On July 12, Taiwan's military began deploying one of its newest and most precise strike weapons as part of intensifying drills meant to showcase the island's determination to resist any Chinese invasion.
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The family of a US-Palestinian man beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the West Bank called for a US State Department investigation into the killing on Saturday. Saif al-Din Kamil Abdul Karim Musalat was attacked on Friday in the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
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I think so. I lost count of the little things, it really was death by a thousand paper cuts.
I was a pretty rabid fan of Ubuntu, still have an x86 and ppc CD of 5.04 somewhere.
But by the time snaps started appearing, and then Ubuntu pro, Ubuntu decided to revert some of my customized configs in /etc after an upgrade, I had had enough. When snaps were reinstalled after an upgrade in 2021, I just flipped over to Debian, which has come a long way in being usable out of the box.
I have been using ffmpeg to convert audio files to MP3 format for my commercial web service and have found out that ffmpeg is no longer available in my version (12.
At the time, canonical was throwing its weight around and essentially bullying Debian upstream repos. Around this time, there was a mass exodus of the Debian leadership over this kind of thing.
The old guard of Debian wasn't as... enthusiastic about systemd either, but look what they use now.
Firefox has instructions on their website for adding their PPA and pinning it over Ubuntu's. I find it interesting that they made an official response that seems to say "yeah nonconsensual snaps are bad, here's another option"
I switched from Ubuntu to Debian, and it's basically the same thing, just faster since it uses native packages instead of Snaps. Ubuntu might as well run all it's apps in Docker containers.
You could rebrand Debian to Ubuntu and most users wouldn't even notice.
I've been enjoying CachyOS as well. I haven't gone digging into documentation too much but when I search I typically end up on Arch related forums. Chatgpt helps a lot too.
Arch requires reading the manual to install it, so installing it successfully is an accomplishment.
It's rolling release with a large repo which fits perfectly for regularly used systems which require up-to-date drivers. In that sense it's quite unique as e.g. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has less packages.
It has basically any desktop available without any preference or customisations by default.
They have a great short name and solid logo.
Arch is community-based and is quite pragmatic when it comes to packaging. E.g. they don't remove proprietary codecs like e.g. Fedora.
Ubuntu is made by a company and Canonical wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best. This makes them develop things like snap to work for them (as it's their project) instead of using e.g. flatpak (which is only an alternative for a subset of snaps features). This corporate mindset clashes with the terminally online Linux desktop community.
Also, they seem to focus more on their enterprise server experience, as that is where their income stream comes from.
But like always, people with strong opinions are those voicing them loudly. Most Linux users don't care and use what works best for them. For that crowd Ubuntu is a good default without any major downsides.
Edit: A major advantage of Ubuntu are their extended security updates not found on any other distro (others simply do not patch them). Those are locked behind a subscription for companies and a free account for a few devices for personal use.
Not really with archiinstall, but indeed as you say reading the manual is an expectation. Their philosophy is "creating an environment that is straightforward and relatively easy for the user to understand directly, rather than providing polished point-and-click style management tools", as well-summarized by Wikipedia.
wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best
tbh that goes for every distro. It's just that Canonical is more hands-on with its approach. The major complaint with Snap besides performance issues is Canonical making it so that only the Snap versions of popular apps (most famously, the bundled Firefox) are available by default.
I don't know about everyone else, but the last couple of years has had the most unstable Ubuntu releases, with the most unrecoverable releases when issues happen.
I've since moved to Fedora for desktop and straight Debian for server.
I used it a little way back in 2005-2006ish, and decided to give it a try again after a third reinstall of ubuntu within a year last year.
though, I'm about to get a "new" laptop and may toy around with Arch on the old one. I had previously tried setting up Arch in a VM but that's not supported and ended poorly.
I can't speak to Arch but I use Ubuntu every day. I hate on Ubuntu because I use it every day. They make terrible choices. They've got common, serious issues people have reported at least as far back as 2009 with no acknowledgement or plan to address. I'm on LTS and they push through multiple reboot requiring sets of updates a week, heedless of the impacts.
I don't feel like learning a totally new environment so I'll be switching my main computer to Mint whenever I get the time. So I can deal with someone else's annoying decisions for a while.
I feel your pain with Ubuntu, though last time I used it was about a decade ago. As bad as it is (relative to some other distros), it's still miles ahead of Windows. So, you've got that going for you!
I like arch because: - it is rolling release and I like having up to date software and not having to deal with distro upgrades breaking things - it is community run and not beholden to a company - packages are mostly unmodified from their upstream - the wiki and forums are the best of any distro
the wiki ~~and forums~~ are the best of any distro
If you don't participate in it that is. If you veer only a little off of their strict rules, then Arch forum will ban you and they won't allow you to even read the forum.
I don't really have a concise answer, but allow me to ramble from personal experience for a bit:
I'm a sysadmin that was VERY heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. It was all I worked with professionally and really all I had ever used personally as well. I grew up with Windows 3.1 and just kept on from there, although I did mess with Linux from time to time.
Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows in many well-documented ways. From small things like not letting you customize the Start menu and task bar, to things like microstuttering from all the data it's trying to load over the web, to the ads it keeps trying to shove into various corners. A million little splinters that add up over time. Still, I considered myself a power user, someone able to make registry tweaks and PowerShell scripts to suit my needs.
Arch isn't particularly difficult for anyone who is comfortable with OSes and has excellent documentation. After installation it is extremely minimal, coming with a relatively bare set of applications to keep it functioning. Using the documentation to make small decisions for yourself like which photo viewer or paint app to install feels empowering. Having all those splinters from Windows disappear at once and be replaced with a system that feels both personal and trustworthy does, in a weird way, kind of border on an almost religious experience. You can laugh, but these are the tools that a lot of us live our daily lives on, for both work and play. Removing a bloated corporation from that chain of trust does feel liberating.
As to why particularly Arch? I think it's just that level of control. I admit it's not for everyone, but again, if you're at least somewhat technically inclined, I absolutely believe it can be a great first distro, especially for learning. Ubuntu has made some bad decisions recently, but even before that, I always found myself tinkering with every install until it became some sort of Franken-Debian monster. And I like pacman way better than apt, fight me, nerds.
Arch has a very in-depth wiki that's the go-to resource for a lot of Linux users, and it offers a community-driven way to have access to literally anything that's ever landed on Linux ever through the AUR. It's also nice to have an OS that you never have to reinstall (assuming all things go well).
Why that turned into such a cult-meme is anyone's guess though.
About 10 years ago it was The Distro for first time linux users to prove they were a True Linux Enjoyer. Think a bunch of channers bragging about how they are the true linux master race because they edited a grub config.
Before Arch that role belonged to Gentoo. Since then that role has transitioned to NixOS who aren't nearly as toxic but still culty. "Way of the future" etc.
All three of have high bars of entry so everyone has to take pride in the effort they put in to learn how to install their distro. Like getting hazed into a frat except you actually learn something.
The Ubuntu hatred is completely unrelated. That has to do with them being a corporate distro that keep making bad design decisions. And their ubiquity means everyone has to deal with their bad decisions. (snap bad)
This is it mostly for sure. I used to be that True Linux Enjoyer. I still install arch sometimes but I only ever use an arch-derived distribution now that comes with an installer. I already feel like there’s not enough time in the day without having to manually copy files off a USB stick
I have a similar need for a "niche" install. I need Arch for it. I'm doing a laptop installation with LUKS2, TPM2, Secure Boot, systemd-boot with UKI, BTFRS, Apparmor and it has a Oculink eGPU dock station.
Last time I used EndeavourOS, I managed to get the graphical installer to install BTRFS on LUKS, it did require custom partitioning in the graphical installer, snapper just worked after that.
Zram (or was it Zswap?) was pretty easy to enable after installatiok
The bootloader might be beyond what the graphical installer can do though... I never really bothered switching...
To add, before the change the Gentoo wiki was a top resource when it came to Linux questions. Even if you didn't use Gentoo you could find detailed information on how various parts of Linux worked.
One day the Gentoo wiki died. It got temporary mirrors quickly, but it took a long time to get up and working again. This left a huge opening for another wiki, the Arch wiki, to become the new top resource.
I suspect, for a number of reasons, Arch was always going to replace Gentoo as the "True Linux Explorer", but the wiki outage accelerated it.
And here I am, just planning on going to Mint or something whenever win 10 support finally actually ends. I had Ubuntu like 15 years ago for a while, but I'm at a point where I want to do less learning about my operating system.
The way I see it, you can have an OS that breaks less often and is hard to fix, or an OS that breaks a little more often that is easy to fix. I choose the latter. 99/100 times, when something breaks with an update, it's on the front page of archlinux.org with a fix.
The problems I've faced with other distros or windows is the solution is often "reinstall, lol", which is like a 3 hour session of nails on a chalkboard for me.
How user friendly is the installation process? I've never tried, so I don't know. I'm curious now; just based on how people talk about it, I always perceived it as as distro that requires a lot of technical knowledge to use like Gentoo, which I unsuccessfully tried to install way back in 2010. I'm more knowledgeable and patient these days, so I may be able to work with arch.
You can use archinstall and it is dummy simple. Just have another computer or phone around to look things up and go down the menu like a checklist. My admittedly limited arch experience has so far been "run archinstall, use pacman to install tools as I run into things I'd like to have". I have a Framework 16 with the built in GPU, I imagine some hardware complicates this process but just look stuff up it's all out there unless you're on some really wild hardware. Even without archinstall you can follow the arch wiki and you're basically replicating what the tool does but using the wiki as your checklist and needing to type more
Well, Ubuntu uses Snap, which is a rather poor packaging solution that basically no other distro has adopted. By default it's a little bloated, it's made some controversial decisions (rust coreutils), and other distros just do what Ubuntu does better (like Mint)
People that got into Linux when most of the main distributions were easier to install than windows in most cases. Some people wanted to show off that they can install a Linux like it was when we did it back in the 90s for some reason I still don't understand till this day. I do like their wiki though. Works great for debian as well as arch.
I've been a slackware user since the late 90s. I take for granted how easy it is to install today. I've been tinkering with a socket 7 build, and nothing is easy. Installing slackware 8 is a pain in the ass. I can't even get half my hardware working on win95! It's not like riding a bicycle.
It's funny because I see the same cult behavior, but for Fedora. I've never understood the point of this distribution that has never worked well for me.
I'm on Manjaro by the way, because I love everything about Arch except the release style.
Funnily enough, I feel the opposite. Manjaro never worked reliably for me, but Fedora works great for my use case. Is it perfect? Fuck if I know. But it's a good, no-nonsense, extremely low maintenance, super reliable distro that I use daily with zero issues.
Also, they pioneered the atomic distro concept that has amazing use cases, and some fantastic projects are based on this technology. My gaming PC runs Bazzite for a zero-maintenance, immediate gaming experience. My dads laptop runs Bluefin and he hasn't broken it yet, and he's capable of breaking every single OS.
That said, never heard of fedora being a cult at all. Hell I feel it gets far less recognition than it should honestly for being cutting edge and stable.
But you're still getting updates every day, just two weeks later than Arch. The "testing" is just two other branches somewhat closer to the Arch package releases.
I'm using Fedora, but I'm not going to say it's my favorite. I liked MX and OpenSUSE a lot. Just had a hard time with running them on a computer. Fedora just worked out the box.
