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As a loooong time Ubuntu user, I'd like to ask fellow hackers how do you feel about using Arch or Manjaro as a daily driver?

swalsh 6y ago
With Arch, I feel in control. It has an "I built it, I can fix it" vibe. The result is it has been far more stable for me. I've struggled in the past with Ubuntu releases. I put them off, and then eventually I'm forced to update, and something somewhere breaks in a way I struggle to fix. Fedora, and Open SUSE were slightly more stable, but eventually I ran into the same issue. Not with Arch, though. I have not run into a problem that I couldn't easily fix. I've been using it daily for a few years now, and I really love everything about it.
hashhar 6y ago
No issues in over 5 years. The initial setup was time consuming but now its scripted. The benefits are bleeding edge packages, latest kernel, a lean and mean system (<700 packages for me). Some drawbacks are that getting exotic hardware to work requires more effort than say Fedora. But the wiki is helpful.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  no issues, no brainer, best wiki in history
poidos 6y ago
Hey, I use Arch as a daily driver and on my personal server. I’m a former Ubuntu user as well. A few months in, I deleted my Windows partition. I’m not running a crazy custom config or anything; I use Gnome and don’t mess with it too much beyond that, though I did uninstall many Gnome packages I don’t use. I am exceedingly happy using it this way. Everything Just Works. I make a point of updating packages whenever I boot the machine (I really like informant [0], which helps prevent catastrophes by checking arch news for you) and haven’t had any issues. For reference, I’ve got a Ryzen CPU and an Nvidia card. I also use it on my MacBook Pro, but I did have an issue with an update which broke my install. Reinstalling was a little hairier (some kernel flags needed) than on my desktop but now it’s quite stable. [0]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/informant/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/informant/
messo 6y ago
I have often heard from non-arch users that they perceive arch as too unstable to be used as a daily driver, but as a long time arch user (~8yrs) I have never experienced any disruptive events. I can imagine problems arising when using certain hardware and drivers, but then you would like experience problems on other distributions from time to time as well.
- cbmuser 6y ago
  Stable has a different context when talking about distributions. Arch does not have releases, it’s unstable by definition.
  - banachtarski 6y ago
    Lol Ive used Arch as a driver for about 9 years now. No problems. Meanwhile, I constantly get asked questions about how to unbreak colleague/friend Ubuntu setups because they broke things try to get a slightly more recent version of X package. Rolling does not imply non-stable. Stability is the sum of many factors and to me, consistent packaging is key to that. Ubuntu and other distros that package software unconventionally is a maintenance headache for the original software authors and the enduser both. I frankly don’t understand why anyone would use it as a desktop driver.
  - sergeykish 6y ago
    Arch is stable not "Stable". I had less problems with Arch then with Ubuntu, so it is stable operating system. There is a separate "testing" repository [1]. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/official_repositories#testing https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/official_repositories#t...
- diggan 6y ago
  I myself use Arch, so don't have anything against it obviously, but many can't deal with the API breakage that happens sometimes when packages are always on the latest version. I barely write any software that uses the package managers libraries, so don't get hit by this, but some friends of mine complained about this when using arch, coming from debian/ubuntu. Sometimes pacman upgrades also spits out manual commands for you to follow after an upgrade, while I never had that happen on Ubuntu (using it for my laptop), guess that could be a turnoff for some too.
mathieubordere 6y ago
Try it out, I went from Fedora to Arch and wouldn't consider going back. It takes a bit of tweaking to figure out a setup you like, but overall the experience is very rewarding and you end up with a minimal-ish system suited to your needs. I have the feeling that there's a lot less magic going on behind the scenes, because I had to configure and install most components myself.
scrollaway 6y ago
Disclaimer: I'm an arch TU. I think switching from debian/ubuntu/fedora (used to distro-hop as I wasn't ever really happy with them) to Arch Linux was probably one of the most productive things I've ever done, and I would recommend any daily linux user to switch to it (especially if you're a dev/hacker-minded person). The learning curve was a little steep at first, but the hump was over in very little time and it was worth it. I learned how things really worked inside what previously was a bit of a black box. This meant I could take better care of it, would be more efficient at finding things I may want to change or fix, and nothing ever felt irrecoverably lost to the point I would have to reinstall. In fact, I had a pretty bad SSD hiccup after a power surge a few weeks ago. The sort of thing that would have taken a Windows laptop out: A lot of system files were blanked out. I still don't know exactly what caused the crash itself, but I ended up with an unbootable system. Old me may have reinstalled the whole thing, but instead I ended up booting arch on a flash drive, debugging the issue, figuring out what had happened, fixing it, and ended up with a working system I'm typing this from. Now to be clear, if I don't want to deal with this kind of shit, nothing prevents me from a wipe&reinstall. Nothing stops me from running my stuff on a VM I don't have to manage, either. It's important not to let yourself completely waste your time on distractions. But this is meant as an advert on what Arch Linux taught me fairly passively over the years: Within the space of a couple of hours total, I was able to prepare a bootable usb, chroot into the broken system, debug bootloader issues, debug graphics issues, debug kernel module loading issues, and more. I never felt outside my comfort zone. Oh, and this also isn't my job. It just made me a hell of a lot better at my job, as these skills entirely transfer over to devops etc. ---- With all that said: Arch is very much no-fuss compared to Ubuntu. I had to deal with a lot of new stuff to learn the first few weeks, then practically nothing over most of the next decade. When using Ubuntu, I constantly had to deal with distractions… and when I end up ssh'd on an Ubuntu system, I still do have to deal with distractions to this day.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  what TU ? Testing User ?
  - teddyfrozevelt 6y ago
antouank 6y ago
Same as the others. Using antergos/manjaro as my daily driver on different machines ( PC/laptop/server ) for 4+ years now, and I am more than happy. I used ubuntu, xubuntu, elementary, mint and others before. Once I found antergos I stayed with arch-based distros. Quick releases of new software is amazing. I've had very few issues and when they are appear it's usually solved within hours. I love the rolling updates, and the wiki is really helpful and easy to read/navigate most of the time.
vladvasiliu 6y ago
