I am wondering if I should try switching to an arch based distro because many fellow linux users keep recommending I do so. I am very used to using ubuntu at this point and I don’t care for learning new commands but I am told arch is better because it’s easy to customize and the package manager is easier. What are your thoughts on this?
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Particularly the Arch crowd is very quick to advertise Arch Linux, it is a meme by now.
Unless you find something you are unhappy with in Kubuntu, I honestly do not think it is necessary to switch.
However of course there is nothing wrong with testing other distros in a VM if you want.
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I like Arch because I rarely run into a situation where I have to install something any other way than using my package manager. If it’s not in the official repositories, it’s almost certainly in the AUR.
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I have been using Arch for many years and I would choose it every time over Kubuntu.
But…why would you switch away from something you are satisfied with? That seems silly.
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I don’t know to be honest. Some of my pro-arch friends seem hellbent are getting me to switch despite me being satisfied with Kubuntu.
Depends what you’re trying to achieve by switching. You’ll need deeper understanding of what packages you want/need and knowing how you want them configured.
Arch isn’t designed to be easy. Kubuntu is. If you don’t have a reason to switch, staying is fine.
I used archinstall and it was relatively easy. Spent a while finding out how I wanted to make the system. I used the minimal install and added packages on top of that, rather than selecting a DE.
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i personally test distros in the live environment since it will work at a similiar speed as if i had actauly installed it
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I started out with Ubuntu, then Mint - I enjoyed Debian and there are still a few things that I miss about it…
This idea about ‘easy to customize’ - pretty meaningless in my opinion, if you had things you wanted to do that were possible in Arch, then you would be better off using a more specific phrase.
I used Mint before we had Flatpaks… so for me, it was definitely the AUR that drew me in, I was using ‘home theater’ software which appeared in the AUR but wasn’t available via PPA.
A few years later, it did appear as a Flatpak - before it died out (replaced in the end with Plex-HTPC) though now I rely on AUR to pull in my plex server and plex-htpc packages.
Overall, saying the package manager is ‘easier’ makes little sense… You can use nala on Debian, and that’s a lovely script (looks and feels nicer than apt)…
I do enjoy that I don’t need to hunt for repositories to get important updates to packages (qbittorrent always needed a PPA, for example)…
But this means I get more frequent updates which are smaller, and possibly require interactions… as opposed to my experience with Mint - generally stable until the big upgrade, when it was usually simpler to ‘refresh’ with a clean install and re-import those settings.
I had more problems with apt, broken and held back stuff and horrible breakages, than I have ever had with pacman - so I prefer pacman… but not because it’s ‘easier’.
With abbreviations, the idea that you must ‘learn new commands’ is an odd kind of hurdle, it’s not hard to work out…
If you think it is, then you should stick to what you have… though I don’t really like Kubuntu.
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There is no one distro that is best for everyone.
Arch may be the best choice for your friends but that doesn’t mean it is the best choice for you.
My advice would be don’t worry about what your friends think and use what you enjoy.
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I switched from (k)ubuntu to arch about 7-8 years ago now because I was sick of every major ubuntu upgrade destroying my system in weird ways when I really just wanted system updates and riding non-LTS versions. I’d read about rolling operating systems being easier to upgrade, and for the most part this is true of Arch I’d say, but some very real annoyances too.
My biggest issue with Arch is that you can upgrade fully one day, and 2 days later to go install something minor or large, and you’ll start getting 404 errors that it can’t find a common package anymore. This means maintainers updated that package to newer dependencies after you upgraded and then, and your specific version for your snapshot in time is no longer available on repos. You have three choices, ideally either upgrade your whole system as recommended again, probably with a full reboot, and then install whatever you wanted, or do a partial upgrade and get what you need/want, but probably break your os and other apps in weird ways that aren’t immediately noticeable.
