Im a total child in terms oft Linux distros. Since im sick of Microsoft i decided to switch my gaming completely to Linux (Xbox to Tower with bazzite, switch to steamdeck). Im quite happy that i installed the distro by my self and found the place where i was able to change the keyboard layout. Because i want to play in my livingroom form the couch i got a bluetooth keyboard. The mouse i already have connected perfectly the keyboard didnt. I tried finding a solution online but soon realised that i have to learn to read the Linux lingo.
Can please someone teach me or point me in the right direction were i can learn the basics. Treat me like i know nothing about distros (because i dont) and PC (because i barely do).
This is also to try the Linux community. Show me what you got.
There is no such thing man. It just works really. But I am not trying to sell this distro, just saying that an immutable distro for a beginner is much more of a black box than any of the “advanced” distros people are afraid of. sure if you are luck and everything works with the immutable, awesome. if it doesn’t? then you need the “advanced” stuff anyway. and by that I mean read some documentation.
While I’m a happy EndeavourOS user, I don’t think Arch-based distros are for beginners, even if they work perfect, which they are most of the time. The problem is the most part. Because a beginner can’t fix a problem, even a simple one if they have no idea about Linux. It doesn’t have problems often, but even one time is enough for beginners and it’s a deal breaker.
Whether Arch-based distros are for beginners or not is the wrong framing imo (though it’s a reasonable first approximation).
I would argue it depends on what kind of beginner they are and, almost more importantly, what community they can access for support.
I installed Arch Linux on my MacBook air back in 2014 or 2015, after less than 2 years using macOS and having only known windows XP and 7 before that. It ended up being the perfect distro for me to learn Linux, which includes having spent 2 entire days getting the system to boot on the “correct” OS with only the wiki and my own google-fu for aid. However I was enrolled in a computer engineering course at the time and had joined my school’s computer club where 4 to 5 experienced Arch users were on-hand most days.
If a beginner is motivated and has a reliable source of aid then the problems they’ll encounter using Arch can be the perfect learning environment. If they don’t, then as you write it quickly turns into a dealbreaker.
Of course it depends on the person but what I was trying to refer were non tech-savvy people. If you want to learn Linux wholeheartedly, Arch or Gentoo are perfect for the job, even LFS I would say. However for non tech-savvy people the distro should rely on GUI as much as possible I think, and it shouldn’t have the danger that it might get broken after an update, even if it’s a small thing and easily repairable by veteran users.
But is this any different than what is happening here with a supposedly beginner friendly gaming distro?
“Having a problem”-wise, probably not. However you most likely won’t see immutable distro won’t boot problem. This is not the case with Arch. To be fair, aside from gaming, I’m getting close to recommend more of the stable side of the distros to beginners, like LMDE or pure Debian.