I think it's great. It may seem weird to some, but for me it's a timesaver. The most painful thing is the installation. I don't particularly enjoy doing things following some guide, I figure it'd be best done by some automated script. However, I find it's an investment which yields a ton of dividends. Once it's installed, everything is pretty much painless and I don't usually install it that often (only when I get a new PC). I usually enjoy having fairly up-to-date software and doing this is often a pain on Ubuntu. You have to chase down alternative ppas, which may or may not work well with other ppas. Sometimes there's nothing available and you have to build your own – I've had this issue when I was trying Ubuntu 20.04 right after it came out and wanted to have my BT LDAC headphones working [0]. Some guy came up with a custom build after a while, not sure what the situation currently is. I use i3 and wanted to experiment with a compositor. At the time Ubuntu had an old version of compton. I would have had to mainain my own install of picom. I don't much enjoy doing things manually when they can be automated. Ditto for alacritty. They used to provide .deb packages, but not anylonger. Sure, installing alacritty is fairly simple, but again, it would have to be maintained up to date separately from the main packages. I don't enjoy that. In the end, Arch just gets out of my way. I only have to run a full system update every so often (once a week works for me) and I have the latest and greateast of everything. And in case something's missing from the official repo, there's the AUR (a sort of "user-managed ppa" with packages built from source) and if using a helper, this is kept up to date automatically. I understand some people don't really care about what they're using as long as whatever applications they run work fine, so I get the appeal of something as stable as Ubuntu, especially if not running brand new hardware requiring the absolute latest kernel for support. [0] https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt
- jcelerier 6y ago
  Regarding the installation I did it the manual way a couple times for the lolz, but nowadays I just use an installer like anarchy as my installation needs (which amount to, setting a keymap, wiping a partition, installing the system on it and installing a boot manager) are entirely covered. You can even select a DE or WM directly. https://anarchyinstaller.org/ https://anarchyinstaller.org/
formerly_proven 6y ago
Linux is just Linux, if anything Debian/Ubuntu is mildly weird with the amount of patches, homebrew tooling and non-default configuration they ship. Distros like Arch, Gentoo and so on are pretty much just vanilla packages of upstream. Arch itself only has a handful of Arch-specific software packages: netctl, pacman and mkinitcpio.
kartoshechka 6y ago
I didn't really think much about its rolling release system when came from Ubuntu, and I don't quite get people who afraid of it. It's easy to literally ignore updates, or upgrade partially (but with some care and effort), and if something's wrong `downgrade` is here. Also AUR is great, as well as wiki and community at Arch Forums.
kevinherron 6y ago
Manjaro+KDE has been my go to since the demise of Antergos. Been working well on a desktop and laptop.
codeflo 6y ago
My main dev PC is running on Arch as well, and I have no intention to switch, but I'll disagree with many of the sibling comments: Arch breaks all the time. One day, a Gnome update breaks all plugins, in one case making login in X impossible unless you manually deactivate stuff using the shell. The next time, a kernel update makes sound stop working after waking up from standby. It's mostly small regressions, and they usually get fixed a week later, but something temporarily stops working at least once every 2 months. However, Arch also makes it much, much easier to run recent versions of, basically everything. You never have to fiddle around with 3rd-party package repos, you just install stuff and it works. It's how package managers are supposed to work, but not the experience I've ever had with Debian and Ubuntu. Of course, the fact that Pacman is fantastically fast compared to apt doesn't hurt either. I love Arch. In aggregate, I think it prevents more headaches than it causes. But you have to be prepared for some unexpected problems and fiddling around.
- gchamonlive 6y ago
  That can be minimized by understanding the update first, and searching for known compatibility issues. That can be automated by using the pacmatic wrapper.
- pimeys 6y ago
  I've been using Arch for at least 10 years now, but my home workstation is for some reason Ubuntu. Been thinking of updating to Arch there too, but this time using ZFS and doing snapshots before any update. Now when the next gen Radeons are coming, running the latest kernel starts to make sense again...
- technion 6y ago
  Every time I hear such a story, it involves Gnome or X or some similar GUI issue. I run Arch on headless servers and can't relate - maybe there's a connection there.
  - ghthor 6y ago
    I've had none of those types of issues using XFCE and GPUs with in kernel drivers. Avoid gnome, avoid Closed source GPUs and I think you avoid 90% of these issues
Arkanosis 6y ago
I've been using Kubuntu since 9.04 and I've replaced my last install of it with Arch just last week, after 4.5 years of joy with it on my laptops. I'm probably not going back to Ubuntu for desktop / development / gaming use. It feels like you're in control of everything. Not like you know everything, but you know that if something is going to be on your way, you'll be able to find a solution (and learn something new which is applicable to other distros as well) in the day because things are simple (!= easy) and the Arch wiki is awesome. Somehow, I'd say the feeling is a bit similar to the one I had when I definitely switched from Windows XP to Kubuntu back in the days, except you don't have to change your habits with regard to software you use. In addition to that, you're almost always having the latest version of everything, including the kernel. No more unsupported hardware, no more outdated driver, no more missing feature, no more other OS you can't run in a container because of your host kernel being too old. One thing, though: there are two cases where I wouldn't use Arch (but I didn't use Ubuntu for these either): computers I use like once or twice per year and production servers. Having close to nothing to upgrade is a feature for me there, so I use Debian stable.
- broodbucket 6y ago
  Agree with all of this, I run Arch on my server and if I forget to update it for a couple of months it gets pretty sketchy
gchamonlive 6y ago
I like that arch gets out of your way. Yes, you should stick to KISS and such, but if you want you can customise as much as you want because you understand the underlying infrastructure, whereas with Ubuntu God knows what customizations took place.
vvillena 6y ago
I switched my dev machine to Arch nearly 10 years ago. I was a Gentoo user then. Gentoo broke all the time, but Arch has been a rock-solid experience since day one. I can easily run the latest version of everything, and if anything doesn't work out of the box, the wiki always has answers. I've used Ubuntu at work, and I've had problems with it, which are not as debuggable as in Arch, because there's less documentation. Rolling release + great docs is what made Gentoo great 15 years ago. Arch is the same, but better, because it doesn't break.
