The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

piperdan · 2020-05-07 21:34:53

I'll add my vote.
I've been using it for about a month now with KDE-Plasma as the DE, initially presuming from what I've read elsewhere that it would be an unstable bumpy ride. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm sure it depends on the hardware, but on my old Dell Latitude E6430, it has been rock solid, reliable, and fast. I do routine backups (Timeshift snapshots on a separate flash drive), as well as have the LTS kernel available just in case.

I've also read elsewhere about people getting their nose out of joint from supposedly curt RTFM-type responses from this forum. From my small amount of surfing this forum, it seems to me that the help given here has been very generous, knowledgeable, and many times underappreciated. Usually all that is needed is just a nudge towards the right place on the wiki.

Huge thanks to all who have made this distribution (and the wiki) what it is!

SuperBoby · 2020-05-08 14:15:22

piperdan wrote:

I've also read elsewhere about people getting their nose out of joint from supposedly curt RTFM-type responses from this forum. From my small amount of surfing this forum, it seems to me that the help given here has been very generous, knowledgeable, and many times underappreciated. Usually all that is needed is just a nudge towards the right place on the wiki.

To be honest I do see these kind of answers on the forum here, but this is only because the author is rude, does not follow instructions, uses an Arch derivative, or other reasons like this

archimboldo · 2020-05-08 21:03:13

Arch is not the best. It's just a platform for user to excel. And that's great.

TimelyPeach · 2020-05-09 20:59:07

Joined the Arch community a few days ago and here are my two cents. It has been a fantastic learning experience, and I would recommend it to anyone with an inquisitive mind. The Wiki is exceptional and I hope to contribute to it one day! Finally, the Arch Linux Principles are a great read, and whenever people on forums ask generic questions like "should I use Arch?" they should be referred there.

hussam · 2020-05-24 11:01:26

I've been using Arch since 2006 and random distributions before than since 1998. Arch is pretty much the most "logically" built distribution I've used and the easiest to maintain and patch.

ratcheer · 2020-05-24 14:35:23

I received some extra money and thought I would buy a new PC. But my 11 year old i5 with a 5 1/2 year old Arch Linux installation is doing so well, I cannot get my head around all the effort it would take to reproduce all of my functionality. I just hope my old PC doesn't break.

Arch is best.

eschwartz · 2020-05-24 14:44:06

You could just transfer the hard drive, or clone it.

The only things you'd need to do to get it working on the new PC are ensuring the bootloader still operates -- if the old PC used BIOS, and the new PC uses UEFI, this might be a concern -- and sort out additional packages for hardware devices which are not provided by the kernel + linux-firmware e.g. wifi drivers if you have broadcom wifi, or GPU drivers if you're using nvidia.

hussam · 2020-05-24 20:18:39

ratcheer wrote:

I received some extra money and thought I would buy a new PC. But my 11 year old i5 with a 5 1/2 year old Arch Linux installation is doing so well, I cannot get my head around all the effort it would take to reproduce all of my functionality. I just hope my old PC doesn't break.
Arch is best.

I went through that late 2016. Just clone the disks, regenerate the initramfs images, and boot as normal.

ratcheer · 2020-05-25 12:48:56

Ok, thank you @eschwartz and @hussam. I know that will work, but I guess I was thinking more about a fresh installation to clean years of widely varied activities out, then recovering the configurations of the things I still use. E.g., tens of fonts that have been installed trying to get things to look right, only to never be used, again. Old data files. False steps, etc, etc.

Your way is probably best. Then just try to do a methodical cleanup.

Trilby · 2020-05-25 12:50:56

A new machine shouldn't be the only reason / excuse to tidy up everything you just mentioned.

When my house gets to be quite a mess, I don't burn it down and buy a new one (though sometimes the mess is sufficient to be tempting).

The metaphor is imperfect, of course, though I think it makes the point. I reality, the equivalent of the new home has already been purchased, and the question is whether to buy all new furniture because the existing furniture has some dog hair on it. Buy a lint brush instead. Now that's a more directly applicable metaphor ... but not quite as impactful.

