A Culture Problem in Arch Linux

Arch can definitely be used by beginners. The only required skill is the willingness and ability to invest time into the process. There shouldn’t be a minimum knowledge bar to try Arch. However, the willingness to RTFM and Google are undoubtedly necessary.

You have some good ideas about useful things to know during first time installation. However, the installation guide is not the place for this. The current format is a good compromise, and it is not the right place to provide more background. Instead, supplementary information should be added to existing pages/new pages and linked from the guide.

I think the problem with the current guide is it links out to too much context. It should only link to pages that are absolutely necessary to be read and any further diving should happen from the linked pages. Note: I don’t think the actual guide should have more information added, but rather that some information should be moved.

The forest-of-links approach is the one that scales and doesn’t get a bunch of outdated documentation. A beginner can and should read some of the linked pages. This is part of the time investment.

The install script is fairly new. It’s also not aimed at new users, but rather experienced ones looking to automate some of the process. The support issue you ran into is a perfect example of why forest-of-links is the better approach. The support forum thread has become out-of-date, and is now providing inconsistent information by saying that manual installation guide installation is the ONLY supported method.

I used Arch about 8 years ago or so, when I was a University student. I remember my head was stuck in the (absolutely excellent!) Arch Linux wiki learning how to do various things. (Previously, I'd used Linux Mint, and was comfortable with basic command line tools). IIRC, my experience installing it on a MacBook Air involved mainly flipping between the main installation guide, and the page with MacBook-specific details.

I think "curious beginners" trying Arch will absolutely have 30+ tabs of the wiki open to read things. Maybe some people prefer an opinionated guide.. but I found what was there accessible enough anyway.

EDIT: I think for the criterion "an OS that just works, doesn't require effort put into it, etc." then e.g. Arch Linux or NixOS are terrible OSs to recommend. I don't think that's a big problem, though.

> Similarly, we can not in good conscience have an install guide that doesn’t make it extremely clear that a user should make a full disk back up prior to doing anything

Hahahaha. Well, yes. But expertise is gained from making mistakes; and I'm sure many people who make such mistakes ignored warnings like that anyway. :o) (I've lost data from bad disk partition operations a few times).

Sure, I get the appeal of trying to get average users into Linux, and I can even sympathize with people who truly love the underlying structure of modern *nixes. But if you see yourself as someone "liberating" Arch, you're obviously going to see their developers as captors. In reality, this is what consensus-based software development looks like. These people are doing their thing, you're doing yours.

> Sorry other Arch users, like it or not, you’ll have to support Manjaro users. Same way Ubuntu users look to Debian documentation for help

Arch quite explicitly *doesn't* offer support on anything, not just Manjaro users. That's the point of rolling-release distros; they're giving you a chance to build a towering software stack that can collapse at any moment, and it's your responsibility to make sure it doesn't tip over. Your desktop environment could completely change in an innocuous update. Your kernel could be swapped out with the wrong package. These are not tiny non-issues, they're problems that will stop novices in their tracks when they would have otherwise been perfectly fine on a stable distro.

I also don't think that a demand that the entire culture change to be more welcoming is a proportionate response. Some cultures don't want to be welcoming to just anyone. Arch prides itself on having a very high entry bar and filters out the ones who don't make it. You may not like it, some people may be dicks, but that is their choice to make. Gatekeeping in a limited sense is literally something everyone does in some measure - in picking friends and dates, hiring, immigration etc. It's not an unalloyed bad thing™

its weird but this problem is rooted in youtubers/discords who don't have the slightest clue what the community values or what Arch/Manjaro is jumping in and pumping millions of newcomers into a distro that doesn't want them. if 5-10 youtubers understood their audience, did their research responsibly and picked the right distro to recommend before pumping out a video that hits millions (cough LTT cough), a lot of this could have been avoided.

Arch doesn't want things inclusive, it wants things done its way. There is nothing wrong with that, Gatekeeping is not a negative term, it's how communities stay internally consistent. Gatekeeping is a community's immune system, and communities who don't do it get sick and die.

>Sorry other Arch users, like it or not, you’ll have to support Manjaro users.

And we do, by providing the wiki. No we are not going to troubleshoot your different distro on our forums, but most issues on Manjaro can be solved by a quick glance at the relevant wiki page. No one will even know you're using Manjaro AND you will have the satisfaction of solving it yourself. Or just use the Manjaro forums. This is an intended workflow, as the Arch wiki links to the Gentoo wiki in the Cron page, since the Gentoo community wrote such a comprehensive guide. That's not Gentoo "supporting Arch users" that's the Arch community acknowledging when really good work has been done, and not duplicating it unnecessarily.

Arch seemed goofy to me. But FreeBSD is pretty terrible on my laptop and I like that very small base that I add what I need on to, and not the "all the things for beginners". I've enjoyed my past 6 or so months with it.

I've normally used Debian personally for Linux for the past 15 years, but wanted to try something new.

It probably is a good way to learn that's a big step easier than Linux-from-scratch (which is a fun exercise if you have time). And it's a good way to keep a very up-to-date Linux system.

But I do have the advantage of just needing the Arch-specific tips: mostly understanding pacman and yay. I've been doing this a long time, I pick the tools I like, and I already know how to configure them (or where to look to remember).

But honestly, it'd be rough if you don't have Unix/Linux experience. Getting the hardware working, learning all the vocabulary, etc. before you can even really use anything is rough, unless you have a lot of time and patience. Especially if you're expecting a Mac or Windows desktop experience.

I could see a lot of users moving from Ubuntu, Fedora, Mint, etc. down to something less batteries-included, though.

No, Arch users won't have to. Arch users are all benevolent, contributing to the forum because they like it, helping other people because they enjoy it. They have no obligation to do anything for anyone.

A person with a website and a furry avatar passive-aggressively going after all elements of a community they dislike, and then egregiously trying to get the internet mob on their side when their self-righteous crusade that-just-so-happens-to-radically-alter-some-large-aspect-of-the-community gets shut down. I suppose it takes an interesting kind of bravado to try and insert your guide into the arch wiki installation page, after the troll explicitly told you to delete it because it was bad.

Don't think there will be. The whole "linux the hard way" has very little appeal to the wider audience. All the new users will go to Manjaro just like Ubuntu grabbed mindshare from debian thanks to being just that little bit easier (and then same for mint).

I personally look at the arch documentation occasionally but avoid interacting with the community. The elevated blood pressure is just not worth it

The author also switches, after the food answer from IRC away from the troll to the beginnerfriendlyness of arch.

Installing arch is still way more complex than other distros and that's totally fine as it is. At least from my perspective.

Beginner might just not mean 'person who never ever seen a PC before'.

I switched from suse experience to Gentoo and then to arch

Sorry you had to deal with an asshole, OP.

The arch folk definitely seem unfriendly, which is a shame, because that's not how I recollect it from 2007.

TLDR Expecting a community to change for you is unrealistic.

I used various Linuxes for 12 or so years and I'm still lost if I try to install Arch. Just 5-10 minutes later I'm like "fuck this, I got better things to do" and off to Manjaro I go. And I have a fully working system another 5-10 minutes later.

And that doesn't even touch on what do you think a "novice" is. If you mean people coming from Windows, your best bet is Endeavour / Manjaro / Mint, and never even mention Arch.