ArcoLinux - An Arch Distro With A WOW! Factor

Arco Linux is, unsurprisingly, based on Arch Linux. The difference is that ArcoLinux offers an easy and customisable install, it comes ready, out of the box, with sensible configurations and great themeing. And it is surrounded by a friendly community and a wealth of learning and reference resources.
The ArcoLinux website is full of gold nuggets of information although, admittedly, it's not the easiest to navigate. However, it's worth the effort.
The standard ArcoLinux iso file comes pre-loaded with XFCE, Openbox and i3, allowing the user to explore a complete Desktop Environment, a floating window manager and a tiling window manager - take your pick!
It's also a one-click install away from any other desktop or window manager you desire - just use the tweak tool.
Following installation you can access a range of aliases that make updating the system a breeze, and if you wish you can even pull down updated configurations using the skel command.
ArcoLinux can be a robust desktop system in it's own right, or you can treat it as a learning environment before moving on to exploring a range of other window managers and desktop environments, creating your own iso, adding 'spices' to a standard Arch install .... the list goes on.
Personally I would place ArcoLinux up there with the best Arch based distros such as Manjaro or Endeavour. To my mind though it just has that certain something that sets it apart from the rest.
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[@megaluria9654]

Using your own words, you are blown by this distro because it's "Arch for human beings". Although it's just a preconfigured XFCE, the first visual impression is amazing. All the additional GUI tools give the user a clean and easy to understand way of configuring his system enviroment. Thanks to that you don't need any special linux expertise - you can get most of the stuff done without opening the terminal and having deeper knowledge of CLI. But why would I even wanted to mess around if it already looks so slick out of the box? This distro sells, and it got me too, I have to admit.

[@arcolinux5876]

The esp flag was in the past - does not exist anymore. Thanks for the video.

[@eznix]

It's still there, just hidden by kpmcore, and it's set when the boot flag is set on a GPT disk under EFI system. If you look at the partitioning with Gparted, the flag is still there. Just found this out myself as my install of Manjaro demonstrated my lack of knowledge until very recently.

[@smile768]

I really like this distro. I have learned so much from using it. You can go as simple or techie as you like. I actually think a Windows defector would do well with this, because you can watch and go along with the video demonstrations - it’s like having your own teacher. I especially enjoy the aliases, they automate almost everything and Erik encourages you to do your own. I have never come across another distro that utilises them so well and so prolifically. If you want to get more in depth In Linux, I recommend it.

[@Skorpp13]

After about 12 years of distro-hopping I've found my distro for life last year :)

[@-r-3542]

What distro exactly?

[@user-ke7mx3vk7k]

@@-r-3542 this one I guess

[@philipwalters3565]

As a debian user I've never looked at arch but this is tempting

[@ansfied9346]

I used to use Ubuntu and Mint but after switching to arch and using awesomeWM with acro configurations, I don't think I could go back lol.

[@apereirafernandez]

don't do it, you won't go back to debian

[@antwanreynolds7121]

@@apereirafernandez Lol I can confirm this. I am a super fan of Debian. After using Vanilla Arch Debian has since been relegated to being only my server distro of choice.

[@neobscura]

Ok the DE installer in a GUI is a MUST HAVE now. I want that on every distro. Just imagine trying out almost everything and settling on what actually works for you without making a mess with conflicts :)

[@SuperObamaladen]

Only issue is that you cannot remove a DE once it's installed. But overall it's still pretty nice.

[@Kyouno-natsumi-T-VII]

Also the installer of Arch like Archifi. But I think it's like its main concept. Nowaday there're many easy-touse Arch-based distro as well as other distro.

[@hogstudio4819]

@@SuperObamaladen That's simply false, my ArcoLinux came with 1 DE and 5 WM and I uninstalled all of them

[@rajdipbhattacharyya9521]

@@hogstudio4819 Kindly elaborate how you did it, which command did you use? Sometimes, even after removing, it leaves behind dependencies. I don't want that. Thanks in advance.

[@hogstudio4819]

@@rajdipbhattacharyya9521 Oh, the dependencies are a pain, I had to search dependencies with, for instance, " pacman -Qte | grep 'xmonad' " and remove the packages and the parent packages (pacman -Rs package) until it stops yelling about "required dependency for ...". This must be done with extreme care or it will break your system. However, if you only want one desktop environment but you prefer Calamares over the Arch command line installation experience (TM), just go with an ArcoLinuxD image (not B), which is the most minimal and will let you choose the DE you want inside Calamares.

