From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
I really like Arch because it’s bare metal but not too much => it’s very easy to choose the components you need for your installation and exactly fine-tune your experience without spending too much time with something like Nix/LFS/Slackware.
You should go for a distro that matches what you want out of your system. You want stable? Find some strong LTS distro like Ubuntu. You want ULTRA STABLE? Go for an immutable distro. Do you want to use your system for gaming? Go for a distro with wide gaming support, built-in drivers with options for proprietary drivers.
It's less about what base distro you're using and more about what you like about that particular flavor of distro.
For example, I use my PC for gaming mostly, but also coding. I switched from Pop! (Ubuntu based) to Garuda (Arch based) and I love it because it's really good for gaming, comes with Mangohud, Gamemode, Steam, Heroic, controller drivers, graphics drivers, etc, all optionally pre-installed. I also really like KDE apps because they're performant and slick so I got the Plasma version.
Anyway, yeah, focus less on "this distro is Arch based" and more on what each distro can provide you as far as your personal tastes.
You have reached the pinnacle of Linux, every other distro you try from now on will seem bland. 🧗🏼
What do you mean by people being obsessed over Arch?
Archlinux is Linux, it's just a minimal distro that allows you to only use whatever you want to use. I have no idea what's with being obsessed over it other than «use arch btw» which became a local meme recently.
That's like seeing the Otaku gang, deciding to give this Anime a go, watching Dragon Ball and asking "what's so special about this?".
Some people make some random thing their personality, others enjoy the same thing without making a big fuzz about it. Arch is great because of the wiki and the AUR, other distros have their own pros and cons.
Uhh, I thought this was just a meme
Yes
Ya, its just some people over exaggerated a bit. As long as you don't do stuff that obviously tries to mess with core system stuff it should be fine.
The one benefit Arch has for me (even though I no longer use it as I found I'm not too fond of rolling releases), is that the AUR with an AUR helper takes care of getting any Linux packages installed. No need to copy commands off a github repo or something like that.
I have used a number of distros over the last 15 years. Once I found one I liked, I stuck with it. I understand the package manager, some of the special features of the distro I use and I don't really have time to relearn this every couple of months on new distros.
If I want a different "feel", I change my DE. But that's about it.
I tried it and was underwhelmed, but also overwhelmed.
I love the idea of choosing everything I want, but Arch also meant the pain of learning to install everything I actually need first.
Is there a minimalistic distro that installs all just the essentials (drivers, services like DHCP, a package manager, desktop GUI), and then I choose from there?
Am I missing something? How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it's set up it's just like any other computer?
IMO there's nothing about Arch, or any other distro, that makes it worth using, beyond whatever goals you have. If Arch helps you accomplish that goals, great. If not, pick a different distro that does.
In my case, I want to use the latest version of software and use my own configs without inadvertently breaking stuff, based on some arbitrary set of assumptions that distros like Ubuntu or Fedora have made about how their own distro should be used, and Arch has been the easiest way to do that for me.
Also, as others have said, AUR and PKGBUILDs
using vim to edit a .conf file
that's the nixos people
I'm using Arch because you start with nothing and you can make any system you want. I have disk encryption, btrfs as a filesystem, secure boot with my own custom keys, I'm running self-build kernel, I'm using apparmor and I can use any program from AUR, etc. Thats my personality. Things that you can't see but are important to me.
On other distros some of these things would be very hard to do. Especially without Arch Wiki.