I’m a little bit underwhelmed, I thought that based off the fact so many people seem to make using this distro their personality I expected… well, more I guess?

Once the basic stuff is set-up, like wifi, a few basic packages, a desktop environment/window manager, and a bit of desktop environment and terminal customisation, then that’s it. Nothing special, just a Linux distribution with less default programs and occasionally having to look up how to install a hardware driver or something if you need to use bluetooth for the first time or something like that.

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?

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?

  • h_ramus@lemm.ee
    64·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • seaQueue@lemmy.world
      7·
      4 months ago

      The Arch build system is just as impressive IMO. I’ve written Debian and redhat packages for at least two decades and Arch packaging is just so much easier to handle. The associated tooling for creating and managing build chroots is excellent as well.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    40·
    4 months ago

    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.

  • Deckweiss@lemmy.world
    331·
    4 months ago

    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    For me personally, Ubuntu was breaking on every dist upgrade, the software was always out of date or not available in the repos.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.

    • mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world
      51·
      4 months ago

      Yup, Arch is by far the distro I have had the fewest amounts of technical issues with. Yes, you need to know what you are doing or be willing to read docs, but there’s no magical bullshit, maintainer capriciousness and lack of planning happening like I have unfortunately witnessed all too often while using other distros.

    • Maragato@lemmy.world
      74·
      4 months ago

      Any major Linux distribution has a system for building packages, it’s not something special to Arch. In fact, Arch’s great advantage of the aur repository actually becomes a disadvantage by introducing instability and insecurity into your system when you add programs from that repository. It’s amazing that people criticize Windows security with .exe’s and then install packages from external repositories with the security of “trust in the repository”. How can you trust code with root access to the system just because it’s in the aur repository? That’s the main question I would ask Arch users.

    • SentientFishbowl@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      Makes sense. Do you find that by having the same install for so long (including transplanting it) that you have accumulated a lot of bloat? One of the things I really enjoyed about a fresh install was that I knew there wasn’t a build-up of digital junk files, but with Arch fresh installing every once in a while just seems impractical.

      • Deckweiss@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 months ago

        Most of the junk accumulates in /home and I did a cleaning once, where I got rid of a couple hundred GB there, from stuff that was either already uninstalled or still installed but unused for years.

        In the other root directories, I didn’t find much tbh. My / (excluding home) takes up 40GB and I don’t think it was significantly lower years ago as the bulk of it comes from necessary program files.

    • lud@lemm.ee
      14·
      4 months ago

      Been running arch for 5 years, same install, even transplanted it over to newer computers without issues.

      To be fair, I pretty much do that with Windows 10…

  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
    281·
    4 months ago

    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.

  • verdigris@lemmy.ml
    211·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      4 months ago

      I use Ubuntu but the Arch wiki is top notch and has helped me solved a lot of problems, especially technical issues like VFIO. I think you’re right that Arch love largely started as a meme to celebrate getting it installed, kind of like the jokes about being unable to exit VIM.

  • golden_zealot@lemmy.mlEnglish
    161·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • dion_starfire@lemm.eeEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      This amuses me, since I literally went from Gentoo to Arch because it felt like the same bleeding edge distro without having to wait for the compile time for half of the packages.

      That said, I generally don’t recommend Arch (or Gentoo) to newbies. It’s great when it works, but the number of times I’ve had to troubleshoot some random dependency issue because I took more than a week to update my system would scare any newbie away. It’s a bit like the parable of the cobbler’s kids having the worst shoes, or the mechanic always driving a project car - when you have the skills to fix something, you’re willing to put up with a lot of bullshit that a normal person wouldn’t.

  • rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee
    15·
    4 months ago

    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.

  • communism@lemmy.ml
    15·
    4 months ago

    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.

      • communism@lemmy.ml
        5·
        4 months ago

        Funnily enough one of the points where Arch distinguishes themselves from other distros is that they’re not strict about only including free software in their repos and are completely fine with including proprietary software alongside foss. There’s Parabola if you want Arch but with a strong political line on free software