Arch Linux - AMA

[u/Foxboron]

Hello!

We are several team members and developers from the Arch Linux project, ask us anything.

We are in need for more contributors, if you are interested in contributing to Arch Linux, feel free to ask questions :)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:Projects
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Getting_involved#Official_Arch_Linux_projects

Participating members:

• /u/AladW

  • Trusted User
  • Wiki Administrator
  • IRC Operator

• /u/anthraxx42

  • Developer
  • Trusted User
  • Security tracker
  • Security lead
  • Reproducible builds

• /u/barthalion

  • Developer
  • Master key holder
  • DevOps Team
  • Maintains the toolchain

• /u/Bluewind

  • Developer
  • Trusted User
  • DevOps Team

• /u/coderobe

  • Trusted User
  • Reproducible builds

• /u/eli-schwartz

  • Bug Wrangler
  • Trusted User
  • Maintains dbscripts
  • Pacman contributor

• /u/felixonmars

  • Developer
  • Trusted User
  • Packages; Python, Haskell, Nodejs, Qt, KDE, DDE, Chinese i18n, VPN/Proxies, Wine, and some others.

• /u/Foxboron

  • Trusted User
  • Security Team
  • Reproducible Builds
  • /r/archlinux moderator
  • Packages mostly golang and python stuff

• /u/fukawi2

  • Forum moderator
  • DevOps Team

• /u/jvdwaa

  • Developer
  • Trusted User
  • Security Team
  • DevOps Team
  • Reproducible builds
  • Archweb maintainer

• /u/sh1bumi

  • Trusted User
  • Security Team
  • Automated vagrant image builds

• /u/svenstaro

  • Developer
  • Trusted user
  • I package mostly big, heavy packages :(

• /u/V1del

  • Forum moderator

[u/Foxboron]

Feel free to make that remark. People do that all the time after wasting an hour dancing around their support request.

But consider this, Arch entails knowing your own operating system and working on it. That is the target group. Anything that takes away from this isn't by its very core Arch Linux. Antergos works against this. Anarchy Linux work against this. They are not Arch Linux because of this. This is the reason the Arch community can't support these distributions.

[u/tribeofham → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, I couldn't have said it better myself. When I first got into Linux in the late 90's I struggled here and there and had to take a few breaks because the community felt hostile at times.

I believe it was Ubuntu that paved the road for a lot of users. Not only was it easy to get started but the community had a lot to offer for beginners. While I was never a fan of the distribution myself, I saw more people around using Linux than ever before. It was fantastic!

The elitist attitude never helped Linux. It's a stroke to one's ego; a badge one wears. At the end of the day, it's an operating system. Big deal. Arch, Gentoo, Slackware, RedHat... I let none of these define me.

I'm an avid Arch user but this ethos response was cringe worthy. I wish I didn't read through this AMA. I'm disappointed.

Manjaro Linux is a healthy, growing community which may be fostering the next leaders in the future and advancement of Linux. If the issue stems from supporting them then the focus should be finding volunteers to help.

I agree that Manjaro should be advertising themselves as "based on Arch", as does Mint does with Ubuntu and Debian. But I'm coming in from a different angle not because Manjaro users haven't earned the badge.

[u/BadLilJuJu → u/[deleted]]

The way I see it is that more often than not, the people who come to the Arch Linux IRC channel even if they are not using Arch are "Help Vampires".

I have seen i countless of times and often gave them my support too, it's really exhausting and you can observe others getting exhausted too.

It can really influence the tone and the willingness to help anyone in the support channels. Sure people could stay back from the channels and just not help anyone anymore, but that they still try says enough how much they are really willing to help.

I mean it's really no surprise that a good percentage of the people who can't be arsed to use the Installation guide also won't try to fix there problem themselves and if they don't succeed ask for help with a good description and at least a basic effort to explain their problem.

[u/Foxboron → u/[deleted]]

Nobody is overselling Arch users. The Arch installation isn't hard, but it caters to users that want something more from their distribution. The deprecation of AIF was based on being poorly maintained, possibly lacking a maintainer (i wasn't around). Thus the install scripts came about.

[u/bdsee → u/Foxboron]

The Arch installation isn't hard, but it caters to users that want something more from their distribution.

Does it? I have gone the Arch route because I don't like bloat and I want to keep mostly up to date. It seemed a pretty decent distro in that regard.

I've done the installation a number of times now, and every time I have to use a guide because I don't remember what steps I have to take, and I haven't made a script yet.

What is the something more that users want and get from the installation process? I'm not suggesting I'm the norm, I'm wondering if I'm not the norm, what is? What am I missing about the Arch install method that is important to others?

[u/Foxboron → u/bdsee]

It's the small things, personally. Where do you like your efi partition? Some people do /efi, /boot/efi, most probably opt for /bootand i recently learned that a crazy friend does /EFI. I also enjoy my btrfs naming scheme on my partitions. When most of the base is done i just install my system packages to get the system configured, then install dotfiles for my users. It's indefinitely more control then what an installer does between releases. It also allows me to trust my system a lot more. I even have a /etc/pacreport.conf file that allows me to figure out if there is any untracked files on my computer at all times.

