this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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I struggle to understand what wouldn't work, if I was to download a pre configed GUI arch iso, load it up on my PC I'd be met with plasma/gnome/or any other wm/dm and would most likely have working networking, a GUI application installer and a browser...
Some functionality is missing, like USB plug and play, certain network file sharing capabilities, printing...so in addition to learning pacman, having to learn all the package names, you have to look up how to give the OS certain functionalities...it's a lot as a newbie. If you don't love working on computers, you may not make it through that phase.
And I say this with all due respect, as an Arch user myself.
EndeavourOS might help with all of this but even then I wouldn't put a newbie who just wants to try Linux on it. Arch doesn't even have a proper GUI-based way of installing packages and there's not really an incentive to (Arch users say it's because PackageKit is shit, Arch developers say it's because PackageKit doesn't work with Arch's rolling package releases). PackageKit isn't actually supported on Arch and KDE Discover will go out of its way to tell people that it's not supported on Arch. Maybe someone who has experience with the command line I'd recommend Arch/Endeavour for, since you WILL be using it on Arch, no way around it.
@Flaky @balancedchaos ya this
Same could be said if I told someone to use Debian, but we tell people to use mint and its all taken care of. Manjaro had no issue with USB, and pacman in my opinion is the easiest package manager ive used but even so if it is that difficult then they can use a GUI package manager that would come pre installed on most GUI arch based distros
Recognizing that's your opinion, in my opinion it's the hardest I've used. The commands are all flags, so you have to remember letters instead of "install" or "upgrade" if you want to use any packages outside of the like 4 in the official repos, you have to enable AUR, which is effectively just installing from source from some random person's GitHub repo, in which any number of things can go wrong. I mean, there's a reason there exist a bunch of different wrappers for pacman.
sorry it doesn't click for you, I grow up with severe dyslexia unable to read and write till the age of 18 which coincides with when I became interested in computers, so maybe for me flags are easier then apt get install update commands and the orders they go in
And I stopped using git commands once I found yay
And every GUI app store ive dealt with has an option to enable aur packages
Well even a bare bones install of Debian has USB plug and play, networking, printing...they include a bit more than Arch, even if you do have to install your own programs.
I've been an Arch user for over a decade, and I wouldn't recommend it for newbies. It's not about the installation, in fact, installation is the easy part now, what with the official install script, pre-configured dot files, and the likes of EndeavourOS etc which provide a friendly GUI installer; the problem isn't installing Arch, it's what comes after.
For starters, because you've cheated and skipped installing the hard way aka "the arch way", you know little to nothing about how your system is setup and works, particularly around the bootloader, what goes into your initramfs, the DM config, and most importantly: how to deal with pacman issues. pacman isn't exactly newbie friendly:
Obviously, none of the above requires you to have a rocket scientist-level IQ to figure it out, a couple of Google searches or the Arch wiki can sort you out - but the point is, it shows that you need to have some basic understanding of your OS internals, package mangement, and most importantly you'll need to be comfortable with using the terminal and CLI apps.
As a seasoned Linux user, the terminal is home for many of us, but believe it or not, it actually scares away many newbies - and pushing Arch onto these newbies only perpetrates the misconception that you have to use the terminal and punch in some
hackerman™ style commands to use Linux. And we know that's NOT the experience at all with actual newbie friendly distros such as Zorin, Pop!_OS, Elementary etc, where you don't need to touch the terminal at all, you don't need to babysit the package manager or know any special commands or OS internals.So please, please do not recommend Arch or any Arch-derivatives to newbies: you'd be doing them a massive disservice and potentially put them off Linux forever. Unless of course, you know that person well, and you know for a fact that they're tech savvy and won't shy away from using the terminal and getting their hands dirty.
But ive had to import ~~gpg~~ pgp into Debian based distros to install applications
Which distros exactly, and for which applications?
For the Debian based distros that I mentioned before (Pop, Zorin, Elementary), I've never heard of any normal user having to fire up the terminal. And by "normal" as in someone who doesn't have any special software needs and just uses Facebook, email etc, maybe ocassionally prints and scans stuff or plays games from Steam. And you can ask my elderly mother - she's been using Xububtu and Zorin for almost a decade now and never had to touch the terminal.
Motioneye was one application and yea its not for a regular users but the only time ive imported pgp keys on arch was for mullvad VPN, and on a few more niche applications. Maybe I am just incredible lucky.
I first arch. Been using it for a couple of months. I used the installscript ofc. And I've not encountered a problem where I needed to know all those funny words that you said. I learned concepts as I needed them. Yet the things I strugle most is how tf git works (and tar magic args).
It's only been a couple of months, give it time. You'll surely run into one of these issues sooner or later, 100% guaranteed. But you don't have to take my word for it though, just browse the Arch forums and you'll see the kind of issues people run into - and so will you, eventually.
well, more opportunities to learn. Anyways, real quick question, for you, caz you said you've been using it for a long time. My mouse reports different mouse wheel events when using it wired or wireless. It's with high res wheel that's the problem. Does this ring any bells for you? Caz it's really annoying to have a wireless mouse and I need to use it wired.
I'm not really a mouse person, but I recall there was a change made in kernel 6.1 which broke hi-res scrolling for some folks, but I believe it was fixed in kernel 6.3(?) Here's a thread discussing this: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1032x5q/linux_61_update_screws_up_the_mouse_wheel_of_my/
FWIW, I just tested this with my Logitech G900 (kernel 6.6.14, KDE Wayland) - the scroll events reported using both the wireless (dongle) and USB are identical - they generate one
REL_WHEELand oneREL_WHEEL_HI_RESevent, which would seem to be the behaviour prior to 6.1. Not sure if any of this helps though sorry.I update my kernel so if it would be fixed, I wouldn't have the issue. I tried downgrading just to see, and went even further back then 6.1, and if I recall correctly it still wasn't working. I fear it could be a mouse problem. I found an aur package that claims to disable high res mouse events, I might try that one out.
Thanks for your time none the less. Is there any way to replace my mouse's software, like jailbreaking or something, I'm guessing that's mouse dependant. Is there any FOSS mouse driver?
Yeah, no. Search the Arch Linux News for “manual intervention”. Once that list is zero except for an unintended bug, you’ll be closer. The newbie friendly distros include significant scripting to avoid those situations. Arch is not a “just hit update” distro.