Why Are Arch Linux Users So TOXIC?

[@anonymouscommentator]

In my experience the people with the best tech skills usually struggle with social skills. Not just in the Linux community, I've seen it in way too often in my uni studies as well.

[@c3cxla]

it's the Empathizing - Systemizing spectrum.

[@EricMurphyxyz]

There is definitely some correlation there

[@folksurvival]

Lots of weird spergs in computer related "communities" for sure.

[@ricer3301]

This hit hard

[@mr.random2297]

Same

[@ex0stasis72]

The worst is when I do a Google search for a problem and I get a forum thread as the first result, and the first response is to Google it. Well, I just did, and it let me to this page where someone actually directly answered the question below.

[@neonlithium]

I like how they then tell you that your being a help vampire because you didn't post your solution. With a link to the wiki, of course.

[@araz911]

Arch is not a linux distro arch is a waste of time

[@NreKonkoro-vt2fo]

Brave Search is the greatest. Leo has the most answers. Leo helped me use Arch on WSL2.

[@MrCobalt]

The Linux community as a whole could use less gatekeeping and instead be more welcoming. It's not a badge of pride to wear, it's about moving away from OSs that don't respect your privacy or agency. It's about your PC being yours and yours alone to control, not having your arm twisted by some corporation.

[@adampliszka4855]

I was writing a comment on this video, wanted to look up what's in the Arch base firmware packages (the "wiki" install), to see if it even has basic stuff like awk. You won't believe what happened next /s "Some of the most basic and important skills/habits you will want to develop if you want to be successful with Arch are knowing where to look to inform yourself and how to pre-search and and answer your own questions. The Arch Wiki should almost always be your first stop, and if its a package related question also be aware of Arch Package Search and the AUR Package Search" Jesus Christ

[@alefalfa]

"Arch Linux isn't that hard, it only requires patience, reading and a lot of manual configuration" Thats pretty much the definition of "hard" in the context of software. Great video.

[@Gege547]

Nah. They have wiki and fourms. That's mediun at most.

[@XioJN]

gentoo is harder to install than arch 1. because arch has archinstall 2. the manual is easier to read than gentoo Arch is the easiest system to install now

[@Yupppi]

I'd still challenge that as a lot of effort but not hard. Just need to do manual labor, not solve Riemann hypothesis while juggling on a unicycle.

[@syxalite]

I think the word he is meant to use is "not complex". I would argue that it is not hard, because it being manual and requiring a minimal of patience to have the will to go in the wiki to read concise and clear explanations definitely doesn't categorize as hard.. unless you have a different meaning for hard? What do you mean exactly by it? If you mean hard as "complex", then you've most definitely never tried Arch, or you're coping

[@RealDubozze]

@@XioJN Gentoo is shit compared to arch and its STILL easy to install

[@vladimirvinogradov9520]

I recently moved in a new block, it is really popular among young people, who work in tech or other fancy industries. A few days ago there was some kind of earthquake or something like that. There was a very loud sound and the ground was moving under the feet for a few seconds, some people even got seriously injured. Later I read the local news and they report that the most lightweight arch user just fell off his chair.

[@_DT_]

xD

[@yungifez]

Ouch

[@counterleo]

In Europe the nerd community is mostly composed of lanklets xD

[@matzcontreras]

😂

[@markh.6687]

😁😆😅🤣

[@netscans]

I've personally found the server side of the Linux community to be incredibly professional and a lot more mature, even in the way that they help users. They reply to forum threads like theyre solving tickets, rather than showboating their knowledge or getting upset when you don't ask the right way. It's definitely not perfect but there's a noticeable difference.

[@AcidiFy574]

Cuz they're professionals

[@Zeratoxx_]

@@AcidiFy574 mostly

[@shroomer3867]

Because servers are for buisnesses and or personal projects. This separates the elitist wannabees who have Linux as their system because "Windows Bad, Linux Good" from the people that use Linux servers due to the advantages that brings such as not being dependant on third parties other than Windows present in the server industry such as Dell, Hewlett Packard, Inspur, etc. Or in order to have specific control even beyond the scope of control that Arch has, because servers tend to be more optimized towards internet traffic, requests, security and many topics that are more specific and require more explanation than a simple wiki.

[@Ekte_Sjakie-tr2qb]

Because a lot of them are professionals and often went the helpdesk>admin etc route to begin with.

[@vanillaface6097]

The only people who have right to be elitist are users of NixOS and of BSDs, arch is unproductive waste of time trash

[@_moosh]

If you're so hung up on how dumb someone's question sounds, the best way to go about interacting with them is to... not answer their question. If you want Arch to be difficult and unforgiving and manual-based SO bad, then make them need to google the question. There are no dumb questions, just a lack of patience from the people who think they can answer them. Poor teachers for an already difficult subject.

[@rosembacktech]

I disagree that there are no dumb questions. there are no dumb doubts. But if you post a question like "Hey my vm won't start, how to fix it" and give zero context, noone can help you. That is a dumb question, but a valid and important doubt. With my students I have a rule that is: Give me all the information that you have on the issue, and what you tried (if anything). Without these questions I usually have one of my interns do the follow up and explain to them the needs. But come on, if you are in tech, you need to know how to ask for help at the very least. Yesterday one student came to me with a question about a script, he did not even sent the code.... How could I help him? After he showed me the code I answered in 5 seconds. Time is valuable, if you don't want to spend time even writting the info of your problem, why should anyone spend theirs trying to help you?

[@_moosh]

@@rosembacktech Putting yourself in a place to help others means you sacrifice your time for patience. If you need more information, ask for it. If that takes you too much time, you clearly have better things to do and should probably get to it. To solve someone's issue means having patience and understanding they may be in a frantic or helpless state, unknowing of where to even start, and you coming to help them should be out of passion to help them understand, even if it's just to get them thinking. If you aren't motivated to help, then don't help. My point was we shouldn't beat someone down for asking questions, and that includes questions given without context. If you don't have anything helpful to say, don't say anything at all. But if you're willing to help, know that someone might be starting at square one and just needs a jumping off point.

[@josh1234567892]

​@@_moosh I seriously have zero recollection of anyone "beating someone down" on the Arch forums. The closest to this I've seen was someone responding with a link, with no accompanying text. Btw, this isn't being passive aggressive, this means the answers are already there and you just need to read the damn thing. Your defeatist mentality is what's keeping you from learning Linux in general, it's not everyone else. Seriously, if that's the only excuse you can come up with for "not wanting to use Arch", blame no one but yourself lol. Plenty of people have been in your position too and were able to figure it out. And the ones that weren't were able to properly ask questions and get the assistance they needed. The people that help you online are not the tech support that Microsoft and/or Apple would normally provide, those people get paid to answer your stupid questions. Recognize the difference.

[@_moosh]

@@josh1234567892 I should've made it clear that I ran Arch for a year before switching to Debian, and have already learned it and had my struggles with it. I learned mostly via the manuals, and the reason I left was because it was simply too much reading, just too much time researching how to do simple things. In reference to forums: responding with a link is fine I guess, as you're sorta giving them an answer, even if it means they have to go through the whole thing to find the three things they need to type in. Linux doesn't really have a help desk/support line, so the forum are the best a new user's got. Sometimes people just want a straight answer to their question (even if that means you have to solicit more information from them first) instead of a lecture, and the Arch forums would rather have you know what you're working with instead of just making it work. Unless Arch users would rather people stay away from their passion project, which is totally OK, making an OS friendly to users means sometimes they _don't_ know how it works. Nobody on the forum is getting paid to answer questions AFAIK, so honestly if they'd rather paste a link instead of taking their time with someone, just don't answer. The worst thing is to get nowhere having read the whole article they posted. And if they must post a link to a manual, explain what the manual might help with or something.

[@Saplingbat]

@@josh1234567892 Buddies point was there's no gun to anyones head forcing you to play tech support at all. You could go about your day and just like. Not answer questions. You could very easily just say nothing, and leave it to someone with the time or patience to answer. If you can't offer the time or patience, then don't bother at all. Don't complain about things to which you need not subject yourself. It just makes you look like a ponce.

[@mx338]

The thing that annoys me as a sysadmin is that some Arch Linux users see all tinkering and tweaking as the purpose of using Linux and feel elitist because they are doing that, when Linux actually is a tool, to get done what you want.

[@samsh0-q3a]

spoken like a peasant

[@keit99]

The tinkering and tweakung was why I switched away from arch/artix to Suse.

[@curtvaughan2836]

I too had a career (retired some years ago from a university) that culminated in my focusing primarily on the server end of things - ordering and maintaining hardware for the machine rooms, installing system software (Unix, Linux, and Windows), and ensuring a minimum of downtime and security issues. The primary job was in keeping the "computers as a tools" in good shape for the wide variety of application users to use. There are a fair share of Linux users who enjoy tinkering with computers and system software as their main goal. Some Linux folks are more interested in developing and perfecting the tool (computer systems) than in using that tool for external goals. After retirement, I chose Linux as my primary personal system due to its relatively low cost. I spent a few years focusing mainly on learning Linux as a desktop/laptop system, frequently distro-hopping in order to refine the system interface I preferred. I also spent much more time participating in forums than I do now. I now rarely distro-hop, having found the two or three distributions I prefer. The only times I get onto forums are in the rare events when, despite keeping up with patches and security issues, something goes haywire that prevents my preferred applications from running, and for which I could use a bit of external help suggestions. Usually it's sufficient just to read through forum posts to find the info. I need, without actually posting. In that process, I occasionally find posted questions where I can offer support. I certainly don't offer tacky responses, or resent having to post an answer. If I feel a question is poorly worded, or unwarranted, I just don't bother to respond at all. The fact is, no one has to answer any user posts. If you don't like the question, just move on. Forums for systems like Arch (there are several others) often seem more like fraternal hubs for people whose main love is OS tinkering.

[@MorphicStates]

Personally, while tinkering and tweaking has it's merits. At some point it just needs to work. And be stable. If I'm constantly being distracted solving the problems that arise from tinkering and tweaking and not actually being productive. Yeah, there's a problem.

[@bettercalldelta]

the purpose of Linux is what you make it for yourself to be, the problem is thinking everyone has the same idea and goals

[@root_dnb]

I remember one time I was having an issue in FreeBSD and people on r/FreeBSD were telling me to read the handbook, but the problem I was having was not addressed at all in the handbook, it was like a kneejerk reaction for some people just to assume I was lazy or stupid. So this can happen in any tech community, not just Arch.

[@niksatt4843]

Its why i hate tech and most communities.

[@alephcake]

freebsd users are just arch users that go outside more

[@finoderi]

Without specifics this story doesn't look believable enough.

[@arandomvisitor6878]

@@finoderi I'd differ, given how common questions that have been answered before keep getting asked on really any toppic, and given that the BSD users are (at least seen as) more 'intelectual' and can fix their own problems while the majority of folks that ask questions cannot be bothered to 'read the handbook', it's entirely likely that it's an ingrained knee-jerk reaction

[@finoderi]

@@arandomvisitor6878 I personally think the solution for his problem was indeed somewhere in the handbook, but would wait for specifics still.

[@BigWyrm67]

How do you know if someone uses Arch Linux? Because they will tell you... Over and over again.

[@QoraxAudio]

Ah so they're like vegans!

