Why Do I Shill Arch Linux So Much?

[@ssgtblackmamba7991]

I see your point about spending the time in there....but, tell me you don't have kids, a job, own a house that needs maintenance and go to school without actually telling me. In my 20's that shit was cool man, spending time troubleshooting and feeling amazing when shit finally worked. Now I just need it to work. Sometimes we just don't have the time. When I have my 40 minutes of peace at the end of the day, I just want to use my machine, not spend time working/learning.... I just did that for 15 hours today.

[@Woolong-ql1jh]

Exactly. People just don't realize this until they're old enough.

[@jagagemo8141]

Father of 3, wife, job. I use mint BTW.

[@squirlmy]

but... are you still using linux? Might you use Manjaro or Endeavor (or Archman... whatev)? Maybe this isn't you, but, after Win95, 98, 2000, XP, 7, 8, 10.... The people who used this excuse to stick with Windows usually had to learn a new operating system despite themselves. I won't tell you what happened to the poor bastards who tried to stick to DOS! Maybe you were just talking about Arch specifically, but I've heard the same reasoning about Windows again and again, and it makes me skeptical.

[@MA-748]

You only need to configure everything once and then never worry about it again. That's what I did two years ago and I still use the exact same setup today. The only thing I changed since then was my nvim config to use NvChad

[@rafffe]

I have the same experience, i don't have time for endless forum searches for a fix.

[@LightNeko91]

The first rule of Arch Linux: you always talk bout Arch Linux

[@Unofficial-ClientBeta]

Thats the fandom The first rule of actually arch linux Archinstall works

[@dumbdavinchi3638]

The first rule of arch club....

[@brovid-19]

@@dumbdavinchi3638 whatever distro you use... it sucks!

[@dumbdavinchi3638]

@@brovid-19 Thanks I use pop os btw, considering hopping to manjaro

[@nerminhadzimejlic1257]

Because every time you login, Arch asks you: What you want to do? And it's done, you are happy. How not to talk about it. Everybody like to talk about the things that makes them happy 😀

[@FABESTAH]

I was fortunate enough to be up for a challenge when I decided to switch to Linux, so I chose Arch as my first distro ever, and it turned out to be an awesome experience. Even though I knew next to nothing about Linux or anything related, I started learning bits and pieces from the wiki and configuration videos on KZbin. Surprisingly, I picked up things relatively quickly, and that was about 13 months ago. It sparked a deep interest not just in Linux but also in IT in general, coding, scripting, and many other aspects. It was truly a blessing that came at the perfect time for me, and now I find myself getting quite proficient in coding. I'm eager to continue improving until I can confidently apply for a real job in the IT field when my skills are ready. So, Arch has given me so much, and I can't express enough how grateful I am for this distro. That's why I personally recommend Arch to anyone considering switching to Linux or anyone looking to learn new things!

[@chimagamer4157]

You could try and apply for a classical support job, they don't pay the big IT bucks, but if you have decent knowledge of Windows (and Office), know how to find a solution in the web, and are not afraid to learn, then it is the best you can do to enter the field and (l)earn on the job. Since you have some knowledge on Linux systems (which is rare if you consider the fact that 2% of all gamers on steam have any Linux system running, and most Windows users are terminally afraid of the terminal), getting into server related stuff is going to be easy for you, since it just the same -gui and more detailed knowledge on how to configure.

[@Chris102102]

This comment has convinced me, Arch it is, cheers dude.

[@musashimiyamoto9035]

Starting with arch expedites the learning process by magnitudes. I did the same.

[@davidarmijo8903]

Finna do the same here! Wish me the best on making it work on my laptop and main gaming PC! Arch rlly seems like an awesome distro where it allows me to learn how OS works

[@koset]

Alright! Alright! Alright!!! I'll switch to Arch! Sheesh. 🥶

[@koset]

Kidding. I love it.

[@AnalyticMinded]

I distro-hopped from PopOS to Ubuntu to Manjaro in the first 2 weeks of using Linux. Then after about 2 years, I hopped to Arch, installing it the "hard" way, even though the installer was already available. I've been using it for over a year now, and it's hands down the best. It goes well with my minimalist mentality. Arch users rise up... and sudo pacman your hourly update!

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Thanks, this comment reminded me to pacman -Syu again :)

[@godnyx117]

The only problem with your comment is that you use "sudo" instead of the CHADier, glorious "doas"!

[@shroomer3867]

Same but the order of distros is a little bit different and I also went through OpenSUSE

[@transforgoku]

Sudo still is bloated BS...

[@godnyx117]

@usersomeone5287 Yep! Steam broke one Debian installation I had as well. It broke the X server to be more specific...

[@shibafoss]

As far as distro hopping goes, I am proud of maintaining stability for over 5 years now, as I have resisted the temptation to frequently switch between Linux distributions. My primary daily driver is Linux Mint Cinnamon edition, which I find to be reliable and well-suited for my needs. However, I must confess that I still enjoy tinkering and experimenting with various Linux distros in VirtualBox. It allows me to satisfy my curiosity and explore new features without compromising the stability of my main system. For my productive work environment, I stick with Linux Mint, where I've implemented some user-level customizations to enhance my workflow and overall efficiency. This setup ensures that I have a consistent and dependable experience for my essential tasks while also indulging in the joy of discovering and testing other distros in a controlled environment.

[@EricMurphyxyz]

I think that's the best way to do it! Nothing wrong with trying out other Linux distros as a hobby.

[@KingKrouch]

I personally found myself having problems using Arch and anything Debian-based personally. I've been using Nobara lately, because that's essentially Fedora with a ton of gaming, media consumption, laptop GPU, and peripheral tweaks done for you. Plus being able to just install RPM packages and to use the copr for user repositories without having to compile anything is really nice.

[@AM-tu1rc]

Same. Linux Mint is the best "just works" distro out there. I love it since everything works, every program I could ever want will have a .deb file ready to go, nothing breaks, it's all a great time. I keep the hopping contained to my QEMU-KVM virt machines.

