6 ms·

As Arch seemingly explodes in popularity I’m afraid we’ll start seeing more of this.

by WD-42 1y ago

yuvadam 1y ago
Is arch exploding in popularity? Because of Omarchy or something else?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Phelinofist 1y ago
  I think I saw posts on Reddit with XQC saying Arch is the best. I mean it is. And I use Arch btw.
  - kwk1 1y ago
    An evaluation of what's best really depends on how one weighs different tradeoffs. For example, Debian and Arch are basically polar opposites in terms of two questions: 1) do you want an intermediary between you and the upstream? for example, to patch out telemetry 2) is it important that what you're using continues to work the same way so you can focus on your actual work? No answer to either is consequence-free, e.g. for 1), see the Debian SSH patch event, or for 2), if the answer is "it doesn't work", then that kinda forces one's hand.
    - gpm 1y ago
      There's also the significant caveat with 2 that it's only "continues to work the same way" until everything changes all at once because you now need to update to the next version of Debian. The "everything changing all at once" thing is what eventually drove me to arch (as the most popular at the time rolling release distro - and more stable at the time than debian sid), I'd personally rather have smaller breaking changes more frequently. Though it's probably less painful now to update debian versions than it use to be because things generally work better without configuration than they used to.
- eddythompson80 1y ago
  The current iteration of SteamOS (the one shipped on Steam Deck) is Arch based. So a lot of non-linux users got exposed to it as their first linux distro. Especially with all the emulation guides and other random guides for doing "advanced" stuff to your Steam Deck by dropping in the Arch-ish desktop. Also anyone who wants to try "Gaming on Linux" needs bleeding edge kernel which is Arch's default setup compared to other distros.
- ementally 1y ago
  CachyOS (Arch based distro), no.1 on https://distrowatch.com/ https://distrowatch.com/
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    > Blazingly Fast & Customizable Linux distribution I love Arch Linux, but please... (Arch Linux is already "fast" (depends on what you install for your DE, if any) and customizable.)
    - ziml77 1y ago
      But their differentiation is that to improve performance they compile all the packages with newer instruction sets as the target as well as enabling more optimizations like LTO. And some are even optimized with PGO.
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        I find it odd to call a specific Linux distribution blazingly fast. Gentoo with make.conf (/etc/portage/make.conf[1]) having "CFLAGS="-O3 -march=native -flto"" means that Gentoo, a Linux distribution, is performant? [1] It is not a good idea to build everything with LTO or PGO enabled because not all packages support LTO / PGO cleanly. Do it on the basis of per-package.
        ziml77 1y ago
        I've seen claims of decent speed improvements when using CachyOS, though I can't say I've ever hunted down solid confirmation. I'm a bit wary of the project because I would have to put a lot of trust in them since they're rebuilding everything themselves and could easily introduce malware somewhere in there. (But I've been scared of distros before only to have it pointed out to me that some very well respected people are involved, so I could be worrying for nothing here too)
        LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
        Does Gentoo have binpkgs with these compileflags? With CachyOS you don't have to compile, because it's a rolling binary distro. Regarding your [1]: They do that, systemd(or parts of it) are unoptimized, for instance. They don't apply that stuff blindly, only where it works. For me it feels blazingly fast, even on obsolete KabyLake Core-I5/7(t) forcibly clocked down to about 800Mhz most of the times :) It fucking flies without much effort. On modern systems even more so. While being rock solid. Without any crashes. Even under Plasma. When I'm reading about bugfixes regarding crashes under Plasma I just shrug and think "Waddya talkin about?". That may be hardware dependent, though, because they are old Lenovo Thinkcentres(1Litre SFF M910q tiny) with excellent firmware. Using btrfs, profile-sync-demon, zram(Yes. Even with 32GB Ram!). Suspend/Resume working every single time. No glitches, hick-ups, ever. So far. Since 10th of June, 2024. Edit: Almost always some music out of yt doodling in some bg-tab, in oh-so-slow FF, without any clicks, stuttering, or other breaks. No need for yt-dlp, mpv at all. Except for dl/saving stuff, sometimes. While FF is rarely under 100 tabs.
ASalazarMX 1y ago
The only thing I've seen Arch exploding in popularity has been memes. It's a fun distro for hobbyists, but too inconvenient as a daily driver.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- urda 1y ago
  If Arch is too "inconvenient" as a daily driver, you might find yourself more at "home" on a Windows install instead.
  - Shellban 1y ago
    Well, Arch has (historically) been rather difficult to install from scratch, and requires a lot of Linux knowledge to get up-and-running as a daily driver. If one is installing it for the first time and misses something (which audio backend?), it can be rather frustrating down the line. There is a reason Ubuntu is usually the first distro new Linux users go to. For almost a decade now, installing a feature-complete Ubuntu setup is not much more difficult than reimaging Windows.
- zaruvi 1y ago
  Can you elaborate why you think this? Personally I've been running Arch on my work machine for a few years now with very few issues. I'm not even very consistent with updates, and probably run them about once every 3 weeks on average. I have only had to manually intervene on a handful of occasions. I like it a lot because everything is always up-to-date. I don't face any issues with unsupported versions for tools like I have with Debian in the past. The rolling release model also saves me the pain of doing a "hard" OS upgrade, which often come with issues.
  - ASalazarMX 1y ago
    I'm hesitant to comment further seeing I've attracted the ire of some people with my comment, but anyway. I too used Arch out of curiosity about like ten years ago, during the first "Arch, BTW" memes, and found it too unstable, but that's expected from a rolling release: update too soon or too late, and something could break. I didn't mind, as it was a hobby. Eventually, I got more busy and had less time to tinker, so I migrated to Ubuntu LTS, which has some small warts, but has needed practically null babysitting compared to Arch. I was surprised when the Arch memes resurfaced this year, but that's the only growth I've seen. None of my Linux-savvy peers use Arch, BTW.
johnisgood 1y ago
FWIW this is AUR. These packages are not officially supported. AUR = Arch User Repository.
- nilamo 1y ago
  Plenty of package managers (such as `yay`) install from AUR by default.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    yay is a package manager that has been made for AUR. yay is not the official package manager for Arch Linux, pacman is, and it does not support AUR. yay is not installed on Arch Linux by default, its official package manager, pacman, is. AUR is for unofficial 3rd party packages, i.e. "use at your own risk". It has always been the case.
    - IlikeKitties 1y ago
      Yes, it is "use at your own risk" but most arch users just install from it without giving it a second thought, because availability of packages in the AUR is the one thing Arch is good at.
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        N=1 but I rarely install from AUR and I have been using Arch Linux for decades. Using "yay" is akin to doing "curl | sh". You should inspect the PKGBUILD at the very least, and I do not believe "most users" is correct.
      - Hackbraten 1y ago
        > most arch users just install from it without giving it a second thought Citation needed.
      - diggan 1y ago
        > most arch users just install from it without giving it a second thought I'm not sure that's true. Neither I nor most people I know who use Arch (granted, most of them are professional software developers) install software from the internet willy-nilly and without reviewing anything, if by AUR or "curl | bash", especially when on their main computers.
heavyset_go 1y ago
Nearly all distros have this problem when it comes to packaging and distributing 3rd party software. Even if you're using an immutable distro, your KDE Plasma session can get hijacked if you simply use the built in wizard to install 3rd party desktop widgets, which is a right-click + single-click away on any Plasma destkop.

