I am currently using Windows on an older HP Laptop, which I intend to replace with a Framework 16 by next summer, but my Desktop PC at home has been running EndeavourOS, my first ever Linux distro, since last summer, so I have some Arch-based experience.

As a learning experience I’d like to install raw Arch, but I’m wondering if it makes sense as a primary OS on something that should be a stable system, since I intend to use the laptop for university. I am planning on using btrfs and timeshift, so it shouldn’t break too horribly, even if something goes wrong (and I don’t wanna jinx it, but so far my EndeavourOS pc has been entirely fine too, so I didn’t even run into such an issue yet), but depending on who you ask Arch is either the most stable distro they’ve ever used or bricked their pc ten seconds into the install process.

So now I’m curious on if you all think this is a stupid idea or if it should be fine. Should I try installing Arch and then for actual use replace it with another distro like Debian LTS, NixOS or something like Mint on a machine which fulfills a more critical role than my PC at home, or should I be alright rolling with Arch on my uni laptop?

As a side note, what’s your take on using Arch vs EndeavourOS? It’s roughly the same fundamentally, so is there any point in using Arch apart from the learning experience and being able to say “I use arch btw”? My reasoning for actually wanting to use it and not just wanting to set it up for the learning experience and then switching off to EOS or something entirely different is “I think it’s neat”, which is hardly a good reason long-term.

  • k4j8@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 year ago

    I think you can use Arch for university, but I have a few suggestions:

    • Don’t update packages unless you have time to fix issues. Rare, but it happens, although usually minor.
    • Never mess with greeters, kernel modifications, bootloaders, or anything else before login. Fixing issues may require a live USB and take some time. Avoid the temptation! (Ask how I know…)
    • Use Flatpak where you can for increased stability by way of fewer packages to update.

    Of course, you could also use a non-rolling release distro. Nothing wrong with that.

    • CatLikeLemmingOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Excuse me if this is a bit of a dumb question, as I have never particularly worried about packaging methods and simply installed what I needed from the official Arch packages or AUR, but how does Flatpak lead to fewer updates? I know it sandboxes things, that’s why I’ve been interested in it for applications I don’t quite trust like Discord, but I never got around to actually switching applications of that sort over and trying the format out.

      Speaking of Discord, hooking that out of the “normal packages”, aka everything I update via yay, would be beneficial anyways, since it’s the only thing that forces me to update my system by saying how I’m oh so lucky about a new update coming out and I don’t wanna mess with partial system updates. That’s kinda besides the point though, I just wanted to complain.

        • CatLikeLemmingOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Because of course the arch wiki has the info needed. I should’ve just checked there from the start, thanks!

      • k4j8@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Good question. Flatpak doesn’t lead to fewer updates overall, but it does lead to fewer system packages installed via pacman or yay, which can run into dependency conflicts unlike Flatpak.

        Flatpak provides a common runtime upon which different applications can be installed via containers, much like apps on a phone. You can then adjust the permissions for each app such as which directories it can access. It’s kind of like installing Firefox (e.g. Flatpak) and then a Firefox extension such as uBlock Origin (e.g. LibreOffice). It doesn’t matter if you’re on Ubuntu, Fedora, or Arch, from the extension’s perspective it’s the same old Firefox and doesn’t touch anything else on your computer. This means uninstalling is clean and it has no dependencies on other packages installed.

        The disadvantage with Flatpak is they can be slower (sometimes not even noticeable) and take up more space, although the runtime can be re-used between Flatpak applications. Personally, I like Flatpak for large GUI applications like LibreOffice, which has 170+ dependencies if installed via pacman.

        I’m not an expert, but hope this helps. For more/better info, I recommend reading https://itsfoss.com/what-is-flatpak/.

        • CatLikeLemmingOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Huh, neat. On my current EOS Desktop PC it’s a bit too late to uninstall everything and reinstall it as a Flatpak, but I’ll keep that in mind for new Linux installs. Thank you :3