[@ThePressurizer]

Wow. I've never been an Arch guy, but this looks amazing.

[@OldTechBloke]

It is!

[@TheEzemikedirnt]

The Best openbox out of the box ...My distro for many years..

[@drsmith3411]

Having watched lots of your videos, and felt your enthusiasm for Arch, I decided to spend the day installing Manjaro for ARM on a raspberry pi 4B. It works! I'm quite pleased to say. Now maybe ARCO (if it has an ARM processor version) will be my next try. Complements to your videos! Great attitude.

[@OldTechBloke]

Great to hear!

[@henninb]

I do like the concept of archo, however I already have a setup in Arch that works for me. Great video.

[@Steven_nevetS]

I've been using Mint but will install AcroLinux on my spare machine to check it out. Looks very neat. Not the most popular distro but very cool indeed

[@joetheman74]

The reason why it says clean is that it is referring to a bug where automatic partitioning sometimes does not show up as an option when there is already partitions present on the drive. You just delete the existing partitions and then create a new partition table to start fresh and clean. Then when you start calamares the option for auto partitioning becomes available. I have had this happen many times when converting laptops over from windows 10.

[@atefwadia5596]

Wwwwooow this is arch and into arcolinux the absolute way to linux freedom for learnning

[@nelsono4315]

longtime Windows user here. I worked in IT for 20 years so being proficient in Windows was mandatory. Recently I installed ArcoLinux in a VM and I have to say I am really liking it. Not sure what the learning curve is like for someone like me but I'll give it a go. I'm liking the XFCE desktop right now. Thanks for all of the great videos!

[@OldTechBloke]

You're welcome. Give yourself a few months and it will be like second nature

[@BrucesWorldofStuff]

So Yes this has a Wow Factor! I kinda fancy this and the Tweak Tool is Awesome! Not ready to change anytime soon but this could be a candidate for sure. It is a bit of a overload but I can live with that because sometimes I just want to use what is there... Thanks OTB for the video! LLAP

[@OldTechBloke]

Thanks Bruce

[@doctorsocrates4413]

If i may be off topic slightly..with linux in general is it advisable to use the GPT partition table rather than the msdos.?..i formatted my ssd to msdos and use the legacy bios to currently use linux..thank you.

With arcolinux you can distro hop, being in the same system, try the differences environment, without any conflict. not counting arcolinux WM are the easiest to use.

[@skewty]

Pop!OS tiling has, IMO, the best hybrid and most gentle introduction to a tiling window manager. It can be installed into other Gnome-shell distributions. (I am currently running it in Gnome 3.38 wayland session)

[@OldTechBloke]

Unfortunately I really dislike gnome

[@taidee]

Man, I like this a lot, thank you for he demo OTB. This is going to pull a lot more people into Arch

[@OldTechBloke]

Glad you like it!

[@peterjansen4826]

More precisely, Calamares has problems with partitioning if partitions already exist. If you start with 0 partitions then it should be fine. It happened to me too that Calamares couldn't handle it when I still distrohopped. I recommend to only include a small amount of mirrors, around 10-30. That sorting-function for mirrors does not work properly. For example, during the install it might happen that in the Netherlands an USA-mirror gets in the top-10 but it won't stay there long. Better only include mirrors from relatively close to where you live.

[@rajdipbhattacharyya4256]

Hi Everyone. I have a noob level question. I personally love using Cinnamon. If I install Cinnamon here, how can I permanently remove XFCE & the 2 windows manager so that only Cinnamon remains & nothing else? It would help my system to be less bloated.

[@bradleystevens9833]

Hey Bloke, First time commenter long time watcher. I am interested in testing out multiple DE's. Would you suggest a different user per DE? I know I can use VM's but I want test drive the car, proper. Thanks, Brad

[@OldTechBloke]

I just use the same user and it seems to work fine for me :-)

[@rmcellig]

Excellent video!! Beautiful distro. For my needs I always use bionicpup on all my desktop computers. It's fantastic. So easy to use and set up. What I do is setup puppy the way I want and then I use the iso creation tool included to create my standard USB stick. There are so many options and apps included with this gem. I'd love you to do a review if possible. This has been my go to daily driver for the past few years. I still use other distros but I always come back to bionicpup!😁

[@OldTechBloke]

It's on the list :-)

[@unclewithmask9113]

Hello OTB, i recetly installed arcolinuxb, with all the wm, then added leftwm just to compare the window managers, plus exploring, but on my next reboot, the screen went black, it couldnt show at all in the screen, im using hp omen i7....is it the hp or the os giving me the black screen if i may ask

[@peppe540]

Great video again! A pity you didn't actually start up JWM, you could see in the top right hand corner it was available after using the tweak tool ;-) You'll understand why I run this (ArcolinuxB Openbox) with all my own tweaks. One additional plus: you can really select only the exact packages you want, thus bringing down memoryusage to a bare minimum. Thanks anyway!

