this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I have successfully run Arch with Openbox as WM on machines even older than that. Arch has a learning curve, though.
And therefore it should not be recommended to Linux beginners... It is not a beginner distro.
There is no such thing as a "beginner distro". There are distros that need little to no intelligence to set up and maintain. Arch needs you to read and follow instructions. It is a myth that it is impossible for beginners to use Arch. There are several good installations instructions in the wiki, select one and follow it till the end.
There are also plenty of Arch derivates that preconfigure the system for you.
It's not a matter of intelligence but prior knowledge, Arch wiki is the best thing ever for everyone, even if you don't use Arch, BUT you need some Linux knowledge - at least Linux "lingo" - to be able to understand it.
That's something a Linux newbie doesn't have yet, exactly the reason why Arch is not recommended for newbies.
It's not impossible, but it's unnecessarily tidious... Especially when with other distros you can just follow a 4 Step wizard and get a similar result.
I beg to differ and say, even when the Arch wiki is a great source of knowledge, setting up own Arch system and maintaining it requires keeping on track with updates, to understand what is wrong with your system to look up the right keywords and so on. In my opinion it is better to stay on a stable, periodically released distro with tested repos like Debian, Mint or Ubuntu at first. Afterwards, you can still switch to Arch.
You're way too deep in the linux world lol.
One might call that.. suited for beginners.
Yep.
Beginners need to learn anyways, why not skip the "not-for-beginners stuff" and go all in? :)
Overwhelming beginners with more than they can chew is not the best way to welcome them to Linux, giving them the chance to learn a bit at a time is instead.
Because most people will likely want something that works out of the box so they can learn over time
I tried a couple distros on VMs (mint xfce, Manjaro i3...) because I want to eventually resurrect my old laptop and I was trying stuff out.
Tried installing Arch in another VM this year. The regular instructions were complicated and I didn't follow them because too much work. Tried using arch installer and couldn't. Had to install arch installer (???) from the boot command line. But it gave me a keyring error as well. Idk how I solved that but eventually got through.
Then I had it functioning for some days. One day I try to turn the VM back on and it just doesn't boot. I'm sorry arch, I love you but it wasn't meant to be.
@Dirk @Fungus
Arch + aur is a little bit too much in my opinion. Old PC = old slow hardware. Some of aur pacages are basicly compile instructions. Also you won't benefit as much from rolling release.
For GUI stay away from GNOME as it is resource hungry. KDE claimes to be a lot better but honestly it is still a very polished flashy expirence out of the box.
Learn using KDE, atempt to replicate using window manager like AwesomeWM.
You will "waste" resource only for what is a mass have for You.
@mrXYZ
Unless you're doing something very unusual, you're not going to end up with many AUR packages. I've run Arch on SBCs without much trouble.
There are severely steps in between Gnome/KDE and Awesome. XFCE and Enlightenment are more user friendly options that are still quite lightweight.
@Dirk @Fungus