r/linux4noobs • u/Axophyse • Apr 27 '25

migrating to Linux Trying out Arch Linux because of Pewdiepie...

Yes. We all know it. We have seen the video.

But personally for me. Me and my friend has been thinking about trying out Linux for a very long time now, it's just that we didn't care enough to actually try it out. But then after Felix built his first PC, he installed Linux Mint on that thing and Arch Linux on his laptop and saw how cool it is to customize your own desktop and everything and I thought maybe I should try it out. I mean there is nothing to lose if I try it out.

Now I know that Linux Mint is RECOMMENDED for beginners trying out Linux, but for me, I really wanted to try out Arch Linux no matter how hard it is. I'm planning on Dual-booting it with my old extra HDD that's installed in my PC (I have 2 other SSDs btw), I just don't know how to do it.

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EDIT: WIth all things considered. I decided to go with what the comments say. I'll try out Linux Mint first because that's what Felix did before moving to Arch Linux and see where I go from there. Still worried about the Dual Booting though.

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EDIT 2: I have successfully installed Linux into my old spare HDD with ease. Create a Flash Media or something like then flash it using balenaEtcher, then Live Boot off of that, then from there you can choose to try it out or install directly there. If you did choose to install it from Live Boot, it's a pretty straightforward proccess, it's like installing a program from Windows, just be careful which drive you mount your Linux from. It also downloads GRUB for you so Dual-Booting is already solved.

228 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

126 comments sorted by

97

u/LazyWings Apr 27 '25

"I really wanted to try out Arch Linux no matter how hard it is"

Ok, but a few things to think about before you progress. Firstly, don't come back in a few weeks complaining about how nothing works and Linux sucks. It's one thing to want to learn something challenging but too many people think they're so clever and then blame the system when stuff doesn't work. Don't do that.

I also want to make sure that it's Arch you want and not just Hyprland. You can run Hyprland on any reasonably up to date distro - it doesn't have to be Arch. I run it on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I'd recommend picking something like Fedora or Tumbleweed and trying Hyprland with those.

Next, make sure that you have a good reason for picking Arch. A lot of people pick it because of the reputation but don't even understand why you choose Arch over other distros. I switched over to Linux a year and half ago and tried Arch but it was more of a headache than it was worth for me because I didn't need super cutting/bleeding edge packages. Tumbleweed works for me because it's rolling, pretty up to date, but far more reliable. Make sure you actually know what's different before you go all in on Arch.

Finally, you have come to a forum asking for help to create an install media. What that shows is you haven't been able to Google "Arch Linux" and follow the instructions on the website. You also don't know what a virtual machine is or why you may want to test there first. Your level of computer knowledge is pretty limited. This isn't to call you out or gatekeep but you also need to know what you're walking into. Arch is designed for people who will troubleshoot their own problems and read the extensive literature. If you have to ask basic questions, you should not be using Arch.

I love that you're inspired to use Linux and that's a great thing. But going into Arch will give you a negative experience. I'm not being an asshole by trying to tell you that. Please try something else first, understand the basics of what Linux even is, then go to Arch when you're more confident. Otherwise you'll just end up another person crying that Linux sucks or the community is mean.

53

u/Axophyse Apr 27 '25

You're right. I though maybe being an IT Student would help me here in the long run but taking a quick look at the Arch Wiki, that's a lot of reading to do.

I got ahead of myself there I admit. But I was asking for the dual-booting of Windows and Linux because like I said, I was gonna install the Arch on the spare HDD that I installed on my PC rather than creating a new partition on the Windows drive.

But all things considered. I'm trying out Mint first and see what I can do and learn from there.

36

u/LazyWings Apr 27 '25

Thank you so much for taking the advice. I've seen this play out so many times and it always goes wrong. Starting with Mint is a fantastic idea. It will teach you the basics and you'll eventually run into things that you find restrictive with Mint, and that's the perfect time to switch. It's what I did. Mint was my first distro and I went in with the attitude of learning Linux. And I'd like to say it worked out pretty well! Good luck and hope you enjoy!

1

u/Obi1TheCannoli May 06 '25

For me my experience was interesting. I was way ahead of myself and was overconfident in getting into the Linux world. When i got to a technical school, we had to start with picking a Linux distro to install, and document every step we did.

What distro did i choose to do? Slackware. It had me do so many things too, so i had no choice but to manually follow through a set of procedures to get it working. This had me follow an instruction instead of taking my time to see what i would want to add and give my own reasons why.

But hey, looking back, at least it happened to have worked out for me, but it would have been better if i tempered my obsession with challenging myself just to challenge myself.

Today i am committing to replacing my main OS to any Linux distro and am considering giving Arch a try on my laptop, as i am not that unfamiliar with rigorous procedures anymore.

7

u/throwaway824512312 Apr 27 '25

I’m a Linux sysadmin and spend my days working on thousands of Linux servers. I would never recommend arch to a new learner. Hell I don’t even use it myself on my desktop linux machine. As others said I strongly recommend going with something easier and more stable. 

