The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

xorifelse · 2018-07-03 21:10:20

I know it isn't much, but I felt the need to say thank you to anyone who helps the community and or develops \ maintains Arch Linux and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

I've registered with the site in 2016, which is about the time when I started to use Arch and it's been one hell of a learning curve for me.
I'm using Arch Linux as my primary O.S; A couple of months later from when I registered and the story behind it is kind of funny as Windows was being an ass.

It was about the time that Microsoft announced a beta to Windows 8 and you could "update" freely to try it out and so I did.
My Windows login screen appeared. I logged in, screen went black for a couple of seconds and ... the next screen I got was the login screen.
So a potential "fix" to this issue was trying safe mode. However one of the new 'features' of Windows was that it was able to "automatically" repair itself (it sure as hell didn't repair that f%$kup).
Oh boy, did this backfire on me. To enter safe mode I needed to a battery pull from a running system (using a notebook), really; There was no other way!

I've looked up was to retrieve my data and stumbled onto Linux, Ubuntu specifically (pen drive installation). I've used the distro to retrieve my data and reinstall Windows but this time with a dual boot including Ubuntu just incase.
After switching over so now and then (talking months), I began to irritate the Unity interface; I mean, it's good but customization was and still is, mediocre at best. I mean how hard could it be to add shortcuts to a desktop? Multi monitor support back then was still at is imphasy with Optimus.
But I liked Ubuntu, it was customizable .... until I bricked it by installing multiple desktop environments and was unable to fix it.
So I needed a reinstall, this time of a distro of my choosing. So I was looking at desktop environments, but some cases using a specific distro you kind-off where bound to the environment they provided you.

This is when I stumbled upon Arch, kinda like: "Install your own distro". Intriguing. Reading the wiki for installing Arch, eventually ended up with 'archfi' after installing it on other systems.
From reading the wiki, I've learned much. A couple of months ago, nVidia released a new driver which didn't support my own. I was able to figure as much by diagnosing the issue (xorg.0.log) to see my card was not supported so I needed to install a fixed-in-time release instead (390xx)
Sure for most of the issues I've had I ended up on the Wiki, but that fact that it's so elaborate is astounding. Mostly any issue can be resolved by reading it but sometimes I needed to look on external sources.

Arch has been my primary operating system since and I don't regret it. in fact, life is more peaceful without Windows as I remember reinstalling Windows again and again because it became slow or showed signs that it was infected.
This installation of Arch is still from the same day; "Filesystem created: Thu Jan 7 12:29:40 2016" and has performed as well as its been from day 1.

So, again. Thank you to all who help and maintain this community.

I would have donated except that my financial situation does not allow me to.
That being said, it will change in the future. But it might be a nice idea to sell overpriced t-shirts or other appliances like mugs, etc from an official shop.

jasonwryan · 2018-07-03 21:14:07

You can contribute to Arch in lots of ways other than donating cash. See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Getting_involved

Merging with the Official Arch is the Best thread...

flower · 2018-07-11 20:46:06

I used gentoo for about ten years daily and finally made the switch to arch a few days ago.

my opinion:
documentation is much better with arch
overlays are better than AUR
no compile time and sane defaults favors arch

so in my opinion: arch is the best distro out there.
(but parts of my heart still beats for gentoo though)

sevendogs · 2018-07-21 19:49:28

I've probably posted in this thread before but can't remember...I have been the consummate distro hopper for as long as I can remember (> 10 years). Sick of it. Found Arch a long time ago (5 years or more) and figured out it is lean, mean, fast and lets me tweak while remaining relatively stable. For some reason, I get this wild hair every time there is a minor issue with Arch (eg, lvm2-monitor bug) and I think "I need something enterprise ready that never breaks". This is a load of cr*p for my use case and I never see this until it's too late and am caught up in the vicious hop cycle again, like a dog that can't find the right place to lay down in his bed.

So where do I end up? Arch of course. After trying in rapid succession, all major distros (sadly, I am not kidding, last night was 4), I realize that no matter how "big" the organization is that runs them, they all have bugs and problems, some show stoppers, at least for me. Most distros hate my video hardware for some reason and this causes no end of frustration. For example: with the following display managers, I cannot run the Nvidia driver: lightdm, GDM, SDDM. The only display manager that actually works for me, in ANY distro with the Nvidia driver is LXDM. With the Nouveau driver, Arch is the ONLY distro (besides Arch derivatives which I don't like) that automatically recognizes my hardware and configures the correct resolution. None of the other "big" distros work worth a cr*p in recognizing my hardware and setting the resolution correctly. It's 2018, Xorg doesn't need a config - get it together "other" distros...

