Why Is The Arch Linux Community So toxic?

[AlphaObeisance]

On Reddit I Was asking How Do I install Arch Linux They All Became Like Insane in the first few minutes of that post and j can say NONE OF THEM WHERE GOOD PEOPLE

Not all of us are that way. In fact, while I may be an Arch user. I absolutely REFUSE to step foot on the Arch Linux forums as I don't see the point. The kind of pretentious attitude that comes with using arch (generally while well earned, is completely unjustified). They figure since they had to type in every symbol to compile their system that they are some how superior to everyone else. News flash, we're not "experts" we merely posses basic reading comprehension skills, that's really it.

Literally, if you can simply read a single Arch Linux installation guide from the wiki, you can install arch. It's literally that easy. But because the OG's do everything from TTY and the idea of a wallpaper makes their soul curdle from their inner depths as it takes up "too much resources" (i'm exaggerating here obviously), they don't want to help because they had to do it on their own too.

My mechanic can rebuild my engine, but he doesn't treat me like crap because I don't know how.
My accountant can manage checks and balances, but he doesn't treat me like crap because I choose not.
My laywer can manage litigations, but wouldn't treat me like crap because I can't manage it myself.

Generally speaking, I've only met a hand full of Arch Linux users like myself who understand why Arch users are "toxic" but simultaneously understand that everybody learns differently.

I hate........................ I HATE reading. I had to force myself to like to read the arch wiki to learn how to use it because I knew if I stepped one foot inside (as could be clearly seen auditing anonymously) the Arch Forums (or arch related forum) I would get pissed and quit simply because I couldn't ask questions.

I understand that not everybody gets paid $300,000+ a year and some of us are just trying to learn something new for the sake of learning something new. Sometimes it's just easier to converse with another human being, even better if they're educated in a field, to learn it ourselves.

This, like the semantics arguments that pointlessly carry on after literal generations, will never stop.

If you have Arch linux questions, feel free to DM me and I'll do my best to help you out. No guarantee I can assist, but I'm happy to try.

P.S. If you want to install arch, just use archinstall. Idgaf what the community says or if it goes against the Arch philosophy, I literally don't use anything other than archinstall anymore to deploy arch based systems because it "just works", literally. Every time. And it saves a LOT of time.

While I do encourage new Arch users to do it the old school way a few times, as it will best acquaint you with Linux systems, I can certainly understand why you wouldn't want to do that and would prefer to install arch using a short like 12 step script and be up and running in like 5 minutes (depending on internet speeds).

Dont let Linux cult philosophies deter you from using Arch if that's what you want to do. You can do it. Trust me, like seriously, if I can, anyone can.

 

[KGIII]

Literally, if you can simply read a single Arch Linux installation guide from the wiki, you can install arch.

Yup. It's not exactly hard - it's just time consuming.

Gentoo is like that as well. In that case, you're compiling what you need. It's not really hard, it's just time consuming.

 

[AlphaObeisance]

Yup. It's not exactly hard - it's just time consuming.

Gentoo is like that as well. In that case, you're compiling what you need. It's not really hard, it's just time consuming.

Yessir, precisely. I understand the lack of patience as spite my personal disregard and care for philosophy and semantics I acknowledge the intentions behind a distro like Arch. But I'll never fathom the attitude deployed by so many Arch users.

It's understandable if an Arch user is some corporate big wig and time is money n all that.
It's understandable if an Arch user is a developer of sorts with too much on ones plate to bother with the insignificant.

It's understandable if an Arch user directly contributed to the countless pages of Arch Wiki to answer questions for people. These peoples frustration is most understandable to me as they put forth the most effort into providing a resource to "answer all questions" if you will. Because they literally go out of their way to ensure documentation is detailed and up to date.

But, for the general arch user that has done literally nothing to contribute to the Arch Linux systems, done nothing of any remarkable degree; the general "I use Arch BTW" crowd that simply uses the system, has absolutely no room to go degrading users or belittling them simply because "They're not willing to put forth the work".

