The Official Hello Everyone Thread

Benaque · 2021-12-20 09:03:31

Wow! 14 years later since first post I say HELLO to everybody.

Love arch because I love rolling distros. I tested (since 2008): Ubuntu, Kubuntu, PC Linux, KaOS, SuSE, Manjaro, EndeavourOS, Kali, and finally RebornOS. Last one can use multiple desktops enviroment with same kernels, plus can select LTS, rolling or Zen flavours. A very delicious distro.

Also love AUR community and also Octopi pkg. maintainers.

Thanks! The work of all people really make my life more easy. And sorry for my bad english.

Cheers from Mérida, Yucatán, México.

davidsanremo · 2021-12-22 14:11:20

Hello Arch Linux Community!

My name is David from Italy, I'm 41 and my job is Civil Law and Economics Teacher at the High School. I write this post to share my experience with Linux and more specifically how I ended up to be an Arch Linux user; so this will be a long post with a lot of text, you are warned!

So first of all, I don’t want to be so long about this point but just give you a bit of my background; I started using computer since I was a kid, I love so much computers and technology; I always be a Microsoft guy since DOS and then Windows. Aside of that I also used Apple products. So I’m very confident with both systems and I always wanted to learn Linux but with work and family issues was a real problem. I even try to install some distro over the years on spare computers but wasn’t a successful experience.

At the very beginning of 2020, in late January the restriction for the Covid-19 pandemic started I was asked to find a solution for doing remote lessons and work, so I picked up Google Education Platform as our main system for manage our needs. That solution was great since fits almost everything we needed as school/work needs but with the first hard lockdown in march 2020 another situation arisen. Not all the students have access to a proper computer because it was needed by their parents to work from home and not all our teachers have the possibility to access at computer because they wanted to let their children or family members the possibility to work of do school. Some of them used phones or tablets but situation was not the ideal. Personally since I’m huge fan of technology I didn’t have that problem; aside from iPhone, iPad and Mac Mini I also have an Acer Nitro 5 laptop that I use for work/gaming and a very good custom PC at home for work/gaming plus a lot of old laptops. But then I realized that not all the people have the possibility/needs to have so many pieces of hardware so I took my old hardware and I asked around for unused laptops/hardware and with a very little investment of some SSD, some RAM and the power of Linux we solve the problem.

I started using Linux Mint regularly for understanding the basics, I subscribed to a lot of Linux Channel on Youtube and day by day I learned new things but was a bit messed around. I was bit confused and did not realized at first the Linux philosophy so after a while I switched to Ubuntu, because I read somewhere that was better and then I swaped to Debian for the same reason, then Fedora and others then I realized that I become a so called Distro-Hopper and I start to understand that there is no absolute best choice to pick, but just the best for our needs, so at that point I started to understand the basics of the concept of freedom at the base of the Linux philosophy, and in that moment I realized what all those guys on Youtube meaning about freedom. So at the end of last summer I decided to buy a real course and go much more in-deep and I found a LOTS of them on Udemy. I don’t want to goo too much in deep of that but aside of these courses that I’m doing everyday I also started to read a lot on interned about Linux, so I read an article that explains that you can learn a lot about Linux just installing Arch Linux and Gentoo Linux.

So, since I love the challenge, I focused on installing and using these two distros. I took two old-gen laptops, a Raspberry Pi4 and I started to make things. I read guides on the officials websites, I watched so many videos and I want to be really honest with you, that installation process was really more easy on Gentoo respect Arch, I mean that on Gentoo installation was bit straight forward even if took me ages to finish the to compile the entire systems. I learned a lot, I can say this for sure but I mistaken a lot, I did all kind of errors anyone could make!