That wasn't a troubleshoot request, just a rant.

Arch is also the best KDE experience I have ever had, at least for me anyway. I recently switched from Gnome because I got so frustrated with the never ending crashes and bugs. Long time KDE users are probably laughing at me right now but it's been rock solid so far. Using Nouveau by the way.

Rant over, back on Arch, need to find a 12 step program for staying here...

WFV · 2018-07-22 19:32:17

Rant over, back on Arch, need to find a 12 step program for staying here...

Arch Anonymous? hey, that could be the name of another distro

ewaller · 2018-07-22 20:23:38

WFV wrote:

Rant over, back on Arch, need to find a 12 step program for staying here...
Arch Anonymous? hey, that could be the name of another distro

On and on anon?

sevendogs · 2018-07-23 01:43:59

ewaller wrote:

WFV wrote:
Rant over, back on Arch, need to find a 12 step program for staying here...
Arch Anonymous? hey, that could be the name of another distro
On and on anon?

Perfect!

NamanSood · 2018-08-19 04:29:02

Hey Everyone,

I'm currently in my first year in High school in CSE branch. I heard it was fruitful if someone mastered in a particular field, it would help him/her to land a good job that they loved. A friend of mine suggested me to go for mastering Linux ( using Arch ) but another friend of mine suggested me to not do so as it may be overshadowed by other OS.
I wanted to know whether I should go for it or not. If I do, What are the future prospects of learning Linux and how popular is it in today's market.

Thank you in advance

Last edited by NamanSood (2018-08-19 04:29:18)

Trilby · 2018-08-19 04:33:41

~~Is this really different from your previous thread which you've not yet followed up on at all?~~

If your inspiration is intellectual curiosity or a desire to learn about how computers actually work, linux - and arch in particular - would be very useful.

If your goal is to learn tools that will get you a big paycheck, linux is not what you want. Not that knowledge gained from using linux couldn't help someone be successful in a career, but if the motivation is not for the knowledge itself, linux, and most certainly arch, is not likely for you. Learn Swift, or whatever new fad tool replaces it for "app" development", or get some MS certifications instead.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-08-19 04:43:20)

jasonwryan · 2018-08-19 04:37:24

Merging with the 'Should I Go Arch? thread...

Generally speaking, if you have to seek a lot of assurance/handholding before even deciding to install Arch, it is the wrong choice.

ewaller · 2018-08-19 15:29:15

Trilby wrote:

If your goal is to learn tools that will get you a big paycheck, Linux is not what you want.

Although I agree with you in general, I disagree with you on this point. Yes, Windows is fully entrenched in corporate desktop IT and Linux seems to have no chance of displacing it -- something about using the lowest common denominator. But, Windows is all but dead in embedded systems and the market is huge. Using Broadcom or Microchip chips, it is now possible to bring up Linux based embedded systems on extremely low cost hardware (Think routers, raspberry pi, etc...) and can form the basis for many products and applications -- consumer, entertainment, appliance, space, model aircraft, automotive, security, home automation, etc... It used to be that many of those where code running on bare metal or, sometimes, based on an RTOS. Increasingly they are running Linux and provide an enormous market. And it is hard to find good people who can develop for these architectures.

There used to be Internet jokes poking fun at the notion of Unix Powered Toasters, but times change. In some experiments I performed this week, using an ARM chip with an internal flash memory using a Linux kernel and Busybox as an Init system, system was up and running in less than 1 second after the application of power.

Trilby · 2018-08-19 16:02:15

What should happen and what does happen often have very little resemblance.

I didn't say linux shouldn't be driving business, nor that it doesn't have potential to. Really my point was that if one's goal is to learn skills to make money, they do not have the proper mindset to learn linux.

Even if (big if in my mind) learning about linux would make someone competitive in the job market, going in to "learn linux" in order to make money will almost certainly fail. It is the wrong mentality to start with.

