 So, I came across this story today on my subreddit. The title of this particular post on my subreddit over at r slash distro tube. The title reads, getting reeled for using a video to install Arch. So, I'm not going to read the whole post here, but he writes that he downloaded the March ISO of Arch Linux and he installed it in a virtual machine and he installed it using DT's older install videos, which were about two years ago. The last time I did a Arch Linux installation on camera, as far as the full installation, reading the wiki, was about two years ago, but that video is still relevant today. It still includes all the steps to install Arch Linux. So, he's followed my video and he's installed Arch at least once, maybe multiple times, I don't know, in virtual machines, maybe even on physical equipment and he was over on the Arch Linux subreddit over at r slash Arch Linux and someone, I guess, was asking about how to install Arch Linux as far as, you know, he didn't want to just use the wiki and the guy suggested, hey, go watch DT's videos, the DT Arch Linux installation video. Just follow that, you'll be fine. And he got a lot of backlash from that, from him suggesting to go watch a video of a Arch Linux installation rather than telling someone to go read the effing manual, right? Go read the wiki. If you're not installing Arch Linux the Archway by reading the wiki, you're doing it wrong. And the author of this post, he goes on to write, yeah, it's a great document, the Arch wiki, but I also think it's missing some steps. Some of the things DT did in his video are not on today's wiki, but I think DT was reading from the wiki while doing that installation. So in the last couple of years, they have changed the wiki, I think, and removed those steps. So the wiki is a living document, it's constantly being changed. People are adding stuff, deleting stuff. So wikis do change as far as me doing extra steps on my installation videos. Yeah, because the Arch Linux installation, the guide on the wiki is just that. It's a guide, but it's kind of a basic format, a basic template, a basic guideline to follow because Arch Linux is designed for you to install Arch Linux in whatever manner you so choose as far as you format the disk using whatever tool you want to format the disk with. They suggest F disk. But in my videos, some of my videos, I use CF disk, you could use CG disk or F disk or parted or whatever it is you want to use. Again, the wiki reads one thing, but that doesn't mean there's not 10 other ways you could also accomplish the same thing. So that's why in some of my videos, I do different things than what's in the wiki because they're using tools I'm not familiar with or they're suggesting tools to use that I'm not familiar with. So I use the tools that I'm familiar with. And sometimes I add extra steps that I think are important like I know, like the networking issue. So many people have problems, especially with Wi-Fi if you're installing on laptops. And a lot of times I cover things, extra steps that are not really mentioned in the Arch installation wiki, such as going ahead and installing network manager, because that really does kind of solve all of your networking problems, just installing that package. The author of this post he goes on to write, seriously, I'm getting a little perturbed with the fellows over at R slash Arch Linux for dumping on content creators like DT and others who provide a valuable service to the Arch Linux community. Well, I would agree in that regard. I do think that in many ways we do provide a valuable resource of more valuable assets to Arch Linux, the Arch Linux community. And really just Linux in general is because we're actually helping people get through these installations. Right. How many people do you think have probably installed Arch Linux by following along some of my videos? Hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands. I don't know. A lot of people have installed Arch Linux following along with my video. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Honestly, it's not necessarily a black and white kind of issue. I can understand why the Arch Linux guys have problems with people following guides that are not official guides as far as it's not from their website. It's not instructions that they control, right? The wickey is theirs. But, you know, if you're following along a video from DT, you're following an Arch Linux installation from a blog post, you know, that person could be giving you some very bad information that could be outdated information. Now, is it wrong to install Arch by using a video or a blog as your guide? Well, for me, I would say no, it's not wrong. As long as you understand the commands, the one thing I will stress, if you do not understand the commands that are being posted in that blog that you're reading, or if you don't understand the commands that DT is entering on his video, on his Arch installation video, that's a problem. If you don't understand every single command, you should go read the wiki, right? My video is to help speed up the process a little bit so you don't have to read as much. But I'm hoping you at least know what these commands do, right? So when I do the FDIS commands to partition the drive, you should know what those commands actually do. When I do the make file system command to make my file system, you should know what it does. Or when I install grub and then make the grub config, it's really important that you understand what that does. And the reason is sometimes you have to come back and do these steps again. Sometimes Linux installations, especially rolling release distributions like Arch Linux, sometimes they break. For example, grub is a package that sometimes will break and you will have to go back and reinstall grub and remake the grub config just exactly the way you did in the original Arch Linux installation, assuming you did it the Arch way. If you've never run through a Arch Linux installation, you never entered those commands yourself and actually knew what those commands meant. Then if you ever have to enter them down the road to fix a broken grub, for example, you're not gonna know what to do. So I'm all four people following my videos to install Arch Linux or following articles and blogs to install Arch Linux. As long as you know the commands, ultimately though, it's a good idea to always follow along with the ArchWiki and to constantly go and search for things in the ArchWiki. Anytime I have a problem I need to solve, there's some topic about Linux that I don't know much information about, I go search the ArchWiki. It's the best Wiki for Linux-y information, right? And Arch Linux, the whole distribution Arch Linux is really designed to teach you. Arch Linux is not designed just to be another Linux distribution everybody installs and it's just a great distribution. It is a great Linux distribution. But