I wish I would have learned about Arch Linux .....

[Michael Butash]

I rather like using Arch linux with rolling updates, and have now about 5
years.  It's not always without its pain, but mostly is great to use daily.

Usually after using it for a while, installing a lot of various software
outside base repos, and then updating for me has been problematic.  Usually
dependency recursion issues, often because community packages that are not
well maintained, so hardly core arch's fault, but seems could be better.
My desktop became a brick after several years with some still unknown
updates, but my laptop has been great, luckily as it was my fallback, and
now my everything box I work on.  This compared to every 6mo-1yr with a
dist release for ubuntu/deb/etc that I usually plan a long weekend or week
off to update, as I know it will break things, usually badly.  Arch hasn't
been too bad comparatively to the past 10 years of ubuntu.

When it works normally, it's great, and mostly updates with a clean os are
simple if I do them often enough.  Most of the folks chatting with in the
arch irc seem to update weekly with no issue, whereas I update about every
6 months, which they scold me for anyways.  I should if for nothing else
security, but Dr's make the worst patients, and in some cases imho I have
good reasons to not reboot commonly how I work.

The install too is a bit complex if you're not totally comfortable in
linux, but a basic install is quite easy following basic directions, or you
can just use manjaro arch distro with a full desktop installer.  I still
like learning, so I don't mind this, and arch taught me a lot more still.
I get jiggy doing full-disk encryption and custom disk setups, which even
for me took a while to figure out, but once installed and booting, is easy
enough to maintain outside the above comments on updates.

Arch also tends to get you the latest kernel (drivers/firmware) and desktop
features, which is nice vs. ubuntu being always quite dated.  When I find
even new software out there, it's rare I don't find a community build of it
available as an easy install for arch already, which is really nice, even
eww things like microsoft teams.

I too am glad to help others that want to try arch on the list here or in
plug irc.  The arch channel irc folks can be a bit prickly, I'd recommend
keeping basic questions more local.  :)

-mb



On Fri, Nov 5, 2021 at 9:40 AM Michael via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> I wish I would have learned about Arch Linux when I first got into Linux.
> My current computer took 30 seconds to load from when it first starts
> loading to GUI while arch takes about 22 seconds. Further I would have
> learned about compiling the applications. It will be difficult now because
> I am over 50 and my mind was not used much in my 40's. I say this to all
> you young bucks out there as a warning and an encouragement to try arch
> (and you old bucks who haven't wasted your mind). If you don't want to
> compile stuff with arch download the ISO.... start it.... and at the
> command prompt type archinstall. Another good learning tool is Linux From
> Scratch. That one you compile EVERYTHING from source. The real learning for
> LFS starts after you compile everything and start configuring stuff
> (chapter 9).
> --
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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