So I installed Arch Linux... Is this it?

Welcome to realizing the Memes are all bullshit and its just a solid distro that's worth using for the simpleness. Just go use your computer like the average user is and roll with it

Didn't bother going through the hoops and installed EndeavourOS which is arch-based with some additional default applications.

For me, the best thing of Arch isn't the distribution but the Arch wiki. An impressive piece of documentation.

You already announced you use Arch... So you're doing good

Most distros are very similar - it's mostly the same software just using a different package manager.

This is why "which distro should I use" is the most annoying question in this community.

Now actually use it for a couple of years. Then you'll see whats special about it.

For me personally, Ubuntu was breaking on every dist upgrade, the software was always out of date or not available in the repos. Been running arch for 5 years, same install, even transplanted it over to newer computers without issues. When some package is missing, I can throw together a PKGBUILD with chatgpt and put it on the AUR for others to use. It fucking rocks and is extremely sturdy while allowing me to do with it whatever I want.

But yeah, besides that, it's just a linux. The individual things it does well are not even exclusive to arch. Ideally, you should not think about your OS at all and it should be out of your way, while you do something on it.

Most of the time it is achieved with the phrase: "I use Arch, btw". 😉

You fell for the meme lol.

Arch is great if you want very high levels of customization without having to get into compiling and coding, like with Gentoo or NixOS.

I think of it as the distro equivalent to custom keyboard kit, you get all the parts and can swap them out as much as you want. But you're not designing and fabricating your own circuit board and microcontroller, writing your own custom firmware, getting a custom case modeled and fabricated, etc.

There's a reason "I use Arch, BTW" Is a meme.

Check your neck for extra beard hairs, or your legs for knee high socks

Come for the memes, stay for the wiki and AUR.

OP forgot the socks. Classic mistake.

The meme is mostly a relic from the days when installing Arch was a very involved and mostly manual process -- it wasn't to the level of LFS, but you had to configure most of the base system, and it would leave you with a pretty bare-bones setup (no GUI by default, etc). So it was a pretty big hurdle and successfully installing it did give you a bit of nerd cred, though even then the "arch BTW" meme was tongue in cheek.

These days it's just one of the most well-supported rolling release distros, and it's got automated installers and GUI spins just like any popular distro. The two biggest assets are the AUR and the wiki.

NixOS does kind of feel like the spiritual successor in terms of effort to set up, and in that immutable OSes are kind of the next big thing, like rolling release was fairly unconventional when Arch was taking off.

How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it’s set up it’s just like any other computer?

Well, do you already have a personality that isn't based on Arch? If you do, get rid of it.

I think you might be missing the part where memes are not real. aur is useful. arch wiki is useful.

What exactly is it that people obsess over? The desktop environment and terminal customisation? Setting up NetworkManager with nmcli? Using Vim to edit a .conf file?

Welcome to the crowd! Eventually, you realize that an operating system is just an operating system: something you use to get work done, and the less you notice it, the better it's doing its job. The pride of setting it all up mostly ends very shortly after you're done. At that point, you realize that pretty much all distros are the same, give or take.

That said, there are always moments that make you realize that your OS is amazing. When you're faced with a new and difficult task that you don't know how to achieve, then you look at your distro's documentation and solve it in a few elegant steps. And I'm not an Arch user, but that's when the Arch wiki will really be your friend, as well as all the other resources that Arch has for its users. I can't think of examples of these kinds of moments because they're so rare, but those are the moments that feel great and really make you appreciate your OS.

Yup, that's it.

Next, join us at !gentoo@lemm.ee spend a day or 2 setting everything up and compiling every package from scratch, rice your setup, and realize that even that is barely different from Ubuntu to use once you've actually got everything set up.

Maybe Linux From Scratch feels a bit more special, but I never got to the finish line with that one, even as a teen I had better things to do with my time lol

The AUR is pretty awesome. If a piece of software exists on Linux, it's in the AUR. Even software that doesn't have a native Linux version can sometimes be found these, e.g. repackaged versions of Electron apps for Windows.

And once you start really customizing your system, you'll see the value of the Arch Wiki. If there's something you can do on Arch, the Wiki probably has a well-written guide for it.