I get that Arch "isn't a beginner distro", whatever that really means anyway (more semantics I suppose); and that anyone looking to use Arch SHOULD do so with the understanding that it's intended to be a manual experience therefore will require a lot of personal education. BUT, it doesn't have to be.

Arch SHOULD be compiled manually the first few times until a user gets familiar because it'll make them a more competent user. This goes without say, but I'm sayin it anyways.

Arch does NOT have to be manually compiled, it does NOT have to be a PITA.

archinstall has literally worked for me every single time I used it, so when I hear OG's talk about how unstable they are I don't really understand it. Likely remnants of how it USED to be, as is all to common with perception. For cryin out loud we still have people that act like a few MB of resources used are the end of the world as if we're still computing on hardware the equivalent of a 90s calculator. (my father in law still to this day treats his system like every KB of resource is absolutely priceless when in the reailty of personal computing one could pack their OS with 1,000 useless packages and softwares and still have ample headroom unless they're running a modern version of the 90s calculators.

That said, I don't really "fit in" anywhere because I'm of the mind that having countless distro's is asinine in general. Linux is capable of so much but because everyone wants to build it differently for different purposes we have literally hundreds of fragmented pointless distros. I truly believe a fixed effort among the Linux community in it's entirety to focus on a single distro would give us a far more stable and capable system than it is currently.

Can you imagine if everyone worked together? Hah, pipe dreams no doubt. It's the same thing with every aspect of life. Computers, Religion, Potliccs, Opinion in general. Everyone thinks they can do it better so they splinter off and do their own thing, making their own cult following, and before you know it there's an over saturation of nonsense and loss of direction.

Queue all the people talking about how "one linux distro can't handle all of our use case needs", and i'm of the belief that this is directly because everyone wants to do thier own thing instead of building functionality into what was readily available, expanding upon the original source rather than creating an infinite amount of alternative sources.

I'ma stop talking now, I'm tired and irritable and the whole thing is goofy imho. I just wish people could get along, help out those in need, and most importantly, work together.

 

[KGIII]

That said, I don't really "fit in" anywhere because I'm of the mind that having countless distro's is asinine in general.

I've tried 'em all. I've even followed the directions from LFS.

I just use Lubuntu and Mint. I find those more than adequate for my needs. I can easily ignore the OS and concentrate on the work that I do.

 

[Hillbilly H]

Was asking How Do I install Arch Linux They All Became Like Insane in the first few minutes

LOL They sound like Nick Burns.

 

[bob466]

If I don't like a Forum or Distro...I move to another one....simple.

 

[f33dm3bits]

What I'm saying here is you are also part of the stereotype. Someone who've used Mint for the longest time wanting to move to Arch won't know how Arch works, everyone who uses Arch was a beginner at some point

I'm going to have to disagree with you about this. I've been using Linux for quite a long time I can say now, I was using mostly Ubuntu when someone told me I should have a look at Arch. So then I did, it took me sometime but after a day I had a system installed and running which I setup how I had my Ubuntu installation setup having only gone through the official installation guide. If you are comfortable enough with the command-line know concepts such as partitioning, filesystems, network configuration, boot-loader, etc anyone can install Arch Linux.

The problem is a lot of people using Mint and Ubuntu just don't care enough for the command-line or are afraid of it and don't care for understanding the components that are installed by the graphical installer. That's okay and there are of course exceptions. So why should someone who doesn't care about understanding those things all of a sudden want to install Arch and then expect to get their hand held every step of the way if they don't care about understanding the components their installation is made of?

Because Arch doesn't match that person's philosophy and if someone that doesn't care about
understanding those things they can always still install Arch-based distributions such as EndeavourOS, Arco and Manjaro and now days archinstall is even available which I use myself now days. Same goes for me, I don't care enough about understanding how Gentoo works but if I want to get an idea of what Gentoo is about I can install several distributions based on Gentoo.

