EndeavourOS Is Hoping To Be The Successor To Antergos - Convenient To Use Arch Linux

[boxie]

There isn't. How can we help a user who knows nothing of his system? If he knows nothing of it, neither do we. There are many many variable for this question. 1. MRB or GPT? 2. BIOs or UEFI? 3. What Boot loader? https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Boot_loader lists 8 different boot loaders. So how can we send that user to the correct page if we don't know what his problem is.

Arch allows you to set up your machine exactly the way you want. So you shouldn't use their forums if you need help but can't give out required info. Use whatever you used forums for help. They will know better of your setup. Arch doesn't have a generic default install. You can't expect everyone to be using grub and even if they are using grub, you can't expect it to be the same as the generic install that most distros use. If a person needs help, they need to be able to give out the relevant info. If they say "I don't know. I just used an installer." How can we help them? But as we have learned reading your post, you don't like learning and expect things to be done for you.

To be fair, this story is starting to sound like "that one time a n00b wandered into the forums and we flamed him, it was a good day". Mainly because the answers to the questions could be determined and the user could be lead through the process in determining things.

If your answerst were "we tried to help, but the user didn't want to help themselves" or "the user wasn't able to understand" then I would be more on your side in this story. now, I have not frequented the Arch forums so I only have this one data point to go on, so I may be totally wrong.

As for "setting up the machine exactly the way you want". well - sure, you can do that. all the more power to ya for doing it! and you are also right, Arch definitely does not seem like the kind of distro I would be happy using.

However, you keep trying to assert that I don't like learning new things though, which is entirely incorrect. I have actually quite enjoyed learning more about arch and its users through all these forums posts.

One of the reasons why I see Arch as a dead end (for me) is that it has not place in any sort of professional setting. Blow on an Ubuntu/RHEL install, install the stuff you need and then start getting stuff done trusting that the underlying OS is taken care of. Package managers/init systems are just small details in the overall goal of getting shit done.

While it is true that you are forced to learn to get Arch going, there are much gentler introductions than being thrown in the deep end.

[skeevy420]

Nope not arguing that Arch is a teaching tool. I'm just saying this is how Arch is. It is different from other distros. If you don't want to learn how to use it, then don't use it. Choosing to use Arch, is choosing to learn how to do things the Arch way. You are not being forced to learn new things, you are choosing to learn new things. I chose to learn how to use Arch a long time ago when I first switched to linux and got fed up with how other distro were setup and there package managers. At the time I knew very little about linux but I really didn't want to go back to Windows. So I decided to give this "very hard" distro a try. I had to learn lots of stuff. And man o man i am happy that I did. I really dislike using other distros now because I'm just so use to how easy things are for me on Arch and fuck windows. Arch lets you have full control over your system right at the very start (without having to compile everything). So needing to learn how to use it, is very important if you want to use it. So no, you are not forced to learn Arch, because you are not forced to use Arch. If you want to call that a strawman fine.

Yep. I did Debian and Ubuntu for a year or two, playing with BeOS and other distros, and eventually started using Arch when its Wiki and what programs Debian had weren't working with each other very well so I figured that I might as well give it a try...I'm using the documentation so I might as well use the distribution. Arch and I clicked and that style is just where I've been comfortable ever since.

These days I'm on Manjaro just so I can have an extra layer of testing over Arch Stable and because I want proper support because I used an installer or helper since those are very frowned upon at Arch. After doing an Arch install for the umpteenth time, sometimes you just want the easy way...and you'd like to get help if the easy way has a problem.

[boxie]

I'm really not trying to be trolling but I must confess I don't see the point of thus kind of distros. To me, Arch is all about customisability. It's the go-to OS if you need to build a firmware, an application-specific server, a container image tailored for specific purposes, etc. It's almost by design contrary to the idea of a ready OS that Just Works out of the box as a desktop or laptop system should. So in practical terms, what is the selling point of something like Endeavour OS versus the established desktop distros like Ubuntu and Fedora?

I would argue the opposite. It is most definitely not the go to OS for anyone or anything save for those who willing inflict that pain upon themselves.