Use it as your daily driver and get really comfortable with it. After this, complain loudly when you see someone doing anything in a different way. Then say "I use Arch btw"

Do people really make Arch their personality? Ive been using Arch-based distros since forever and never really met someone like that. I thought it was just a meme.

I like the minimalism and ability to control more parts of your system as opposed to an automated install process doing everything for you. But you don't have to do that much manually. The main pacstrap step basically sets up your whole system anyway. It's not that different to other mainstream distros. I have always just used it like any other distro.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the bleeding-edge packages and AUR are nice features too. And being rolling release to a lesser extent, just my preference.

The thrilling thing about arch is you get to put together your own user land applications, especially things that could form your desktop environment, audio stuff, etc.

I agree it is not that complicated. If you want more thrill, here is what I recommend:

gentoo Linux

has the option to compile everything from source. This isn't just for bragging rights. This resolves a whole class of software breakages that can happen on other distros (especially when using old or less common applications).

• It gives you the option (emphasis on optional) to use openRC, an alternative to systemd.
• patch any software super easily, working nicely with the system
• customize compile flags on a global level
• have package manager manage software that isn't available in repos, or easily write a package script for it (technically AUR can do this, but gentoo more powerful)
• works like a charm with heavily customized setups, such as musl, or less common architectures like arm or risc-V

NixOS

Takes it a step beyond gentoo and uses a functional, lazy approach in package management. Every package is fully reproducible, has a kind of isolated environment. Your entire setup is reproducible and declared with a single file.

---- below this line is torture. Not recommended

slackware

Idk how it works exactly, but package management looks like a manual pain

Linux from scratch

A book where you create your Linux installation from scratch, compiling every single component until you reach a working system

Notable mentions

• Alpine Linux: uses musl and busybox by default. Extremely lightweight. Some things will not work, but you get the thrill of running a couple MB distro
• void Linux: ok I'm tired of writing so I will not explain that one

You've just made your first post regarding Arch. The cycle is complete.

Arch isn't cool anymore you should switch to gentoo

Ha ha, you fool, you fell for the classic blunder!

It’s just a meme, dude.

People like Arch because to many it feels more truly like your system than other distributions.

It isn't that Arch is in some way more customizable than other distros, rather it's that if there is a package on your Arch system, its probably there because it was your choice to put it there in the first place, and so the system can feel more representative of you given it only contains the things you want or need and nothing more from the get go.

Yes, and that's the point of Archlinux. It's nothing special, at least in the way it is configured. You make it special. You build your distribution more or less. You are the opinionated one, not the distribution. I think what people are "obsessed with Arch" is, that you have to manage it yourself and you build it yourself. It is the philosophy that is appealing I guess. In example not much is automated. Stuff is described in the wiki and community and it is expected that you learn the stuff and understand and then do it yourself, instead relying on automated and preconfigured stuff from a regular distro.

On my main system I use EndeavourOS, which is basically Arch, but with some pre-configs and opinions, and comes with some automation tools.

Outside of the meme, the only people who make it their personality are generally younger and less experienced users who feel extremely empowered and proud by doing anything useful on the command line. Not like those users on Ubuntu (which they just switched from) who install stuff from a store like losers, nuh uh.

Before Arch you had the same type of people on Gentoo feeling superior because of use flags and watching hours of compiler output, after switching from Mandrake.

Good now wipe it and install NixOS. You're ready.

Great, isn't it? You just set up a system you like for you to use, without any bullshit.

Arch is too easy to set up nowadays for it to be a "thing".

Maybe 15 years ago when the process was slightly more complicated but even then it's always been paint by numbers.

Even Gentoo isn't that difficult, just time consuming.

Arch is for the most part comparable to Debian unstable/sid, but instead of a normal repository, it instead depends largely on a massive 3rd party repository (the AUR), and for some reason people think that's a feature.

Yes, you are missing the fact that it's mostly not people making Archlinux their personality, but people making meme'ing about "Archlinux users" their personality. For the vast majority it's just an OS.

I'm gonna comment and say that's the point.

You start out with bare minimum and install what you need. As you go you generally have an idea of what is and isn't on your system. It's not as annoying as Gentoo with all source compiling, not as anal as nix.

If something breaks, you go to ArchLinux.org and 95% of the time it's mentioned on the front page so you follow the instructions and move on. It's a very transparent distro, little drama to follow unlike Ubuntu/canonical or fedora/redhat.