[@OldTechBloke]

It was just about the timing, but it did run well, I tried it after the video :-)

[@thebreezer]

What a great review. Nice pace, clear and concise. Arcolinux is quite interesting and will give it a go. Thanks very much.

[@OldTechBloke]

My pleasure!

[@MrLeeFergusson]

I really like the Arco project I learned a tonne just digging into the install scripts, now I just have my own set for the distros I use be it arch or debian or whatever, its a great resource and it would be superb if a way could be found to better organise and streamline web site.

[@Xemantic]

I totally agree. I recently discovered Arco and even though I run MX, Arco is slowly taking over but I also wish the learning content on the website was a bit more organized

[@Florin76]

I don't get it, how do you install on a full encrypted hard drive and use Btrfs instead of Ext4? Manjaro which uses Calamares propose a full disk encryprion, but not Btrfs, only Ext4 for the standard install, which is not great.

[@OldTechBloke]

I don't have the installer to hand but assume you can do btrfs using the manual install

[@eznix]

The problems I have with Arco begin at the themes. I can't stand the look and feel of the default Xfce and Openbox desktops and I would need to undue almost every setting, install different icons, and use my own wallpapers. It is similar to selling a house with a very specific decor, you are bound to alienate half of the buyers who can't stand your style choices. Next, the Arco full install ISO contains a ton of bloat and relies on the AUR for lots of stuff. Both of those situations would require me to perform so much pruning that there is no point even starting with Arco. Finally, there are so many custom tweaked settings files in /etc/skel that there are procedures specific to Arco that require the user to update /etc/skel settings and then apply those updates to the /home/.config - and when you apply the changed /etc/skel settings to your /home/.config, you risk overwritting any of your own settings with Arco settings. The full Arco ISO seems so far from the Arch philosophy that I could not recommend it to anyone interested in Arch. It may be fine for those who have little interest in Arch Linux and just want a highly customized rolling release distro, but for anyone who wants to run Arch, there are too many un-Arch features that you are not running Arch.

[@arcolinux5876]

This is old information. We got rid of the 'tons of great software". ArcoLinuxD contains just 1.5% of ArcoLinux packages, 98.5% is Arch Linux. ArcoLinuxB is minimal - super minimal. We do not rely on AUR. The packages are hosted on our servers. You select during installation what you want. ArcoLinux is our iso - we develop on this and need all our software. It is also our learning iso. To start with.

[@eznix]

@@arcolinux5876 I was not speaking of ArcoLinuxD or ArcoLinuxB as I know those projects are geared towards building the ISO for yourself and give more control to package selection. It is good to hear of the removal of tons of great software. The software has always been out there for users to install if they wish. It is also good to hear that you host your own packages. All the source code comes directly from the original authors/developers? That is good. Thanks for letting me know of the more recent developments. I last looked at the full ArcoLinux ISO less than a year ago, so you must have moved pretty quickly. I noticed no mention of using /etc/skel to push out configuration changes, so I assume you still use that method?

[@RetosSpace]

R.I.P OTB Steve

[@Konnecta-kb9gg]

That feeling when you get arch installed as a newbie... so good. Really learning a lot from the go. Then found out about awesomewm, which led me to arco linux , which led to awesome with spices of arco linux. Very nice to use 👍

[@celestialadministration]

Arch linux with less steps, I like Arco Linux a lot. Plus it's spin-offs.

[@legymhueck9271]

Thanks for the video. I've watched some videos covering ArcoLinux, most of which were superficial. You, however, know what you're talking about. @Peter Jansen You're right. There is no need to create the partition schene in gparted. You just have to wipe the parition or create a new partiton table @OldTechBloke To my mind, you can skip the partitioning from 07:15 onwards and just close GParted. Then you can do everything in the installer and calamares will (most likely) NOT crash, at least not due to partitioning. Anyway, both methods work.