When I got fed up with windows 8.1 (and windows update bricked it), I first used ubuntu. How well or not it worked depended on the version. In version 19 it got some ugly white message boxes. I searched for how to change their color and found an angry dev saying no you cant change that. This was the final bullshit. Then I switched to arch, which lets me choose how my stuff looks and doesn't have the whole 3/4 versions are buggy thing. It works and ubuntu does not.
Arch is amazing for what it is, hence the love. It’s what you make of it; by default there’s nothing and you design your own system from scratch. This leads to a very passionate and enthusiastic community who do great work for one another, for everybody’s benefit. Anything under the sun can be found in the AUR, the distro repos are fresh and reliable, and every issue that arises has a hundred people documenting the fix before it’s patched.
Ubuntu has a bad reputation for inconsistency, privacy invasive choices, etc. I don’t think all the hate is deserved, as they corrected course after the Amazon search fiasco, but I still won’t use it because of Snaps. They have a proprietary backend, so even if I wanted to put up with their other strange design decisions I can’t unless I wanted closed source repos. That goes against my whole philosophy and reasoning for being on Linux to begin with, and many feel the same.
Normal people who use Arch don't bring it up much, because they're all sick of the memes and are really, REALLY tired of immediately being called rude elitist neckbeard cultists every time they mention it.
The Ubuntu hate is because Canonical has a long history of making weird, controversial decisions that split the Linux community for no good reason.
Unity would be the first example, and although Unity was actually a good DE, it was too bloated and almost non-modifiable.
People jumped ship to Linux Mint that had its priorities straight.
Mir and Snap were bigger issues though as Wayland and Flatpak were great replacements for X11 and AppImage and did not need another competitor.
But the privacy issues were the straw that broke the camel's back. People left windows for linux so they wouldn't have to deal with this kind of nonsense.
I actually jumped when Ubuntu jumped to Gnome 3. Gnome 3 was too bloated for me and it looked ugly.
I decided to see what Arch Linux was about and eventually settled for Manjaro Linux. Arch + Xfce for the win.
I left Ubuntu after Unity, it could have been the greatest thing ever, but Canonical deciding what was best for me felt too much like Microsoft just shoving whatever garbage they wanted to my system.
I'm quite experienced in Linux but I wouldn't use either. Arch is great if you like to tinker, Ubuntu sucks for the not so libre approach , corporate ties, telemetry etc. I distrohopped before but today I just install my debian based distro and shit works.. Ubuntu I've installed twice before when I was new to Linux, and have had a major issues every time due to official updates that broke internet drivers and other things, that's a fun one when you only have one PC . Not to mention its so bloated that shitty computers that I like to thinker with it have a hard time catching up. The arch thing is also mostly a kind of meme, targeting the more unbearable nerds. People I hated when I was a noob (they will let you know you are) But they are found everywhere and in general I don't think there's more of those people in arch community than anywhere else. It's more of a stab at elitism than arch specifically.
I feel like it isn't really specific to arch, every distro has a following, but some are more "passionate" about it than others. I think arch, NixOS, and gentoo are the most notable.
It has: - a great wiki - many packages, enough for anything you want to do - its the only distros that is beetween everything done for you and gentoo-like fuck you. - and the Memes.
pacman, seriously, I don't hear enough of how great pacman is. Being able to search easily for files within a package is a godsend when some app refuses to work giving you an error message "lib_obscure.so.1 cannot be found". I haven't had such issues in a long time, but when I do, I don't have to worry about doing a ten hour search, if I'm lucky, for where this obscure library file is supposed to be located and in what package it should be part of.
rolling release. Non-rolling Ubuntu half-year releases have broken my OS in the past around 33% of the time. And lots of apps in the past had essential updates I needed, but required me to wait 5 months for the OS to catch up.
Hmm, finding what package a file is in is absolutely possible on Ubuntu/Debian too. You can use the online Ubuntu/Debian packages search, or use apt-file.
"I run Arch btw" became a meme because until install scripts became commonplace you had to have a reasonable understanding of the terminal and ability to read and follow instructions to install Arch Linux to a usable state. "Look at my l33t skills."
Dislike of Ubuntu comes from Canonical...well...petting the cat backwards. They go against the grain a lot. They're increasingly corporate, they did a sketchy sponsorship thing with Amazon at one point, around ten years ago they were in the midst of this whole "Not Invented Here" thing; all tech had to be invented in-house, instead of systemd they made and abandoned Upstart, instead of working on Wayland they pissed away time on Mir, instead of Gnome or KDE they made Unity, and instead of APT they decided to build Snap. Which is the one they're still clinging to.
For desktop users there are a lot better distros than Ubuntu these days.
I left Ubuntu for Arch because I got sick of Arch having everything I wanted and Ubuntu taking ages to finally get it. I was tired of compiling shit all the time just to keep up to date.
Honestly glad I made the change, too. Arch has been so much better all around. Less bloat and far fewer problems.
I installed arch before there was the official install script. It's not that is was THAT difficult, but it does provide a great sense of accomplishment, you learn a lot, customize everything, and you literally only install things you know you want. (Fun story: I had to start over twice: the first time I forgot to install sudo, the second I forgot to install the package needed to have an internet connection)
All of this combined mean that the users have a sense of pride for being an arch user so they talk about it more that the rest. There is no pride in clicking your way though an installer that makes all the choices for you
IMO Despite some unjustified rumors Arch is a very stable distro. For me it feels the same as Debian stability wise while still being on the cutting edge side. The Arch wiki is the second most important reason.
The problem there is that stable vs unstable distro uses a slightly different meaning of the word stable than you would use to talk about a stable vs unstable system.
In distro speak, a stable distro is one that changes very little over time, and an unstable one is one that changes constantly. That's sort of tangentially related to reliability, in that if your system is reliable and doesn't change then it's likely to stay that way, but it's not the same thing as reliability.
I think Arch is so popular because its considered a middle of the road distro. Even if not exactly true, Ubuntu is seen as more of a pre-packaged distro. Arch would be more al a carte with what you are actually running. I started with Slackware back in the day when everything was a lot more complicated to get setup, and there was even then this notation that ease of access and customization were separate and you can't have both. Either the OS controls everything and its easy or you control everything and its hard. To some extent that's always going to be true, but there's no reason you can't or shouldn't try to strike a balance between the two. I think Arch fits nicely into that space.
I also wouldn't use the term "cultists" as much as "aholes". If you've ever been on the Arch forums you know what I'm talking about. There is a certain kind of dickish behavior that occurs there, but it somewhat is understandable. A lot of problems are vaguely posted (several times over) with no backing logs or info to determine anything. Just "Something just happened. Tell me how to fix it?". And on top of that, those asking for help refuse to read the wiki or participate in the problem solving. They just want an online PC repair shop basically.
I'm not sure either. I think arch used to be one of the less popular distros (because of the more involved install process, solved now by the arch-based distros with friendly installers), despite having some of the best features, so it required more "evangelism", that's unecessary now. Arch-based distros are now some of the most popular ones, so its not necessary.
Others have commented on why its so great, but the AUR + Rolling releases + stability means that arch is one of the "stable end states". You might hop around a lot, but its one of the ones you end up landing on, and have no reason to change from.
That is the main reason I use Arch. I am not a Linux expert but I am able to solve most of my problems reading the wiki. I used to use Ubuntu and Mint but those ended with me copy pasting stuff into the terminal and not really learning anything. When I switched back to Linux this time I went with Arch.
Because there are still people who have not yet seen the light. Once everyone has joined the fold they will not be able to remember why anyone resisted in the first place.
There are a lot of different reasons that people hate Ubuntu. Most of them Not great reasons.
Ubuntu became popular by making desktop Linux approachable to normal people. Some of the abnormal people already using Linux hated this.
In November 2010, Ubuntu switched from GNOME as their default desktop to Unity. This made many users furious.
Then in 2017, Ubuntu switched from Unity to Gnome. This made many users furious.
There's also a graveyard of products and services that infuriated users when canonical started them, then infuriated users when they discontinued them.
And the Amazon "scandal".
And then there's the telemetry stuff.
Meanwhile. Arch has always been the bad boy that dares you to love him... unapproachable and edgy.
Nix is great but not the saving grace I thought it would be. I daily it. Like it. Run cinnamon coming from Mint. But to be fair. It takes real effort and time to setup your config file, comment it thoroughly and then master the system. Once it's fully automated backups and all you can hop machine to machine and it's like you never left your OG machine. There's pros and cons for sure.
If there was a simple Debian based distro that I could declaratively manage via a single config file, I think I'd try it. I.e. not using Puppet or Chef that can only bootstrap a system state, but something to truly manage a system's entire life cycle, including removing packages and anything littering the system file tree. But since there isn't, I'm using NixOS instead.
Having a DSL to declare my entire system install, that I can revision control like any other software project, has been convenient for self documenting my setup and changes/fixes over time. Modularizing that config has been great for managing multiple host machines synchronously, so both my laptop and desktop feel the same without extra admin work.
Nixpkgs also bolsters a lot of bleeding edge releases for the majority of FOSS packages I use, which I'm still getting used to. And because of how the packaging works, it's also trivial to config the packages to build from customer sources or with custom features. E.g. enabling load monitoring for Nvidia GPUs from btop that many distros don't ship by default.
I've started with ubuntu/mint and it was always a matter of time before something broke then i tried everything from then all the major distros and found that I loved being on a rolling release with openSUSE Tubleweed (gaming and most new software works better) and BTRFS on Fedora (BTRFS let's you have boot time snapshots you can go back to if anything breaks).
After some research I found I can get both with arch so installed arch as a learning process via the outstanding wiki and have never looked back. Nowadays I just install endevourOS because it's just an arch distro with easy BTRFS setup and easy gui installer was almost exactly like my custom arch cofigs and it uses official arch repos so you update just like arch (unlike manjaro). It's been more stable than windows 10 for me.
Tldr: arch let's you pick exactly what you want in a distro and is updated with the latest software something important if you game with nvidia GPU for example.
I had moved from Slackware to Debian but by 2004 the long release cycles of Debian were making it very hard to use any Debian with current hardware or desktop environments. I was using Sid and dealing with the breakages. Ubuntu promised a reskinned Debian with 6 month release cycles synced to Gnome. Then they over delivered with a live cd and easy installation and it was a deserved phenomenon. I very enthusiastically installed Warty Warthog. Even bought some merch.
When Ubuntu launched it was promoted as a community distro, "humanity towards others" etc despite being privately funded. Naked people holding hands. Lots of very good community outreach etc.
The problem for Ubuntu was it wasn't really a community distro at all. It was Canonical building on the hard work of Debian volunteers. Unlike Redhat, Canonical had a bad case of not invented here projects that never got adopted elsewhere like upstart, unity, mir, snaps and leaving their users with half-arsed experiments that then got dropped. Also Mint exists so you can have the Ubuntu usability enhancements of Debian run by a community like Debian. I guess there is a perception now that Ubuntu is a mid corpo-linux stuck between two great community deb-based systems so from the perspective of others in the Linux community a lot of us don't get why people would use it.
Arch would be just another community distro but for a lot of people they got the formula right. Great documentation, reasonably painless rolling release, and very little deviation from upstream. Debian maintainers have a very nasty habit of adding lots of patches even to gold standard security projects from openbsd . They broke ssh key generation. Then they linked ssh with systemd libs making vulnerable to a state actor via the xz backdoor. Arch maintainers don't do this bullshit.