In any industry there are the people who know exactly what kind of skills will be useful. Then there are the people who make hiring decisions. If you are in a company where there is any overlap in these two sets of people, be happy and stay there.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-08-19 16:03:31)

ewaller · 2018-08-19 16:06:13

Trilby wrote:

I didn't say linux shouldn't be driving business, nor that it doesn't have potential to. Really my point was that if one's goal is to learn skills to make money, they do not have the proper mindset to learn linux.

Fair enough. Kind of cart before the horse.

Awebb · 2018-08-19 18:12:11

There is money in Linux skills, it's just not easy money. Windows money is the kind of salary you get for working magic in front of tech illiterate business people, because it's the standard and it runs everywhere. Linux money is the kind of cash you get for working magic in front of other wizards.

zoli62 · 2018-08-27 04:05:01

Is Antergos counting here?

headkase · 2018-08-27 04:20:49

zoli62 wrote:

Is Antergos counting here?

It's not supported here. There is the Arch way. If you follow the official installation guide you end up with a solid base system. Then you build up your specific choices. Many Arch-derivatives rob you of that choice. They're preconfigured with choices made for you.

Last edited by headkase (2018-08-27 04:55:59)

tydynrain · 2018-10-30 05:29:41

Greetings again fellow Archers. I've been using Arch for over a year now, and the deeper I've gone, the more I've fallen in love. My first Arch install was cheating, as I used Antergos, which very soon afterward I converted to native Arch. After that I installed Arch the official native way three other times (one of which was on old hardware that died). The two other installs that continue to this day, along with the first install, have made me a life-long convert to Arch Linux and the Arch Way. I am so overwhelmingly grateful for Arch Linux and the Arch community and ecosystem, and my desire, intention, and need to contribute to Arch and do my best to help it continue into perpetuity grow stronger every day. To do this I need to learn a few programming languages well, which sadly is not something I've done yet, though my awareness of the necessity of this also grows daily.

In the year plus that I've been using Arch, for most of that time as my main daily-driver OS, I've met my share of challenges from time to time, and with community help originally, as well as now where I have gotten so familiar and accustomed to the problems that arise in Arch that any issues that have arisen I've been able to solve quickly, that my three Arch installs have been extremely stable and reliable for the vast majority of that time. My next frontier is diving into multiple programming languages to be able to more fully contribute to my beloved OS.

Originally I tri-booted with Windows and Ubuntu. After having immersing myself in Arch in the past year, as I went deeper and deeper, and became more enthralled and passionate about it, I finally wiped both Windows and Ubuntu from my hard drives, and have been running Arch exclusively (aside from running Windows in VirftualBox VMs) for most of the past year.

My three Arch installs are as follows:

1st Arch Install on my 1TB laptop hard drive (via Antergos, soon converted to native Arch): Tuesday, September 19, 2017 PDT (Pacific Daylight Time)
[2017-09-19 00:53 (12:53 AM)] - State: Healthy and Fully Functional

2nd Arch Install on a 500GB hard drive that I swap in and out of my laptop as needed (first native and official install): Sunday, November 5, 2017 PST (Pacific Standard Time - started at 2AM)
[2017-11-05 05:47 (5:47 AM)] - State: Healthy and Fully Functional

3rd Arch Install on a 1TB desktop system (second native and official install): Wednesday, January 17, 2018 PST (Pacific Standard Time)
[2018-01-17 10:04 (10:04 AM)] - State: Healthy and Fully Functional

I fricking LOVE Arch Linux, and I want, need, desire, and intend to contribute (I have in small ways, but nothing of great import yet), so finally, finally, finally diving into deeply learning a few pertinent programming languages is top on my to-do list for the near future.

Thank you to every single individual who has helped to make Arch what it is today! I am forever in your debt! Arch is very important to me, and I want to do everything in my power to help it continue for as long as possible.

*bows deeply*

Last edited by tydynrain (2018-10-30 06:10:25)

wayne6260 · 2018-11-14 17:42:32

As a person that has assembled Arch from the bottom up and is my sole OS, the answer to your question is no.

You are still saying you "finally" are not dependent on windoze and you've been using Linux for a whole month. You mentioned Ubuntu. All of these indicators point to the answer. Arch is not for newbies. Get used to other distros. Be comfortable for a year or two or three. In the end, you might want to come back to Arch, which is not easy to install for a new comer, but not difficult to maintain for someone comfortable with the command line interface.