- bwidlar 6y ago
  Same experience after years of using Arch Linux. The rolling release philosophy works like a charm. Before Arch I have used Ubuntu, Mandrake, Debian, RedHat, Caldera and some other for sure.
johnisgood 6y ago
I have been an Arch Linux user for quite many years. I had only 1 issue with it related to some old NVIDIA driver I had to install via AUR but I fixed it easily. That is all. I love it. I use it for servers, too.
dharmab 6y ago
Switching from Ubuntu to Arch as a teenager kicked off my professional career.
ghostpepper 6y ago
Most of the learning curve on Arch is front-loaded. Once you have a system how you like it, the odds that a broken package will make it unbootable are small. That being said it probably took me 3-4 evenings to set up an encrypted disk and boot loader correctly, and another few weeks to tweak the window manager and various configs to be exactly how I like them. The best part, however, is that once you’ve got it there, the system really feel like yours.
- Latty 6y ago
  > The best part, however, is that once you’ve got it there, the system really feel like yours. This is it. There is an up-front cost to configuring your system, but once you have, you know what is there and how it is configured, so if something does go wrong, you know roughly where to look and how to deal with it. Things that "just work" tend to have more "magic" going on that becomes a big pain when it breaks or doesn't do what you want. It really depends on how you use your system, for me, Arch is perfect, but for some, it's just going to be an annoyance to set up for little gain over something where it is done for you.
  - estebank 6y ago
    I think part of the appeal of Arch is the "Ikea effect"[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect
- odiroot 6y ago
  > That being said it probably took me 3-4 evenings to set up an encrypted disk and boot loader correctly, What was hard about that part? Is it something you have to do by hand?
  - diggan 6y ago
    Don't think it's about something being "hard", just "unknown" when you first come from Ubuntu et al into Arch, so you have to spend some time learning things. Also took me a few days to become knowledgable enough to be able to setup the system as I really wanted it. Encryption is definitely something you want to learn enough about to be comfortable with before diving into it and encrypting your entire system. Great starting point what you need to understand: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_...
3np 6y ago
Arch as main desktop and daily driver for 7 years or so. It’s still my main preference and I have no intention of switching. Wouldn’t run it on servers though, there it’s Debian/Ubuntu/CentOS. Apart from the systemd transition way back, which was a bit disruptive, the only breakages are the occasional kernel bug or window manager whatever which is typically solved by rolling back (pacman -U on your pkg cache) and waiting for a fix until upgrading that package again. Also I’d recommend getting familiar with and picking a tool for PKGBUILDs and AUR. I like aur-sync and friends but there are options.
fizixer 6y ago
Stay with Ubuntu LTS. Arch is garbage. Seriously. In ubuntu, when you update, you just update. In arch, when you update, "It is your responsibility to first go to arch website and see if there is any breakage or issue that needs to be handled manually. If yes, follow the instructions. If they're unclear, spend hours on Arch Wiki. Then go ahead and update." But wait, there's more. If you don't do arch updates regularly, like if for some reason you couldn't update for 6 months, all bets are off. You'd be lucky if your update works at all. In the 99% chance that it doesn't, "they" advise you to take the snapshots (that are archived every few days) and update snapshot-by-snapshot. So if it's 20 snapshots you've missed, you update from snapshot 0 to 1, then 1 to 2, then 2 to 3, and so on. And if during any of the updates, there was some required manual fixup, you're SOL. If you are in the mood for going hardcore, just clear up your weekend, get a spare hard drive, and do LFS [0]. Once you've completed that project, trash that install (it was only for your learning), and go back to Ubuntu as a daily driver. Now you can tell arch fanboys to go eat a carrot, cz 99.9% of them know jack compared to what you know now. (side note: doing LFS would be enlightening enough that you'll start having ideas and/or future projects of your own. Have at it). If you don't like Ubuntu cruft like bloated desktop, snap, cloud-init on ubuntu server, what not, there's a gazillion ways to go about it. You can simply 'purge' (remove completely) then after install. Or do minimal server install and then install only the packages you want. Or you can pick a sane Ubuntu variant like Xubuntu. If you're a tiling wm user, just pick regolith [1] (it'll make your life so much easier). If Ubuntu LTS packages aren't recent enough and you need to use the latest version of some package, you can either install it in your home directory, or use a docker image if available (or build your own). [0] http://www.linuxfromscratch.org http://www.linuxfromscratch.org [1] https://regolith-linux.org https://regolith-linux.org
- spekcular 6y ago
  I've used Arch for about a year and agree that the need to attend carefully to updates is annoying. There was a particularly egregious case of this recently with PAM, where if you did not update a certain file following the instructions given by the pacman messages (or just missed it), then you wouldn't be able to log in. I also had another instance of not being able to boot into Arch due to a bug in the package governing my encrypted drive. In both cases it was simple to solve by booting from a rescue USB and changing the appropriate files (downgrading in the second case), but it was still obnoxious. However, as far as I can tell, it should not be a problem to wait 6 months (or even years?) to update. There are periodic reddit threads where someone updates a years-old Arch installation just fine.
tbrock 6y ago
Arch is amazing as a daily driver. I use it both on an ec2 vm for development and on the client (my thinkpad) that connects to it. Both are zero maintenance after being set up and I get the latest kernels and dev tools without the need for a PPA or dpkg dark arts. I’ve been running the same arch install on my thinkpad and moving it to newer models for over a decade! Compare that to Ubuntu or fedora where I’d have to upgrade every six months to get support for this or that and it would be a nightmare. One thing that is frustrating about the project is that I’ve donated to it several times and still don’t know if that money ever made it to the people running the project or was put to good use.
ohazi 6y ago
