An unbiased comparison of linux distributions' setup

Me being an arch using vegan with a man-bun makes this feel like a personal attack.
But once I get my new arch setup working I'll install gimp on it and create a meme making fun of you!
- And you’ll finally get your sound working on your new laptop after weeks of messing with pulse audio and realizing you just needed to install sof-firmware but didn’t scroll far enough in the wiki to see that, but now your pulse audio config is so messed up it’s just easier to reinstall Arch again
  Source: my life
  
  Step 1: install pipewire
  there is no step 2
  
  Are you me?
  
  Installing sound on Arch is really easy:
  Install ALSA
  Install Pulse
  Spend half an hour trying to get the sound test to work with various parameters
  Realize the default sink is set to USB audio and you don't have a USB audio device
  Google how to change the default sink
  Change the default sink
- Check the arch wiki first if installing Gimp is going to bork your system.
- Do you also bike/lift?
- Yeah, a long time ago, it's working great.
  I just need to fix some drivers since I did an update yesterday.

I won't stand for the vegan bashing
- ತ⁠_⁠ʖ⁠ತ
  
  You have elevated levels of stress hormone (and deserve it) if you eat animals, btw.
- I'm vegan for health reasons and I have yet to meat one of the infamous vegans the stereotype portrays. I ask questions, look for recipes, etc, and everyone has been super nice. I think "those vegans" live primarily on Twitter and Reddit.
  PS: I've had a working Linux system in daily use since I started back with Red Hat Halloween and I prefer Debían based installs like Pop!_OS and Mint D. Nothing against Arch but I ain't got time to fight the OS as well as my work.
  EDIT: The typo stays.
  
  I’ve met one or two. It’s like fine, it’s a major lifestyle change often associated with ethics that sets you aside from most of society. Many folks have a period of a few months to a year or two of being really annoying about shit like that. It happens with all sorts of folks: linux and arch users, freshly out queer people, people getting into polyamory, new converts to religions… frankly atheists and people who just converted to Christianity are the worst about it in my experience. And yeah these people are annoying. You’ve been annoying too I’m sure, we all have, it’s part of being a person and the people being annoying about these things are typically doing so at an age where some variant of that is a common experience
  
  They're also on Lemmy. I haven't been here long, but I've already seen 2.
  One is right here in another comment chain, lol
  
  This is very likely my very environmentally influenced view, but I think there was a period of time where being vegan was a trend among the health hipsters, who weren't vegan due to ethics, but because either everyone else was doing it or because they claim it has massive health benefits like they did for paleo, keto or other diets. Those I think could indeed fit that stereotype. Or maybe I'm living in a fairy tale.
- I’ll stand for it in your absence.
- Part of being vegan is understanding you'll be mocked and criticized for completely unrelated things. Like Bubly sparkling water or blue denim, for example.
- Do you do CrossFit™?
- I know what you mean, I always sit down first.
- Yeah, that's too much.
  I eat chicken, btw.
- Of course not. With the lack of iron and protein you need to complain while sitting.
  -a vegetarian
  
  Don't mock too much, that lack of B12 be sneaking up on us both lol

This dead horse is pulp by now
- If we keep beating it for long enough, thermodynamics says it might spontaneously turn back into a horse.
  
  And that horse will be using arch btw.
- Freezer burned wooly mammoth goop.
- So, like.. glue?

I use Arch, BTW.
I feed on your hatred.
- I can feel your anger. It makes you stronger, gives you focus.

I’ll never forget the first time I successfully installed arch and got my I3 set up juuust like I wanted it. It felt like I did something. It was great. Fuck you!
- Fuck you, too 😘

Needs a Steam Deck owner in the corner playing games, wearing headphones, and ignoring all questions.
- I might have created this long before Steam Deck was a thing and just reposted it for fake internet points.
- I feel called out

I love how "unbiased" it is and I'm not even an arch user.
- Yah, I'm a huge fan of factual content. Biased people suck.
  