[@lauchaufraedern]

Relatable, Linux Mint is stable as hell (from what I experienced). Worked better for me than Ubuntu. Currently using the Debian Edition, has some drawbacks on the installer side and additional drivers, but especially because I have used Arch before, this was no challenge. Really a great distro

[@d.wolfin152]

I believe the strongest part of it is that Arch truly enables you to learn and understand your OS and how the computer works. I also use Arch btw

[@xtrioslive]

I have tried about 50+ distros and then stayed on arch for years now

[@Petephoenix]

I enjoy Arch too but people with this take are largely ignorant as they are already at the end destination. That is to say, they have the experience to understand what terminal, file manager, window manager etc they prefer, and so they can do it themselves and curate their own experience. New users don't have this knowledge or exposure, and so they need to go through the journey of using different distros which have different out of the box experiences with whatever desktop environment, window manager, and apps they use. Saying Arch is the easiest distro within the first minute of a video is such a misrepresentation. Yes it is the best, but you need to progress through the steps to understand why. A project like Arco understands this perfectly with step one being a full iso, step two choosing a different desktop environment, step three trying a standalone window manager, step four building an iso and picking specifically what you want.

[@BitTheByte]

I couldn’t use arch before I managed to successfully do LFS, then when I came back to arch it was like I could see the matrix.

[@williamalexanderbernalgonz6536]

From my experience, I learned how Linux works just by using Arch. This is because when something doesn't work, you need to investigate and learn why this is happening. Arch is mainly for users who are willing to take the time and effort in learning and don't be frustrated when not an easy solution is around the corner. Maybe you are more into having a distro that just works and don't want or have the time to learn and fix it for yourself.

[@raggebatman]

​@@williamalexanderbernalgonz6536 The wonderful thing about Arch is that they expect you to go through this, so documentation is thorough. Such that they recommend checking the recent news on their site even before doing kernel updates and stuff. Not sure if other distros do this, but they for sure don't emphasize it

[@lumeronswift]

This is why I love EndeavourOS. Just set up Arch the easy way with none of the Manjaro/Garuda downsides, and it even has some installers built into the welcome screen for someone starting out.

[@pip119]

Yup, when I first started with Arch it took weeks to get everything running smoothly, that was a stressful if rewarding learning experience as a newbie. Had another hump with a first Wayland based installation on new hardware recently. But in the intervening years? Must have gained thousands of hours of productivity havinng vim and a wm dialed in exactly how I wanted it. No regrets.

[@miuzoreyes6547]

I first tried Linux around 3-4 years ago - Mutahar made a video about Manjaro and I thought "why not?". There were just so many issues that I couldn't even begin to try and fix myself/troubleshoot as I barely understood the system, but I liked pacman package manager - the commands were quite simple. A week later I tried Linux Mint due to those issues, thinking a different distro would be better but I didn't vibe with it, and switched back to windows for like a year. Then I had the itch again and decided to go with arch, since that's what one of my friends was using and while the first install was painful (6 hours total, had to restart 3 times due to forgetting to run grub install and not knowing that I could just chroot), it felt really good to have a working xfce system, making it look cool and most importantly, understanding what's installed. Since then I distro hopped a couple of times to gentoo, void, mint, nix, but I always returned to arch due to package management, not having to make compromises or just simply due to familiarity.

[@_moosh]

My (and many others') motto as of recent has been "the best software (distro) is the one that helps you get done what you need to get done", a productivity mindset. For many, that is arch! I really liked arch back when I ran it. Back when I customized my window manager setup like crazy to be a clean as humanly possible. But, after all that, I found that I spent a lot of time worrying about my distro and not the work I needed to get done on it. Since then, I have switched back to Windows on my desktop, and put Debian (my beloved) on my laptop, and my productivity has increased. Debian is boring, yes, but with most of my work being done on a browser anyways, the fact that I don't really need to worry about updating and most software is available in the stable repos means when I open my laptop lid the first thing I do is my work, not updates or customization (I run a pretty basic but nicely themed MATE desktop) or anything else. Very little housekeeping. But again, use the tools that help YOU get done what YOU need to get done!

[@zekiz774]

I kinda agree with you. For me that's still arch. Sure at the beginning it's slower since you need to get used to the tools and tweak them, but in the end it causes me to actually know my tools. But that's not really why I use it. I use it because it's simply fun tinkering. Not everything has to be about productivity and work. You also need some time to come down. If you don't like tinkering, don't use arch. If it's your goal to be more productive, don't use Arch. For me personally that's simply a side effect of using arch and not the reason

[@_moosh]

@@zekiz774 I used to be a tinkerer, and many like you still are. All depends on what a computer is to you. For me, it’s become a means to an end less than a hobby. It’s what it can do that interests me. The rest is for comp engineers and software developers. Having fun with it is important tho!

[@adampliszka4855]

@@_moosh Not really for comp engineers either tbh, at least as far as personal OS goes. There are some arch fanatics, but everyone just uses Windows as their main OS. The ones who care about foss and want most out of their OS (the minority) just use mainstream distros like Ubuntu or Fedora. I've never actually cared enough to fully switch to Linux on my desktop (running Debian on my laptop though, which is only used for work) especially since there's now Windows subsystem for Linux, so I don't have a good reason to do it. Even for Unix classes at university we would just connect to a uni network from home and use putty+xming to use remote desktops. I do like xfce more than windows gui, but not enough to justify the hassle of migrating. And I mean, yeah, it's really good being able to use tools like awk and to make bash scripts for everyday stuff, like renaming files and so on, but powershell is pretty powerful nowadays, and you can just install all those Unix tools on Windows anyway, plus as mentioned there's WSL. Basically every Unix tool is also on Windows, and we have package managers too, so it's not bad, and I'm used to it, so I don't bother with Linux, I tried to but gave up. Sysadmins and ppl who work on servers also would never use arch, but rather ubuntu or debian, redhat is also popular in enterprise uses. Arch is only for hobbyists, which isn't bad, but it's not suited for professional use.

