I’m planning to install Arch Linux for the first time. Any recommendations on setup, must-have applications, or best practices? Also, what’s something you wish you knew before switching to Arch?
Arch was the distro that got me to stop distro-hopping. It’s stable, it has a rolling release, and it’s mine (as in, customizable, manageable).
I guess, if there’s anything I wish I’d known off the bat is that the Arch documentation is probably the best available. So much so, a LOT of it applies to Linux in general and not strictly to Arch.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Main_page
If something breaks, READ the error messages, understand each component, and check the wiki, there’s a very high chance the troubleshooting section has the exact issue laid out.
I can recommend using endeavourOS if you do not want to waste time
But if you want to learn, go for it! Make sure to have the arch wiki ready on a second device
And understand what chroot is, is very important 😆😌
Edit: Ah and don’t forget to install yet another yoghurt
If you go the EOS route, yay is already installed.
Yes, and I love it
Maybe I should have added “if going the arch route”…
I’m using manjaro-i3 for a pretty long time now (6-7 years) and I’m fully satisfied, I won’t change any time soon. It was not very difficult at first, even though I wasn’t a linux user when I moved to manjaro. I would just maybe move to sway instead of i3 which seems probably more modern now.
ditch it and go straight to NIxOS
“Arch” for people who think Arch is too easy.
lol Arch wasn’t hard and neither was vanilla NixOS, in fact NixOS was easier
Not if you have a weird app that only installs with a self-executing tarball. But for initial setup, sure.
don’t use archinstall if it’s the first time, the manual installation is not that hard
I installed Arch like that. When I had to do a new install, I forgot everything, then I used archinstall with Xfce option and it worked fine.
Yea, I would say either go for arch manually or go straight to endeavourOS
I learned so much from just going wiki-diving at every step of the installation and post-installation
i don’t think i went wiki diving really, i just followed what it said but it gave me a nice overview of what does what in an arch system that i could expand on later
Use EndeavousOS instead because the initial install process is simpler.
- EndeavourOS is arch based with less hassle. Its more than good enough for most people. don’t get trapped by minimal install bs and other non-consequential opinionative approaches to software.
- Select btrfs as your file system and use timeshift. If you fuck up or if your updates fuck something up. There are other ways of doing rollbacks and this is just what I became familiar with. I’ve used it two times in the past year, its worth it.
- Bookmark the archwiki, 99% of the time the answer to the questions of ‘how to’ and ‘can i’ are in there
- There are multiple DE’s. Pick what works best for you before you toss that bootable USB installer. You of course can switch later down the line, but experimenting now will save you config troubleshooting later, just stick to what feels/looks best. Look around on the web to see what appeals to your workflow. There are others like Cosmic and Wayland that are not included in the arch gui installer, in which case, follow the install procedures for the DE you want and remove the old ones to avoid config overlap.
- Have Fun. If you are not, do something that is.
I 2nd this wholeheartedly! Been using endeavourOS for years at this point! Before endeavourOS I was distro hoping the classics. I tried Ubuntu, fedora, popOS, Debian and way more throughout my time on linux. When I tried endeavour the first time I just stuck with it. It just worked, the updates are seamless and I just like get along with it.
Wayland and Cosmic are not there yet for beginners, more like beta, watch videos from Brodie Robertson, I’ll wait half year at least to try that for newbies.
Don’t cheap out and use the hand holding script to ez mode the install. At least not the first time. You will learn a few things along the way.
Check ArchLinux.org for news before you kick off an update. It’s got an RSS feed and a mailing list if that helps.
Read the Wiki, and turn to it first for any issues you have.
This one may be a special “me” problem, but if you’re manually interacting with wpa_supplicant, stop and go read the Networking page in the Wiki again.
Learn how to use journalctl (at least superficially) before something goes wrong.
Generally you want to restart after an update to the kernel or graphics drivers or things start degrading strangely.
I’m surprised it isn’t the norm to have a hook that checks it as part of pacman updating.
The ArchWiki is amazing, probably don’t start by installing nothing but a window manager and adding things you need as you go
Probably don’t start by installing nothing but a window manager
Oops. I ran into a lot of problems by doing this, but boy did I run into a lot of tools too
I have learned so much but everything is so disfunctional because “I’ll get to it later” means never
Don’t?
From the bottom of the installation guide: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/General_recommendations
Be aware that some apps will install fine from the arch repo but some others will be better installed from flatpack (e.g. inkscape) or directly as an executable (e.g. Godot).
On steam you may need to specify your video card if you run an AMD card using the DRI prime command. Some games will require -vulkan to use vulkan rather than game settings.
Note: experience may vary by compositor (xorg/wayland), desktop environment, drivers, system hardware, and your willingness to dive into details.
The only thing I have ever installed using Flatpak on Arch is pgAdmin. Inkscape from the repos works fine for me.
Nice!
What was your experience with Inkscape and Godot? I have those both installed from repo.
I’ve never felt the need to use flatpak at all on arch.
Godot had some driver issues. Inkscape had issues with the interface fonts.
Plasma 6/wayland
What exactly works better on flatpak version? Until now, for any packages that were somehow different, repo vs flatpak, were working better in repo version. (Due to container thingy, because flatpak version could bot see everything and I was zoo lazy to fix it using flatseal 😆)
I’ve had Discord not be up to date in the AUR. Moved to flatpak and haven’t had that issue.
Huh, works well for me, ig updates come a little late sometimes but never unable to use it.
Seems to be program by program. Usually an issue with plasma or wayland or drivers.
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EndeavorOS if you want to have an easy time. Also be comfortable reading documentation.
Why EndeavorOS over
arch-install
?Mostly BC its low effort. The most intimidating thing about arch for me was the troubleshooting when things go wrong. I’m cool with that in general operation but not during the installation process. Endeavor makes it painless while still being a minimalistic install
What issues were you having with arch-install that you had to troubleshoot?
Manually resizing/replacing the efi partitions for Windows dual boot was where I decided to stop and switch to a graphical installer.
Partitioning is something I don’t mess with on the terminal. Last time I set up a new drive I used SystemRescueCD first just to use gParted before installing arch (manually)
If you don’t mind AI slop wallpapers every time you upgrade your system. I can’t wait to get rid of eOS on my desktop and just use regular Arch
I’ve only seen this on a system I hadn’t changed the wallpaper on. But agreed the stock ones suck
I don’t know why but even if I am setting my own wallpapers I still get to see the stock ones (when booting, etc), it pisses me off because it is clearly AI made and it seems the community around eOS likes them and even make worst ones on their forum
The whole arch advantage (imo) is that you have a full understanding of what’s in your machine and how it works.
As a beginner you won’t understand and that’s okay, but you should try different things (or don’t and just focus on what works for you) as long as the end result is you doing: pacman -Qe and going “hmm that makes sense”, and imo the undesired result is going “hmm what do these all do, why do I have 2000+ packages”
Only update your system if you have some time on your hands afterwards, in case something breaks. Happened to me a few times before.
This.
“Just do a quick update” and spend 1h trying to fix some broken updatesAlso look at https://archlinux.org/news/ before updating (or follow the RSS feed), some updates may need manual intervention
Paying close attention to news feeds is something I wish I did when I ran Manjaro.