I put Arch on a personal laptop as an experiment and like it a lot. The Arch wiki is your friend - start there when you're setting something up and when you get stuck. Most "normal" configurations either just work, or can be made to work pretty easily. As a general principle, installing a package usually just puts the files in the right places - if there's a system service that needs to be configured to run, you usually need to do that yourself, usually with systemd. You will be forced to learn a little more about what's running on your system and how it's configured than you typically would on a Debian/Ubuntu system, which tends to be more hands off. A lot of what you learn transfers, though, so eventually you'll just feel like you understand the software you use better. One difference I don't particularly like is that Arch systems typically have one or two kernel installations (e.g. linux and linux-lts), and updates overwrite them directly, even the one you booted from. Most other systems are configured to leave the kernel you booted from alone, install updates alongside it, and only offer to remove an older kernel once you've rebooted into a newer one. In theory, an botched update could render your system unbootable, although in practice, this is rare. But this does require you to reboot more often than you might on Debian/Ubuntu, particularly if you're on a laptop and you like to hibernate, or if you do things that need to load/unload kernel modules with any regularity (e.g. plugging in some usb devices).
- MegaDeKay 6y ago
  I'd almost go further than saying "The Arch wiki is your friend". The Arch wiki is a friend of everybody that runs Linux, and is often pointed to as a guide to users of other distros. Happens on /r/vfio all the time.
  - ohazi 6y ago
    100% agree. The wiki is absolutely still useful if you use Debian / Ubuntu / something else. I use it all the time, even when trying to solve problems on other systems, and I've been using the wiki for longer than I've been using Arch. In fact, noticing that I kept seeing good reference material there is what prompted me to give Arch a try in the first place.
xiaomai 6y ago
I used Arch for several years while Ubuntu was doing annoying stuff like shipping a broken/out of date gnome-shell because of Unity. It is soooooooooo nice to be back on Ubuntu. I appreciate the people that like and develop Arch linux (and especially anyone that contributes to the wiki is a true hero), but it's not a good distro for your daily driver: 1. "immature" packaging. It's crazy to me how much manual intervention is needed during routine package upgrades. This can be major break-your-system stuff (they have a mailing list for those types of changes so make sure to subscribe), or just stuff that could be done for you but isn't (like updating your db during postgres upgrades). 2. Tiny official repos. You're going to have to rely on the user-submitted repos for most of your packaging needs. It's cool how easy it is to make a package and submit it to the AUR, but I don't love the idea of installing random user-submitted stuff for the bulk of my software needs. 3. No debug symbols. Maybe this doesn't affect most people but it is very annoying that there is no (convenient) way to get debug symbols for a package /lib. If a program crashes on you and you want to fix it, the official solution is to rebuild a package (and all its dependencies as necessary) on your own system to get debug symbols. In contrast, ubuntu/fedora/etc. will install a debug symbols package for you (automatically, I think) when a program crashes. In terms of learning Linux fundamentals: arch could teach you some things (LFS would be even better--but I wouldn't sue either for my daily driver when better options exist.
- jorams 6y ago
  > Tiny official repos. You're going to have to rely on the user-submitted repos for most of your packaging needs. It's cool how easy it is to make a package and submit it to the AUR, but I don't love the idea of installing random user-submitted stuff for the bulk of my software needs. Can you expand on this? My system contains a total of 20 "foreign" packages from the AUR and private sources, installed over a period of 5 years. It's certainly not even close to "most of my packaging needs", because I have 1267 "native" packages installed. Some of these foreign packages could be in the official repositories, but most are modified or built-from-source versions of existing packages, software that is now in the repositories but wasn't when I installed it, or don't belong in the repositories at all.
usr1106 6y ago
I'd say Arch is for hackers by hackers. You should be interested to find out how things work. You should prefer the command line for a lot of your daily work. As such person when switching from Ubuntu you might be positively surprised how lightweight but still functional some things can be done. Ubuntu has the goal to be usable by users who don't know what a command line is. Many more bells and whistles are installed in Ubuntu by default. If you need to use non-free software like Skype or Zoom you are more likely to find Ubuntu packages than Arch packages for it.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  Very elitist take. I'm a hacker but I prefer that my computer just works without fuss so that I can do actual work. Why is fighting with an OS seen as some huge universe-brain achievement?
  - usr1106 6y ago
    Hey, I do the same. I sometimes play with Arch, but I mostly run Ubuntu, because sometimes I am in a hurry to get things done and don't want to fiddle with the system.
  - blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
    > but I prefer that my computer just works without fuss so that I can do actual work This is exactly the reason I run arch. I have repaired loads of colleagues fedora installs that broke during dist-upgrade. And I the two times I tried to dist-upgrade old ubuntu installs went catastrophically wrong. With arch I update every day or once a week and don't have to worry.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
      I have never once had a Fedora upgrade or Windows update break my machine.
      - blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
megous 6y ago
I switched to Arch Linux ~2007 from Slackware. Painless, and much less hassle (I've been manually building the whole of GNOME on Slackware, after Slackware dropped that a few year prior). I don't think I've reinstalled my workstation's Arch instllation ever since (just kept rsyncing to a new drive, when the old one was morally outlived). So Arch itself is great in this respect. The distributed software itself breaks from time to time (it's bleeding edge, so that's expected), but that's not really on Arch Linux, and largely depends on your choice of software. (my DE never failed to run, I use i3wm) The most annoying thing about arch linux is kernel updates remove the currently running kernel's modules from the filesystem, so if you hotplug a device that needs a module to be loaded, you'll have to reboot first. The systems that keep the previous kernel version installed are a bit better in this respect. So now I load modules for all devices I expect to connect on boot. This makes it less painful.
anotherevan 6y ago
I love Arch, personally. Have been using it for quite a few years now as my desktop and love the rolling release paradigm. That said, when setting up machines for others I pick the current LTS release of Kubuntu and install unattended-upgrades to ensure security updates get maintained. It provides a much better ongoing maintenance story for machines that are less "pets" and more "tools". § Due to a disk crash, I recently had to reinstall Arch for the first time in quite a few years. IMO the install process has become more opaque. I seem to remember the wiki use to have a newbie install guide which was really helpful and explained a lot of things as you go, or at least what the common practices were or the pros and cons of different options. That seems to be gone and anything that may be an opinion seems to be excised from any install instructions, and you're left to stumble around different pages a lot more, which is a bit of a shame.