Everything else is stereotypes. Always feeling like you have to justify using arch, which is a very nice stable, pure linux experience, just because it doesn't have a super friendly installer. Or having to justify Ubuntu which just works for a lot of people despite it not really being all that popular with the rest of the linux community.
I don't really understand either. Where are the Gentoo and LFS elitists? It seams like there should be more of those than arch elitests. Maybe it's just because more people use arch.
Ok, I think I can provide some insight into this that I think it's missed on other replies.
I switched to Arch back when Arch had an installer, yup, that's right, Arch used to have an installer, then they removed it and you had to do most of the process manually (yes, I know pacstrap is technically an installer, but I'm talking about the original ncurses installer here).
After Arch removed its installer it began to attract more purists, and with that the meme was born, people online would be discussing stuff and someone would explain something simple and the other would reply with "I use arch BTW", which meant you didn't need to explain trivial stuff because the person had a good idea on how their system works.
Then Arch started to suffer from being too good of a distro, see those of us that were using it consistently saw posts with people complaining about issues on their distros that never affected us, so a sort of "it doesn't happen on my distro" effect started to grow, putting that together with the excellent wiki that people were linking left and right (even for non Arch users) and lots of people became interested.
This new wave of users was relatively new to Linux, they thought that by following a tutorial and running a couple of command lines when installing arch they had become complete experts in Linux, and they saw the "I use Arch btw" replies and thought they meant "I know more than you because I use Arch", so they started to repeat that. And it became common to see posts with people being L337 H4ck3r5 with no clue whatsoever using "I use Arch btw".
That's when the sort of cult mentality formed, you had experienced people who liked Arch because it was a good distro that didn't break on its own with good documentation to help when you screw up, these people suffered a bit from this and told newbies that they should use Arch. Together with that you had the other group who thought because they installed Arch they were hackers telling people Arch was waaaay too hard, and that only true Linux experts should use it. From the outside this must have felt that we were hiding something, you had several people telling you to come to our side or they couldn't help you, or pointing at documentation that looked specific for their distro, and others saying you weren't cool enough for it probably felt like a cult recruiting.
At the end of the day Arch is a very cool distro, I've tried lots of them but prefer Arch because it's a breeze to maintain in the long run. And the installation process is not something you want to throw at a person who just wants to install Linux to check it out, but it's also not complicated at all. There are experts using Ubuntu or other "noob" distros because at the end of the day it's all the same under the hood, using Arch will not make you better at Linux, it will just force you to learn basic concepts to finish the installation that if you had been using Linux for a while you probably already know them (e.g. fstab or locale).
As for Ubuntu, part of it stems from the same "I use Arch btw" guys dumping on Ubuntu for being "noob", other part is because Canonical has a history of not adoption community stuff and instead try to develop their own thing, also they sent your search queries to Amazon at some point which obviously went very badly for their image in the community.
I used Ubuntu as my first distro out of curiosity sometime around 2006. I've tried others (Mint, Pop OS, Debian, Fedora) but mostly settled with Ubuntu because it was just kind of ok for me and as another user said, there was a lot of articles that helped with getting things working because it became popular.
I had heard of Arch and to your point the it's complicated thing very much kept me away from it even though I have been using computers for around 30 years and was comfortable using a terminal.
The other thing is gaming, I consistently had problems with the nvidia cards that I've had over the years and never really cared to dig into trying to get things to work so Linux was kind of my testing ground for other things and just general learning about how things work.
Then I finally just had enough of Windows a couple of years ago, and with gaming support getting better I went back to Ubuntu and it just didn't feel good, I wanted something different that was setup how I wanted it so I looked into Arch.
I tried a couple of times to manually install it but my attention span (ADHD) kept me from focusing on the documentation enough to actually learn what I was doing. In comes the archinstall script, it was basic enough for me to follow and understand to get my system up and running.
I went through roughly 3-4 installs using it and testing stuff after I had it running and breaking stuff and just doing a fresh install since the script made it very easy. Since then I have learned a good bit more, and honestly don't think I will ever use another distro for my desktop. Just the ability to make it exactly what you want and things just work. Not to mention the documentation is massive and the AUR is awesome.
I do use Pop OS on my wife's laptop since it decided to automatically upgrade to W11 which crippled it and I just wanted something that I could just drop on there that would work with no real configuration since the only thing it needs is Citrix which works ootb and she can use all her office tools through that and has libre office if she wants to do something locally.
I do have a separate drive with W11 on my desktop, its used for one thing, SolidWorks. Which I use enough to merit having windows.
Arch was and still kind of is seen as the "I use Arch BTW" crowd, but it really shouldn't be that way. The install script isn't fancy, but it works. I think that would be one of the biggest barriers to break that mindset and open it to more people that are still fresh to Linux. I think that having even the most basic "GUI" for installing Arch would do wonders.
I don't use either now. I have tried both. When I started with Ubuntu i was great; fast, light, all the good stuff. Then it started to get bloated and wouldn't run on my old machine... So I moved to Arch and it saved me and I used it for years.
My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That's why I have issues with many of the "easy" distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste. Don't take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all. I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That's why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch is not easy, that it doesn't try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system do behave that way.
Ubuntu? Its a can't make up its mind what it is trying to be while always becoming a crashy mess. When it first came out I remember trying it and immediately broke it.
The last time I installed it recently it had issues out of the box.
So I love Debian but it prides itself on stability so packages tend to be older. I think this is good for a server but probably not great for a desktop. Ubuntu came along and was like we'll be like Debian but newer packages. Everything was cool for a while but then they started doing shitty things. The first that I can think of was ads in the terminal. This was not great for an open source app. Then when you did apt install firefox it installed Firefox as a snap. WTF?!?!? (apt should install .deb files, not snaps). Because of this, lately I've decided to avoid Ubuntu.
I used Gentoo for a while and it was great but configuring and compiling everything took forever. I'm getting too old for that. Arch seems like a good alternative for people who want to mess with their system. So it's become a way for people to claim they know what they are doing without having to recompile everything. (Note: I haven't used Arch, this is just my perception)
Recently I got a new laptop and I had decided to put Linux on it and had to decide what distro. Arch was in consideration but I ended up going with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it's got the latest but I don't really have to configure anything. If I had more time, I might go with something like Arch but I don't really want to do that much fiddling right now.
I wonder if it's just me or if other people who were around before Ubuntu feel the same way but the reason I hate Ubuntu is that it seemed to take over the Linux world.
A lot of the information about how to do something in Linux was drowned out by how to do it in Ubuntu. When searching for information you have to scroll down in the search results for something that sounds unrelated to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu material was often titled "how to do it in Linux" and you thought you had a good long tutorial until you read a few paragraphs in and realized it was for Ubuntu and wouldn't work for you for whatever reason.
Even some software that says it's available on Windows and Linux just means they have a Ubuntu package and if you're really good there's a chance you might be able to figure out how to use it on a non Ubuntu system.
It's like when Ubuntu came out, people just assumed that Linux was Ubuntu. I've never used Ubuntu so a lot of the information I've came across regarding it has just been in the way of me finding useful information.
Arch has a cult like following because it emphasizes simplicity and customizability. If you have the time to fully administer your own system, there is no better choice.
Ubuntu is corporate, frequently out of date, and sometimes incompetent. They got big a long time ago when they were a significantly easier option than their competitors, but I really don't think there's compelling reason for a new user to install Ubuntu today.
To add to the arch management, after a while you learn the golden rule - set it and don't fiddle with it too much. Nowadays there is very little maintenance to it. I run an update followed by shutdown. Once every 2-3 months there is some issue, that takes a forum search to fix and once a year it breaks to the level where I need about half an hour to an hour to fix it.
Maybe it's masochism, but I like Arch because it forces me to make mistakes and learn. No default DE, several network management choices, lots of configuration for non-defaults. These are all decisions I have to make, and if I try to cut corners I usually get punished for it.
However, I think the real reason I stick with arch is because this paradigm means that I always feel capable of fixing issues. As people solve the issues they face, forum posts and wiki articles (and sometimes big fixes) get pushed out, and knowledge is shared. That sense of community and building on something I feel like Arch promotes.
For me, Ubuntu is ugly as all hell and comes with so much I dont need. It also ran slow on the first machine I ever installed it on. I like Arch because I got my feet wet there. It was my classroom.
The Arch users being so vocal is more of a trope to me. Never fails to make me smile.
Ubuntu started as a great endeavour. They made Linux much more approachable to the less tech inclined user.
It is an achievement to get a distro capable of basically work out of the box that hides the hard/technical stuff under the hood and delivers a working machine, and they did it and popularized Linux in the process.
Unfortunately, they abused the good faith they garnered. The Amazon partnership, their desktop that nobody really enjoyed, the Snap push. These are the ones I was made aware of but I risk there were more issues.
I was a user of Ubuntu for less than six months. Strange as it may sound, after trying SUSE and Debian, when I actively searched for a more friendly distro, I rolled back to Debian exactly because Ubuntu felt awkward.
Ubuntu is still a strong contributor but unless they grow a spine and actually create a product people will want to pay for, with no unpopular or weird options on the direction the OS "must" take, they won't get much support from the wide user community.
I don't know if that ever was true but I definitely disagree with that nowadays because Arch is in my opinion significantly more approachable and easier to daily-drive than Gentoo.
I have to use Zoom for a online class and I was wondering how I can make my Zoom experience more private? Is there a Zoom client that I can use like how there are privacy-focused Discord clients? What privacy tips would you recommend?
Not much really. Separate profile on your machine or run it in a VM. Then maybe use a vpn. But that doesn’t really hide anything from zoom itself. Maybe use a throwaway email.
I refuse to use the Zoom client on my computer and instead use the web client. There might not be 1:1 feature parity, but it's never been a problem for me with other people.
The funds could come from the $3.85 billion remaining in Presidential Drawdown Authority from the Biden administration or from frozen Russian assets, current and former U.S. officials said.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
Ukrainian frontlines are pushed by steady but significant advances by Russian forces across multiple directions, with Ukrainian sources acknowledging territorial losses of approximately 170 square kilometers per week. This consistent retreat reflects not just localized setbacks but a broader pattern of systemic pressure, forcing Ukrainian troops to cede ground, deplete reserves, and reorganize under relentless Russian offensives. Notably, Russian sources claim a record territorial gain of 203 square kilometers in the first week of July alone, which is nearly 40% of the total area captured in June.
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I am suddenly reminded of an ad for a restaurant in some local city that was something along the lines of: "come sample the taste of the USSR which, unlike their inspirations, actually exist!" Communism is when no food, huh?
don't know for sure, was born after it's collapse so never had a chance to visit. Never been to China, DPRK, Laos, Vietnam or Cuba either because travelling is expensive (thanks capitalism!), but doubt that the people there would bother with shit like that tbh
Hopefully, as US influence wanes, relations between the DPRK and ROK can move in a positive direction. Korea is one nation with two governments. One people. President Lee Jae-Myung seems to be interested in boosting ties with the DPRK and PRC, and being less reliant on the US and Japan, so this genuinely seems like a positive shift after President Yoon's impeachment.
I hope to one day see the resurgance of the PRK (1945-1946), one unified country over all of Korea.
