new to this linux stuff sorry
There’s nothing inherently superior, just what people like more. If you want to use Mint that’s totally fine and valid.
Moved over from Mint to Arch for gaming, which has some additional benefits:
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more up-to-date kernel and more up-to-date Mesa, which brings very noticeable improvements in frame rates - in Elden Ring for example, 45 fps outside in Mint to 60 fps outside on Arch
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my desktop soundcard isn’t recognised properly by PulseAudio but is by PipeWire. It’s hard to be sure that PulseAudio is completely gone when you uninstall it then reinstall something else. Arch, I just installed what I wanted in the first place
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some utility programmes, like CoreCtrl for graphics card fan and power tweaking, and emulators like RPCS3, are the Arch repositories but not the Mint ones. Much easier to keep them up-to-date
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for a gaming machine, no more ‘mystery services’ that I don’t know what they are. I quite like having everything quite stripped back for a gaming machine. On Arch, I know what everything does because I installed it. That’s not the case on Mint.
Obviously, I installed the Cinnamon desktop as my GUI choice - there’s certain things about Mint that are tremendous and worth sticking to.
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What GPU are you utilizing?
RX6700XT, on a 1440p monitor.
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For me, it’s:
- All software is shipped with as few changes as possible from upstream, so I’m getting the software as intended. If there’s an issue, it’s likely due to the software, not my distribution’s unicorn configuration.
- Pacman. This includes PKGBUILDs, syntax, and speed.
- Good support. For all that this distribution isn’t “the standard”, you find install instructions in places you wouldn’t expect, and more difficult things tend to work on Arch more easily than on other distributions.
- Easy to set new things up. Because Arch doesn’t ship with much configuration, there’s no existing configuration you need to investigate in order to wrangle it to work with something new. This is also a downside, but we’ll get to that…
- Inertia. I installed it a few years ago, and I kind of want to move to openSUSE or Fedora, but I’m too comfortable here.
Downsides:
- You need to configure everything. That includes the security stuff like AppArmor and SELinux you don’t understand.
- Occasional breakages. Arch doesn’t break that often, but it’s annoying when it does. Usually visiting bbs.archlinux.org is enough to set you on the right path.
- Some software is packaged more slowly than other rolling distributions. Notably, GNOME is usually packaged a few months after openSUSE and Fedora ship it.
- Constant updates! And HUGE updates, at that! Not great for computers you don’t use often. If you do, make sure to
pacman -Sy archlinux-keyringbefore you install new updates.
You don’t have to do the keyring thing manually anymore, pacman takes care of it. :)
Oh, cool! Since when? I always thought that was something the user shouldn’t need to remember and that Pacman should automatically prioritize it.
This is exactly why I love making these kinds of comments. Someone always comes along to teach me something new!
It was a while ago… Not sure when. But I remember the news about it. :)
Not great for computers you don’t use often. If you do, make sure to
pacman -Sy archlinux-keyringbefore you install new updates.Pro tip there!
Thankfully, it appears this is no longer necessary in most cases since 2022: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Package_signing#Upgrade_system_regularly
Though, it’s still worthwhile doing it for computers you don’t power on for most of the year, as the service likely hasn’t had a chance to run.
That’s a nice upgrade.
Notably, GNOME is usually packaged a few months after openSUSE and Fedora ship it.
In this case, it’s actually a plus IMO. Giving Gnome extension devs a month or so to ensure that any compatibility issues are fixed is ideal.
I use GNOME without any extensions, so there’s no benefit for me 🙃
I mean, technically I use AppIndicators, but I tend to just turn off system trays for all software I can. Steam is probably the only exception.
Gnome without extensions?? I could never.
Which extensions do you deem essential for yourself?
I answered that in this comment.
Gnome without extensions?? I could never.
I don’t see any need for them! I like the defaults. I only change the keyboard shortcuts, and I usually don’t even autostart anything. I tend to still install GNOME Tweaks so I can turn on Focus on Hover, move the Close button to the left side of the window, but I don’t need an extension for any of that. I don’t know what I would even use an extension for!
I use about ten different extensions that all add useful functionality, but the absolute deal breakers are 1) indicators for apps that require a system tray, 2) GSConnect to transfer stuff between my computer and my phone, and 3) clipboard history. I can’t survive without those.
AppIndicators are a popular one. I have the extension installed for Fcitx (though I usually never touch it, instead using keyboard shortcuts). I previously used IBus for my input method, but because I often switch between GNOME and Sway, I’ve found Fcitx a better option. I so rarely use my phone that I don’t need KDEConnect. And Fcitx has built-in clipboard history—not that I use it anyway.
Gnome without extensions?? I could never.
Gnome without extensions?? I could never.
Inertia. I installed it a few years ago, and I kind of want to move to openSUSE or Fedora, but I’m too comfortable here.