swalsh 6y ago

With Arch, I feel in control. It has an "I built it, I can fix it" vibe. The result is it has been far more stable for me. I've struggled in the past with Ubuntu releases. I put them off, and then eventually I'm forced to update, and something somewhere breaks in a way I struggle to fix. Fedora, and Open SUSE were slightly more stable, but eventually I ran into the same issue. Not with Arch, though. I have not run into a problem that I couldn't easily fix. I've been using it daily for a few years now, and I really love everything about it.

hashhar 6y ago

No issues in over 5 years. The initial setup was time consuming but now its scripted. The benefits are bleeding edge packages, latest kernel, a lean and mean system (<700 packages for me). Some drawbacks are that getting exotic hardware to work requires more effort than say Fedora. But the wiki is helpful.

agumonkey 6y ago
no issues, no brainer, best wiki in history

poidos 6y ago

Hey, I use Arch as a daily driver and on my personal server. I’m a former Ubuntu user as well. A few months in, I deleted my Windows partition. I’m not running a crazy custom config or anything; I use Gnome and don’t mess with it too much beyond that, though I did uninstall many Gnome packages I don’t use. I am exceedingly happy using it this way. Everything Just Works. I make a point of updating packages whenever I boot the machine (I really like informant [0], which helps prevent catastrophes by checking arch news for you) and haven’t had any issues. For reference, I’ve got a Ryzen CPU and an Nvidia card. I also use it on my MacBook Pro, but I did have an issue with an update which broke my install. Reinstalling was a little hairier (some kernel flags needed) than on my desktop but now it’s quite stable. [0]: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/informant/ https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/informant/

messo 6y ago

I have often heard from non-arch users that they perceive arch as too unstable to be used as a daily driver, but as a long time arch user (~8yrs) I have never experienced any disruptive events. I can imagine problems arising when using certain hardware and drivers, but then you would like experience problems on other distributions from time to time as well.

cbmuser 6y ago
Stable has a different context when talking about distributions. Arch does not have releases, it’s unstable by definition.
- banachtarski 6y ago
  Lol Ive used Arch as a driver for about 9 years now. No problems. Meanwhile, I constantly get asked questions about how to unbreak colleague/friend Ubuntu setups because they broke things try to get a slightly more recent version of X package. Rolling does not imply non-stable. Stability is the sum of many factors and to me, consistent packaging is key to that. Ubuntu and other distros that package software unconventionally is a maintenance headache for the original software authors and the enduser both. I frankly don’t understand why anyone would use it as a desktop driver.
- sergeykish 6y ago
  Arch is stable not "Stable". I had less problems with Arch then with Ubuntu, so it is stable operating system. There is a separate "testing" repository [1]. [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/official_repositories#testing https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/official_repositories#t...
diggan 6y ago
I myself use Arch, so don't have anything against it obviously, but many can't deal with the API breakage that happens sometimes when packages are always on the latest version. I barely write any software that uses the package managers libraries, so don't get hit by this, but some friends of mine complained about this when using arch, coming from debian/ubuntu. Sometimes pacman upgrades also spits out manual commands for you to follow after an upgrade, while I never had that happen on Ubuntu (using it for my laptop), guess that could be a turnoff for some too.

mathieubordere 6y ago

Try it out, I went from Fedora to Arch and wouldn't consider going back. It takes a bit of tweaking to figure out a setup you like, but overall the experience is very rewarding and you end up with a minimal-ish system suited to your needs. I have the feeling that there's a lot less magic going on behind the scenes, because I had to configure and install most components myself.

scrollaway 6y ago

Disclaimer: I'm an arch TU. I think switching from debian/ubuntu/fedora (used to distro-hop as I wasn't ever really happy with them) to Arch Linux was probably one of the most productive things I've ever done, and I would recommend any daily linux user to switch to it (especially if you're a dev/hacker-minded person). The learning curve was a little steep at first, but the hump was over in very little time and it was worth it. I learned how things really worked inside what previously was a bit of a black box. This meant I could take better care of it, would be more efficient at finding things I may want to change or fix, and nothing ever felt irrecoverably lost to the point I would have to reinstall. In fact, I had a pretty bad SSD hiccup after a power surge a few weeks ago. The sort of thing that would have taken a Windows laptop out: A lot of system files were blanked out. I still don't know exactly what caused the crash itself, but I ended up with an unbootable system. Old me may have reinstalled the whole thing, but instead I ended up booting arch on a flash drive, debugging the issue, figuring out what had happened, fixing it, and ended up with a working system I'm typing this from. Now to be clear, if I don't want to deal with this kind of shit, nothing prevents me from a wipe&reinstall. Nothing stops me from running my stuff on a VM I don't have to manage, either. It's important not to let yourself completely waste your time on distractions. But this is meant as an advert on what Arch Linux taught me fairly passively over the years: Within the space of a couple of hours total, I was able to prepare a bootable usb, chroot into the broken system, debug bootloader issues, debug graphics issues, debug kernel module loading issues, and more. I never felt outside my comfort zone. Oh, and this also isn't my job. It just made me a hell of a lot better at my job, as these skills entirely transfer over to devops etc. ---- With all that said: Arch is very much no-fuss compared to Ubuntu. I had to deal with a lot of new stuff to learn the first few weeks, then practically nothing over most of the next decade. When using Ubuntu, I constantly had to deal with distractions… and when I end up ssh'd on an Ubuntu system, I still do have to deal with distractions to this day.

agumonkey 6y ago
what TU ? Testing User ?
- teddyfrozevelt 6y ago

antouank 6y ago

Same as the others. Using antergos/manjaro as my daily driver on different machines ( PC/laptop/server ) for 4+ years now, and I am more than happy. I used ubuntu, xubuntu, elementary, mint and others before. Once I found antergos I stayed with arch-based distros. Quick releases of new software is amazing. I've had very few issues and when they are appear it's usually solved within hours. I love the rolling updates, and the wiki is really helpful and easy to read/navigate most of the time.