[@kosuken]

people think "ugh, you *have* to do everything yourself" we think "yay, we *get* to do everything ourselves"

[@Kagawwy]

Based hcnone pfp

[@dumbdavinchi3638]

Honestly it fits well with engineering mindset where you are curious how everything works and are willing to debug and problem solve, def not for common folk.

[@scheimong]

I used Manjaro for a year and a half. And I've had multiple occasions when I thought to myself, "god damnit I hope I had Arch". Whether it was because an AUR dependency was not yet updated in Manjaro's repos, or because a particular crash-inducing kwin bug kept my desktop unstable for a month. I finally had enough in early 2023 and switched to EndeavourOS (which is basically just Arch), and never once up to this point have I thought, "man I hope I still have Manjaro". So yeah. The distros I use now are RHEL (for servers), Fedora (for our CI environments), Alpine (for containers), and EndeavourOS (for daily drivers). Alongside Debian (which is a valid alternative to RHEL, depending on preference and external constraints), these are the distros I am happy to recommend to people. Manjaro belongs in the dumpster.

[@83RhalataShera]

I switched away from Arch because I was tired of packages breaking on updates. By breaking I don't necessarily mean something like an unbootable system (which happened once too, thanks GRUB), but issues that would make a certain program behave incorrectly or a library update that would tank gaming performance/break compatibility with some other program. In the end I found that Gentoo is the perfect distro for me. It is a rolling release just like Arch but it doesn't update nearly as often and there is a greater focus on testing and stability. And for the packages that I want to be as up to date as possible like the graphics drivers, I can choose to have the "testing" (or even the git equivalent on the AUR) branches of these packages while still having the rest of my system still on the "stable" branch. And choosing compile flags both on the system packages and on the kernel also comes in handy from time to time ;) Overall I do agree that Arch is one of the best distros tho, it is like a "just works" distro for the power user.

[@world_reborn1990]

i use gentoo too btw

[@RegularTetragon]

I was running Arch for awhile but eventually all my tinkering left me with several desktop environments, multiple experimental graphics drivers, custom arch repositories, multiple ghc versions, and some broken aur packages that were difficult to uninstall. A few updates broke xmonad for me, as well as several critical programs for getting my work done. Uninstalling programs left the system in a weird state too. I decided I wanted to start fresh and keep it fresh, so I switched to NixOS unstable. It's got more packages available than even the AUR, it's still a rolling distro so everythings always up to date, and any time you make a configuration change it's like having a clean install. Also, if there's a system breaking issue you can always roll back to a previous generation. I then took my configuration.nix file and put it in a git repo, now my desktop, personal laptop, and work laptop all run the same OS with the same base programs and config. It's had a pretty big learning curve for me, but the stability, reproducability, and peace of mind was worth it.

[@matthewboyea3860]

Hi! I am using NixOS as of this week. I set up Impermanence. It forces your whole OS to be declarative. Have you tried it? I am loving it!

[@nipunlakshank]

I think macos is a highly misunderstood OS as people think about it by seeing how most of the users use it, not how you can use it. I barely use gui applications, I used brew at the beginning as the package manager now switching to nix. I learned to use the terminal fluently because of macos (if I used linux instead it would be the same) and it made me love unix/linux systems. Now I feels like home in every linux distro thanks to macos having a proper terminal and unix file system unlike windows.

[@markojovanovic9651]

Macos is fine. Apple is trash for selling overpriced hardware, pro laptop with 8gb of ram

[@arrow82roc]

@@markojovanovic9651 high quality...

[@arrow82roc]

Same, I learned to be comfortable with the UNIX/Linux env in MacOS.

[@lemonadeintech]

Great video! My experience has been quite opposite although I used endeavour not arch itself. PopOS did for me what arch did for you.

[@maou842]

I use Popos for a year now and it’s just awesome

[@dirklangohr]

Shows how unique the experiences are. I use Endeavour daily and never had issues with it. It just works

[@yoavco99]

I had the exact same experience except the PopOS part, I just didn't try it yet.

[@sykotes]

i tried so many distros starting with arch. i found it too difficult at first so moved on to mint, fedora, nobara, debian and probably more until i landed up trying arch again and finding it actually let me do what i wanted to do making it actually easier than the other distros

[@finoderi]

I had similar thoughts until I tried Gentoo two years ago. It's more stable and doesn't feel like DIY-mess. It may sound counter intuitive but Gentoo looks like more thoroughly developed system. Package dependencies make more sense and everything works as a whole. At the same time you have more granular control over things you need. I suggest you to try and use it for a while.

[@SianaGearz]

Is it the distro where you have to compile everything from source? Please i don't have 128GB RAM and an 18-core CPU here.

[@finoderi]

@@SianaGearz ...And never heard about Arch's ABS it seems.

[@SianaGearz]

@@finoderi so? Every system has an automated way to build a package. I've only ever used Ubuntu LTS forks for the last decades for a simple reason: semiconductor manufacturer tooling by Ti, Altera, Xilinx and whomever else is specified either for RHEL/CentOS or for Ubuntu LTS. No other options. And still you avoid. Compiling Chromium or Firefox is bound to take half a day. Imagine compiling KDE. I don't want to have to dedicate computational power to that every week when I could be using the system instead.

[@finoderi]

​@@SianaGearz On my Ryzen 3600 with 32 Gb RAM Firefox compiles in just 21 minutes and LibreOffice - in about 35 minutes. Never tried to build anything Chromium-based though. I use brave-bin package from an overlay. Anything else compiles in minutes as well. gcc is an exception but it updates semi-annually. KDE updates usually take about half an hour. Building time is not a problem on a modern PC.

[@SianaGearz]

@@finoderi good to know, thanks. I have a comparable pc (Ryzen 5500, 32GB.) What about storage consumption for sources and libs and things, and scratch space for builds? And also while building Firefox doesn't take too long, downloading it takes no time at all... Up to some time ago I worked on a 1 megaloc c++ application but on systems like Phenom 2 x6, i5-3570 that took more than an hour to build. I haven't built it on this PC yet. But looking at say Chromium codebase fills me with dread, it's the scope of an operating system and then some.