[boxie]

It's not a bug, it's a feature that Arch has no GUI installer. It encouraged you to actually RTFM at least once and that is a really good thing, especially as a beginner. You learn a lot and start to solve your problems by yourself. I think most of the people who have successfully installed and used Arch on a daily basis will agree.

Furthermore, in a nutshell, it's straight forward: Boot into live cli, partition the target drive, install the base packages onto that drive, chroot into that new base system, build your desired environment.

it's really easy to do on every other distro too, with even fewer steps and with a more user friendly UX!

[skeevy420]

To be fair, this story is starting to sound like "that one time a n00b wandered into the forums and we flamed him, it was a good day". Mainly because the answers to the questions could be determined and the user could be lead through the process in determining things.

If your answerst were "we tried to help, but the user didn't want to help themselves" or "the user wasn't able to understand" then I would be more on your side in this story. now, I have not frequented the Arch forums so I only have this one data point to go on, so I may be totally wrong.

As for "setting up the machine exactly the way you want". well - sure, you can do that. all the more power to ya for doing it! and you are also right, Arch definitely does not seem like the kind of distro I would be happy using.

However, you keep trying to assert that I don't like learning new things though, which is entirely incorrect. I have actually quite enjoyed learning more about arch and its users through all these forums posts.

One of the reasons why I see Arch as a dead end (for me) is that it has not place in any sort of professional setting. Blow on an Ubuntu/RHEL install, install the stuff you need and then start getting stuff done trusting that the underlying OS is taken care of. Package managers/init systems are just small details in the overall goal of getting shit done.

While it is true that you are forced to learn to get Arch going, there are much gentler introductions than being thrown in the deep end.

It's funny. I agree with both you y'all.

The answer to your last statement is called Manjaro. You can't get a more gentler introduction to the Arch ecosystem and methodology of doing things than with Manjaro.

You wouldn't send a noob into using Debian minimal, you'd send them to some Ubuntu variant first and then they can decide if a minimalist based install or solution would be for them.

Arch & Manjaro have the same symbiotic relationship that Ubuntu and Debian have in that regard -- You can start with Manjaro and move on to Arch if you feel Manjaro holds your hands too much or if you want more control over your system from the get-go.

My personal recommendation and go-to these days is Manjaro's Plasma edition.

[skeevy420]

I would argue the opposite. It is most definitely not the go to OS for anyone or anything save for those who willing inflict that pain upon themselves.

That's very subjective and how painful it is really depends on one's experience. I had 3 years experience with random Linux going in so, for me, it was more about learning pacman than it was "what boot loader do I need?" or "what do I install to X or Y?".

For someone with minimal experience or who isn't very technically keen, Arch (or any distro like Void, Gentoo, Debian/Ubuntu minimal, etc) would be a horrible choice.

[Shiba]

The only thing Arch needs is an easy to use point and click installer.

Arch doesn't need a point and click installer and you probably don't need Arch.

[Guest]

As someone who has used Arch for years and is using it right now, I disagree. The experienced Linux user isn't going to have too much difficulty using Arch, but ease of use is relative. To say that it is "as user friendly as distros can get" is utter nonsense. The average person could take a new PC and install Ubuntu or Mint without any additional tools, hand-holding, or external references. That can't be said of Arch. Even if you gave the same person a flash drive with a bootable Arch installer with a link to the Arch Wiki, I assure you they will still struggle to figure out what to do. Tell the average Arch user to get a fully working environment from scratch without the Wiki and I'm sure they're going to struggle.
Installing Arch is not at all user friendly, even to those who are well-acquainted with it. Experienced users like us might not struggle with it, but not struggling with something doesn't make it user friendly.

Anyway, to the point of whether or not Arch should be made more accessible, I don't think it's necessary, but I also don't see the problem with it either. A wizard installer (even if CLI-based) would help get Arch installed quicker for those who like the distro but don't care about the minute level of control over what is installed and what services are run. Not that it matters anyway, Arch has slowly grown to add more and more unnecessary dependencies.

If you really want an installer for arch, you can use something like LARBS, or even fork it to make your own installer. Or even better, spin up an archiso that starts X11 and runs a script similar to the CloverOS installer.

