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.
Arch isn’t inherently unstable. It’s just that most users don’t maintain it properly. Tips:
- learn to backup for real: rsync, borg, etc. you broke something? Just back up to that image you made right before you updated ;)
- use flatpaks. It’s kind of hard to run into AUR or dependency issues if you’re as close to a base arch install as possible.
- read the maintenance page and understand it. You can’t just “yay” every week and be done with it. You need to know how to handle pacnew, read the wiki for manual interventions, look for errors and warnings in the pacman log, etc. it’s not hard at all once you figure it out, but it takes a little learning.
- you don’t need to update every day. If it’s working - you can just let it ride. If you don’t update forever, then just update your keyring first and you’ll be good to go.
Use what you like - it’s all stable enough.
Arch should be fine for university stuff. The main problem with Arch is not Arch itself, but all the software it tracks being very fresh. You’ll be pulling updates as they come down the line, and that may result in temporary bugs or day-to-day workflow changes - caused by the software developers themselves. I don’t think an Arch system is unusually unstable or prone to breaking, but last year they did brick everyone’s GRUB loaders by pushing an update too early (post-mortem here). It’s up to you, but if you want to err on the side of system/software stability I would go for Mint/OpenSUSE Tumbleweed/Debian.
I don’t have any practical experience with EndeavourOS but TMK it’s just preconfigured Arch and it uses the default repos, so that sounds good to me. Vanilla Arch is not inherently better or worse, it’s just a more minimal starting point.
I use my laptop for work all day every (week)day. It runs EndeavourOS and I haven’t had any problems - if anything I’ve encountered fewer annoyances than with any other distro I’ve tried to date (Pop, Fedora, Mint, OpenSUSE, Debian). I don’t use Btrfs but I do use Timeshift as well as Syncthing to back up files to a file server at home.
I haven’t felt the desire to install Arch, and TBH I’m not sure what the benefit might be because I’d just configure it to be basically the same as EOS anyway.
I use Arch for all my computers, including my “critical” systems. I only do full upgrades when I know I have the time to troubleshoot something broken, but rarely need to do so.
More than this, I actually use Arch as the OS for thousands of computers for my work that end up in customer hands, who expect stability. I’m not sure at what point it stops being Arch, though - I pin the package repositories to internal mirrors with fixed package distributions from specific dates to control the software that goes to them, so it’s not really rolling release anymore I guess - I control the releases and when updates go out.
Arch is what you make of it. My Arch project desktop pc is constantly shifting and breaking and needing attention as I continually improve it and play with things. My Arch laptop that runs my life and work and is the most important computer I own is a paragon of stability and perfect functioning.
I actually use Arch as the OS for thousands of computers for my work that end up in customer hands, who expect stability.
Whoa… Do you work at Steam?
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.
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.
For discord you could tell it not to prompt you to update by editing the config.
So you can update it whenever you want to.
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/.
