I first tried Arch Linux to play around with Hyprland, a window manager that caught my eye with its auto-tiling functionality and versatile workspaces. I've not really dabbled much with tiling before, and Arch was an interesting next step for my Linux journey, having primarily used Debian and Red Hat-based distros almost exclusively. Having made the switch to Arch, I've not looked back and found a new home I'm comfortable exploring for many years to come. There are a few things I wish I knew beforehand that would have made me switch sooner.

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Arch AUR is bloody brilliant

Arch comes with the pacman package manager, which I despised from the get-go, but came to appreciate how fast it was, and once you got used to the syntax, it was easy to use. That said, yay is just a build away and truly transforms an Arch installation into a powerful tool for downloading and adding any package you can think of. That's where AUR comes into play. Unlike APT and YUM, where developers maintain their repositories for packages, AUR is hosted by Arch itself and brings everything together, making it much easier for developers to maintain software and for end users to install it.

There's the official mainline Arch repository for the most popular packages, but many other important packages can be found on the AUR repository, including Slack.

5 Check the comprehensive wiki

It details almost everything

One of the greatest things about Arch Linux is the wiki. This invaluable resource is packed full of details on just about everything relating to Arch. Whether you're looking for guides on how to install the Linux distro on specific hardware or need a helping hand configuring a desktop environment or building everything from scratch, the wiki is your new best friend. It's very much like the official OldSchool RuneScape wiki, which just so happens to be the best video game wiki with everything documented by the community.

I feel like every Linux distro needs a wiki like this.

4 Arch is a blank slate distro

You can do anything from the get-go

Arch has earned its reputation for being a well-rounded vanilla Linux distro with very little preinstalled and almost zero unnecessary bloat. That's great for creating a slimline operating system, but this puts more onus on the user to configure everything and set the OS up with not only apps and files but also services and even entire desktop environments. It's a struggle for newcomers to the distro, so archinstall was added to the Live CD. This handy little CLI installer makes it easy to set up Arch with many of the great desktop environments and window managers.

Although I recommend doing it manually to learn the most about your underlying system, which is largely what makes Linux as a platform so enticing to use, the installer is a good starter for beginners looking to jump on the ropes before making the vertical climb.

3 Things will often go wrong

Troubleshooting becomes second nature

And boy, what a climb that can be. Thankfully, I'm not unfamiliar with Linux and managed to hit the ground running with little effort, but I can understand how this Linux distro can put people off. Take setting up Hyprland for the first time, for instance. Unless you're using a pre-packaged environment such as Gnome or KDE with decades of refinement under its belt, you'll need to do some research, follow one of the epic guides on the Arch wiki, and be prepared for stuff to break ... more often than not. Like everything with Linux, it's always a learning process.

A good way to help you out, even when following a guide somewhere, is to document changes you make to the system yourself. Fire up an Obsidian vault and use it almost like a git repository where file changes can be documented (and most importantly, easily reversed) to help troubleshoot should things go wrong. And don't worry if you break something or manage to be unexpectedly greeted by the terminal, it's all part of the learning curve, and overcoming a problem ensures you'll know the solution should it occur again.

2 Back up more often

Even the slightest change can break things

I never really backed anything up on any of my prior Linux installations, at least when it came to the OS itself. Data, absolutely, but system files were always omitted because I found it to be easier to simply deploy a new Ubuntu Gnome install in a matter of minutes than hunt down a backup and apply it to a system. That's not the same with Arch as it feels more like an evolving story than a short, complete novel. Distros such as Ubuntu almost feel like a closed garden ... and I mean that in a good way.

Which distro would I recommend to newcomers to Linux? Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora ... essentially any distro running KDE or Gnome. These two desktop environments are excellent, but they're also so good that things rarely break. I can't recall the last time I encountered an issue with either DE, especially on Ubuntu, which has been rock solid for the past decade. I loved Unity as much as the next person, but I found myself banging my head against the wall with Ubuntu 11.04.

Arch is slightly different, especially if you look to build everything yourself, service by service. Hyprland is very much this approach, with all the basics for a GUI but not much else. You need to add a menu bar, notifications, hotkeys, and even a screenshot tool. Stuff can (and likely will) break when you're learning the ropes and attempting to implement various changes and new packages. That said, it's never disheartening since it's usually a quick fix or revert to bring everything back online.

1 I ❤️ the rolling release schedule

No more waiting for major updates

No one likes to be running outdated software and missing out on new features. Many Linux distros are quicker than macOS and Windows at rolling out major upgrades, but even these more regular release schedules can feel sluggish. That's where Arch Linux truly shines with its rolling release schedule. You don't perform a major upgrade of Arch, hence why it has no version number system. Kernel and package updates are applied in real-time as they're made available to the repositories, allowing you to install everything you desire.

Arch makes you better at Linux

Once you get used to how everything comes together to create the UX you're interacting with, you've already learned far more than you would on other Linux distros. This makes Arch a good choice for those looking to take their Linux knowledge to the next level with much more CLI time and general troubleshooting. Although already comfortable with various distros, I found it easier to approach other issues once I had Arch under my belt. I was one of those who preferred an easier Linux desktop experience, but that's no longer the case with the likes of Arch, NiXOS, and other unique takes on the distro front.