… to deviate from the mainstream. Even when the mainstream is Linux, which is already a deviation from the mainstream. Ya, sometimes it pays to go that little but dicisive step further, throw attention to the wind and go for broke. Yesterday was such a day.

Here’s what happened: My usual everyday Linux, my trusty fallback system, the always reliable Mint became even more sluggish than usual. Particularly on OrcNet, my weakling netbook my system came almost to a screeching halt. This couldn’t stand. I know the processor in that thing – although not the fasted on earth – is much faster than most netbook and chromebook processors. So something had to be done. I needed a new Operating System. But since Manjaro and Antergos refuse to install on this machine (kinda like on its big brother) and I wanted a speedy Arch Linux nevertheless, I decided to deviate from the path of reason and sanity and try to install a “real” Arch Linux.

Oh WOW, Orca you fukn stoopit cow-abunga. You can’t do that. Much more geeky, fully grown up men with 1,000 years of experience are usually already failing in the installation process. So how  dare you, how dare you? How dare you to even dream about something that is obviously wayyyyy way wayyyyyyyyyy above your level of techiness? You stinkin’ housewife, PC destroyer, clueless wannabe nerd … how dare you???

Architect Linux to the rescue. This very new distro, isn’t a Linux distro per se, it’s not like Manjaro or Antergos, giving you a more beginners friendly way to get started in the Arch world. No, Architect is nothing but a little bit easier text based installer for a vanilla Arch. This, my friends, this is the real thing! After the installation process you end up in a real Arch linux in its vanilla state. That means you get to choose between all kinds of possible desktop environments, like Gnome, Cinnamon, KDE, and some rather bizarro fringe desktops … and fortunately my absolute fave, the MATE desktop as well. But that’s it. That’s all there is. It is vanilla as it gets, which means it doesn’t come with any further software packages. No office suite, no internet browser, no mailer, no torrent software, no graphics software, no multimedia stuff, no nothing. And while that may be a dealbreaker for most stupid consuments, my readers and me are way too cool to get bothered. Quite the contrary, we are happy to have such a lightweight base system that we can outfit with stuff we want and need, and only the stuff we want and need.

Okay, now you know what you gotta expect when going on the Arch Linux quest. The installation software, Architect, is far from perfect. Or maybe it is, but Orcsi is far from perfect. At some points during the intallation I could only shake my head and fuk it all up. But then I called my very patient and ultra cool husbando and together we managed to install Arch Linux after 3 or 4 tries. Ya, he’s got a very high frustration tolerance and is not giving up as fast and easy as I usually do.

BTW, here’s Matthew Moore, showing us how it’s done … we only wondered what went wrong when we tred it. But all was forgotten after the first successful bootup. 🙂

Anyway, as you might imagine, Orcsi is over the moon with her new fancy system, feeling all clever and smart and like a real girlgeek now.

It’s a weird feeling when you browse the filesystem of your brandnew OS and find … nothing but empty folders. But it’s also kinda fun to populate them with all your favourite shit. Thanks to my former experience with Manjaro Linux I know some of the most important command lines, since you need them now. Here is no Ubuntu software center waiting for you to pick and choose stuff, not even the synaptic thingie. No, you’re operating on the open heart of your machine, you have to know how your fave softwarez are called and what the install command is. As always it’s very very easy … if you know how to. 😉

For example to install the most beloved interwebz browing software in the world you do like this:

sudo pacman -S firefox

Then you wait for 2 minutes press the Enter key a couple times and you’re done and ready to install the next program. It’s really as easy as eating pancakes.

So, wanna know what I have now in my OS?

• Firefox
• Thunderbird
• Abiword
• VLC
• The Gimp
• Qbittorrent
• Banshee
• Gparted

… and of course some inevitable stuff that might have been system imminent already, like a screenshooter, a calculator and of course the Terminal. Oh, you mean that are a lot of programs up there? Lemme tell you they were downloaded and installed in a matter of 10 minutes … tops. And of course more stuff will follow soon I guess. Little helper programs to make my life easier and my desktop prettier.

Without terminal nothing goes in Arch Linux tho, I have to give that to the critics. While In Ubuntu based Linuxes you never, never ever use it, in Arch you can’t do without, sorry.

See that? I’m on Linux kernel 4.1.6. While that’s not even the latest it’s so far ahead of everything *buntu and Co., which are still on 3.16.1.