Now I understand:

- the difference from Bios and UEFI – MBR vs GPT (my very first mistake)
- how to use fdisk (a lots of mistakes here)
- the basics of ext2, ext3 and ext4, LVM and BTRFS (and basic usage of snapshots)
- what is SWAP and why it's needed (sometimes)
- the basic of Grub and why it’s so important
- the very basic of Systemd, OpenRC and runit but I understood his importance.
- what basically is the Kernel (for Gentoo I used genkernel command, didn’t have any clue how to customize my own Kernel)
- what are Runlevels and how they works
- what are repositories and how basically works
- what are rolling release and fixed release
- what is Xorg and Wayland
- the basic of files system (intended by system folders)
- why package manager are so powerful and the difference between distros
- the packages dependencies
- what is the Bash Shell, some commands and the basics for customize it (I love Screenfetch and Cmatrix)
- Nano and basics of Vi/Vim
- what are Desktop Environments like Gnome and KDE/Plasma (I like KDE)
- pick AMD chip and video card instead of Intel and Nvidia as well as do not pick Realtek
- the importance of root, %wheel meaning, basics of users and groups
- UUID vs /dev/xxx in fstab
- open source vs proprietary software
- many more small stuff.

I’m proud of what I have done even if this is just basic stuff, it force me somehow to study and learn new things that is always very good. Now I got two old-gen laptop working great, one with Gentoo with KDE and Wayland and the other with Arch with KDE and Wayland in BTRFS configured to snapshots using Timeshift. And I also installed ARM Arch 64-bit on my Raspberry Pi4.

I feel comfortable when I use Arch, the Pacman and AUR are amazing but the really good part is the community around. For all that reasons I picked up as my main distro, and I would like to understand it better. To be fair enough even Gentoo but the problem is that it needs too much time for compiling things and on daily basis will be a huge problem.

So this is my story how I become an Arch Linux user and I hope that my story will encourage you to use it.

My next project is to understand how to use Apache/MySql/Php for building a small server for educational purpose. I lack so bad in server security so I have to study more! If you guys have reference for this topic please comment.

A very personal thank you guys for the hard work, the efforts and the passion you have! You teach me a lot…

Regards.
David

2ManyDogs · 2021-12-22 14:16:39

Moderator note: topics merged.

Lilitu-Blackstar · 2021-12-23 14:55:06

Hello all. I'm a bit new to running my own server, and been using arch long time. I'm a bit slow at times, yet mostly just here to find information on some larger server admin questions i have regarding my setup and best practice. cheers

ofaruk · 2021-12-25 20:02:27

Hi everyone! I am sick of everlasting annoying windows updates that I don't know what they update and how much it takes. I am sick of background processes that I don't know what they do. I am really sick of poor community and cursory microsoft support. So, I am here! I recentlyt dual booted Arch so I have windows in my pocket to play games I like Cheers!

Lilitu-Blackstar · 2021-12-25 20:15:13

ofaruk wrote:

I am really sick of poor community

...and you decided to use arch?

also welcome and have fun <3

Last edited by Lilitu-Blackstar (2021-12-25 20:15:41)

ofaruk · 2021-12-25 20:27:05

Yeah, then I decided to use Arch There are a lot of reasons actually, these are just a few of them. Thanks!

Lilitu-Blackstar wrote:

ofaruk wrote:
I am really sick of poor community
...and you decided to use arch?
also welcome and have fun <3

nltn · 2021-12-26 14:18:29

Arch Rocks

Trilby · 2021-12-26 16:27:55

nltn wrote:

Arch Rocks

Here's one

tornade · 2021-12-27 21:24:09

Hi there,

I landed to arch in 2014... without huge trouble. I found many of solution here
It's time for me to stop to dig and ask. I'm lost

Sorry for my bad English and thanks !!

Cheers from France

Lyrapuff · 2021-12-28 13:52:57

Hey everyone, originally decided to use arch because I liked it's logo (got nothing else as I'm new to linux xd), but after installing it and having lots of fun during the process I think I'll stay also because of that.

dax79 · 2021-12-28 16:10:21

Hello to everybody. I'm Davide from italy and i'm an archlinux enthusiastic user (but not skilled)

MorningWalk · 2021-12-29 08:10:33

Hi everyone,

I'm Hans, living in France. I am a web developer not shy of doing sysadmin tasks. I started using Linux with Knoppix in 1998, later moved to Fedora and stayed with it for many years. Some 4 to 5 years ago I got a laptop with Ubuntu pre-installed so that became my day-to-day distro. A few months ago I got interested in ArcoLinux but finally I decided to install Arch Linux on my desktop and then on my laptop. It has been a great learning experience so far and the documentation is excellent.
I hope to find solutions for some of the problems I still couldn't solve by rtfm.

