whats so good about arch compared to linux mint?

There’s nothing inherently superior, just what people like more. If you want to use Mint that’s totally fine and valid.

Moved over from Mint to Arch for gaming, which has some additional benefits:

• more up-to-date kernel and more up-to-date Mesa, which brings very noticeable improvements in frame rates - in Elden Ring for example, 45 fps outside in Mint to 60 fps outside on Arch

• my desktop soundcard isn't recognised properly by PulseAudio but is by PipeWire. It's hard to be sure that PulseAudio is completely gone when you uninstall it then reinstall something else. Arch, I just installed what I wanted in the first place

• some utility programmes, like CoreCtrl for graphics card fan and power tweaking, and emulators like RPCS3, are the Arch repositories but not the Mint ones. Much easier to keep them up-to-date

• for a gaming machine, no more 'mystery services' that I don't know what they are. I quite like having everything quite stripped back for a gaming machine. On Arch, I know what everything does because I installed it. That's not the case on Mint.

Obviously, I installed the Cinnamon desktop as my GUI choice - there's certain things about Mint that are tremendous and worth sticking to.

For me, it's:

• All software is shipped with as few changes as possible from upstream, so I'm getting the software as intended. If there's an issue, it's likely due to the software, not my distribution's unicorn configuration.
• Pacman. This includes PKGBUILDs, syntax, and speed.
• Good support. For all that this distribution isn't "the standard", you find install instructions in places you wouldn't expect, and more difficult things tend to work on Arch more easily than on other distributions.
• Easy to set new things up. Because Arch doesn't ship with much configuration, there's no existing configuration you need to investigate in order to wrangle it to work with something new. This is also a downside, but we'll get to that...
• Inertia. I installed it a few years ago, and I kind of want to move to openSUSE or Fedora, but I'm too comfortable here.

Downsides:

• You need to configure everything. That includes the security stuff like AppArmor and SELinux you don't understand.
• Occasional breakages. Arch doesn't break that often, but it's annoying when it does. Usually visiting bbs.archlinux.org is enough to set you on the right path.
• Some software is packaged more slowly than other rolling distributions. Notably, GNOME is usually packaged a few months after openSUSE and Fedora ship it.
• Constant updates! And HUGE updates, at that! Not great for computers you don't use often. If you do, make sure to pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring before you install new updates.

Arch and Gentoo have IMO the best documentation ever and you learn a lot when you try using either of those distributions as you have to do everything from scratch starting from a minimal system. Since you're saying you're new to Linux though, I'd say you should start with something more user-friendly like Mint or Ubuntu (or even Manjaro if you want a rolling release distro) and stay away from Arch and Gentoo in the beginning.

Arch and Mint target a different user base. Mint is more appropriate for the beginning Linux user who wants to wade slowly into using Linux. It's for somebody that is coming from an entire GUI experience like Windows. This person may have no understanding of partitions, filesystems, bootloaders, etc. Arch is going to be more appropriate for either an intermediate to advanced user of Linux that wants more control over their installation or a Windows user that understands the more complex topics around the way a computer operates.

The above said, it is very possible to do advanced things with Mint as well and I have in the past. I just want to have a leaner system that does not make assumptions about what I want or need. I want fairly strict control of what goes into my installation but not strict enough that I would need to do something like Linux From Scratch. Both Mint and Arch are excellent distributions! In fact, I would go as far to say as I like all open source operating systems and software by the nature that they're open sourced. They can be customized, expanded, etc. I would also advise people to mix some FreeBSD and OpenBSD in their homelabs if possible because the more you can learn, the better. OpenBSD is my firewall and advanced router. FreeBSD powers my blog. Arch powers my desktop and Mastodon and Lemmy instances.

That's essentially an extremely subjective question. Arch is well-liked but not for everyone.

When you boot up the ArchLinux ISO to install it, what you get on the screen is:

root@archiso ~ #

That's it. It doesn't ask you what language you want to speak or which keyboard layout you want to use. You get a zsh shell, and that's it. Go figure out what you want to install, how you want to install it, where you want to install it to. That's how basically all of Arch works: if you install something, it comes barebones with sometimes the default starting configuration shipped by whoever made the software and nothing else.

