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Comment by Sevaris | Hacker News Reader

My main problem with Arch is that there's rarely a point where I feel like I've finished installing. There's always something missing or something not configured right. Shit, dialog still isn't a default package in 2020, which you need to use wifi-menu during the install process. So if you happen to forget to install that (and it isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation), you're going to have to reboot into the live media, chroot into your install, install dialog, then reboot again.

https://www.archlinux.org/packages/core/any/netctl/

Why in the fuck is dialog an optional dependency?

Which sort of ties into my next problem which is that Arch simply isn't opinionated enough. Which is fine for people who want that kind of experience, but if you used Ubuntu before and you want a similar "install and go" experience, Arch really isn't the right answer. It is if your goal is to tinker with Arch, but that isn't what everybody wants.

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Hmm... not my experience. Not discounting yours at all, I promise, but I have a 20-package one-liner install script that I run on new systems and it's ready to go. After I pull in my dotfiles and symlink them into place, I can't even tell it's a different install.

Arch is pretty much exactly as opinionated as I want a distro to be. Hell, there are LOTS of folks who think it's too opinionated for forcing you to use systemd. The real installer is pacstrap, and it installs, I think, 300+ megs of stuff. That's all someone's opinion. And keeping it to just 300 megs is an opinion too, I guess.

EDIT: Okay, re-reading, and it sounds like installing 20 packages is a pain. But when I used Ubuntu I had to go through way more to get it how I liked it (and OS X is a nightmare 2 hours of clicking menus and buttons, and installing from web pages). I don't remember all of it now, but I had to get rid of the weird mini-vim and replace it with neovim, strip out Libre Office (nothing against them, I just have no use and it's a pain to wait for the giant updates all the time), my printer drivers were on a webpage somewhere, not the repo like Arch, etc. Ubuntu is WAY more work for me to get set up with just because removing and replacing is more work than installing.

> Why in the fuck is dialog an optional dependency?

Not all people who use netctl want wifi-menu.

> it isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation

It sure is. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Network_configuration -> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Netctl And there on the top of the netctl page it lists in a table dialog as a dependency of wifi-menu.

> Which sort of ties into my next problem which is that Arch simply isn't opinionated enough.

Maybe, but not all people have the same opinions...

Please tell me you're fucking joking. You can't be serious. This ties into one of my other comments about how god awful the documentation is for beginners (or even intermediates) after scrapping the beginner's guide.

> Maybe, but not all people have the same opinions...

Yes. And that's fucking fine. Arch Linux isn't opinionated. Which is great, but not what I (or others) might be looking for in a distro.

Installing Gentoo is super simple. It only takes three commands to install Gentoo.

# cfdisk /dev/hda && mkfs.xfs /dev/hda1 && mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/ && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && env-update && . /etc/profile && emerge sync && cd /usr/portage && scripts/bootsrap.sh && emerge system && emerge vim && vi /etc/fstab && emerge gentoo-dev-sources && cd /usr/src/linux && make menuconfig && make install modules_install && emerge gnome mozilla-firefox openoffice && emerge grub && cp /boot/grub/grub.conf.samp le /boot/grub/grub.conf && vi /boot/grub/grub.conf && grub && init 6

That's the first one... http://bash.org/?464385

On the other hand, it’s the RTFM approach of Arch documentation that forced me and others I know to actually learn Linux, and step up from beginner use to power user status.

Sure, if you want to remain a Linux beginner forever, the Arch docs would be terrible.

This whole thread started from “ I just want an OS, not a hobby”. So, no thanks.

Well, my point was just that yes, Arch takes longer to install, and requires work, but it doesn't become a "hobby" _after_ that. Then people got into a flame war about how hard it is to install, which it is, and I freely acknowledge. :shrug:

Arch Wiki changed a lot over years, entire install was one page http://web.archive.org/web/20080517121811/http://wiki.archli... (and grass was greener):

> Don't worry about getting all the packages you want - you can easily install more of them once the basic system boots by itself. The only exception to this rule is installing any packages you need for setting up internet connectivity. These packages usually are:

> dhcpcd

> wvdial

I had fresh install recently, rebooted three times in LiveUSB to pick wifi-menu, wpa_supplicant, dialog (rechecked with pacman -Qe). That's fine, I still use Arch. And it is good Manjaro provides another set of defaults.

> DON'T PANIC!

> The Arch Linux system is assembled by the user, from the shell, using basic command line tools. This is The Arch Way.

I miss it much http://web.archive.org/web/20080720082349/http://wiki.archli...

Sounds like you're not an arch person (which is fine).

I find arch refreshing.

by the way, I like yad.

I used to be when I was younger. I used to spend days and weeks on this stuff and enjoyed it. But nowadays I have more important (and interesting) things to do (from my perspective).

Ditto, have downloaded sources from kernel.org and mirrors and predecessors probably hundreds of times, wrestled endlessly with xf86config, window manager configs, installed slackware, gentoo... it got old, real old.

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