Last edited by Trilby (2020-05-25 12:53:44)

psychobillypsychosis · 2020-06-04 21:39:14

I've been using Arch as my only operating system since... 2008? 2009? Can't remember. Arch makes it fun to use a computer again. The last time I felt that way was on an AT&T 3B1. The main reasons "Arch is the best" for me personally are KISS, Pragmatism, and the Wiki. I don't like it when someone's ideals prevent me from using wifi without jumping through hoops, etc., and I've never been on the forums until now because the wiki answered all my questions. But I am extremely bored with the pandemic keeping me home and thought I'd finally join the community. Just want to say thanks keep up the great work!

cick0 · 2020-06-08 18:15:12

I just wanted to say that this is the best mf wiki I've seen so far.
It was painless to follow the installation instructions and get the full GUI system up and running, to match my previous system but without all the extras. It is a great source of information and now I tend to consult it for any background information or software analysis.
This is my second day of using Arch and I'm in love with the wiki. I've installed Arch once in a vm yesterday and today on a live system. Very painless. I appreciate this approach much more, with enough clear documentation available as a guide and no semi-useless GUIs that try to do the job for the user.
Anyways, I don't want to go deep right now. Just wanted to thank all the contributors publicly.

Oh, and why is there no EUR donation option? I'll search for this and/or ask separately.

destruxio · 2020-07-13 02:34:14

I'm pretty new to Linux (used Ubuntu for a month and switched to Arch Linux four days ago) and I would just like to thank the writers of the wiki and the managers of the forums for their work. Because of the extensive documentation and easy to find answers, I have been able to have a very easy time setting up Arch Linux and i3.

IonTunnel · 2020-11-24 04:12:23

Arch is easy and simple, been using it for a couple years, love it

Serum · 2020-11-30 06:53:07

<3 pacman <3

queuemm · 2020-12-03 02:24:05

Using Arch with my Thinkpad T420 for almost a month now, but I've used it off and on before and most likely will again when another distro interests me enough.

Arch is the simplest distro in existence. KDE Plasma is buttery smooth on it, and up to date in sync when the KDE organization releases updates. Pacman is handy, easy to use, and fast. Blows Ubuntu and Fedora out of the water. The only one I enjoy as much is Debian but for completely different reasons. If Debian's stability and ease of install meets with KISS/Pacman (I know they basically contrast but let a person dream) I'd be in love.

jooch · 2021-02-16 15:03:43

Apparently in the last two months, this happened:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/sta … /statid=58

Looking on steam shows similar numbers: link. Arch + Manjaro is about 22%

Comrade_Stalin · 2021-03-08 05:06:15

@jooch I'm glad to see that, Linux is a great gaming platform and I have certainly had a better experience with Arch than when I tried gaming on Ubuntu. Thats mostly with how much easier it is to gather Steam, LSI, Lutris and all the 32bit libs. That and all the games on the AUR.
Just being the best distro in so many ways naturally makes Arch a great gaming platform. Every day I thank God for Proton, lol.

philo · 2021-03-08 10:15:28

@comrade_stalin

Strange username, outlandish country of location and (especially) quotation in signature.

Is it acceptable in our forums?

Last edited by philo (2021-03-08 11:34:09)

Awebb · 2021-03-08 11:58:38

philo wrote:

@comrade_stalin
Strange username, outlandish country of location and (especially) quotation in signature.
Is it acceptable in our forums?

Yes, it is acceptable. There is nothing wrong with any of this. This is obviously for fun and/or for trolling.

archimboldo · 2021-03-08 14:37:16

philo wrote:

@comrade_stalin
Strange username, outlandish country of location and (especially) quotation in signature.
Is it acceptable in our forums?

WTF?
Go outdoors and get a sense of humor.

Last edited by archimboldo (2021-03-08 14:37:36)

btc3m · 2021-03-08 16:01:55

I've used Arch as my OS for everything I can figure out since graduating from the bachelor's degree program in Dec, 2020. I actually started working with Arch during spring break of 2020 (March), after reading about it in the textbook for Digital Forensics class and some brief info from that same class lecture. The professor strongly advised against installing and using Linux as our only OS, but I wanted to learn to use it and thought I would have time to work out problems.

It turned out that I was wrong, some programs that I had to use for classes were Windows only, like Tableau. My curriculum includes business and computer courses, and some of my professors didn't know what to do with a dot ODF file, and the time needed to successfully export and correct charts and even text document formatting could take far more time than the actual assigned coursework. In the end, the professor was right and I reverted back to Windows until graduation.

I did learn that Arch is the right OS for someone like me. I prefer having an OS that does what I tell it to do, the way I tell it to do so, so long as I can understand well enough to correctly set that up to Windows, which is built to work for the average user and support the highest possible profit for the software manufacturer and nothing other than these two things. I understand why it is the way that it is, and I won't waste my time or yours complaining about it here other than to say that Linux in general, and Arch Linux in particular, is perfect for someone like myself with a background in engineering and a solid foundation in computers.