To me, that's what makes Arch so good compared to something like Linux Mint: I'm an advanced user, I don't want training wheels, and I want to build my system entirely from scratch, with only what I want on it installed and running. And it comes with excellent documentation, is a rolling release (meaning, you get the latest version of everything fairly quickly). Since Arch pretty much only ships packages for you to install, it's not nearly as important to make sure that they work and there isn't any incompatibility with other packages. Oh the newer version of X doesn't work with Y anymore? Too bad, go figure out how to downgrade it or figure out a workaround.

Is this useful to you, a beginner? It depends. If you want to go into the deep ends and learn everything about how a Linux system is built and works, sure, it's going to be great for that. Lots of people do that and love it! If you're coming from Windows, all you're used to is clicking next next finish, and you like things to just work out of the box, eehh, probably not great for you.

Distributions like Linux Mint does a lot of the work for you: first of all, it has a graphical installer. It boots up and asks you about your language, your keyboard, where you want to install it. And it installs a system that's ready to be used out of the box. When you install Linux Mint, you get a desktop, a web browser, you get drivers configured for you. It detects what's the best graphics drivers and prompts you to install them automatically.

Most distributions, especially Debian/Ubuntu derived ones, are all about providing a curated experience. It comes with a whole bunch of stuff installed and configured to reasonable defaults. Need to print something? Yeah it comes with printer support by default, just plug in your printer and it'll configure it for you. Some distributions even comes with Steam and Discord and everything needed to game ready to go right out of the box. Log in and play.

To provide such a reliable and out of the box experience, these distributions typically work with a release cycle, or delay updates to have time to properly test them out and make sure they work correctly before they ship it out to users. This means you may be a few versions behind on your desktop environment, but you also get the assurance you won't update and your desktop doesn't work anymore.

I personally picked Arch a long time ago because I'm fundamentally a tinkerer, I want the newest version of everything even if it means breaking things temporarily, and I do kind of whacky things overall. One day my laptop is there for working and browsing the web, another day it's an iPXE server to install 20 other computers, another day it's a temporary router/WiFi access point, another day it's a media center/TV box, another day it's an Android tablet. Arch gives me the freedom to make my computer do whatever I need my computer to do at the moment, and because it doesn't make any assumptions about what I want to do with my computer, I can easily make it do all of those things on a whim. On Linux Mint, I'd be fighting an uphill battle to tear down everything the developers spent so much time building for me and my convenience.

For everyone saying the wiki, you don't have to be an Arch user to love the wiki. I'm on Solus but use the Arch wiki frequently.

I use mint and I really like it. It's an easy familiar transition from windows.

Arch is for user's who want to start with a completely blank slate. Like there's no file system when you start, as far as I know. Think of arch like windows but nothing is installed, not even explorer.exe

Arch is always "latest and greatest" for every package, including the kernel. It lets you tinker, and it's always up to date. However, a rolling release introduces more ways to break your system - things start conflicting under the hood in ways that you weren't aware of, configurations that worked don't any longer, etc.

This is in contrast to everything built on Debian, which Mint is one example of - Mint adds a bunch of conveniences on top, but the underlying "how it all fits together" is still Debian. What Debian does is to set a target for stable releases and ship a complete set of known-stable packages. This makes it great for set and forget uses, servers that you want to just work and such. And it was very important back in the 90's when it was hard to get Internet connectivity. But it also means that it stays behind the curve with application software releases, by periods of months to a year+. And the original workaround to that is "just add this other package repository" which, like Arch, can eventually break your system by accident.

But neither disadvantage is as much of a problem now as it used to be. More of the software is relatively stable, and the stuff you need to have the absolute latest for, you can often find as a flatpak, snap, or appimage - formats that are more self-contained and don't rely on the dependencies that you have installed, just "download and run."

Most popular distros now are Arch or Debian flavored - same system, different veneer. Debian itself has become a better option for desktop in recent years just because of improvements to the installer.

