Arch is aimed at people who know their shit so they can build their own distro based on how they imagine their distro to be. It is not a good distro for beginners and non power users, no matter how often you try to make your own repository, and how many GUI installers you make for it. There's a good reason why there is no GUI installer in arch (aside from being able to load it into ram). That being that to use Arch, you need to have a basic understanding of the terminal. It is in no way hard to boot arch and type in archinstall. However, if you don't even know how to do that, your experience in whatever distro, no matter how arch based it is or not, will only last until you have a dependency error or some utter and total Arch bullshit® happens on your system and you have to run to the forums because you don't understand how a wiki works.
You want a bleeding edge distro? Use goddamn Opensuse Tumbleweed for all I care, it is on par with arch, and it has none of the arch stuff.
You have this one package that is only available on arch repos? Use goddamn flatpak and stop crying about flatpak being bloated, you probably don't even know what bloat means if you can't set up arch. And no, it dosent run worse. Those 0,0001 seconds don't matter.
You really want arch so you can be cool? Read the goddamn 50 page install guide and set it up, then we'll talk about those arch forks.
(Also, most arch forks that don't use arch repos break the aur, so you don't even have the one thing you want from arch)
I watched a 9 year old install a fully working version of Arch with no GUI...
I think you're just making it harder than it has to be... lol
EDIT: Or maybe she's 10? Not sure. But either 9 or 10.
Installing is just following directions. It's maintaining it after you Frankenstein the hell out of it that most new users struggle with
That's why you shouldn't Frankenstein it
Now this I can agree with.
Has this kid installed Linux before? Or at least some tech background?
Even without it, you know kids learn really well, right? Can you say the same about a 40 year old?
No. I sat behind her and encouraged her to read the prompts in their entirety. She asked questions (like the difference between sys/data partitions, etc), that's basically it. I maintain that if a child can do it, anyone can. People don't read as well as they should.
This is the worst excuse in the history of excuses... Quite literally pathetic.
Not every kid will be able to do this. Most kids are so used to phone apps just installing and working they haven't built tech curiosity skills. And from the teachers in my family, the current 9 years olds struggle with reading and thinking skills
That's a problem and I remember talking about it in the 2000s when everything started to become user friendlieness. plug and play, just works and so-on, worst part is stuff being locked down and harder to jailbreak.
It'll be fine though, I'm sure AI will install their OS for them, I won't have a clue how it did it, but it'll probably be better than I could do.
You'll just add "without backdoors" to the prompt and it'll be secure too.
Yeah if you don't tech a kid how to do something and they don't learn it themselves they won't learn it. A lot of kids are way more willing to learn things than people give them credit for because no one is putting in the effort to teach them.
She's just a regular kid. She has trouble with multiplication tables and likes to play outside. She also has difficulty reading. It's not like she did it totally unassisted. But she did everything. I'm also not implying that "every kid should be able to do this!" like you seem to be implying.
I'm challenging the notion that IT'S SO DIFFICULT to do, especially when I've seen a young kid do it myself.
I get that challenge part, I installed Arch ( pre script days) to see what the fuss was about, it was not that difficult if you follow steps.
I'm just parroting what teachers have been telling me; that the newer generation lacks problem solving skills and other skills (on average). No doubt there are awesome parents out there fostering learning and you will have some kids engaged, but we do have a situation where parents aren't following through on what the kids should be doing at home to help them in their future, and use the iPad or game console as a babysitter. Ask any teacher that has been doing this for a while and the trend they are seeing.
Then you're just an ablist who thinks everybody is the same. Go be a motivator or something.
The point of Arch is not that it's hard to install the point is that it's modular and you can choose exactly what you need. So in order ton maintain it you may need to know about pipewire, bluez, Wayland, synaptic, tlp, ...
Once you know the name of most modules and graphical application it's indeed pretty easy because Arch's wiki is great. But I don't think it's a great way to discover the ecosystem and you would probably not benefit from Arch specificities compared to another distro.
I think the only person I would recomand this to would be a computer scientist who needs to learn as much as possible about Linux in two months.
Uff, great, so I still have 3 to 4 years to teach it to my son
Thanks for that age recommendation 🫡
Was feared he’s already behind
IMO learning the basics of computing, go for as early as possible. Especially with this new generation of kids.
2 months ago she didn't even know how to use a mouse properly, and now she's a whiz. The funniest is when you try to show her something on the screen and she tries to click it like it's a touch-screen and I have to be like "no, use the mouse!"
It's a struggle to get started, but once they have that foundational knowledge they pick things up so quickly.
😆 yea, I showed and let him play Rubiks Games (abandoned ware that I played in school (yea, fun teacher) in ~2006) that I got to run via proton and it was exactly the same! As soon as I point on something to tell him about it, his reflexes kick in and I have a new fingerprint on my 4k, lol