[@markmake2252]

I was struggling to find the words to express my love for Arch but yours are a perfect fit for me. Same experience here. I use a different window manager but the result is the same!

[@becktronics]

Hi Eric, I used Arch Linux for the past couple of months and actually really liked the DIY-like approach. It taught me how computer-illiterate (and still am to some extent) by tinkering around in the terminal and manually setting up every facet of a computer I used to take for granted. What gets me, is that whenever I have to install Arch onto a system with different hardware (say an NVMe with different partitioning or doing partitioning at all), I've run into issues that sink my time into the details of the system rather than my work. It screwed up a lot of my workflow pandering around with installing Arch on my main machine so I went with OpenSUSE for an out-of-the-box solution. I definitely have an appreciation for Arch Linux, but my brain is absolutely fried from the countless acronyms and commands. Not quitting Linux (Molecular simulation programs are annoying to configure on a Windows system, hence why I switched), but I completely agree that Linux isn't for everyone. The tiling manager is much better on Arch, and I even had a Vim/Zathura VimTeX compiler that worked really well. Anyways, keep up the videos, nice commentary as always.

[@seeibe]

In my opinion the best way to use Arch Linux for work is from a fast external SSD. Saves you from ever having to reinstall on any PC / laptop you might be using in the future. I agree that installing Arch Linux on a new system without such a solution can be a time sink, especially if you care about encryption.

[@psi4j]

If you can figure it all out, Arch is a seamless experience and it really does get out of your way. Some hardware may be a little extra work, but getting over the hump is well worth it.

[@Fataha22]

Same bro, i want my game on outside os drive but it's hard like its not like windows just ask "where to install this crap" when installation 🤣

[@legitt6093]

Very happy that I found the first KZbinr that I can completely agree with regarding Arch Linux. Subscribed! :))

[@blake_pkmn1569]

I started on endeavorOS to learn Linux. Worked like a dream. Loved the AUR using Yay and the rolling releases updates. I never understood why people called it hard.

[@istasi5201]

btw, i use nixos

[@zhongxina728]

NixOS is over engineered... It has the opposite philosophy of KISS

[@pabloqp7929]

yessir!

[@fabiandrinksmilk6205]

_The true red pilled based gigachad supreme distro worth shilling for!_

[@Talel_kraiem]

The comment I was looking for 😂❤

[@benjy288]

I've used arch before, installing software from the aur is trivial when it works, but sometimes a build fails then you have to trouble shoot the problem, which can be a real headache, and arch isn't the only rolling release distro out there.

[@MoveTrueRecords_]

New to arch just finish 6 hour install. ❤❤❤ Thank you

[@sherrilltechnology]

I have tried so many Distros at this point and I think Arch is probably the easiest one I have used you type a command archinstall and it guides you through each step very easy and the desktop environments are just beautiful, great video!

[@Unofficial-ClientBeta]

Not really when livebooting just arch without the desktop window manager

[@massimilianotubani1471]

Totally agree. I've used Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, Tumbleweed, Fedora, Manjaro and now I'm on Arch Linux. I've installed the distros on the same laptop, so I can make a comparison. Arch, along with Fedora, is the most stable distro, so I don't believe what is said about Arch's alleged “instability”. Debian-based distros are often outdated and server-oriented, not desktop-oriented. Fedora works great and I like it very much, but its main function is to be the upstream of RHEL, not a distro for desktop users, and also I had to tolerate outdated programs when any Windows PC could install the latest version. Tumbleweed is bloated and, like Fedora, seems to me mostly a distro for testing programs to be used elsewhere. Manjaro is by no means comparable with Arch. In conclusion: Arch Linux is the best solution in a GNU/Linux environment. And btw, thanks to Arch I can do data analysis without the outdated Anaconda distribution.

[@augustinvangeebergen3098]

Idk what makes you tell that fedora is not for desktop users... Been using it for years actually, as my main distro (school, gaming, programming...) Could you elaborate?

[@massimilianotubani1471]

@@augustinvangeebergen3098 In the past I used Fedora for a long time too, and I liked it; however, I'll let Red Hat elaborate. In the article "What's the difference between Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux?", published in its website, the company states: «The Fedora project is the upstream, community distro of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat is the project’s primary sponsor, but thousands of independent developers also contribute to the Fedora project. Each of these contributors, including Red Hat, bring their own new ideas to be tested and debated for inclusion by the larger community into Fedora Linux. This also makes Fedora an ideal place for Red Hat to put features through its own distinct set of tests and quality assurance processes, and those features eventually get incorporated into a version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux». This is all perfectly legitimate, but I don't want to use, in my personal laptop, a distro that, at least in part, is used to test software that will later be used by the project’s primary sponsor for its goals. I need a distro that is aimed at the concrete and specific end user, and from this point of view too, Arch Linux shines; however, as the Arch Linux FAQs state, «You may not want to use Arch, if [...] you are happy with your current OS». So, if you like Fedora, don't change it! Have a great day.

[@simhz2221]

I'm interested to understand what you mean by " can do data analysis without the outdated Anaconda distribution". I'm an analyst using Arch but haven't explored this possibility yet.

[@massimilianotubani1471]

@@simhz2221 In the past I used Python through Anaconda but 1) I got several issues and 2) I was forced to use less updated software than the Arch repos' packages. So, I got rid of Anaconda, I activated virtual environments and now I use software from the official Arch repos and, when needed, I use pip. No more issues and I can use the latest version of the software.

[@arturorochoa9359]

Gentoo Linux for me is time consuming when compiling. The only package that is not compiled on my system is Firefox. Gentoo’s documentation is super nice. As a gentoo user, I see LFS Users as the crazy ones

[@exnihilonihilfit6316]

Tinkering no-lifers.