Greetings and Happy Holidays!

ms971 · 2021-12-30 04:28:54

Hi, I go back to the days of FreeBSD when I first used it to serve local Internet customers (an early ISP by taking an ISDN feed and reselling the service. For the past 17 years I have been on Mac and use it for web development, but my wife has an Acer laptop which ran Windows 10. One evening, M$ decided to upgrade her OS even though we had updates turned off. The next thing we know Edge is baked in and Microsoft has taken control of her computer. I said Windows has to go. It's our computer, we bought it, not Microsoft, I ranted!!

Then I started to look into Arch again, I fell in love with it years ago and had it on a LiveCD, I took minutes to wipe NTFS and play around with BTRFS and EXT4. The rolling releases is a dream come true, if you always have good backups. The Archwiki is the most comprehensive I have seen and it can solve most issues.

Hopefully, I can bring some value to the forum, as I continue the learning curve.

smoothbuddha · 2021-12-30 20:40:07

Hey everybody!i been using linux for about a couple of years on and off and really been gettin into it. I would like to try Arch linux to learn more about how the operating system works and how a system is assembled. Ive been distro hoping around around and learning some basic commands but ive had this feeling that im not learning the deeper aspects of this operating system, after reading around comments and advice on various forums the same advice seems to keep popping up and that advice is:

"try installing Arch, Gentoo, slackware or linux from scratch in order to learn about the deeper aspects of the system"

after doing some digging i dont feel im ready to attempt something as brutal as linux from scratch and ive read some people dont think its neccacerry to compile every program as you do in gentoo install , but im a noob so what the hell do i know about any of this stuff accept all i know is i need to try learn this stufff in steps, baby steps! and after reading the arch wiki this definately seems the best place to start! I followed a great installation guide from youtube channel distrotube which was really good and got me an installed base arch on a virtual box. So my next steps are to try and learn what to do , im thinking xorg then a desktop enviroment and try to go from there once i have a GUI up and running!

Slithery · 2021-12-30 20:46:49

Welcome to the forums smoothbuddha.

It's great that you'd like to try Arch, but watching a Youtube guide is the worst possible way to go about it, as they are always out of date, incorrect or both. If you used such a guide to do your installation then you won't be able to ask for help on these forums as we have absolutely no idea what you did or why and neither do you.

Please follow the steps on the excellent Wiki instead, as it's always up to date and anything that you need to go off and learn first to be able to follow it will be prove vital in being able to maintain your system properly.

Happy Arching

postman · 2022-01-03 01:03:12

I realize i'm very late to the party, but nonetheless hello to all fellow Arch users!

Last edited by postman (2022-01-03 01:03:26)

Uzzver_Andre · 2022-01-04 09:51:57

Hey, i'm writing now from Arch, installed on USB (after installing Arch on old laptop, i've spend something near two weeks on install how i wanted (now i have dual-boot on my USB: kali linux installed with Rufus and Arch on encrypted partition, but now installers of Debian i Arch that i've installed on this flash don't works:( )).
But these last one question: did i failed "handshaking" with arch.
More information: after getting idea install arch instead of kali that was on my USB stick first thing that i start to do was find a good installation manual(at that moment i've don't look to Wiki), i found one, worked with it near a week, and i understand that i want ext4, not btrfs, but guide was "btrfs-only", so i used other manual, but after second installation on second manual i've understand that at old computers i need dos and 32-bit grub instead of gpt and x86-64. After i go to "free search" and maked system how i want. After i understand that this guide was a video copy from wiki install guide
Thank you.

Last edited by Uzzver_Andre (2022-01-04 09:53:52)

romm · 2022-01-05 20:23:59

Hi everyone.

Im a 18 yo brazillian interested in open-source and social security. I installed Arch cuz i heard that was a valluable experience of effort and reward, and had curiosity in general. Im using suckless dwm by leaps and bounds but willnt give up, for me is like a passive challenge in addition of learning english.

Ive been interested in coding and linux for a while, but never took it seriously. In this year im probably entering college to take an development course, and i want to expand my knowledge and experience on these areas.