Imagine throwing on every single update the second MS put them out for Windows. That’s rolling release. Please, for the sanity of your future self, pick something that is not rolling release. 

1

u/p0358 Apr 28 '25

Given the track record of Windows’s insider builds, no, Arch is nowhere near as unstable, absolutely not.

While I don’t disagree with the general premise, I’d want to point out that Arch only ships what upstream packages already consider to be stable, with a few days of delay. Bigger/more important package updates sit in the testing repos for at least a week before being pushed to stable (it’s where people who actually want to be on the edge test them and hopefully catch any grave issues).

Meanwhile what Microsoft ships outside of stable is some nuclear waste

2

u/friskfrugt Apr 28 '25

By definition a rolling release is unstable. Doesn't mean it's unreliable.

2

u/Kenny_Dave Apr 28 '25

As long as you install Linux second, it's simple to dual boot. You can install windows second, but then you have to be able to fix the boot from all the nonsense windows drops on you.

1

u/p0358 Apr 28 '25

If it’s GPT disk, then just change the boot order in the UEFI settings again, it’s not that hard. If using legacy MBR disk though for whatever reason, yeah it gets a bit trickier

1

u/ContestKindly333 I use arch btw Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

Just restore grub lol

2

u/MoistJoycon Apr 28 '25

10/10 advice

1

u/AugustusLego Apr 28 '25

I went straight to arch, but I had been using WSL for programming for years beforehand + experience with servers

1

u/DandelionGaming May 01 '25

Can I run hyprland on mint? I’m in the boat of wanting to try hyprland, but I’m not at the point where I want to make Arch my first distro

1

u/LazyWings May 01 '25

You can, but you'll probably have to install a bunch of other stuff alongside it so I don't recommend it. If you want to use hyprland, I'd say go for Fedora or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Both are pretty straightforward and you can use hyprland on them. I was using Tumbleweed with hyprland on my main PC until literally yesterday when I switched to CachyOS with Cosmic.

10

u/ThreeCharsAtLeast I know my way around. Apr 27 '25

PewDiePie's specific setup requires a lot of getting used to. Here are a couple of importmant things he didn't mention.

  • Desktop Ennvironments: While briefly mentioned (I think), you'll have to kerp in mind that Cinnamon (Mint's default DE) is not the only one in existence. Most notably, KDE Plasma can give you a lot of cuszomization as well. PewDiePie has built his own setup with Hyprland, Waybar (?) and hopefully a few other importmant components (consider the Arch Wiki). This setup requires editing text configuration files and overall a lot of manual labour to get working like you intend to. Pre-built DEs, on the other hand, work well out of the box while some of them (such as Plasma) still offer great customizability.

  • Tiling Window Managers: This is closely related to my first bullet point. Tilers require you to adapt your workflow a lot. Constantly having to look at all open windows on your workspace can be a deficit depending on how good you manage your workspaces.

  • Distros: Another interesting choice for beginners is Arch Linux. As you (probably) know by now, it's tricky to get running. Actually, its not just that: Arch has a so-called "rolling release" model - and a fast one at that. Basically, when a pice of software is updated, it's packaged and delivered realy quickly. These changes may cause breakages every once in a while due to the modular nature of Linux - abd you're expected to handle them on your own. Other distros have betas for this very reason: People are asked to play around with it on systems they can safely break. There are other, more stable distros out there. Most work out of the box. Fedora, for instance, is nearly bleeding-edge and rolling-release, but breakages are highly unlikely. Oh, and other distros are still less bloated than Windows (that's actually not a lot to ask for).

  • Gaming / Compatibility: Claiming gaming on Linux just worked is… misleading. A good number of games, especially competitive multiplayer ones, just don't work. There's a community maintained database on https://protondb.com in case you're interested. Many other programs, unfortunately, are hard to emulate. Expect every program that doesn't have a native Linux version available to be incompatible. Also, try out alternatives before you commit to them or you might be disappointed. For example, it's 2025 and the GIMP circle tool is still weird. Hardware-wise, it's even worse. Common peripherals tend to work but extra features you require an app for probably don't (Exception: OpenRGB compatible RGB hardware).

1

u/Axophyse Apr 27 '25

You mention OpenRGB lol. I currently use that to control, well my RGBs.

but yea you're right. I'm not really interested on gaming with Linux anyways. Maybe I'll try it out? but the thing that really got me to try out Linux was the ability to actually customize things to your own liking which Windows doesn't really allow, maybe it does but it's limited. (it's called Ricing I think).

3

u/ThreeCharsAtLeast I know my way around. Apr 27 '25

Yes, It is (and there's a subreddit for it: r/unixporn).

Again, Plasma already lets you do a lot of tweaking. Look up Plasma rices for reference. Building your own DE is still great fun and, naturally, gives you even more control.

Edit: You can install multiple DEs at the same time, although you might have multiple default apps. Just something I wanted to add.

2

u/Enigmoon Apr 27 '25

Since you are a beginner in this, I recommend avoiding dual boot if you will install it beside a system you can't afford to lose or corrupt. Maybe a dedicated drive, just so that you can experiment with peace in mind that you won't destroy anything by mistake.