Not to be confused with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea The People's Republic of Korea (PRK; Korean: 조선인민공화국, Chosŏn Inmin Konghwaguk) was a short-lived...
I saw a french documentary where they sent this guy to Italy so he could learn how to make the good pizza and brought experts in to check.
It looked like some good ass Italian pizza. Too bad the frenchies were too busy pretending to care about peasants in the countryside to actually be normal and enjoy it. The one woman whose father was born the north was the most normal one, she actually enjoyed her time being there and didn't pretend to wax poetic about poverty.
It is really funny that liberals expect me to believe their genuine concern for the peasant class of Korea when their entire lives are subsidized by the Global South via imperialism.
Starovoit was found dead. Staged, "an officer's act" or "despicable"?. Former Transport Minister Roman Starovoit, who was dismissed by Russian President Vladimir Putin today, was found shot dead. Ukrainian propaganda immediately seized...
Yes but the Nazis want to colonize a part of the concentration camp for Lebensraum so they're going to concentrate the people in it in a smaller concentration camp
arguablly the Jews in Germany in ww2 were not proactively murdering innocent women and children via terrorism before the war, so I think that's one difference.
but it doesn't make what Israel is doing now any less Nazi-like.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave an interview to Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet, discussing Russia’s stance on peace talks with Ukraine, and NATO’s expansion as a pivotal risk to national security.
EADaily, July 7th, 2025. The current authorities of Kiev do not represent the population of the Russian-speaking regions of the country, therefore, today's Ukraine, according to international law, cannot claim to apply the principle of territorial in…
I thought you people constantly yap about not liking echo chambers. But when you have rare opportunity to read some of the news from other side, which is banned in your oh so free speech countries, you are shitting and crying yourself (btw OP have some empty accounts following him and downvoting everything). Turns out, you do love echo chambers, but only those that don't expose you to uncomfortable truth that opinions conflicting with yours do exist.
This post is heavily downvoted because it's posted on .ml . You might want to try pulling your head out of your ass, because .ml is 100% an echo chamber.
Lemmy.ml is more broadly federated than sh.itjust.works, its users get exposed to more broad viewpoints and a more complete vision of the broader Lemmy. Its admins and a large portion of moderators and users may be Marxists, but it's less of an echo chamber than instances that align with western consensus and ban dissent against that consensus.
Most users on Lemmy.ml can't escape the liberal viewpoint even if they tried as hard as they could, while most users on the more liberal instances can comfortably live their lives without ever engaging with Marxism.
I also have no idea why you expect this article to be downvoted because it's on Lemmy.ml, genuinely.
People will defederate from Lemmy.ml because someone posted a news article going over oreshnik? I think if people want to genuinely understand the millitary balance of power in the modern era, a firm understanding of missile production and technology is a key aspect of that. Oreshnik, as the article suggests, blurs the line between ballistic missiles and tactical (not strategic) nukes, without going nuclear, which is why it's significant. Other countries with competent missile programs likely have similar technologies, but we haven't really seen many revealed to the public like oreshnik has been.
Probably down voted because there is a pattern of Russian state media (look at source) and officials overstating capabilities for domestic and international audiences, sometimes masking technical failures or limited deployment with grandiose announcements.
This can be seen more definively in Ukraine. Had Russia actually had the weapons and technology they claimed then the Ukraine war would have actually been three days and not on going 2+ years later.
A unusual attack by bees in the French town of Aurillac has left 24 people injured, including three who were in critical condition but have since improved, according to local authorities.
Passersby were stung over a period of about 30 minutes on Sunday morning, according to the prefecture of Cantal, in south-central France. Firefighters and medical teams treated the victims, while police set up a security perimeter until the bees stopped their attack.
The three people in critical condition were evacuated to a local hospital. Pierre Mathonier, the mayor of Aurillac, told BFM TV on Monday that their condition had improved.
Donald Trump will send foreign leaders more letters notifying them of new tariffs in the days to come, said Karoline Leavitt.
“There will be additional letters in the coming days,” the White House press secretary said, in addition to the 12 he plans to send today and the two already made public, which were to South Korea and Japan’s leaders,
As for why Trump decided to start with the two Asian allies, Leavitt said:
It’s the president’s prerogative and those are the countries he chose.
July 7 (Reuters) - A proposal seen by Reuters and bearing the name of a controversial U.S.-backed aid group described a plan to build large-scale camps called “Humanitarian Transit Areas” inside - and possibly outside - Gaza to house the Palestinian population, outlining a vision of "replacing Hamas' control over the population in Gaza."
The $2 billion plan, created sometime after February 11 and carrying the name of the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, was submitted to the Trump administration, according to two sources, one of whom said it was recently discussed in the White House.
Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility on Monday for an attack that damaged a commercial vessel in the Red Sea and forced its crew to abandon ship.
The Houthis "targeted the Magic Seas ship... using two unmanned boats, five ballistic and cruise missiles, and three drones" on Sunday, military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video statement.
He added that the ship was targeted for violating their ban on navigation to "occupied Palestine's ports."
A bitter standoff between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the Armenian Apostolic Church has seen mass arrests, allegations of a coup plot, and an extraordinary offer by Armenia's leader to reveal his private parts to prove he is a Christian.
Earlier this week, Pashinyan told his 1.1 million followers on Facebook he was prepared to expose himself to the head of the Armenian Church and his spokesman, to prove they were wrong that he had been circumcised.
The GNOME 49 Alpha '49.alpha' release was just announced as the first formal test release in the road to the GNOME 49 desktop release due out in September.
I have RSI, and I use talon voice to control my computer.
Because Wayland doesn't, and probably won't support accessibility software like talon voice, in time, as x11 is shut down, I'll have to move to Mac or Windows. I'm devastated.
Talon voice is what allows me to continue working.
I'm literally going to have to move back to the dark side in time, due to the end of X11, and Wayland's lack of support for accessibility.
Sorry to hear this; why are so many voice-control tools for Linux so dependent on X11? Is there any glimmer of hope that an alternate Wayland-compatible tool is going to come along in the next few years?
The Wayland security model is far more restrictive. Accessibility tools need to screen capture, create input events on your behalf, etc. Such things aren't possible under Wayland (yet?).
This is the one gigantic, glaring problem with Wayland. “The most secure software is the software you can’t use” is not a philosophy I support. Accessibility should always be a first class citizen for mission critical components like window managers.
I'll do what I can. However, x11 will definitely die in the upcoming years. Development is apparently only maintenance now and basic improvements. The writing is on the wall, as Wayland just doesn't support what the accessibility tools require.
I still use X because at least last time I tried (admittedly over a year ago) some of my apps didn't work right on Wayland (KLayout, if I remember correctly).
Keep coming back to Wayland. I've been using Linux as my main desktop OS since 2022, and at first, I encountered many issues with Wayland (KDE). However, I kept coming back and testing Wayland as the bugs were fixed. Now, Wayland is great! It feels like a true modern operating system — much better than Windows.
One of the ironies with System76 is that they are taking so long to release their Wayland-only desktop that they are becoming one of the last bastions of Xorg.
KDE user here, I still use X11 to play old Minecraft versions. LWJGL2 uses xrandr to read (and sometimes modify? wtf) display configurations on Linux, and the last few times I've tried it on Wayland it kept screwing the whole desktop up.
Slightly concerned about remote desktopping though. What do I replace xrdp with?
Xrdp works on Wayland, you can keep using it if you like. There's also Gnome's built-in Gnome Remote Desktop as well as KDE's Krdp, both are also Wayland compatible (though I get the feeling Krdp is still in its early stages).
I used Ubuntu 24.10. on new Ubuntu certified Intel Thinkpad and exeperienced system hangs every few weeks. The only solution was to reboot. Frustrating to say the least. On that system also webcam didn't work so maybe it was kernel fault somehow but still very disappointing given the "certified" status.
1: Open files. You can now use ctrl shift n to make a new folder.
2: Open an application. Click save as.. "files" opens. Now you can not use ctrl shift n. I just tested it again. I am also on gnome 48. This is an old an known limitation.
I'm in the process of getting a new printer and since I recently (December 2024) switched to Linux it would be nice if it would be Linux compatible. So far I've decided on the Canon PIXMA G550 printer but I can't find anything about it's compatibility so I figured I would just ask here in the hopes someone might have the same printer or knows someone who has the same printer and can tell me if this printer works with Linux. If all else fails I could still use the printer with my tablet or phone using Canons app but using it with my desktop would be much more comfortable.
I think network printer made by big manufacturer recent years should be fine with IPP driverless. They found Printer Working Group of IEEE, this organization maintains IPP standard and IPP Everywhere™ Certification. AirPrint can be treated as Apple version of IPP Everywhere, the difference between them is AirPrint requires Apple Raster but IPP Everywhere requires PWG Raster (and JPEG JFIF file format if color printer).
Ah, so they are actually differences between IPP Everywhere and AirPrint (apart from AirPrint including the whole autodiscovery stuff)? Good to know. The latter is usually more prominently advertised though which is why that’s the one I mentioned.
But yeah, it should be very common for these to be supported with anything remotely recent.
IPP Everywhere also include full autodiscovery stuff (mDNS and DNS-SD, of course, Apple call this combination as Bonjour). So I said raster is the only difference.
Raster is unimportant in Linux situation because CUPS support both PWG Raster (It's actually a subset of original CUPS Raster) and Apple Raster. Whichever one your device supports, CUPS will work fine.
When you say proprietary drivers, I assume that means they are only available for x86_64 platform... leaving ARM64/aarch64 devices, like Pi's and such, out of luck?
Something I've experienced with similar printer drivers. Hence the ask.
Trump at NATO Summit | Source: X By Mitchell Plitnick / Mondoweiss U.S. President Donald Trump seems to have largely moved on from Iran and is now setting his sights on instituting a broader new or…
I've currently been messing around trying to make the Switch 2 Pro Controller work on Linux using the raw HID commands from this website, to potentially build into a driver as a bit of a project to get better at C. However, seemingly nothing I use can send any commands properly, or at least in a way that makes the controller work. I've tried both echo, sending bytes to the /dev/hidraw6 device (that device at least on my system, may vary on others), as well as hidapitester (a wrapper for hidapi). I know the device works, as a WebUSB tool that uses the same commands makes the controller work on this system. Is anyone more familiar with this, and can point me in the right direction? I'm on Fedora Linux 42 if that info helps.
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"The Israeli delegation that arrived in Doha Sunday has not been empowered to make any decisions. Netanyahu’s lead negotiator, Ron Dermer, is not in Qatar, and instead the team is headed by the deputy head of the Shin Bet intelligence service. The Israeli side, according to the Hamas official, appears to have come to Doha with a limited mission of reiterating Israel’s demand that Hamas accept Tel Aviv’s terms for a temporary truce."
“Zero” Progress in Ceasefire Talks, Hamas Official Says
Jeremy Scahill July 7, 2025
"The Israeli delegation that arrived in Doha Sunday has not been empowered to make any decisions. Netanyahu’s lead negotiator, Ron Dermer, is not in Qatar, and instead the team is headed by the deputy head of the Shin Bet intelligence service. The Israeli side, according to the Hamas official, appears to have come to Doha with a limited mission of reiterating Israel’s demand that Hamas accept Tel Aviv’s terms for a temporary truce."
