use their tools. `wpa_supplicant`'s manpages could have told you what to do when you couldn't reach Arch Wiki. ---- And yes, Arch is a system that needs an admin to manage it. That is how it's designed and built. Look at the second entry in the official FAQ: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questions#Why_would_I_not_want_to_use_Arch.3F https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Frequently_asked_questi... I'd pre-configured my Arch system for the day when I'd need to connect a printer to it. And when I needed it and I connected it and it worked, it worked. When it didn't, and it was urgent, I asked someone else to print using their system. This is a common scenario with Windows 7 too. When a network posed me troubles, I have always debugged it and solved it. When I needed to figure out how to do something on the cli without internet, I relied on the manpages and the `--help` outputs and my sysadmin knowledge in general. And I'm okay with that, because it gives me the freedom to have my system my way and because I can do that. When I'm asked by someone to pick a distro for them, if they do not want to manage their system to such low levels, I recommend Ubuntu. It's just a matter of picking the right tool for the job.