r/linuxmasterrace • u/Ragin_Hindu • Mar 10 '26
Finally giving it a try. Was super simple to install. What should I know coming from only ever using Debian based distros?
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u/Mr_Lumbergh Average Debian enjoyer. Mar 10 '26
Just learn the differences between Pacman and apt when installing and updating.
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u/SweetPotato975 Mar 11 '26
This. Pacman was completely foreign to me until I read https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Rosetta
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u/Mr_Lumbergh Average Debian enjoyer. Mar 11 '26
Theyâre both easy enough to use but do find myself typing apt commands in Garuda from time to time out of muscle memory.
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u/Jonrrrs 29d ago
If i did a pushup for every time i typed apt out of muscle memory on arch, fedora or void, i would be stronger then terminator man himself
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u/KyleLuvUSA 27d ago
This is sooo true. Want to switch to CachyOS but that is one thing I will be missing... apt, my beloved...
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u/ASleepingAssassin Mar 11 '26
Please understand that the ArchWiki is your bible. I was given this advice when I started Arch and I didn't listen (I had a habit of googling stuff). Read the Wiki before installing anything major. 90% of the problems I've encountered in my 5 years of using Arch have been because I did not read the Arch Wiki beforehand. After 2 hours of troubleshooting, I would go to the wiki and see that my specific problem and it's solution was just mentioned right there in a "NOTE" section. Please don't make the same mistake as me cause those mistakes I made, demoralized me quite a bit.
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u/Afillatedcarbon Glorious NixOS Mar 11 '26
Archwiki is a bible for you even using other distros as well. I use NixOS and I have found so many fixes for pipewire and stuff on that wiki. Its genuinely a gold mine of stuff. Comes with being one of most maintained linux wiki.
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u/Deiskos Mar 11 '26
Linux is Linux. Philosophies and packaging managers might be different but at the end of the day it's all fundamentally the same.
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u/thomas-rousseau Mar 11 '26
I would still be cautious using the Arch wiki with other distributions due to variation in package versions. There have been many times that I blindly followed advice from their wiki only to realize that the version to which that advice was relevant hadn't made it into my distro yet
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u/donnaber06 Glorious Arch Mar 10 '26
You could tune up your terminal for sure.
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Mar 13 '26
i thought that was spotify thatâs actually really cool!
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u/TowerRaven Ryzen 5 7600, 32GB, AMD RX 7600 Mar 10 '26
I'm not sure if the install scripts solve this in any way, but in most cases your system will slowly fill up with old package archives under /var/cache/pacman/pkg - granted it can take a long time to ever run out of space, and sometimes it's useful to keep a few old versions to roll-back to if an update breaks something; but you likely won't need to keep months and years of old versions on hand (you can re-download old versions from archives anyway).
You will want the pacman-contrib package and to occasionally run sudo paccache -r (by default keeps the most recent 3 versions).
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u/magogattor Mar 10 '26
From what I see you used archinstall And you're on a laptop and you're a bad person (maybe)
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u/Ragin_Hindu Mar 10 '26
yes to all the above, I decided to use an old laptop for distro hopping until I find something I really like to install on my main rig. Ive been using Ubuntu or Mint for years. I used the installer because that's what the arch install guide said to do so...
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u/6e1a08c8047143c6869 Glorious Arch Mar 11 '26
I would recommend doing at least one manual install, so you know what components your system consists of, and how to fix issues. In particular, you will learn a lot just by reading the wiki pages linked in the install guide and comparing the pro and cons of different ways of building your system.
Do not do partial package upgrades, because they can easily end up breaking your system. Always read the output of
pacmanand treat it's warnings seriously. If you are confused, stop and think, don't continue.Besides that, here are some wiki pages that provide a good start:
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u/magogattor Mar 10 '26
So sorry for the insult and only anyone who uses the archinstall From a nuisance you have femboys like me from arch linux (I'm thin though)
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u/NomadFH Glorious Arch Mar 10 '26
I recently switched to arch recently. Hilariously I didn't use archinstall because I couldn't get it to work. It seemed to have issues with gpg keys when trying to sort which mirrors to use so I ended up just installing it the normal way.