Everytime I see something about nixos
You need to configure everything. That includes the security stuff like AppArmor and SELinux you don’t understand.
Are those really important thing I should have configured? The only safety thing I have is LUKS encription.
I also wonder about Nix and Guix. But I never seriously consider Gentoo.
Are those really important thing I should have configured? The only safety thing I have is LUKS encription.
Ubuntu configures AppArmor by default, Fedora sets up SELinux, openSUSE also sets up SELinux to some extent—most major distributions except Arch do it, because you’re installing it yourself. I recommend looking into it. AppArmor and SELinux are essentially about preventing privilege escalation. Here’s a good place to start: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Apparmor
SELinux is an absolute pain to understand and setup, so it’s good that Fedora does it.
Arch and Gentoo have IMO the best documentation ever and you learn a lot when you try using either of those distributions as you have to do everything from scratch starting from a minimal system. Since you’re saying you’re new to Linux though, I’d say you should start with something more user-friendly like Mint or Ubuntu (or even Manjaro if you want a rolling release distro) and stay away from Arch and Gentoo in the beginning.
And for the FOMOers of you, I started playing with Linux as a kid over a decade ago, and I just attempted and completed my first Arch install last month.
(I got it first try thought not to brag or anything :) )
I will say that while some things in the Arch wiki are for arch only, a whole lot of it applicable to any distro. Or at least to Mint, which I’ve been on for like a decade but have used AW (it’s a common DuckDuckGo bang I use,
!aw) for many a trouble shooting and configuringInstead of Manjaro, try EndeavourOS, easy Arch install with GUI.
Arch and Mint target a different user base. Mint is more appropriate for the beginning Linux user who wants to wade slowly into using Linux. It’s for somebody that is coming from an entire GUI experience like Windows. This person may have no understanding of partitions, filesystems, bootloaders, etc. Arch is going to be more appropriate for either an intermediate to advanced user of Linux that wants more control over their installation or a Windows user that understands the more complex topics around the way a computer operates.
The above said, it is very possible to do advanced things with Mint as well and I have in the past. I just want to have a leaner system that does not make assumptions about what I want or need. I want fairly strict control of what goes into my installation but not strict enough that I would need to do something like Linux From Scratch. Both Mint and Arch are excellent distributions! In fact, I would go as far to say as I like all open source operating systems and software by the nature that they’re open sourced. They can be customized, expanded, etc. I would also advise people to mix some FreeBSD and OpenBSD in their homelabs if possible because the more you can learn, the better. OpenBSD is my firewall and advanced router. FreeBSD powers my blog. Arch powers my desktop and Mastodon and Lemmy instances.
Mint is more appropriate for the beginning Linux user who wants to wade slowly into using Linux. It’s for somebody that is coming from an entire GUI experience like Windows.
Mint is also great for the experienced Debian sysadmin who just cannot be bothered to care about customizing every damn thing up front, but wants a responsibly managed package system under the hood.
Same can be said for Pop! which is what I’m using now. You don’t have to be a noob to want things to just work out of the box.
Yes. I’ve been an IT professional for the last 20 years. I started out experimenting with all kinds of distros, but as the need increased just to get stuff done, I went to Mint and stayed there. The more I had to do, the more I became a Linux user who just wanted the thing to work so I could get on with it. Mint was great for that. Recently I’ve started using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, which strikes me as a kind of middle ground between an Arch-like distro and a Mint-like distro. It gives me that nice sense that it’s only doing what I ask it to, without the need to build everything from the bottom up, and it’s much more up to date than Mint.
Hey, I can get behind anyone that goes all in on open source! Doesn’t matter what distro they’re using. Doesn’t matter if it’s one of the BSDs. You’re all good in my book. 😁
Yep, I started when Red Hat sold boxed sets and paper documentation, installed Gentoo on Sparc and Alpha, and Arch when it was released as an i686 distro. I don’t get paid to fix my own stuff and save most of my tech deep dives for work, at home I want the thing to work every time I turn it on without having to touch anything.
That’s essentially an extremely subjective question. Arch is well-liked but not for everyone.
When you boot up the ArchLinux ISO to install it, what you get on the screen is:
root@archiso ~ #That’s it. It doesn’t ask you what language you want to speak or which keyboard layout you want to use. You get a zsh shell, and that’s it. Go figure out what you want to install, how you want to install it, where you want to install it to. That’s how basically all of Arch works: if you install something, it comes barebones with sometimes the default starting configuration shipped by whoever made the software and nothing else.
To me, that’s what makes Arch so good compared to something like Linux Mint: I’m an advanced user, I don’t want training wheels, and I want to build my system entirely from scratch, with only what I want on it installed and running. And it comes with excellent documentation, is a rolling release (meaning, you get the latest version of everything fairly quickly). Since Arch pretty much only ships packages for you to install, it’s not nearly as important to make sure that they work and there isn’t any incompatibility with other packages. Oh the newer version of X doesn’t work with Y anymore? Too bad, go figure out how to downgrade it or figure out a workaround.