It used to be harder to install and which gave some street cred, but they simplified it a bit which is nice.

The Stans give an unbalanced look at arch. I use arch because I want the latest packages, I don't want to segment my packages between my repos and tarballs when there's a game stopping missing feature on a package pinned to a 2yo version. I don't want to learn a whole scripting language to carefully craft my OS like nix either. I want a current OS that's easy to fix and easy to install packages so I can go back to what I was doing.

You're forgetting the finest feature - you have to tell everyone in the real world and online that you use arch btw.

What exactly is it that people obsess over? The ricing?

Please refrain from using racist terms. Here's a good thread about it.

I like operating systems as boring as possible. Let it manage the underlying system while I focus on work. I think you just convinced me to try Arch now.

Arch offers a combination of rolling software updates, a simple but easily customized base, pacman for the package manager, the AUR, a barebones installation process by default, good documentation, and active development. That may or may not be a good combination based on your goals.

Other distros offer a different combination of characteristics. Those characteristics are a starting point and you can get to the same destination no matter what you use. The trick is figuring out what starting point is closest to your destination or which starting point makes the journey fun for you. For some people, Arch is that. For plenty of people, Arch isn't that.

That's basically it. Some Arch users are genuinely just picky about what they want on their system and desire to make their setup as minimal as possible. However, a lot of people who make it their personality just get a superiority complex over having something that's less accessible to the average user.

How can I make using Arch Linux my personality

That cracked me up x)

Anyway, I'd say it's good that the OS is out of your way once set it up. Even though I don't use Arch directly, I like how comprehensive the AUR is (even though there may be repositories more packages, like nix and whatnot), think the ArchWiki (like the GentooWiki) is a very useful resource, even if you use a completely different system.

Arch constantly breaks on me. Maybe give it a while.

This is probably true of most distros.

Let me ask you... Why would you do something like that? I mean, Arch is just a piece of software, why would you wanna be obsessed with or turn it your personality?

Don't you have anything more meaninful to worry about?

a lot of people base there personality off it because they installed it from scratch and customize it exactly how it fits them. ofcorse that's not going to be everyone because everyone is different.

You'll know it when you feel the satisfaction of getting to enter pacman -Syu in the terminal several times a day and a new update or two. lol

Am I missing something?

Yep. You got meme'd -- Arch is a distro like any other.

Fresh packages all the time without any hassle or snaps/flatpak/appimages, and theoretically never needs to be reinstalled. What's not to love.

OP was pretty fucking snarky though, ngl. Some of us enjoy using arch based distros without being walking memes, and far more people complain about people talking about arch than actually talk about arch these days.

Linux distros differ only in their package managers, really.

😂

It's like owning a screw driver, a really nice professional grade, well forged screw driver, with a molded grip handle.

Does it do anything that the $1 cheap knock off screw drivers can do? No, its just a screw driver.

If you use it every day, you may grow to like all the tiny features and comforts and customizations, or maybe not.

ArchLinux is a tool just like embedded linux systems, does basically the same thing as every other OS, its not life changing, but if you may grow to like its little details just like a custom screwdriver.

No longer using Arch, but I can tell you what I liked about it:

• it basically only does what you explicitly tell it to, making the setup very flexible. There's no stuff the OS hides behind its own tools really (resulting in little to none "DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE" situations).
• It is very up to date and the rolling release generally works well, there's no pain with changing releases or anything.
• The package manager, including creating your own packages, is dead easy and fast. Caveat is that once you look deeper into it, it gets more complex as you need to keep a container for clean building around. Still, with the right tooling, it's very manageable.
• As already mentioned, the documentation is very good.
• Packages are very close to upstream, in most cases just being something like "./configure; make; make install".
• Generally very unopinionated.

Nobody's raving about the install, that's just useful for people who don't know what makes a Linux distro.

It becomes your personality after a few years because every update might break anything, and you need to regularly maintain random shit. Also if you forget to update regularly, the chance of everything crapping out rises exponentially.

I hope you're using something like btrfs, because rollbacks are a must.