For the record, I've been using Linux since year 2000 and only figured out how to install Arch this year. And I'm happy.

Don't use Arch if you still have Microsoft in your memory. Don't use Arch in your first month of Linux. Use Linux only for about 5 years. Then think about Arch.

More important for you is experiment with desktop environments. Which do you prefer? Gnome? Mate? Cinnamon? KDE Plasma (my choice)? Budgie? Openbox?

Last edited by wayne6260 (2018-11-14 17:44:54)

Trilby · 2018-11-14 18:26:30

wayne6260 wrote:

Use Linux only for about 5 years. Then think about Arch.

Using any one of the popular Linuxes for 5 years would definitely have driven me away from linux entirely. I was DOS and BASIC programming kid. I dabbled with programming for Windows - I was very motivated, but never made much progress (I did a lot with visual basic, but never understood much of anything). Then I switched to linux - I think I had a few months at most with crunchbang (debian-based) before I got too frustrated with it and nearly gave up on linux entirely. I tried a few others but was immediately turned off by the *buntus and other popular distros. I dabbled in slitaz for a bit and quite liked much about it, but it's future was tenuous. I then installed arch (~9 years ago) and never looked back.

So I had no where near 5 years of linux experience before coming to arch. I may have had 5 months ... maybe.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-11-14 18:27:35)

bheadmaster · 2018-11-14 18:48:17

Agreed. I'm one of those people who can't stand too much unneccessary complexity. I've used Ubuntu and several popular distros for a few months, but Arch was the only one that "made sense" to me. Indeed, being new to the whole GNU/Linux world and jumping straight into Arch was overwhelming, but I feel like I know my system more "intimately" now

kaymio · 2018-12-05 12:38:23

Arch rules!

scharkalvin · 2019-01-22 20:04:24

Right now I'm on the fence about using Arch Linux, at least on my 'main' machine. I'll probably put it on a 'spare' so I can 'kick the tires'. I've been a Linux user since 1996, and I've installed Slackware (from floppies!), Redhat (before they went 'pro'), Debian and Gentoo back in the 'prehistoric' days. Back then there were no GUI installers, and I had to compile my own kernel (no 'smart' auto config stuff in the kernel back then). I've run Debian Testing for awhile too. More recently, I've gone to Ubuntu, and Linux Mint. Now Mint has dropped KDE, and once my 17.3 install ages out of LTS I will have a decision to make.

I have some bad memories of Gentoo going belly up after a FSCKed config file during an upgrade. That's probably the only thing that worries me about Arch. Gentoo's problem was putting in hooks to configure every little detail, including the kitchen sink, with deadly conflicting options in those config files to trip you up. Part of that was the ability to customize the system to run best on a given CPU. It was a build from source distro, and config files let you tweak EVERY option in GCC. At least Arch is strictly x86-64 (optimized for what? Intel-AMD?)

Reading about others complaining about Ubuntu major upgrades going south makes me laugh. Linux Mint cautions you NOT to attempt this and do major upgrades by re-installing the system from scratch. That's why I have my home partition on a separate disk drive from the OS. I upgrade the system and leave my user directory alone. Some application config files will need to change, but these things don't crash the system. I also keep all my data files, email cache, etc across upgrades that way. (I DO back up my user partition onto an external drive first, but I've never needed to use that as a result of the upgrade).

I guess what I need to know about Arch for system maintenance, is what to look for in config files that are critical for not borking the system so bad it won't even boot. (That happened to me only once on Gentoo). Also info on correct procedure for keeping the system up to date (at least from kernel and system level security patches).

I've got an older AMD Phenom quad core system gathering dust. It's got 8gb of ram and a Raptor drive (for the system / boot partitions). Should be good enough to experiment with.

romstor · 2019-01-22 20:30:11

scharkalvin wrote:

... with deadly conflicting options in those config files to trip you up.