  Not sure if ironic, or an incredible idiot.
- I don't use arch btw

No way the Fedora user figured out how to configure partitions in the installer without having to google it at least five times! I've installed Fedora a few times over the years, and that UI still makes no sense to me!
- Lol I end up just opening gparted, do my stuff, then go and set the partitions in the installer
- Lol. I tried to google it too and i still am unable to define a custom home partition for my most recent Nobara install. Gave up and just let it automatically create what it needs.
- I just let it do partitioning automatically, or do it manually with GNOME Disks.
- I switched a friend from Ubuntu to Fedora specifically because the partition setup during Fedora install is so good. (It was during a new build)
  
  Yeah for some reason whenever i try and install Ubuntu, the installer only sees the primary NVME drive if one is installed. Haven’t had that issue with any other distro
  
  Huh. I had the complete opposite experience. I found fedora's manual partitioner to be the worst of any distro I've ever used (I had trouble understanding it and it always ended up giving me some weird error when trying to finalize the partitioning step). I think I just ended up ditching fedora's default manual partition manager.
- You just dont configure partitions, lol
- Sounds like a you-problem.
  
  Wtf?! No reason to get insulting.

- I would be so proud of my 13 year old cousin knew this much about Linux.
- 🎶 wake me up, when September ends...
- they took over the rest of the internet, now they're coming for you.
  seriously, where are their parents?
- Ikr? Low-hanging fruit at best.
- One month ago?

Gentoo is still compiling
- ... still compiling ...
  
  Kernel is done! Now Libreoffice!

Debian guy could have just downloaded the nonfree installer that includes some common wifi and other hardware firmwares. There are some pragmatists at Debian.
- Also... It's included in all versions starting with Bookworm.
  
  Well... Say that to my live USB I tried booting off of a machine with a very modern nVidia card. I had to create a new boot entry to disable nouveau and install nVidia proprietary graphics into a persistent partition.
  I understand nVidia is shit, and doesn't play nice with others. But my point is - it's not always that easy. (I thought it would be! I lost many hours, and pulled out lots of hair!)
- Not in the good old days. Back in 2000something I built a custom installer image with a backported kernel from testing and some firmware to get debian installed on a new laptop.
- before debian 12 though, it was kinda hard to find the nonfree netinstaller on their site
- Agree but Debian is still damn manual compared to many Fedora quality of life improvements.
  Meanwhile, removing snaps and replacing with flatpaks on a set up ubuntu system is crazy! All those loop mounts suddenly start showing up when snapd is gone

I actually encoutered this the other day.
Me: "Yeah I need reliability for work and sometimes I just don't have time to repair stuff. Last time I was on rolling release some update fucked my system right before an important deadline"
Other person: "It wOn'T bReAk If YoU UndErStANd iT"
._.
Anyway stable is awesome
- Yep and that's why I refuse to use rolling distros. I don't need the latest update of everything to game. Give me a stable system any day instead.
  Debian or openSUSE Leap for me.
  
  Arch + BTRFS snapshots might be great. I am trying that out currently, but will probably just stay on Fedora Kinoite

I'll have you know that I eat a vegetarian not vegan diet and I really don't have a man bun (got no hair for that) ... The stickers on the laptop however really felt like you took a photo of my machine.
Also if it wasn't obvious I run arch
- You eat vegetarians?
  
  I prefer my meat grass-fed
- The man bun is more of a mental thing. And, hey, I'm a vegetarian too according to the saying "you are what you eat".