[@Tyomak-ov]

Saw someone have issues with Kali linux and getting protonvpn to work, 2 responses, one leads to the official proton installation guide, the first response posted though was "dont use such an edgelord os, I use Arch btw". Arch users don't know anything when it comes to other OSs at all, kali isnt edgelord, its literally used by nearly all of the Cyber Security world, if you take a cyber security class or even Sec+ courses you will be recommended to use Kali linux. Its always used in a virtual machine and never as a main OS. It's meant to be ran without any savestate, you relaunch it and its basically just fresh after install because you don't want to deal with possible viruses and stuff you could get from dealing with Cyber Security

[@bobpeters61]

Yeah, I used to ironically if truthfully say that "I use Arch, BTW," in order to sarcastically dunk on the jerks I see in the Arch Community. Bad idea. Only makes people think that you are that which you mock.

[@bobpeters61]

@@QoraxAudio Was it Alicia Silverstone who said she became a vegan because they let her pet a few cows, after which she couldn't bring herself to eat them anymore?

[@TheSolidSnakeOil]

I've used debian, or some derivative for my entire professional career (20+ years) but for the life of me, I can't help but blurt out some arch nonsense at some point. It is literally on two computers, at home no one but me ever uses and rarely sees. You don't really have arch in your blood unless your wife reminds you to shut the hell up about arch when you go out.

[@megamanstarforce4315]

My biggest problem with people posting unhelpful or toxic answers on forum posts is that it pollutes the search results for all other users which makes it more annoying to find the answer as they have to both waste time reading the daft forum post and terrible answer then continue searching for the answer to a potentially difficult problem anyway

[@jrj1255]

So much this. It is annoying to search on google and get those types of posts for the first 10-15 links at least.

[@k084lt3]

I also think that besides your point - the fact that new users/people using arch or even linux for the first time: sometimes you just don't know where or even WHAT to search for. So getting such answers feel even more unneccessary and unhelpful.

[@billfarley9015]

A forum needs moderators that will ban people who consistently give non-answers or insults to questioners. It defeats the whole purpose of a forum.

Ye it's funny when you open first google link and the answer is, google it! 😁

[@JosephDalrymple]

Can't tell you how many forum posts that come up in search results that simply have "Google it" as the only response.

[@oliver_twistor]

I'm always afraid to ask questions on forums like StackOverflow, because there is always some a**hole answering your question with just insults, or downvoting into oblivion just because you missed reading that one Usenet post from 1992 explaining the issue. And I'm a computer engineer with over 10 years of professional experience. But every time I go online I feel inferior. A common excuse for people being rude in answers is that on forums like StackOverflow or Arch people aren't paid and they are giving people their time. My response to that is if you haven't got time to answer people nicely, you shouldn't probably be on those forums answering questions right now. It goes both ways in that of course nobody can demand volunteers to give you answers on your every question, but at the same time nobody is forcing you to answer questions. You don't _have_ to put up with "stupid" questions if you don't want to. I feel that there are quite a few people on these forums whose intentions are not first and foremost to help, but to show their skills. They're not doing it for the newbies, they're doing it for their own benefit. And that is not a good motivation at all. To properly help people, you have to have a drive to help and a humility to go with it. And just because you are knowledgeable in a subject doesn't mean you're a good teacher. The smartest person isn't always the best teacher, because often they can't relate. Savants who learned Linux at age 3 and programmed their own OS at age 5 probably isn't the best person to help 78 year old Albert update his computer for the first time in his life. Both my parents were teachers their whole lives and my father who was well-liked by most of his students struggled in school himself, especially with math and physics, which were two of the subjects he taught at the high school he worked at. He always said that the fact he struggled made him such a good teacher, because he could put himself into the shoes of his struggling students. I like that you said multiple times in the video that it's okay to for example use Arch, but it's also okay to use something else, and neither makes you "better" than anyone else. The reasons for not using something complex is often not that you can't, but instead that you don't want the hassle. If a chef orders a hamburger from McDonald's, it doesn't mean that they can't cook or that they think that McDonald's is 3-star Michelin dining; they might just want to eat something quick and don't want the hassle to make something super special themselves. I don't use vim because I can't bother to have to learn all the commands (I have poor memory due to disability, so I'm bad at remembering commands and stuff like that). It's not that I'm stupid or that I can't learn stuff (I'm an engineer after all), but I'd rather use nano (or heaven forbid, kate --- yeah, I know, I like GUI's /gasp/ haha).

[@ChrisHilgenberg]

SO is the extreme example, where they've made a combination of a wiki and reddit where you are punished (as a user) for bad or repeat questions, despite more often than not a question you needed was asked a while ago with no answers and was auto-closed. The way the controls operates encourages this behavior.

[@VirendraBG]

Appreciate your patience for putting such a long comment. Everything is as I wanted to mention here.

[@oliver_twistor]

@@ChrisHilgenberg I agree. I don't think the gamification StackOverflow has made is conducive to a good learning environment. The strange thing is that I only have had rude comments on StackOverflow and not on the other StackExchange sites I use from time to time.

[@mrpirate4100]

Inferiority keeps you fueled to move higher xD

[@alewi443]

It takes more than technical acumen to offer genuine help. It also requires empathy and the ability to meet people where they are. That's one reason I like ChatGPT for basic Q&A when getting familiar with Linux. It does a great job of answering basic questions and doesn't bring an ego or judgment to the table.

[@knight_lautrec_of_carim]

>posts video on how he's sad he wasted his 20s online >proud arch user lmao

[@katokianimation]

He felt inferior for using the wrong Linux (lmao) Video should be retittled to What nolife arch users think when you ask a question.

[@Tyler-Kearney]

If anyone unironically says “real Linux users use arch,” just keep 2 things in mind. 1. Gentoo is harder 2. Linus Torvolds, the creator of Linux, uses Fedora. I love arch, but I do still occasionally like to sit back and enjoy the nice simplicity of mint, fedora, pop os, or….. very occasionally, Ubuntu

[@Xaito]

Does Torvalds use Fedora? I seem to remember him saying in an interview that he thinks Distros are useless and he just installs from scratch or something along those lines?

[@Tyler-Kearney]

@@Xaito even the Fedora wiki says that Linus uses Fedora. simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(operating_system)

[@nathanacreman632]

Ubuntu is Garbo tho, just use debian instead or mint etc

[@Xaito]

@@Tyler-Kearney of course Fedora would say that. I need an unbiased source. ;) jk. I don't care either way.

[@escapetherace1943]

@@Xaito Fedora is ultra cringe, imagine using a distro put together by a bunch of sweaty fat "le hackermans" who named their distro Fedora. The real sad truth is the devs behind ALL Linux distros are severely incompetent, they can't get drivers to work or UI text scaling / multiple monitors to work, most of the time you can't just right click things and make shortcuts etc. It's like they are all blind to the quality of life stuff that makes most people use windows but in reality I think they are actually too dumb to code what is probably simple. Thankfully some fresh life has come into some projects, most likely the people behind it are younger, the older Linux devs are confrontational crybabies

[@maniek86]

As a Linux user (here Debian user), I often find it disheartening when people engage in heated debates about which distribution is the best. In my opinion, it is important to remember that Linux is all about freedom and choice. Each distribution has its own unique strengths and appeals to different users based on their preferences and requirements. All distros cater to different user needs, be it stability, customization or simplicity. It is wide array of choices that makes someone choose some distro. Furthermore, it is essential to recognize that what may be ideal for one person may not necessarily be the same for another. Some may prioritize user-friendly interfaces and out-of-the-box functionality, while others may prefer a minimalistic setup. There is literary no universal "best" distro; there is only what suits each user's needs and preferences. Also about beginner Linux users, it is even more important to emphasize the freedom of choice and the need for supportive communities. Starting out on Linux can be hard especially for those who are new to it. We should not push beginners towards "hard" distros like with a dismissive "just use Arch lol because I use it". Also, it's important to remember that learning in the Linux world, like in any other domain, requires curiosity, exploration, and asking questions. These questions could be "stupid" or "too simple," but we should remember that no question should be dismissed or belittled. Everyone starts their Linux journey with different levels of knowledge and expertise and we should respect them. Being disrespectful in forums (like you showed in the video) just makes the generally Linux community or some distro community look unwelcoming and discourages users from using Linux or that distro. Also it's funny how people are already fighting in comments about "X distro is the best". Seriously I'm at this point getting bored of distro fights.

[@aiexzs]

i think that argument gets even more discredited once you realize they are all basically the same os with a different de

[@maniek86]

@@aiexzs Not actually only DE, but other software too like package manager, preinstalled stuff and more. Also yeah, they can be counted as the same OS (running under Linux Kernel)

[@PJ-om2wq]

Yeah but Debian is the best distro 😊

[@bryanteger]

I think it's important to remember Linux is the kernel.

[@maniek86]

@@bryanteger I just simplifed term Linux, but yeah

[@HinDoongEe]

At least the Mint community is pretty friendly

[@FenrirGrayhound]

Yes that's true, and it works too ! Pretty helpful when I moved to Mint

[@johndotcue]

Honestly Mint has everything a regular Windows user needs. The others are just for hobbyists haha

[@Samorutt1324]

I am probably never gonna switch from mint I LIKE IT ALOT!!!!!!

[@CineverseSculpt]

Way too nice man, i love the linux4noobs sub.

[@NeilHaran]

Mint is also very user friendly.

[@hugoedelarosa]

Calling them dumb questions tells me everything I need to know about Arch users. A wiki is kinda useless if a noob doesn’t even know what to put on a search bar.

[@OfficialDJSoru]

100% THIS. Instead of providing a simple link to a tutorial on where and how I can edit the automount script to add additional hard drives, they expect me to find the solution in the huge ass Arch wiki... and don't even tell the name of the page I should look for.

[@kamjohnson6877]

Exactly, like if you think the question is "stupid" (I don't think ppl have stupid questions) just leave a link to the answer and especially if they don't know what terminology to use, they could be lost in search for days

[@user-zf1tu6zw6q]

How do you not know what to search? If you follow the wiki installation guide correctly, then if you get any weird errors copy and paste it in google and someone will have an answer

[@maincraf-yk5qq]

@@kamjohnson6877 "Do lesbians have periods?"

[@sonjamikaela1277]

@@maincraf-yk5qq not all of them

[@liquidmobius]

Almost all Linux forums are notorious for being toxic. And many of the members don't just simply "volunteer their time for free" as if they're just being altruistic. Instead, they're there simply to be toxic to new users behind the anonymity of a username and keyboard. There's a big difference. People are always going to ask stupid questions. Just because you've used "fill in the blank" distro for X number of years doesn't give someone the right to jettison decency.

[@kanji.debian]

People should not be f**ing stupid and ask the same questions all over again that have been answered already, they are lazy to search and want others to solve their problems. Every issue I had with Linux in general I found the solution, because I searched for it and I solved it for myself based on articles/forum posts/wikis/youtube videos. People who are not willing to do this shouldn't be using Gnu/Linux at all, no matter the how user friendly the distro of their choosing is. I would like to use a riced out WM, but I won't spend hours of my time configuring a WM + a system bar program, notification system and system tray, and I won't go to reddit or some forums to ask others to make a config for me like these noobs who ask the same basic questions, so I will stick to using a DE

[@bswill5077]

​@@kanji.debian lmao we found one

[@kanji.debian]

@@bswill5077 "lmao" I don't even daily drive Linux, I use Windows and macOS mainly, Linux (RHEL based, not Arch btw) is just a secondary OS for me. As I mentioned in my previous comment, this behavior refers to the repetitive inquiries that mirror existing discussions or topics, not just on Linux forums, but on every other forum and it is exasperating.