really Arch Linux, I believe a primary purpose of Arch Linux, especially the way the installation is laid out being a command line installation is designed for education, right? It's designed to actually teach you everything about Linux. And you miss out on a big part of the whole reason to use Arch Linux if you just skip over that educational process. Now of course, many Linux users don't actually wanna learn about Linux. They just wanna install an operating system and use it and that's fine. If you wanna install Arch Linux and you really don't wanna learn anything about it, that's fine but ask yourself this, since Arch Linux is really meant to teach you about Linux but you don't wanna learn about Linux, why are you trying to use Arch Linux? Like you're kind of using the wrong tool for what you wanna do. Why not install something like Manjaro or Arco or Garuda or Endeavor? All of these great Arch Linux based distributions that make Arch more user friendly, right? It's much more a new user friendly Arch Linux based distributions rather than trying to use something that's much more deep, much more involved and really is designed to make you have to learn and if you're not interested in it, again, you're probably installing Arch Linux for completely the wrong reasons and it kind of sets you up for a lot of heartache, a lot of pain because I see this all the time on distributions like Arch Linux, like Gen2. These are distributions that are for much more advanced users. You know, they're a little deep, right? They're a little involved. You really gotta get your hands dirty and get under the hood and do a lot of things at the command line with things like Arch and Gen2 and there are way too many people that are using those distributions because I see them post on help forms, things like that. There are way too many people using things like Arch and Gen2 that really have no idea about Linux in general, right? Because some of these people just followed a guy. They followed a video, a DT installing Arch or DT installing Gen2, they just entered the same commands and at the end of the day, yeah, they're running Arch, they're running Gen2 but they really don't know how to maintain it. They really don't know how to use it after the installation because the installation really is not the hard part about distributions like Arch or Gen2. It's actually using it from that point forward. It's maintaining it, right? Because things will break how you fix them and you're gonna be way behind the learning curve if you skipped over, especially that installation guide for distributions like Arch for distributions like Gen2. Now that being said, I have noticed that Arch Linux, their community, they've kind of softened their stance a little bit on the whole idea of Arch should only be installed using the command line installation process, rating the Arch wiki because now Arch Linux even has a easy installer. They have a guided installer called Arch install, all one word and it's pretty much like a standard Linux installation like an in-curses installer or whatever where you just go through a menu system or whatever, you choose some things and boom, you're done. Even Arch now offers a way for people to quickly install Arch without having to go through the Arch wiki and learning how to partition the drives and all of that. Ultimately, I wouldn't let people on the internet whether it be people in the Arch Linux subreddit or on Discord or IRC or wherever, people on the internet are just gonna act nasty sometimes and why do some of these people in like the Archforms, Arch subreddit, why do they clown on people for installing Arch the wrong way? Well, a lot of these people are just internet trolls. You find internet trolls everywhere on the internet. Arch Linux is no different, right? There's gonna be some people that just hang out on these forums and these subreddits that just wanted to degrade other people and you installing Arch, I guess, the wrong way gives them an excuse to be mean and nasty to you, right? And they do that because for whatever reason their lives are kind of messed up in some way. They really kind of hate their own lives and they wanna make other people feel miserable to maybe help prop themselves up in some way. There's a lot of damaged people out there in the world. This is not an Arch Linux problem, right? That's just the nature of society in general and of course, that's the nature of the internet. So don't let those kinds of people color Arch Linux the community the wrong way, right? They're giving Arch Linux a really bad rep that I don't think it deserves. And of course, in every community, you've got your gatekeepers. Some of these people, some of these people that give you the RTFM and you didn't install Arch the right way, they're just gatekeepers because they installed Arch the Arch way back in the day and they wanna maintain their little special club and if other people can install Arch in some other ways, maybe some easier ways, then it doesn't seem like they're as special. You know, they're not as elite, right? And that is a problem for some people, but again, you have gatekeepers in every community. All in all though, I don't think this is an issue. However you wanna install Arch Linux, whether it be following the Wiki, following one of my videos, following somebody's blog post, you make your own choices in that. The only thing I would say is if you're doing Arch the command line way, absolutely make sure you understand every command you entered during the installation. You should never enter a command at the command line if you don't know what that command does because potentially somebody could be posting something on the internet as a Arch Linux installation guide, but it's really damaging your machine or it's installing some kind of malware. You never know, right? You never know. So make sure you understand each and every command. Other than that, I don't care how you get Arch Linux installed. As long as you get it installed and you're happy, go with it. Now before I go, I wanna thank a few special people. I wanna thank the producers of this episode. Gabe James Maxim, Mahomi's Too Bald, Matt Mimic, Mitchell, Paul, Role West, Armored Dragon, Bash Potato, Chuck Commander, Ingrid George, Lee Methos, Nate, Erion, Paul, Bees Orch, Mdore, Polytech, Reality's for Less Red Prophet, Roland, Tools, Devler, William, Zenibet. These guys, they're my highest tiered patrons. Over on Patreon, without these guys, this little rant about installing Arch Linux, the Arch way, it wouldn't have been possible. The show's also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen, all these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon. I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work and wanna see more videos about Linux and free and open source software, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. All right guys, peace.