Linux

I feel like it isn't really specific to arch, every distro has a following, but some are more "passionate" about it than others. I think arch, NixOS, and gentoo are the most notable.

Because there are still people who have not yet seen the light. Once everyone has joined the fold they will not be able to remember why anyone resisted in the first place.

I use Arch because I don't know how to use Debian based distros, I got lost when trying to use Linux Mint or PopOS.

Because of all the programming socks adverts with Arch in the background.

Maybe it's masochism, but I like Arch because it forces me to make mistakes and learn. No default DE, several network management choices, lots of configuration for non-defaults. These are all decisions I have to make, and if I try to cut corners I usually get punished for it.

However, I think the real reason I stick with arch is because this paradigm means that I always feel capable of fixing issues. As people solve the issues they face, forum posts and wiki articles (and sometimes big fixes) get pushed out, and knowledge is shared. That sense of community and building on something I feel like Arch promotes.

The Arch users being so vocal is more of a trope to me. Never fails to make me smile.

Ubuntu started as a great endeavour. They made Linux much more approachable to the less tech inclined user.

It is an achievement to get a distro capable of basically work out of the box that hides the hard/technical stuff under the hood and delivers a working machine, and they did it and popularized Linux in the process.

Unfortunately, they abused the good faith they garnered. The Amazon partnership, their desktop that nobody really enjoyed, the Snap push. These are the ones I was made aware of but I risk there were more issues.

I was a user of Ubuntu for less than six months. Strange as it may sound, after trying SUSE and Debian, when I actively searched for a more friendly distro, I rolled back to Debian exactly because Ubuntu felt awkward.

Ubuntu is still a strong contributor but unless they grow a spine and actually create a product people will want to pay for, with no unpopular or weird options on the direction the OS "must" take, they won't get much support from the wide user community.

Because it just works. I used to love Debian . It had issues with drivers and stuff. Arch just does it for me.

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Because it's awesome. Join us... join us... join us...

I've started with ubuntu/mint and it was always a matter of time before something broke then i tried everything from then all the major distros and found that I loved being on a rolling release with openSUSE Tubleweed (gaming and most new software works better) and BTRFS on Fedora (BTRFS let's you have boot time snapshots you can go back to if anything breaks).

After some research I found I can get both with arch so installed arch as a learning process via the outstanding wiki and have never looked back. Nowadays I just install endevourOS because it's just an arch distro with easy BTRFS setup and easy gui installer was almost exactly like my custom arch cofigs and it uses official arch repos so you update just like arch (unlike manjaro). It's been more stable than windows 10 for me.

Tldr: arch let's you pick exactly what you want in a distro and is updated with the latest software something important if you game with nvidia GPU for example.

So I love Debian but it prides itself on stability so packages tend to be older. I think this is good for a server but probably not great for a desktop. Ubuntu came along and was like we'll be like Debian but newer packages. Everything was cool for a while but then they started doing shitty things. The first that I can think of was ads in the terminal. This was not great for an open source app. Then when you did apt install firefox it installed Firefox as a snap. WTF?!?!? (apt should install .deb files, not snaps). Because of this, lately I've decided to avoid Ubuntu.

I used Gentoo for a while and it was great but configuring and compiling everything took forever. I'm getting too old for that. Arch seems like a good alternative for people who want to mess with their system. So it's become a way for people to claim they know what they are doing without having to recompile everything. (Note: I haven't used Arch, this is just my perception)

Recently I got a new laptop and I had decided to put Linux on it and had to decide what distro. Arch was in consideration but I ended up going with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed because it's got the latest but I don't really have to configure anything. If I had more time, I might go with something like Arch but I don't really want to do that much fiddling right now.

People praising Arch, people hating on Ubuntu, meanwhile me on Debian satisifed with the minimalism.

I don't know about Arch itself on its own but I use CachyOS that is built off it and everything just works for me.

I don't use either now. I have tried both. When I started with Ubuntu i was great; fast, light, all the good stuff. Then it started to get bloated and wouldn't run on my old machine... So I moved to Arch and it saved me and I used it for years.

Ubuntu? Its a can't make up its mind what it is trying to be while always becoming a crashy mess. When it first came out I remember trying it and immediately broke it.

The last time I installed it recently it had issues out of the box.

It's funny because I see the same cult behavior, but for Fedora. I've never understood the point of this distribution that has never worked well for me.

I'm on Manjaro by the way, because I love everything about Arch except the release style.