The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

jaitt · 2023-05-09 10:04:25

I've only used Fedora and Arch, and I think the Arch repo has much more software than Fedora's. Also, you can almost find any software in the AUR.

RandomRanger · 2023-07-12 13:30:29

Four weeks ago I switch from Windows to Mint, and two weeks ago I switched from Mint to Arch with the main goal of both to get more control over my device so I can squeeze out more battery life. In my first 2 weeks of using arch I've gotten my power usage down to around 7W which equates to a 9hr battery life, vs the 2ish hours of battery I was getting on windows (thanks to Optimus being broken again, and whatever else goes on in the background). I'm incredibly excited about my Arch install, and I simply wanted to share :-)

Last edited by RandomRanger (2023-07-12 13:31:13)

Caue · 2023-07-30 23:35:07

Nice!!

I started like this, not because of the battery, but to have more control of my system. in my case, I did this path, Windows > Ubuntu > Arch.

Best choice I've made!

2ManyDogs · 2023-07-31 11:09:31

Threads merged.

cgb_spender · 2024-01-20 21:12:45

I started with Ubuntu several years ago, got disappointed in version 22.04, switched to Debian, it's great but does not work well on my newest superpowerful PC. Arch works great on all my PCs, both old and new ones! Fedora and Fedora-derived distros failed to install on most of my computers, I am guessing that these distros do not support new hardware and many old hardware configurations.

Last edited by cgb_spender (2024-01-22 11:39:07)

ectospasm · 2024-02-19 00:11:46

I was introduced to Linux on January 13, 1997[1], in a programming class. The professor called it UNIX, but it was actually Slackware, made available to the class over the campus CSLIP (19.2Kbps, all you needed was a RS232 port, baby! NO MODEM!). He had various 1.44MiB disk sets available; I think I only installed the main OS set and maybe the network disk set (I don't think I had enough space for the X set). Using FIPS, I resized my 540MB FAT32 (FAT16?) partition, and set up a 100MiB ext2 partition (I guess, don't really remember what filesystem it was). I was in heaven, having cut my teeth on MS/DOS and was dragged kicking and screaming into the GUI world with Windows 3.1 (and later Windows for Workgroups 3.11).

Sometime in 2000 I decided to give Linux From Scratch (LFS) a try, but failed miserably when I didn't heed the warnings and tried more up-to-date versions of the software it has you compile. Somehow I stumbled on Gentoo (which is essentially like LFS with a decent package manager), and used it from 2000-2005.

In 2005 I got really tired of big packages taking upwards of a week to compile, so I ran screaming to Ubuntu since I knew it would be that different. I got a job at a company whose claim to fame was a notable open source project that primarily ran on Linux, and a coworker convinced me to try Debian. I was much happier with the switch, and I was on Debian from 2007-2021.

I've been using Arch since 2015, and after landing on the Arch Wiki most times when trying to fix something in Debian[2] I decided to install it on my daily driver. No better way to force yourself to learn a new OS, right? Over time, I found myself increasingly annoyed with the Debian way of doing things, with bespoke patches and configuration utilities, not to mention Debian Stable[3] is always woefully out of date. I finally replaced my last Debian machine (a DIY router) with Arch in 2021, and haven't been happier!

As you can see, I haven't done a lot of distro hopping, and I typically stick to a distro for a good while before I give up and move onto something else. I have been pretty much reliant on myself for configuring things for a long time; Arch is perfect for this, and never gets in the way. If I were to try something new, it wouldn't be on my daily driver; I'd probably install NixOS, because it's that different, but I have no real plans to do that.

[1] The first words out of the professor's mouth were,

DrLynnAbbot wrote:

"January 12, 1997, HAL-9000 goes online." (the first line of the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey)

For the longest time I thought the first class was that day, but January 12, 1997 was a Sunday, so I wasn't in class. I think I was in a Monday, Wednesday, Friday section, so it was something like 08:00 or 09:00 that Monday morning. My whole world changed that day.

[2] I always found the Debian documentation to be woefully out of date, so it was quite refreshing to find the Arch Wiki articles were mostly apt to my problems.

[3] Use Sid/Unstable you say? That's all well and good until it thaws and the Debian devs decide to overhaul and play with any subsystems you rely on. Case in point: I was on Sid when they decided to overhaul how Debian handles Haskell packages, and I could not compile my xmonad.hs for several weeks. This happened as I was trying to fix something in it, and had to wait for this to be abated before I could continue working on it. For whatever reason, I eschew having language-specific package managers installed that aren't part of the distro; so things like cabal and stack were something I didn't want to use.

NOCx420 · 2024-03-06 19:15:15

Started with the good old kali linux hackerman posts. I installed kali soon after, dabbled with linux for like 5 years here and there before dual-booting to work out kinks and migrate my stuff. I've been on arch since 3 years now. It is the best.

c00ter · 2024-03-06 22:01:04

I started in Linux when the kernel went stable at 1.0, and I bricked a monitor trying to set the scanrate (unnecessary), after installing from a Walnut Creek CDROM. My wife's ire meant that my Linux "experiments" were done in secret for a long time afterwards. But I persisted, I installed & ran everything from Mandrake, Connectiva, later Red Hat, SuSE, PCLOS, Ubuntu, etc. onwards, before settling on Debian Testing. That continued until around 2012, when...

I started with ArchBang (w/Openbox), a derivative, on an x86(386) Netbook. Loved it, but went on to Cinnarch (later Antergos), briefly Manjaro, then worked up enough courage to install Arch per the *Installation Guide* in early 2014.

Arch, I found, filled *all* my holes and I have not strayed. I play with all of the derivates--but always come home.

Last edited by c00ter (2024-03-06 22:04:02)

Trilby · 2024-03-06 22:20:02

c00ter wrote:

Arch ... filled *all* my holes

Now there's a good slogan candidate for the 2024 Arch Linux NSFW T-Shirt contest (that I just made up).

Now who can make an arch logo out of a couple of "adult toys".

Last edited by Trilby (2024-03-06 22:21:45)

flamemagister · 2024-04-15 06:53:01

Just adding my appreciation to Arch and its community - yep this is my distro!

Arch, for me, has the perfect balance of minimalism / do it my way and "just works" when required. After distro hopping a lot over the past five years I think what makes a distro great (IMHO) is not just the distro itself but also a strong community - which Arch has in spades.

It is a distro that needs a lot of reading, patience and experimentation but totally worth it. I use Ubuntu (for now) on my notebook - simply because it has lots of idiosyncrasies and Ubuntu seems to work OOB - in slower time I will revert to Arch, and Ubuntu Server on well my server. But Arch is where my heart is on my daily driver desktop.

Thanks to all the countless devs who make this distro work and to the community that keeps it alive.

FM.

Last edited by flamemagister (2024-04-15 06:53:40)

Arch Linux

#1251 2023-05-09 10:04:25

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1252 2023-07-12 13:30:29

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1253 2023-07-30 23:35:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1254 2023-07-31 11:09:31

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1255 2024-01-20 21:12:45

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1256 2024-02-19 00:11:46

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1257 2024-03-06 19:15:15

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1258 2024-03-06 22:01:04

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1259 2024-03-06 22:20:02

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1260 2024-04-15 06:53:01

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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