[@BitTheByte]

LFS “user” here It’s a toy, plain and simple. The “distro” VERY quickly becomes unusable if you are not incredibly Vigilant about maintenance. Like maintenance on arch or other rolling release distributions is one thing, but on LFS it’s hell. (That being said by the time you have LFS installed assuming you understood what you were doing, you can nearly always fix it c:)

[@zimap]

most people hate it , but i love the fact that i build my own system networks partitions installing kernel installing DE

[@zimap]

@@TerminalKitty at least (if u installed urself) u gained some knowledge

[@HikingFeral]

I just installed Arch for the first time ever (which I now use btw) - I am using it with KDE as I am not the best with TWM and remembering kb shortcuts yet but I have already noticed that it feels faster than Ubuntu, Fedora etc. It feels really, really good. I am using x11 as Wayland had huge windows for some reason and I cba with that. All good so far!

[@caseyriley1014]

At 5:22, that was just beautiful, i love a good ui, and now I know what I'm installing on the free laptop a buddy gave me, i dont care what the function is, i want to see that screen again😂

[@mattolinallc8888]

As a Arch Linux user I agree. I also love how Arch Linux just works especially for programming and it keeps getting updates. Better than Windows, Debian, and Ubuntu. Great video by the way thank you. Also love the video about Java Script because I really hate Java Script especially when the web becomes bloated especially on a slow Wi-Fi so as a Software Engineer and Web Developer your channel is so underrated we need more devs to explain why simplicity is better than bloated software.😊😊😊😊😊😊🤓🤓🤓🤓🤓

[@kj_sh604]

I pretty much have the same sentiments that you had in your video. Yes, there is a "time sink" and a learning curve, initially - but one thing so great about Arch is that it's build on "simplicity". The AUR would not be as great as it is, if it wasn't for how simple the PKGBUILD system is (not to mention, how simple the Arch package format is, as a whole). I currently have an Arch install on a Thinkpad X220 that has been going for 8 years, an install on a Thinkpad T480 that has been going for 5 years, and my main desktop has an Arch install running for 3 years (with no breakage or annoyances with it). Yes, learning it and getting it up and going can be a pain and take time, when you're new to it, but with how reliable my systems have been ++ while being super up-to-date, I can't really let go of Arch anymore 😅 this is THE Linux distro for me (at least, on personal machines). The time sink/learning-curve is only at the beginning, after that- you can install whatever you want almost without thinking about availability, dependencies, or compatibility (unlike what you get in fixed released distros). It saves you a lot of time, in the long run… it also saves you from a lot of "reinstalls to fix things".

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Exactly. I haven't reinstalled since I first installed it (although I probably should to clean things up).

[@anonymouscommentator]

I agree, use whatever suits your workflow the best

[@autumnjeserich2689]

my first linux experience was kali linux in a vm and after finding some limitations of it I decided I'd learn arch because I figure if i can learn arch other distros wont be hard. After a real struggle with the install I absolutely love it

[@xwinglover]

I totally agree. It’s easiest out of all the distros. A learning curve but just home.

[@oglothenerd]

Hey! You finally gave Hyprland a shot! I am a Hyprland user too! And, I figured out that the animation configuration is as easy as making a 3D Bezier curve! So, yeah! Pretty awesome Wayland compositor! I also like Wayland, because all the cool programs are on there! Like, on Xorg you have Dunst, which is lazy at best, but on Wayland you have SwayNC, which is a notification daemon with full protocol support, and a notification tray with a do not disturb toggle built in! And not to mention that everything on Wayland compositors uses CSS, which is super powerful!

[@EricMurphyxyz]

I like Hyprland a lot, I'll probably do a video on it later. Only thing I don't like is my battery life dropped a lot after switching for some reason. Trying out all the cool new tools available was one of the best parts.

[@fabiandrinksmilk6205]

​@@EricMurphyxyz A new Hyprland update just dropped like an hour ago btw. According to the changelogs: "The biggest performance update in Hyprland's history! CPU idle reduced by half. GPU usage reduced around 2-4 times."

[@eckee]

Doing everything by yourself is better than trying to fix someone else's shit.

[@AlbertPaulMariLucero]

Or you could do as I do and shill Artix while using a riced dwl on it for true minimalism without soystemd and ex-11. Edit: in all seriousness it's great that you use Arch, and I hope you may continue in your Linux journey well. My views on the aur, the wiki, and the bleeding-edge nature of Arch are similar to yours. God bless.

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Haha. Hyprland is definitely bloated, I want to try out dwl eventually :)

[@MOOBBreezy]

Arch linux is truely the only distro I've really used. Ive tried stuff like ubuntu and manjaro, but it was always on other machines or as a dual boot to try out. One day I decided, "lets just wipe everything and install Arch on my main machine" (after a bit of research of course). If im going to use linux, i want to actually learn it

[@Aviduduskar]

I started using Linux in 1995, mostly RH and Suse, then found Slackware and its philosophy of not mucking with upstream packages resonated with me. Around ten years ago, after losing many systemd arguments with CS folks, I tried systemd distros and Arch is the spiritual successor of Slackware with systemd. The ease of creating packages and managing them is what keeps me with Arch, I could not imagine creating and maintaining packages on Debian, even if I use Debian on servers.

[@xamp_exclammark]

I installed endeavour a couple days ago after months of fiddling with mint,xubuntu and kubuntu as my first 2 distros ever .The MOMENT i saw it run an FSCK right upon start up,solve dependency conflitcs by itself the relief was IMMENSE ,and of course it recognized the ancient windows 8.1 era sound card on my desktop with no tinkering which was a relief coming from ubuntu

[@no_name4796]

One thing i love of arch is that ability to easily just install the wm without having to install also a full DE, and in doing so you get way better ram usage because you don't have stuff you don't need running in the background

[@bhavyakukkar]

this is by no means unique to arch and you're not even talking about arch you're talking about archinstall which is community-maintained; as a rule archinstall does not include any configuration/minimal configuration, while other distros that have a minimal installation candidate (debian, ubuntu server, void) will still install the same thing when you do a manual install of that respective wm from their package manager.

[@Macca_ALBrN]

Arch has always a space in my heart ❤, it was the third distro i've tried when i first got into linux

[@mylinuxforwork]

Great video. I’m using Arch Linux daily for my job. Customized to my needs with Qtile. And everyone can install Arch. With the installation script shipped with the ISO it’s easy.