 

[f33dm3bits]

That's a really good idea, and thats how i deal with a lot of command line inconveiniences.

The thing is if my system breaks I will still know how to fix my system or recover to a previous working system because took the time to understand my system, so now my system installed using archinstall I will still know how to fix my system because I will have an idea of where to look.

However, does arch have any superior use cases, other than enhanced noodling/playing?

No, once a Linux distribution is installed all Linux distributions are the same(even NixOS) as in user experience, however with rolling release distributions you usually have some manual maintenance to do every now and then which you don't with point of release distributions.

 

[bob466]

I don't know about the Arch Forum but there's several other Forums that treat new members or beginners the same.

We join a Forum to learn how to use our Distro of choice and get help from those who are more experienced and pass on the knowledge we have learned to others...that's what I think Linux is all about.

Unfortunately that's not the case with certain people who think these Forums belong to them and in time the membership drops and they wonder why.

 

[MikeWalsh]

Whilst I concede that Arch has attained a somewhat "elitist" reputation - and, having read stuff on their forum at times, will agree with views about the somewhat "toxic" atmosphere - I have to say this; irrespective of the distro you use, for troubleshooting/information/learning about concepts, etc, the Arch wiki cannot be beaten.

It is an absolute goldmine of information, and could teach many other distros a thing or two about how documentation SHOULD be written & presented.

When I upgraded the single-core Athlon64 on my old Compaq Presario desktop to a dual-core X2, almost a decade ago - and needed to upgrade the BIOS under Linux ('cos no Windows was available) - where did I turn to, and find the information about not only where to get 'flashrom', but also detailed instructions on how to use it? Yup, you guessed it; the Arch wiki.

In this respect, at least, I have nowt but praise for Arch. But as for some of their users.......ah; that's another story entirely. Me, I suspect there's a hard-core of Arch users who just like to keep the 'myth' going (for whatever reason). As so often is the case, you've got a few bad apples that turn the whole barrel rotten through no fault of its own.....and end up giving everyone a 'bad name'.

(shrug...)


Mike.

 

[Vimmer]

I don't know about the Arch Forum but there's several other Forums that treat new members or beginners the same.

We join a Forum to learn how to use our Distro of choice and get help from those who are more experienced and pass on the knowledge we have learned to others...that's what I think Linux is all about.

Unfortunately that's not the case with certain people who think these Forums belong to them and in time the membership drops and they wonder why. View attachment 21147

One thing i forgot to mention is that what OP describes is a thing that's part of reddit culture in general. I tried to have a couple accounts over the past couple years on there, but the voting system lets people suppress your opinions for generally weird and nonsensical reasons.

Your typical redditor is naive and thinks "oh, well, the good posts and comments have a lot of upvotes, the bad posts get downvoted", but that is NOT how reddit works by any stretch of the imagination...

 

[Egzoset]

Back to the reddit thing, it's toxic by design IMO, but most systems end up near a same place in the end. It's about time wearing out individuals, only reddit just does it real quick. Idem on YouTube for example, e.g. where deletions occur on a basis of identity while users can't have their own searches kept clean even after repeated markings - hence that could be viewed as systematic harassment meant to attach unsuspecting people with an invisible & paradoxal string, because cheating can prove so tempting, etc. Everytime when shit happens like this i'm reminded of the staiway picture illustrating some Syndrome of Peter, but these days i'd be more inclined to believe it's societal. In any case i find the previous description above concise and realistic when it comes to reddit, so too bad if the only way to save our fair sense of sanity is to stay away.

Relatively to the CLI purist preferences, i'd simply repeat my slogan again: « Fix once, Break many », because in this case i'd argue why force a multitude of users to a very same chore when more work performed at the source would spare us all some precious resources, and perhaps also convince merchants that spending money on Windows ain't a selling feature anymore. A bit paradoxal considering we all want Linux machines at an affordable cost around here! Do we?

In any case no reddit can/will entangle me by exploiting emotional involvement again.