[@OldTechBloke]

Cheers

[@colerche]

I liked it, but it crashed on me every time I installed...just not compatible with my Thinkpad x201...no idea why.

[@OldTechBloke]

Strange, works great on my x220

[@colerche]

@@OldTechBloke Strange indeed...never seen anything like it: total freeze and one of the indicator lights under the screen would flash. Anyhow, while I appreciate arch based distros, I'm currently more focused on debian/Ubuntu, etc...

[@colerche]

That being said, I did do one of their terminal based installs, and it was a great learning experience...Also they are Belgian and so am I (naturalized) so I wish them every success.

[@Kneedragon1962]

I am rather liking Archman and the two Manjaros I have. I'm fairly sure I did try the Calamares install but didn't go the manual partitioning. I will go and watch what you did to set up a Mate desktop. I am a bit of a fan of Mate.

[@lsatenstein]

Bandwidth Limit Exceeded Your presentation went so well, with many watchers deciding to visit the arcolinux.com site. When we did we got the Bandwidth message Exceeded, Your Arcolinux is going to bring many watchers (like me) to try it. I thank you for the well paced presentation.

[@orcaflotta7867]

It's Arco not Archo, dummy! :) And it's deffo not OTB's distro but Eric DuBois'. distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=arco

[@arcolinux5876]

The webhosting company has been notified. Getting very popular.

[@krissprague7979]

That was amazing. What an influx of people. It was like an unintentional DDoS attack. Lol

[@OldTechBloke]

Wow, thank you!

[@Appalling68]

I'm in the process of downloading ArcoB from the German mirror (I'm in Spain). Can't wait to give it a spin!

[@pavelperina7629]

Nice, I would like to try this with all major desktops and shells preinstalled for inspiration how to configure mine.

[@MrRyuken555]

Did exactly this and helped me learn and see what is available and what would be the best setup for me.

[@emiliokennkierza260]

Downloaded the latest version of the either arcolinuxb and arcolinuxd, but none of them worked properly on my pc :(

[@jarrodhockley]

Termite as the main terminal is inline with the Tweak tool as it has the ability to apply the custom termite themes....

[@LDWilliams]

Impressive! I am tempted! I thought that I was set on starting out this time on manjaro and had even gone as far as installing a few desktop variation in the vmware with the intent to decide on which to go for. Having now seen this I am at least going to give it a wiz and how it suits me. A question though if I may. I only have the one PC for now, abet a very good one. Is it worth setting up a sep /home partition in case I want to swap down the line, or as is more likely, I mess something up so badly that a reinstall is the easiest 'fix'? Asking as I see that nowadays a sep /home isn't included in any auto-install that I have seen so far

[@millziz6006]

In the past I always created a home partition but I don't think the benefit is how we perceive it. Nowadays I just make sure I have a USB with supergrub2disk on (for if i baulk grub) and I create an encrypted partition with gnome-disk-utility post installation and backup with timeshift to it. I also put important files and my game library on the encrypted partition so its always separate from whichever distro I am currently using. I always found that whenever I had a home partition I barely ever reinstalled and kept it and even if I did it ended up being cluttered and unclean.

[@OldTechBloke]

To be honest I never set up a separate home partition. I do have a data partition though and I save my dot files in that

[@LDWilliams]

@@millziz6006 why encrypted pls?

[@LDWilliams]

@@OldTechBloke that makes sense, seeing as I seem to have broken the pacman.conf file by editing in libre! Looking at ways to save that now, any thoughts? Know it's just a VM but it's a PITA to reinstall just for that EDIT - somehow managed to reinstall pacman from the .tar i downloaded, so I learn't and fixed at the same time. Now know a bit more than I did, so no bad apart from the time 'lost' lol

[@millziz6006]

@@LDWilliams Its just for the ever so small chance that the drive/computer gets stolen or compromised. I also keep a text list of the installed software and any setup information I may need in the future on the separate partition. I make sure to keep this up to date and it makes any future re-installs far quicker and less stressful. Making encrypted partitions with gnome-disk-utility is super easy and installing the package ensures all dependencies are also installed. If you are relatively new to Linux or creating encrypted partitions you can test out gnome-disk-utility on a USB stick first so that you get a feel for the software.

[@johanb.7869]

How do you know if you have EFI or UEFI on your computer? BIOS?

[@OldTechBloke]

See if you have this directory /sys/firmware/efi

[@bensbikeandtravel8817]

Very nice video, ArcoLinux is certainly interesting maybe I will give it a try on an older machine

[@OldTechBloke]

Go for it!