[@arthasmenethil2201]

This dude de-recommends archinstall.

[@eegoal]

I love arch but unfortunately I still have to use dual bot because I work with music production and Linux lacks tons of plugins, but I do everything else on arch, and I've been using the same config for almost 10 years.

[@maximofernandez196]

I think I mostly agree with you in this. I don't use arch, I use fedora i3. I think that learning the i3wm, plus now configuring my desktop with polybar and rofi was an amazing experience, as it is learning nvim. Now I don't really have the need to change at all, because this works for me. You actually convinced me that arch is not that bad as they make it to sound. What actually scares me is if something breaks, but I don't think that's a real problem most of the time.

[@SeaWasp]

I took the plunge yesterday and partitioned some space off for Arch on my Acer laptop, running windows 10. I've used Linux since I was a kid, and remember my dad's frustrations getting things going prior to properly fast high speed internet, and mobile devices you can refer to. He had to take notes on paper. I managed to set it up with help of my phone, in that it acted like a wired connection, and I could also refer to stuff when I needed. I like that it doesn't hold your hand and you have to customize it, but also that every step I had to take or modify worked, or worked with some research. My brain hurts, but it's been fun so far. Running i3-wm right now, but the Hyprland and eDEX UIs look really cool, too, and it cuts down on the bloat

[@psi4j]

Good to see you on Hyprland, my friend. We are all in the future. Vaxry doesn't stop, this thing will be the best WM experience all around. It may already be.

[@folksurvival]

Arch is good and I consider Arch and Debian to be the main useful distros that most people should use depending on their use-case but personally I prefer Void as it's more clean and minimal and it's a very up-to-date rolling release but not as bleeding edge as Arch and doesn't have the Arch bloat.

[@TheLinuxCast]

Hey, I recognized some of that broll! lol. Great video

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Thanks! Left a link to your video in the description :)

[@TheLinuxCast]

@@EricMurphyxyz Oh, it didn't bother me. I thought it was cool.

[@poluefemus]

arch linux is easier to download than ubuntu, linux mint, and a bunch of other popular distros in my experience, the only distro i like more is kali linux

[@raf.nogueira]

I´m doing the opposite, coming from Arch to Ubuntu, I'm having a lot of troubles with my Fstab on Arch, because when I use Windows or other distro some days or week, when I go back to the Arch partition, the Fstab doesn´t let the Arch boot, because of UIID ids some weird bug with my motherboard. That was really annoying

[@Mohk610]

Just wanted to say that because of one of your videos, I have been using Arch for months now and It’s been just amazing. It’s light, it works and I enjoy it. I used Ubuntu and Mint and some how I managed to break them on more than one occasion although I would not say it’s the distro‘s fault, I just did stuff i was not supposed to do and this is exactly why I love Arch. The fear people put into you that Arch is unstable and it will break makes you pay attention and not just implement stuff without trying to understand. In that process you learn something and you maintain a stable system.

[@DrDipsh1t]

As a Linux noob, arch has been my 3rd distro. Started with mint, then debian, and figured "everyone hates on arch for being complicated, but people rave about the customization". And they ere right. The arch wiki and aur make things simple though. It's not my daily driver for my desktop, but it is my daily driver for my laptop. Love arch, it just works.

[@itstoxicqt]

im so glad i found Arch back in 2008 still a "new" distro at the time, a only had been out for a few years. been hooked on it since

[@Little-bird-told-me]

I agree with everything you said. In fact it preaching to the choir. I used every distro and settled on arch hyprland. Honestly without tiling window and arch Linux is not all that great compared to windows. Arch is the final destination of your Linux journey. But it takes time to reach there.

[@anirudhta8820]

I am a programer and my experience on arch hasnt been that good. I remember trying to install tensorflow or torch on arch, it wouldnt install cause arch had python 3.12.4 which was not supported by tensorflow or torch at that time. It was so annoying. Whereas in debian shit just worked. I had a stable python version and any other programing language for that matter. Stuff from nginx to virtual machines to docker containers ran smoothly and flawlessly. So for me debian is my go to choice when i want to learn something and not worry about support and stability

[@moeabdol_]

Excellent video. Thanks for sharing Eric.

[@rastas_4221]

I decided to install it on my laptop since I'll be doing a full switch from windows once 10 support is dropped. And gotta say it feels nice to get things working. And the wiki is just beyond good.

[@setoman1]

I’ve been using the Arch wiki long before I even considered trying Arch. It’s very well-written and at least partially applicable to most distros out there.

[@jooch_exe]

You did not mention the fact that sometimes stability is a factor and this is where Debian comes in. Debian is not bleeding edge like Arch, but often with good reason. Running a piece of software that requires a certain library version? Well that sucks for you because Arch is bleeding edge. On Debian they tend to spend more time to really be sure no packages are broken with updates. For a server this is kind of important. Life did improve though with Docker.

[@joemann7971]

But does it really suck? I mean, the opposite could be said for debian if you need a newer version of a package than what debian has installed. Need a newer version for a package? too bad. Debian is stable.. aka old software. Maybe you can use the software when Debian upgrades in 2 years, but that's 2 years of waiting. The only distro that somewhat seems to be tackling this issue is NixOS, but I personally didn't like NixOS. I personally rather deal with flatpaks or dockers than use NixOS.

[@exnihilonihilfit6316]

Debian Testing? Or Stable?

[@zonatechimp1568]

Just switched over to arch a couple days ago I installed it the hard way and i am having fun learning how to use arch and customizing my desktop

[@njlschpprkjrsvk]

100% agree, I switched to arch 3 years ago and I have never looked back. It just works

[@WalrusHal]

People who have other hobbies and interests going on in their lives, which is almost everyone on the planet, cannot not be bothered learning any of that shit. Nor should they. Hence, point and click focused OSes that work out of the box are of far more benefit to them than Arch will ever be.

[@finoderi]

So different people like different things. That's really deep man.

