Arch Linux. What makes it different from the other distributions? Why is there some weird elitism paralleled by disgust around it?
In: 1021
It’s a rolling release, for starters – meaning you don’t have specific versions of the OS, but rather a constant stream of updates as software packages get new versions. This can break things sometimes (though it’s been pretty rare for me the last few years). Second, their approach to dependencies and meta-packages is pretty lightweight. I don’t want to say it’s just to be difficult, but their idea of “you can make this whatever you want” means you get a system that kinda requires some knowledge to get into a working state.
It’s not as hardcore as it used to be, and they’ve gotten better about holding updates for core packages to avoid breaking bugs. The archinstall script is pretty decent if you want a standard desktop install without the hassle of manually configuring everything. But it’s still easy to wind up in a state where one little thing doesn’t work right because you forgot an optional dependency.
As for the elitism…I think that kinda stems from a portion of the community just being toxic and elitist. Obviously you gotta use a “real” Linux distribution like Arch or you’re just not skilled enough! If it wasn’t Arch, it’d be something else like Gentoo. It’s a meme at this point.
This, IMO, intersects with the kind of people who’d judge you for playing games on Story Mode or whatever. Just assholes looking for any reason to feel above another person, and giving the rest of the community headaches in the process.
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