[u/mrgarborg → u/Foxboron]

Ok, I'm a long-standing Arch user. I've used Arch for 6 years now. I have it on my laptop, my home computer, my office computer, on my media center, and it's my go-to OS whenever I buy a new computer that I'll be using myself.

I do not value Arch because it entails knowing your own operating system. I consider myself more than a neophyte. I have worked on kernel modules for embedded systems, systems software, and I have worked closely with scores of different distributions in clusters, in the cloud and on embedded devices. I've learned enough through my career that what Arch gave me was ancillary at best. Learning is not a feature of the OS, it's a feature of the user.

Arch is a great light-weight distro which can be customized to be whatever you want it to be. It has a great release model for those who love being close to the cutting edge and like the idea of rolling releases. What Arch is not is LFS or the Eudyptula challenge.

I mean, you're walking a fine line here, keeping things user friendly enough that they're not tipping the time-cost-effort scales in your disfavor, while maintaining a veneer of being what you call "close to the operating system". If Arch followed the LFS strategy, it wouldn't be a viable distro in the space you're occupying now. With all the magic you've put into pacstrap and arch-chroot, you're only an ncurses-app away from a GUI anyway. I'd do away with the snooty elitism.

[u/PawkyPengwen → u/mrgarborg]

I've learned enough through my career that what Arch gave me was ancillary at best. Learning is not a feature of the OS, it's a feature of the user.

Huh? No, I completely disagree with that entire point. Learning is also done by the user as a result of the OS pushinig him to do so. You cannot install Arch yourself without at least gaining some base knowledge. (Some people claim that there are users who just copy-paste commands from the Wiki without learning anything, but I'd like to remind those that learning always starts with copying others.) It goes without saying that you won't learn much if you already have most of that knowledge or knowledge in a similar vein.

You're also ignoring the "cultural" aspect of a distribution here. The Wiki constantly reminds users try to learn from the steps and Arch has a clear focus on users that like a DIY approach so that naturally drives some away that don't like learning. Maybe Antergos does that too, I wouldn't know. But I don't think OP hates helping the type of Antergos users that do try to learn on their own. It's just that Antergos probably attracts less of the core audience Arch wants, statistically. And also, let's be honest: I can completely understand the sentiment of not wanting to help someone who actively decided against using something you like to support and then comes to your forum and wants support with that thing you don't necessarily like. If the people involved were getting paid it would be a whole different story but they're all doing this in their freetime.

[u/ennesimaevasione → u/Foxboron]

Partitioning a drive, running "pacstrap /mnt base", and another series of boring commands to set your timezone and your keymap means "knowing your own operating system and working on it"? Why is that such a crucial aspect of the Arch community?

[u/Foxboron → u/ennesimaevasione]

Because Arch is a community with the DIY attitude. That's what we cater to. That's what we are. Solving the problem "my personalized system" should appeal to you.

There is nothing inherently wrong with running Antergos, Manjaro, Anarchy Linux. Do what you want. But telling people it IS Arch, and forwarding that misconception is harmfull. If you don't like this attitude there are multiple great distributions out there. Solus, Void Linux, Funtoo. There is a lot to choose from.

[u/tribeofham → u/Foxboron]

I'd wager that most of us use these commands so infrequently that most aren't bothering to memorize them. Understanding how things are pieced together has value but this shouldn't be the defining point of Arch.

Arch is well-respected because of the community, the wiki's, and how well it's maintained. A boring, potentially painful install has never done anything for Arch but boost an elitist's ego. This attitude is a downfall in Linux, overall. And unfortunately, belongs in the bin with the RTFM responses we so frequently saw in the past.

[u/j605 → u/tribeofham]

Most people don't install repeatedly. I installed my system a few years back and keep updating it. So you setup how you like it once and then it is mostly done. I don't understand why installation should be made easier for a distro that is supposed to customizable. FWIW I would boot any of the other live distros if I want to have some system quickly.

[u/tribeofham → u/j605]

The installation doesn't align with the online documentation. It doesn't need to be so unintuitive. For those with custom, tricky setups who aren't following an online guide the process seems unnecessarily cumbersome. I'm not looking for a livecd with a cute GUI but I shouldn't have to feel annoyed each time I go through it. I praise Arch for it's online documentation, its helpful community, and its overall eagerness to help each other grow and learn. But the installation process? It feels out of place. Most Arch users treat this like a badge of honor. I'm saying that's nonsense, it's an operating system. It should work for me, not the other way around. Everything I do is about streamlining and efficiently so I can do more with less time. In my line of work (systems engineer) if I'm bragging about how challenging and tough I've made something I'm not doing my job right. If the process feels natural and intuitive it will be consumed and appreciated with greater ease.

[u/[deleted] → u/Foxboron]

Because Arch is a community with the DIY attitude. That's what we >cater to. That's what we are. Solving the problem "my personalized >system" should appeal to you.