[@DedMem3]

I installed arch last night “the hard way” after using Linux for two weeks and I have been loving it so far, so much better than my previous hopping around between Ubuntu, Mint, and Pop!_OS, and then installing KDE on all of them.

[@saad_ghannam]

Reasons I use Arch btw: 1-The Arch wiki 2-The Arch wiki 3-The Arch wiki 4-The Arch wiki 5-The Arch wiki 6-The Arch wiki 7-It's the best rolling release distro 8-The AUR

[@finoderi]

This just reads like 'I don''t know what man pages are and have never bothered to read them'.

[@bobpeters61]

Frankly, the AUR is a two-edged sword. The main Arch repos are kept at bleeding edge, but the AUR is left to volunteers with some cool item they want to share. Meaning you have to be careful of outdated "packages" there. And yes, I deliberately quoted "packages" because the main repo has packages. What the AUR has are kits guiding your computer to download what just might be each and every file of the app separately, or at least seems to be, sometimes compiling stuff from sourcecode, and build its own package which it then installs, completing the process. Yeah, this can sometimes be fun to watch go on in the terminal, but while easy, it's still a lengthy, time consuming process you have to wait for your computer to go through. Often while you stand by to poke the "enter" button again whenever prompted in order to keep the process moving. So you can't just set it in motion, leave the computer to it's work and expect it to be finished when you get back. It won't be. In the case of Canon printers, their drivers are listed in a manner that tells the AUR that this is a newer version than that when this and that are actually two different drivers, each for a different set of printer models. So the AUR will only give you the one with the highest numbers in the naming protocol because the AUR thinks that it's the current version and that all other Canon printer drivers are just outdated versions of the same one. This means that the best way I found to install that dirver is to first install an AUR app called debtap, which makes locally stored Arch packages out of locally stored Debian packages. Then you can install the new Arch package. And while I have that printer installed, I have to remember an extra step to each and every every system update. If I forget to tell it to skip cnijfilter2, it'll "update" my printer driver to what it thinks is a newer version but is actually a different printer driver than the one I use. Should I forget and let it do so, I then need to uninstall that driver and install my debtap-generated package again. But it's probably a better idea to delete that once installed and if you need to re-install the thing update debtap and make a new arch package out of that .deb. Just in case of dependencies in the package. Of course, this may work well for drivers, but go for something like a WYSIWYG web authoring app, and any debtap package of that is inevitably damned to Dependency Hell. Even if you could keep on top of keeping its dependencies in place, you wouldn't want to as that would roll back shared dependencies and break other software. Basically, it's a means for developers who want to offer their goods to Linux users to get them to Arch users. Also for drivers of peripheral hardware. It may be easy if you use yay for the job, but it's a major time-suck to install anything from the AUR. I love Arch as my disto of choice for many of the same reasons mentioned in this video, but let's be hones about the AUR.

[@mathewsoul7623]

What desktop environment is he using? Great video btw, love the content and detailed explanation of things.

[@moussaadem7933]

He is using a tiling window manager, not a desktop environment. The window manager he is using is called bspwm. If you install it, it won't look like that, he customized it to his liking

[@xzaratulx]

Using Arch since 2015 and the AUR is such a great thing. Tho I don't have the time anymore to fix stuff when something breaks due to an update. I just want it to work ...

[@groovusgregus3008]

I was in the same boat for a while. Initially tried ubuntu, manjaro, recently hopped back into linux with mint. After running into a ton of issues I made a bootable with the arch iso and went for it. Installing wasn't as hard as people make it out to be, and like you said I almost never run into issues that can't be easily resolved with a quick search. Runs cleaner, runs games better, looks better, and it's all more light weight. Only thing I can say is that the AUR can be devastating for noobs. But it's a lesson everyone's gotta learn when you attempt to install a program that has a bad release and you end up having to revert to a backup.

[@masheura]

I just installed arch yesterday and everything is super nice Except 1 BIG THING. My wired external keyboard isnt working and I've searched so many places for solution. Nothing. If anyone sees this please help lol I'm desperate Keyboard works in bios btw

[@levelednain]

I installed Arch Linux to tell you that I use Arch btw

[@icesnake90]

I feel the same thing, but with Mint. It just works, and its comfy enough to make troubleshooting easy

[@anon_y_mousse]

Maybe I'm weird, but I compile as much from source as I can. Of course, I also like to modify programs on occasion because sometimes they lack features or have features that annoy me.

[@bentonja668]

💪

[@SlimeXero]

Very encouraging, thanks.

[@nyllie6239]

This ' needing to do everything yourself and it's a good thing ' is so true. Just resolved problem of middle click pasting not being optional in kde plasma x11 - it works on wayland but since I'm new and .. well yea I prefer x11 for now as it's my first permanent linux install.

[@DigitalLiquid]

I just installed arch and got it to work flawlessly recently. It took me countless tries over the years on and off 😅

[@Phloxix]

I tried Arch. I started with Fedora, to arch, to Manjaro and they all had the same issues. (No audio to my speakers, Nvidia drivers wouldn’t install properly, I couldn’t use my full refresh rate and a whole lot more) I’m sure I couldn’t fixed all this stuff if I wanted to spend hours and hours going through the wiki and trying stuff. But honestly, it was just tedious and I couldn’t use my computer for what I wanted to. So I switched to pop_os and have no (major) issues with it. Everything just works out of the box. Maybe I’ll try Arch again in the future. But for right now I’m happy with Pop.

[@joshuabrown3861]

I use arch btw. If you're thinking about going to arch, start by doing a manual install instead of the arch-install script. It's the best prep work for what is ahead.

[@Masta_E]

I avoided Arch for years because I was nervous to learn it and thought it would take a ton of time.... It's literally the easiest, and best Linux experience I've had. Yeah there's a setup process but then after that you just can use it and update it weekly or whatever. End of the day I've had nearly no issues vs Deb based where I had constant issues after a few months. Been on EndeavorOS and now Arch for 8 months or so now and have no desire to distro hop and again no issues.

