Arch Linux. What makes it different from the other distributions? Why is there some weird elitism paralleled by disgust around it?
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Arch Linux is less hand-holdy, but not for any particularly good reason.
When you install ubuntu, you get an installation wizard. It takes you through the steps of installing and setting up a functioning system, and it also comes with a good deal of standard packages, including a window manager and desktop environment.
Arch Linux provides neither of those things. There is no installation wizard; you will just have to go to the arch wiki and follow the steps outlined there. For the most part, I personally don’t think the steps are much worse than using an installation wizard, apart from the fact that you can fat-finger things and it can break stuff. But broken stuff is always recoverable.
There are no packages either, but most people who choose arch consider this a benefit. It doesn’t come with `gnome` and hundreds of other related things that are required to get it to work, that you then have to tear out before you install whatever WM you actually want to use. But installing the things you need, to get a running system that is basically as functional as a new ubuntu installation, is a matter of running a single command — just like when you install anything in ubuntu.
The elitism surrounding arch linux is almost entirely unwarranted, and it’s mostly perpetuated by people who barely know what they are doing, and think that installing arch linux is some sort of hacker’s rite of passage(it is not). So they finally manage to install arch linux, then they join some community of likeminded people where they all sit around and pat each other on the back for managing to complete the monumental task of following a step-by-step guide in the arch linux wiki… and to perpetuate the inane arch linux elitism, of course.
In my opinion, arch linux should just.. include an installation wizard. It’s just a no-brainer, and I have no clue why they haven’t. I’ve heard various explanations like “keeping the bar high” so that arch linux devs and users don’t get inundated by newbies or something, but it’s just completely nonsensical, and what we get instead is the circlejerky community we have now that surrounds arch linux.
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