"The Israeli delegation that arrived in Doha Sunday has not been empowered to make any decisions. Netanyahu’s lead negotiator, Ron Dermer, is not in Qatar, and instead the team is headed by the deputy head of the Shin Bet intelligence service. The Israeli side, according to the Hamas official, appears to have come to Doha with a limited mission of reiterating Israel’s demand that Hamas accept Tel Aviv’s terms for a temporary truce."
“Zero” Progress in Ceasefire Talks, Hamas Official Says
Jeremy Scahill July 7, 2025
"The Israeli delegation that arrived in Doha Sunday has not been empowered to make any decisions. Netanyahu’s lead negotiator, Ron Dermer, is not in Qatar, and instead the team is headed by the deputy head of the Shin Bet intelligence service. The Israeli side, according to the Hamas official, appears to have come to Doha with a limited mission of reiterating Israel’s demand that Hamas accept Tel Aviv’s terms for a temporary truce."
Two U.S. servicemen were arrested in the southernmost prefecture of Japan, Okinawa, over the weekend for allegedly assaulting Japanese nationals, local media reported Monday.The Okinawa police on Saturday arrested Tomas Salazar, who belongs to the U.
Vladimir Rogov, Chairman of the Committee on Sovereignty Issues of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and Co-Chairman of the Coordination Council for the Integration of New Territories, announced that "Russian army units have pushed Ukraini…
Hi all, I have tried everything, and now I am coming here for help. Hopefully someone can tell me what's happening here. So, I have this older pc that I have converted into a steam console, first with Bazzite and now with Chimera OS. Both work very nicely, but the one issue that persisted on both distros is that when I put the pc to sleep from game mode (press xbox button>power>sleep) then wake it up, the screen is not receiving a signal, it not even a black screen, just no signal. I would have to force reboot it to be able to get in. Nothing works. I can't even get into a tty screen or do anything. It is connected to a samsung tv 65mu8000 via HDMI cable. I have UHD color input enabled for that input, just to give more details.
I have tried disabling the wake up animation like some folks suggested and that didn't do anything. I have tried disabling the display core like some other searches suggested by putting amdgpu.dc=0 in modprob.d in its own file. I have tried blocking the intel iGPU, even though this CPU doesn't have one. Nothing works. It has an intel core i7 5930k and an AMD RX 6600. I would appreciate any help or suggestions Thank you
I've had the similar problems with bazzite in desktop mode coming back from sleep or screen off, first with Nvidia, then solved by switching to an AMD graphics card, but now it happens there too. I have two workarounds.
1) Try Ctrl+Alt+F1and Ctrl+Alt+F3. You should be able to switch to console then back to desktop/login screen.
2) In KDE Plasma, there's a way to map wake screen to a keyboard button. That worked for me until I reinstalled the OS and never bothered.
I think this is a Plasma or SSDM issue but idk how to report it properly.
It would allow SSH if the desktop is locked, they're separate. If you can get in via SSH then you can poke around logs like dmesg and see what's up. There will probably be some messages to give you something more specific to search with.
You think it's the screen/hdmi at fault, but it might not be. I've had the problem with two laptops in the past (the bug was with all distros I tried), and in one case it was a BIOS that Linux didn't like, and the second one was the internal wifi that its linux driver was buggy. For the first laptop there was nothing to be done, so I disabled sleep completely in the bios, while for the second one, I disabled the wifi modules in the kernel's blacklist, and then used a usb wifi that I knew it worked better. Both cases were appearing as a dead screen, but it wasn't the screen/hdmi/gfx card to blame. In yet another case, with a thinkpad laptop, the wake up was working, but it would wake up 30 seconds later than anticipated. In that case, it was the fact that its thunderbolt was dead (hardware had gone bad), and only when I disabled it in the bios completely the laptop would wake up correctly and fast.
In all those cases, I had to look at the kernel logs to see what was the issue. There were traces of the problem of which hardware exactly was creating the problem. It might look like a screen/hdmi problem, but most of the times, it's not.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently told EU diplomat Kaja Kallas that Beijing did not want to see Russia lose in Ukraine, not because it directly supports the conflict, but because it feared a U.S. strategic realignment against China. If Russia were to falter, Washington could shift its full focus to the Indo-Pacific. While some EU officials were surprised by Wang’s frankness, the comment underscores a widely held belief in Beijing—that a Russian defeat would upend the delicate balancing act China has maintained amid great power rivalry.
Wang further rejected accusations that China was materially aiding Russia’s war effort, claiming that if Beijing were truly providing such support, the conflict would have ended long ago. These remarks, while diplomatically calibrated, reinforce the view that China and Russia perceive their geopolitical fates as closely intertwined.
Ukrainian nationalist accounts have gone into a tailspin about this. I almost feel sorry for you people. We did try to warn you!
In a world bristling with geopolitical flashpoints and shifting alliances, few relationships are more consequential than that of Russia and China. Yet,
I don’t think it will in the short term since Russia needs allies and the West has made it clear they will never be allies with Russia. Russia doesn’t gain anything by splitting with China now or in the short term.
Much longer term it was always bound to happen. Russia only gets critical support around here because it’s going against the West in this specific conflict. It’s still a capitalist country with reactionary views on a lot of things.
That’s going to eventually put it at odds with China and other AES countries unless there’s a change in power in Russia.
Russia is even more fucked up than just a capitalist country. Like the infrastructure itself there are some institutions which retain a lot of influence from the USSR, Kremlin + central bank nonwithstanding, which is why I recommend Samir Amin's book abt the transition to and out of the Soviet mode of production. The MoD has had a major role in the economic planning of the country and it's not academically bought-out by the west. Its influence grows the longer the conflict in the Ukraine and soon the arctic progresses
no respect to be lost; i know little more than your average american liberal and i'm genuinely interested in reading it.
i've run into people on lemmy who know considerably more about dialectical materialism than i do and i posted that comment in the hopes that one of them will see it and respond with a knowledge drop that helps dispels that gloomy perspective you detected.
Well I'll try to summarize I guess reasons to be hopeful about development in Asia and the difference between Russia and India or even Brazil but I'm doing a dumbass thing where I use my phone in the middle of the night instead of going back to bed so get Russia and the Long Transition from Capitalism to Socialism and/or Maldevelopment by Samir Amin off of Anna's Archive and I will brb
Although Russia is still a bit of a neoliberal hellhole, it has a lot of institutions, trade relations, and physical infrastructure which are holdovers from the USSR, and its MoD's separate academic tradition & role in economic decisions + renationalized control of nuclear industry, oil etc sets it apart from more compliant states. At this point Russia has far more economic links to Asia than the western world. Of course if they'd been given the opportunity United Russia gooners would have gone for a subimperialist relationship with US + Europe and not bothered with all of this developmentalism stuff, but it's really just too large and independent for that to be permitted, making Russia the primary example of an entity the west cannot lay siege to. Lot of Russian poli sci and foreign relations teach people to make decisions based on a kind of mnemonic policy sentimentalism backed by unanalytical historical (including Solzhenitsyn-tier sources so) analogies, they've got annoying war on terror Israel policy. They have copied a lot of China's foreign relations because it produces political stability + reduces foreign diplomatic pressure (independent allies can't be easily coerced), healthy trade relationships, stable skilled workforces to build industrial capacity that can travel abroad for training, low cost of labor through infrastructure rather than exploitation, creating military self-sufficiency + providing training & technology transfers rather than overburdening yourself through suppling military aid to an isolated country. They don't have contrary foreign policy building isolated blocs that they attempt to build up into semi-self-sufficient partners, there is a mutual interest in constructing international institutions + law (which mostly de facto dont exist, coalition of the willing rules based yadda yadda) and opposing unilateral sanctions. Instead of picking different countries in the periphery to sponsor they have a mutual interest in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Sahel states, etc are able to develop. KPRF is a lame socdem party but they pressured Kremlin for intervention to stop the aggression against DPR and LPR, and have been successful in ways that the western union/antiwar protest left has not. Like Latam socdems there is more potential for something there because it's not organizing labor aristocrats & humanities washouts, it's in the global semiperiphery
I'm not ragging on people, many developmental, human, and theoretical advancements were all made possible by the USSR, it's just important to see why it was in a position to be disassembled & how some of its institutions persisted, and how it was unable to uproot imperialism, why there was a doctrinal split with China (which made mistakes too). So with all that out of the way, China and Russia now have no reason to go through a diplomatic or military confrontation, and since they're so economically + militarily interdependent, they have a zillion ways to quash anything before it comes to blows. Even simply postponing the signing of a new bilateral cooperation agreement or not incentivizing tourism would be a stage of escalation in the event of a dispute. Most likely we'll see more pressure against Russia from across the arctic circle & from eastern Euros + Scandinavians, not Russia working against China and Southeast Asian countries. Russians - even the more 4th positionist/neolib-nationalist-style Russians - are genuine about economic crosslinking, problem is their western-academia-brain-poisoned leadership has been slow to recognize how essential it is + how little western countries will compromise on their mission to undevelop & privatize the natural resources of every global south country & keep their trade links linear + how much allies like Iran & central Asia states need support in order to make international law real for the first time
China and Russia have completely different foreign policy than Cold War China and the USSR, there's been no sign of friction over China maintaining attitude of neutrality re: Ukraine, they are increasingly collaborating on infrastructure + involved in each other's supply chains. There's plenty of other stuff to worry about. I just don't see any series of events leading to tensions
problem is their western-academia-brain-poisoned leadership has been slow to recognize how essential it is + how little western countries will compromise on their mission to undevelop & privatize the natural resources of every global south country & keep their trade links linear
this is the reason why i would expect another sino-soviet split.
the american version of this is manifested by trump's ascendency enabled in large part by gen-z's noted willingness to "checkout out" of the system, but too many are still inculcated by american style politics and propaganda to keep the system going anyways; hence aesthetics-only displays like the no kings marches.
ie: plenty of people know better, but the ones who do are not in control.
Sure ya I think someone compared Russia's lingering War on Terror Israel policy to "playing with matches while the west douses you in gasoline" or something to that effect. Look if there is somehow success in [Trump impression] "un-uniting them" then I argue the resulting split will not be Sino-Soviet ☝️🤓
i don't think there's much trump can do force a split between them and the point of my example is to make it clear that the leadership is too heavily inculcated in their world views to benefit russia's position in the future.
a split will be fostered from within and by a decrepit leadership that still has its eyes firmly glued to the west.
Oh also major sleepy error I made there is using developmentalism as an antonym to subimperialism but if you pretend I just said "mutual development" it's fine i guess
TwiddleTwaddle
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •The shortest answer -
Arch has really good documentation and a release style that works for a lot of people.
Ubuntu is coorporitized and less reliable Debian with features that many people dont need or want.
POTOOOOOOOO
in reply to TwiddleTwaddle • • •hexagonwin
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •non_burglar
in reply to hexagonwin • • •anon5621
in reply to non_burglar • • •caseyweederman
in reply to non_burglar • • •non_burglar
in reply to caseyweederman • • •I think so. I lost count of the little things, it really was death by a thousand paper cuts.
I was a pretty rabid fan of Ubuntu, still have an x86 and ppc CD of 5.04 somewhere.
