I’m a little bit underwhelmed, I thought that based off the fact so many people seem to make using this distro their personality I expected… well, more I guess?
Once the basic stuff is set-up, like wifi, a few basic packages, a desktop environment/window manager, and a bit of desktop environment and terminal customisation, then that’s it. Nothing special, just a Linux distribution with less default programs and occasionally having to look up how to install a hardware driver or something if you need to use bluetooth for the first time or something like that.
Am I missing something? How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it’s set up it’s just like any other computer?
What exactly is it that people obsess over? The desktop environment and terminal customisation? Setting up NetworkManager with nmcli? Using Vim to edit a .conf file?
Didn’t bother going through the hoops and installed EndeavourOS which is arch-based with some additional default applications.
For me, the best thing of Arch isn’t the distribution but the Arch wiki. An impressive piece of documentation.
Arch wiki is superb, couldn’t have installed or configured Arch without it.
Which btw is the reason many people ended up with Archlinux… after the x-th time looking up some configuration issues on another distro and landing there.
And the Arch User Repository is really handy when you need some more users.
That’s not a typo but a jest to the security implications, isn’t it?
It was a joke on the dual meaning of “user repository” which I didn’t think about that deeply but that would have been smart.
The Arch build system is just as impressive IMO. I’ve written Debian and redhat packages for at least two decades and Arch packaging is just so much easier to handle. The associated tooling for creating and managing build chroots is excellent as well.
That’s the main reason my software is in the AUR but nowhere else. I tried to make a deb package and failed so many times so I just gave up.
EndeavorOS is essentially Arch with a gui installer and a few optional pre-installed packages.
Yes, wiki and community are top notch!