I just downloaded and run the newest ArchLabs 2017-12 on my DELL Precision 3520 laptop. It works pretty well and all my hardware are detected and run properly. But we still found many uncomfortable experiences while running this ArcLabs 2017-12 on my laptop. Well, ArchLabs is an Arch based Linux distribution with Openbox desktop environment. It comes with a simple and clean desktop though. Also, it still needs a lot of improvements for some sections. It would take some times to understand some features or settings on ArchLabs. If this is your first Linux, I bet you won’t love it. But it will turn into a fun and challenging experiences after you spend some times on it.
ArchLabs 2017-12 Desktop
Personally I do love the wallpaper and the top polybar. On the most left side of the polybar, you can find a little App launcher icon. I was thought that I can access any installed applications on Arch Linux. In fact, you can also access the apps using right click menu. The right click mouse on the desktop will open a more complete menu than the launcher on the top left I mentioned. There is also another launcher which can be opened using CTRL+Space combination.
The Preferences and Settings
This section is the one that I do not like so much. There are too many settings and preferences on ArchLabs. For you who loves to play with the desktop looks, and eye candy desktop then you will love this distro. ]But for an average user, this can be a bit confusing.
As you can see from above picture, you can configure settings for Openbox, Polybar, Conky, Tint2, and some others. This can be a quite complicated for new users.
Software Manager
Like any other Arc based Linux distribution, ArchLabs has a simple package manager called Pacli. Hmm…well this is another pain for me. I spend some times to try this package manager and I still had issues with this Pacli. Is there any better way to do this?
Install ArchLabs 2017-12
Well, I don’t think that I can be more productive with ArchLabs installed on my laptop. But if you want to install it on your pc, do not expect a nice and neat GUI installer. ArchLabs 2017-12 comes with a text based installer. Well, I wonder why they still uses this kind of installer in 2017? But yeah, that’s all we have here.
Final Thoughts
I wrote many bad things and probably uses bad words here. But I didn’t mean to be sarcastic. ArchLabs 2017-12 is just not for me. I don’t think this will be on my laptop for a long time. It probably beautiful, easy to use on the right hands. But for people like me, this is too difficult and it takes more time for me to learn it. At the end, I just want to say thank you to ArchLabs developers who spent many hours. I always respect their dedication to the Linux community.
Please support ArchLinux development by supporting them via Patreon. You can download the latest ArchLabs ISO from this link.
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