The third more dubious option is to just find an AUR git package of whatever you’re looking for that will compile it against whatever you have currently cleanly, but at some point you should move it from a -git to a mainline package when you get around to a full upgrade again, and occasionally look for any -git packages to remove during upgrades. Sometimes these are far older than a mainline version too, sometimes newer, so it’s a bit of a crap shoot.
Arch is a harder learning curve, but I’ve not had to rebuild my system entirely and have only hit some really nasty upgrade issues maybe 2 or 3 times I can think of, usually related the devil^H^H^H^H^HNvidia drivers. I don’t think I’ve ever NOT found software I’ve needed in mainline repos or AUR at least, and usually works great to install and run most anything.
Otherwise, would I ever go back to Kubuntu from Arch? Not for a main desktop, but I still use (k)ubuntu vm’s or containers for servers or testing desktop apps as more commonly available and easy to quickly install a vm for testing, so it has a place. My goal is to move to an immutable os and mostly run apps out of distrobox next time I rebuild my main rig for the best of all worlds, but I can’t really find any ideal immutable distro options that handle raid1 well last I looked. I think only suse did oddly, and I was more surprised that anyone still uses or makes suse than anything.
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Only thing I can say is I used to be a kubuntu user, mainly because I tried vanilla Arch and I failed, but I recently changed into EOS and it’s been a breeze ever since. I very much prefer using pacman and AUR helper yay and all of that, instead of the fedora package managers that always confused me. I’d recommend you give it a try, I wasn’t disappointed.
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Basically the same for me, used Ubuntu based distros many years but they annoyed me finally one time to much. First after that I wanted to give Debian a try but the live iso (back then) had immediately a Kernel panic.
I looked at some Arch based distros websites and then decided to go for the original instead.
Had to install Arch two times because I made to some errors, even using the supposedly easier Archinstall (a early version) but after some more Archwiki readings I managed the second installation. As my installation mistakes were Hardware related testing on a VM first would not have helped. It works for me since (630 days as of today) with only one, thankfully quick and easy to resolve breakage. Would recommend to install something like Timeshift and known howto chroot into just in case, if you want to go the Arch (based) rolling route, though.
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AUR is entirely user maintained, with almost no oversight, and as such it is not supported by Arch core devs and unsafe for newcomers. AUR has an ongoing and growing issues with malware as Arch popularity increases and there is no good defense mechanism in sight other than avoiding AUR if you are new to Arch. So it’s irresponsible to lure new users to Arch because “it’s almost certainly in the AUR”.
And then…
… the Arch community is too pushy, too combative and too elitist for my tastes.
While I have personal reasons to avoid K/Ubuntu these days and I’d much rather use Fedora, if Kubuntu works for you then there is zero reason to switch. Don’t do this unless you have your own reasons.
Arch is too over-hyped anyway. I ran Geekbench on my custom Windows 11 build against CachyOS, dual boot on the same hardware of course, in January this year and Cachy was quite slower in both single threaded and multi-threaded CPU tests. Fedora and Kubuntu are just as fast as Arch and more stable to boot. Other than for bragging rights I see no reasons to use Arch.
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Let’s return to the first message:
Succumbing to peer pressure is a bad reason do to anything. Arch is good, but so is Kubuntu — in different ways.
You should switch from Kubuntu to Arch if you encounter specific problems that are unique to Kubuntu and cannot be easily resolved without switching distros, or if Arch offers unique benefits that look attractive or useful to you.
Otherwise, be happy with what you’ve got. Worrying about there being something better over the next hill is a path to permanent anxiety.
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So let’s look at the differences between Kubuntu and Arch, and why someone would use one over the other. Here are the basic things you cannot change:
Kubuntu
- Discrete releases: one every 2 years for LTS versions, one every 6 months for non-LTS versions. This means versions of software provided in the main repos may be old — including drivers for fancy new hardware. Up to a few months old for non-LTS versions, and up to a few years old for LTS versions. System upgrades involve a process of going from one discrete release to another one; it’s different from what happens when you do
sudo apt upgradeto get minor updates. - User-focused; includes Plasma and some apps set up sensibly by default. Designed to be more or less “plug and play”.