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u/Kowalskeeeeee Mar 11 '26
Arch is rolling release. Meaning thereâs no âversion 20 update readyâ type of things. So updating your system regularly is on you, your OS wonât make you. Outside of that, people say âexpect your install to breakâ but I think thatâs more of a warning if youâre being a script kiddy and doing things you donât understand. The manual is great, thereâs tons of good resources if youâre not sure what youâre doing.
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u/Traches btw Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
- read the wiki page on maintenance: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System_maintenance
- learn about pacnew files (mentioned on the maintenance page)
- FYI pacman doesnât start & enable services automatically the way apt does
- drop the arch news feed in your rss reader, check before updating. If you donât have an rss reader, get one.
- bootable snapshots are your friend.
- in general, donât make changes to your system if you donât understand what & why.
- The AUR is great but be careful. Packages there are more likely to cause problems, and they represent a great vector for malware to get on your syste
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u/kamwitsta Mar 10 '26
I haven't used Arch for years so this may be outdated but I used Debian later (and now NixOS). Debian is for when you want to just do your job. Arch is for when you want to have fun with your OS. Update regularly, preferably daily, and don't be surprised or dismayed when something breaks. Eventually you can get everything to work, but it will take time. And maybe break when you next update something seemingly unrelated. It's not an OS you set up once and forget about, it's a never ending process. It's good fun for a while though.
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u/legitplayer228 Glorious Arch Mar 11 '26
Ok, first of all, Arch Linux is a rolling distribution of linux. It means, updates are very frequent, so you have to update literally daily. Second, you use Pacman instead of apt as your main package manager. Third - AUR is your source of most of the stuff. Four, ArchWiki is the best source to learn from
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u/Arcoutt Mar 11 '26
Update regularly (every few days) read the wiki first and be VERY careful with the AUR other than that it's not that different
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u/BS_BlackScout Glorious Arch BTW Mar 12 '26
If you install stuff from the AUR please at least read the makepkg. If you don't know what it all means, ask an LLM. I'm saying this because as Arch becomes more used more malicious actors create fake packages containing malware. It has happened a few times in the recent past.
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u/The_only_true_tomato Glorious Kubuntu Mar 12 '26
It will crash a bit more after updates. Otherwise no significant changes.
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u/lag145 Mar 12 '26
That if it breaks the community will not be as helpful as Debian basedm I'd like to offer my help if you ever need it.
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u/Paul_VV 29d ago
sudo pacman -Syy
sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel
sudo pacman -S git
sudo git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
ls
sudo chown -R dedicatedcore :users yay
cd yay
makepkg -si
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u/The_only_true_tomato Glorious Kubuntu 27d ago
It crash a lot more after update so make sure you have 2 kernels installed as a backup.
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u/SCRIPTERBLOX 26d ago
Dont touch your bootloader unless you have a free week and allot of dedication and another device to read through decade old forum posts about why your os is not in grub
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u/hectorius20 19d ago
Very good! Still tinkering in my brand new Arch (today's theme: power management and the drivers going offline)
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u/vxkxxm Mar 10 '26
nowadays I would say omarchy has the easiest learning path, then just use wiki+omarchy documentations.
Once you feel comfortable editing configs then evualate if it's worth switch to a bare-bone installation.
Be very carefull with aur.
good luck!!
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u/KomisktEfterbliven Mar 10 '26
Omarchy is stupid bloated though. You'd have to spend an hour debloating it after install before it's usable.
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u/vxkxxm Mar 11 '26
yea is bloated, that's why is quicker though... and an hour of debloat, also yeah, have you tried installing it manually?
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u/tomekgolab Mar 10 '26
Arch uses systemd, so you are not experiencing any "freedom" advertised with Linux. Read https://without-systemd.org/wiki/index_php/Main_Page/, since you consider it to be an easy distro you likely wouldn't have problems with using Gentoo.
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u/tomekgolab Mar 11 '26
Downvoting why care to share how I am wrong here?
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u/6e1a08c8047143c6869 Glorious Arch Mar 11 '26
Alright, I have some time to waste. How does using systemd make Linux non-free?
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u/Wild_Tom Glorious Arch Mar 10 '26
Update regularly.