Why is Arch Linux soooo POPULAR?

[tylerdean]

It’s the easiest to maintain. If you’re the right kind of user. You don’t have to mess with flatpaks or appimages or snaps or anything like that, everything is just a yay away. And I find so many niche things on the AUR that aren’t anywhere else.

[MichaelWilliams-lrmb]

I was an Arch User but now I'm on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. But I'm also learning NixOS too.

[wisteela]

Very good video. I've been curious about Arch. I use Linux Mint for desktop use, and will be using Ubuntu Server.

[HaraldEngels]

I am since 20 years in the Debian and later in the Ubuntu world. But when the first Raspberry Pi was released, there haven't been many alternatives to Raspian. But there was an Arch image and I installed it. I really like it. The Wiki is excellent and was the main reason why using Arch on the Raspberry Pi was smooth sailing. If I wouldn't be so much invested in the Debian/Ubuntu world Arch would be my favorite distro.

[deralex]

went from arch to manjaro for the creature comforts, just didnt't feel like tinkering that much anymore

[livb]

Used to use endeavorOS. Ended up switching to fedora and sticking to flatpak apps if possible. I just want something stable that works out of the box and doesn't screw me over some aur package update. At some point I got tired of babysitting my OS and configuring everything myself spending hours daily tinkering all my window manager dotfiles. Sure, it's cool and useful knowing all the ins and outs and having full control of your system. But at some point I just got tired and don't have all the time in the world for it.

[osamaanees]

I am a noob at Linux and arch was the easiest to use. No kidding. When I was on mint I needed to add a bunch of PPAs just to install and update a specific thing to run a simple game. On windows I was always installing and removing software. On mint I just could not figure it out. It had a graphical app to install and remove stuff. But it never told me that I was using flatpak. On windows I used to just right click and open file location to see where it was installed. I could never do that on mint (or another distro).


Long story short I installed Manjaro. Its pamac GUI taught me what a package manager is and what is the AUR. + The Arch Wiki taught me so much. It teaches you about things step by step. And slowly I begin to understand. The pamac GUI even showed where was a package installed. The whole file path. I remember having trouble with mame ROM and had to edit it's file content which was not in home directory.

So arch is used by people because it's wiki teaches you things step by step and the AUR helps everyone who is using it to find and install officially unavailable packages.

[timjroughton]

The point of Gentoo my friend is that the resulting weeks/months (I agree to a point, and that's an over exaggeration) result in you're entire Linux install being compiled against a target, that target is the hardware your using! you're mileage may vary but this mostly means a very optimised install that insanely quick, would be interesting if someone actually tested this to see the difference. However I'm an ArchLinux - EndeavourOS user, ain't no body got time for Gentoo.

[gabood]

I use Debian, purely because I dont feel a need to switch to Arch. I know Arch quite well, I use it in VMs for things i dont want to do on my main install but Debian (bookworm) just works so well for what i do. Even works well for gaming, although obviously people with a slightly newer kernel problably get slightly better performance than I get. The thing that really stops me from moving to Arch though, is the amount of updates you get every day. With Debian I update my system once every week, if i remember. Sometimes I go a month without updating my system, and there still wont be that many updates. My experience with arch is that you get about 10 updates every day, and therefore spend about 5 minutes every day doing those updates. On Debian I spent 5 minutes a month doing updates.

[lunchbox]

Arch linux is what made me finally ditch windows. It feels so freeing when your operating system is just a shell and you decide how you mold it. It's definitely not for everyone and if I was doing any real work arch linux would by my last choice but I absolutely love it for what it is.

[marcosramirez]

I like it because I can make a script to install on my machines the way I want it and since I don't rice my system; default KDE Plasma is fine for me.

[ARCISX]

0:27-1:01 that summed up my whole journey lmao

[binedstudiostotalgame]

Arch you get bragging rights and forks of yay like paru and you can do whatever you want plus you put more care into your system because you took all that time to make it and all the fun

[mx]

love your videos :D also can we get your wallpaper collection please?

[vaishakhgk]

I have been using arch linux for more than 1 year, really loved it.
But for few days or week i have issue with shutdowing my laptop, it displays and stuck there ( it do not happen always but most of the time ).
Then i try fedora and pop os there was no issue in these then i reinstalled arch but still has same issue.

[adokapo]

Started with ubuntu (or rather tried) was slow and broken and rather frutrating (hard in a way) to use. Then tried number of other distros in that deb/ubuntu space. Like Mint Pop Vanilla… all better then ubuntu but still not satisfyng. Then moved to Red Hat stuff that i liked quite a bit more specially performance and ease of use of DNF still too much limiting and hard to customise. In the end installed Manjaro that was awsome in so many ways and waay better then anything i used to that point and i would probably stayed on it if that Pamac Pacman thing didnt totally fucked up with my brain and because of number of preinstalled stuff that was annoying me a little. I tried to find some better alternative in Arch space but in the end ended up on vanilla Arch and i really love it. It is easy to use and i learn so much everyday. It have best hardware and software support and customisation is unmatched by anything else on the market. It is probably the best platform/os right now.

[mehmetonurlu]

I download arch, installed, can't handle the directory system because it somehow limited the /home directory 2-4 GB or something and I just don't bother to learn how things works and then switched to zorin os 😂 I liked fedora more but let's try zorin now

[gorrumKnight]

I use an Arch-based (CachyOS) mostly to streamline if I want a fresh install, plus I like their repos. I landed here after going Mint -> Fedora -> Manjaro -> Vanilla Arch (by hand, not the script). Nowadays I use Cachy on all my stuff and you'll take the AUR from my cold dead hands.

[Codec]

The answer is that the documentation is incredible. 10 years ago, linux was unreliable as hell and if you wanted to use it, you would run into problems, even using ubuntu/debian/fedora.

The difference was, the ubuntu forums could be toxic and unhelpful, fedora doesnt have support unless you buy red hat, but arch has the wiki.

The arch wiki was (and i think still is) unparalleled in terms of documenting the entire process of doing things on linux, and it almost always will talk about common mistakes/problems. Its not uncommon to find the solution to a non-arch problem, on the arch wiki.

Arch had the attitude of "roll your own, but we will guide you and help you" where mainstream distro like ubuntu had a "it just works" approch which is great.... Until it doesnt just work.



Gentoo was a level of abstraction lower, dealing with kernel flags, compilation, so even with very good docs, wouldn't have the widespread appeal of arch.

And the idea of "ricing" arch made it super appealing to hobbiests who wanted to experiment with linux, rather than linux professionals/programmers etc.

So arch had this killer combination:

Free advertising from rice, free advertising from wiki (becuase thats where ubuntu noobies would often end up)

Great documentation

Ease of use


Other systems had advantages in any given area (ubuntu had more marketing in media, SUSE and fedora had better ease of use/reliabilty)

But the documentation of arch was unparreled.

And because the documentation was good, if your install got fucked becuse you typod in your grub file or some such, you could actually fix it.

[opfax]

Because with Arch you have to personnalize it and make choices between environnements, on other linux distro you generally already have a basique environnement and you don't have to personnalize it from the bones to the meat .