Why would you install Arch-based Manjaro? Why not just go with a flavor of Ubuntu to start becoming productive from like minute 5? And if you're really trying to become a super-user why not NixOS?
NixOS is not an obvious choice if you want to become a "Linux super-user." It takes a very unconventional approach to package management, building and configuring your system. All great for what it is but not going to teach you the conventional Linux way of doing things.
I don't know if this is still the case but when installing Arch, it used to be that you would start with a very basic set of essential packages and then build everything up from scratch. That is a great way to become a power user. However I thought the whole point of Manjaro was that it's an Arch variant which does a bunch of that for you, so Manjaro's a weird choice for this guide.
Yeah, NixOS really benefits from you understanding what it's changing.
Last year I wanted to make flatpak use a different partition. Some searches (and reading the docs) later, I decided to use /etc/flatpak/installations.d/ to add an extra location. I set up environment.etc to create the file, but flatpak ignored me. After some futzing around I eventually ran strace and realised that it was searching the nix store, and not /etc. So I wrote an overlay to have it create the file during build so it existed in the store.
Being able to recognize that NixOS may be looking at an unconventional location was what allowed me to make that work.
Most successful NixOS users— that is, people who enjoy running it!— tend to have a decent background with the usual GNU/Linux userland before they start.
I don't think it has to be this way forever, but it would take a special type of guide to help someone navigate learning the GNU/Linux userland and NixOS' take on it at the same time and we don't really have that.
Yeah to me NixOS doesn't even really feel like a 'Linux distribution'. It's just a totally different sort of experience. A cool one, but if someone had only ever used NixOS I think they'd struggle as much with a normal distro as someone that's only ever run a normal distro would struggle with NixOS.
Personally, the biggest appeal of Arch is the great wiki, a large number of up to date packages without snap/ppa whatever else Ubuntu makes you do, and the AUR for anything else that isn't available in the regular package repos.
I've only used Ubuntu for work, and typically the versions of things are quite out of date. Where as Arch, for all it's warts and costs (setup, maintenance etc) gives you those things for free.
I haven't found Arch that much more difficult to work with. For 2 years I used it on a work laptop without issue. Only recently messed up something while updating firmware drivers which requires more than 5 mins/week/month to diagnose.
Having up-to-date packages means having old bugs fixed as much as it means new bugs introduced. In my experience, most programs get more stable over time, and not less. They fix older bugs, add features that resolve old limitations, etc.
'Stability' is an overloaded and confusing term. In the world of Linux distributions and their variants, 'stable' doesn't mean 'less likely to crash', but just 'unchanging'. Arch Linux isn't less 'stable' in the sense that it is more prone to bugs or glitches. It's less stable in the sense that it's always up to date.
The main benefit of stable distributions is that proprietary software works better on them. Hardware that only has drivers for particular kernel versions work forever. That sort of thing. They're not actually more stable in the sense that they're more reliable, at least not just because they don't update. I think they tend to have more bugs, because they tend to patch the software more and the upstream is usually better at doing that than the random Debian maintainer (or whatever) is.
>Never understood people obsession with distro, whatever work for you is fine, they are all linux+open source tools
Yeah there are differences though. The people that distrohop between a bunch of distros only to install the same big GNOME or KDE stack every time... I don't get it at all. On the other hand, Gentoo and Arch and Debian, for example, are all very different in the way they organise and install packages. The user experience at the end of the day isn't really so different though. It matters far more which desktop environment you use (if any) than what distro you run.
The Arch Wiki has the advantage of only having to manage documentation for (mostly) a single set of packages. Every non-rolling distro ends up maintaining separate websites for each releases.
Personally, if I'm recommending something for daily use (as in, you plan to do more than just work on this device) I could only recommend a rolling release where your software is always up to date. You'd usually want and expect software to be up to date (at least for software that isn't trying to screw you ;)) and if something you are using has a bug, waiting for the next Ubuntu release is unreasonable. Also, if your packages update regularly (and you update them regularly :)), it is much easier to debug when things go wrong since you can more easily keep track of recent changes.
Similarly, I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu to beginners because the dist-upgrade process is very scary and unreliable (in fact, I don't think I've ever seen dist-upgrade succeed fully without errors or manual intervention), so I wouldn't want to have that unpleasent surprise waiting for them when they aren't ready for it. The situation around snap is also likely to leave a sour taste in their mouth ("Why am I being nagged to close Chrome 2 weeks from now? And why am I still nagged after I just closed and reopened it?!" not to mention "Why can't I open this file in Chrome?").
(not the person you’re asking, but I have an opinion)
For beginners who want to learn how things work — Slackware. That distribution guarantees the beginner will soon graduate to a non-beginner status, or understand that it’s not for them. It’s a really quick result. Ubuntu et al. just make it so people stay beginners forever.
I really like the Arch trend among beginners; it doesn’t quite have the educational value of Slackware, but at least they try.
For people who just want to use a computer for normal things I’d recommend an immutable distribution that doesn’t break (Fedora Silverblue / openSUSE Aeon) and a friend who can help (ideally — with remote access). The second component is essential with any OS.
It's the simplest thing you can do, short of LFS. Packages are vanilla; the user is expected to do all configuration in the way intended by upstream. There is no dependency resolution for packages; you typically do a full install of the distro, and install any extras via the method declared by upstream. Nothing is obscured, no hands are held.
That's a great question that I don't know how to answer since I haven't been on the market for a beginner Linux for a while :)
If a tech-oriented friend asked for a recommendation I'd recommend EndeavourOS because of the rolling release and great documentation, but also because I could go over the pros and cons with them in person and make sure they are ready for it and because I know they'd have at least one friend who could help them out when in trouble :)
I still don't know what a "power user" is supposed to be, after seeing the term for like 30 years. Seems to describe a range from "able to leap tall spreadsheets in a single bound" to "the person in the office who knows how to fix things".
In my experience, most long-term unix nerds today seem to end up using (a) whatever is in front of them or (b) vanilla Debian.
I think a poweruser is a highly proficient and knowledgeable user. That means a Linux poweruser is comfortable configuring their system, writing shell scripts, installing software, fixing issues they encounter, etc. A Linux poweruser understands the layout and organisation of the system, so they tend not to lead themselves down blind alleys as much as beginners do.
I wouldn't consider myself a systemd poweruser, for example. I still haven't really wrapped my head around its operating model. I have to read the documentation too much, and I often think one thing is wrong but something else entirely is going on.
Systemd is part of it, I flat out just don't use systemd unless I'm forced to, but there are other reasons.
At best Arch is something like "Gentoo with training wheels", but I see it more like "Ubuntu Minimal but different". I mean its whole marketing thing is "OMG Arch is super duper customizable, make your own choices!!!", but it falls short of Gentoo in that regard.
To me it seems like it's made specifically for the r/unixporn crowd; people who just want to customize the look of the OS and specific programs without much regard for the underlying things.