But by the time snaps started appearing, and then Ubuntu pro, Ubuntu decided to revert some of my customized configs in /etc after an upgrade, I had had enough. When snaps were reinstalled after an upgrade in 2021, I just flipped over to Debian, which has come a long way in being usable out of the box.
fartsparkles
in reply to caseyweederman • • •sudo
in reply to non_burglar • • •wut
non_burglar
in reply to sudo • • •It's true, and it was a huge pain in the ass:
answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+…
Question #223855 “Why is ffmpeg obsolete?” : Questions : Ubuntu
Launchpadsudo
in reply to non_burglar • • •non_burglar
in reply to sudo • • •At the time, canonical was throwing its weight around and essentially bullying Debian upstream repos. Around this time, there was a mass exodus of the Debian leadership over this kind of thing.
The old guard of Debian wasn't as... enthusiastic about systemd either, but look what they use now.
webghost0101
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Sina
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •caseyweederman
in reply to Sina • • •fmstrat
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •The biggest one: Snaps.
I switched from Ubuntu to Debian, and it's basically the same thing, just faster since it uses native packages instead of Snaps. Ubuntu might as well run all it's apps in Docker containers.
You could rebrand Debian to Ubuntu and most users wouldn't even notice.
Papamousse
in reply to fmstrat • • •UsoSaito
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Tim_Bisley
in reply to UsoSaito • • •UsoSaito
in reply to Tim_Bisley • • •Chewy
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Arch requires reading the manual to install it, so installing it successfully is an accomplishment.
It's rolling release with a large repo which fits perfectly for regularly used systems which require up-to-date drivers. In that sense it's quite unique as e.g. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed has less packages.
It has basically any desktop available without any preference or customisations by default.
They have a great short name and solid logo.
Arch is community-based and is quite pragmatic when it comes to packaging. E.g. they don't remove proprietary codecs like e.g. Fedora.
Ubuntu is made by a company and Canonical wants to shape their OS and user experience as they think is best. This makes them develop things like snap to work for them (as it's their project) instead of using e.g. flatpak (which is only an alternative for a subset of snaps features). This corporate mindset clashes with the terminally online Linux desktop community.
Also, they seem to focus more on their enterprise server experience, as that is where their income stream comes from.
But like always, people with strong opinions are those voicing them loudly. Most Linux users don't care and use what works best for them. For that crowd Ubuntu is a good default without any major downsides.
Edit: A major advantage of Ubuntu are their extended security updates not found on any other distro (others simply do not patch them). Those are locked behind a subscription for companies and a free account for a few devices for personal use.
POTOOOOOOOO
in reply to Chewy • • •Aatube
in reply to Chewy • • •Not really with archiinstall, but indeed as you say reading the manual is an expectation. Their philosophy is "creating an environment that is straightforward and relatively easy for the user to understand directly, rather than providing polished point-and-click style management tools", as well-summarized by Wikipedia.
tbh that goes for every distro. It's just that Canonical is more hands-on with its approach. The major complaint with Snap besides performance issues is Canonical making it so that only the Snap versions of popular apps (most famously, the bundled Firefox) are available by default.
VoidJuiceConcentrate
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I don't know about everyone else, but the last couple of years has had the most unstable Ubuntu releases, with the most unrecoverable releases when issues happen.
I've since moved to Fedora for desktop and straight Debian for server.
POTOOOOOOOO
in reply to VoidJuiceConcentrate • • •VoidJuiceConcentrate
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I used it a little way back in 2005-2006ish, and decided to give it a try again after a third reinstall of ubuntu within a year last year.
though, I'm about to get a "new" laptop and may toy around with Arch on the old one. I had previously tried setting up Arch in a VM but that's not supported and ended poorly.
aim_at_me
in reply to VoidJuiceConcentrate • • •AnUnusualRelic
in reply to VoidJuiceConcentrate • • •VoidJuiceConcentrate
in reply to AnUnusualRelic • • •Paid_in_cheese
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I can't speak to Arch but I use Ubuntu every day. I hate on Ubuntu because I use it every day. They make terrible choices. They've got common, serious issues people have reported at least as far back as 2009 with no acknowledgement or plan to address. I'm on LTS and they push through multiple reboot requiring sets of updates a week, heedless of the impacts.
I don't feel like learning a totally new environment so I'll be switching my main computer to Mint whenever I get the time. So I can deal with someone else's annoying decisions for a while.
jimerson
in reply to Paid_in_cheese • • •non_burglar
in reply to Paid_in_cheese • • •Feyd
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •- it is rolling release and I like having up to date software and not having to deal with distro upgrades breaking things
- it is community run and not beholden to a company
- packages are mostly unmodified from their upstream
- the wiki and forums are the best of any distro
webghost0101
in reply to Feyd • • •folaht
in reply to Feyd • • •the wiki ~~and forums~~ are the best of any distro
If you don't participate in it that is.
If you veer only a little off of their strict rules,
then Arch forum will ban you and they won't allow you to even read the forum.
audaxdreik
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I don't really have a concise answer, but allow me to ramble from personal experience for a bit:
I'm a sysadmin that was VERY heavily invested in the Microsoft ecosystem. It was all I worked with professionally and really all I had ever used personally as well. I grew up with Windows 3.1 and just kept on from there, although I did mess with Linux from time to time.
Microsoft continues to enshittify Windows in many well-documented ways. From small things like not letting you customize the Start menu and task bar, to things like microstuttering from all the data it's trying to load over the web, to the ads it keeps trying to shove into various corners. A million little splinters that add up over time. Still, I considered myself a power user, someone able to make registry tweaks and PowerShell scripts to suit my needs.
Arch isn't particularly difficult for anyone who is comfortable with OSes and has excellent documentation. After installation it is extremely minimal, coming with a relatively bare set of applications to keep it functioning. Using the documentation to make small decisions for yourself like which photo viewer or paint app to install feels empowering. Having all those splinters from Windows disappear at once and be replaced with a system that feels both personal and trustworthy does, in a weird way, kind of border on an almost religious experience. You can laugh, but these are the tools that a lot of us live our daily lives on, for both work and play. Removing a bloated corporation from that chain of trust does feel liberating.
As to why particularly Arch? I think it's just that level of control. I admit it's not for everyone, but again, if you're at least somewhat technically inclined, I absolutely believe it can be a great first distro, especially for learning. Ubuntu has made some bad decisions recently, but even before that, I always found myself tinkering with every install until it became some sort of Franken-Debian monster. And I like pacman way better than apt, fight me, nerds.
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krakenfury
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Is it really? I've always understood the cult around it as a joke.
But seriously, RTFM.
DefinitelyNotAPhone [he/him]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Arch has a very in-depth wiki that's the go-to resource for a lot of Linux users, and it offers a community-driven way to have access to literally anything that's ever landed on Linux ever through the AUR. It's also nice to have an OS that you never have to reinstall (assuming all things go well).
Why that turned into such a cult-meme is anyone's guess though.
paequ2
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •sudo
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •About 10 years ago it was The Distro for first time linux users to prove they were a True Linux Enjoyer. Think a bunch of channers bragging about how they are the true linux master race because they edited a grub config.
Before Arch that role belonged to Gentoo. Since then that role has transitioned to NixOS who aren't nearly as toxic but still culty. "Way of the future" etc.
All three of have high bars of entry so everyone has to take pride in the effort they put in to learn how to install their distro. Like getting hazed into a frat except you actually learn something.
The Ubuntu hatred is completely unrelated. That has to do with them being a corporate distro that keep making bad design decisions. And their ubiquity means everyone has to deal with their bad decisions. (snap bad)
NotSteve_
in reply to sudo • • •exu
in reply to NotSteve_ • • •FrederikNJS
in reply to exu • • •sudo
in reply to FrederikNJS • • •archinstallwith LVM on LUKS is sufficient.typhoon
in reply to sudo • • •exu
in reply to FrederikNJS • • •BTRFS with LUKS (OpenSUSE gets close), but using rEFInd as bootloader. Snapper snapshots, Zram.
I'm actually thinking about switching to systemd-boot with Secure Boot, TPM2 and stuff, so even further from mainstream installers.
FrederikNJS
in reply to exu • • •Last time I used EndeavourOS, I managed to get the graphical installer to install BTRFS on LUKS, it did require custom partitioning in the graphical installer, snapper just worked after that.
Zram (or was it Zswap?) was pretty easy to enable after installatiok
The bootloader might be beyond what the graphical installer can do though... I never really bothered switching...
MimicJar
in reply to sudo • • •To add, before the change the Gentoo wiki was a top resource when it came to Linux questions. Even if you didn't use Gentoo you could find detailed information on how various parts of Linux worked.
One day the Gentoo wiki died. It got temporary mirrors quickly, but it took a long time to get up and working again. This left a huge opening for another wiki, the Arch wiki, to become the new top resource.
I suspect, for a number of reasons, Arch was always going to replace Gentoo as the "True Linux Explorer", but the wiki outage accelerated it.
ColeSloth
in reply to sudo • • •OhVenus_Baby
in reply to ColeSloth • • •OhVenus_Baby
in reply to sudo • • •sudo
in reply to OhVenus_Baby • • •Shinji_Ikari [he/him]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I just think its good.
The way I see it, you can have an OS that breaks less often and is hard to fix, or an OS that breaks a little more often that is easy to fix. I choose the latter. 99/100 times, when something breaks with an update, it's on the front page of archlinux.org with a fix.
The problems I've faced with other distros or windows is the solution is often "reinstall, lol", which is like a 3 hour session of nails on a chalkboard for me.
Outdoor_Catgirl [she/her, they/them]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •folaht
in reply to Outdoor_Catgirl [she/her, they/them] • • •segfault11 [any]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Ms. ArmoredThirteen
in reply to segfault11 [any] • • •Chump [he/him]
in reply to Ms. ArmoredThirteen • • •the_q
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •m532
in reply to the_q • • •But arch is less work, not more
Ubuntu = breaking update every 2 years
Arch = breaking update never
oscardejarjayes [comrade/them]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •lordnikon
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •like this
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muusemuuse
in reply to lordnikon • • •downhomechunk
in reply to lordnikon • • •underscores
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I use Ubuntu professionally and Arch at home
Anything that's not Windows is my preference.
I love arch because I know what's in it and how to fix it and what to expect, the community is mostly very nice and open to help
AUR is great and using pacman feels lovely
I also care about learning and understanding the system I'm using beyond just using a GUI that does everything for me
Ubuntu is not bad it's probably one of the most used distros by far
Linux motto is: Use what you like and customize it how you like because there is no company forcing you to do things their way
muusemuuse
in reply to underscores • • •IBM would like to do have a few words.
ikidd
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •like this
Mordikan likes this.
四眼心理医生
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •TankieTanuki [he/him]
in reply to 四眼心理医生 • • •Fizz
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •deafboy
in reply to Fizz • • •kylian0087
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •disco
in reply to kylian0087 • • •"oh no I took the memes literal"
This ain't 2010 anymore. Community is great.
idefix
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •It's funny because I see the same cult behavior, but for Fedora. I've never understood the point of this distribution that has never worked well for me.
I'm on Manjaro by the way, because I love everything about Arch except the release style.
WFH
in reply to idefix • • •Funnily enough, I feel the opposite. Manjaro never worked reliably for me, but Fedora works great for my use case. Is it perfect? Fuck if I know. But it's a good, no-nonsense, extremely low maintenance, super reliable distro that I use daily with zero issues.