man I knew this was going to be rough when I saw him wearing a vegan shirt but god DAMN
"All Arch users are stupid vegan crossfitters who never shut up and contribute nothing to society and the only thing they ever care about is making their desktop look l33t and Arch is a horrible distro and did I mention all Arch users are stupid?"
Oh. My. Sides.
I switched from Ubuntu to Arch because I was sick of packages not compiling due to a complete lack of dependency management. I use stock KDE with zero frills and I spend most of my time hacking on open source projects. I never tell anyone what OS I use (unless they ask for recommendations for their new machine, and I'm prepared to also tell them why I personally prefer it) because they don't care. I'm a normal guy who keeps myself to myself and hates the people who think a pretty desktop is more important than a usable system just as much as everyone else.
However, I use Arch, and Arch bad, which means I must be the most annoying person on the planet.
- I mean...
- Oh Muh god its the same guy. He won't stop talking end me please he won't stop he won't stfu
- You gotta take this less personally.
  As an open source maintainer I notice the trend that Arch uses are simultaneously the most likely to have caused the issue themselves and are always the first to blame my software.
  I think these memes stem from the fact that a lot of Arch users are less experienced and spend a lot of time trying to create the "perfect" customized experience. Using Arch is a great way to get the experience, but it can be at the detriment of others sometimes.
  Basically, learn to take it on the chin and move on. There's some truth to the memes.
- "All Arch users are stupid vegan crossfitters who never shut up and contribute nothing to society and the only thing they ever care about is making their desktop look l33t and Arch is a horrible distro and did I mention all Arch users are stupid?"
  Spot on! You could have left out all the text after that.
  
  You use Linux. All Linux users are elitist evangelical douchebags who make every conversation about Linux and how great it is even though it's worse than Windows. Also you're probably a criminal, since most Linux users are hackers, and I don't associate with criminals.
  Stereotypes are great, aren't they?

archinstall
- Even faster: https://youtu.be/8utpbbdj0LQ?si=AVmoTmD_BJkpR8WF
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://piped.video/8utpbbdj0LQ?si=AVmoTmD_BJkpR8WF
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  Wtfff this guy knows a lot of Linux
- But it installs so much bloat;!!!

If that's a first install, then sure. Otherwise... There was a speedrun installing arch under 2 min...
- Might just be an old comic. The above was true a few years ago, but not so much anymore.
  
  Yeah now its like archinstall, check some boxes, maybe google some packages to install at setup and you're done.
- The fact that speedruns for installing Arch even exist kind of proves the point.
- How does that work? Do they count user interaction time only by pausing the timer during package downloads?
  Or do you need fast internet to play?
  
  Not that I remember finding any rules, so that's mostly just messing around; technically you can quickly setup your own mirrors in LAN, although I don't remember if that was done. Stuff was mostly about knowing what to type and blindly pre-typing next commands while previous are still in action

Like you don't need to fix shit with Fedora
It's good but it's not left perfect
- All my peripherals, NICs, and basic services worked out of the box. I had games up and running in fifteen minutes.
  Mine's not technically stock fedora, but still.
- Tbh I don't remember the last time I had to fix something on Fedora...
  
  There are some minor choke points (restorecon if installing with a "dirty home" and installing RPMFusion), but yeah, otherwise it does a great job of staying out of your way.
  
  For me:
  remove fedora flatpak
  add flathub
  remove preinstalled bloat (especially annoying on GNOME as these apps all have weird names)
  add user to libvirt plugdev groups
  setup automatic updates is weird, packagekit sucks a bit
  Gnome software sucks, KDE Discover + Flatpak is way easier. But the flatpak backend is probably preinstalled
  add rpmfusion on KDE needs CLI poorly, but nothing unfixable
  install libavcodec-freeworld
- I barelt have to fix anything at all in Ubuntu/Fedora type distros unless I want to do different/specific stuff.

I've tried Arch before. I don't really remember it being a hassle. I've even installed Gentoo but never used it. Sabayon was the good shit.
- omg I remember Sabayon! The theming was terrific on it
  
  All the goodness of Gentoo with pacman and none of the pain! Nightly builds! BLEEDING EDGE.

Any place of discourse that incorporates the term 'master race' in its name is a place I give a wide berth.
- Thanks! I thought I'm the only one. People don't realize what this term is and what it has brought upon us.
  
  Cringe "gamers" outing themselves even more easily?

Love how this has almost 80 dislikes (as of writing this), as if they actually took it personally 😂
- as if they actually took it personally
  For me it is, in so far as I'd see it as a personal failure if my contributions here failed to create at least some controversy and ruffled some feathers :P
  You see, it's fun to poke things. Poking a pumpkin is funny for about 10 seconds. Poking a beehive on the other hand ... that has a certain thrill to it. Sure, one might get stung, but it keeps on giving for a long time.
  
  I just don't like the unnecessary stab at vegans. Adds nothing to the joke except rehash 10 year old stereotypes.

