First time Linux user
Knows nothing about the choices you make in Arch to personalize your system
“Yes, Arch is the one for me! Because I know everything about Linux already.”
Soon: “I don’t know why X is happening on my system”
If the steam deck keep growing in popularity, Arch is going to be the first linux for a lot of people.
Just because SteamOS is based on Arch now doesn’t mean that using SteamOS teaches you anything about using Linux or Arch specifically.
The SteamDeck literally obfuscates most of it and you have to choose to boot into desktop mode to even mess with anything.
Anyone who can install windows can install Arch using something like EndeavourOS (which, for people who don’t know, is literally just Arch, using a graphical installer and some sane defaults for a desktop PC (Plasma, pipewire, Wayland, etc etc))
You don’t have to do the intimidating “boot from Arch live install medium and install everything manually” on your first run (or ever). I really only do that when I’m setting up a server. For a desktop, EndeavourOS takes a fraction of the time to get going.
Plain Arch has a super easy TUI installer now. There’s no need to manually install it anymore except in speed-run competitions.