[@andrestowe]

The best distro inhte world

[@peterjansen4826]

Unfortunately the last time I tried it (window managers edition) there was a problem with LightDM on their system. I like their theming, I think that they go a bit overboard with the installed programs.

[@OldTechBloke]

There's not a huge amount there Peter but I know what you mean

[@grenvillephillips6998]

So quick and easy, I'm still living with the guilt: but the result was not quite as light-weight as I hoped.

[@linux4868]

XFCE is lighter than KDE.. so out-of-the-box it should be light as fuck bro.. My pc (8gb ram) runs fine with KDE .. but I bet XFCE is even more light.

[@gregzeng]

Some of favored apps etc are missing. Qbittorrent. GNOME desktop environment. Not sure on so many others as well. The other uncertainty: if installing so much, un-installing creates problems? Switch many DE's, then removing them? Or being able to install Linux Kernels, including the Low Latency kernels, released every few days? Reading some of the comments here, so many people seem to have trouble with this operating system.

[@OldTechBloke]

Like everything Greg, you just need to be careful with Arch, I've not had a major issue on my Arch installations for years, and I constly install and uninstall DEs and WMs

[@ilyahryapko]

Nice video! Why didn't you log in JWM?)

[@OldTechBloke]

Just a question of time, but I can tell you it worked fine

[@cuttlefishn.w.2705]

You don't get your feet wet with Arch, you get your socks soaked.

[@OldTechBloke]

I'm going to steal that saying :-)

[@grenvillephillips6998]

Arcolinuxd didn't work for me - would not get past 4% and then froze!

[@edson7310]

Thank you. : )

[@OldTechBloke]

You are welcome!

[@xavierc8987]

with arco linux xfce I actually ended my distrohopping, I tried some distros before. The arch rolling release concept it's very good for me and kernel lts : ) . With that distro I have everything I need, Actually first day I cleaned up a lot... because for defect are to much paquets, installed and arch for to do the update it checks all the paquets one by one... so less paquets much fast update... If I don't need a app away... For now after almost 2 moths in same distro I'm very happy... I'm thinking about plasma... but I like the simple as xfce... so I don't want a move... for now...

[@xavierc8987]

from Spain. You speak and explain very good and easy... thanx.. I like hear the way you speak... hope you understand what I'm trying to write...

[@xavierc8987]

For a terminal I'm in love with Tilix : ) without transperencies and text brilliant ! it's fantastic !

[@OldTechBloke]

Your English is great Xavier

[@armagedon515]

Thanks but there are way too many technical questions at install and later on. There is nothing new that this arch based distro bring to the table. I'll stick with my Manjaro xfce which is way more user friendly and developed.

[@seansollars70]

ArcoLinux is nice, but Google Chrome isn't supported, and with Chromium being not good any more....I have to re learn Firefox.

[@MyurrDurr]

26:02 Seems whoever made the aliases spelled "Update" wrong. They wrote "udpate" and "update"

[@OldTechBloke]

Oh well, just change it :-)

[@MyurrDurr]

@@OldTechBloke indeed!

[@liftlinux9421]

Actually, it was for typos error.

[@MyurrDurr]

@@liftlinux9421 oh, that could make sense

[@wernerclaassen4787]

awesome content as always! Have a favor to ask, please do a review of a new os called liberty os?

[@OldTechBloke]

Will do, I'll take a look

[@wernerclaassen4787]

@@OldTechBloke thank you!

[@HelvecioGomes]

Have you tried Artix?

[@OldTechBloke]

No but I've planned to look at it in the next couple of weeks

[@HelvecioGomes]

@@OldTechBloke I tried it but audio didn't work so I uninstalled it.

[@Casper-bj6po]

installed this distro and discovered that i had no internet.(?) Never had that problem before with any distro, I am on a cable connection with no setup requiered. So far i have not bin able to use this distro, To bad because i really liked it otherwise

[@OldTechBloke]

That's unusual for arco

[@maxscholz911]

I used Arco for 3 months and i personally find it too bloated. I switched to Artix with a minimum installation and i cant complain about a thing. Guys pleas be aware this is my PERSONAL opinion.

[@muchvibrant]

Manjaro KDE >>> everything

[@marleybutler4633]

Remove terminal and scripts from all installations to entice new users

[@marleybutler4633]

Hate tiling

[@iamBatman2000]

This old man is surprisingly not old mentally.