11–20 of 82 posts
I'm not a huge fan of recommending yaourt. Users should really learn more about the AUR before just letting yaourt automate it all. I recommend cower until you get the hang of things (or maybe just use cower full time). Cower automates only the downloads and updates without completely abstracting everything away with regards to the build and install process.
I think the Arch Way really shines if you stick to small applications that do one thing and do it well. This is the essence of Unix. There are periodic surveys among Arch users, and it's pretty interesting to see a majority of them sticks to this ethos: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_LisP8224B2yahtZTYB-pnIt0aP... Such a choice would be considered hardcore in some more mainstream distros. I began transitioning to t…
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Sorry for the downtime, it's fixed now. Maybe some advanced users could start with Arch, but most of the people I know, will find it too difficult and give up on it. Yes, it's a great way to learn how stuff works, but it's just not for everyone. And in my opinion, beginners should start with something different. I'd never recommend my mom to try Arch for example.
I started with Arch too, and am still with it several years later (typing this comment on a Pixel 2 running Arch). I agree that Arch isn't for everyone, but I think a sufficiently curious and motivated beginner will be fine. Mostly because of Arch's incredible wiki.
"I've seen good documentations, but nothing beats the Arch Wiki. It's the most comprehensive Wiki you could imagine." I have heard this a number of times from Arch Fans, but I think I disagree. While I have referenced their wonderful Wiki often for "cook book" style answers (like how to fix URXVT+Tmux interactions), I do not view it the same as good documentation. I would also not really call it "comprehensive". To m…
The Arch Wiki is something different. It guides you step by step how to reach your destination, and that's what most of the users need.
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If your goal is to learn without totally assembling something from scratch, I'd honestly recommend Gentoo, CRUX or Slackware, instead. Latter is what I use daily, and it's the closest to vanilla that you'll get while being suitable for daily tasks. Arch is a rather odd duck in that it has long cultivated this cult image of being a "hardcore" distro, but I never understood much of the appeal myself. It seems to attrac…
What kind of recent decisions do you mean? I've heard good things about Gentoo, I'd definitely give it a try someday. How would you compare it to Arch? Can you make a brief explanation what you like/dislike about them?
Gentoo was the first distro I ever tried, then I switched to arch and I've been using it ever since.
I found gentoo to be way more of a hands-on distro. I configured the kernel by hand, checked the USE flags of all packages, looked up what each option was for and recompiled a shitload of things when I made a mistake. All these options are right there in your face and it's really tempting to mess around with them. Eventually, I found that it just took up too much of my time to do so.
Arch is still a rather flexible system but it hides some of this low level stuff from the user. I just accept the default kernel, I live with whatever dependencies the package manager tells me are needed and the system doesn't tempt me to do otherwise. However, most of the time I still get to choose what and how I want.
Lately though, sometimes I feel Arch crosses the line: eg. systemd pretty much being forced on users, removing the makepkg option to build packages as root.
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Sorry for the downtime, it's fixed now. Maybe some advanced users could start with Arch, but most of the people I know, will find it too difficult and give up on it. Yes, it's a great way to learn how stuff works, but it's just not for everyone. And in my opinion, beginners should start with something different. I'd never recommend my mom to try Arch for example.
I started with Arch too, and am still with it several years later (typing this comment on a Pixel 2 running Arch). I agree that Arch isn't for everyone, but I think a sufficiently curious and motivated beginner will be fine. Mostly because of Arch's incredible wiki.
> http://www.dgeex.de/2015/04/17/why-i-dont-like-java/
About halfway through, when it got to the "No preprocessor" section, at first I wasn't sure if it was serious or ironic.
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What kind of recent decisions do you mean? I've heard good things about Gentoo, I'd definitely give it a try someday. How would you compare it to Arch? Can you make a brief explanation what you like/dislike about them?
not parent but I have some experience with both: Gentoo was the first distro I ever tried, then I switched to arch and I've been using it ever since. I found gentoo to be way more of a hands-on distro. I configured the kernel by hand, checked the USE flags of all packages, looked up what each option was for and recompiled a shitload of things when I made a mistake. All these options are right there in your face and i…
Also, Arch is predictable. There are no weird quirks and distro-specific patches. Almost everything that is on the system is something that you consciously put there, not something that was decided by the distro-makers.
Finally, the AUR and the Arch wiki are simply amazing. Much has already been said about them and I have nothing to add.
"I've seen good documentations, but nothing beats the Arch Wiki. It's the most comprehensive Wiki you could imagine." I have heard this a number of times from Arch Fans, but I think I disagree. While I have referenced their wonderful Wiki often for "cook book" style answers (like how to fix URXVT+Tmux interactions), I do not view it the same as good documentation. I would also not really call it "comprehensive". To m…