I’m a little bit underwhelmed, I thought that based off the fact so many people seem to make using this distro their personality I expected… well, more I guess?

Once the basic stuff is set-up, like wifi, a few basic packages, a desktop environment/window manager, and a bit of desktop environment and terminal customisation, then that’s it. Nothing special, just a Linux distribution with less default programs and occasionally having to look up how to install a hardware driver or something if you need to use bluetooth for the first time or something like that.

Am I missing something? How can I make using Arch Linux my personality when once it’s set up it’s just like any other computer?

What exactly is it that people obsess over? The desktop environment and terminal customisation? Setting up NetworkManager with nmcli? Using Vim to edit a .conf file?

  • Deckweiss@lemmy.world
    0·
    4 months ago

    Now actually use it for a couple of years. Then you’ll see whats special about it.

    For me personally, Ubuntu was breaking on every dist upgrade, the software was always out of date or not available in the repos. Been running arch for 5 years, same install, even transplanted it over to newer computers without issues. When some package is missing, I can throw together a PKGBUILD with chatgpt and put it on the AUR for others to use. It fucking rocks and is extremely sturdy while allowing me to do with it whatever I want.

    But yeah, besides that, it’s just a linux. The individual things it does well are not even exclusive to arch. Ideally, you should not think about your OS at all and it should be out of your way, while you do something on it.

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Most distros are very similar - it’s mostly the same software just using a different package manager.

    This is why “which distro should I use” is the most annoying question in this community.

  • hector@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    4 months ago

    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.

    • it’s community supported, lightweight, fast, and easy to use when you know what you’re doing (wow this sentence is dumb but you get me right?)
  • Lettuce eat lettuce@lemmy.ml
    0·
    4 months ago

    You fell for the meme lol.

    Arch is great if you want very high levels of customization without having to get into compiling and coding, like with Gentoo or NixOS.

    I think of it as the distro equivalent to custom keyboard kit, you get all the parts and can swap them out as much as you want. But you’re not designing and fabricating your own circuit board and microcontroller, writing your own custom firmware, getting a custom case modeled and fabricated, etc.

    There’s a reason “I use Arch, BTW” Is a meme.