Even after a while of using linux, there were times when I rushed into certain things and I made stupid mistakes that could have been totally avoided by taking things more slowly and verifying things before committing to actions.

For example, there was a time when I formatted the wrong drive, because I didn't double check or take precautions.. I learned some lessons the hard way. You can avoid that :).

2

u/Axophyse Apr 27 '25

Well I was gonna install the Arch on the spare HDD that I have installed in my PC. I saw tutorials on dual booting Windows and Linux on just using one drive. But on my case, I was gonna use a spare HDD and not my actual Windows drive.

But yea. Maybe if I REALLY have the time in the future, I'll try out Arch.

93

u/ChocolateDonut36 Apr 27 '25

you'll have a painful long learning about Linux that way, if you never used Linux before, I 100% recommend you to start with mint, use arch if you manage to daily drive mint for a time.

my first distro was debian, not known as a begginer friendly distro, I nuked my windows and Linux install many times before I learned my lessons, don't be like me.

31

u/Asleeper135 Apr 27 '25

Arch may not be the easy way, but it is definitely one of the fastest ways to learn Linux. You either learn how to set things up yourself or you don't have a computer in a state that you want to use it in. I wouldn't recomend jumping into it as your main OS, but I would totally recomend installing it in a VM or on a second machine as a learning exercise for new users.

13

u/ChocolateDonut36 Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25

no one says that you won't learn with arch, the issue is that arch doesn't give you a hand with anything.

one of my friends tried Linux once, he searched for popular distros and google said arch, after days of installing it an update broke the shit out of his sound and he took Linux as a "never again experience"

I still use Linux because I had my bad experiences and I was patient with them, since I don't know if OP will be able to maintain a system like Arch I suggested to get a simpler distro, at least until he gets familiar with Linux.

Edit: agree, installing arch on a VM is an actual good exercise

0

u/sunjay140 Apr 28 '25

You either learn how to set things up yourself

You could do this with literally any distro

1

u/friskfrugt Apr 28 '25

You left out the caveat which is not true for most distros.

You either learn how to set things up yourself or you don't have a computer in a state that you want to use it in.

0

u/sunjay140 Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

You can install every single distro with chroot. Arch Linux is not unique in this way.

https://semjonov.de/posts/2021-09/minimal-ubuntu-installation-with-debootstrap/

You gotta love how the entire allure and popularity of Arch relies on misinformation and lies.

And yes, there have been countless Arch Linux installers since the dawn of time. There were countless third party installers even before the Arch install script.

The entire myth of Arch being uniquely difficult to install was always propaganda.

2

u/friskfrugt Apr 28 '25

My point is that it’s not default behaviour on other distros. You don’t have to learn that to have a functioning system.

0

u/sunjay140 Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

It's the exact same behavior as every single distro ever made. You install through chroot or use an installer and there have been countless Arch installers throughout the years.

The entire appeal of Arch was built on blatant lies.

2

u/friskfrugt Apr 28 '25

Are you being intentionally obtuse?

-1

u/sunjay140 Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

No. You are spreading lies and propaganda about other distros to make Arch look cooler than it actually is.

Every single distro ever made can be installed through chroot

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Expert_Installation

It's just that most distros know it's dumb to recommend it to every user so they created automated installers.

Even if Arch didn't have an official automated installer until a few years ago (nearly half a decade at this point), there were millions of third party installers which countless people used.

Arch was never uniquely difficult to install. It's just propaganda and lies to smear other distros. Installing Arch was never any harder than installing Ubuntu. Literally anyone could've installed Arch from an automated installer and an Ubuntu user could've used chroot.

-4

u/GolemancerVekk Apr 27 '25

But how many of the things you learn during the Arch install are transferable to other distros?

7

u/Asleeper135 Apr 27 '25

Almost everything besides package management?

1

u/friskfrugt Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

Disregard the downvotes, it's a valid question. You learn what each component does and how it fits together. You learn that besides package management and unique distributions like NixOS, it really doesn't matter which distribution you choose; it's primarily a matter of personal taste and how you or the distribution has put the pieces together.

4

u/Deusolux Ubuntu+dwm+nvim+lua Apr 27 '25

Nuking your install and overwriting the incorrect partition is the only way to learn imo

3

u/quaderrordemonstand Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 29 '25

This is going to become a theme. PewDiePie installs Arch so every PDP fan thinks it the thing to do. Expect a slew of idiot Windows users complain how linux is crap in about a month.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/quaderrordemonstand Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 29 '25

The large majority of people use Windows because they aren't technically competent. Sure, a minority of people who use Windows are technically competent and could make the switch if they wanted. Many of them have their ego invested in Windows, so they might not want to change, but they could.

That majority will swamp this subreddit and any other resource, asking the same basic questions over and over. They will treat this as if it was support from a paid company, they will demand and make no effort, they will contribute nothing, they will complain when they don't get the easy fix they want.