Hope to add and learn in this place, and sorry for major english errors.

tekmonkey · 2022-01-06 13:24:15

Hello everyone, I’m tekmonkey

Husband & Father, Journeyman Engineer, Guerilla Gardener, Dreamy Robotocist, Slow Cyclist, Thalassophile, SciFi Nerd & Futurist.

I have always been interested in the ideas of open source software. I think I got introduced to linux (debian) back in uni (~2004, i am old) and was hooked ever since. Due to my job as a programmer in an industry that mostly relies on visual studio and my ever lasting love for gaming at home, i always had linux as a "side experiment" on the "old laptop" for those years... about 3 years ago, i decided to switch my main pc to ubuntu (mostly because of how awesome Steam Proton is at enabling me to continue to play my games on linux) and have not switched back

I have heard a lot about Arch in all those years of course, but was always intimidated to try it... ubuntu 21.04 was the turning point for me, as it was everything i didnt want in a daily driver and more and more like windows, without any of the benefits, i decided to give arch a dive

I installed endeavour os as a gentle intro to Arch and am loving it so far... A few months ago I also got fed up with gnome and switched to XFCE and this has been the best decision ive made recently

I love tinkering with stuff and love knowing exactly what i have installed, where and why, and enjoy arch's way of doing things very much.

I am in the process of making sure all my files and configs are backed up correctly, and then might do the switch from endeavour OS to just Arch, but for now, im here to learn

2ManyDogs · 2022-01-06 13:28:55

tekmonkey wrote:

I installed endeavour os as a gentle intro to Arch and am loving it so far... A few months ago I also got fed up with gnome and switched to XFCE and this has been the best decision ive made recently
I am in the process of making sure all my files and configs are backed up correctly, and then might do the switch from endeavour OS to just Arch, but for now, im here to learn

Just as a reminder -- you are welcome to read the topics here, but please do not ask for help as long as you are using EndeavorOS; it is not supported here.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2022-01-06 18:54:56

tekmonkey wrote:

I have heard a lot about Arch in all those years of course, but was always intimidated to try it...

Use a VM to try the official installation guide. It's a lot simpler than people seem to think. And did you know that Arch now has an officially supported installer?

Once you've installed the One True Arch you can get support here and steal the desktop configuration from endaevorOS if you like that.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2022-01-06 18:55:47)

Nihar M · 2022-01-12 22:11:12

Hello, I had a 2 month holiday from Uni and a new laptop so it was the perfect time to try installing arch without worrying about time or losing data.

It hasn't been painless but hopefully it is worth the switch.

musbur · 2022-01-16 18:56:45

Hello Arch community,

I've become interested in Arch after installing Manjaro on my kids' laptops. It's slick but too windows-y for me. Also I like a challenge now and then. And it's dark out. And Covid.

Anyway, I started dabbling with Linux in the 90's when Slackware was available as a stack of 100 3.5" floppy disks. I don't know when that was, but I know that I switched over to Debian when Slink (".1 came out). I've been with Debian ever since, and quite happy with it.

Being the minimalist I am I decided to try my hand at setting up a bare-bones Arch system by bootstrapping from Debian. Boy, that was interesting. But I've got it set up now on a USB-connected SSD hanging off what is officially my company's Windows work laptop with LVM on top of LUKS. I like that Arch does NOTHING to pre-fill any configuration files. It made me appreciate Debian's approach of making "reasonable" presets, but it also taught me a lot about what needs to happen if you want to get a system up and running with GRUB (nightmare) and WiFi (another nightmare).

I haven't figured out yet how to make the system start up in "secure boot" mode. I know it has to do with a file called "shim64.exe" in /boot/efi/xxx. The Arch wiki is kind of quiet on this topic. I know that that doesn't inherently makes the system more secure, but it keeps me from having to turn secure boot on or off in the BIOS whenever I switch between Arch and Windows.

Also I'm struggling to make lightdm execute $HOME/.xsession after login (separate post).

justbenuk · 2022-01-16 20:02:19

Just wanted to add a Hiya,,,,,,,,,,, Ive been stuck in a loop between ubuntu, pop_os and windows for a while. So decided i would try to actually learn something and thought arch would be the ultimate to learn..

So here i am, arch installed and working

Ben

Arch Linux

#7201 2021-12-20 09:03:31

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#7203 2021-12-22 14:16:39

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