- Debian-based; broad compatibility with the Debian-based ecosystem.
Arch
- Rolling releases with no discrete releases of the whole distro. Updates trickle in as their developers make them available. There are no “system upgrades”; system upgrades are just large normal upgrades.
- DIY-focused; You build your own system out of the pieces you need. There are some helper tools like
archinstallbut you the user are still expected to be the administrator of your own system, and install and remove the pieces you want. The responsibility for both system stability and the final UX is yours, and yours alone. - Arch ecosystem; .deb packages from random other sources won’t work; instead there’s the Arch User Repository, a comprehensivle wild west of random Arch-compatible packages, but with greater system of system breakage if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Other differences between the two operating systems are not hugely significant as you can change them yourself (e.g. if you don’t like that Kubuntu ships with Snap rather than Flatpak, you can easily change that).
So. What does this mean? You have to understand your own intentions and desires to be able to make an informed decision regarding which operating system might be most suitable for you. Here’s a little table that might help:
| Intentions and desires | Kubuntu | Arch |
|---|---|---|
| Ultimate goal | “It just works” | “Total control over the final result” |
| Tolerance for old software | High | Low |
| Tolerance for breakage from new versions | Low | High |
| Fanciness/newness of hardware | Not very new or fancy | Very new or fancy |
| Desire to tinker | Low to medium (too much tinkering will de-stabilize major system upgrades) | High to extreme |
| Need for 3rd-party .deb-packaged software | Yes | No |
This is not to say that either of these operating systems might be the ideal one for you. It’s simply a comparison of the two against one another.
Hopefully that helps!
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i use kubuntu (btw 
) and i’m still on the plasma 5 version LTS track.
it does all the things i need to do and is solid with no drama.
only consider moving to arch if you need a new hobby.
there are no “customizations” that you can do in arch that you cannot do in kubuntu, it’s only a matter of will.
i say if you have something that works for you then WORK and get on with your life.
also, to @anonnetuser point about the AUR … it’s the wild west in there and unless you have some itch to go back to the hellscape of windows security issues, you are far better off avoiding that snakepit
native packages from your distro maintainers, flatpak or snap if you need a newer version, app image if you can get it directly from the developer, or build the package yourself to be ultra safe.
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Not sure if it’s the same now - for me it was Mint for a while after Ubuntu, but same story - major upgrades I just didn’t bother at all… I had backups, just did a fresh install and spent a day getting my configs back and reinstalling stuff… but with Manjaro - more frequent updates, but mostly just smaller updates… and as long as you keep it properly synchronised, read the news, deal with the basic maintenance - it won’t break.
Lack of atomicity destroys updates. It’s why people keep having issues with their Mint or Kubuntu or Fedora or whatever exploding when they upgrade the system.
What does that mean? It means if update transactions are not “atomic” —which is to say, they either succeed 100% or fail 100% and take no effect — then you can easily end up in a situation where your system breaks when upgraded. Say one package has installed its new files but fails a post-install hook. Oops! Now the system is in an inconsistent state, with files from the new package but the system thinks the old package is still installed. If you get unlucky, this will destroy the system.
This is my personal reason for deciding to never again trust operating systems that aren’t image-based.
What does that mean? “Image-based” means the entire OS is updated all at once, by downloading a new OS image and then booting into it. There are practically no ways this can go wrong on your system, and by virtue of needing a place to download the new image to, it means you always have two OS images on disk and can roll back to the older one if the newer one has bugs you can’t live with or the distributor messed up and it isn’t bootable.
Yes, this model has limitations, but it’s safe by design, and to me that’s worth it. Personally I now only recommend OSs that work this way.
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If you are talking about Endeavour OS I avoid that as it installed to the wrong drive and wiped out my PCLOS Debian Plasma install.
That’s an interesting trauma response.