When I say arch I mean the arch distro and all of its offspring.
Endeavouros
Arch-gui
Manjaro
Artix --maybe not though
My first enjoyable distro was manjaro, the manjaro element less so but using arch clicked for me. But even so if my first experience was using arch and archinstall then yes its not the easiest but its also not that difficult, arch is treated like a boss battle in darksouls.
So when a pre configured GUI arch is recommend I would like to see less scar mongering.
Most desktop computer users want a system that works out of the box, never breaks, and hides away the complexity behind a “we’re doing magic under the scenes, give us a second” style screen.
And it appears that some distros, like Ubuntu, Mint, and PopOS, ElementaryOS, and ZorinOS, have either outright achieved this lofty goal or gotten very close (I am on Artix and haven’t used these for any considerable amount of time but from the outside it looks like they’ve done so).
From my limited perspective, it appears the main reason behind noob friendly distros being even possible is the long release cycle of their base distro, Debian. Thusly configuration scripts for these variants are easier to upkeep than on Arch based distros because there simply isn’t this rapid fire bleeding edge schedule that needs to be kept up on Debian.
I’m not opposed to recommending Arch for computer savvy noobs to Linux, even those that aren’t necessarily familiar with the command line. As long as they show a genuine willingness to learn it over time. Especially if they want to be an engineer/ developer of any kind, they should become familiar with the command line regardless of which OS they use.
But if they’re a normie, who just wants to try Linux because they’re tired of MacOS or Windows and just want a simple OS that they can use for basic office tasks, browsing the web, answering emails, playing video games, watching videos, etc., then don’t send them down the Arch rabbit hole. They’ll simply not want to spend the time figuring it out and they’ll just go back to Windows or MacOS. Recommend they try ElementaryOS, Linux Mint, Ubuntu, ZorinOS, or PopOS depending on their use case.
Arch requires constant maintenance and a bit of discernment/vigilence to keep going and that’s something most users aren’t willing to go through.
It’s like getting people to learn how to drive vs becominng your own mechanic. Sure, people are willing to learn to drive, they can immediately see the value in it, they want to get to places and have their own autonomy. But Arch is becoming your own mechanic (with Gentoo being like also being your own machinist). Most people don’t want to be their own mechanic, most of the time they just want to drive from point A to point B.
Hell if someone seemed like they didn’t want to read the wiki or learn some bash and it was case of a youtube-machine, then I’d not recommend arch. But I do think some newbies are smarter and willing than the community will give them credit for.
I wish I was recommended arch off of the bat as I kept dipping my toes in Debian based distros for years before I’d face the darksouls boss. It was detrimental to my transition to Linux. Some people move from windows wanting that control over they’re systems.
Anyway I posted this as an IT professional posted earlier about there unsuccessful and painful transition to Linux through Ubuntu and distros alike and a commenter mention arch and instantly got chewed out.
“Arch isn’t for noobies” is a catch phrase at this point and I see people repeat it mindlessly
I’m in general agreement on that. If the person is coming from a somewhat technical background, or is simply curious about learning the ins and outs of their system, then Arch is as good a choice as any imho.
In some cases, Arch is a better choice if you need more up to date software (although 3rd party packagers like Flatpak appear to solve many of these issues on scheduled release distros as well).
There sadly is a lot of gate keeping in the Linux community which leads to a lot of blanket statements that pervaid discussions, especially when it comes to how best to grow the Linux community. And “don’t recommend Arch or Arch bases distros to noobs” is one of them.
Should you recommend Arch to a new Linux user? The answer is never a direct “yes” or “no”, but rather, as always, “it depends.”