Anyone here remember when people would say "I use debian btw" ?
- Isn't Mint kinda better Ubuntu these days? Could be worth the check if you are into Ubuntu.

I've found Garuda pretty much gets you all the perks of Arch without the drawbacks and installs just as quickly as debian if not faster. And I love ancient Linux memes as much as anybody but neither Debian or fedora is much to write home about nowadays IMHO.
- Endeavour is a great alternative IMHO, but Garuda's development is definitely more skewed towards gaming and comes with a lot preinstalled/preconfigured.
  
  I'd say it's even more simple. Comes with stuff like snapper and zram preconfigured and a bunch of tools to do various things. I use their KDE lite version since I do not like their theme AT ALL.
- It doesn't come with a cool gamer theme out of the box 😎😎
  
  Almost none

Honestly this is the reason I want an immutable build of Arch like NixOS.
Let me roll back my mistakes and I could live more happily with rolling release.
- When I started using Arch I just set it up on a btrfs filesystem and wrote a simple btrbk hook to take a snapshot before any package updates. That made it trivial to unfuck anything that broke after an update. I can't remember the last time I had to roll the system back but it's nice for peace of mind.
  
  That’s quite clever, are there any guides for getting that set up? I’m using btrfs but haven’t gotten into snapshotting yet.
- I feel like I keep posting this everywhere but there's a project called AstOS that attempts this. Also someone clued me in on this distro neutral solution. AshOS. Full disclosure I haven't used either.
  
  I'm looking to reload my daily driver and there's just not enough support for that.
  
  It looks like solutions like these miss the whole point of what Nix is trying to do. Nix comes with the belief: "Unix has some fundamental issues, because it was designed in specific way. If we store things differently it works really well, and we even get those cool properties for free".
  The authors of those projects instead of thinking "this looks interesting, and it is a paradigm shift but it might be worth to to try feel like Linux noob for some time and start thinking a bit differently how the file system is structured to see if this change is really worth it"
  Instead it is: "I don't need to be PhD in Computer Science (whatever that means), here is how I can force this Nix feature or two on traditional Linux, with ansible, bubble gum and some duct tape and make it immutable-ish, which fails sometimes but, hey, it has the same feature on paper."
- You mean like nixos-unstable, the rolling release channel of NixOS?
  
  Well yeah obviously like NixOS. My reason for not using it is that they use a non standard Linux filesystem and it renders a # of packages I want to install incompatible.
- I love it, because you can also get best out of both worlds in relation to the comic discusses. You can personalize OS to your liking, and the entire configuration is in a file, so you can redeploy the same setup again.
- You can downgrade packages on arch too via downgrade.
  
  If your pc still boots.
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/snapper

I quit using Arch after about ten years of using it because Team Fortress 2 quit working and none of the resolutions on protondb fixed my issue.
Priorities, people.
- The 32bit libtcmalloc_minimal.so.4 that all Source 1 games ship with needs to be updated. You can symlink it to your system's version to get TF2 running again. It's usually only a matter of time before it starts to effect more downstream distros.
  The other problem I have with TF2 is queueing for casual just stops for no discernable reason or error every time, even if I'm not the party host. But then I come back later and it works again? Only real solution I've found is to have my friends queue without me and then join after they've found a match.
  
  See, I did all that... and then audio broke. So, I couldn't anymore, man. I probably could've copied the install, kept it updated and held it for a resolution but I just don't demand that much from my builds anymore really. I went with Mint with XFCE and haven't had a single issue since install. I'm good. If it comes down to Ubuntu's base, a lot more eyes will be on the problem and I'll sort it out then.