[@Aitiustus0]

The unfortunate disconnection amongst Linux users in my experience is centered on one idea. The effort to communicate issues effectively enough for another user to solve the issue is typically equivalent to the effort necessary to resolve the issue in isolation. By the time I know enough to ask for help... I've figured out my problem. I'd prefer to be able to just ask for help but in all honesty if you look at Linux forums vs Mac or Windows, Linux forums are the only places where you can usually follow for meaningful advice. The best advice I ever got from another OS's forum was how to get into that particular PC's bios, which I needed to do to install Linux.

[@chlorobyte_projects]

@@kanji.debian Ah yes, gatekeeping. I do agree that people should really try to find solutions to their problems before creating a new thread. I do not agree that it should be a barrier to using Linux. This isn't a problem exclusive to Linux - basically any time you go to a forum asking for help, ideally you have tried to solve it yourself already, and if you're still asking, provide as much information as possible so people can actually help you.

[@HyperDroids]

Terry A Davis: "An idiot admires complexity; a genius admires simplicity". Few things to note: 1. Few Linux professionals actually use Arch, choosing Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, RedHat and even Ubuntu over it because the latter are generally more consistent in their reliability and compatibility, in turn improving workflow and user experience. What defines a man is not his tools of choice, but rather his skills in spite of them. 2. For bragging rights, Gentoo is more difficult than Arch, and Arch can be installed automatically using Archinstall or ArchTitus, completely simplifying the process. 3. There's nothing special about Arch in of itself other than the availability of slightly different, new and experimental software packages, which can be entertaining to try out, but certainly aren't ideal for the vast majority of people to daily drive.

[@Parker8752]

I never got the point of bragging about which linux distro you use. I daily drive arch because I like having a rolling release, access to the AUR, and a primarily terminal based work flow, preferring a tiling window manager that I can launch from the console should I need it rather than automatically booting into a graphical environment. I have had the occasional blip in reliability that I might not have had from other distros, but they're rare. Other people use mint or ubuntu because they work pretty much right out of the box and have a desktop environment that they're already familiar with. We have different priorities, and I'm glad that a distro exists that provides the experience I want out of the box and another provides the experience they want out of the box. I just wish the beginners' experience in Linux were smoother - especially in the terminal. The man pages are (mostly) OK, but you need to know what to look for before you can actually read one...

[@georgesb3388]

I am a former Arch user, but I switched to Ubuntu because the rolling release model doesn't work for me. I make music and it's important for me to be able to get an idea out of my head before I lose it. If I want to record a session but can't because my system is broken and I have to load a restore point then there is a good chance that I'll have lost the idea by the time I get things back up and running. Arch breakages aren't as bad as they say, but they are still a lot more common than on a point release distro. Some of the software I rely on (such as pipewire) is quite modern and in my experience building a frankendebian machine usually isn't a good idea if you don't want dependency hell. Hence why I ended up on Ubuntu - I have a task to get done and Ubuntu is the best tool for the job. Arch has its uses but it is not good for every task, and not everybody uses their computer for the same thing.

[@Ethorbit]

There's this annoying misunderstanding Linux people have of Arch where they think using Arch automatically makes you an experienced user. The only two things you need to use Arch is the ability to read and a basic understanding of Linux (which the latter really is optional because the wiki explains everything anyway). I switched from Windows and went straight to Arch Linux with no idea of what I was doing, yet had a fully functioning system within hours. The installation guide is very well made and basically answers any questions one could have. I've heard smooth brains tell me that I should "already know Debian well because you used Arch Linux", as if using Arch somehow is supposed to make me a Linux professional... Also there's nothing wrong with using Ubuntu, Debian, whatever. They're all Linux distros, who cares? Just use the one that you are the most happy and productive with. Shaming others for what distro they use is so silly and pointless and acting like you are superior to others merely because you use Arch is so far off from reality. Also just wanna add that while most people who say things like this are indeed just meming and poking fun, there are definitely those who aren't kidding when they act this way. All in all, I'm not really ever mad about this stuff because it's so trivial and the Arch community is actually quite friendly and helpful.

[@frandor]

It seems like the only people who really act like Arch is some elite distro are people who don't use it LOL

[@Seven71987]

Finally a kind Archie. My fun slang word for arch user.

[@node3573]

I remember being referred to the wiki, finding the information I needed was literally missing, and being told that missing information on the wiki was "user error" on my part. I moved on to other distros after that.

[@frandor]

This is the correct response to not being able to read the wiki congratulations

[@Paras-ot2qo]

@@frandor i mean still better than using trash like arch , hopefully he switched to debian or windows

[@QoraxAudio]

@@Paras-ot2qo MacOS 😂

[@GoldenGrenadier]

My favorite part of the arch wiki is when there's a guide for setting something up and one of the steps is just a link to the main page of some config file with no guidance on what to put in said config file. I love my arch system but the wiki is absolutely not all it's cracked up to be. It simply does not contain or link to the prerequisite knowledge to use it.

[@node3573]

​@@frandor I know how to read a wiki. I use the wikis for other distros just fine. It was the Arch Linux community's fault for not keeping their wiki updated and directing users to pages with missing information. The people I talked to were too lazy to even look at the wiki themselves to see what I was talking about. Like you, they immediately assumed I hadn't tried or was lying. Assumptions like that are what makes the Arch Linux community actually toxic. In case you're wondering, it was when they changed the installation process to be more minimal. The wiki only contained documentation for the old method of installation. Your presumptuous response only reminds me that I made the right decision to reject Arch. You guys need to learn to admit when you're wrong.

[@debasishraychawdhuri]

Even the elite community needs new members. Being an asshole is not justified no matter how elite you are. No one is questioning why Arch is not user-friendly, people are questioning why the people are not people-friendly.

[@r0yce]

Show me an example of arch people being unfriendly.

[@TheVincentKyle]

@@r0yce Here's a non-toxic way of replying: "I haven't experienced that. Do you have any examples of this behavior?"

[@finoderi]

@@TheVincentKyle There is nothing toxic in cutting bullshit and getting straight to the point.

[@TheVincentKyle]

@@finoderi Go ahead and try that attitude in the business world, friend. I'll wait.

[@finoderi]

@@TheVincentKyle I'm in a happy position where I can afford to not give a single fuck about business world. I don't earn much but not dealing with idiots worth a lot in and of itself.

[@favor_exe]

i think a lot of the time the rtfm posts come off as more toxic than they are intended. rtfm is a fairly important mindset to have when using a distro like arch. a lot of people come to ask questions expecting something they can copy/paste into terminal to fix everything, which in a lot of cases can be done. But if you don't learn what you are pasting and why, you are bound to run into more issues. That said, there is a lot of toxicity mixed into the meme of the arch community.

[@friedrichdergroe9664]

It's all in the attitude. 1) This is a quick example on how to use dd, and for greater understanding, please read the manual on it. 2) You dumb phuck, RTFM on the use of dd and stop wasting our time. (1) will engender more understanding and make our community appear more friendly. (2) will push a lot of beginners (and others) away and give our community a bad smell. The choice is yours.

[@oliver_twistor]

That's true. What people answering questions often don't get is that it's not about _what_ you say, it's about _how_ you say it. The toxicity I've encountered myself has never really been about what people say (which often is good factual answers), it has been how they have said it. There is a huge difference in tone between answering a typical poor question e.g. "My program crashed. What is wrong?" from a first-time poster this way: "Can't you f'ing read the question guidelines in the sticky?" and this way: "Hi! Welcome to the forums! In order for us to better help you, you will need to explain your problem in more detail. There are question guidelines in a sticky post that I encourage you to read before posting." The first type of answer would probably lead to that newbie being discouraged from ever engaging with the community again, and maybe they would also avoid e.g. Arch altogether, feeling stupid and inferior. The other type of answer says pretty much the same thing as the first, but in a much more friendly tone. That answer would encourage the questioner to go back and read up on how to ask better questions and want to stay in the community. They would also learn much more. A newbie doesn't know that you have answered the same "stupid" question 20 times today already. To them, the question is new. It isn't about having to cater to poor questions and lazy people, it's about not being rude and have a positive attitude. All too often I get the impression from forums that many people there don't seem passionate about sharing knowledge or aren't keen about newcomers joining the community. If they don't like sharing knowledge, why are they on forums in the first place?

[@finoderi]

@@oliver_twistor And pretty soon the whole forum will be cluttered with pretentious dancing rituals someone else will have to sort through in search for actual answers to questions.

[@oliver_twistor]

@@finoderi Don't rude and patronising comments about how to read and search also clutter up the forums? What I mean is, people aren't required to answer if they don't want to. I would personally prefer having my question unanswered than quickly answered by someone who is rude to me without actually answering the question. And by the way, asking for clarification and being pleasant while doing so is neither pretentious nor unhelpful. People who ask questions already feel stupid and embarrassed for not understanding, and they publicly show their ignorance. Many would feel very vulnerable at that stage. The way to respond to someone like that is to show compassion and to be gentle. Have you thought about why people who give lectures tend to begin their answers to audience questions with "Great question!"? It's not because they necessarily think it's a great question; it might be a "stupid" question. But the lecturer want to show compassion and validate the person who's asking the question. How would you feel if you asked a question at an Arch conference, and the lecturer chuckled mockingly and said "Look at this guy, wnat a total moron! They don't even know X. Please stop wasting my time!". It would probably be your last question at that conference, wouldn't it? And you would probably feel a mixture of embarrassment and frustration. And you would be right. You would also be right to think the lecturer is an arrogant and self-centered prick.

[@finoderi]

@@oliver_twistor > Don't rude and patronising comments about how to read and search also clutter up the forums? They absolutely do, and people who post them usually are reminded about Arch CoC. > I would personally prefer having my question unanswered than quickly answered by someone who is rude to me without actually answering the question. That's true. But giving non-answers is not a norm on Arch forums. > The way to respond to someone like that is to show compassion and to be gentle. First of all they need their problems solved, pleasantries are optional. > It's not because they necessarily think it's a great question; it might be a "stupid" question. But the lecturer want to show compassion and validate the person who's asking the question. Yes, and most of the times it looks fake. And sometimes you hear a question that makes you think about things you haven't thought about before and come to interesting conclusions. And in that case you may genuinely say the question is great. Without pretending and lying to make someone comfortable. > How would you feel if you asked a question at an Arch conference... I don't go to conferences and I don't even use Arch as my main distro. It's installed on my father's PC and on a small VPS. I don't think it's the best distro in the world, just too lazy to change anything. As for your example, there is a huge spectrum between getting a rude non-answer and getting a validating and inspiring non-answer. And there is an actual accurate answer to the question asked in there somewhere.

[@manwithstds7503]

Never ask an arch user what the age of consent be according to them.

[@koalakakes]

you can usually tell by the little cartoon girl in their profile picture

[@desktorp]

16

[@midnightchurningspriteshaq8533]

@desktorp I laughed at the 16 likes followed by your comment from the comment before you. Well played.