vladvasiliu 6y ago

I think it's great. It may seem weird to some, but for me it's a timesaver. The most painful thing is the installation. I don't particularly enjoy doing things following some guide, I figure it'd be best done by some automated script. However, I find it's an investment which yields a ton of dividends. Once it's installed, everything is pretty much painless and I don't usually install it that often (only when I get a new PC). I usually enjoy having fairly up-to-date software and doing this is often a pain on Ubuntu. You have to chase down alternative ppas, which may or may not work well with other ppas. Sometimes there's nothing available and you have to build your own – I've had this issue when I was trying Ubuntu 20.04 right after it came out and wanted to have my BT LDAC headphones working [0]. Some guy came up with a custom build after a while, not sure what the situation currently is. I use i3 and wanted to experiment with a compositor. At the time Ubuntu had an old version of compton. I would have had to mainain my own install of picom. I don't much enjoy doing things manually when they can be automated. Ditto for alacritty. They used to provide .deb packages, but not anylonger. Sure, installing alacritty is fairly simple, but again, it would have to be maintained up to date separately from the main packages. I don't enjoy that. In the end, Arch just gets out of my way. I only have to run a full system update every so often (once a week works for me) and I have the latest and greateast of everything. And in case something's missing from the official repo, there's the AUR (a sort of "user-managed ppa" with packages built from source) and if using a helper, this is kept up to date automatically. I understand some people don't really care about what they're using as long as whatever applications they run work fine, so I get the appeal of something as stable as Ubuntu, especially if not running brand new hardware requiring the absolute latest kernel for support. [0] https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt https://github.com/EHfive/pulseaudio-modules-bt

jcelerier 6y ago
Regarding the installation I did it the manual way a couple times for the lolz, but nowadays I just use an installer like anarchy as my installation needs (which amount to, setting a keymap, wiping a partition, installing the system on it and installing a boot manager) are entirely covered. You can even select a DE or WM directly. https://anarchyinstaller.org/ https://anarchyinstaller.org/

formerly_proven 6y ago

Linux is just Linux, if anything Debian/Ubuntu is mildly weird with the amount of patches, homebrew tooling and non-default configuration they ship. Distros like Arch, Gentoo and so on are pretty much just vanilla packages of upstream. Arch itself only has a handful of Arch-specific software packages: netctl, pacman and mkinitcpio.

kartoshechka 6y ago

I didn't really think much about its rolling release system when came from Ubuntu, and I don't quite get people who afraid of it. It's easy to literally ignore updates, or upgrade partially (but with some care and effort), and if something's wrong `downgrade` is here. Also AUR is great, as well as wiki and community at Arch Forums.

kevinherron 6y ago

Manjaro+KDE has been my go to since the demise of Antergos. Been working well on a desktop and laptop.

codeflo 6y ago

My main dev PC is running on Arch as well, and I have no intention to switch, but I'll disagree with many of the sibling comments: Arch breaks all the time. One day, a Gnome update breaks all plugins, in one case making login in X impossible unless you manually deactivate stuff using the shell. The next time, a kernel update makes sound stop working after waking up from standby. It's mostly small regressions, and they usually get fixed a week later, but something temporarily stops working at least once every 2 months. However, Arch also makes it much, much easier to run recent versions of, basically everything. You never have to fiddle around with 3rd-party package repos, you just install stuff and it works. It's how package managers are supposed to work, but not the experience I've ever had with Debian and Ubuntu. Of course, the fact that Pacman is fantastically fast compared to apt doesn't hurt either. I love Arch. In aggregate, I think it prevents more headaches than it causes. But you have to be prepared for some unexpected problems and fiddling around.

gchamonlive 6y ago
That can be minimized by understanding the update first, and searching for known compatibility issues. That can be automated by using the pacmatic wrapper.
pimeys 6y ago
I've been using Arch for at least 10 years now, but my home workstation is for some reason Ubuntu. Been thinking of updating to Arch there too, but this time using ZFS and doing snapshots before any update. Now when the next gen Radeons are coming, running the latest kernel starts to make sense again...
technion 6y ago
Every time I hear such a story, it involves Gnome or X or some similar GUI issue. I run Arch on headless servers and can't relate - maybe there's a connection there.
- ghthor 6y ago
  I've had none of those types of issues using XFCE and GPUs with in kernel drivers. Avoid gnome, avoid Closed source GPUs and I think you avoid 90% of these issues

Arkanosis 6y ago

I've been using Kubuntu since 9.04 and I've replaced my last install of it with Arch just last week, after 4.5 years of joy with it on my laptops. I'm probably not going back to Ubuntu for desktop / development / gaming use. It feels like you're in control of everything. Not like you know everything, but you know that if something is going to be on your way, you'll be able to find a solution (and learn something new which is applicable to other distros as well) in the day because things are simple (!= easy) and the Arch wiki is awesome. Somehow, I'd say the feeling is a bit similar to the one I had when I definitely switched from Windows XP to Kubuntu back in the days, except you don't have to change your habits with regard to software you use. In addition to that, you're almost always having the latest version of everything, including the kernel. No more unsupported hardware, no more outdated driver, no more missing feature, no more other OS you can't run in a container because of your host kernel being too old. One thing, though: there are two cases where I wouldn't use Arch (but I didn't use Ubuntu for these either): computers I use like once or twice per year and production servers. Having close to nothing to upgrade is a feature for me there, so I use Debian stable.

broodbucket 6y ago
Agree with all of this, I run Arch on my server and if I forget to update it for a couple of months it gets pretty sketchy

gchamonlive 6y ago

I like that arch gets out of your way. Yes, you should stick to KISS and such, but if you want you can customise as much as you want because you understand the underlying infrastructure, whereas with Ubuntu God knows what customizations took place.

vvillena 6y ago

I switched my dev machine to Arch nearly 10 years ago. I was a Gentoo user then. Gentoo broke all the time, but Arch has been a rock-solid experience since day one. I can easily run the latest version of everything, and if anything doesn't work out of the box, the wiki always has answers. I've used Ubuntu at work, and I've had problems with it, which are not as debuggable as in Arch, because there's less documentation. Rolling release + great docs is what made Gentoo great 15 years ago. Arch is the same, but better, because it doesn't break.