Also, they pioneered the atomic distro concept that has amazing use cases, and some fantastic projects are based on this technology. My gaming PC runs Bazzite for a zero-maintenance, immediate gaming experience. My dads laptop runs Bluefin and he hasn't broken it yet, and he's capable of breaking every single OS.
timbuck2themoon
in reply to WFH • • •Same.
That said, never heard of fedora being a cult at all. Hell I feel it gets far less recognition than it should honestly for being cutting edge and stable.
exu
in reply to idefix • • •idefix
in reply to exu • • •exu
in reply to idefix • • •But you're still getting updates every day, just two weeks later than Arch. The "testing" is just two other branches somewhat closer to the Arch package releases.
wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Swi…
Switching Branches
Manjaroidefix
in reply to exu • • •Stable Updates
Manjaro Linux ForumAnUnusualRelic
in reply to exu • • •OhVenus_Baby
in reply to idefix • • •POTOOOOOOOO
in reply to idefix • • •Mactan
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •bmrd
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •like this
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TankieTanuki [he/him]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •like this
HeerlijkeDrop likes this.
m532
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •NewOldGuard [he/him, they/them]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Arch is amazing for what it is, hence the love. It’s what you make of it; by default there’s nothing and you design your own system from scratch. This leads to a very passionate and enthusiastic community who do great work for one another, for everybody’s benefit. Anything under the sun can be found in the AUR, the distro repos are fresh and reliable, and every issue that arises has a hundred people documenting the fix before it’s patched.
Ubuntu has a bad reputation for inconsistency, privacy invasive choices, etc. I don’t think all the hate is deserved, as they corrected course after the Amazon search fiasco, but I still won’t use it because of Snaps. They have a proprietary backend, so even if I wanted to put up with their other strange design decisions I can’t unless I wanted closed source repos. That goes against my whole philosophy and reasoning for being on Linux to begin with, and many feel the same.
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Yozul
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Normal people who use Arch don't bring it up much, because they're all sick of the memes and are really, REALLY tired of immediately being called rude elitist neckbeard cultists every time they mention it.
The Ubuntu hate is because Canonical has a long history of making weird, controversial decisions that split the Linux community for no good reason.
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Zacryon
in reply to Yozul • • •MyNameIsRichard
in reply to Zacryon • • •folaht
in reply to MyNameIsRichard • • •Unity would be the first example, and although Unity was actually a good DE,
it was too bloated and almost non-modifiable.
People jumped ship to Linux Mint that had its priorities straight.
Mir and Snap were bigger issues though
as Wayland and Flatpak were great replacements for
X11 and AppImage and did not need another competitor.
But the privacy issues were the straw that broke the camel's back.
People left windows for linux so they wouldn't have to deal with this
kind of nonsense.
I actually jumped when Ubuntu jumped to Gnome 3.
Gnome 3 was too bloated for me and it looked ugly.
I decided to see what Arch Linux was about
and eventually settled for Manjaro Linux.
Arch + Xfce for the win.
BunScientist
in reply to folaht • • •undrwater
in reply to MyNameIsRichard • • •I tried Ubuntu on a laptop, and when i saw the Amazon logo, I did a double take. I actually got a bit dizzy, and had to evaluate what I had just done.
Shame on me though, because I installed Ubuntu on a vps, and got spam in my ssh session. "Get Ubuntu pro now!"
Sigh.
hankthetankie [none/use name]
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I'm quite experienced in Linux but I wouldn't use either. Arch is great if you like to tinker, Ubuntu sucks for the not so libre approach , corporate ties, telemetry etc. I distrohopped before but today I just install my debian based distro and shit works.. Ubuntu I've installed twice before when I was new to Linux, and have had a major issues every time due to official updates that broke internet drivers and other things, that's a fun one when you only have one PC . Not to mention its so bloated that shitty computers that I like to thinker with it have a hard time catching up. The arch thing is also mostly a kind of meme, targeting the more unbearable nerds. People I hated when I was a noob (they will let you know you are) But they are found everywhere and in general I don't think there's more of those people in arch community than anywhere else. It's more of a stab at elitism than arch specifically.
I see a point in arch but zero in ubuntu.
juipeltje
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Luffy
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Arch Hits the great spot
It has:
- a great wiki
- many packages, enough for anything you want to do
- its the only distros that is beetween everything done for you and gentoo-like fuck you.
- and the Memes.
glitching
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •because they used to be special. "I run linux", matrix text on boot, typing shit in the terminal, "I'm in", awe-inspiring shit to an onlooker...
but nowadays, anyone can run ubuntu or mint or whatevs and our hero ain't special no more. so here comes the ultimate delimiter.
folaht
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Arch is better because...
Being able to search easily for files within a package is a godsend when some app refuses to work giving you an error message
"lib_obscure.so.1 cannot be found".
I haven't had such issues in a long time, but when I do, I don't have to worry about doing a ten hour search, if I'm lucky, for where this obscure library file is supposed to be located and in what package it should be part of.
The "cult" is mostly gushing over AUR.
chellomere
in reply to folaht • • •Captain Aggravated
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •"I run Arch btw" became a meme because until install scripts became commonplace you had to have a reasonable understanding of the terminal and ability to read and follow instructions to install Arch Linux to a usable state. "Look at my l33t skills."
Dislike of Ubuntu comes from Canonical...well...petting the cat backwards. They go against the grain a lot. They're increasingly corporate, they did a sketchy sponsorship thing with Amazon at one point, around ten years ago they were in the midst of this whole "Not Invented Here" thing; all tech had to be invented in-house, instead of systemd they made and abandoned Upstart, instead of working on Wayland they pissed away time on Mir, instead of Gnome or KDE they made Unity, and instead of APT they decided to build Snap. Which is the one they're still clinging to.
For desktop users there are a lot better distros than Ubuntu these days.
brax
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I left Ubuntu for Arch because I got sick of Arch having everything I wanted and Ubuntu taking ages to finally get it. I was tired of compiling shit all the time just to keep up to date.
Honestly glad I made the change, too. Arch has been so much better all around. Less bloat and far fewer problems.
notarobot
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I installed arch before there was the official install script. It's not that is was THAT difficult, but it does provide a great sense of accomplishment, you learn a lot, customize everything, and you literally only install things you know you want. (Fun story: I had to start over twice: the first time I forgot to install sudo, the second I forgot to install the package needed to have an internet connection)
All of this combined mean that the users have a sense of pride for being an arch user so they talk about it more that the rest. There is no pride in clicking your way though an installer that makes all the choices for you
disco
in reply to notarobot • • •notarobot
in reply to disco • • •blob42
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Raccoonn
in reply to blob42 • • •disco
in reply to Raccoonn • • •Yozul
in reply to blob42 • • •The problem there is that stable vs unstable distro uses a slightly different meaning of the word stable than you would use to talk about a stable vs unstable system.
In distro speak, a stable distro is one that changes very little over time, and an unstable one is one that changes constantly. That's sort of tangentially related to reliability, in that if your system is reliable and doesn't change then it's likely to stay that way, but it's not the same thing as reliability.
Mordikan
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I think Arch is so popular because its considered a middle of the road distro. Even if not exactly true, Ubuntu is seen as more of a pre-packaged distro. Arch would be more al a carte with what you are actually running. I started with Slackware back in the day when everything was a lot more complicated to get setup, and there was even then this notation that ease of access and customization were separate and you can't have both. Either the OS controls everything and its easy or you control everything and its hard. To some extent that's always going to be true, but there's no reason you can't or shouldn't try to strike a balance between the two. I think Arch fits nicely into that space.
I also wouldn't use the term "cultists" as much as "aholes". If you've ever been on the Arch forums you know what I'm talking about. There is a certain kind of dickish behavior that occurs there, but it somewhat is understandable. A lot of problems are vaguely posted (several times over) with no backing logs or info to determine anything. Just "Something just happened. Tell me how to fix it?". And on top of that, those asking for help refuse to read the wiki or participate in the problem solving. They just want an online PC repair shop basically.
小莱卡
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Dessalines
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I'm not sure either. I think arch used to be one of the less popular distros (because of the more involved install process, solved now by the arch-based distros with friendly installers), despite having some of the best features, so it required more "evangelism", that's unecessary now. Arch-based distros are now some of the most popular ones, so its not necessary.
Others have commented on why its so great, but the AUR + Rolling releases + stability means that arch is one of the "stable end states". You might hop around a lot, but its one of the ones you end up landing on, and have no reason to change from.
DigitalDilemma
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •dino
in reply to DigitalDilemma • • •Kitty Jynx
in reply to DigitalDilemma • • •thenextguy
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •obsoleteacct
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •There are a lot of different reasons that people hate Ubuntu. Most of them Not great reasons.
Ubuntu became popular by making desktop Linux approachable to normal people. Some of the abnormal people already using Linux hated this.
In November 2010, Ubuntu switched from GNOME as their default desktop to Unity. This made many users furious.
Then in 2017, Ubuntu switched from Unity to Gnome. This made many users furious.
There's also a graveyard of products and services that infuriated users when canonical started them, then infuriated users when they discontinued them.
And the Amazon "scandal".
And then there's the telemetry stuff.
Meanwhile. Arch has always been the bad boy that dares you to love him... unapproachable and edgy.
Helix 🧬
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •OhVenus_Baby
in reply to Helix 🧬 • • •typhoon
in reply to Helix 🧬 • • •ruffsl
in reply to typhoon • • •If there was a simple Debian based distro that I could declaratively manage via a single config file, I think I'd try it. I.e. not using Puppet or Chef that can only bootstrap a system state, but something to truly manage a system's entire life cycle, including removing packages and anything littering the system file tree. But since there isn't, I'm using NixOS instead.
Having a DSL to declare my entire system install, that I can revision control like any other software project, has been convenient for self documenting my setup and changes/fixes over time. Modularizing that config has been great for managing multiple host machines synchronously, so both my laptop and desktop feel the same without extra admin work.
Nixpkgs also bolsters a lot of bleeding edge releases for the majority of FOSS packages I use, which I'm still getting used to. And because of how the packaging works, it's also trivial to config the packages to build from customer sources or with custom features. E.g. enabling load monitoring for Nvidia GPUs from
btopthat many distros don't ship by default.Marn
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I've started with ubuntu/mint and it was always a matter of time before something broke then i tried everything from then all the major distros and found that I loved being on a rolling release with openSUSE Tubleweed (gaming and most new software works better) and BTRFS on Fedora (BTRFS let's you have boot time snapshots you can go back to if anything breaks).
After some research I found I can get both with arch so installed arch as a learning process via the outstanding wiki and have never looked back.
Nowadays I just install endevourOS because it's just an arch distro with easy BTRFS setup and easy gui installer was almost exactly like my custom arch cofigs and it uses official arch repos so you update just like arch (unlike manjaro). It's been more stable than windows 10 for me.
Tldr: arch let's you pick exactly what you want in a distro and is updated with the latest software something important if you game with nvidia GPU for example.
loomy
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •ohshit604
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •dino
in reply to ohshit604 • • •ohshit604
in reply to dino • • •मुक्त
in reply to ohshit604 • • •shirro
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I had moved from Slackware to Debian but by 2004 the long release cycles of Debian were making it very hard to use any Debian with current hardware or desktop environments. I was using Sid and dealing with the breakages. Ubuntu promised a reskinned Debian with 6 month release cycles synced to Gnome. Then they over delivered with a live cd and easy installation and it was a deserved phenomenon. I very enthusiastically installed Warty Warthog. Even bought some merch.