This may not be a complete answer to your concerns, but Arch doesn't touch your config files on package upgrades. If config file is updated (has new or removed old options) it is saved as *.pacnew in the /etc/ or some other folder. It is YOUR job to vimdiff and sync the changes manually (deleting .pacnew file afterwards) (more at Pacman -> Pacnew and Pacsave). In my experience, 99% of the time the config files are completely backwards compatible. I.e. even if you don't notice that new *.pacnew has landed, you are most likely to be fine until such time that you need the new feature or have time to do the merge.

Pacman tells you whenever new *.pacnew files are created, but you can also run system-wide find and address them one-by-one. I personally like this approach very much because I can see new features in config files and can go a learn about latest and greatest features in the new releases. This is also an aspect that makes Arch less of an option for beginners, but that doesn't seem to apply in your case.

Also, did you read System Maintenance section on Arch Wiki? I think it has everything you want to know.

Last edited by romstor (2019-01-22 20:43:32)

ngoonee · 2019-01-22 20:52:46

What romstor posted hints at another issue, that if the change is required, it's still your job to do it. E.g. if there's a new required option in a config file, you could encounter breakage that way. Very rare though.

scharkalvin wrote:

I guess what I need to know about Arch for system maintenance, is what to look for in config files that are critical for not borking the system so bad it won't even boot. (That happened to me only once on Gentoo). Also info on correct procedure for keeping the system up to date (at least from kernel and system level security patches).

Just update semi-regularly . Once a week is quite safe, on some of my servers its less often. These only have a subset of the packages on my main machines which are updated every few days. And the set of packages which are on my servers and not on my main machines is mostly nil.

There's ancillary things which can help, like reading the front page news for breaking changes, subscribing to the ML or reading these forums to catch user complaints when something breaks (rare and normally hardware-specific if not PEBKAC). None of this is strictly necessary though.

Of course keeping a thumb drive handy for boot issues is always a good idea. I used to do that, but the thumb drive install went out of date from lack of use....

scharkalvin · 2019-01-23 19:55:17

Thanks for the replies. So I dug out my "ancient" AMD Phenom X4 970 machine and tried to get it going. Had to reseat things before it would 'POST'. One of the disk drives (the raptor) was dead and didn't get discovered by the bios. Murphy's law. Wouldn't boot off of a flash drive with Arch ISO (or any other ISO for that matter), so I burned the image onto a DVDR. It booted into the start screen and I ran the memory test. Had at least one bad location in 8gbs of DDR3.

So I crossed my fingers and started to do the install. Deja-vu all over again. Hadn't had this much 'fun' since Deban 2.0 or Gentoo (IIRC Arch is much easier than either of these old dogs). Upon rebooting after figuring out how to install GRUB I had no network. Where the hell did ifconfig go? It got replaced with ip address and ip link. WHY? (Because, he's on third and I don't give a darn). A quick Google search showed where to look, eth0 was getting renamed to something else. Reconfigure DHCPCD and reboot. Yeah ping works! Now trying to figure out getting Xorg and KDE installed. Do I need to get just the window manager running naked on Xorg first, or throw everything in there and try to get to the KDE login screen? Can I start KDE from the command line? What packages might I be missing after only installing 'base' (plus xorg, and drivers)? I'm in uncharted territory now, doing things with stone knives and bear skins for the first time in over twenty years. Good for the gray matter though.

Last edited by scharkalvin (2019-01-23 19:57:23)

Arch Linux

#1151 2018-07-03 21:10:20

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1152 2018-07-03 21:14:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1153 2018-07-11 20:46:06

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1154 2018-07-21 19:49:28

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1155 2018-07-22 19:32:17

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1156 2018-07-22 20:23:38

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1157 2018-07-23 01:43:59

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1158 2018-08-19 04:29:02

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1159 2018-08-19 04:33:41

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1160 2018-08-19 04:37:24

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1161 2018-08-19 15:29:15

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1162 2018-08-19 16:02:15

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1163 2018-08-19 16:06:13

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1164 2018-08-19 18:12:11

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1165 2018-08-27 04:05:01

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1166 2018-08-27 04:20:49

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1167 2018-10-30 05:29:41

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1168 2018-11-14 17:42:32

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1169 2018-11-14 18:26:30

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1170 2018-11-14 18:48:17

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1171 2018-12-05 12:38:23

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1172 2019-01-22 20:04:24

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1173 2019-01-22 20:30:11

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1174 2019-01-22 20:52:46

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1175 2019-01-23 19:55:17

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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