new to this linux stuff sorry
There’s nothing inherently superior, just what people like more. If you want to use Mint that’s totally fine and valid.
Moved over from Mint to Arch for gaming, which has some additional benefits:
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more up-to-date kernel and more up-to-date Mesa, which brings very noticeable improvements in frame rates - in Elden Ring for example, 45 fps outside in Mint to 60 fps outside on Arch
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my desktop soundcard isn’t recognised properly by PulseAudio but is by PipeWire. It’s hard to be sure that PulseAudio is completely gone when you uninstall it then reinstall something else. Arch, I just installed what I wanted in the first place
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some utility programmes, like CoreCtrl for graphics card fan and power tweaking, and emulators like RPCS3, are the Arch repositories but not the Mint ones. Much easier to keep them up-to-date
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for a gaming machine, no more ‘mystery services’ that I don’t know what they are. I quite like having everything quite stripped back for a gaming machine. On Arch, I know what everything does because I installed it. That’s not the case on Mint.
Obviously, I installed the Cinnamon desktop as my GUI choice - there’s certain things about Mint that are tremendous and worth sticking to.
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Well, Arch is not inherently better, it depends on your needs. If you want up-to-date packages and don’t mind the do it yourself approach you’ll love Arch. I’ve used Arch for a few years and learned a lot from it. I love the minimalism. Now I switched to a minimal install of Sway on Debian because I just want a tried and tested stable system. I am at a point of my life where I want a really boring install. Instead of tinkering with the system I use it as a base to learn more on the server side, and learn more coding, etc
Ironically my day to day experience was harder with Debian than Arch, it was a pain trying to find up-to-date packages for pretty much everything I needed
But why is up-to-date always good though?I get it if you actually need the new version but that’s rare though. There’s a reason that critical infrastructure relies on more stable, older and tested packages. In the industry and where the money actually is, older is generally seen as better and more mature. For example the whole drama of RedHat with Centos Stream happened because people don’t want to use upstream Centos Stream because it’s the testing ground for RHEL. I am at a stage where I prefer older packages. The new and shiny doesn’t mean it’s better.
Just try using any modern framework/language/library/tool/whatever with the packages that exist by default in the Debian repository, it’s impossible and a pain in the ass
What framework do you actually use ? Most programmers use Ubuntu or Debian and I don’t see how you need something so up to date and on the edge? Apart from some specific cases, most people do not need newer packages.
For me, it’s:
- All software is shipped with as few changes as possible from upstream, so I’m getting the software as intended. If there’s an issue, it’s likely due to the software, not my distribution’s unicorn configuration.
- Pacman. This includes PKGBUILDs, syntax, and speed.
- Good support. For all that this distribution isn’t “the standard”, you find install instructions in places you wouldn’t expect, and more difficult things tend to work on Arch more easily than on other distributions.
- Easy to set new things up. Because Arch doesn’t ship with much configuration, there’s no existing configuration you need to investigate in order to wrangle it to work with something new. This is also a downside, but we’ll get to that…
- Inertia. I installed it a few years ago, and I kind of want to move to openSUSE or Fedora, but I’m too comfortable here.
Downsides:
- You need to configure everything. That includes the security stuff like AppArmor and SELinux you don’t understand.
- Occasional breakages. Arch doesn’t break that often, but it’s annoying when it does. Usually visiting bbs.archlinux.org is enough to set you on the right path.
- Some software is packaged more slowly than other rolling distributions. Notably, GNOME is usually packaged a few months after openSUSE and Fedora ship it.
- Constant updates! And HUGE updates, at that! Not great for computers you don’t use often. If you do, make sure to
pacman -Sy archlinux-keyringbefore you install new updates.
Not great for computers you don’t use often. If you do, make sure to
pacman -Sy archlinux-keyringbefore you install new updates.Pro tip there!
Thankfully, it appears this is no longer necessary in most cases since 2022: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Package_signing#Upgrade_system_regularly
Though, it’s still worthwhile doing it for computers you don’t power on for most of the year, as the service likely hasn’t had a chance to run.
That’s a nice upgrade.
You don’t have to do the keyring thing manually anymore, pacman takes care of it. :)
Oh, cool! Since when? I always thought that was something the user shouldn’t need to remember and that Pacman should automatically prioritize it.