[@aleisterlavey9716]

"Agtschually she's a 5000 year old demon in the body of a 5 year old girl...." 😂

[@Ormodius3751]

it should be 5

[@BrocksJellyFilledDoughnuts]

As an artist who’s recently dipped my toes in the tech community, the comparison is almost night and day. Most artists are very understanding and sympathetic to beginners, where it seems techies are more harsh and gatekeep-ish. Just something I noticed.

[@TOTU]

Literally though. I been using Ubuntu on one of my laptops for a while (Im a Artist too btw) and my ass got deep fried by arch users who been using linux for 10+ years. They also hate people who use both Windows and Linux by saying "Why you still use windows when you got the heaven of linux?" Like bro, In the art community one may be using multiple mediums and be accepted, but in tech its always who is using the more superior software. Its annoying. Sorry I dont want to spend 10 hours in the terminal just because a non stable update ruined all my configs.

[@redcoder09]

Interestingly, that also seems to line up with the nature of both: Art is, usually, a very creatively driven process. It's very nonlinear; change this, tweak that, make this a different color, whatever looks the best. Coding and tech, though, are both on the opposite side of the spectrum when compared to art. While art is, by nature, creatively driven, coding and tech are both very, very linear. If you have a problem, it will ALWAYS be solvable. (Not that that's different in art, it's just much more pronounced in coding and tech.) I wonder if creativity has a tie back to social skills and general empathy, or if the parallels are purely coincidental.

[@juniuwu]

​@@redcoder09 >"Coding and tech are both very linear" ??? This just shows you have no experience whatsoever in actual coding or software development. Creativity is absolutely necessary to be a good software developer, not every case or problem is going to have an already built solution ready for you to use. Try architecting even a medium sized original project without having creative skills and see how well that goes for you.

[@redcoder09]

@@juniuwu First off, great username. I wasn't trying to put down either of these roles. I am neither of these, anyway, I just do them both sometimes. I apologize if the generalization I made was incorrect. I tried basing my review of these fields off of everything I've heard. It's entirely possible I got the generalizations wrong, and I can attest to not having the experience necessary to fact-check them. I wasn't trying to say that coding and tech are ALWAYS linear, nor was I saying that art can never be linear as well. I realize that these aren't black and white. There can be overlap with both of these things. It's just that, generally, I view art as creative and coding and tech as linear. Creativity can tie into anything, really. But, the question becomes if it makes up the majority of the field in question. My opinion may be incorrect. Yours may differ. I was simply trying to make an observation that I believed may be true.

[@ëOeOeOeOeOez]

​@@TOTU "With software there are only two possibilities: either the users control the program or the program controls the users." -Richard Stallman. Linux gives you freedom, while windows don't care about you, they just want money. That's why the hatred.

[@baarcium]

I've been using Arch Linux for about 5 years. I've filled my system with "frustration-clutter" to a point I didn't understand what was going on anymore, so I recently decided to go for a fresh install. Solving a problem is really spending 2 days to "rtfm" and then you add a couple of lines in the appropriate file(s) in 2 minutes, once everything clicks in your head. But it takes time to comprehend what you read, and I often feel dumb for I didn't figure out "obvious" things earlier. I think a lot of new users become overwhelmed with all the information they need to go through, so they just ask the dumb questions at one point.

[@MorphicStates]

My favorite part of that system is when you get so advanced that you can build the nuclear reactor from scratch. But then a stupid simple problem comes up and you're totally baffled by how to solve it because you've grown so accustomed to nuking everything. Why won't my damn monitor work. Your kid comes over and pushes the power button for you. 🤣

[@EliWay-mu9qz]

Yeah even with just basic installation of Arch via the wiki guide, its like “so you want to install arch, well here’s every known bit of knowledge ever recorded about display managers, network management, etc.” The information is *too* robust if you’re looking to do anything in a timely manner lol. Thank god for KZbin tutorials.

[@SquirtingSquirrel]

​@@MorphicStates can i build nuclear reactor in chroot?

[@MorphicStates]

@@SquirtingSquirrel You need the branch mod for chnuke, but sure. 😉 Just don't let your kid hit that little red button.

[@brostenen]

Learning by doing... The only way forward.

[@Wiikifox-ho4nf]

I'm personally a debian user, but make extensive use of the arch wiki and forums. No distro fits everyone and nothing (or at least too little) stuff is distro specific. Like, you can be an Ubuntu user, and enjoy flexibility and customization, and there's where Linux really shines: you may have started with something, but you can turn it into almost anything, and benefit from everywhere. I might use debian, but with a look at my pc it looks like arch. You can use arch and enjoy GNOME. What people should see is the Linux flexibility, and no distro wars, but distro compensations and complementation.

[@MODEST500]

It's okay to ignore the comments of new users and not reply at all than replying with a stupid comment tbh . Even if we are being asked a stupid question. Replying doesn't costs . Or does it ? Part of learning is asking questions and the person who is in the process doesn't knows which are good or bad questions. If he knew it he wouldn't be learning it . This is nothing but narcissistic behaviour . Always help out the beginners , or just ignore the comment (ignoring the comment doesn't costs a dime) . and hopefully people will society a bit tad better.

[@TheDenOfTimbsStudios]

Amen, too bad some people can't put their ego down for five seconds to help someone, and then they wonder why people like me buy a M1 Macbook.

[@matzcontreras]

It is good not to help always, it is better to be self-taught even if the learning curve is higher you have to ask the specific question to find errors, I am self-taught I have spent days solving basic errors, and that has given me the experience and way to learn, and sometimes I run into those comments of simple doubts that cost me nothing at the time compared to big problems and I try to ignore comments because I think they do not take the time to use the search engine, they just want to save the work.

[@MODEST500]

@@matzcontreras well i would always prioritise to save time, nothing bad and yes sometimes you want to encourage that behavior in order to become resourceful and not just spoon feed yourself everything. but that still doesnt justifies this egomaniacal behaviour. people always have a choice to not reply. just ignore them and dnt answer, or maybe create a thread of beginner questions, the people who are trying to help are only helping themselves becoz teaching also solidifies one's own understanding. this is why people who coach earn so much

[@josh1234567892]

Honestly, I have never had a negative interaction with someone else on the arch forums. You guys must be asking some stupid shit if this is how people react to your posts. Arch is pretty transparent with the kind of distro it is. If you're asking basic questions like "what is rm" and "what is a shell" then just use a different distro? This has nothing to do with people not wanting to help. A person asking those kinds of questions are simply just not going to get very far. Seriously, I have not had a single negative interaction on Arch. In fact, I have had way worse of an experience on StackOverflow. Phrase your questions better, and do more research before asking a question. More often than not, I'm able to figure out the solution to my question as I am typing it out.

[@TheDenOfTimbsStudios]

@@josh1234567892, still is not excuse to be a prick to people.

[@haroldcruz8550]

As a lifetime Arch user, I lament that we indeed have a very toxic community. It's night and day compared to how helpful and open the Ubuntu community is, which is ironic cause Canonical is in the bottom of my list of Linux distributors.

[@rockrevenchy]

honestly, the community is why I stick with ubuntu based distros, I like how people still reworks ubuntu in better ways like popOS, mint, tuxedo, zorinos, etc.

[@damianateiro]

It will be because Ubuntu and its derivatives have always been the most user-friendly and the fact that there is a company behind some forums makes them much more pleasant than those of a community that almost does not review these and whose distro the majority Those who use them think they are a big deal for copying and pasting commands

[@counterleo]

BSD users feel superior to Gentoo users, which feel superior to Arch users, which feel superior to Debian/RedHat users, which feel superior to Ubuntu/Fedora users, which feel superior to macOS users, which feel superior to Windows users... It's a whole food chain!

[@damianateiro]

@@counterleo lmao imagine that just by using Free BSDcuck you believe you are superior to someone who uses gentoo xd, Alpine, void and Slackware are the same in level of difficulty as free bsd the only thing different is that the latter has worse hardware support and many fewer packages xddd

[@counterleo]

@ShadowWolf2023-yp5zg Yeah but Apple has great responsiveness despite not having the best tech specs "on paper", has the "it just works" attitude, but also a POSIX compliant OS and shell where you can customise just about anything if you know how to. Basically like a Linux that also knows how to use a printer. I also like to think of Homebrew as some sort of AUR for Mac, which is kind of cool. I used to be a big open-source software nerd and vocal Linux enthusiast until I saw my PhD supervisor and the whole research team were all using Macs, and they are ten times smarter than me... The stigma against Apple only came from second-year students who can't even code C++ without plenty of memory leaks, so who cares about their opinion... And after all it makes sense, who wants to be compiling drivers just to use the projector at an international research conference? I agree with you though, that Mac was never about more security.

[@moderator_man]

"Arch Linux isn't that hard, it only requires patience, reading and a lot of manual configuration" The definition of "difficult" is: Requiring considerable effort or skill; not easy to do or accomplish. The definition of "hard" is: Requiring great effort or endurance. Arch Linux is, by definition, both difficult and hard.

[@AndyK1970]

As someone who downloaded his first Linux kernel from the Helsinki University FTP server and compiled it in DOS, I guess I don't need to consider myself a newbie. As an IT professional who considers an OS a tool to get a job done, I won't touch Arch for the simple reason that too much time is spent trying to figure out how to make it do what I need. I use a bunch of distributions based on what I need it to do, but one of my considerations is always how quickly I'd be able to solve a production impacting issue, and Arch always loses out in that consideration.

[@RmNrIHRoZSBDQ1AK]

I disagree. There is no one distro over the other, every linux is the same. If you're saying you use different distros for different purposes it's because they come with different configurations out of the box. Instead of knowing how to use an app, you're wasting brainpower maintaining vendor specific knowledge about the distros.

[@xybersurfer]

@@RmNrIHRoZSBDQ1AK saying that a difference in software is the same as a difference in configuration, is questionable

[@marcs9451]

Arch is actually very straightforward in that regard, it is quite loyal to upstream so you don't need to change stupid vendor configs, if anything these more barebones distros that do just enough for the system to work while leaving most things as they were intended by the original developer are considerably easier to use

[@ahmedifhaam7266]

@@RmNrIHRoZSBDQ1AK you had a point, at some point.

[@ahmedifhaam7266]

ay OG, it's just for different people different things.

[@SvalbardSleeperDistrict]

In my experience, the problem of toxic/unhelpful/unwelcoming attitude is seen in all distro forums, but it's the exception rather than the norm thankfully. Granted, I haven't dealt with the Arch community yet, but in forums of ~10 different distros, window managers and apps that I've requested help in during my time of learning Linux, I've come across that issue almost everywhere. And the issue is mostly with the assumption that if you read manuals, you will clearly get things right. Which is often not as simple as that, because those manuals are written in a language that assumes you already have a certain degree of understanding of things. When I first started experimenting with installation and ricing of window managers and panels, and I looked at e.g. i3/Polybar manuals, there were instructions there that used terms I did not know the meaning of (e.g. "add a bar boostrap routine to config" - what is bootstrap? What exactly do I type to I add it there?, etc). There is a lack of basic manuals that will explain what the basic things mean (and especially how syntaxes work), before you tell a newb to "do X in Y file". Then there are also things that aren't mentioned anywhere in manuals because they are specific to every user's situation, and you can't realise what the problem is until you brainstorm with actual people. e.g. when I was first trying to make icons work as Polybar workspace titles instead of names/numbers, I did everything the two manuals (for i3 and Polybar) said, but I was getting squares instead of icons as results. I was given some hints on Reddit but it still wasn't working, and then while I was in conversation with another user, they suggested I try a different font, and that fixed it. Neither manual had mentioned anything about icons possibly not working with some fonts, and your head is so loaded with different possibilities of the source of the problem being linked to some string in these new configs/apps you are learning that you probably will not think of something like that. People are already taking a lot of initiative and spending a lot of time from their lives to learn Linux. Let's not make it even harder for them and have clear and newb-friendly introductions to things, so we can grow the FOSS alternative to the corporate software model.