bwidlar 6y ago
Same experience after years of using Arch Linux. The rolling release philosophy works like a charm. Before Arch I have used Ubuntu, Mandrake, Debian, RedHat, Caldera and some other for sure.

johnisgood 6y ago

I have been an Arch Linux user for quite many years. I had only 1 issue with it related to some old NVIDIA driver I had to install via AUR but I fixed it easily. That is all. I love it. I use it for servers, too.

dharmab 6y ago

Switching from Ubuntu to Arch as a teenager kicked off my professional career.

ghostpepper 6y ago

Most of the learning curve on Arch is front-loaded. Once you have a system how you like it, the odds that a broken package will make it unbootable are small. That being said it probably took me 3-4 evenings to set up an encrypted disk and boot loader correctly, and another few weeks to tweak the window manager and various configs to be exactly how I like them. The best part, however, is that once you’ve got it there, the system really feel like yours.

Latty 6y ago
> The best part, however, is that once you’ve got it there, the system really feel like yours. This is it. There is an up-front cost to configuring your system, but once you have, you know what is there and how it is configured, so if something does go wrong, you know roughly where to look and how to deal with it. Things that "just work" tend to have more "magic" going on that becomes a big pain when it breaks or doesn't do what you want. It really depends on how you use your system, for me, Arch is perfect, but for some, it's just going to be an annoyance to set up for little gain over something where it is done for you.
- estebank 6y ago
  I think part of the appeal of Arch is the "Ikea effect"[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect
odiroot 6y ago
> That being said it probably took me 3-4 evenings to set up an encrypted disk and boot loader correctly, What was hard about that part? Is it something you have to do by hand?
- diggan 6y ago
  Don't think it's about something being "hard", just "unknown" when you first come from Ubuntu et al into Arch, so you have to spend some time learning things. Also took me a few days to become knowledgable enough to be able to setup the system as I really wanted it. Encryption is definitely something you want to learn enough about to be comfortable with before diving into it and encrypting your entire system. Great starting point what you need to understand: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_entire_system https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Dm-crypt/Encrypting_an_...

3np 6y ago

Arch as main desktop and daily driver for 7 years or so. It’s still my main preference and I have no intention of switching. Wouldn’t run it on servers though, there it’s Debian/Ubuntu/CentOS. Apart from the systemd transition way back, which was a bit disruptive, the only breakages are the occasional kernel bug or window manager whatever which is typically solved by rolling back (pacman -U on your pkg cache) and waiting for a fix until upgrading that package again. Also I’d recommend getting familiar with and picking a tool for PKGBUILDs and AUR. I like aur-sync and friends but there are options.

fizixer 6y ago

Stay with Ubuntu LTS. Arch is garbage. Seriously. In ubuntu, when you update, you just update. In arch, when you update, "It is your responsibility to first go to arch website and see if there is any breakage or issue that needs to be handled manually. If yes, follow the instructions. If they're unclear, spend hours on Arch Wiki. Then go ahead and update." But wait, there's more. If you don't do arch updates regularly, like if for some reason you couldn't update for 6 months, all bets are off. You'd be lucky if your update works at all. In the 99% chance that it doesn't, "they" advise you to take the snapshots (that are archived every few days) and update snapshot-by-snapshot. So if it's 20 snapshots you've missed, you update from snapshot 0 to 1, then 1 to 2, then 2 to 3, and so on. And if during any of the updates, there was some required manual fixup, you're SOL. If you are in the mood for going hardcore, just clear up your weekend, get a spare hard drive, and do LFS [0]. Once you've completed that project, trash that install (it was only for your learning), and go back to Ubuntu as a daily driver. Now you can tell arch fanboys to go eat a carrot, cz 99.9% of them know jack compared to what you know now. (side note: doing LFS would be enlightening enough that you'll start having ideas and/or future projects of your own. Have at it). If you don't like Ubuntu cruft like bloated desktop, snap, cloud-init on ubuntu server, what not, there's a gazillion ways to go about it. You can simply 'purge' (remove completely) then after install. Or do minimal server install and then install only the packages you want. Or you can pick a sane Ubuntu variant like Xubuntu. If you're a tiling wm user, just pick regolith [1] (it'll make your life so much easier). If Ubuntu LTS packages aren't recent enough and you need to use the latest version of some package, you can either install it in your home directory, or use a docker image if available (or build your own). [0] http://www.linuxfromscratch.org http://www.linuxfromscratch.org [1] https://regolith-linux.org https://regolith-linux.org

spekcular 6y ago
I've used Arch for about a year and agree that the need to attend carefully to updates is annoying. There was a particularly egregious case of this recently with PAM, where if you did not update a certain file following the instructions given by the pacman messages (or just missed it), then you wouldn't be able to log in. I also had another instance of not being able to boot into Arch due to a bug in the package governing my encrypted drive. In both cases it was simple to solve by booting from a rescue USB and changing the appropriate files (downgrading in the second case), but it was still obnoxious. However, as far as I can tell, it should not be a problem to wait 6 months (or even years?) to update. There are periodic reddit threads where someone updates a years-old Arch installation just fine.

tbrock 6y ago

Arch is amazing as a daily driver. I use it both on an ec2 vm for development and on the client (my thinkpad) that connects to it. Both are zero maintenance after being set up and I get the latest kernels and dev tools without the need for a PPA or dpkg dark arts. I’ve been running the same arch install on my thinkpad and moving it to newer models for over a decade! Compare that to Ubuntu or fedora where I’d have to upgrade every six months to get support for this or that and it would be a nightmare. One thing that is frustrating about the project is that I’ve donated to it several times and still don’t know if that money ever made it to the people running the project or was put to good use.

ohazi 6y ago

I put Arch on a personal laptop as an experiment and like it a lot. The Arch wiki is your friend - start there when you're setting something up and when you get stuck. Most "normal" configurations either just work, or can be made to work pretty easily. As a general principle, installing a package usually just puts the files in the right places - if there's a system service that needs to be configured to run, you usually need to do that yourself, usually with systemd. You will be forced to learn a little more about what's running on your system and how it's configured than you typically would on a Debian/Ubuntu system, which tends to be more hands off. A lot of what you learn transfers, though, so eventually you'll just feel like you understand the software you use better. One difference I don't particularly like is that Arch systems typically have one or two kernel installations (e.g. linux and linux-lts), and updates overwrite them directly, even the one you booted from. Most other systems are configured to leave the kernel you booted from alone, install updates alongside it, and only offer to remove an older kernel once you've rebooted into a newer one. In theory, an botched update could render your system unbootable, although in practice, this is rare. But this does require you to reboot more often than you might on Debian/Ubuntu, particularly if you're on a laptop and you like to hibernate, or if you do things that need to load/unload kernel modules with any regularity (e.g. plugging in some usb devices).