This is exactly why I love making these kinds of comments. Someone always comes along to teach me something new!
It was a while ago… Not sure when. But I remember the news about it. :)
Notably, GNOME is usually packaged a few months after openSUSE and Fedora ship it.
In this case, it’s actually a plus IMO. Giving Gnome extension devs a month or so to ensure that any compatibility issues are fixed is ideal.
I use GNOME without any extensions, so there’s no benefit for me 🙃
I mean, technically I use AppIndicators, but I tend to just turn off system trays for all software I can. Steam is probably the only exception.
Gnome without extensions?? I could never.
I don’t see any need for them! I like the defaults. I only change the keyboard shortcuts, and I usually don’t even autostart anything. I tend to still install GNOME Tweaks so I can turn on Focus on Hover, move the Close button to the left side of the window, but I don’t need an extension for any of that. I don’t know what I would even use an extension for!
I use about ten different extensions that all add useful functionality, but the absolute deal breakers are 1) indicators for apps that require a system tray, 2) GSConnect to transfer stuff between my computer and my phone, and 3) clipboard history. I can’t survive without those.
AppIndicators are a popular one. I have the extension installed for Fcitx (though I usually never touch it, instead using keyboard shortcuts). I previously used IBus for my input method, but because I often switch between GNOME and Sway, I’ve found Fcitx a better option. I so rarely use my phone that I don’t need KDEConnect. And Fcitx has built-in clipboard history—not that I use it anyway.
Package base is always up to date since it’s rolling. The AUR is absolutely fantastic and gives me any obscure application I could ever need. You ever tried installing the marathon trilogy with alephone on fedora? The AUR makes it a single button install. I’m currently running endeavour OS plasma, such a smooth experience.
That’s essentially an extremely subjective question. Arch is well-liked but not for everyone.
When you boot up the ArchLinux ISO to install it, what you get on the screen is:
root@archiso ~ #That’s it. It doesn’t ask you what language you want to speak or which keyboard layout you want to use. You get a zsh shell, and that’s it. Go figure out what you want to install, how you want to install it, where you want to install it to. That’s how basically all of Arch works: if you install something, it comes barebones with sometimes the default starting configuration shipped by whoever made the software and nothing else.
To me, that’s what makes Arch so good compared to something like Linux Mint: I’m an advanced user, I don’t want training wheels, and I want to build my system entirely from scratch, with only what I want on it installed and running. And it comes with excellent documentation, is a rolling release (meaning, you get the latest version of everything fairly quickly). Since Arch pretty much only ships packages for you to install, it’s not nearly as important to make sure that they work and there isn’t any incompatibility with other packages. Oh the newer version of X doesn’t work with Y anymore? Too bad, go figure out how to downgrade it or figure out a workaround.
Is this useful to you, a beginner? It depends. If you want to go into the deep ends and learn everything about how a Linux system is built and works, sure, it’s going to be great for that. Lots of people do that and love it! If you’re coming from Windows, all you’re used to is clicking next next finish, and you like things to just work out of the box, eehh, probably not great for you.
Distributions like Linux Mint does a lot of the work for you: first of all, it has a graphical installer. It boots up and asks you about your language, your keyboard, where you want to install it. And it installs a system that’s ready to be used out of the box. When you install Linux Mint, you get a desktop, a web browser, you get drivers configured for you. It detects what’s the best graphics drivers and prompts you to install them automatically.
Most distributions, especially Debian/Ubuntu derived ones, are all about providing a curated experience. It comes with a whole bunch of stuff installed and configured to reasonable defaults. Need to print something? Yeah it comes with printer support by default, just plug in your printer and it’ll configure it for you. Some distributions even comes with Steam and Discord and everything needed to game ready to go right out of the box. Log in and play.
To provide such a reliable and out of the box experience, these distributions typically work with a release cycle, or delay updates to have time to properly test them out and make sure they work correctly before they ship it out to users. This means you may be a few versions behind on your desktop environment, but you also get the assurance you won’t update and your desktop doesn’t work anymore.