[@unkown34x33]

I can confirm... a guy asked a question about the arch on the steam deck, they literally said "rtfm" or *google yourself, stop making us your problems* I'm literally like dude... he never used arch before, he can't find anything, or he just thought it was better to ask "the pros"

[@katokianimation]

Nobody is forcing them to answer noob questions. You could assume that begginers will act like begginers. In any field, people are so overwhelmed at first that they will even ask if the sky is blue or not. We were all there. Except when I asked noob questions with my broken English as a 16-year-old on Windows and Blender forums, people weren't unuseful jerks, so I didn't quit. If you call somebody stupid, they won't quit being "stupid." Instead, they will look forward to the place where they are treated with dignity.

[@crazymcgee3604]

Those Arch forum posters had better get their emotions in check - the rise of deck computers, coupled with the rise of SteamOS 'doppleganger' distros like ChimeraOS and Bazzite are going to create a lot of brand new Linux users who haven't the slightest clue about what to do when something goes awry. Truly, if someone made a post on, say, a soldering forum that I found annoying in its ignorance (which I wouldn't since I love soldering and recommend everyone try it at least once) then I wouldn't say anything...let the silence be it's own answer.

[@jpdub45]

The most toxic community I've found thus far has to be the Garuda Linux forums. The devs are straight up hostile and are very quick to blame you or your "ancient hardware" for their terrible optimization. I don't remember what it was exactly, but last year i went to their forum looking for help with something, provided logs and as detailed an analysis i could, and i was met with not even RTFM, but "upgrade your hardware" "how dare you insinuate we aren't perfect" etc. By a top maintainer nonetheless 🙄

[@finoderi]

Don't use Arch-based distros, that alone will solve many problems you may have. Pure Arch most likely doesn't have them. It like Ubuntu compared to Debian but much worse.

[@luigigrabspam4596]

@@finoderi The only Arch based distro I never had an issue with was EndevourOS, but yeah I completely agree that most of the genuine toxicity and bugs are going to come from those communities and their crappy integration of Arch, and not providing the user the tools to actually use their and maintain their system. You are usually better off using just plain Arch and going through the learning process of setting it up yourself. Or go to an actual point release distro that has good support and everything just works out of the box. I still have a soft spot for Linux Mint and Cinnamon for this reason 😄

[@scheimong]

​@@luigigrabspam4596 agreed. Endeavour is great, because it's essentially just Arch with a few sensible defaults without the branding. And the direct consequence is it attracts users who actually want Arch for its great features rather than the bling (a.k.a. people who actually have important things to do and don't tend to have a huge ego), so you end up with a much nicer community.

[@chaoticpanda6272]

Yeah because one dum dum asked where the application menu is like we have in windows. Why the fck he was using arch based linux when he didn't know how to operate the desktop?

[@finoderi]

@@scheimong You completely missed the educational part of manual install. It's an opportunity to learn how your system works. You may take it or not but it's really stupid to be proud of your ignorance.

[@itermercator114]

2:06 I want to point out for anyone, that Arch linux actually has a guided installer, it's just that the wiki refuses to acknowledge it out of elitism, so most people never know about it. I confidentially say that because the getting started page used to be incredibly useful but they gutted it for literally being too useful, only to make it "open 20 tabs under the pretence that you make sure you know everything about this one thing" 4:40 It's not hard to use to be honest, you need a lot of free time to research and do stuff (which is why I only recommend for laptops or VM), but the hard part of Arch is when something breaks (which it does a lot) for some esoteric reason. It's partly why I refuse to use it and use something like Mint instead, bleeding edge is cool but having your computer be kaputt and spending 2 weeks fixing it, isn't cool. 5:35 Yea that's fair, I think the elitism kind of makes it sound like they are calling you retarded, but in reality it's different things for different people. I think the most eye-opening part is when someone has a massive elitism-boner for Arch, often them saying "You aren't cut out for Arch" often means "I have way too much free time". What you said was fine by the way, very nice way of explaining what's actually meant.

[@TrueDetectivePikachu]

True, and there's a lot of Arch-based distributions that make the installing and even customization easy while also keeping things simple for those who want to tinker. Archlabs, Garuda Linux and EndeavorOS to name a few. And lets not forget Manjaro, I think its a good option for beginners.

[@deepspacecow2644]

Yeah, U got more useful info from watching a KZbin arch tutorial rather than the wiki. The wiki install guide is quite unintuitive. It's like it expects you to know linux already

[@jondoe6608]

@@TrueDetectivePikachu agreed with most of it except the part about Manjaro. Don't recommend it to new people, its easy to install but not easy to maintain for a beginner.. Something like Mint is way better for beginners.

[@TrueDetectivePikachu]

@@jondoe6608 U got a point there. Mentioned Manjaro because it was my second or third distro when I was a newbie. I can't fully remember if I had any distro specific issue tho. I was studying advanced programming back then so that would definitely cause some bias from my part

[@anakinB11]

wiki acknowlaged the guided installer many years ago

[@prottentogo]

the problem is that as a total beginner I often can't even describe the problem I'm having when searching for stuff

[@avarise5607]

Why pick something explicitly not for beginners then?

[@Bartosz-q3b]

What is wrong with you I use arch btw

[@johnwt7333]

Then why bother? Farming can also be fulfilling. Or teaching (those who can't do, teach)

[@Bartosz-q3b]

@@johnwt7333 then go farm

[@danduby8416]

It's totally ridiculous to refuse to help someone just because they don't do the research themselves. It's certainly no sweat off an Arch user's butt to answer questions if they know the answer, that's what forums are for. I'm an Arch user myself BTW, I just don't bother with the forums because of a large part of the community.

[@oliver_twistor]

It's so sad to see that some of the rude answers would take more time to write than a proper answer. I agree with you that it's unreasonable to expect people on forums to not ask questions, essentially. I rarely use forums due to the toxicity. I think the forum elitists have scared away quite a few people that might have become passionate user of that particular OS, program or technology, but because of the toxicity they have stayed away. The community have certainly lost a number of potentially valuable members there.

[@AbteilungsleiterinBeiAntifaEV]

No absolutely not. Helping one lazy dumbass encourages more lazy dumbasses, which leads to knowledgeable users either wasting their resources on paraphrasing wiki articles for each dumbass individually instead of helping someone with an actual problem, or it leads to them burning out and not helping people anymore at all. When you assist these help vampires further than sending them a link to the appropriate wiki entry, you're harming the entire community.

[@finoderi]

It's totally ridiculous to waste everybody's time. Ever heard of help vampires? Or morons who try Arch for holidays and wipe it out to try something new and exciting? The receive help on forums, finally get everything running and then just move to the next shining thing. Why should anybody help them?

[@inputimmersion9577]

@@finoderi Because the answers leave evidence for future users who need help. Why would you be on a forum designed to help people and not actually help them? Because you're a neckbeard who is shit in real life so hangs about online to be validated.

[@keiretsu1]

​@@finoderi If it's such a waste of your time, just don't answer it and move on. Someone else more willing to help will come along and help them. You don't need to patronize someone simply for asking questions about something new they're trying.

[@lachicadesistemas]

Good video. In my experience as a systems admin and open source spokeswoman, I can tell you this: My first distro was slackware, circa 1998. I did my good share of distro hopping in my early days of my linux user career, but once I was comfortable enough, I stuck with debian for years until adulthood where I permanently switched to redhat-fedora-centos (now rocky) I guess that the toxicity is something common amongst newbie users with no experience in systems administration or corporate behaviour. People with 15+ years of expertise do not play the distro wars. I don't care what distro you use, I care what distros I choose for my production servers or my workstations. In a nutshell, it's something that I observe amongst newbies but not very much amongst seasoned linux users or admins. I do not like arch, ubuntu, or kali (or any debian clone for that matter) but whoever feels like using any of them, good for them! Greetings.

[@spark9189]

arch linux users are the linux users of linux users

[@michaelashby9654]

As someone who has worked in tech for nearly 30 years, I feel like we have left the golden age, about 5 years ago. I see the code quality dropping rapidly and software design quality also falling. I see packages making major breaking changes for no reason except they just didn't like the naming or other ridiculous reason. It feels like the whole point of software design is lost on this generation. The whole point is to manage change in a way to eliminate or the least reduce breaking change. Instead, the attitude I see is "we wanted to change this library so we did". And then they don't clearly document how to resolve the breaks partly because they never bothered to test compatibility beyond their own packages. Basically, open source software is becoming its own cathedral.

[@AdamPippert]

JavaScript’s culture of endless tools and frameworks that never evolve long enough to be truly mature is a reflection of this inability for software engineering to treat itself with a long term focus like physical engineering disciplines do. Everyone endlessly pokes fun at the ‘dinosaur’ Java apps or monolithic architectures like they’re hopelessly out of date, when in reality they’re the reason we can even have this conversation over a telco network right now.

[@Sammysapphira]

Because this generation doesn't know what it was like before this massive ecosystem of free and open software. They don't know what it was like having literally 0 online resources to program something in 2003 and no point of reference to study in freely open software code. Coding used to be so gate kept it was insane. Now you have tons of zoomers that don't appreciate what they have. The fact that 99% of libraries are totally free and save you from having to code your own highly complex solutions to something. You can just call a method in a free library specifically built to solve your problem and you don't even need 1/50th of the knowledge to build such an efficient enterprise tier method.

[@Wanderer2035]

@@Sammysapphira plus with AI it will now make software development even hundreds of times more easier

[@seeibe]

Code quality dropping? Sorry, you don't know what you're talking about. Yes, we do have issues with ecosystem bloat and the like. But when I look at the actual quality of the code written today, it's extremely clear that it's becoming better over time, as we're figuring out how to build code better. 10-20 years ago, everything had to be OOP and using extremely conceited, over-engineered "patterns" to make ideas fit into the OOP spec. Now we're finally starting to opening up to using the right tool for the job, with languages like TypeScript that allow us to mix and match OOP, functional programing, and other patterns according to the specific needs of an application.

[@Wanderer2035]

Yea I would say code quality is actually getting better. Just compare React today to vanilla JavaScript 20 years ago, it’s night and day difference

[@foznoth]

Never ask a question online. Postulate an incorrect opinion, and someone is guaranteed to correct you. I'm an Arch user, and I'll help anybody I can, but then I'm still learning myself. In IT we are all students first, it changes quickly so we have to keep up.

[@DoomToED]

Idk why, but I see all arch users as fortnite players.

[@QoraxAudio]

I see all arch users as neckbeards.

[@jed4276]

Fortnite players aren't toxic anymore but they are weird

[@DosonTheGreat]

I play RPG maker games.

