EOS is permanently in second place on the DW page hit list

Lounge
21

I’ve used MX before I set my foot in Arch. Actually, I still like the distro because it’s pretty hard to break that thing. It’s really a solid distribution and they have a GUI for almost everything and those GUI’s are pretty good. So, most newcomers to Linux can start using it without seeing too much of the terminal and issues.

And the documentation is extensive their manual is a portable WiKi and hardware-wise they seem to get things working might be due to its being on Debian and a bit older with enhancements from the community. Also, the distro is a semi-rolling release which means it does get newer stuff but not as new as what Arch gets.

This is why MX is at the top it gets recommended and checked out a lot. But Endeavour took the list by storm no one thought we would end up being 2nd place. And the difference is not that much between us and MX. Personally, I prefer we being in second place because MX is better for most of the users who want to check Linux for the first time enos is not the best for a total newcomer.

We recently had a few or more users who had no idea what they were doing and just quit altogether because they didn’t know the terminal. For them, MX is the best place. We being closer to vanilla arch and having a very minimal config leading to users needing to do some work would be too much for these new users. So, permanently being in second place is not a big issue for me it’s a kind of blessing.

5 Likes
22

I love the concept of ninja which appears ONLY to say that he uses Arch btw or to tell that something is BLOAT! :rofl:

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23

This is the emotional approach to the thing. :slight_smile:

24

Interestingly, this position is not occupied by Ubuntu / Mint, but by MX Linux, which is based on the more conservative Debian.

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Can you say then that this relatively young distribution has found its target audience, or is Arch Linux becoming more popular, which one is true, or is there something true in both?

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I can prove this with my own example. In the good past, at the end of last year, I had trouble starting MX Linux with systemd. It took weeks for the problem to be resolved with the help of the forum there, and the reason was relatively simple.

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As folks are starting to realize more and more that you don’t have to use 5 year old software to have a stable Linux experience - Arch has gotten much more popular. I would very much agree that having a solid target audience is likely the best way to have both success and project longevity.

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28

I used to be afraid to use Arch Linux because I thought it was for more professional users. Three years since I ran Arch-based distributions on my machines, including Antergos, mostly EOS, I can tell you that I never had any major problems with it.

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29

I would add to this that it is not certain that the community should be the largest, because that is not the only way to make a project a success.

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Quality is better than quantity.

I would say whatever we have going on here seems to be working just fine. No need to change the course now. . .

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31

Folks might note that on the authority Distrowatch
Arch last year was 17th then 23rd, 26th and now 28th! :scream: Abandon ship! Save your selves…
Yea Arch is going down nothing to see here move along…
:wink:

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Of course, that MOSTLY indicates that potential Arch users have little need to visit Distrowatch for info - the word is out!

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33

Yes.

Arch has been a technically excellent distribution for many years now, but it’s not as accessible to new users as pre-configured distributions.

EnOS provides easy onboarding to a working Arch-based installation with the minimal amount of additional fuss. There are other approaches that give you a more “vanilla” Arch (archinstall, archfi, etc.) but having a graphical installation environment makes things look easier to new users, and providing a sensible set of defaults means they can’t be confused by the various options. (Ever read the Bootloader page on the Arch wiki?)

Making an excellent distribution easier to access means more people use it, and the more people who use it the more bugs and issues that are found and fixed.

Ubuntu was originally teased as “Ubuntu means I can’t configure Debian”; many Arch derivatives are the same. But whereas Ubuntu diverged significantly from Debian, the big difference with close Arch derivatives is that they are actually close, so issues can be replicated, reported, and fixed in Arch. Derivatives get the early new users, Arch gets to focus on doing its thing (but picking up more experienced users over time as/when they realise they don’t need a graphical installer any more and migrate to “Arch proper”).

This means there’s a nice virtuous circle of improvement, where different parts of the ecosystem are working in concert to improve things for everyone. For example, dalto’s excellent btrfs-assistant that was developed as a result of (and as a replacement for) Garuda’s inclusion of Timeshift for BTRFS snapshots.

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In the early 2000s, there were four, or five traditional distributions along with Slackware. Arch started exactly when the different descendants of these said distros were created, so it meant a different way.

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