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Arch Linux. Great community and excellent documentation wiki that'll hold your hand every step of the way.

by snvzz 4y ago

artogahr 4y ago
hold your hand... if you have a hand to begin with. Most beginner users won't be able to follow most things in the Arch wiki.
- snvzz 4y ago
  I installed Gentoo when it was new with far less handholding. I was a child. If you're literate enough to be able to read the wiki, you can manage to install, use every day, and get good at, Arch Linux.
  - johnisgood 4y ago
    Yup, I installed Gentoo more than a decade ago, I was about 13, and my native language is not English. "Most" beginners just lack the patience and energy or motivation and cannot or do not want to follow instructions or read documentation at all. If you do not have enough dedication, just go with a beginner-friendly distribution or whatever.
theodric 4y ago
Install Arch, get everything working, and DO NOT install updates. I've never had another distro that would randomly render itself unbootable or break core functionality with such frequency with the simple weekly application of updates. Really distressing.
- snvzz 4y ago
  Wow. I have used Arch as my main system for 6 years now (was Gentoo before) and never had anything of the sort. How does this even happen?
  - agiacalone 4y ago
    It happened to me on Arch during the switch from init to systemd. Update was documented, but I didn’t look. Did my `pacman -syua` as I normally did on a daily, and rebooted to a totally borked system. This is when I was a grad student and really needed that laptop that week. I still love Arch, but I can’t trust it anymore as a daily driver.
- Tommstein 4y ago
  lolwut. My current Arch install has been going strong for over 12 years, and it has very rarely broken, and when it has, very often it's because I went a long time without updating, and/or the issue and fix are mentioned right on the front page of archlinux.org. Gentoo, on the other hand, is (or was when I used it) as you describe, where every other update would randomly break the system and they would tell you on IRC "don't use it if you don't like it, it's free," which was solid advice that I adopted.
  - snvzz 4y ago
    >Gentoo, on the other hand, is (or was when I used it) as you describe, where every other update would randomly break the system and they would tell you on IRC "don't use it if you don't like it, it's free," which was solid advice that I adopted. Gentoo would break a lot when I used it, and I also learned a lot by getting it to work when it broke. But I do not blame Gentoo for it. It was mostly my fault, for using ~x86 ("testing" keyword) instead of x86.
Zak 4y ago
Arch Linux is a great choice for someone who wants to know Linux. I am writing this comment from Arch Linux. Arch Linux is not a great choice for someone who just wants to use Linux. There's a lot of learning just to install it, while less expert-oriented distributions can have a system up and running in 20 minutes with very little expertise on the part of the user.
- snvzz 4y ago
  Serious question here: Why would someone NOT want to know Linux? When ignoring the short term, what's the advantage, if any, of using a system without mastering it?
  - solraph 4y ago
    Because they have other things they need to do, and mastering it may not provide benefits that repay the investment. I say this as someone who has run Linux on the Desktop for over 20 years. I do not give a crap about knowing the ins and outs of everything on my system. I have zero interest in learning how bluetooth & Wifi & and all of the hundred other subsystems on my computers work. 99% of the time I want to install the OS, and get on with work. Sometimes that work means getting down and dirty with a subsystem when I want it to do things that isn't on the normal happy path, but the rest of the time, I want Wifi to autoconnect with a saved password and my bluetooth headphones to autoconnect like a normal person and not futz around learning the intricacies of every daemon and config file in the OS. It's same reason I pay someone else to service my car. I have fully capable of learning to do it, but I don't care. I have better things to do with my time and money, and there's only so many hours in the day. (Several edits because I misplaced lots of words pre-coffee)
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I've also run Linux on the desktop for over 20 years. Knowing everything in the system is probably nearly impossible unless you're a professional sysadm, like people who specialize in what's called devops now. I agree; I don't want to memorize systemd commands or configure WiFi from the command line; there's convenient GUI tools for things now and it's easy to just work on other things. Even as a developer in a Linux-only environment, I let the devops/infrastructure people deal with most problems if I have them, though of course the corporate computing environment is a lot more complex than my home setup. I disagree about cars though. Back when I had a car, I did my own work, because it took less time and would be done properly. Unless you have a chauffeur or something (or take Uber I guess, but that costs more money), it takes a lot of time to have someone else service your car: you have to drive it to the shop, then sit there for a while until they can get to it, then sit there while they do the work, then sit around a while longer until they can finally check you out (while also trying to upsell you a bunch of crap), then drive home. Then you find out later they messed something up, got grease on your carpet, etc. Even if they fix that, that's even more time you have to spend. It was a lot easier for me to just do it myself. Someone will probably say something about "loaners" here, but that's usually for larger jobs, not just oil changes.

