As an Arch user: welcome! It'll be a little work, but you're gonna be a-okay.

You, too, can become a 1337 h4xx0r with this one (1) simple trick: Read the manual!

Which is both definitely correct, but also profoundly unhelpful for newbies. But seriously, there is so much documentation, blog articles, video tutorials etc. for Linux, if you put in some effort everyone can go from newbie to hacker/programmer/gentoo user.

Those penguins appear to be Gentoo penguins, so in a way only one belongs

welcome in the cat friendly penguin group

Cat.

Sure, arch has a steep learning curve, but in the long run easier to use than others since it has better documentation.

Since you're already doing a fresh install, might as well create the root partition as a BTRFS with opensuse-style subvolumes for easy snapshotting and rollback. And since you're so close might as well also add LUKS1 encryption across the partition, since TPM is untrustworthy for REAL security. You're going to be using a grub config with rd.luks params and a protected keyfile so you don't have to decrypt the partition twice per boot like some scrub, of course.

Of course, technically there is nothing wrong just a plain arch install as long you've devised a proper opsec strategy, alongside daily, weekly and monthly full-disk offsite encrypted backups!

And yes indeed, Arch linux is the distro that was ordained to me!

Yer a lizard, Harry.

I bet OP wouldn't even know if gentoo, chinstrap and adelie are penguins or linux distros

Tbh as an Arch (btw) user I'm not really some magic computer wizard, I struggle with basic python, I often forget command arguments (I take heavy advantage of fish but sometimes it doesn't know the arguments either), I don't know how to do much scripting, I don't make my own config files, and my de is cosmic. Remember that most advanced Linux users are less advanced than people think (occasionally less advanced than even they think).

I installed arch using archinstall a few years ago just because i got sold on a custom hyperland config, never looked back.

I have yet to understand what the fuss is all about with it being difficult or not new user friendly.

Yes there are weekly updates, and on occasion they do break something, but that was never different on windows.

I have the Mint (it's fucking good) and no need nor ambition for any other system. Especially an elitist shit which break after an upgrade.

Been using Pop_OS! For almost 4 years now. Now I have SteamOS on my deck, headless Linbuntu on my mini PC, and MacOS on my work machine. Still love coming back to pop, especially with the new Cosmic DE.

I distro hopped for a week, and it was the little things that were dealbreakers.

I love Mint. Mint is love.

Adelle Linux? I thought there was only Hannah Montana Linux?

Mint's a solid choice, I used Mint as a primary or only distro for 10 years, and I've still got it on my laptop. But don't pigeonhole yourself trying to be not like the other girls. I've got Bazzite on my HTPC because Cinnamon is kind of ass at 10 feet, I've got Fedora KDE on my desktop for better Wayland support, and Fedora Gnome on a tablet because it's the only thing that remotely works as a touch-first OS that I could get to actually run on that tablet.

Last time I looked, the closest thing to a "manual" published by Linux Mint was mostly a manifesto about why they're not using various bits of Ubuntu. Sure the good old man command is still in there but Cinnamon is supposed to speak for itself.

I’m pretty sure the rest of them felt that way on day 1 / year 1 too.

haha imagine having to wait for an update to break your system (i use arch, and tried to config limine snapper sync)

No no its a lively neighborhood, Rebecca Black Linux is also there.

I want to be that pussy!

I noticed that little quote there btw.

Don’t worry. You can just as easily wreck your Mint install as any other distro, as soon as you start to poke around.

once had arch, once cachy os, in both the cases after few weeks something was broken after update (libreoffice, matlab)

never again

Running Mint xfce on an N100 HTPC with couple of docker containers. I believe this is the most stable OS I ever used. Never breaks, updates are coming regularly. Easy to use for my wife who's never seen Linux in her entire life. Makes 0 hustle and barely consumes any resources. Kind of a "set it and forget it" setup. Fucking love it!

True that, it's more relevant to commandline applications and whatever has a page in the Arch wiki (which is a great resource regardless of distro). Ubuntu itself does have extensive manuals, which are mostly still useful for Mint when they're not specifically about Ubuntu's default desktop environment.

Gotta Update on Friday 🎵

Where my debian as desktop homies at?

I have some good news for you

As a someone who wanted to play around with mint after already using arch for a longer while to check out "distrohopping": easier*

(went right back to my comfort space of arch real quick, don't really get distrohopping yet, how do I actually do that properly?)

I'd say most of that is just outdated opinions based on a time when archinstall wasn't yet included in the live ISO and using it was also more frowned upon and seen as a "cheat". Thankfully we mostly got over that second part.

I daily drive FreeBSD and have tinkered with Plan 9 and Haiku.

My Linux desktop (for gaming, DRM, and Linux-specific stuff), my wife's laptop, the kids' laptops, and our two media PCs all run Mint. It's great.

Still waking up and making breakfast. They're perpetually 5 hours late.

Y'all's, I don't want to tinker with my OS. I don't wanna think about my OS. I just want my OS to work, mind it's fucking business and leave me alone.

Welcome to the pengulution

Arch forces you to learn about Linux internals and components. Most people don’t need to know these things to work productively with their computers. Arch is more of an „build your own OS“ toolkit than a well defined base operating system. Two Arch installs can be more wildly different to use than Fedora and Ubuntu. That’s why you need the mountains of documentation. Arch wiki is great, but it’s not perfect or correct. Lots of outdated info lingers there as well.

BTRFS with subvolumes is they way to go, I agree. Mint sadly still defaults to EXT4 with only an encrypted /home. I installed Mint recently and a modern partition setup like you describe was difficult to get working. I don’t even remember, what I ended up with.

security

The AUR is a security nightmare.

easy snapshotting and rollback

That‘s an area Mint is pretty weak in.

OpenSuSE

Makes fantastic distros, that more people should use.

A few times per year I distrohop, but there's always small glitches in every distro I try, except for Debian. At least on my laptop, Debian just works.

Hacker: Skipper
Programmer: Kowalski
Arch User/Gentoo User: Rico
Cat: Private

Don't worry, we'll protect you

I'm 100% in this camp, ive used Pop!_OS now for years and it's never given me any grief! One PC has had it installed for almost 6 years and it still runs flawlessly.

You do have to install/setup a lot more stuff yourself, fwiw. That's probably largely what it is, that there's little that comes pre-baked. It's basically a build-a-distro toolkit.

Ha, this is basically me. Still wouldn't recommend rolling release to newbies, but my Linux knowledge is basic at best, and I've still used Arch for 8 years without many issues.

I had a Kubuntu install go south on me after an update and replaced it with Cachy and I’ve been really digging it so far.

Not trying to win contests. Just glad it ain't winders.

Tbh i think the hypeland configuration solved pretty much all that for me.

The project has been renamed and changed maintainer since but its still very much alive if anyone wants to check it out.

https://github.com/HyDE-Project/HyDE

I had never seen a tiling window manager before and my only experience on Linux was a little ubuntu server to run my Minecraft server from.

But have you considered paying for linux pro extreme max?

I used to do that but switched away from Hyprland after cosmic released.

I've been on Garuda for years now, and despite choosing an Arch derivative, I have zero (0) desire to ever change any kind of config, and I will never understand the desire to do so. I need my PC to actually work.

Isn't Hyprland created by a fascist?

It's a simple life. All you need for an OS, and no more. Only issue is the stupid installer. Disk partitioning is like handling a gun blindfolded.