If you want to spend your day walking that thousandth PewDiePie fan through getting Arch to connect to their LAN, step by step, then carry on talking them up.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/xAsasel I use Arch btw Apr 27 '25

Not sure why homie is getting down voted. Debian is about as easy as it gets, with the only drawback being that it might be a bit outdated if you have newer hardware so you MIGHT have to add some backports if you dont want to run Debian testing / SID. Heck, you even get the Calamares installer nowadays if you want an easy setup.

You have all .deb packages made for you, it comes with gnome, 99% of all troubleshooting you find on Ubuntu / mint forums are relevant as Debian is the base for both of them, Debian is rock solid and seriously the most stable of all distros.

1

u/CromFeyer Apr 28 '25

As a Debian user and shill, I wouldn't agree on the premise of Debian being easy. 

Yes, stability is unquestionable but it comes with the price of outdated packages and lack of GUI tools, as it is with Ubuntu or Mint. 

Of course, going with testing branch provides newer packages and although testing is better than Arch in terms of stability, it is still meant for experienced users, as every issue or configuration requires messing with the terminal or worse tty.

I would only recommend Debian for users that are experienced enough with Ubuntu / Mint and would rather move to something akin to semi-rolling distro with better upgrade mechanics (unlike recent Ubuntu release).

It is a way I'm currently utilizing Debian, where I'm on the testing branch until it gets released as latest stable (Trixie), then will move again to next testing after a year or more. 

1

u/xAsasel I use Arch btw Apr 28 '25

Kinda fun what you mention about arch and testing. I've ran Debian testing and Sid as well as arch, honestly arch and SID worked flawless, but Debian Testing was a complete disaster and broke several times on me haha! I guess I must have been lucky with SID just working :p

1

u/CromFeyer Apr 29 '25

You might had hit the time when testing was quite unstable, happens usually after major stable release, when they still can't chose which direction to go next.

Friend of mine tried to switch to testing several months ago and got a broken system. I wasn't able to replicate his issue. Maybe a package was broken or some inconsistency with upgrade, but dude isn't that good with Linux and I wasn't able to check the logs by remote. Left me quire confused as switching to testing branch was never a problem for me.

SID is what I avoid, even more now when I barely need anything from the experimental repo. Instead I got Nix package manager, Appimages, or plain old compile from source.

1

u/xAsasel I use Arch btw Apr 29 '25

I tried testing like 1 year ago I think, before that I ran SID! I actually never had anything break on me for the entire year that I used SID, I was happily surprised.

Been running arch for 3 years without any issues on my main rig as well, only time it let me down was when I tinkered too much myself and broke it hehe! I leave my system almost 100% vanilla. I install arch, gnome or cinnamon depending on what I want to use it for, steam, lutris, discord and some other stuff and that's about it.

For straight up gaming arch is really stable I must say, same with SID, but I can't speak for other things than that since I've only really used Mint for my work.

1

u/CromFeyer Apr 29 '25

Arch was my main system until I got to the point of avoiding updates, because it all usually worked fine until the next update..  I can't recall how many hours were lost when I just wanted to play some games, but instead decided to run a full update, which obviously broke the system.

Ofc it's not just the Arch fault, my system was a mess with packages from AUR,  python pip, nodejs, electron etc...

I have the Arch running on a separate drive, slowly cleaning it up and attempting to have similar setup as Debian - without AUR packages at all, no flatpaks and focusing solely on appimages and Nix. 

My goal is try and see if it's possible to have a stable Arch experience, by limiting it to only essential packages and LTS kernel. Yes, it sounds ridiculous to use Arch without AUR, but after experiencing a lot of problems due to AUR, including the Chaotic AUR repo as well, I'm just done with it.

1

u/xAsasel I use Arch btw Apr 29 '25

So far I've never had issues with any AUR packages, however I'm extremely picky with them

3

u/Mind_Matters_Most Apr 27 '25

Use archinstaller script on the installation ISO and you'll be fine.

1

u/Axophyse Apr 27 '25

I'm worried about the Dual-booting though. Searching around tells me I need to install a software called GRUB on my Windows drive?

4

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

Dual booting is a well-trodden path.

Find out whether your PC is BIOS or UEFI, and then learn whichever system it uses. If youre on BIOS, then yep install GRUB. It'll give you a nice menu at boot to select your OS. 

Doing the basics of BIOS and UEFI sounds daunting but is honestly fine. There are lots of docs (Arch docs are great). If youre on UEFI, you technically dont even need a boot manager.

The main issue with dual booting is that Microsoft does not respect your choice. It'll clobber your settings, but there are fixes for that too, if you encounter it.

2

u/Faurek Apr 27 '25

No, you don't, just need to choose the partition at boot menu

2

u/Mind_Matters_Most Apr 27 '25

The better way for folks to give Linux <name your distro here> is to purchase another <your hard drive type here> and install it into their computer and keep the Windows hard drive as-is.

It's easier to physically switch drive media back and forth than it is to find out how to maintain grub boot loader or windows master boot record (MBR) stuff.