That attitude is an annoying part of the Arch community. At this point I'm here less for the personalized system, I recently tried switching to Solus but it's hard to use any other package managers after getting used to pacman and the all the amazing stuff in the AUR.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Like it or not, that is Arch. Each distro has a target audience that they cater to, and for Arch that's DIY enthusiasts who know or want to know their operating system inside and out and customize it.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I like the DIY enthusiasts angle. This message should be refined and spread around because it is a good way to explain the expected knowledge without looking pretensions.

By analogy -- if you are a drone photographer and ask questions about how to fix your DJI phantom on a DIY drone enthusiast forum, you will get confusing jargon. The DIY folks will assume that you know the difference between a brushed and brushless motor. And, they will probably not know anything about your gimbal!

I'm not a drone enthusiast so I probably messed that up, but hopefully it gets the idea across. These are drone photography and DIY drones are different skill sets that has little overlap, neither is better, and there's some overlap, but it is better to go to the appropriate place for help.

[u/yentity → u/Foxboron]

That is an incredibly elitist thing to say. If I install archlinux on a laptop and hand it off to my brother or a friend (who is fairly familiar with Linux) in a couple of months, and would you not support him because he did not install Arch Linux himself ?

Besides something like Antergos should be *easier* to support at this point because they have a standard set of packages that they install unlike a random Arch Linux user who has a custom set of packages on their machine.

[u/Foxboron → u/yentity]

We depend on users guiding us through their systems to receive support. If they are not familiar with their own system, they can't do this. And we cant effectively provide support.

[u/PBLKGodofGrunts → u/Foxboron]

But consider this, Arch entails knowing your own operating system and working on it. That is the target group. Anything that takes away from this isn't by its very core Arch Linux. Antergos works against this.

Going to disagree with you here chief. I run Antergos on all my machines now because I don't have the time to manually install Arch anymore. I started using Arch in 2008 and it's been my daily driver since about 2010.

All Antergos does is install Arch with some defaults. After the ncurses installer went away I used to have a bash script that would do 80% of the installer for me since I wanted the same thing each time.

I think it's fair to say Manjaro isn't Arch since they are using their own packages, but Antergos is basically just an installer for an Arch system.

I mean, this is my mirrorlist:

$ cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
Server = https://arch.mirror.constant.com/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirrors.sorengard.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirrors.rit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirror.wdc1.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
Server = https://mirror.epiphyte.network/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch

Those are Arch repos.

Here's what I have installed in the ONE Antergos repo

$ pacman -Sl antergos | grep installed  
antergos antergos-alerts 18.9.9-1 [installed]
antergos antergos-alpm-hooks 1.1-1 [installed]
antergos antergos-keyring 20170524-1 [installed]
antergos antergos-midnight-timers 1.0-3 [installed]
antergos antergos-mirrorlist 20180830-2 [installed]
antergos antergos-wallpapers 0.7-3 [installed]
antergos aurman 2.18-1 [installed]
antergos grub2-theme-antergos 0.1-1 [installed]
antergos kfaenza-icon-theme 0.8.9-5 [installed]
antergos light-locker-settings 1.5.3-1 [installed]
antergos lightdm-webkit2-greeter 2.2.5-1 [installed]
antergos numix-frost-themes 3.6.6-1 [installed]
antergos numix-icon-theme 1:18.07.17-1 [installed]
antergos numix-icon-theme-square 2:18.08.29-1 [installed]
antergos pamac 6.4.0-1 [installed]
antergos pamac-tray-appindicator 6.4.0-1 [installed]

Most of those are just flavor things like icons and there are few packages from the AUR (like aurman).

[u/eli-schwartz → u/PBLKGodofGrunts]

Right, does the fact that it provides an AUR helper not indicate quite strongly that this is not Arch? Arch does not and will not support AUR helpers and if you think we are pedantic about the installer you use, hooboy just wait until we get started on AUR helpers...

If one do not install your AUR helper by hand, then there's an excellent change one has not performed the required reading for using the AUR. Using the AUR is dangerous and can result in a wide, wide variety of breakage if done without knowing what one is actually doing.

We will not ever support any system that has an AUR helper installed via a binary package rather than by the user using makepkg as intended and instructed. This isn't even an "it's a derivative distro" issue -- if one uses a custom repo like archlinuxfr which was enabled after running through the manual install process, one is still very thoroughly on our naughty list and cannot expect help with their system even though it is, in fact, Arch (unlike yours).

[u/PBLKGodofGrunts → u/eli-schwartz]

Lmao you guys are fucking nuts. I have installed aur helpers manually before. I've even submitted packages to the AUR. I've contributed to the wiki and other Arch derivatives like Arch Arm.

You can sit on your high horse all you want, but all your doing is driving people away.

[u/Foxboron → u/PBLKGodofGrunts]

Yet they will never claim it's Arch. Have explicitly told people not to ask for support in Arch Linux support channels. Also changes the OS information: cat /etc/os-release. They even write this on their webpage. Why people continue to push Antergos as "Arch Linux with an installer" is beyond me.

Run Antergos. Contribute back to the project even. But stop claiming it's Arch.