I've been considering dipping my toes in and trying to learn Linux for the first time recently, having seen a couple screenshots from Mint that look approachable and not intimidating.... Can somebody tell me how Mint would fair if it was included in this comic so I know what I'm getting myself into (or if I should try Fedora or something....)
edit: typo
- Mint is hands down the easiest and most stable distro I have ever used. You don't need the terminal at all. Comes with everything necessary preconfigured and if you need any tutorial you can use any Ubuntu tutorial (its based on Ubuntu).
- You can dip your toes and have a basic Linux desktop to play with up and running in 10 minutes (less if you know what you are doing).
  It will run in a virtual environment within windows (assuming you're running 10 or 11).
  So you don't risk anything relating to disk partitioning.
  And you can always start it when you have a few mins to play with it without closing down everything else you're working on.
  Not mint though. Ubuntu desktop which is I think is also pretty relaxed.
  See here basic instructions
  
  Not to ambush you into tech support, but I decided to take your advice and try that, but I'm instantly stopped and trying to google the answer for myself is just leading to vague powershell language and I'm fully unfamiliar with powershell. I installed WSL and Ubuntu, but when I attempt to open Ubuntu I'm getting:
  "Installing, this may take a few minutes... WslRegisterDistribution failed with error: 0x80004002 Error: 0x80004002 No such interface supported"
  Any idea what I'm doing wrong? The site I'm following (your link) doesn't mention this error or how to overcome it, unless I'm just to dumb to decipher it.
  
  What's wrong with Mint?
- If you just want to get to using and enjoying an operating system without reveling in nerdery (which can be fun!), Mint is fantastic. Just make sure you understand partitioning basics if you want to install alongside Windows.
  You can't go wrong using something like VirtualBox to try the install process without touching your actual system :).
  If it were depicted in this comic, it would be even easier than Debian because it doesn't lean toward any particular extreme, it just goes for being usable.
  I'm pretty sure there's a simple check box to include proprietary codecs and things that are commonly used, so you can still watch Netflix or open .mp4s and stuff.
  Wide variety of drivers. Should just work on most systems. Friendly community if it doesn't!
  That said sometimes the applications feel a bit old, and you're looking over at people playing with shiny new features in something like Blender or Krita...
  Well, Mint has flatpaks built into the software store! Flatpak is basically a self-contained app that can be the latest version so it doesn't care about the rest of your system and "just works."
  Hope you enjoy it! :)
  
  What's the process of switching distros? If I start with Mint but do decide later I'm enticed by those shiny new features, will switching over be akin to starting entirely over and learning a whole new system, or is it gonna more similar to just like reinstalling windows for a clean install (to use an analogy situation I'm familiar with)?
  edit: wrote dispo instead of distro, goddamn stoner brain
- Same as Fedora in this comic
- Mint is a based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, so the guy on the left. The comic implies that it's easy but not quite as easy as Fedora. I would say that it is easier to use than Fedora.
  Setup is simple and unless you've got something unusual going on on your computer, then everything will just work. Since it's based on Ubuntu, most Ubuntu information will also apply to Mint, and that's nice because there is a lot of information about Ubuntu.
  Not everyone would care about this, but I personally don't like chasing updates and constantly installing the latest versions of things. All Debian distributions favor stability over cutting edge features, whereas some distributions are set up to try to get the latest changes quickly. Ubuntu leans very slightly toward cutting edge compared to stock Debian, but Ununtu has Long Term Support (LTS) releases which are supported for, I think, 5 years. Ubuntu also have other releases with shorter support times. If you're using Ubuntu and favor stability, you need to pay a little attention to what you're installing. Mint is based only on Ubuntu LTS releases, so Mint favors stability.
- Just run CentOS and call it a day

I use Artix btw
- Same, I use Cinnamon
- nice! i used to use openrc artix with kde

I started using EndeavourOS which is pretty close to Arch with a better installer. Uses their repos unlike Manjaro.
- Friends don't let friends use Manjaro

What the guy on the right is doing seems like cultural appropriation of trans catgirl culture.
- Meow
- Cultural appropriation is a bullshit concept predominantly invoked by people not belonging to a culture who are not able to make valuable contributions to society.
  
  Wow. What an idiotic thing to say.
  Also: Good job to not getting the joke.
  
  Well said
- It's not a religion it's an ethnicity. Us penguins have to stick together. ...
  Whispers: When is the next avian fury convention?