[@DIPper352]

4:14 What Desktop Environment were using Greate vid btw And also "I use arch btw"

[@121sbavert]

that's hyperland, not a de

[@DienerNoUta]

a bit later but Hyperland, is one of the few wayland WM

[@Kirmo13]

gawd damn this seems so attractive. I'll definitely do it some day, but not today because I'm just too afraid to break stuff. At this point I'm at my fourth distro (I change when I make a critical mistake tinkering with the command line)

[@exnihilonihilfit6316]

Don't do it. It's for no-life tinkerers. You'll need endless hours to figure out the 100 things you need to install to have a good and nice looking OS. And since you're not someone whose entire life is learning about Linux and Linux apps, you won't know what you should install. That's why you need a proper DISTRIBUTION, made by such _specialists,_ with a lot of that installed. So try something like EndeavorOS or ArcoLinux - based on Arch but with a lot of stuff added (Arco is much more "opinionated"). Or even better - use something other than Arch. 😂 Don't become an OS obsessed person. It's all about objective productivity (i.e. selling on the market, to others), that's what brings happiness. If your tinkering is driving you into the ground, you'll come to hate it and despise yourself for doing it.

[@moussaadem7933]

​@@exnihilonihilfit6316i concede that there's a learning curve but the rest is nonsense, been using arch for years, it's the most comfortable once you understand it, one of the principles of arch is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), other distros make things complex just to accomodation new users, but then when those things break they are a mess to fix and you end up like windows, just following steps you don't understand to fix the mess

[@mirailuv]

yea arch is basically you set it up the way you like and it just works, i don't remember ever having an issue with updates or things like that, like unless i'm doing something stupid there's not going to be an issue

[@CommanderBeefDev]

i got basically same story, i tried all the linux and arch was the one i stuck with

[@IsaacMcMillan-u7i]

I had the same repository issues with Debian, and that's why I use Arch. I like it because everything I install just works

[@revanisalive]

i'm kinda back and forth on linux but bought a second drive to run Arch(had problems dual booting with windows on the same drive before) and I'm surprised all the games I've tried on steam work. Just a tip if you're having problems getting steam games to launch: try different proton versions in settings and when you switch settings restart steam(not the whole pc)

[@chrisconnollyofficial]

I distro hopped a lot over the last few weeks. Visually, I liked how manjaro looked but what is the deal with it? Programs kept freezing and crashing. I think I'm gonna try arch!

[@42ott90]

Switched from windows my first time to linux (arch btw) , 1 month ago. And thats like heaven. Its so much fun .

[@setoman1]

I’ve had to fight Arch for the same reason I’ve had to fight every other distro out there: dependencies. You’re either installing ALL of the dependencies, or you’re installing every package manually. There is no middle ground. Drives me crazy sometimes.

[@nBp4tB12]

I have the same experience with Arch. For me, it's really much easier than any other distribution.

[@Fender178]

Yeah Arch I heard great things about it that you can control what kind of experiences you have with it and you can make it bloated or minimalistic as you want. I am going the Arch route once I get a new drive for my Laptop so I can install it without messing up my Windows Install. I used Linux off and on quite a few times.

[@Proferk]

The one problem with arch, is that when I am reinstalling my system every year (to get rid of all the leftover config files, unused packages, old caches, whatever etc), is that it takes a horribly long time to set up back to how you had it.

[@Snipe942]

Maybe you shouldn't purge all your configs then?

[@Proferk]

@@Snipe942 lmao who told you I purge my configs? I keep them up to date on github. I meant for things like packages which have to be manually reinstalled, fonts, themes, other settings such as disable account lockup, clear screen after logging in tty, etc which have to be manually restored

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Save a dotfiles repo on GitHub. Some people even make a whole script to reinstall Arch for them, but I haven't gone that far

[@fabiandrinksmilk6205]

This is the primary reason why I switched to NixOS, I have made a full comment on it already if you want to read it. Basically you make a configuration for your OS with all your programs, services, users, configurations and even your dotfiles, then you can build that config and Nix gets your system to the desired state. There are no unused or leftover things because your whole system is specified in your config. Don't need something? Remove from the config and it's gone*. *Technically it isn't gone since things are still stored in the Nix Store for the purpose of caching and rolling back. When you run the garbage collector, it's really gone gone.

[@exnihilonihilfit6316]

pacdiff pacman -Scc

[@WillWillWill]

Great video. What advantages did you get from moving away from Manjaro to pure Arch?

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Stability, mostly. I have a full video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kIrCeXVvobR9ns0

[@abriction]

As much as I love Ableton and unlocking Xbox achievements for games on the PC, I haven't truly "liked" Windows since Windows 7. It was simple, simple enough. Windows 10 and 11 don't even feel like operating systems. My current Windows 11 install is still from my original Windows 7 install from a long time ago, which was upgraded to Win10 in 2018 and finally 11 in 2022, so recently when I did a fresh install of Windows 11 for the first time in my life on my girlfriend's PC, I got to see just how awful Windows became. Her install of Windows 11 Pro (which I acquired separately, did not come with her PC) had SO much garbage pinned to the start menu, and even after turning off all the check boxes for weird features it asks you to enable during the install, it was automatically backing up her files to ONEDRIVE? The moment I figure out how to get Ableton (with low latency driver) or my Waves plugins working on Arch, I don't need Windows anymore.

[@tjaytje]

Hey Eric i would like to see you dive in to NixOS. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that Distro.

[@lal12]

I fully agree with everything in this video, I have the exact same experience!

[@Karn0010]

I started messing around with Linux at the start of this year, initially used Mint. Anytime I had issues, my google search would almost always bring up the arch linux wiki, and that always had the answer. I then looked into Arch, saw people say it was difficult and all that. Being new to Linux I was initially scared off by that. As I had more issues, and the wiki had the answer I said screw it and installed arch. Since then its been smooth sailing, and it has been fun tinkering with it and all. Installing packages on Arch is so easy, and keeping them up-to-date is easy as well. I don't have to mess around with stuff, just search for it then install it. For me though, the do it yourself mentality is what is going to keep me using it for the foreseeable future. I'm learning stuff about Linux as a whole, and that is why I started using Linux.