[Guest]

To be fair, this story is starting to sound like "that one time a n00b wandered into the forums and we flamed him, it was a good day". Mainly because the answers to the questions could be determined and the user could be lead through the process in determining things.

If your answerst were "we tried to help, but the user didn't want to help themselves" or "the user wasn't able to understand" then I would be more on your side in this story. now, I have not frequented the Arch forums so I only have this one data point to go on, so I may be totally wrong.

As for "setting up the machine exactly the way you want". well - sure, you can do that. all the more power to ya for doing it! and you are also right, Arch definitely does not seem like the kind of distro I would be happy using.

However, you keep trying to assert that I don't like learning new things though, which is entirely incorrect. I have actually quite enjoyed learning more about arch and its users through all these forums posts.

One of the reasons why I see Arch as a dead end (for me) is that it has not place in any sort of professional setting. Blow on an Ubuntu/RHEL install, install the stuff you need and then start getting stuff done trusting that the underlying OS is taken care of. Package managers/init systems are just small details in the overall goal of getting shit done.

While it is true that you are forced to learn to get Arch going, there are much gentler introductions than being thrown in the deep end.

I've tried using Ubuntu as a distro for use at work. It's simply awful. Pretty much everything requires adding a PPA (even stable versions of GNU software). Upgrading to a new disto release takes ages, and requires messing around with PPAs. I kept having to disable the login manager service, because updates would turn the service on back again (which sounds like Windows 10). There were plenty of useless services which added up to about a GiB of wasted memory. The alternatives system is simply awful, and doesn't account for software that's not packaged (I want to use st as my terminal, which requires linking the terminal file by hand if you care about their crappy alternatives system). Their graphical interface to snap (why would anyone want to use that piece of crap is beyond me) doesn't work without the GNOME keyring running, and forces you to create a pointless account. The documentation is so bad it might as well not be there, and I ran into cases where I had to waste my time looking for dependencies to compile something I could do automatically using AUR. I decided to set a little bit of time aside to nuke that install and switch to Arch, which just works.

[Panda_Wrist]

To be fair, this story is starting to sound like "that one time a n00b wandered into the forums and we flamed him, it was a good day". Mainly because the answers to the questions could be determined and the user could be lead through the process in determining things.

If your answerst were "we tried to help, but the user didn't want to help themselves" or "the user wasn't able to understand" then I would be more on your side in this story. now, I have not frequented the Arch forums so I only have this one data point to go on, so I may be totally wrong.

As for "setting up the machine exactly the way you want". well - sure, you can do that. all the more power to ya for doing it! and you are also right, Arch definitely does not seem like the kind of distro I would be happy using.

However, you keep trying to assert that I don't like learning new things though, which is entirely incorrect. I have actually quite enjoyed learning more about arch and its users through all these forums posts.

One of the reasons why I see Arch as a dead end (for me) is that it has not place in any sort of professional setting. Blow on an Ubuntu/RHEL install, install the stuff you need and then start getting stuff done trusting that the underlying OS is taken care of. Package managers/init systems are just small details in the overall goal of getting shit done.

While it is true that you are forced to learn to get Arch going, there are much gentler introductions than being thrown in the deep end.

To be honest I don't use Arch's forums. Most of my problems are usually fixed by searching on duckduckgo. If I can't find a solution searching, I either keep trying different things myself or just say screw it not worth it. But for this hypothetical forum post, why should we walk a user through all the different steps to get an idea of why they are having problems, if they can't be bothered installing the OS the correct way? The Arch forums are for Arch installs, not some random "Arch installer OS". Fedora users don't post on ubuntu forums asking for help.

Okay so you do like learning, then why are you complaining about having to learn how to use Arch? If you want to use Arch then you need to learn how to use it. Not complain about it not having an installer. You shouldn't be complaining about how it is not simple and isn't like all the other main distros out there. Arch is Arch not manjaro or antergos or this endeavouros thing and of course it isn't debian/ubuntu/mint, fedora, opensuse, other linux distros.

And yeah Arch is not for you. You just want an out of the box setup. Thats cool thats what most people want. But saying Arch is bad just because you don't like that it doesn't have an installer and just throws you in the "deep end" Thats just wrong.