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Why not to use Arch Linux


tyme
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This is probably out of left field given I haven't posted here in a while, and this forum is not as active as it was back in the day, but for anyone who is still around:

 

Any of the old heads around here will likely remember that I was a fan of Arch Linux when it first started. However, I've watched the Arch community over the past few years and it's turned into a bunch of unhelpful pricks, with standard "RTFM" replies. As such, I can no longer recommend it. I've watched time and time again as people ask rather simple questions, stating they tried to figure it out on their own and couldn't understand what they need to do, only to be linked to the same wiki page they already read and didn't comprehend.

 

This is the antithesis of what we need in the Linux world today, which is a more helpful community willing to walk people through the steps they need to take. Much like the attitude we've had on these forums. If you, or anyone you know, is looking for a new distro, I recommend steering clear of Arch. There are better options with more helpful communities.

 

Support distros that support their users.

 

Can a mod or admin move this to Everything Linux? I accidentally posted to the wrong forum. Thanks!

Edited by tyme
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Thanks for the Info TYME.

 

I second your view and that is why I still call Mandrivausers HOME. The very thing that Pandora and others do over at Mageia forum is try to help. It just takes one individual to make things uncomfortable especially for newbies and even for long term users who ask for help.

 

Good to see you are still sparking AOK. If you haven't tried Mageia then I strongly recommend it.

I see Mint has been flavour of the month for quite some time now but I have been able to count on Mageia doing what I need and considering it has lots of the original Mandriva team still involved I feel no real need to venture off. Mageia has been almost constantly No.3 or No.4, and without the publicity that Mint or Ubuntu seem to get, and was even No.2 for a while.

 

Cheers. John.

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I stopped using Arch when they changed the installation process, because it was a piece of crap and didn't work after the reboot, and I consider myself quite good on Linux now, and even I couldn't figure out how to get it working.

 

Something so simple as an installation process should work. But yes you are right when people reply with RTFM, it's not exactly helpful at the least. Gentoo is probably more complex to install, but the documents work, and the help on the forum is also excellent, even if you are a newbie.

 

I lately am Ubuntu, mainly because I just want it to work. I still use more complex things for servers, but that depends on what I'm attempting to achieve, and then use an appropriate distro.

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This is probably out of left field given I haven't posted here in a while, and this forum is not as active as it was back in the day, but for anyone who is still around:

 

Any of the old heads around here will likely remember that I was a fan of Arch Linux when it first started. However, I've watched the Arch community over the past few years and it's turned into a bunch of unhelpful pricks, with standard "RTFM" replies. As such, I can no longer recommend it. I've watched time and time again as people ask rather simple questions, stating they tried to figure it out on their own and couldn't understand what they need to do, only to be linked to the same wiki page they already read and didn't comprehend.

 

This is the antithesis of what we need in the Linux world today, which is a more helpful community willing to walk people through the steps they need to take. Much like the attitude we've had on these forums. If you, or anyone you know, is looking for a new distro, I recommend steering clear of Arch. There are better options with more helpful communities.

 

Support distros that support their users.

 

Can a mod or admin move this to Everything Linux? I accidentally posted to the wrong forum. Thanks!

 

Another left field post!

 

The Arch community isn't what it used to be. There was always an expectation that users at least make some minimal effort to resolve their problem and those that didn't ("how do i install arch? what is pacman?") were politely directed to the relevant wiki page. But you're right, people are faster to respond with RTFM, even when people have made an effort and RTFM'ed - it's a shame.

 

It doesn't help that Arch isn't as simple and minimal as it was. I remember first installing it - everything was simple bash scripts, rc.conf, rc.sysinit, etc. Initial configuration was done with a text editor, no wizard. You manually specified which kernel modules to load and pretty much wrote your own grub/lilo config. Back then, any automation eschewed any automation of those things. But linux has grown since, and generally for the better - I wouldn't give up udev to be manually loading kernel modules again!

 

Some of that minimalism has been lost. Arch is more "vanilla" than "minimal" these days. It'd be interesting to roll a new distro and tear things back down to the bare basics again.

 

ianw1974: It's not trivial to make a one-shot perfect install that will result in a perfect boot on all hardware and configurations. I haven't actually used the newer installer, so I can't comment on it specifically, but it was a long needed rewrite - for a long time the installer needed developer attention. Eventually someone stepped up and gave it the rewrite it needed, but installers take a lot of testing on a very diverse range of configurations before they can be considered stable. Unlike some of the larger distros, Arch has no corporate backing, so this testing falls on the community. Testing an installer properly is time consuming and few users actually spend the time.

 

 

I'm running Debian on my main box these days, Arch on the raspberry pi.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm a bit late to the party. I've found the Magiea crew to be pretty useful, especially on IRC.

 

But you guys here are exceptional.

 

Ian, you're far in advance of "pretty good on linux". You've got me to my destination several times.

 

All my boxes are Mageia (bar one which is a CENT host server for virtual machines in a mission critical role) as Mageia just works (apart from mdadm on my desktop which is a complex issue, but I've worked around it).

 

I personally hate the old RTFM, especially these days, as linux seems to be forking more and more, the file systems aren't the same between distros, so what will resolve an issue on one distro may not on another. And newer packages/tools superseeding older ones alsom complicate issues. The progress linux is seeing is incredible.

 

I know the Raspberry Pi has been praised, criticised, awarded & hated, but I think it's playing an important role, especially for the younger generations who are used to GUI's and a wealth of tools that just didn't exist even 10 years ago.

 

I know I myself spend a lot of time reading beginner guides to stuff like Raspberry Pi, and I learn heaps. I'm finally writing scripts that actually do stuff. Not just editing config files anymore.

 

But I agree with all the comments above. Community is very important. It was in fact Aussie John that first sent me a physical copy of Mandriva to get me going!

 

PS, Hi John, been ages since we communicated. Glad to see you're still playing with Mageia.

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ianw1974: It's not trivial to make a one-shot perfect install that will result in a perfect boot on all hardware and configurations. I haven't actually used the newer installer, so I can't comment on it specifically, but it was a long needed rewrite - for a long time the installer needed developer attention. Eventually someone stepped up and gave it the rewrite it needed, but installers take a lot of testing on a very diverse range of configurations before they can be considered stable. Unlike some of the larger distros, Arch has no corporate backing, so this testing falls on the community. Testing an installer properly is time consuming and few users actually spend the time.

 

Maybe not trivial, but on my particular system it didn't work with the new installer. The old installer however did. Had I had the time, I would have probably posted about it to get it fixed and get my system working. However, I didn't have time, I needed my system working as I didn't have another, so dropped it for something else that just installed and worked immediately.

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  • 7 months later...

Hello Arch- and former-Arch-fellows,

 

Having installed Arch twice in the last couple of months, I’m rather satisfied with both how it works and how it makes you learn some basic configuration methods right from the start. I’m mostly satisfied with Arch, really.

However, I completely agree with both statements that Arch is now “vanilla†rather than “simpleâ€, and that its IRC channel is full of jerks. Too bad :-(

Still, I’ll keep using Arch because “vanilla†is not that bad, and its software repository (AUR included) is awesome.

 

Yves.

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