I personally picked Arch a long time ago because I’m fundamentally a tinkerer, I want the newest version of everything even if it means breaking things temporarily, and I do kind of whacky things overall. One day my laptop is there for working and browsing the web, another day it’s an iPXE server to install 20 other computers, another day it’s a temporary router/WiFi access point, another day it’s a media center/TV box, another day it’s an Android tablet. Arch gives me the freedom to make my computer do whatever I need my computer to do at the moment, and because it doesn’t make any assumptions about what I want to do with my computer, I can easily make it do all of those things on a whim. On Linux Mint, I’d be fighting an uphill battle to tear down everything the developers spent so much time building for me and my convenience.
arch is for noobs. linux from scratch is a little better
If you like extra config work you’ll love Arch relative to Mint.
Arch and Gentoo have IMO the best documentation ever and you learn a lot when you try using either of those distributions as you have to do everything from scratch starting from a minimal system. Since you’re saying you’re new to Linux though, I’d say you should start with something more user-friendly like Mint or Ubuntu (or even Manjaro if you want a rolling release distro) and stay away from Arch and Gentoo in the beginning.
Instead of Manjaro, try EndeavourOS, easy Arch install with GUI.
And for the FOMOers of you, I started playing with Linux as a kid over a decade ago, and I just attempted and completed my first Arch install last month.
(I got it first try thought not to brag or anything :) )
I will say that while some things in the Arch wiki are for arch only, a whole lot of it applicable to any distro. Or at least to Mint, which I’ve been on for like a decade but have used AW (it’s a common DuckDuckGo bang I use,
!aw) for many a trouble shooting and configuring
Linux is Linux. The differences largely come down to packaging and release cadence. You never really have upgrade difficulties with Arch due to the rolling release model as long as you are updating pretty regularly. On other distros, it’s not uncommon to deal with release upgrades that can be a little more involved. The other advantage to Arch is the repository and AUR. You can install just about anything with one command/click.
Personally, I think Arch is the easiest distro to use once it’s installed. I was a Debian user before Arch for mostly the same reason - it’s so easy to install software because the repository is huge. Being on Mint, you have access to a lot. Just imagine having access to even more but needing a little more knowledge to get started and that’s Arch.
Probably already said here, but it’s going to just come down to your end goal to know what distro fits what you’re looking for.
I am personally a huge fan of Gentoo, another distro that’s all about “from the ground up” approach. It’s actually where I started with Linux and is how I became as proficient in it as I am today. In fact my internal server that does everything is running Gentoo as it’s OS… Has never had any problems in the last decade that would require a reinstall or anything crazy like that.
But even as much love as I have for Gentoo, I have Linux Mint installed on my laptop. Why? Because it’s just more convenient when I need my full focus on the 10 other personal projects I’m working on… Also amazing on the gaming front. Doesn’t have nearly as much bloat as some other Ubuntu-based distros on first install, has a huge community support, and is just great all around to have.
Different strokes for different folks mostly.
Arch is a rolling release, meaning everytime something changes in a package or dependency, there’s an update.
Mint is a stable release, and gets major updates every few months, with much more frequent security updates, but yeah, it’s not an everyday thing like with Arch
While I don’t like saying “this is better than that”, since Arch is a rolling release, it’s always up to date, and so you’re not going to end up in a situation like “my built-in laptop sound card isn’t getting picked up” (i mean, you might, but it’s rare. After all, Arch can break sometimes times, just like everything, really) like you sometimes can with Mint and other stable distros. Also, Arch–well, vanilla Arch and something like Endeavour–comes with just the basics and everything else, you gotta add. I personally like this because I like knowing exactly what I’m installing and having only what I’m going to use…and also not deal with messing with PPA’s. This isn’t a point against non-Arch distros or anything, it’s all just personal preference–but really, everything from “Should I do Arch with Cinnamon or something like Mint or Fedora’s Cinnamon Spin?” is all up to personal preference
I think my issue with Mint is the small team maintaining the cinnamon fork that clearly can’t keep up with the desktop.
Otherwise mint is functionally Ubuntu. I preferred Debian for my stable stuff. I like arch currently because PKGBUILD was acomparatively easy package format to learn and modify. Rolling is nice but I’ve used Debian extensively as well.
More of the software I use is in the repos/aur compared to debian. Which makes everything easier.
I use mint and I really like it. It’s an easy familiar transition from windows.
Arch is for user’s who want to start with a completely blank slate. Like there’s no file system when you start, as far as I know. Think of arch like windows but nothing is installed, not even explorer.exe