I've been using Solus 4.4 lately, which has its own rolling-release package system. Less software, but the experience is tightly designed for desktop, and doesn't push me to open terminals to do things like the more classical Unix designs that guide Arch and Debian. The problem both of those face as desktops is that they assume up-front that you may only have a terminal, so the "correct way" of doing everything tends to start and end with the terminal, and the desktop is kind of glued on and works for some things but not others.

Arch has the newest software, whereas most of Linux Mint's software is usually a few years out of date except for security patches.

Arch is also a lot more "DIY" compared to Linux Mint's "It Just Works"

mostly that it does not use dpkg and the repos do not support partial upgrades - so no dep hell

The community and wiki.

One of arch's things is it's a rolling release distro, which means that every bit of arch is updated as soon as an update is available for it. Mint on the other hand tests the package updates before they release it to make sure its stable, but this results in the packages being out of date.

Well, Arch is not inherently better, it depends on your needs. If you want up-to-date packages and don't mind the do it yourself approach you'll love Arch. I've used Arch for a few years and learned a lot from it. I love the minimalism. Now I switched to a minimal install of Sway on Debian because I just want a tried and tested stable system. I am at a point of my life where I want a really boring install. Instead of tinkering with the system I use it as a base to learn more on the server side, and learn more coding, etc

Arch teaches you about the inner workings of Linux. Mostly because it breaks all the time and you have to fix it.

Do you mean Arch the distro, or Arch the platform, like how Ubuntu's and Mint's platform is Debian?

Package base is always up to date since it's rolling. The AUR is absolutely fantastic and gives me any obscure application I could ever need. You ever tried installing the marathon trilogy with alephone on fedora? The AUR makes it a single button install. I'm currently running endeavour OS plasma, such a smooth experience.

I use Crystal Linux, which is Arch based.

I've tried Mint along with 10 other distros. What I liked about Arch is:

• Latest Kernel, always. This means new drivers, better support for your current devices and support for more devices. Security & performance patches.
• AUR. Massive repo of user submitted apps & libs most not found elsewhere.
• Arch WiKi. Everything you will need or want to do somebody else already did and documented it so everyone else can have a guide to do it. Best documentation site ever.
• Arch Repo. Always the latest Software. Officially maintained apps and libs land first on Arch, Debian & Ubuntu derivatives take ages to catch up in comparison.

*btw

Just to chime in, I first tried arch because some youtuber I followed recommended it, but after 5 years I would say I've stayed with it for the AUR and the community. The AUR has almost every app I've ever needed, and whenever I have a problem there's always a solution on one forum or another, to the point where I can usually just copy and paste it into the terminal and it's solved!

Customization, lots of apps (via aur), no bloat

The AUR

Different strokes for different folks mostly.

Arch is a rolling release, meaning everytime something changes in a package or dependency, there's an update.

Mint is a stable release, and gets major updates every few months, with much more frequent security updates, but yeah, it's not an everyday thing like with Arch

While I don't like saying "this is better than that", since Arch is a rolling release, it's always up to date, and so you're not going to end up in a situation like "my built-in laptop sound card isn't getting picked up" (i mean, you might, but it's rare. After all, Arch can break sometimes times, just like everything, really) like you sometimes can with Mint and other stable distros. Also, Arch--well, vanilla Arch and something like Endeavour--comes with just the basics and everything else, you gotta add. I personally like this because I like knowing exactly what I'm installing and having only what I'm going to use...and also not deal with messing with PPA's. This isn't a point against non-Arch distros or anything, it's all just personal preference--but really, everything from "Should I do Arch with Cinnamon or something like Mint or Fedora's Cinnamon Spin?" is all up to personal preference

I think my issue with Mint is the small team maintaining the cinnamon fork that clearly can't keep up with the desktop.

Otherwise mint is functionally Ubuntu. I preferred Debian for my stable stuff. I like arch currently because PKGBUILD was acomparatively easy package format to learn and modify. Rolling is nice but I've used Debian extensively as well.

If you like extra config work you'll love Arch relative to Mint.

It's also a meme because people who are on Arch like to tell you about it because it makes them seem better since it's not easy mode.

Kinda like vegans or Android users.

I'm on Manjaro an arch based distro BTW.