Arch is perfect, it's like THE Linux. It's not really opinionated about anything, it just helps you do it. Hell you can "pacman -S apt" and slowly become a debian

That's the magic of it: latest software, rolling release, edit some config files, do anything you want, spend half your time tweakin'

troll detector noisy

I mean if you want to be blasé about the fact not everyone has the same technical skills as you, sure…

Before the install script, i setup arch manually and added the gnome package that bringd DE and all the good Gnome stuff with it. it was then just the same as any other Gnome DE really. People taut the AUR, but OpenSUSE has same with their software.opensuse.org where packages maintained as experimental or community can be accessed (or by adding OPI). Since OpenSUSE had built in snapshotting, rollback and GUI admin (plus curation to do cleanups and maintemamce already OOTB) I uninstalled Arch. The ArchWiki though, that thing is a masterpiece

I'm trying out Arch on my laptop atm, and tbh the only real advantage (at least for me) is that the packages tend to be a lot fresher than on Debian-based distros. The question is how many of your packages you really need to be that fresh.

I think a lot of Arch users feel like wizards because they connected to the home wifi using the command line, but if you've tinkered with (/broken then had to fix lol) other distros, you will have done all this stuff before

It's a linux distro, just like all other linux distros... Idk what to tell ya

I think arch peaked in its popularity in 2016 or so. It felt like an elitism thing was going on around that time that has 1. Faded off and 2. Been dispersed into other distros because as it turns out there are other good choices, too.

Besides. How are you going to become a rising influencer rehashing the same old takes as the prior generation of dorks? Can’t keep people coming with Arch is the greatest YouTube videos forever.

You must have missed the small print that says "Personality not included". Linux is simple, individual character is hard.

Permanently Deleted

If you want a challenge that may or may not be worth it, try configuring NixOS. And I mean really get into it, try to configure everything using Nix. It's very time consuming but not boring, each configuration varies person to person (i.e the way you organize it) so it can be quite fun if you have the time.

Also nixpkgs (what Nix and NixOS use) has like, all the packages

I also felt a little underwhelmed, I thought the installation would be more difficult.

If you are not in it for the memeing I find it to be a great distro.

I tried it out because of the memes and stuck with it because there wasn't a bunch of extra stuff I don't need distracting me. I kinda forget I'm using arch btw

now start using it for a while and you will notice the difference!

you will see you have all of the latest versions of programs, that other distros wont have for 6 months!

you will learn that the AUR has every package you could ever want!

you will see that the Wiki has extremely comprehensive answers to every question!

I prefer a minimal install of Debian personally. Someone should make a rolling release apt-based/debian-based distro and I'd hop right on it. Technically Kali is one and I do daily drive that, but it's not something I can really recommend to people as a general use distro.

Anyway if you want something more tangibly different (and difficult to install) try running OpenBSD :)

Those people are mostly just a meme, I rarely see people actually doing that anymore, although I'm sure they exist. If you want my personality out of it, spend more time customizing. You can look into optimizations, theming, or delve into window managers if you really want to make it your own. There's a lot of options.

You forgot one thing: “I use Arch BTW!”

Just do ./install_arch.sh

When I went in I had very specific expectations and Arch lived up to them. Had an idea of what I wanted for a DM, and an idea of what I wanted out of an operating system, and it met my needs. I would still be using it like that except for the fact that I had to change it out to be able to run the proprietary software for my university, and I just never bothered to reinstall/reconfig it. If I were to do it again, I would make some script to set it up with all my necessary programs so that it is robust.

You should go for a distro that matches what you want out of your system. You want stable? Find some strong LTS distro like Ubuntu. You want ULTRA STABLE? Go for an immutable distro. Do you want to use your system for gaming? Go for a distro with wide gaming support, built-in drivers with options for proprietary drivers.

It's less about what base distro you're using and more about what you like about that particular flavor of distro.

For example, I use my PC for gaming mostly, but also coding. I switched from Pop! (Ubuntu based) to Garuda (Arch based) and I love it because it's really good for gaming, comes with Mangohud, Gamemode, Steam, Heroic, controller drivers, graphics drivers, etc, all optionally pre-installed. I also really like KDE apps because they're performant and slick so I got the Plasma version.

Anyway, yeah, focus less on "this distro is Arch based" and more on what each distro can provide you as far as your personal tastes.

I’ve been using Debian for many years now. The hardest part about switching my desktop to arch (partly to try something different, partly for later kernel / tools) was not that arch is difficult, but that I need to type ‘sudo pacman -S’ instead of ‘sudo apt install’ to install new packages. It is functionally the same in my day to day use which is fantastic.

