this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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I suppose that for an automatic out-of-box experience this is true and probably what most users want, but again if you're savvy (which I recognize is not the case for most users, making Arch not viable for everyone), Arch is equally hardware-compatible and with the AUR even moreso in some cases. There is no automatic driver installer on Arch, but that's because there is no automatic anything installer - you're expected to research and maintain it yourself (which is excellent for learning linux by the way).
No offense. I know you don't know me or my history so it's okay to assume that I'm a noob. But I'm so tired of hearing that response from Arch fans.
I've been using Linux for 24 years. I used to love tinkering with it in the beginning when I had a lot of free time. Recompiling the kernel with the modules for my hardware and experimenting with the different window managers, running servers and having my own personal self hosted cloud before that was even a thing. But now that I work in IT, tinkering with software and cloud stuff is all I do. After a long day of work, I don't want to tinker with my PC. I just want it to work and be easy to use.
And for everyone else out there that's not a techie, it's important that we can have an alternative free open source OS to Windows and MacOS that's easy to use without any hassle, that's stable and secure. And as far as I know, Arch doesn't provide that. And there's no amount of comments thatay going up change my mind about this.
People don't want to have to learn to use their computer. They just want to use it. And I wish you Arch fans would stop trying to convince people that having a difficult to use OS is part of the Linux experience.
What's fun for you might not be someone else's cup of tea.
Dude I literally addressed your concern in my post by saying its not for everyone. You are deliberately choosing to ignore that part in order to fulfill your own agenda, or because you just want to be cranky about something (or maybe both). Have you had your morning coffee yet?
Ok ok. I wasn't trying to be rude. Sorry if I came off too strong.
It's just that I get the same almost cookie cutter response from every Arch fan in this community every time I comment something. Like your have to advertise that you use Arch and explain why.
It's like how vegans have to tell everyone they're vegans. (Not that I have anything against veganism. Or Arch for that matter.)
Again, no offense. This isn't about you personally. Just something I noticed that's becoming annoying.
Ugh. I guess I do sound like a cranky fucker.
Just do whatever you enjoy dude.
Only with Arch do I see people talk about the lack of features as if that's a selling point. Manually install drivers! Wow! What fun!
Its basically the difference between buying a consumer car with automatic transmission and self-driving vs putting together a kit car that has manual stick shift.
Ubuntu and fedora and the like, like the modern consumer car, just does everything for you with little hastle. But you might not know anything about how it works and have to call a mechanic to fix it.
Arch and Gentoo and the like, like kit cars, give you granular control over your system, can sometimes be a lot more powerful, is tuned to your specific needs, and most importantly: you learn. You will rarely if ever have to call the mechanic because you know how to just go in and rip and replace or tweak the faulty part.
You can obviously learn to work on your consumer car and start tuning and tweaking it, but you're not fully in charge.
There are different usecases for different people. For the people who like Arch, installing everything yourself is a value-add, to us it means the system gets out of our way. You set it up one time and it just works.
I put together my install over 6 years ago and have had to do next to no maintenance since then with regular updates.
It feels very odd to describe it as "getting out of the way" when it's actually getting in the way with its lack of features.
I'm not trying to say people shouldn't be using or enjoying distros like Arch or Gentoo, I just find the way people talk about them peculiar.
People who talk about it like this are people who probably value a few things:
learning (in general)
self-improvement
deep understanding over their system
control over their belongings
trust/safety in their system
DIY distros naturally provide these things by forcing you to go through their manual install process.
Think about it like how Goku always finds ways to get stronger and better at what he does by sheer effort.