MegaDeKay 6y ago
I'd almost go further than saying "The Arch wiki is your friend". The Arch wiki is a friend of everybody that runs Linux, and is often pointed to as a guide to users of other distros. Happens on /r/vfio all the time.
- ohazi 6y ago
  100% agree. The wiki is absolutely still useful if you use Debian / Ubuntu / something else. I use it all the time, even when trying to solve problems on other systems, and I've been using the wiki for longer than I've been using Arch. In fact, noticing that I kept seeing good reference material there is what prompted me to give Arch a try in the first place.

xiaomai 6y ago

I used Arch for several years while Ubuntu was doing annoying stuff like shipping a broken/out of date gnome-shell because of Unity. It is soooooooooo nice to be back on Ubuntu. I appreciate the people that like and develop Arch linux (and especially anyone that contributes to the wiki is a true hero), but it's not a good distro for your daily driver: 1. "immature" packaging. It's crazy to me how much manual intervention is needed during routine package upgrades. This can be major break-your-system stuff (they have a mailing list for those types of changes so make sure to subscribe), or just stuff that could be done for you but isn't (like updating your db during postgres upgrades). 2. Tiny official repos. You're going to have to rely on the user-submitted repos for most of your packaging needs. It's cool how easy it is to make a package and submit it to the AUR, but I don't love the idea of installing random user-submitted stuff for the bulk of my software needs. 3. No debug symbols. Maybe this doesn't affect most people but it is very annoying that there is no (convenient) way to get debug symbols for a package /lib. If a program crashes on you and you want to fix it, the official solution is to rebuild a package (and all its dependencies as necessary) on your own system to get debug symbols. In contrast, ubuntu/fedora/etc. will install a debug symbols package for you (automatically, I think) when a program crashes. In terms of learning Linux fundamentals: arch could teach you some things (LFS would be even better--but I wouldn't sue either for my daily driver when better options exist.

jorams 6y ago
> Tiny official repos. You're going to have to rely on the user-submitted repos for most of your packaging needs. It's cool how easy it is to make a package and submit it to the AUR, but I don't love the idea of installing random user-submitted stuff for the bulk of my software needs. Can you expand on this? My system contains a total of 20 "foreign" packages from the AUR and private sources, installed over a period of 5 years. It's certainly not even close to "most of my packaging needs", because I have 1267 "native" packages installed. Some of these foreign packages could be in the official repositories, but most are modified or built-from-source versions of existing packages, software that is now in the repositories but wasn't when I installed it, or don't belong in the repositories at all.

usr1106 6y ago

I'd say Arch is for hackers by hackers. You should be interested to find out how things work. You should prefer the command line for a lot of your daily work. As such person when switching from Ubuntu you might be positively surprised how lightweight but still functional some things can be done. Ubuntu has the goal to be usable by users who don't know what a command line is. Many more bells and whistles are installed in Ubuntu by default. If you need to use non-free software like Skype or Zoom you are more likely to find Ubuntu packages than Arch packages for it.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Very elitist take. I'm a hacker but I prefer that my computer just works without fuss so that I can do actual work. Why is fighting with an OS seen as some huge universe-brain achievement?
- usr1106 6y ago
  Hey, I do the same. I sometimes play with Arch, but I mostly run Ubuntu, because sometimes I am in a hurry to get things done and don't want to fiddle with the system.
- blockmeifyoucan 6y ago
  > but I prefer that my computer just works without fuss so that I can do actual work This is exactly the reason I run arch. I have repaired loads of colleagues fedora installs that broke during dist-upgrade. And I the two times I tried to dist-upgrade old ubuntu installs went catastrophically wrong. With arch I update every day or once a week and don't have to worry.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
    I have never once had a Fedora upgrade or Windows update break my machine.
    - blockmeifyoucan 6y ago

megous 6y ago

I switched to Arch Linux ~2007 from Slackware. Painless, and much less hassle (I've been manually building the whole of GNOME on Slackware, after Slackware dropped that a few year prior). I don't think I've reinstalled my workstation's Arch instllation ever since (just kept rsyncing to a new drive, when the old one was morally outlived). So Arch itself is great in this respect. The distributed software itself breaks from time to time (it's bleeding edge, so that's expected), but that's not really on Arch Linux, and largely depends on your choice of software. (my DE never failed to run, I use i3wm) The most annoying thing about arch linux is kernel updates remove the currently running kernel's modules from the filesystem, so if you hotplug a device that needs a module to be loaded, you'll have to reboot first. The systems that keep the previous kernel version installed are a bit better in this respect. So now I load modules for all devices I expect to connect on boot. This makes it less painful.

anotherevan 6y ago

I love Arch, personally. Have been using it for quite a few years now as my desktop and love the rolling release paradigm. That said, when setting up machines for others I pick the current LTS release of Kubuntu and install unattended-upgrades to ensure security updates get maintained. It provides a much better ongoing maintenance story for machines that are less "pets" and more "tools". § Due to a disk crash, I recently had to reinstall Arch for the first time in quite a few years. IMO the install process has become more opaque. I seem to remember the wiki use to have a newbie install guide which was really helpful and explained a lot of things as you go, or at least what the common practices were or the pros and cons of different options. That seems to be gone and anything that may be an opinion seems to be excised from any install instructions, and you're left to stumble around different pages a lot more, which is a bit of a shame.