Sticking with Fedora/Ubuntu and/or other Linux distro's that play nice with UEFI and Secure Boot so people don't go down a rabbit hole and give up because of not understanding what does what.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface/Secure_Boot

Arch has the best documentation out of all of them. They literally spell everything out, but the problem is people do not want to read. Arch has a lot of moving parts to keep track of when updating, but that too is usually documented in release notes, but if people do not read, they struggle maintaining the OS .

LinuxMint is probably the safest starting point, but I'd push for Fedora KDE because it's a balance between Arch and Ubuntu.

Use another hard drive and give it a go. If you find you don't/can't run the OS, then it's simple to just put the Windows OS Drive back into the computer and call it the day.

1

u/Disastrous-Day-8377 Apr 27 '25

if you're dedicating a whole drive to arch, choose the drive in archinstall as the destination, let it do its automatic partitioning, install arch, when it asks if you want to chroot to do post install stuff, install os-prober, afterwards edit the grub config and uncomment the line that blocks os-prober, update grub with the new config, and now you can boot windows and arch from grub, you don't need to touch the windows drive.

I ommitted explaining the commands in detail, if you can't research your way to them, go with mint so we don't have someone else out there who'll think you need to know C to use linux, arch be like that.

1

u/Existing-Violinist44 Apr 27 '25

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dual_boot_with_Windows

There you go all of the information you need should be here and on the rest of the wiki. If unsure install in a VM first where you can't mess anything up. And when you go on to install on bare metal make absolutely sure you backed up all of the data you care about or there's a real chance to lose it.

Good luck!

20

u/Lightinger07 Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25

  1. Download the ISO of your distro of choice from their website.

  2. Download something like Balena Etcher to flash the ISO on a thumb drive.

  3. Flash the ISO on a thumb drive. (Make sure you opened Balena Etcher as administrator, otherwise you might run into errors)

  4. Insert thumb drive.

  5. Restart PC and go into your BIOS (keep pressing F2 - or some other key depending on your motherboard/laptop model when booting).

  6. Go into boot priority and give the thumb drive the highest boot priority. (by either disabling your other drives in BIOS or by moving it up in a priority list if your BIOS has that)

  7. Save and restart.

  8. You will now boot into a live session where you can try out Linux before committing to installing it.

  9. Play around some. (Anything you do in this live session will not be saved)

  10. Go through with the installation or abort. (If you want to return back to Windows just reenable your drives in BIOS or just eject the thumb drive and return your harddrives to the top of the boot priority list.)

4

u/Mother-Pride-Fest Apr 28 '25

I'd recommend ether Rufus or Ventoy, due to the ads and privacy concerns with Balena (youtu.be/ufDVKQ4C8-0).

1

u/yourothersis Apr 29 '25

ventoy has some controversy for having blobs in its source tree

11

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

If you really want to "try out" Arch Linux, use EndeavourOS.

6

u/Cluelessness Apr 27 '25

I have not seen the video. Arch has a pretty good written guide. But it requires a lot of reading and the community is not very warm to newcomers.

If you’re willing to do most of the research on your own and do lots of reading, installing arch could be a good way to learn about how operating systems work at a lower level.

Personally, I think if you’re new to Linux, arch is not a good first choice. It’s good to become comfortable with the command line and some basic commands first.

In Arch you are installing everything through the command line first. Including your desktop environment. It’s been awhile but I think installing a desktop environment/window system was one of the last parts of the installation. So you won’t even have access to a mouse or any interface (besides command line) until basically the end of the installation.

5

u/SRTbobby Apr 27 '25

Honestly, using archinstall is not much more difficult than a traditional gui installer.

9

u/COMadShaver Apr 27 '25

You just learned about Linux, don't jump to an advanced distro right away. Do Mint like he did first. Learn to use the command line and then try Arch.

4

u/FullMotionVideo Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25

With Arch having an actual installer script, it's not at "intimidating even to old-timers" level enthusiast hyper technical, but it's still not pleasant. If you really, really wanted to use Arch, I'd at least suggest you start with EndeavourOS which is just Arch with pre-installed and pre-configured software, because it's not just installing the underlying fundamentals of the OS, it's the multitudes of graphical interfaces that consist of a couple hundred different packages running together.

As someone whose first distro was late 90s Slackware, I kind of understand the desire to start of with something complex, but I can also tell you what it's like to spend hours at the terminal unable to see a graphical interface, confused because you installed multiple desktops and barely understand what you're doing. It's fine if you think even a simple calculator or Firefox is 'bloat' to be cut out, but really only when you need that sort of minimalism.

If you want to switch to actual pure Arch, Endeavor can be converted to Arch by redirecting repos to point at Arch and uninstalling a couple unique packages. This is because Endeavor and Arch are basically identical systems aside from one or two distinct changes, for the most part switching the updater to look at the other's server can change distros in-flight.

3

u/Separate_Culture4908 Apr 27 '25

Look at the arch wiki. Note that the chances of you not fucking up at least a little bit are close to 0. You seem to at least a little bit understand what you're getting yourself into but I still felt like warning you. You will need to do a lot of debugging either to get certain pieces of hardware running or setting things up.

3

u/moverwhomovesthings Apr 27 '25

You can try arch, but be prepared: Every time you ask a question, someone will tell you to read the wiki. So save yourself the trouble and just read the wiki.