As Arch seemingly explodes in popularity I’m afraid we’ll start seeing more of this.

by WD-42 1y ago

As Arch seemingly explodes in popularity I’m afraid we’ll start seeing more of this.

yuvadam 1y ago

Is arch exploding in popularity? Because of Omarchy or something else?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Phelinofist 1y ago
I think I saw posts on Reddit with XQC saying Arch is the best. I mean it is. And I use Arch btw.
- kwk1 1y ago
  An evaluation of what's best really depends on how one weighs different tradeoffs. For example, Debian and Arch are basically polar opposites in terms of two questions: 1) do you want an intermediary between you and the upstream? for example, to patch out telemetry 2) is it important that what you're using continues to work the same way so you can focus on your actual work? No answer to either is consequence-free, e.g. for 1), see the Debian SSH patch event, or for 2), if the answer is "it doesn't work", then that kinda forces one's hand.
  - gpm 1y ago
    There's also the significant caveat with 2 that it's only "continues to work the same way" until everything changes all at once because you now need to update to the next version of Debian. The "everything changing all at once" thing is what eventually drove me to arch (as the most popular at the time rolling release distro - and more stable at the time than debian sid), I'd personally rather have smaller breaking changes more frequently. Though it's probably less painful now to update debian versions than it use to be because things generally work better without configuration than they used to.
eddythompson80 1y ago
The current iteration of SteamOS (the one shipped on Steam Deck) is Arch based. So a lot of non-linux users got exposed to it as their first linux distro. Especially with all the emulation guides and other random guides for doing "advanced" stuff to your Steam Deck by dropping in the Arch-ish desktop. Also anyone who wants to try "Gaming on Linux" needs bleeding edge kernel which is Arch's default setup compared to other distros.
ementally 1y ago
CachyOS (Arch based distro), no.1 on https://distrowatch.com/ https://distrowatch.com/
- johnisgood 1y ago
  > Blazingly Fast & Customizable Linux distribution I love Arch Linux, but please... (Arch Linux is already "fast" (depends on what you install for your DE, if any) and customizable.)
  - ziml77 1y ago
    But their differentiation is that to improve performance they compile all the packages with newer instruction sets as the target as well as enabling more optimizations like LTO. And some are even optimized with PGO.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      I find it odd to call a specific Linux distribution blazingly fast. Gentoo with make.conf (/etc/portage/make.conf[1]) having "CFLAGS="-O3 -march=native -flto"" means that Gentoo, a Linux distribution, is performant? [1] It is not a good idea to build everything with LTO or PGO enabled because not all packages support LTO / PGO cleanly. Do it on the basis of per-package.
      - ziml77 1y ago
        I've seen claims of decent speed improvements when using CachyOS, though I can't say I've ever hunted down solid confirmation. I'm a bit wary of the project because I would have to put a lot of trust in them since they're rebuilding everything themselves and could easily introduce malware somewhere in there. (But I've been scared of distros before only to have it pointed out to me that some very well respected people are involved, so I could be worrying for nothing here too)
      - LargoLasskhyfv 1y ago
        Does Gentoo have binpkgs with these compileflags? With CachyOS you don't have to compile, because it's a rolling binary distro. Regarding your [1]: They do that, systemd(or parts of it) are unoptimized, for instance. They don't apply that stuff blindly, only where it works. For me it feels blazingly fast, even on obsolete KabyLake Core-I5/7(t) forcibly clocked down to about 800Mhz most of the times :) It fucking flies without much effort. On modern systems even more so. While being rock solid. Without any crashes. Even under Plasma. When I'm reading about bugfixes regarding crashes under Plasma I just shrug and think "Waddya talkin about?". That may be hardware dependent, though, because they are old Lenovo Thinkcentres(1Litre SFF M910q tiny) with excellent firmware. Using btrfs, profile-sync-demon, zram(Yes. Even with 32GB Ram!). Suspend/Resume working every single time. No glitches, hick-ups, ever. So far. Since 10th of June, 2024. Edit: Almost always some music out of yt doodling in some bg-tab, in oh-so-slow FF, without any clicks, stuttering, or other breaks. No need for yt-dlp, mpv at all. Except for dl/saving stuff, sometimes. While FF is rarely under 100 tabs.