[@Seven71987]

​@@jed4276at least being weird is funnier which I like and better than toxic

[@jed4276]

@@Seven71987 absolutely

[@gorrumKnight]

I started on the Debian based distros & settled on Arch for my gaming build. I run the laptop on Fedora & the Arch wiki helped me with kernel parameters for my OLED. I found that as long as I ask good questions I always get helpful responses from the Arch community.

[@hsr03]

I, despite using Linux for a few years, consider myself a "noob" user. When I use the system, I want to personalize its appearance a bit, but I also want to just install the softwares and use them with as little headache as possible. The distros I enjoyed using more are Kubuntu, Feren OS, Linux Mint and Zorin OS. I currently use Zorin OS Core on my laptop and Zorin OS Lite on an older laptop, both work great for me, with little to no issues whatsoever, and are very stable.

[@DiogoGDF]

Your channel is so underrated! Top tier linux content, solved many of my issues, and teaches better than most other youtubers (in this sector) out there. Hope you'll grow as you deserve 👌

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Thanks, really appreciate it!

[@YrmiZ]

Yeah, eric is one of my favorite linux tuber.

[@univera1111]

​@@EricMurphyxyz just create a chat Gpt of arch Linux wiki. And everyone will be happy. Why the complaining.

[@r0yce]

I wrote a huge comment but then realized this video addressed more or less everything I wanted to say. P.S: Arch was my first and only distro so even though I may be biased and inexperienced in other distros, I just wanted everyone to know that anybody, absolutely anybody can use arch as a daily driver if they are patient and read through everything. I learned because I had to do trial and error, because I RTFM'd. If I got direct answers I would never learn anything and would have to keep asking forever.

[@davidwayne9982]

THANK YOU. TRUE. I'm just not patient- and reading all that tech stuff just puts me to sleep- doesn't MEAN anything to me.. ha. (the "perks' of getting old I guess.. ha) THANK YOU though- for the TRUTH.

[@CharlieConcepts-pw9ur]

Kind of. But I think that a terminal reliant linux distro can be hard for some folks. Since accessibility features in a lot of systems aren't up to snuff. F in the chat for our dyslexic brothers in arms. Who have repeatedly put in a terminal prompt that was 2 letters off. And smashed their head against the wall in frustration. On that note, I've got to say that the Fedora Dev's have done a lot of good work for accessibility features in Linux. Those dev's are brilliant. And while we've still got a long way to go. The work they've done so far is fantastic.

[@s.i.m.c.a]

the problem is that - do i need to read how to make my system to work or do i need actually use my system for my work? If you have nothing to do but tinker with your OS, yeah - why not

[@finoderi]

@@s.i.m.c.a You need to read to set your system up correctly once and for all. After that you can 'actually 'use it.

[@ahmedifhaam7266]

i could put it even simpler, its exactly as arch manual says, its for people with a lot of free time & interest.

[@ismaeel747]

I used to do that in my work as well. When people asked obvious questions I reply with the relevant page in the manual because it does 3 things, 1) helps them find their answer 2) helps them learn how to find answers themselves 3) helps reduce the number of questions I get.

[@grumpycat_1]

You just need to make sure your documentation is solid and that it actually addresses the issue... Then I believe this approch is the correct one for the reasons you stated... Posting "rtfm noob" is just being a doosh and just clutters up the forum posts so actually finding a solution without re-asking question becomes that much harder.

[@ismaeel747]

@@grumpycat_1 totally agree, I must stress I only did that with things I knew where in the relevant documentation for the question being asked.

[@chloe-sunshine7]

If I ever ask questions on Reddit or anything, it's usually because this is a fresh problem that started because of a new update. If not, I typically failed to properly Google my issue. Sometimes finding the proper keywords is difficult. Especially if your problem is very hard to explain. I always appreciate the people who know where to look for these things pointing me to a wiki page so I can learn how to fix my problem next time. Also, sometimes I get inspiration to try new things that I wouldn't have thought of without the information on that page.

[@chloe-sunshine7]

Note to anyone who posts anything. If you've googled it, and read the manual, or can't find the manual, be sure to include that in your posts! That way people will be more understanding, and see you made an effort to fix your issue.

[@friedrichdergroe9664]

@@chloe-sunshine7 Typically, and especially on StackOverflow, it is very helpful to demonstrate the steps you took. It is actually very helpful in giving others a deeper understanding of the roadblock you are trying to get around. And you will get a lot more help that way.

[@seanfaherty]

I remember looking up stuff before I knew the word “Concatenate “ Good times

[@jonny11bonk]

I remember when I was laughed out by some kids on the forums for using Arch Linux with GNOME. I tried Manjaro and Fedora some time ago, but I settled down with my own solution. I used the archinstall for my first setup and then tried doing the stuff manually. The archinstall was really helpful for me when it came to my keyboard layout and the NVIDIA graphics drivers.

[@comet.x]

that's dumb af. It's a DIY distro for a reason, why not use gnome? Arch is powerful 'cause it's versatile and modular. who cares if you aren't taking the harder way

[@bettercalldelta]

​@@comet.x "you're doing it wrong!!! you're supposed to suffer!!! you can't just install something user friendly because it's a DIY distro!!!!! QUIT HAVING FUN!!!!!!" is basically how that sounds

[@comet.x]

​@@bettercalldelta ye

[@seapunk.mp3]

Sum of this video can be said with quote: "Give someone a fish, you'll feed them for a day. Teach someone how to fish, you'll feed them for a lifetime." Just rtfm

[@Spenito]

I love Arch Linux, and I think playing around with it along with other distros in my younger years played a big role in becoming the programmer that I am today. That being said, in my current life situation I couldn't see myself going through the time and hassle that it takes to get a simple operating system going with Arch. I will absolutely opt for something like Linux Mint that I can get spun up in less than 10 minutes and that just works.

[@vanodon2257]

Everyone knows all gigachads use Artix

[@tentickterror8308]

systemd is fine

[@vanodon2257]

@@tentickterror8308 You trolling

[@folksurvival]

*Alpine.

[@kertjalukse757]

Sigma Ubuntu users (I use Arch btw)

[@I_HopeThatNoOneHasThisName]

Artix user here

[@DarienXeon7]

I started using Arch 2 weeks ago, just by going through the installation process it was hard, cause some issues might be due to hardware incompatibility or similar. I had to go through wiki, forums and videos to find out a lot of things and even repeat the whole process of instalation. I asked like 2 questions and I got the answer right away. Although it is good to get help from more experienced people instead of getting called a noob, it is also good that people stop wanting everything spoonfed to them.

[@CMDRSweeper]

Sadly it is true for some individuals out there regarding Arch. I had this really obscure problem that I couldn't really solve, I got segfaulting when updating the system related to bsdtar. One of the replies I got from one of the snarky ones was a rules quote of "No paraphrasing errors" and a link to the rules. Of course that guy went away and got pretty silent when I posted the Pacman output that had what he thought was paraphrasing literally written out as a pacman error, so quietly into the woodwork he went to never be seen again. I got it fixed, posted what the problem was so the next poor chap at least has a clue of where to go and may even get a snicker in the best case of a rule quoter getting put in his place. My reason for going with Arch was, I grew tired of having to rebuild my systems on every distro upgrade because of breakages, a rolling distro and fresh packages was just too alluring to pass up for my desktops and home servers.

[@cydonyn]

Coming from Slackware, Arch was pretty easy to pick up. Also I would say the Slackware Community can be more toxic than the Arch community (in my experience), IDK, the vibes Slackware Community gave me while using it was much more "Holier Than Thou" than Arch community has been. I think Arch and the Arch community has kind of been poking fun at itself for a long time. I remember when I first looked at Arch it said if I wanted to install it on my Kerosene powered cheese grater, to check the wiki, it was funny and fun, and Arch has always kind of been that way, in my experience.

[@TheMaztercom]

As a new linux user, arch looks like the perfect system for me

[@beckyb9215]

As a front end dev, the problem with answering a technical question is universal to all technical problems. It boils to the open source aspect, where people who are not paid per se for customer service will not generally feel obliged to give you the full customer service experience.

[@grumpycat_1]

This would explain not bothering to answer "stupid" questions... there is no incentive to do so b/c as you said its not paid... but there is a lot of giving stupid, trollish non answers in response to these questions... THats the part i dont get.. If you arn't getting paid to waste your time giving simple RTFM problems why do they waste their time replying... Its not a profit motive issues of open vs. closed source... I get A LOT of bad answers from paid support all the time... But that is as you stated universal to all technical problems... Good help is hard to find and expensive. But replying RTFM to a "stupid" noob question??? ... Why? ... other then flexing on noobs it still WASTES you uncompensated time... Replying rtfm is in my opinion way more useless then asking a dumb rtfm question ... and perhaps second only to getting non answers or "rtfm" from paid support, which is a f-ing infuriating waste of time.

[@matyasmarkkovacs8336]

Imagine seeing yourself as an elite, just because you use Arch...

[@Do_not_at_me_bro]

"It's got a cool logo"

[@Seven71987]

That is what Pride does to you kids.

[@CineverseSculpt]

The distro itself is just a cool kid garbage, the real bosses are Debian, Ubuntu , Fedora, Opensuse, Slackware, Gentoo and so on, Arch as a whole is judt for minimalists.

[@ninjanerdstudent6937]

I think Linux users' toxicity can be compared to the hostile vegans' toxicity. It is probably related to being elitist and knowing more than others.

[@comet.x]

arch linux users having a mental breakdown when they realize gentoo and LFS have users:

[@heroe1486]

People thinking trolls on r/linuxmemes that spams "arch btw" all days are arch users

[@EricMurphyxyz]

Seriously

[@oysteivi]

Arch would have been perfect for me in 1999. These days I run Debian stable so I can just get to doing stuff. The Arch wiki is really great, though.

[@entelin]

I think Arch is good for new Linux users who are keen on really learning how a system is built. LFS and Gentoo are other good options here. I fit into that category a couple decades ago. I recently tried Arch out for a year or so on my main home system, because hey, I'm an elitist, so I should use Arch right? Ultimately I came away fairly unimpressed. As a practical distribution I think it's kind of a joke quite frankly. It likes to break itself, it cannot be safely auto-updated, no selinux profiles. Updates blow away your kernel modules and no grub entries are made for past kernels, which has cause some youtubers to spew out cope like "you must reboot immediately after every update!". So when you update, it often breaks the live system. It's a not a great feeling when you look back to what many linux distros were doing decades ago, and find these basics missing, while youtubers try to spread copium about how it doesn't matter and whatnot. I think Arch is cool, as I said, mainly as an educational tool, when you want to get everything out of the way and build things from scratch. Though I don't really understand why people want to use Arch instead of Gentoo, at least with Gentoo you can get some extra speed out of it. But at the end of the day a lot of work goes into feature complete distros like rhel, ubuntu, fedora, suse and such, and as an individual you *will not* do better, and you'll be missing some of the more difficult to implement wins. Arch does have great documentation though! Just don't think it's for "elitists" I'm quite confident that most elitists have better things to do than re-implement basic distro features. The wider Arch ecosystem, like Manjaro, has done I think more harm than good. The way Arch works is fundamentally not suitable for a general purpose desktop. The future is a smaller stable core distro, plus some combination of sandboxed application packaging and containerization. It sure has hell isn't running random scripts off the AUR...