I really like Arch because it’s bare metal but not too much => it’s very easy to choose the components you need for your installation and exactly fine-tune your experience without spending too much time with something like Nix/LFS/Slackware.

• it’s community supported, lightweight, fast, and easy to use when you know what you’re doing (wow this sentence is dumb but you get me right?)

Now use Gentoo

I can only use Arch, because I know how I set it up.

Preinstalled distros, even arch based seem overwhelming to me nowadays. I just prefer to set up Arch Linux myself so I know what minimal steps I did and what package I have

The one benefit Arch has for me (even though I no longer use it as I found I'm not too fond of rolling releases), is that the AUR with an AUR helper takes care of getting any Linux packages installed. No need to copy commands off a github repo or something like that.

I have used a number of distros over the last 15 years. Once I found one I liked, I stuck with it. I understand the package manager, some of the special features of the distro I use and I don't really have time to relearn this every couple of months on new distros.

If I want a different "feel", I change my DE. But that's about it.

Ya, its just some people over exaggerated a bit. As long as you don't do stuff that obviously tries to mess with core system stuff it should be fine.

You have reached the pinnacle of Linux, every other distro you try from now on will seem bland. 🧗🏼

Yes

What do you mean by people being obsessed over Arch?

Archlinux is Linux, it's just a minimal distro that allows you to only use whatever you want to use. I have no idea what's with being obsessed over it other than «use arch btw» which became a local meme recently.

@SentientFishbowl that's awesome, congrats on getting it installed! arch is all about customizing your setup, so now it's time to tweak things to your liking. any cool projects in mind?

Did you use arch-install or manual classic install

That's like seeing the Otaku gang, deciding to give this Anime a go, watching Dragon Ball and asking "what's so special about this?".

Some people make some random thing their personality, others enjoy the same thing without making a big fuzz about it. Arch is great because of the wiki and the AUR, other distros have their own pros and cons.

Uhh, I thought this was just a meme

I tried it and was underwhelmed, but also overwhelmed.

I love the idea of choosing everything I want, but Arch also meant the pain of learning to install everything I actually need first.

Is there a minimalistic distro that installs all just the essentials (drivers, services like DHCP, a package manager, desktop GUI), and then I choose from there?

afiak the prase "i use arch btw" is mostly sarcasm,
instead of genuine appreciation.

its mocking the stereotype of arch users that constantly bring it up to sound smart or feel supperior.

think of arch like "vintage car culture" with a touch of minimalism.
its restricting and breaks all the time,
but thats kinda the point because fixing it becomes a part of your lifestyle.

Am I missing something? How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it's set up it's just like any other computer?

IMO there's nothing about Arch, or any other distro, that makes it worth using, beyond whatever goals you have. If Arch helps you accomplish that goals, great. If not, pick a different distro that does.

In my case, I want to use the latest version of software and use my own configs without inadvertently breaking stuff, based on some arbitrary set of assumptions that distros like Ubuntu or Fedora have made about how their own distro should be used, and Arch has been the easiest way to do that for me.

Also, as others have said, AUR and PKGBUILDs

using vim to edit a .conf file

that's the nixos people

I just wanted a distro built to my specs, up to date, uses pacman, not run by a for-profit company, with good documentation. The hype is mostly Reddit elitism and gatekeeping. I like that nobody has slipped branding and extra bookmarks into my browser.

I have been a GNU/Linux user for about 15 years. During that time, I have alternated between Arch and Gentoo.

Gentoo is very time consuming and complex, and Arch is a pain to keep clean. However, the ability to customize the system to your preferred configuration is a big draw for both.

For a light user like me, patching and customizing to PKGBUILD is just fine. Personally, I sometimes wish for something like the USE flag in Portage.

I'm using Arch because you start with nothing and you can make any system you want. I have disk encryption, btrfs as a filesystem, secure boot with my own custom keys, I'm running self-build kernel, I'm using apparmor and I can use any program from AUR, etc. Thats my personality. Things that you can't see but are important to me.

On other distros some of these things would be very hard to do. Especially without Arch Wiki.

Most who use Arch prefer to use a customized tiling window manager instead of a desktop environment. I tried using i3, and I do understand tiling WMs, but they're not really for me and I won't be able to do a crazy design out of them.

anime waifus