Good day, have fun!

 

[Vimmer]

Back to the reddit thing, it's toxic by design IMO, but most systems end up near a same place in the end.

Yeah everything comes to an end, and just because we don't like something, does not mean it's "bad" or whatever. As far as systems go, it's pretty hard to get as toxic as FB, reddit, and X, lol. You need to be a "real success story" to make that happen.

 

[User740985915675054]

I don't use Arch Linux but say what if one were to create a new thread on the Arch Linux forum with a link to this thread. Do you think it will go over well?

 

[Aristarchus]

I don't use Arch Linux but say what if one were to create a new thread on the Arch Linux forum with a link to this thread. Do you think it will go over well?

What would happen if I criticize your distro at your distro forum? Or any OS for that matter at the specific forum?

You misunderstood this thread though: nobody is criticizing Arch here.

 

[User740985915675054]

What would happen if I criticize your distro at your distro forum? Or any OS for that matter at the specific forum?

You misunderstood this thread though: nobody is criticizing Arch here.

I was just joking around. I meant their behavior not the OS. It would be funny to see the reactions.

 

[Aristarchus]

..I would think that the reaction would be pretty obvious
as in the case of any other forum more or less

 

[MikeWalsh]

But because the OG's do everything from TTY and the idea of a wallpaper makes their soul curdle from their inner depths as it takes up "too much resources" (i'm exaggerating here obviously), they don't want to help because they had to do it on their own too.

Heh. It's like remnants of the "early days", in a way. In the beginning, installing/using Linux was hard; there were no step-by-step guides, no pre-built binaries, no ready-to-use scripts, no friendly internet blog sites happy to explain everything to you, etc. From what I've always understood, many of these early Linux 'geeks' displayed this kind of attitude, too; "I had to do all this by myself. Why SHOULD I help you? More to the point, I'm not going to take you seriously - or even respond to you - unless and until you can PROVE to me that you're serious about this..."

Said proof often entailed compiling/building your entire system, along with associated software that you would need. Unless you also learnt how to construct, set-up and run your own server AND build & host your own website you would still be ignored. Only if you performed the latter steps, then.....and ONLY then.....would the fledgeling Linux community eventually condescend to have anything to do with you.

It was rather like some kind of exclusive "old boys" club..!

Believe it or not, there are STILL a number of crusty old ubergeeks hanging around from all those years ago. In some cases, they still display the same attitude as was prevalent then. A high degree of intelligence & technical knowledge was automatically assumed AND expected; these 'ubergeeks' take it for granted that every other Linux user is STILL a fellow 'ubergeek'.

Yep; it's very, very different now. And I, for one, am glad that it is; knowledge should be shared.......not jealously guarded, and 'hoarded' away for posterity. We only truly grow as a species when we learn to help each other.


Mike.

 

[bob466]

Life is too short to be worried or get upset all because of some morons/cowards who hide behind the keyboard...it's just not worth it.

 

[KGIII]

From what I've always understood, many of these early Linux 'geeks' displayed this kind of attitude, too; "I had to do all this by myself. Why SHOULD I help you? More to the point, I'm not going to take you seriously - or even respond to you - unless and until you can PROVE to me that you're serious about this..."

I was an early Linux adopter - but not as my main OS. Well, it was fairly rapidly the main OS at work, at least on the server end of things. However, at home, it was just a hobby OS. I didn't use it as my desktop OS exclusively until like 15 years ago. I tinkered with it and we used it at work, largely replacing UNIX (such as SunOS).

I type this to share that it wasn't always like that and there have always been people willing to share what they know - assuming you approach them well. It wasn't so much that you had to pass some great test, so much as it was you had to ask good questions. You were expected to know the basics but you needn't be an expert.

The first time I installed Linux (I'm pretty sure it was Red Hat) I did so with help. I was using IRC on one computer while installing Linux on another computer. I used chat to ensure I got Linux properly installed.

I guess my point is that not every Linux user was an elitist at the time.