[@lukethekuya]

Not a tech expert, but from a people perspective, this usually happens when a small community gatekeeps their expert knowledge and wants to keep it to themselves instead of sharing what they have learned to other people. They see themselves as better people due to knowing more than the average man, when in reality it only shows their inflated egos and selfish desires to be better than everyone else. But good thing this doesn't always happen with the majority of communities that I see, so that's that. Morals though, on the other hand...that's a different topic.

[@deleatur]

*_"and wants to keep it to themselves instead of sharing what they have learned to other people"_* BS. Arch Wiki is the most complete existing guide about Linux issues, so cut the cr@p

[@yrmuq]

@@deleatur BS. Archt@rds are the most toxic existing community about Linux issues, so cut the cr@p

[@SuperBES49]

"Not a tech expert" Yeah i can clearly see 😂

[@ratfuk9340]

That's a fair observation but I don't think it applies to the Arch "community". They have the best wiki out there, the people are helpful if you respect their time and at least I haven't seen much unironic elitism. Also using arch doesn't make you an expert in linux at all. If you've used it for a long time you MIGHT have slightly better than average understanding of how SOME things work but it's definitely not some insane achievement and it's not supposed to be that. The point of the arch wiki is to make it as easy as possible for anyone who can read to make their own DIY distro. And the wiki doesn't just apply to Arch, you can use that knowledge for all other distros as well. What I do see is some other "linux community" members making fun of ppl who like to learn new things and new tools. The tendency is to think that anything that's "hard" to pick up isn't worth it and therefore only tryhard losers would learn them so they can lord over ppl. I mean just look at this comment section, it's filled with comments that show this attitude. It's exactly the same attitude some windows/mac users have towards any linux users: "You must be an elitist if you use linux because linux is 'hard' and windows is easy and the only reason to use linux is so you can brag about it". I literally read a comment like that almost word for word today. Similarly within the linux community, using tools like vim/neovim/emacs/tmux/tiling wms etc or distros like arch/gentoo etc and really anything that requires some time investment to learn "must be just so you can brag about it".

[@yrmuq]

@@ratfuk9340 its applies to the Arch "community". They are most toxic Linux community people are ever seen.

[@JR_Basilio]

As a linux noob who actually has arch as first distro (i got conned by my friend) one of the main reason you gotta ask on forums is because you cant even comprehend the wiki

[@grumpycat_1]

Did you read the pre-WIki Wiki .. its the wiki that you need to read before reading the wiki... Ask about it on the forums... someone will be sure to post a link to it or the wiki for the pre-wiki wiki (aka the pre-prewiki wiki)

[@emilianopinto4907]

@@grumpycat_1 por cosas como esta es que arch es lo que es

[@zinovyrozhestvensky3636]

I’m using arch as my first install because it’s supposed to be smaller in size than other distros, might switch to alpine.

[@CineverseSculpt]

Its not meant for daily use tho, keep that in mind.

[@VallThyo]

This is the same thing as Vim users for me. I never got the time and interest to learn it, so I just kept using nano and today I'm way more proficient on using it than Vim, but whenever I mention using Nano and preferring it over Vim, the torrent of shit that results is quite surprising. "OMG, YOU SHOULD STOP USING IT, VIM IS MUCH BETTER, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" and things like that. 😂 😂

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

Nano Forever! ✊ I feel the same. Have you tried Micro? A bit better than Nano but the same... Lol LLAP 🖖

[@favor_exe]

with this I think the issue is more telling someone you prefer one thing over another, but you actually only have experience with one thing. you don't really prefer nano, that's just the one you know. and that opens up the chance of being convinced. that being said, trying to gate-keep and convince people of things like that is mega cringe still.

[@VallThyo]

@@favor_exe I did use Vim, I know the program and what it can do(and even programs based on it like Neovim, or things like DoomEmacs), and I think the idea of different modes is really interesting so you can focus on specific things. But no matter how much I tried, nano always felt more familiar and fitting for me, so I never felt the necessity to actually forgo everything and go to Vim forcefully.

[@N0zer0]

I don't want to be toxic but nobody with self-respect should use nano. If vim is not for you, just go for vanilla Emacs or Micro at least.

[@folksurvival]

@@N0zer0 I use Vim if I need a terminal text editor but Nano is fine.

[@cenewton3221]

The thing about wikis is, while they're great how-to's they have little to offer someone who has encountered a specific error message when trying to run a specific program that was just installed without any errors. Yes, that's what logs are helpful for but they often just give a bit more information. This information is often useful in just doing websearches for specific problems, which usually hits on the same or similar problem someone else has encountered and resolved. Sometimes though, one may find a post mentioning their specific error which never does get answered in the thread. So ya have to keep trying to narrow or broaden searches, using different search engines, etc. I never post questions in forums but often find answers there. The issue with Arch users being how they are is, that sometimes people make assumptions that aren't always true and just say RTFM when RTFM doesn't help at all on a particular problem. In general, someone who asks a very basic & simple question that could be easily answered if they just searched rather than post a question probably deserves an abrupt answer, but rudeness is never called for. Just answer back "The answer is in the wiki," or whatever, no need to be pissy about it. People will take the time to write a snarky response rather than ignoring it altogether. I really think some just scan the forums looking for those things just because they enjoy trolling others.

[@beldinalanti1850]

If I'm going to spend hours installing and configuring a system the way I want, I'm going to do it the right way and use BSD.

[@davidwayne9982]

YES they ARE toxic.. and most DO think they're "special" because they know a few stupid commands etc.. and the ANSWER is RARELY that simple and in the manual directly-- it's usually buried in some long explanation that makes about as much sense to a newbie as GREEK to a hillbilly!! They're self- centered SNOTS- most of them.. some nice ones I've met on here but FEW and far between.

[@Bruces-Eclectic-World]

👍

[@oliver_twistor]

I agree. Writing wikis and manuals is hard. I think one big problem is that in the FOSS community it's often the developers themselves who write the documentation. In my experience, it's rare that developers have the right skillset to properly write understandable and beginner-friendly documentation. Developers aren't communicators. And those elitists with inflated egos on the forums are definitely not communicators. :) The problem with having people who are knowledgeable with e.g. Arch writing a wiki is that they don't write from a newbie perspective. They have forgotten what it was like being a newbie.

[@davidwayne9982]

@@oliver_twistor It's NOT hard-- it's just the viewpoint of the writer.... and as you say they have "forgotten" that viewpoint.. Just need someone that knows HOW TO TEACH-- to write them... I love doing things like that- but don't have the understanding to make it work, so I can't. I have written manuals etc. and can make it simple-- once I know how-- but I don't know how to use it.. I'm running arch now and do some very BASIC stuff-- but I can't remember al lthat coded crap- I have my "cheat sheet" with the various actions and their related commands on it.. Once I learn it- IF I ever do-- writing clear easy instructions is NOT hard at all-- BUT by that time those stupid "every 10 minute" upgrades will have made it all different anyway.

[@torb-no]

15 years ago when I used Arch I found it very friendly actually. The wiki was truly amazing. And I learned so much so fast! I eventually learned I am *not* the kind of person who likes to tinker with config files and promptly got a Mac, but I’m very happy for the time I spent with it.

[@rigen97]

going from Arch all the way to Mac sounds like one hell of a whiplash. But hey, if it works, it works.

[@torb-no]

@@rigen97 I was literally in the process of *yet again* manually generating a wifi key based around some terminal commands and in a fit of rage I thought ”I HAVE EDITED MY LAST CONFIG FILE I JUST WANT SOMETHING THAT WORKS WITH MINIMAL FUSS”. So I guess it was a bit of an over reaction, lol. Anyway, I've been pretty happy with macOS ever since. It's certainly not perfect or even appropriate for all use cases, but it's has worked very well for me at least.

[@subjekt5577]

Same, but it changed over the years....

[@scullyy]

"Something you could figure out with a few minutes of searching" That's exactly why you would ask on a forum. To save yourself that time. If you think the question is stupid then ignore it.

[@AressaKeter]

Arch Linux: "Btw I use... OH GOD WTF IS THAT!!!!" RHEL "By the Gods... they're back." Linux Mint: "Mommy I'm scared" Ubuntu: "It's ok sweetie I won't let them hurt you" Fedora: "RUN!!! F***ING *RUN!!!!* " Gentoo: "NOOOO!!!! NOT AGAIN!!!!!" Kali Linux: "ALL TROOPS GUARD THE WALLS!!! THEY'RE COMIIIIING!!!!!" Slackware: "So... It has begun..." Meanwhile, in the fiery realm of the Dark Lords of the Edge.... FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD: *cackling around a bubbling cauldron*

[@parkurist]

slightly cringe but mildly accurate

[@Tyomak-ov]

kali is used in VMs, so its more likely they use another distro, so it can be a mix of "By the Gods... theyre back ALL TROOPS GUARD THE WALLS"

[@ismbks]

wtf is he larping about

[@fahrezadhia]

i always tried to fix things my self first by searching the internet not asking on forums but i don't want to dive too deep into DIY. That is why i use Ubuntu because it give enough access while still simple to install and use. It also has lots of guides about things in case something breaks.

[@Greenmarty]

Arch Linux is not that difficult as people makes it to be. It has archinstall that makes it easy to install it with any possible desktop environment in under 10 minutes on reasonably fast PC. Then it's basically same as Ubuntu or Mint always use timeshift regularly and install apps from repos [package_manager] [install_command] [package_name] .

[@Senectus]

Gentoo is a good example of how you can be newbie friendly and still have to do everything yourself. Arch has a culture problem, not a technology problem

[@elcapitano75]

I'd rather not be a masochist. I just use Mint.

[@fabiopascucci9477]

I have been using linux for 15 years or more, I love it and I can't do without. Furthermore I love the arch wiki, and I've never had a problem when asking for advice or help to the arch community. If no one could help me, I would look for the solution on my own and thus I gained experience. In a community you can always find an asshole, but you can't generalize

[@johnmurphy4781]

the funny thing is that arch holds your hand a lot and doesn't give you real choice. Pre-compiled binaries, forcing systemd, etc. There was actually a TUI installer a long time back, and they got rid of it to make it run on the command line (at least the last I checked). I've had much much much more breakage when updating an arch system vs. a gentoo system. (This is worded in a flame-baity way, but it's really why I switched off of arch.)

[@bonquaviusdingle5720]

Arch is for the unemployed. Engineers who actually do work on their machines are too tired to deal with it.

[@seandonelan5834]

my personal favorite dialogue between an arch and debian user: "real linux users use arch, why don't you switch?" "i plan on doing work with my machine, thanks for the suggestion though"

[@michalkap9859]

I use Arch Linux due to the ease of installing applications. Almost every Linux app is in AUR Also I recently removed pacman by accident

[@sanjeevan9831]

When I was using Ubuntu, I accidentally removed Nautilus, the file manager by accident. I did fix it but Pain

[@yavvivvay]

It is weird to come to a distro done for tinkering and tweaking and asking simple questions. Arch is not supposed to be a learning place for beginners....

[@tvthecat]

Found the Arch elitist. You do realize that you were a beginner to Arch at one point, right?

[@yavvivvay]

@@tvthecat funny that I don't use Arch (did give it a try at a point. And whaat I meant is general linux knowledge, not particular Arch knowledge. If you are "trying" Arch you probably should be pretty into system administration and general linux distribution stuff - if you aren't, I can't understand why whould you use this time-consumming finnicky do-everything-yourself distro. And if you are you probably won't ask questions that would get answered with rtfm ;) On a side note Arch wiki is a super useful resource for desktop linux even if you don't use Arch. Not checking it before asking a question is borderline criminal.

