I tried installing Arch once about 10 years ago. I couldn’t get it to work even though I admittedly didn’t try my hardest. I was in a PhD program at the time, so my mental resources and time were quite limited. Still, I had real experience as a sysadmin, so I wasn’t entirely computer illiterate. Every time I see a potential user switching to Linux asking for distro recommendations and others suggests Arch, I internally roll my eyes. Unless that user is a computer programmer or similar looking to prove their skills to themselves, that is a great way to get someone to never switch to Linux because they will more than likely become overwhelmed with the installation.
If you are switching to Linux for the first time and don’t want to spend a frustrating week reading a wiki and troubleshooting lots of minute but consequential issues, don’t start with Arch! Linux Mint is by far the easiest for new users. Give it a run for a while until you feel like switching to more demanding distros.
I’ve installed Gentoo from a stage1 install. I’ve kept the same KDE Neon install running for over a decade, including moving the 3 SSDs that made up the install to another desktop.
But I’ve never managed to successfully bootstrap an arch system.
What was the problem? I can see that if you don’t get past one of the steps described in the wiki, then you’re blocked. But I think if one has some experience with shell, CLIs and TUIs, it should be possible to follow the steps until you have a bootable system.
Is it worth it to try that, maybe through multiple attempts? Idk.
i swear every post ive seen by this account has frustrated me to no end teb years ago is a lot of time for things to change and installing arch took me 2 hrs without archinstall the first time times have changed im not recommending arch for beginners because no one rtfm but god damn thats an ignorant statement
I tried installing Arch once about 10 years ago. I couldn’t get it to work even though I admittedly didn’t try my hardest. I was in a PhD program at the time, so my mental resources and time were quite limited. Still, I had real experience as a sysadmin, so I wasn’t entirely computer illiterate. Every time I see a potential user switching to Linux asking for distro recommendations and others suggests Arch, I internally roll my eyes. Unless that user is a computer programmer or similar looking to prove their skills to themselves, that is a great way to get someone to never switch to Linux because they will more than likely become overwhelmed with the installation.
If you are switching to Linux for the first time and don’t want to spend a frustrating week reading a wiki and troubleshooting lots of minute but consequential issues, don’t start with Arch! Linux Mint is by far the easiest for new users. Give it a run for a while until you feel like switching to more demanding distros.
I’ve installed Gentoo from a stage1 install. I’ve kept the same KDE Neon install running for over a decade, including moving the 3 SSDs that made up the install to another desktop.
But I’ve never managed to successfully bootstrap an arch system.
What was the problem? I can see that if you don’t get past one of the steps described in the wiki, then you’re blocked. But I think if one has some experience with shell, CLIs and TUIs, it should be possible to follow the steps until you have a bootable system.
Is it worth it to try that, maybe through multiple attempts? Idk.
i swear every post ive seen by this account has frustrated me to no end teb years ago is a lot of time for things to change and installing arch took me 2 hrs without archinstall the first time times have changed im not recommending arch for beginners because no one rtfm but god damn thats an ignorant statement