Is this useful to you, a beginner? It depends. If you want to go into the deep ends and learn everything about how a Linux system is built and works, sure, it’s going to be great for that. Lots of people do that and love it! If you’re coming from Windows, all you’re used to is clicking next next finish, and you like things to just work out of the box, eehh, probably not great for you.
Distributions like Linux Mint does a lot of the work for you: first of all, it has a graphical installer. It boots up and asks you about your language, your keyboard, where you want to install it. And it installs a system that’s ready to be used out of the box. When you install Linux Mint, you get a desktop, a web browser, you get drivers configured for you. It detects what’s the best graphics drivers and prompts you to install them automatically.
Most distributions, especially Debian/Ubuntu derived ones, are all about providing a curated experience. It comes with a whole bunch of stuff installed and configured to reasonable defaults. Need to print something? Yeah it comes with printer support by default, just plug in your printer and it’ll configure it for you. Some distributions even comes with Steam and Discord and everything needed to game ready to go right out of the box. Log in and play.
To provide such a reliable and out of the box experience, these distributions typically work with a release cycle, or delay updates to have time to properly test them out and make sure they work correctly before they ship it out to users. This means you may be a few versions behind on your desktop environment, but you also get the assurance you won’t update and your desktop doesn’t work anymore.
I personally picked Arch a long time ago because I’m fundamentally a tinkerer, I want the newest version of everything even if it means breaking things temporarily, and I do kind of whacky things overall. One day my laptop is there for working and browsing the web, another day it’s an iPXE server to install 20 other computers, another day it’s a temporary router/WiFi access point, another day it’s a media center/TV box, another day it’s an Android tablet. Arch gives me the freedom to make my computer do whatever I need my computer to do at the moment, and because it doesn’t make any assumptions about what I want to do with my computer, I can easily make it do all of those things on a whim. On Linux Mint, I’d be fighting an uphill battle to tear down everything the developers spent so much time building for me and my convenience.
Arch is always “latest and greatest” for every package, including the kernel. It lets you tinker, and it’s always up to date. However, a rolling release introduces more ways to break your system - things start conflicting under the hood in ways that you weren’t aware of, configurations that worked don’t any longer, etc.
This is in contrast to everything built on Debian, which Mint is one example of - Mint adds a bunch of conveniences on top, but the underlying “how it all fits together” is still Debian. What Debian does is to set a target for stable releases and ship a complete set of known-stable packages. This makes it great for set and forget uses, servers that you want to just work and such. And it was very important back in the 90’s when it was hard to get Internet connectivity. But it also means that it stays behind the curve with application software releases, by periods of months to a year+. And the original workaround to that is “just add this other package repository” which, like Arch, can eventually break your system by accident.
But neither disadvantage is as much of a problem now as it used to be. More of the software is relatively stable, and the stuff you need to have the absolute latest for, you can often find as a flatpak, snap, or appimage - formats that are more self-contained and don’t rely on the dependencies that you have installed, just “download and run.”
Most popular distros now are Arch or Debian flavored - same system, different veneer. Debian itself has become a better option for desktop in recent years just because of improvements to the installer.
I’ve been using Solus 4.4 lately, which has its own rolling-release package system. Less software, but the experience is tightly designed for desktop, and doesn’t push me to open terminals to do things like the more classical Unix designs that guide Arch and Debian. The problem both of those face as desktops is that they assume up-front that you may only have a terminal, so the “correct way” of doing everything tends to start and end with the terminal, and the desktop is kind of glued on and works for some things but not others.
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For everyone saying the wiki, you don’t have to be an Arch user to love the wiki. I’m on Solus but use the Arch wiki frequently.
I’m a Debian & Gentoo user and I refer to it from time to time.
What specific parts of Arch Wiki do you find useful as a Debian user?
One that stood out for me is the systemd article on Arch wiki is amazing! From basic operation to creating units, it has everything. It has helped me with my work more times than I care to admit (we use Debian & Ubuntu).
Other than that, mostly, that’d be more as a Gentoo user for me, since it requires more involved setup.
I just switched to Fedora from Ubuntu for my Plex server and I’m referencing the Arch wiki all the time, recently for looking up info about pam/Google Authenticator
I use mint and I really like it. It’s an easy familiar transition from windows.
Arch is for user’s who want to start with a completely blank slate. Like there’s no file system when you start, as far as I know. Think of arch like windows but nothing is installed, not even explorer.exe
Arch has the newest software, whereas most of Linux Mint’s software is usually a few years out of date except for security patches.
Arch is also a lot more “DIY” compared to Linux Mint’s “It Just Works”
Probably already said here, but it’s going to just come down to your end goal to know what distro fits what you’re looking for.
