ARCH LINUX an ever updating linux os
- Thread starter heisty
- Start date
fletcherlynd
New member
Arch is great, but as you say, unfortunately the biggest hurdle is the installation process which look really scary for newcomers.
Since they removed the installer, things got really hard and I kind of "moved away" when I needed to do a reinstallation, well, not too far away, nowadays I use Anarchy and Antergos who provide an installer that smooth things out, so you'll have an Arch Linux system in no time without the hassle of manually setting everything by yourself.
Manjaro is even easier to install and mantain but some of the repositories are not shared with Arch so they are kind of on their own.
One great thing about Arch, aside from its community, is also the Wiki, really complete and helpful but, again, you really need a lot of time and patience if you come from Ubuntu or other easy mainstream distros, but there are worse things in terms of patience and time, any reference to Gentoo or Linux From Scratch is purely coincidental ;-)
Since they removed the installer, things got really hard and I kind of "moved away" when I needed to do a reinstallation, well, not too far away, nowadays I use Anarchy and Antergos who provide an installer that smooth things out, so you'll have an Arch Linux system in no time without the hassle of manually setting everything by yourself.
Manjaro is even easier to install and mantain but some of the repositories are not shared with Arch so they are kind of on their own.
One great thing about Arch, aside from its community, is also the Wiki, really complete and helpful but, again, you really need a lot of time and patience if you come from Ubuntu or other easy mainstream distros, but there are worse things in terms of patience and time, any reference to Gentoo or Linux From Scratch is purely coincidental ;-)
Peter
Member
I like Arch Linux and have installed it a few times, mainly on laptop computers. I agree with what you said about the installation process being more difficult than other distros, but you learn a lot in the process. First time took me a whole day to install and I wasn't 100% satisfied with the result but later attempts have been quicker and more successful.
I really like their package manager (pacman), and it feels good to have up-to-date versions of things as a change, but I always run into problems after a while, perhaps because there are periods when I don't use a laptop at all so when I start using it again everything is out of date which seems to lead to problems with the updating process.
It's a great distribution but I have gotten tired of having to spend hours or days fixing problems once in a while so I mostly go for Debian nowadays. It's not as bleeding edge but at least it's stable, and it seems to be one of few distros that truly appreciates the underlying values of free software.
I really like their package manager (pacman), and it feels good to have up-to-date versions of things as a change, but I always run into problems after a while, perhaps because there are periods when I don't use a laptop at all so when I start using it again everything is out of date which seems to lead to problems with the updating process.
It's a great distribution but I have gotten tired of having to spend hours or days fixing problems once in a while so I mostly go for Debian nowadays. It's not as bleeding edge but at least it's stable, and it seems to be one of few distros that truly appreciates the underlying values of free software.
If you like Arch but are lazy/unable to bother with getting everything ready when setting up, Manjaro is an option for you.
It features "Ubuntu-like" installation, all while keeping Arch as the base.
It has GUI already pre-baked.
The GUI doesn't need tuning to look good, cause it already does.
Downsides are that it removes the "fun" of setting up Arch away from the user, and is slower(when compared to Arch) in updates.
It features "Ubuntu-like" installation, all while keeping Arch as the base.
It has GUI already pre-baked.
The GUI doesn't need tuning to look good, cause it already does.
Downsides are that it removes the "fun" of setting up Arch away from the user, and is slower(when compared to Arch) in updates.