new to this linux stuff sorry
Different strokes for different folks mostly.
Arch is a rolling release, meaning everytime something changes in a package or dependency, there’s an update.
Mint is a stable release, and gets major updates every few months, with much more frequent security updates, but yeah, it’s not an everyday thing like with Arch
While I don’t like saying “this is better than that”, since Arch is a rolling release, it’s always up to date, and so you’re not going to end up in a situation like “my built-in laptop sound card isn’t getting picked up” (i mean, you might, but it’s rare. After all, Arch can break sometimes times, just like everything, really) like you sometimes can with Mint and other stable distros. Also, Arch–well, vanilla Arch and something like Endeavour–comes with just the basics and everything else, you gotta add. I personally like this because I like knowing exactly what I’m installing and having only what I’m going to use…and also not deal with messing with PPA’s. This isn’t a point against non-Arch distros or anything, it’s all just personal preference–but really, everything from “Should I do Arch with Cinnamon or something like Mint or Fedora’s Cinnamon Spin?” is all up to personal preference
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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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.
The AUR
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”
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.
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.
Instead of Manjaro, try EndeavourOS, easy Arch install with GUI.
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 configuring
*btw
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.
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.
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.
It’s also a meme because people who are on Arch like to tell you about it because it makes them seem better since it’s not easy mode.
Kinda like vegans or Android users.
I’m on Manjaro an arch based distro BTW.
This is a thing of the past, everybody can have a running arch distro without any Linux knowledge nowadays. Archinstall, EndeavourOS etc.
The vegan comparison’s a bit of a tangent but most vegans I know keep their heads down because they only need to mention it once for everyone to start complaining that they did. It’s not really fair to characterize them as wanting to live life on hard mode and brag about it. They genuinely want to protect and respect animals, they find it’s not so hard after all, and mostly they do it discreetly.
Either im not funny or you missed the joke.
… but most Arch users I know keep their heads down because they only need to mention it once for everyone to start complaining that they did. It’s not really fair to characterize them as wanting to use Linux on hard mode and brag about it. They genuinely want to fully customize thier system, they find it’s not so hard after all, and mostly they do it discreetly.
People brag about Android? I’ve not once heard anyone bring up what type of phone they use unless contextually relevant or asked
that’s the joke, people often say “By the way I use Arch” ironically.
I use Crystal Linux, which is Arch based.
I’ve tried Mint along with 10 other distros. What I liked about Arch is:
- Latest Kernel, always. This means new drivers, better support for your current devices and support for more devices. Security & performance patches.
- AUR. Massive repo of user submitted apps & libs most not found elsewhere.
- Arch WiKi. Everything you will need or want to do somebody else already did and documented it so everyone else can have a guide to do it. Best documentation site ever.
- Arch Repo. Always the latest Software. Officially maintained apps and libs land first on Arch, Debian & Ubuntu derivatives take ages to catch up in comparison.
It’s great having so much software available but the AUR makes me nervous because you really don’t know who you’re trusting when you install something from there.
That’s why you are supposed to check the pkgbuild before installing anything from the aur.
Flathub has hundreds of apps which are not sandboxed and untrustworthy. So, no source is safe, and even most “safe” apps are not protected from supply chain attacks. So, you always have to be careful. But I agree there are certainly degrees of safety, and the AUR is certainly another one, which should not be taken lightly.
I don’t like other distros that include lots of programs out of the box. I might need an office program, a music player, etc. But I want to choose it all myself.
I like KDE, but I also like some gnome applications, and it’s difficult to find a distro that only installs one or the other.
I find it easier to start from scratch: Give me a basic desktop environment, a terminal, and I know how to take it from there.
The rolling packages are a nice touch. As a linux gamer, any bit of free performance I can get from simply installing an update is appreciated.
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 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.
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.
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. 😁
I think my issue with Mint is the small team maintaining the cinnamon fork that clearly can’t keep up with the desktop.
Otherwise mint is functionally Ubuntu. I preferred Debian for my stable stuff. I like arch currently because PKGBUILD was acomparatively easy package format to learn and modify. Rolling is nice but I’ve used Debian extensively as well.