I am personally a huge fan of Gentoo, another distro that’s all about “from the ground up” approach. It’s actually where I started with Linux and is how I became as proficient in it as I am today. In fact my internal server that does everything is running Gentoo as it’s OS… Has never had any problems in the last decade that would require a reinstall or anything crazy like that.
But even as much love as I have for Gentoo, I have Linux Mint installed on my laptop. Why? Because it’s just more convenient when I need my full focus on the 10 other personal projects I’m working on… Also amazing on the gaming front. Doesn’t have nearly as much bloat as some other Ubuntu-based distros on first install, has a huge community support, and is just great all around to have.
As someone who has used both as my primary operating system the main reason I ended up on Arch is the Arch User Repository (AUR).
The AUR allows you to run installation scripts for apps that aren’t supported by the official repositories and pretty much everything you could ever want is there.
The other big thing I liked is the Arch Wiki documents everything really well, and I preferred the kinds of answers I found there and on the Arch forums to the Ubuntu/Mint forums.
At the time, operating system overhead was extremely important to me and a window manager like i3 or awesome was less resource intensive than Mint’s Cinnamon Desktop Environment (DE).
All of that being said though, because Arch doesn’t ship with a DE getting started will require a configuring a lot of things using old school text based configuration files. The Mint installed on the other hand leaves you with a very capable and functional system as soon as you finish installing it.
If you want something that works right out of the box, I would recommend Mint. If you want a project give Arch a shot!
Yep you nailed it. The AUR with yay allows you to turn GitHub into your system’s package manager basically. Definitely not recommended for most users, but if you’re cautious and know what you’re doing, it’s an amazing addition to your toolkit.
Exactly the reason I would advise any newbie to stay away from AUR or Arch alltogether.
I actually find it to be quite a bit easier to use than Debian. I do think the Arch spookiness is way overblown. It shouldn’t be your first Linux distro, but I think it’s fine once you get bored with the Linux Mints and Ubuntus of the world.
Do you have any arguments on why you think Arch is easier to use than Debian? Common sense tells me there is none, despite the obvious “well any package is available in AUR so I can install it easypeezy” yolo.
It’s not just the AUR, but that’s part of it. Every time I use Debian, I’m shocked by how difficult it is to install any proprietary software. I tried to make it easy on myself by installing Flatpak, but even that didn’t seem to work on my system for some reason. I’m sure it was a fixable problem, but I just found myself fighting it more than I liked. The Arch wiki is also incredible and has been a great help when I’ve encountered similar issues over there.
Totally agree that Archwiki is handsdown the best wiki for Linux. But Debian doesn’t deserve this flak imo. It has its place and use cases. Also depending on your requirements as a user can be fine for desktop.
I love that Debian exists even if I don’t personally enjoy using it. It’s a great baseline for others to build off of and it’s rock solid reliable if that’s your top priority. I just struggle to make it work for my workflows. I’m sure plenty of people would say the same thing about Arch too. I don’t think either deserve a negative reputation.
Don’t you have to rebuild everytime it updates though. Itll take a looong time
Yeah there’s some applications I refuse to install just for this reason lol. Some don’t take too long, but bigger ones can take forever. You could always let it run in the background if you’re really determined.
Well, Arch is not inherently better, it depends on your needs. If you want up-to-date packages and don’t mind the do it yourself approach you’ll love Arch. I’ve used Arch for a few years and learned a lot from it. I love the minimalism. Now I switched to a minimal install of Sway on Debian because I just want a tried and tested stable system. I am at a point of my life where I want a really boring install. Instead of tinkering with the system I use it as a base to learn more on the server side, and learn more coding, etc
Ironically my day to day experience was harder with Debian than Arch, it was a pain trying to find up-to-date packages for pretty much everything I needed
But why is up-to-date always good though?I get it if you actually need the new version but that’s rare though. There’s a reason that critical infrastructure relies on more stable, older and tested packages. In the industry and where the money actually is, older is generally seen as better and more mature. For example the whole drama of RedHat with Centos Stream happened because people don’t want to use upstream Centos Stream because it’s the testing ground for RHEL. I am at a stage where I prefer older packages. The new and shiny doesn’t mean it’s better.
Just try using any modern framework/language/library/tool/whatever with the packages that exist by default in the Debian repository, it’s impossible and a pain in the ass
What framework do you actually use ? Most programmers use Ubuntu or Debian and I don’t see how you need something so up to date and on the edge? Apart from some specific cases, most people do not need newer packages.
Package base is always up to date since it’s rolling. The AUR is absolutely fantastic and gives me any obscure application I could ever need. You ever tried installing the marathon trilogy with alephone on fedora? The AUR makes it a single button install. I’m currently running endeavour OS plasma, such a smooth experience.
