this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2026
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I think everyone needs to stop positioning Arch as something complicated. It’s not. Every Linux distro has nasty moments, and you’re better equipped to deal with them when you understand what’s happening. Perhaps that’s difficult concept for a newcomer (the idea that you need to understand what you’re doing, at least to some degree). But apart from the will to learn, there’s nothing really difficult and complicated in there. I had so many weird little moments with Fedora (which I assume should just mostly work out of the box), that if I had no knowledge Arch helped me to gain, I don’t know what would I do. I’ve consider migrating home shared computer from Fedora to Arch, and not doing it simply because it’s still mostly works on its own, and the Arch magic for me is in the customisations I have made. Fedora gave me unbootable system more times (with me doing nothing! Just updating) than Arch with me tinkering with basically everything all the time, that I won’t even say Arch is some complex mess. Rather the opposite, I think. That’s why I think scaring the newcomers away may be the wrong thing. It’s not too difficult if you’ve arrived to this point already. All you need is to accept you would learn along the way, and Arch (and the community!) would help.
Re-read my post, and tell me where did I said Arch is complicated? My view is summarized in the last paragraph, and I can summarize it even more here "good, but not beginner friendly". Arch expects you to know how to deal with it, it expects you to read the news, it expects you know how to downgrade a package and it expects you're comfortable in a terminal. A newcomer is unlikely to even know about any of that, they already have to learn a lot of other things like package manager, learning what's the name of each program and how they behave slightly different from what they're used to, etc, they don't need to learn about pacnew/pacsave files on top of all of that. If you're already comfortable in Linux, yeah, Arch is amazing, but if you're presented with a terminal not even knowing what KDE/Gnome are you're going to have a bad time.
And that's the thing, it's not that it's complicated, but it's the unknowns unknowns that will get a new user, they don't know they need a session manager, they don't know they need a printer daemon, etc. And if you bypass that by using Manjaro/Cachy, you're now in a position of using a distro that expects you to know about that but didn't taught you about them.
Hey, sorry, I did not mean to argue with your very comment, but rather in general. Your comment is a nice addition to mine, by elaborating what the complexities are.
It’s just that it may be beginner friendly if the beginner is able to learn and explore (having time and headspace to learn those things). With Arch you have to know what you need, but apart from setting up the system, there’s nothing to learn. Say, I have never used KDE or Gnome on Arch, but I think I’d manage, if I’d need to. (I used them on Debian and Fedora, and on Arch I use only Sway, which I’m comfortable with.)
So, to someone, Arch may be the same thing as the Arch-based distro, considering that the person running it accepts they have to set their resources for learning this new system.
I started using Linux with Ubuntu (about 20 years ago), and I regret it. Wasted time. It was shite even back then. I’m not even interested in where they’re now. If I’d started Arch about that time (not sure it was around, maybe it was), or Gentoo as the friend recommended (in such a tone I got it that it’s too difficult for me to start with), I’d be in a much better place today. Instead, I used Debian and distro-hopped here and there. I’m mostly happy with Arch. I don’t run Gentoo because I don’t know it, and these days, in contrast to 20 years ago, I’m too packed with running errands that it rather sounds as a fun hobby project once nobody wants anything from me at least for a weekend, or better for a week or two.
I am pretty sure you can replace most Arch-based distros with a good manual (assuming it’s updated). Unfortunately, the Arch Wiki is nowhere near, but it’s something at least.
And probably a few scripts that automate typical setup and make it pretty can help too. You can even get many million dollars support from other rich guys, if you do that.
I think you're suffering a bit from this: https://xkcd.com/2501/
You know the feeling you have about Gentoo? That's the feeling for someone going to Linux, even to Ubuntu, the more complications you add the worse the feeling is.
Arch is not hard, it's not complicated, but there's a lot of unknowns unknowns that can bite a newcomer in the ass. If you're already familiar with Linux Arch is easy peasy, just like Gentoo, it's just some small things you have to learn.
Think about it this way, you're already familiar with 99% of what Gentoo will ask of you and still it's not something you're up for doing, imagine the frustration of not knowing what's anything and having to go through that.
Yeah, you’re right. Still, I think the more complex distros teach you wrong things, and you never arrive to the point of proper understanding what’s up. So delving into some complex things for a while may be much simpler than a novice expects, and faster get them to the point of somewhat understanding what they need.