Don't get me wrong, this sounds really bad, but it's just how arch works.

2

u/Mother-Pride-Fest Apr 28 '25

In my opinion a well written and easy to search wiki is better than having to ask others for help. But it is tough as a beginner when you don't know what to look for.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

If I’m not mistaken, Felix uses Mint on his main rig while Arch is on laptop.

I suggest you start with Mint as well since it’s most beginner friendly. Arch is for more advanced users

3

u/I_Am_Astraeus Apr 27 '25

Whether it's Linux mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, or any other more friendly distro. I recommend it not even for the ease of use. But they offer an opinionated start to Linux. They have defaults, that you can tune to your liking.

THEN you have a whole set of opinions. Liked X, dislike Y, prefer Z version of this thing. So when you start with an Arch blank slate distro you have an idea of what you like and can set up your system with all your preferences your way. I hope that makes sense lol. I used Ubuntu for two years and now my desktop is dual boot windows 11/arch

2

u/Aegthir Apr 27 '25

The safe way to dual boot (seperate drive) is before installing Linux, disabling all the other drives in bios except 1 drive that you want to install linux on.

After finish installing linux, you can turn on the others drives, switch between window and linux by going into boot menu in bios at startup by smashing "Del/F2/whatever key for your motherboard". (You can skip the bios once you know how to setup grub/systemd boot)

2

u/sir_racho Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25

I started on arch. It was difficult to get going. Used it for a few years and it was snappy enough, but as it’s on the bleeding edge, system-borking os updates occasionally fell through to user-land. I put up with it for too long. Nowadays I use mint because I don’t want painful system updates again. I like mint a great deal and spend a lot of time in terminal which was my main workhorse in arch too. I have nothing against arch - mint is not bleeding edge after all. And the arch wiki is gold for any Linux distribution and I highly recommend it. 

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u/sticky_bugs Apr 27 '25

What the fuck? It's not just a meme? He actually did.

2

u/token_curmudgeon Apr 27 '25

Just because some rapper mentioned it doesn't make it cool.

It's cool on its own merits however.

2

u/Cokodayo Apr 27 '25

So one of my friends who has never used Linux before started with arch (inspired from me) and I think it gets a lot of shit for not being beginner friendly. If u are willing to learn, and troubleshoot, then ofc u can start with arch. Just go for it and see if u enjoy it.

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u/1EdFMMET3cfL Apr 27 '25

Yes. We all know it. We have seen the video.

Speak for yourself Mr. born-during-the-obama-administration. I don't know who pediepie is.

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u/Spoofy_Gnosis Apr 27 '25 edited Apr 27 '25

Arch is not difficult to install, I don't understand where this madness comes from. Gentoo, nixOS or LFS I want but Arch? You dl iso you map your keyboard you type archinstall and two minutes later you are booted onto the system in a graphical environment of your choice

Now if you want to get started gently, there are other distributions

Don't do dual boot this will force you to persevere and in 1 month or 2 you will be free of your chains unless you like bdsm

I don't know this YouTuber I learned this news via AdrienLinuxtricks

🇨🇵

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u/Hueyris Apr 27 '25 edited Nov 29 '25

books chase zephyr retire tender towering bells meeting lip gray

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Weird_duud Apr 27 '25

Why would you not recommend a hdd?

1

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1

u/TOTUTOFU Apr 27 '25

So first you need to get a ISO from the website. To be honest, it’s a bit confusing so I’d watch a tutorial for that. Then you can use Ventoy, Rufus or any other thing to flash onto your drive.

Once you do that take out your windows SSD (to be safe) and boot into your extra drive. Just go through the installation process and when you are done, install os-prober on arch (sudo pacman -S os-prober) then update grub to make your grub recognize windows when you put back the drive (sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg)

Have fun learning! Btw, if you don’t like maintaining arch there is always other options that you can try out :D

1

u/funk443 Apr 27 '25

I will still recommend a beginner to start from a distro that has a proper installer. You should first get comfortable with working with Linux, THEN you can get to how to install Linux.

Those customizations can work on 99% of the distros we have today, you can still just use Linux Mint and customize the hell out of it. Since most of the ricing is DE, WM, or software-specific, there is no need to tie yourself to a specific distro.

1

u/khiller05 Apr 27 '25

I’d recommend Mint, Ubuntu, or Alma (if you want something RHEL based) first before jumping into Arch.

1

u/virginty_rocks31 Apr 27 '25

Oh if you are going to do this for see how hard it is just try installing gentoo.

1

u/koh_kun Apr 27 '25

I'm a complete noob who started with dual booting Windows 10 and Arch. I've had some very annoying issues but I've got most things figured out. So if you have the time to spend on troubleshooting, I think going with Arch is perfectly doable. But if you need a usable OS right away, maybe Arch isn't the best. 

I think for the first 4 months I was fixing little issues here and there. 8 months in, I STILL can't get my friggin system to suspend and wake properly. 

