this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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agreed ubuntu is kinda shit but arch is hard (to setup post-installation) for a new user imo. You should try kde neon or smth which I'd consider to be a nice beginner distro
How is arch hard post installation?
Here's an example:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Nextcloud
Compare that to Ubuntu:
https://snapcraft.io/install/nextcloud/ubuntu
or even Slackware:
https://slackbuilds.org/repository/15.0/network/nextcloud-server/
The wiki just likes to make the details available. Installation of nextcloud is as easy as
pacman -S nextcloudYou're comparing a simple install guide with the entire detailed documentation of a package. of course the package docs are going to have more details.
Ignoring details is not the same as being user friendly. Having a bunch of corpo marketing pictures of slightly above average people smiling on video chat in your installation docs does not make something user friendly. Is this really the metric we are going by, how little information is in the documentation?
After pacman -S nextcloud you don't have a functioning Nextcloud. You're still missing the web server, php, caching, etc. And all of it needs to be configured manually to work with Nextcloud.
After installing the Snap on Ubuntu or the Slackbuild on Slackware, you do have a functioning Nextcloud that lets you connect to it via the web frontend and finish the setup.
Rolling release means no stable API which can result in incompatibilities.
Bleeding edge mean you're essentially the guinea pig for most changes.
pacnew/pacsave files means you HAVE to use the terminal.
AUR packages become unmaintained or broken often.
It's expected you read the news before updating your system.
It's expected you update your system periodically.
Pacman doesn't automatically enables services installed, meaning that you need to run systemctl commands after installing a new service.
It is expected you read the wiki.
None of these are actual problems, and for even intermediate users they're well worth it since in turn you get bleeding edge packages, a gigantic user repository that normally just works, and an excellent wiki to get answers. But for someone who's never used Linux before, each of these is a huge problem in and of themselves.
Edit: reading some of your other replies I remember some more:
Having to forcefully uninstall a package so it gets updated because of limitations with pacman, e.g. you have packages A, B and C, all installed on version 1, you do a system upgrade, A now requires B to be version 2, but it won't get updated because C depends on B, you need to manually do
pacman -Rdd B, then update, thenpacman -S B(this last step is not usually needed since A would have pulled it as a dependency). This problem is so common that you eventually don't even notice it anymore, you see the message and uninstall the offending package intuitively. Also worth noting thatpacman -Rddcan easily break your system.Pacman uses a file lock, if something made it crash the file lock remains and needs to be manually removed.
PGP signatures updates require you to update certain packages before others.
You can easily break your system by doing something naive like
pacman -Sy <something>.Package cache doesn't get cleaned automatically.
I have never, once, run into an issue due to rolling release. I have never once read the news before updating. I've never had an update on arch break my system, never.
"Bleeding edge" is beta or alpha releases, people running those are the guinea pigs. All packages in default arch repositories are release versions, intended for use by users.
It is always expected to update your system periodically, no matter what distro or even software you're using.
Yes, and I argue that this is true of new users as well.
Yes, very user friendly
Yes. All users of systems, new, intermediate, advanced, and of any system, including windows and Mac, google stuff sometimes and look for information. This is probably one of the most important components for any software, the more easy it is to find information the better it will be. You can't find anything up to date on Ubuntu anymore, you're in a forum with a post from 2008 following outdated information.
yes, when using software it is expected that at some point you'll want to look at documentation, so documentation needs to be detailed, accurate and up to date.
This problem you're talking about with packages A B and C and wrong versions and stuff, I've never run into it. I'm sure it can happen, but I've never seen it. I have run into it on Debian based systems, every time I've tried to run one for a few months I get broken dependencies and stuff due to mismatched versions. Basically every problem after your edit applies to all package managers, forcing yes on dialogs (the "y" in -Sy) is always dangerous, "apt purge" and "apt autoremove" to clean cache and remove unneeded dependencies, this stuff isn't unique to pacman, and again, I've only ever seen it on Debian, it's theoretically possible on arch but a guarantee on Debian that you'll run into these problems.
But we are getting lost in the weeds. Give someone an endeavorOS installer and a Linux Mint installer, will there be a noticable difference in ease of use? No, there won't, generally what determines user friendliness is the DE. The few things they could get stuck on are in the terminal, that applies regardless of the distro, and the big difference is the package manager, and like I've said, I've never had pacman break, I've had apt break something every time I've run it for a few months.
That's not what the y means, and that's not the issue with that command. Please at the very least read the manual or the wiki of the distro you claim to know before replying to someone who just told you has been using it for 15 years.
Yes, all of the issues I mentioned are not issues with Mint.
I'm not claiming Arch will break if you don't read the news, or spend a week without updating, but what you're missing (possibly because you only recently started using Arch) is that all of these things do happen and are expected to happen, it's part of the philosophy.
Whereas many GNU/Linux distributions attempt to be more user-friendly, Arch Linux has always been, and shall always remain user-centric. The distribution is intended to fill the needs of those contributing to it, rather than trying to appeal to as many users as possible. It is targeted at the proficient GNU/Linux user, or anyone with a do-it-yourself attitude who is willing to read the documentation, and solve their own problems.
In other words Arch is by definition NOT noob friendly on purpose.
Yeah you're right it's refresh databases, my bad.
Exactly, so if you run
pacman -Sy somethingand that something has an important dependency that has also been updated, e.g. glibc, you have now updated glibc without updating all of the packages that depend on it, causing them to stop working. E.g. pacman depends on glibc, so doingpacman -Sy somethingwhen a new glibc version was released since last you updated essentially breaks your install.This is because Arch assumes you know what you're doing, and let's you do it. Great for power users, dangerous for people who don't know enough. All of the things I mentioned are similar things that look innocuous, but will cause you huge headaches if you don't know what you're doing. And they don't happen on other distros, because the other distros purposefully try to stop you from doing them.
Edit: BTW, the speed in which you discovered what
-Sydoes tells me you're far from an average noob user, for you Arch will likely be a breeze, but you need to understand that the average new user will not read manuals nor the wiki, when you recommend stuff to people wanting to migrate assume it's your grandma, you wouldn't expect her to read through technical manuals to use her system.For starters you don't have to worry about installing bluetooth stacks, or a network interface to control your wifi (if they somehow don't end up installing a whole DE package group)
In what? What????