My first real experience with installing/running Linux on my own machine back in the day was with Gentoo. My experience was basically the same as Arch guy there, except with the added step of compiling every single component from source. On a Celeron equipped laptop. Nobody warned me about that part.
It took fucking ages. I was stuck in textmode land with Matrix code flying up the screen for like three fucking days, before I even got to a shell prompt.
I gave up. I just run Debian now.
- After you've done Linux from scratch, Gentoo is a walk in the park
  
  I should maybe attempt that at some point.
  But knowing my brain, I'll just forget everything 0.4 seconds after I am done.
- I remember back in 2000s Gentoo was a distro you got cred for being able to install.
  
  I was in an IT school around 2012. I thought I was the only one using Linux besides Windows (predominantely though). I wasn't. He was daily-driving Gentoo where most of the students haven't even heard of Linux the kernel before confronted with a bash shell in a course.
  I'd say in 2000 only the nerdiest people, academics or professionals knew the difference between say Red Hat or Gentoo at least here in Central Europe. Windows 95 (and 98) came pre-installed on every OEM PC and the best windows to that date (2000) would come out that year and I guess everybody was hyped for XP. Saying you are compiling your kernel and software yourself with GCC would have only got you puzzled faces instead of kudos in 2000 here.

Debian guy could have saved time by connecting to lan after boot and installing the wifi package directly.
- Or for laptops with no Ethernet, USB-tether a phone.
  
  I completely forgot there are laptops with no lan port now.
  
  For some reason, this didn't work on my old phone after installing PixelExperience 11 on it.
  There's a third way. Bluetooth. At least you don't need a cable, and you'll save power.
  For that reason, I usually use Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi, unless I need higher bandwidth (except during peak hours of network usage, when my connection speed is below 1Mbps anyway).
- Happened to me a few times already that the ethernet drivers are unfree.
  
  WHAT?! I would have never guessed that. Lan has always seemed to be the one part that’s dependable, no matter what’s booting.
  
  shakes fist at heaven
  Damned thou shalt be, Atheros gigabit ethernet chip!
- Or installed Bookworm.
  
  Guess it depends on hardware, I still had to add the wifi driver for bookworm.

When I first tried to install Arch, I gave up when I got confused with the documentation for an encrypted install.
But since I've discovered archinstall, it's a dream to do and arguably faster to install than other distros.
- Used archinstall too 3 years ago, btw. The result is still running with no noticeable performance degradation if not rather performance improvements. Games continue to get snappier and look better, I find.
  Also it's stable af. Can coun't on one hand where I had to intervene on OS updates. On those only one case where I had a terminal after reboot. All were resolved within an hour or so. Driver updates for nvidia just run through. The only time I had to mess with them was when Valve rolled out Steam's new UI. That's when I learned about Arch's downgrade mechanism.
  Did 2 manual i3 installs with BIOS boot mode and GRUB before I started using archinstall. I would bitterly fail with manually installing ESP/GPT/UEFI, Dual- and SystemD-boot, KDE, BTRFS, PipeWire. Used archinstall on a few PCs now and had 1 out of 4 where it wouldn't install. On the 1 archinstall-fail an EndeavourOS Jellyfin/Emulationstation is alive and rocking now.
  Ubuntu, Mint or Fedora might be better for beginners than Arch-based but a colleague without prior linux knowledge installed it himself for work and seems to have no problems. The welcome dialogue with update-starter and notifier, package cleaner, arch news reader, nvidia-installer, logviewer, mirror ranking, and links to relevant topics is good stuff. IMO they should pre-install Octopi or Pamac instead of their rudimentary graphical package manager. Endeavour is as stable as Arch so far.
  Edit: exchanged PulseAudio with PipeWire which is even better ofc

Only ever recorded instance of hat-wearing Linux user saying “I’m in” and not meaning an access acquisition

Old comic
- And inaccurate
  
  Just plain illegible
- Yes.

Arch has an awesome installer now so this is pretty dated.
- Yeah all the most popular distros have basically been next>next>done since 2010 minimum on most hardware.

- You think a Gentoo user would appear in a comic with a graphical interface?
  
  It takes an extra 16 months of work or so, but you can technically get a GUI working in Gentoo.
  /s
  
  You just made me choke on tea. I hope you're proud

This is why I switched from Slackware, it could run in a toaster but by the time I had setup a 5 button mouse others were already doing things.
It's great for learning tho.