Arch Linux. Great community and excellent documentation wiki that'll hold your hand every step of the way.

by snvzz 4y ago

Arch Linux. Great community and excellent documentation wiki that'll hold your hand every step of the way.

hold your hand... if you have a hand to begin with. Most beginner users won't be able to follow most things in the Arch wiki.

snvzz 4y ago
I installed Gentoo when it was new with far less handholding. I was a child. If you're literate enough to be able to read the wiki, you can manage to install, use every day, and get good at, Arch Linux.
- johnisgood 4y ago
  Yup, I installed Gentoo more than a decade ago, I was about 13, and my native language is not English. "Most" beginners just lack the patience and energy or motivation and cannot or do not want to follow instructions or read documentation at all. If you do not have enough dedication, just go with a beginner-friendly distribution or whatever.

theodric 4y ago

Install Arch, get everything working, and DO NOT install updates. I've never had another distro that would randomly render itself unbootable or break core functionality with such frequency with the simple weekly application of updates. Really distressing.

snvzz 4y ago
Wow. I have used Arch as my main system for 6 years now (was Gentoo before) and never had anything of the sort. How does this even happen?
- agiacalone 4y ago
  It happened to me on Arch during the switch from init to systemd. Update was documented, but I didn’t look. Did my `pacman -syua` as I normally did on a daily, and rebooted to a totally borked system. This is when I was a grad student and really needed that laptop that week. I still love Arch, but I can’t trust it anymore as a daily driver.
Tommstein 4y ago
lolwut. My current Arch install has been going strong for over 12 years, and it has very rarely broken, and when it has, very often it's because I went a long time without updating, and/or the issue and fix are mentioned right on the front page of archlinux.org. Gentoo, on the other hand, is (or was when I used it) as you describe, where every other update would randomly break the system and they would tell you on IRC "don't use it if you don't like it, it's free," which was solid advice that I adopted.
- snvzz 4y ago
  >Gentoo, on the other hand, is (or was when I used it) as you describe, where every other update would randomly break the system and they would tell you on IRC "don't use it if you don't like it, it's free," which was solid advice that I adopted. Gentoo would break a lot when I used it, and I also learned a lot by getting it to work when it broke. But I do not blame Gentoo for it. It was mostly my fault, for using ~x86 ("testing" keyword) instead of x86.

Zak 4y ago

Arch Linux is a great choice for someone who wants to know Linux. I am writing this comment from Arch Linux. Arch Linux is not a great choice for someone who just wants to use Linux. There's a lot of learning just to install it, while less expert-oriented distributions can have a system up and running in 20 minutes with very little expertise on the part of the user.

snvzz 4y ago
Serious question here: Why would someone NOT want to know Linux? When ignoring the short term, what's the advantage, if any, of using a system without mastering it?
- solraph 4y ago
  Because they have other things they need to do, and mastering it may not provide benefits that repay the investment. I say this as someone who has run Linux on the Desktop for over 20 years. I do not give a crap about knowing the ins and outs of everything on my system. I have zero interest in learning how bluetooth & Wifi & and all of the hundred other subsystems on my computers work. 99% of the time I want to install the OS, and get on with work. Sometimes that work means getting down and dirty with a subsystem when I want it to do things that isn't on the normal happy path, but the rest of the time, I want Wifi to autoconnect with a saved password and my bluetooth headphones to autoconnect like a normal person and not futz around learning the intricacies of every daemon and config file in the OS. It's same reason I pay someone else to service my car. I have fully capable of learning to do it, but I don't care. I have better things to do with my time and money, and there's only so many hours in the day. (Several edits because I misplaced lots of words pre-coffee)
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I've also run Linux on the desktop for over 20 years. Knowing everything in the system is probably nearly impossible unless you're a professional sysadm, like people who specialize in what's called devops now. I agree; I don't want to memorize systemd commands or configure WiFi from the command line; there's convenient GUI tools for things now and it's easy to just work on other things. Even as a developer in a Linux-only environment, I let the devops/infrastructure people deal with most problems if I have them, though of course the corporate computing environment is a lot more complex than my home setup. I disagree about cars though. Back when I had a car, I did my own work, because it took less time and would be done properly. Unless you have a chauffeur or something (or take Uber I guess, but that costs more money), it takes a lot of time to have someone else service your car: you have to drive it to the shop, then sit there for a while until they can get to it, then sit there while they do the work, then sit around a while longer until they can finally check you out (while also trying to upsell you a bunch of crap), then drive home. Then you find out later they messed something up, got grease on your carpet, etc. Even if they fix that, that's even more time you have to spend. It was a lot easier for me to just do it myself. Someone will probably say something about "loaners" here, but that's usually for larger jobs, not just oil changes.