[@daniell8387]

Lazy gatekeepers solve nothing and if they're so irritated by people asking questions they shouldn't respond at all.

[@finoderi]

It's always easy to lay blame on some evil gate-keepers who prevent you from succeeding.

[@CodyCLI]

@@finoderi Thanks for proving their point.

[@finoderi]

@@CodyCLIHere's another example of great minds sticking together. In this sign thou shalt conquer.

[@parkurist]

@@finoderi You're pretty right, but in rare cases the *only* search results lead to such answers, leaving one to suffer until they find a workaround or an actual solution.

[@finoderi]

@@parkurist Normally children obtain some mental fortitude even before adolescence and don't 'suffer' hearing or reading mean words.

[@nunyabusiness9013]

Most people are smart enough to not want to spend hours doing something that's automatic on other distros. No one cares if you're good at arch.

[@princeofxane]

Very good point.

[@CodyCLI]

Yes.

[@CineverseSculpt]

This.

[@echologname]

I lived in an Ubuntu Server TTY for a while and downloaded the software i needed from the internet with Lynx. So, there's a handful of technical Ubuntu users and I'm glad that Linux users as a whole are so diverse and in my experience, very kind and helpful when I'm struggling with something and we all help each other learn and grow.

[@oldmandeckhand]

As an Arch user, I wouldn't say Arch is difficult to install or use. I would just say it takes time you will need to be patient to learn it. I would also say, that it will be very satisfying installing Arch from the ground up and customizing everything to your liking, but I will also say that you can get the same result by getting other ready distros and you would save much more time, if that's what you want.

[@josecamilojimenez2784]

You actually can install the base arch in less than 10 minutes without using install helpers.. i really don't get that "superiority" complex from arch users

[@leonardoromero9470]

I started using Arch at the beginning of this year, it is the first Linux distro I've used. That being said, I don't share the opinion of Arch being a noob-killer distro. If you have the desire to learn, it will feel pleasant to build a custom enviroment from scratch, and solve some issues all by yourself, but there were situations where I really needed more experienced users help and didn't get it. Even if the problem is solved in the Arch wiki, some parts of it are hard to understand for beginners since there are plenty of new words and concepts. So I advice to remember that when someone aks for help.

[@infinitelink]

The toxicity at times is... to motivate people to go away. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the wiki is there as a middle ground for a tiny project without ability to fund much or pay staff to enable a kind of support, but without having to fund support: a lot of effort goes into the wikis of such projects. So people get grumpy, and frankly, grumps are attracted to projects enabling fine-grained tinkering: Linux exists for tinkerers, after all. Many projects die from toxic and demanding users! FOSS is notorious for devs doing everything as a gift only to be pestered and threatened nonstop-- "mean" grumps don't seem to have those problems for some reason...😮

[@davidwayne9982]

IF you have the talent and CAN --- many try it that do NOT.

[@fders938]

Jesus Arch as your first distro? Either you become a battle-hardened Linux sigma chad or give up and go back to Win10 :p

[@leonardoromero9470]

@@fders938 Still into Arch with a complete usable environment set up by myself 😎.

[@fders938]

@@leonardoromero9470 Awesome, congrats. Welcome to the cool kids' club :)

[@칠복이-b1n]

once used arch, now nixOS, it was a very tough time to learn about it. and the one thing I learned is, to make a better, and bigger community, people must "help" each other, not only saying "READ THE F**KING MANUAL". archwiki is very good, but for new guy first encountered installing linux, they might think: "WHAT THE HELL IS PARTITION?!!" too much difficult words, too much docs to read... well, they also have "manuals" about what we don't know. but when new guy opens "manual" to search about what they don't know, they will encounter same situation, "WTF IS THIS?" just like increasing rabbits on Australia. I mean, we can just add a few analogies to help make things a bit easier to understand. like, "partition is a room, and your ssd is a home. you have to choose the room size of partition." this is much easier then just go to a manual and read one line and explode my head: there are 3 partitions required for basic archlinux system. god, I still remember spending a quarter of my day doing Arch Linux partitioning. the advantage of open source I think is that anyone can be a developer, and anyone can be a teacher. That's the way that open source community should choose, I think.

[@chrisnelson414]

Rude Arch users are just those that can't figure out how to install and run BSD.

[@markwiering]

I study Computer Science. Many fellow students there use a Linux distribution. The requirement of almost all submitted programs was: "*It has to run on Ubuntu 18*", meaning that the students running Windows 10 had to install Linux in a virtual machine anyway. That made some students switch to using Linux on bare metal instead. Most students went with Ubuntu; I was one of the few that chose another distribution (Kali Linux, later MX Linux). But, we had this one student that had installed Arch Linux on his laptop. And, he was overly proud of it. On every occasion where he could log in into Kahoot or similar programs that were to be displayed on the big screen, he mentioned that he used Arch Linux. Whenever we saw something on screen where Arch Linux was mentioned, everyone instantly knew: "It's that guy!"

[@comet.x]

if he's that proud of it he probably struggled really hard despite it only taking like 10 minutes if you have a bit of knowledge and the wiki open on another device

[@markwiering]

@@comet.x. That is assuming that everything goes correct. In practice, you are likely to run into dozens of problems, like the sound not working, video stuttering, menus not responding, commands giving errors, boot errors etcetera, followed by you having to find the cause of it, search the Internet, try solutions, become frustrated that you are messing the system up even more, followed by even longer problem-solving etcetera. Even user-friendly Linux distributions sometimes have this, and we are talking about a Linux distribution that is specifically designed not to take care of any of these problems by design. You install Xfce and you don't have sound. That is for you to solve.

[@comet.x]

@@markwiering I am getting flashbacks to my first install of POP! but hey, at least on linux you actually can fix it. and if it breaks, fix it quickly. Meanwhile windows will just go 'oops haha xd something broke? well now we're gonna bluescreen so you can't do anything! haha so quirky!'

[@markwiering]

@@comet.x. That depends on the problem. When I had Kali Linux installed, I installed Python 3, followed by thinking: "I don't actually need Python 2 any more!", so I removed it using "sudo apt autoremove python". More than a entire gigabyte was freed, but after that, the system became unresponsive. I rebooted, but I couldn't even log in any more. Apparently, Python is a critical part of Kali Linux, that you cannot remove without crippling the system. The solution was to re-install Kali Linux, since I couldn't even get into Kali Linux itself any more to install Python again.

[@comet.x]

@@markwiering reinstalling is a fix in my eyes also have you tried reinstalling windows? It's so painful, and half the time doesn't even fix the problem

[@tiktok.4527]

I use ubuntu, btw... and i am happy🥰

[@yasakakanako]

Yea, i been there and i regret the time i wasted on arch, cuz i needed a really lightweight distro for a very old notebook, and i was so proud to get arch running smoothly on an old thinkpad, but oh man, the hassle it was every single time i booted it simply didn't worth, it was a nonstop influx of debugging, finding errors, fixing broken installations, files and updates, it was nearly impossible to simply use it normally without bumping on some cryptic error, my last straw was the day it simply deleted the kernel for no reason at all. In the end i just ended up sticking to Debian, it has everything i need to work and it is WAY easier to run and maintain (to borrow todd howard words: "it just works", and it is enough).

[@randomguyonyoutube5875]

deleted the kernel? 😂 how is that even possible lol

[@occultsupport]

arch users make fun of ubuntu users gentoo users make fun of arch users lfs users make fun of gentoo users

[@folksurvival]

BSD users just do their own thing.

[@EricMurphyxyz]

There's always a bigger fish

[@occultsupport]

@@folksurvival I haven't met people who use it

[@nguyennguyenkhang5800]

​​@@occultsupport just because you use your stuff doesn't mean people don't use their stuff. If I tell NixOS or BSD is even better LFS you can claim that "I haven't seen anyone who use it" and your words don't have any real comparison. Even plan9 there still some people use it though they have been there for years. You haven't met them and talked to them.

[@occultsupport]

@@nguyennguyenkhang5800 what I meant was, I dont know about BSD because I have never used it, or met anyone that uses it. Also, I never compared any distro any other distro. I just ranked the ones I have used (or tried to) in orders of difficulty. I dont see your point.

[@kingepostle]

I kind of find it funny that a bunch of nerds think that they're better than other nerds... I couldn't imagine getting hostile and gatekeepy because I can install Arch or Gentoo. It just shows you how insecure they are about everything. If you get mad at "stupid questions" just because "they waste time", then you probably shouldn't be on the forums helping people in the first place. After years of playing with Arch Linux, I finally just said to hell with it all, I just want something that runs XD. After all, if it runs and does what you want it to, then what's the point of using something that is needlessly complicated just to brag in front of a bunch of wojacks?

[@Henry-sv3wv]

EndeavourOS works and is Arch.

[@JoeDirtisawsome]

exactly. Also, I find it odd how they complain about having their "time wasted" when they wasted their time being assholes online.

[@MahmoudElgassier]

Been using Linux for well over 15 years. I've gone through so many distros of all flavors. From RH to Ubuntu to Arch. Ultimately, for various usages, Ubuntu suits me fine. I recognize Arch's power, but my usage is more for stability and all-around usage from gaming to development. There's nothing wrong with that. You do feel higher sense of accomplishment when you make things work with Arch, and that's great too. I do have to say, Arch's community is a bit more rough. Though, I found that ultimately that's no different than having a seasoned mechanic or construction worker busting your chops when learning under them. Some initial feelings may be felt, but if you stick with it, you build better experience and grow an extra layer or two of skin while at it. Good video.

[@bluewinterwolf]

The toxicity isn't as bad as people say and it's not just in the Arch community, most of the time it's people getting sick and tired of answering the same question 100 times just because people can't be bothered to Google or look on the forum for the answer. And that doesn't include the trolls just asking stupid questions for the funnies. However, if it's a genuin question and you explain all the steps you have taken yourself to fix the issue and are still stuck, most people who know the answer or could find out will normally help you and spend the time going through stuff with you. For a good Linux for a newbie, Mint is a great option and Garuda Linux is awesome, especially the Dragonized versions, they are basically Linux OS's but the themes are setup to look similar to Windows. There are others but these are a good starting point.

[@AiOinc1]

you could have taken the word "arch" away and the video would still be accurate

[@brianfiszman3179]

As a lifetime user of ArchLinux, I loved it for decades and then I moved to MacOS. Fell in love with Mac, not comming back.

[@warreneddygnangoran1066]

Archlinux is not for the elite or the seasoned Linux users, it's for everyone willing to take his time to learn and understand why everything is the way it is. You're literally the architect of your os. The archwiki is the most reliable and detailed source for any question you may ask about the os. It's just that some people are waiting for other to give you an easy answer. Everyday I learn new stuff when I encounter a difficulty with some stuff. I struggled but I enjoyed every minute I spent reading and understanding

[@emilianopinto4907]

no esta mal esperar una respuesta facil ajajaja

[@BraidenVstob]

Arch is a meme. It's a decent distro, but with a lot of baggage, especially Arch users.

[@noscancel2545]

I'm using arch btw

[@folksurvival]

Void FTW.