ASalazarMX 1y ago

The only thing I've seen Arch exploding in popularity has been memes. It's a fun distro for hobbyists, but too inconvenient as a daily driver.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
urda 1y ago
If Arch is too "inconvenient" as a daily driver, you might find yourself more at "home" on a Windows install instead.
- Shellban 1y ago
  Well, Arch has (historically) been rather difficult to install from scratch, and requires a lot of Linux knowledge to get up-and-running as a daily driver. If one is installing it for the first time and misses something (which audio backend?), it can be rather frustrating down the line. There is a reason Ubuntu is usually the first distro new Linux users go to. For almost a decade now, installing a feature-complete Ubuntu setup is not much more difficult than reimaging Windows.
zaruvi 1y ago
Can you elaborate why you think this? Personally I've been running Arch on my work machine for a few years now with very few issues. I'm not even very consistent with updates, and probably run them about once every 3 weeks on average. I have only had to manually intervene on a handful of occasions. I like it a lot because everything is always up-to-date. I don't face any issues with unsupported versions for tools like I have with Debian in the past. The rolling release model also saves me the pain of doing a "hard" OS upgrade, which often come with issues.
- ASalazarMX 1y ago
  I'm hesitant to comment further seeing I've attracted the ire of some people with my comment, but anyway. I too used Arch out of curiosity about like ten years ago, during the first "Arch, BTW" memes, and found it too unstable, but that's expected from a rolling release: update too soon or too late, and something could break. I didn't mind, as it was a hobby. Eventually, I got more busy and had less time to tinker, so I migrated to Ubuntu LTS, which has some small warts, but has needed practically null babysitting compared to Arch. I was surprised when the Arch memes resurfaced this year, but that's the only growth I've seen. None of my Linux-savvy peers use Arch, BTW.

johnisgood 1y ago

FWIW this is AUR. These packages are not officially supported. AUR = Arch User Repository.

nilamo 1y ago
Plenty of package managers (such as `yay`) install from AUR by default.
- johnisgood 1y ago
  yay is a package manager that has been made for AUR. yay is not the official package manager for Arch Linux, pacman is, and it does not support AUR. yay is not installed on Arch Linux by default, its official package manager, pacman, is. AUR is for unofficial 3rd party packages, i.e. "use at your own risk". It has always been the case.
  - IlikeKitties 1y ago
    Yes, it is "use at your own risk" but most arch users just install from it without giving it a second thought, because availability of packages in the AUR is the one thing Arch is good at.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      N=1 but I rarely install from AUR and I have been using Arch Linux for decades. Using "yay" is akin to doing "curl | sh". You should inspect the PKGBUILD at the very least, and I do not believe "most users" is correct.
    - Hackbraten 1y ago
      > most arch users just install from it without giving it a second thought Citation needed.
    - diggan 1y ago
      > most arch users just install from it without giving it a second thought I'm not sure that's true. Neither I nor most people I know who use Arch (granted, most of them are professional software developers) install software from the internet willy-nilly and without reviewing anything, if by AUR or "curl | bash", especially when on their main computers.

heavyset_go 1y ago

Nearly all distros have this problem when it comes to packaging and distributing 3rd party software. Even if you're using an immutable distro, your KDE Plasma session can get hijacked if you simply use the built in wizard to install 3rd party desktop widgets, which is a right-click + single-click away on any Plasma destkop.