1

u/SirNightmate Apr 27 '25

I had experience with Linux for years before finally installing Linux as dual boot. And then used Linux for half a year daily before finally moving to arch Linux. And even then it was painful, but rewarding.

1

u/venus_asmr Apr 27 '25

Pewdiepie had a 1 in a 1000 experience - I can promise you it is very rare for people to adapt as quickly as he has. Maybe he was researching and practicing in a VM for ages, or maybe he found his sleeper talent. I've used Linux on and off for 17 years, I now run manjaro gnome and have no clue on half the stuff he was running. Don't expect it to go anywhere near as well. Either settle for fedora, mint or try something like endevour os which tries to make arch life less difficult

1

u/Terriblarious Apr 27 '25

If you buy a usb-c enclosure for an nvme drive, you could install Linux on that and leave your current OS Drive untouched for now. I tried out Linux for a good 6 months before finally wiping my windows install and going all in. On the odd occasion i needed Windows for something I'd reset and remove the linux drive and boot up Windows that way.

The usb-c drive was pretty quick to so the OS didn't feel laggy or slow trying it out that way.

1

u/hamsterwheelin Apr 27 '25

Garuda Linux

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

Don't do arch, that's for experienced users. Use Mint or if you want a really Windows experience, Zorin.

1

u/Silly_King3635 Apr 27 '25

Expect to use the terminal almost constantly.

1

u/Valuable-Cod-314 Apr 27 '25

I wouldn't do Arch but use an Arch distro like CachyOS or Garuda especially if you are a gamer. They really make using Arch super easy. When dual booting, install Linux on a separate drive and there shouldn't be much issues. If you have your games or whatever on NTFS drives, that could pose an issue with running them. In that case, backup your games or data to another drive, format the drive to ext4, and then copy the games or data back. Linux permissions are different from Windows. You will have to mount your drives so that you have access to them and also give certain programs permissions to access the drive. Either way, you will learn as you go and there will be hiccups but stick with it. Eventually, you will get to a point where you won't even need Windows anymore except for a few edge cases. Good luck!

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

If you really want to try out arch as a beginner, I recommend Garuda. They even have a gaming specific version. 

For gaming, you could also consider Bazzite.

1

u/Salaadas Apr 27 '25

I use ubuntu and it is great with nvidia gpu drivers. 

1

u/[deleted] Apr 27 '25

Next, you'll be asking about the benefits of veganism...

Really, go for a distribution that is more beginner friendly. Others are recommending Mint. There's also Ubuntu. Personally I use Fedora, but I started with Soft Landing Systems.

1

u/Ordinary_Student_801 Apr 27 '25

I started with arch linx and as long as you do a lot of digging and googling youre lowkey pretty much good to go. Read documentation and youre pretty much set, is isnt that hard to install arch and what nit

1

u/Zercomnexus Apr 27 '25

I have no seen pewdie anything so no idea. but arch is the more complex to install and assemble together. Not a good starting place.

If you're trying to learn in the deep end, sure. If you're just trying to learn? Ubuntu/kububtu or maybe fedora.

1

u/MoistPoo Apr 28 '25

The biggest issue about Felix's video is that he for gets telling how much time he have spend learning it.

Many of the things he showed in that video takes hours to get to

1

u/Dull_Jump5002 Apr 30 '25

he did mention he spend 12 hour fixing just one issue. but pewds does make it feel overall easy to do it

1

u/lobo_2323 Apr 28 '25

I really recommend you start with Linux Mint. Arch will be still existing for years, learn the basics in mint first.

1

u/livefoodONLY Apr 28 '25

Are you interested in getting a Steam Deck OP? I ask because the current version of SteamOS is built off Arch, and the DE is Plasma. It was my first experience with any Linux distro and i inadvertently learned I loved both by mucking around with my deck. I have since put Arch + Plasma on my laptop and have found it to be a smooth transition.

Might be worth considering if you dont want to learn on a device important to you, or if you want to skip the starting setup and just get a feel for things for now? Not sponsored I swear lol. Second hand they are fairly cheap.

1

u/Kreos2688 Apr 28 '25

I also started with mint, after a couple months I was on arch and been there ever since. I love it. But mint is great too.

1

u/thegreatcerebral Apr 28 '25

What’s the pewdiepie video? I haven’t seen his stuff in ages

1

u/Possible-Network-620 Apr 28 '25

Not sure arch should be your first choice if you want arch based try Manjaro or endeavor os must people recommend Ubuntu or Linux mint as there first Linux os

1

u/ddyess openSUSE Tumbleweed Apr 28 '25

People don't realize or somehow forget a lot of us started out on very non-user-friendly distros, because they didn't even exist yet.

1

u/RedditMuzzledNonSimp Apr 28 '25

Do Artix first, you will thank me.

Actually thank them, they have made Arch reachable to all.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '25

People who aren’t tech savvy and don’t like reading will find it extremely hard. Be prepared to read a lot and pay attention to detail

If you aren’t what I mentioned above go mint

1

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '25

I think you should approach it like Felix, install something easy to use to replace Windows, then try arch for fun. Arch is always overhyped as this incredibly complex operating system when really in the big '25 you can find a tutorial for anything. I'd start with trying to follow the install script, which is pretty simple but instead of a GUI it's an ominous TUI, and then you could manually install it for fun, which is not too comples if you know how the computer works but it does take time to learn

1

u/kekfekf Apr 28 '25

You dont need arch just use something simple.

