You must log in or register to comment.
While I dislike bloat, I also avoid distros that have been minimalized to the point of uselessness. Minimalist distros are great for old and embedded computers, but regular desktop ones should not require you to install 90% of the OS after booting it.
Last time I tried installing Arch it didn’t include wireless drivers and various other stuff that was in the live environment. I had to keep going into the live environment, chrooting over to my install, install some shit, reboot into my install, see I picked the wrong one and it’s still fucked up, reboot back into my live env, chroot…
I’m sure a some self-proclaimed Arch god will tell me I’m a stupid n00b and it’s easy and I’m just dumb and can’t read the wiki and I should know the exact wireless card inside my 8 year old laptop… ok, cool. It was still annoying as fuck. I’m sure the live environment wasn’t that big and didn’t have that much bloat. It would be great if there was an option to just install the shit that made the hardware work in the live environment, which worked fine, wireless and all.
Not to be “that guy” but the installation manual on the ArchWiki does say to install wireless drivers/networking software before you reboot out of the installation medium.
Is there an easy way to find what wireless driver is actually needed? That was the issue. It’s easy to say, “install the driver,” but without a lot more information they is easier said than done.
Yes, most laptops usually have a page on Arch Wiki for specific quirks, however most drivers are in the kernel and do not need additional installation (Intel, Realtek and the Qualcomm one maybe Athenian) are all in the kernel, you likely just forgot software to initiate connectivity with Wi-Fi like NetworkManager.
Connecting to wifi in live environment was pretty easy. I recall all I needed to do was
iwctland it worked. Though, I do sympathize with you. This should’ve been much easier considering that it’s expected that the user is going to need to access the internet.Right, the live environment was easy. The drivers were there, the utility was there. Pull the list of networks, put in the password, good to go. I know half the point of Arch is doing it yourself, but if it auto-detects your network card, and it knows you’re on wifi… maybe install that stuff so things keep working instead of acting like it’s 2002 and most people are on a wired connection. Arch without a network connection is basically useless. I don’t think most users know what driver their wifi card needs, so it’s just a matter of installing a bunch of shit until something works, which makes the install feel a whole lot less clean. I get wanting to pick and choose packages, but if it can auto-detect and support the basic hardware, that seems like like it would be the minimum viable OS.
And I don’t know if things changed. I probably did this around 2014 or 2015, so it’s been a while.
I mean, it’s a learning experience which is nice
And also there’s archinstall now, if you just want it to work.
Yeah, it does help the user know their system, which is a good thing for if/when there are issue down the road. Although I think if I was really after the learning experience I’d probably go with Linux from Scratch or Gentoo.
I hadn’t heard of archinstall before. I’m not a big fan of the warnings, it’s seems like they’re telling people they really shouldn’t use it, lol.
Same. I know a little about Linux, but if I’m installing on a laptop or something where wired internet isn’t a good option and there’s no discernible cli tools installed to help configure/fix WiFi, that’s too arcane for my blood.
What does “uselessness” mean to you? Arch and other minimal distros are completely functional. If anything, they require less work to set up than a typical distro if you are a competent user who intends to customize the hell out of their system. It’s not for “old and embedded computers”… there are distros for that. Arch has an explicit philosophy and target audience, and it has nothing to do with low hardware power.
If it has everything you want and nothing you don’t, then…yes?
You make too much sense 😂
OP why are you so obsessed with Arch? you seem like the guy complaining about Vegans always pushing veganism while everything they post is anout veganism
Haha arch meme funny
deleted by creator
Is Arch really that minimalistic? It’s been a few years for me, granted, but I recall they had no package granularity at all. No options to install headers on their own, shit like ssh-client and ssh-server only available bundled together, etc.
Exactly. At times, Debian offers more package granularity than Arch, which is really the key to minimize bloat. imo one should use Arch for the bleeding-edge packages it provides, not for the rather exaggerated minimalism argument. Almost every distro can be reduced and micro-optimized to be as minimal as possible.
I think it mostly refers to a fresh install, which is fairly slim I guess (though not THAT slim either). The package (non-)granularity is still just absurd sometimes.
Arch is customizable, like legos. It’s neither minimalistic, neither lightweight. It gives you almost unlimited amount of legos and you build something. Bad at building - you fucked. Good at building - congrats.
You don’t require to melt those bricks from plastic tho (gentoo) or rebuild an existing OS (Ubuntu).
Also when you buy Arch Lego© set, you also get a great instructions on how to do it (arch wiki) + recommendations on how to order additional less-frequently used legos (AUR).
That’s why I prefer Arch. 👌
I think it depends on how you define minimalist. Is it about packages installed, size on disk, resources used at idle, resources available to applications while under load, or is it instead about minimize the time you spend working on the OS itself to allow you to maximize your time doing other things?
By design it supports a highly minimalistic installation via the PKGBUILD system and AUR. If you stick to the official repos only, you’ll naturally have some decisions made for you by package maintainers, which may include bundling and preconfiguration. It’s still minimal by conventional standards, but maybe not if you’re an RMS type.
Yes. But if I wanted to be petty I would have switched over to Gentoo.
nah but it can run cyberpunk with rtx AND is a multi service server so it balances out
That’s the true benefit of Arch.
Greater variety of packages, and with the latest features.
It’s as minimal and as fast as any of my systems could be, while still retaining all the functionalities I need daily, so yeah.
my boot time is 2 mins. Send help (btw)
First time I decided to install arch was on an old laptop and I wanted to install it over wifi. It took me 2 weeks to figure everything up.
i installed a linuz on my Computer
My crrent test install of Void Linux only uses 800 MB RAM upon booting on my GPD Win 2. 200 MB came from me using KDE.
Booting Void Linux live on my gaming PC and then running KDE gave me 600 MB and if it stays that way after install then this is great.
It absolutely beats Windows with 2 GB RAM usage upon booting and i’m certain that it even beats Windows’ Fast Boot.
deleted by creator
It’s the thought that counts.
Kind of reminds me of when people claimed that cryptocurrency X had transaction fees only costing a fraction of a cent. While this was true, 99% of people using cryptocurrencies would use a platform which had a large amount of programming to send a transaction, for which the costs would be included as a service fee on each transaction. So while the transaction fee would technically be fractions of a cent, functionally it would be tens of dollars.