It is far better for me to do a routine update every day that takes 1 or 2 minutes and over 3 months has never stopped anything from working than to have Windows 'security updates' that reinstall MS software that I spent hours removing and disabling. At least when something is messed up in Arch it's because I did something wrong and can learn from that and not to support greater profit for a software marketer.

Last edited by btc3m (2021-03-08 16:15:46)

LinuxShepherd · 2021-03-17 13:56:07

After 10+ years on Debian, using arch for a couple of months, I admit it's the best adaptive distro for advanced users.
Even for the buggy GTK WMs I prefer.

firelemos · 2021-03-29 10:56:47

I have been a long time windows user, but recently I gained knowledge about Gnu/Linux. I tried arch as my first distro and I was astonished by the level of control in my hand. No forced updates, no backdoors, no viruses, no more downloading .exe viruses from the internet, no more spyware, no 3 hour long updates. I believe that was the best decision I ever made. Thanks to all the awesome arch devs for maintaining Arch.

dsalewski · 2021-04-13 23:56:21

Hey there,

just wanted to tell you my story.

Every now and then, usually when ~2.5 years went by, I manage to completely screw up my computer to a point where reinstalling seems to be the faster route to becoming fully operational again. This time it was a year of corona induced homeoffice which resulted in a completely clogged cooler in my 24/7 running laptop, which in turn led to her freezing several times in a row, which in turn led to my SSD containing some sort of byte sauce unable to boot. Using a compressed air can on my fan and air outlet heavily triggered my house dust allergy to a point where i needed my asthma inhaler.

Well, I keep becoming older since quite a few years now, and people keep telling me things like "Oh, Your running linux, really, do you have the time for this kind of experiments" and "I wouldn't understand that command line stuff, honestly, how can you use that, use something intuitive like my Mac here" and so on and so forth. In combination with my habit of screwing up every 2.5 years that leads to me trying to grow up once in a while. Use what everybody else does. Go the comfy route. Settle down. So I habitually prepare a spare usb stick every ~2.5 years with whatever the grownups tell me. Windows, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, ... - You get the point.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nvme0n1 status=progress coffee=2

installer.button.click=1

Step 1 from here: Enthusiasm. Everything seems to work out of the box. So intuitively! Lid switch works right out of the box. What a nice background picture. Look, I can click on the menu and almost everything is just there. Cool.
Step 2: I try to install the missing parts.
Step 3: I try to find out why that doesn't work as expected. Who on earth designed that software "management" tool, by the way. And where is vim (Windows).

And from there it's approximately three to four days until

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nvme0n1 status=progress coffee=another2

# pacstrap /mnt base linux linux-firmware

# pikaur -S needed-stuff & pikaur -S --asdeps stuff-needed-by-needed-stuff

What shall I say? The last time that happened is one week ago, and I already knew I'd be coming back when going the so-called comfy route again. We just belong together, my Arch and me. And unlike most other spouses Arch never is resentful about my notorious habit of cheating once in a while, which is a big plus, I think.

Anyone with similar experience?

Moderator edit: Merged with Arch is Best threaad

Last edited by ewaller (2021-04-14 01:19:09)

Arch Linux

#1201 2020-05-07 21:34:53

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1202 2020-05-08 14:15:22

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1203 2020-05-08 21:03:13

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1204 2020-05-09 20:59:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1205 2020-05-24 11:01:26

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1206 2020-05-24 14:35:23

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1207 2020-05-24 14:44:06

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1208 2020-05-24 20:18:39

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1209 2020-05-25 12:48:56

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1210 2020-05-25 12:50:56

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1211 2020-06-04 21:39:14

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1212 2020-06-08 18:15:12

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1213 2020-07-13 02:34:14

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1214 2020-11-24 04:12:23

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1215 2020-11-30 06:53:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1216 2020-12-03 02:24:05

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1217 2021-02-16 15:03:43

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1218 2021-03-08 05:06:15

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1219 2021-03-08 10:15:28

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1220 2021-03-08 11:58:38

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1221 2021-03-08 14:37:16

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1222 2021-03-08 16:01:55

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1223 2021-03-17 13:56:07

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1224 2021-03-29 10:56:47

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

#1225 2021-04-13 23:56:21

Re: The Official Unofficial 'Arch is Best' Thread

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