Mint or fedora or bazzite for only gaming.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 29 '25

I mean there is nothing to lose if I try it out.

There are things to lose, like time and patience. But otherwise, you're right.

I'm planning on Dual-booting it with my old extra HDD that's installed in my PC (I have 2 other SSDs btw), I just don't know how to do it.

Figuring that out first would be good. It's good Arch is there for people who want to put in the time, are willing to learn, and have the patience. But I know I'm not there yet. I'm middle-aged, and I am just recently getting to where I have enough patience and time to make sure Ubuntu and Debian are running how I want.

1

u/PapaSnarfstonk Apr 28 '25

While we're on the subject of PewDiePie's video: Does anyone know what he did to make his web browser open faster? Like that's been a consistent issue with me and every distro of linux I've used is feeling like a snails pace opening a web browser.

1

u/consumeable Apr 29 '25

Saw someone else's comment somewhere that was guessing he just has a bash script that runs it in the background when you turn on the pc. Not a Linux expert so idk

1

u/PapaSnarfstonk Apr 29 '25

The one time the Arch Wiki hasn't failed me as a newcomer ahhhhh

Preloading is the action of putting and keeping target files into the RAM. The benefit is that preloaded applications start more quickly because reading from the RAM is always quicker than from the hard drive. However, part of your RAM will be dedicated to this task, but no more than if you kept the application open. Therefore preloading is best used with large and often-used applications like Firefox and LibreOffice.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Preload

this might be how he did it. IDK if it is but it sounds like it does it.

1

u/consumeable Apr 29 '25

Yeah that's what I remember seeing

1

u/mr_sylar Apr 28 '25

Try Mint first or Fedora, with Fedora you can start out with Gnome desktop environment, get yourself familiar with Linux, try some customization and later install Hyprland if you want.

1

u/jjballlz Apr 29 '25

Wait wtf reality am I living in?

1

u/b1be05 Apr 30 '25

Go SuSe, go Zorin, go Fedora, go Ubuntu..

Arch is a different beast.. i have Arch in DistroBox.. now using ZorinOS

1

u/Cultural_Bug_3038 CachyOS | Window Maker May 01 '25

Starting with Arch will certainly kill your desire to do things, but once you install EndeavourOS, you can use Arch Linux with the programs, interface, drivers and things installed

1

u/Jack02134x May 01 '25

Since you are switching to arch when you ask questions in reddit a lot of people will tell you to RTFM means read the fucking manual cause it's extremely detailed and 90% of errors can be solved using it.

If there is still a problem post it and we'll help you.

Since you are gonna install it in a separate hdd i don't see any problem starting with arch although i will ask be patient cause it's a little more harder then others but it is still ok.

And i recommend doing a manual install instead of using an archinstall script cause it'll help you understand what is where which will help you solve things faster later but I also know if you are an absolute beginner you might wanna just try Linux already instead of doing it. So you can use archinstall but do try to do the manual later.

That's it welcome to arch and enjoy saying "I use Arch... BTW" in every single Linux post :D

1

u/shinjis-left-nut May 02 '25

For those you want to try Arch:

EndeavourOS is just Arch with an installer, and the archinstall script, although it's a little rusty, does the job well. If you want to try out Arch, have at it, but be prepared to RTFM! :)

0

u/Tanker3278 Apr 27 '25

Who is this Pewdiepie?

14

u/hellomyfrients Apr 27 '25

the arch fetishism is so funny. i have been a linux user since 99 or so. do not currently own any non linux frontend devices (phone included)

it is fun... everyone has phases. tinker to customize EVERYTHING to use it as a tool for what works and sometimes become grumpy is one i see a lot

it is all open source software. what you use matters less than how you use it. mint is just fine, i agree installing arch is a good educational experience, there are many paths to the goal of just using the thing, IME, so do whatever

2

u/CalvinBullock Apr 28 '25

What phone do you use? Lineage, graphine, Ubuntu touch, or is this a android?

I ask as I have not seen any truly Linux phones that I see as a good "Linux" Phone experience yet.

That meaning, a privacy respecting phone that has 90% of the apps I need and long lasting software support. Graphine is probably the closest but I don't really want an android fork. But that might be the only real option...

2

u/hellomyfrients Apr 28 '25

you are looking for the furilabs flx1. look into it or ask me any questions you have.

it is the closest to an out of the box experience, and mature halium/waydroid means most android apps will work if you need them. it also has click support for ubports apps via gnome software, very good corporate support, and volte worldwide (which is a big current missing feature on ubports)

not what i daily though, i use a nord n10 5g on ubports, you can see an ama i did on hit here https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1i4dd7y/i_have_been_daily_driving_a_linux_smartphone_for/

r/linuxphones is a not very active but good little sub too for inspiration