'Cause no other computer will let you touch it, let alone sudo it.

Unironically, I don’t get how anyone lives with something like Arch.

Do you guys have to reinstall the OS every few months? How do you deal with the accumulation of crap and weird settings over years?

I tried Fedora and I found even that was annoying because you’ve got 50 different serviced and servicectl things to manage, which all have their own implicitly managed state, and some require committing changes through custom CLIs to update them (I have more than once forgot to push my boot settings — whatever that’s called, I’m a noob and was following guides).

I don’t think I can go back from NixOS and immutable distros. I really like that it’s hard to forget my firewall has an open port for service xyz, because the port is defined in a nix file with the service configuration.

I’m not saying the arch way or standard Linux way is wrong, not at all. It’s just incredibly not something I enjoy and it makes me feel not confident about the state of my computer.

Polishing dotfiles is a valid hobby, and can be fun now and then, but when I need to do actual work I reach for my debian laptop.

100%, I already gave a job and hobbies thanks.

Yep.

In 2002, I used Gentoo.

In 2026, I use Kubuntu.

(I should probably switch since Canonical's policies are increasingly bothering me, but meh, I can't be bothered to reinstall more than once a decade.)

Same for me. I clearly separate my "experiemental" machines from my "just works" machines now.

My laptop runs LMDE, my servers are mostly Debian 13, a handful of Ubuntu Server in there. My gaming rig is Nobara Linux, which is just Glorious Egg roll's gaming-optimized Fedora build. When I first set it up a few years ago, I had everything all customized, themes, fonts, icons, fancy desktop/window effects, etc.

I actually considered just going with something vanilla recently, not because I have had any major issues with my current set up, but just because I don't feel like tinkering with it anymore.

My tinkering desire has shifted more and more towards server/enterprise infrastructure and DevOps automation.

I'm older now, my career has taken off, and with that comes more responsibilities and mental energy required during the workday, then family obligations through the week/month, etc. I find myself with less time and mental energy to just tinker and play with tech. So when I do find myself with a bit of free time, I want to maximize it and work on stuff that both helps with my actual career, and helps me get more stuff self-hosted for myself and my family.

Way back in college, I used to spend more time tweaking my PC's overclock than actually gaming xD

Same. I settled on Debian around 1999 and stayed there. A brief side trip to the ope source Solaris.

imho that’s kinda why i went ios for my phone. i dev in linux, deal with robotics, hardware, signals, “security” and whatnot to get paid. i just want something that works.

Archwiki is an invaluable resource even when I'm not working in arch based systems. I think it's a testament to the community that the ArchWiki has been maintained at the level it has (which is quite high) for as long as it has (a long while).

Indian place I used to live near had a similar system. Each time, I ask for Indian hot. They confirm. What they bring is not Indian hot. They ask about it, I tell them "this is really good, but next time, I'd like hotter"

This goes on for freaking forever before he finally makes a dish that's genuinely hot, and it's great, but I can do more. Lol. The next time I come in, I tell them hotter than last time, and he says he'll make it like he does for his own mom.

Lit me up. It was really good. Not too hot for me, but hot enough that I'm pushing my limits. He asks after the meal, and I tell him it was hot enough. He says "good. I won't make any hotter! That's hot enough!" Haha

it's funny because as an asian person i've never really run into this problem; if i ask for spicy i get spicy but i think the difference is we don't really use it as a dick measuring contest like white people do (ours are all small anyway lol). some people like spicy some people don't nobody cares what you order

it's only when either white people are ordering or white people take my order it turns into this weird back and forth and then ultimately the white customer has to be convinced he is a really strong eater and got the "authentic" spice so he can brag about it and feel like a man and then post about it on reddit

it's like vanity sizing on my pants i'm still wearing a 32 inch waist even 20 years after graduating high school now with a sizable dad bod

meanwhile i'm still so confused why there are so many memes about spicy foods changing your poop i mean sure my poop can change when eating corn or other veggies like beets but spicy vs nonspicy food never changed my poop/guts must be another white people thing. fascinating creatures, love you guys, but endlessly confusing

This has happened to me repeatedly at Thai places and it was honestly infuriating the first few times it happened. Luckily, I found out that at Thai places they usually have a spice tray they can bring out on request as long as you are eating at the restaurant instead of takeout. It became my common thing to expect to do so after my first bite when eating at places. At home I have my own dried peppers so I can make food as silly hot as I want.

One of my biggest mistakes was ordering "spicy" level Thai food. Took me about a week to finish it because I could only handle one bite every few hours.

Goat vindaloo 👌

I feel like a crack dealer right now, but, have you heard of Linux from Scratch?

I get what you mean with build it yourself, but Arch is more or less like a lego kit. LFS is the material manifestation of the concept of madness. I did it once, it was fun, it was crazy, I don't want to ever do it again. Afterwards I immediately switched my main machine from Arch to Mint. I have a deeper understanding of how an OS works under the hood now, and a strong appreciation for the work put forth by distro maintainers. All I want now is a system that works straight away. I no longer want to build myself anything. Tinkering is a hobby, I need a working tool. Today I use Bazzite and all my tinkering is devoted to how can I make rare old games run on Linux. It's the difference between buying a chair and taking up carpentry as a hobby.

Unironically the average Linux experience

Appreciated! I’ve always hated that nonsensical format

It really depends on whether they're an enthusiast excited about it or they're just trying to ditch windows...

9/10 times, no.

I don't recommend things based on if people are new to it or not. I recommend things based on if they read and are willing to learn or not.

If you don't read, arch is not a good distro for you.

Eh, rolling release distros are great for gaming. I recommend it enthusiasts (noob or not) and gamers. If you just need a rock solid platform for a server or browsing the web / word processing then sure slap some Debian or Fedora on there and call it a day.

Honestly, if you are new to Linux and are making the switch because you enjoy customisation and tinkering, a manual Arch install is the way to go. It's fun and you learn a lot, while still having a good OS.

you can try it. i personally recommend you install it without the archinstall script once so that you learn a bit about how linux works, and if you dont want to learn so much stuff at once, either install it through archinstall or choose a different distro. you're probably going to learn some stuff once something breaks, though that could take a while

of course though, i'd only say that to someone who shows a lot of enthusiasm for linux. if they simply don't want windows, i'd just recommend fedora

I recommend it for learning/entertainment/passtime - I don't see why anyone cant fuck with it on a vm or spare partition. Not for dependency though.

But i generally recommend people strive for some degree of independence in most things, as a good fallback.

So what would “Would you recommend Nix for a newbie?” reveal?

I'd say no but you'll probably end up there eventually. At least for me I went crunch bang++, popOS, fedora, arch, bazzite, cachyOS, now thinking about arch again

Agreed. The wiki is so good that I refer to it to fix problems on completely different distros. Also, the archinstall script is basically a TUI installer. Anyone who can install Debian can install Arch.

I think this usually comes from people using AUR or nightly packages, which can cause stuff to break if you update often. That's what I did when I first tried Arch.

But Arch doesn't use Hurd.

Weeeellll hello there!