You don't install Fedora. You buy a server with pre-installed Fedora and a three-year support contract.
You don't care about updates. You don't care if it breaks. You just get a replacement server, covered by a contract.
- You really shouldn't run fedora on production servers.
- While RHEL and Fedora are siblings we can't mix em' like that. At least I haven't ever seen a server with Fedora pre-installed, or anyone offering support on a Fedora server...
  
  We have a piece of fancy and expensive radio equipment in the office, the control part is a Fedora server, with precompiled binaries that run that piece of hardware. Every system library has frozen version, if you upgrade the OS the whole system stops working, and you just reinstall the disk image from the archive, and by reinstall I mean use dd to overwrite the hard drive partition from a supplied DVD.

I'm using Debian, btw

I don't remember installing arch. Hm. Can't have been a big hassle. Is this some kind of meta meme?
- Yup. It's a very manual install that'll let you screw it up, so it's gained that reputation. But it really isn't bad if you follow the wiki (or have done it before).

Maybe Debian guy and Fedora guy should get a room. Btw.
- You can join btw :P
  
  In a bit, still picking aur helper, it's harder than it looks since the community switches favorite every month.

Basic kde install, I have it up in 30 min and then I never touch it again. Definitely better than a persistent full system lockup at the installer boot screen or installed system boot screen with no error logs.
It's probably either my 2070 super graphics card or my MSI x570 ace. Not worth the hassle of figuring out if I can't find a solution on Google.
I blame MSI because their software and bios was always janky. But hay, you gotta piss with the cock you got.

Arch User: If CrossFit Used Linux

But... Endeavour though
- EndeavourOS gang rise up 🤘

Void Linux supreme light and efficient distro. But I really like Debian and Fedora too.
- Void Linux supreme light and efficient distro.
  You are going to love my next contribution.
  
  "contribution". 🤭

And I'll keep using it

Installed fedora and then used distro box to have arch packages. It's like cheating but I can run packages that aren't in repo without the shit storm of the versioning. Is absurd how aur is so good but base configuration sucks so much 🤣

Chill the horse is already dead.
~~I use arch btw.~~
~~I had to do it~~

Slackware users... You young kids, pffft.
- I was thinking something similar. I use Arch because it's easy and user friendly for me. I also come from a history of using Slackware in the mid-90s, to Gentoo in the mid-00s, to Arch in the mid-teens. So whenever anyone asks how I got to where I am with Linux, I generally recommend that they don't follow the same path of pain, and start on something that's actually user-friendly like Mint or Ubuntu.
  
  Glad I'm not the only one haha... I am similar to you: Started on Linux with Slackware 95 distributed via Walnut Creek publishing and mailed "gasp". make menu;make menuconfig ftw! I still use Slack at home, but am a RHEL and SuSE guy by trade.

BSD users standing outside, face pressed against the glass, gently weeping.
- For shits and giggles I actually used NetBSD as a daily driver for 1 year on my laptop while studying.
- Yes, a tear of joy.
- cries in broadcom wireless card not supported

All this work just to end using systemd lol

- Just restore a snapshot. Or just check which packages are gonna get updated. OR just don't update right before you have to do critical work.
  If none of those work for you, then Arch isn't for you. That's fine too. I also sometimes get intrusive thoughts telling me to just go back to Mint. 😁

I'm vegan btw
- Brave little lightning rod we've got here, eh? You must also use Arch!!! (Just playing)
  
  I actually do use arch haha Also this user has died due to protein deficiency

I'm currently using Manjaro ARM, and it feels cool

Don't use plain Debian, use MX Linux to have full up to date everything
- I think the point of using Debian is to not have that
  
  True but that's mainly why I don't use debian
- Don't use MX Linux, use plain debian to have full stable everything.
  ^stable ^bugs ^included
  Edit: aw man, there's no reddit style superscript here. Just imagine the fine print.
  
  ^stable ^bugs ^included
  surround each word with ^

Well, the first half of that sucked. Assuming the second half does as well.