When Ubuntu launched it was promoted as a community distro, "humanity towards others" etc despite being privately funded. Naked people holding hands. Lots of very good community outreach etc.
The problem for Ubuntu was it wasn't really a community distro at all. It was Canonical building on the hard work of Debian volunteers. Unlike Redhat, Canonical had a bad case of not invented here projects that never got adopted elsewhere like upstart, unity, mir, snaps and leaving their users with half-arsed experiments that then got dropped. Also Mint exists so you can have the Ubuntu usability enhancements of Debian run by a community like Debian. I guess there is a perception now that Ubuntu is a mid corpo-linux stuck between two great community deb-based systems so from the perspective of others in the Linux community a lot of us don't get why people would use it.
Arch would be just another community distro but for a lot of people they got the formula right. Great documentation, reasonably painless rolling release, and very little deviation from upstream. Debian maintainers have a very nasty habit of adding lots of patches even to gold standard security projects from openbsd . They broke ssh key generation. Then they linked ssh with systemd libs making vulnerable to a state actor via the xz backdoor. Arch maintainers don't do this bullshit.
Everything else is stereotypes. Always feeling like you have to justify using arch, which is a very nice stable, pure linux experience, just because it doesn't have a super friendly installer. Or having to justify Ubuntu which just works for a lot of people despite it not really being all that popular with the rest of the linux community.
outhouseperilous
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •rustyredox
in reply to outhouseperilous • • •pineapple
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Nibodhika
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Ok, I think I can provide some insight into this that I think it's missed on other replies.
I switched to Arch back when Arch had an installer, yup, that's right, Arch used to have an installer, then they removed it and you had to do most of the process manually (yes, I know
pacstrapis technically an installer, but I'm talking about the original ncurses installer here).After Arch removed its installer it began to attract more purists, and with that the meme was born, people online would be discussing stuff and someone would explain something simple and the other would reply with "I use arch BTW", which meant you didn't need to explain trivial stuff because the person had a good idea on how their system works.
Then Arch started to suffer from being too good of a distro, see those of us that were using it consistently saw posts with people complaining about issues on their distros that never affected us, so a sort of "it doesn't happen on my distro" effect started to grow, putting that together with the excellent wiki that people were linking left and right (even for non Arch users) and lots of people became interested.
This new wave of users was relatively new to Linux, they thought that by following a tutorial and running a couple of command lines when installing arch they had become complete experts in Linux, and they saw the "I use Arch btw" replies and thought they meant "I know more than you because I use Arch", so they started to repeat that. And it became common to see posts with people being L337 H4ck3r5 with no clue whatsoever using "I use Arch btw".
That's when the sort of cult mentality formed, you had experienced people who liked Arch because it was a good distro that didn't break on its own with good documentation to help when you screw up, these people suffered a bit from this and told newbies that they should use Arch. Together with that you had the other group who thought because they installed Arch they were hackers telling people Arch was waaaay too hard, and that only true Linux experts should use it. From the outside this must have felt that we were hiding something, you had several people telling you to come to our side or they couldn't help you, or pointing at documentation that looked specific for their distro, and others saying you weren't cool enough for it probably felt like a cult recruiting.
At the end of the day Arch is a very cool distro, I've tried lots of them but prefer Arch because it's a breeze to maintain in the long run. And the installation process is not something you want to throw at a person who just wants to install Linux to check it out, but it's also not complicated at all. There are experts using Ubuntu or other "noob" distros because at the end of the day it's all the same under the hood, using Arch will not make you better at Linux, it will just force you to learn basic concepts to finish the installation that if you had been using Linux for a while you probably already know them (e.g. fstab or locale).
As for Ubuntu, part of it stems from the same "I use Arch btw" guys dumping on Ubuntu for being "noob", other part is because Canonical has a history of not adoption community stuff and instead try to develop their own thing, also they sent your search queries to Amazon at some point which obviously went very badly for their image in the community.
Average Familiarity
xkcdpasdechance
in reply to Nibodhika • • •suzucappo
in reply to Nibodhika • • •I used Ubuntu as my first distro out of curiosity sometime around 2006. I've tried others (Mint, Pop OS, Debian, Fedora) but mostly settled with Ubuntu because it was just kind of ok for me and as another user said, there was a lot of articles that helped with getting things working because it became popular.
I had heard of Arch and to your point the it's complicated thing very much kept me away from it even though I have been using computers for around 30 years and was comfortable using a terminal.
The other thing is gaming, I consistently had problems with the nvidia cards that I've had over the years and never really cared to dig into trying to get things to work so Linux was kind of my testing ground for other things and just general learning about how things work.
Then I finally just had enough of Windows a couple of years ago, and with gaming support getting better I went back to Ubuntu and it just didn't feel good, I wanted something different that was setup how I wanted it so I looked into Arch.
I tried a couple of times to manually install it but my attention span (ADHD) kept me from focusing on the documentation enough to actually learn what I was doing. In comes the archinstall script, it was basic enough for me to follow and understand to get my system up and running.
I went through roughly 3-4 installs using it and testing stuff after I had it running and breaking stuff and just doing a fresh install since the script made it very easy. Since then I have learned a good bit more, and honestly don't think I will ever use another distro for my desktop. Just the ability to make it exactly what you want and things just work. Not to mention the documentation is massive and the AUR is awesome.
I do use Pop OS on my wife's laptop since it decided to automatically upgrade to W11 which crippled it and I just wanted something that I could just drop on there that would work with no real configuration since the only thing it needs is Citrix which works ootb and she can use all her office tools through that and has libre office if she wants to do something locally.
I do have a separate drive with W11 on my desktop, its used for one thing, SolidWorks. Which I use enough to merit having windows.
Arch was and still kind of is seen as the "I use Arch BTW" crowd, but it really shouldn't be that way. The install script isn't fancy, but it works. I think that would be one of the biggest barriers to break that mindset and open it to more people that are still fresh to Linux. I think that having even the most basic "GUI" for installing Arch would do wonders.
Bronstein_Tardigrade
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •ColdWater
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •pleaaaaaze
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •pasdechance
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •catty
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Magiilaro
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •My way of thinking and working is incompatible with most premade automatism, it utterly confuses me when a system is doing something on its own without me configuring it that way.
That's why I have issues with many of the "easy" distributions like Ubuntu. Those want to be to helpful for my taste.
Don't take me wrong, I am not against automatism or helper tools/functions, not at all.
I just want to have full knowledge and full control of them.
I used Gentoo for years and it was heaven for me, the possibility to turn every knob exactly like I wanted them to be was so great, but in the end was the time spend compiling everything not worth it.
That's why I changed to Arch Linux. The bare bone nature of the base install and the high flexibility of pacman and the AUR are ideal for me. I love that Arch is not easy, that it doesn't try to anticipate what I want to do. If something happens automatically it is because I configured the system do behave that way.
NewNewAugustEast
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Ubuntu? Its a can't make up its mind what it is trying to be while always becoming a crashy mess. When it first came out I remember trying it and immediately broke it.
The last time I installed it recently it had issues out of the box.
flynnguy
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •So I love Debian but it prides itself on stability so packages tend to be older. I think this is good for a server but probably not great for a desktop. Ubuntu came along and was like we'll be like Debian but newer packages. Everything was cool for a while but then they started doing shitty things. The first that I can think of was ads in the terminal. This was not great for an open source app. Then when you did
apt install firefoxit installed Firefox as a snap. WTF?!?!? (apt should install .deb files, not snaps). Because of this, lately I've decided to avoid Ubuntu.I used Gentoo for a while and it was great but configuring and compiling everything took forever. I'm getting too old for that. Arch seems like a good alternative for people who want to mess with their system. So it's become a way for people to claim they know what they are doing without having to recompile everything. (Note: I haven't used Arch, this is just my perception)
Recently I got a new laptop and I had decided to put Linux on it and had to decide what distro. Arch was in consideration but I ended up going with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it's got the latest but I don't really have to configure anything. If I had more time, I might go with something like Arch but I don't really want to do that much fiddling right now.
krolden
in reply to flynnguy • • •RattlerSix
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •I wonder if it's just me or if other people who were around before Ubuntu feel the same way but the reason I hate Ubuntu is that it seemed to take over the Linux world.
A lot of the information about how to do something in Linux was drowned out by how to do it in Ubuntu. When searching for information you have to scroll down in the search results for something that sounds unrelated to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu material was often titled "how to do it in Linux" and you thought you had a good long tutorial until you read a few paragraphs in and realized it was for Ubuntu and wouldn't work for you for whatever reason.
Even some software that says it's available on Windows and Linux just means they have a Ubuntu package and if you're really good there's a chance you might be able to figure out how to use it on a non Ubuntu system.
It's like when Ubuntu came out, people just assumed that Linux was Ubuntu. I've never used Ubuntu so a lot of the information I've came across regarding it has just been in the way of me finding useful information.
krolden
in reply to RattlerSix • • •thedeadwalking4242
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •scoobford
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Arch has a cult like following because it emphasizes simplicity and customizability. If you have the time to fully administer your own system, there is no better choice.
Ubuntu is corporate, frequently out of date, and sometimes incompetent. They got big a long time ago when they were a significantly easier option than their competitors, but I really don't think there's compelling reason for a new user to install Ubuntu today.
chaoticnumber
in reply to scoobford • • •dink
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Maybe it's masochism, but I like Arch because it forces me to make mistakes and learn. No default DE, several network management choices, lots of configuration for non-defaults. These are all decisions I have to make, and if I try to cut corners I usually get punished for it.
However, I think the real reason I stick with arch is because this paradigm means that I always feel capable of fixing issues. As people solve the issues they face, forum posts and wiki articles (and sometimes big fixes) get pushed out, and knowledge is shared. That sense of community and building on something I feel like Arch promotes.
Sanctus
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •qyron
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •The Arch users being so vocal is more of a trope to me. Never fails to make me smile.
Ubuntu started as a great endeavour. They made Linux much more approachable to the less tech inclined user.
It is an achievement to get a distro capable of basically work out of the box that hides the hard/technical stuff under the hood and delivers a working machine, and they did it and popularized Linux in the process.
Unfortunately, they abused the good faith they garnered. The Amazon partnership, their desktop that nobody really enjoyed, the Snap push. These are the ones I was made aware of but I risk there were more issues.
I was a user of Ubuntu for less than six months. Strange as it may sound, after trying SUSE and Debian, when I actively searched for a more friendly distro, I rolled back to Debian exactly because Ubuntu felt awkward.
Ubuntu is still a strong contributor but unless they grow a spine and actually create a product people will want to pay for, with no unpopular or weird options on the direction the OS "must" take, they won't get much support from the wide user community.
HiddenLayer555
in reply to POTOOOOOOOO • • •Nate Cox
in reply to HiddenLayer555 • • •Rust introduces novel features and makes notable changes from its ancestors.
Arch was just blue Gentoo.
TheFadingOne
in reply to Nate Cox • • •I don't know if that ever was true but I definitely disagree with that nowadays because Arch is in my opinion significantly more approachable and easier to daily-drive than Gentoo.