There is not a single billionaire in the world that has ever done anything worthy of a billion dollars. No single person has ever done a billion dollars worth of work in their entire lifetime. Same is true for most, if not all, multi-millionaires.
Just what about the design philosphy is stupid?
The DIY mindset is stupid.
The lax attitude towards system security is stupid.
The maintenance and micromanagement required of Arch is stupid.
Is it any dumber than what other distros have done?
Yes.
Look at Ubuntu
Ubuntu is also trash. I'd say even worse than Arch, but it is easier to use for newbies comparatively. Debian, not great. Mint, absolute trash.
one of the few rolling distributions that actually stays halfway updated and not 2 years behind like everything else
Plenty of distros that stay up-to-date with any upstream updates.
I mean maybe you need to back and look at what this OS was...back before package managers.
No. I don't. What the OS was before package managers is completely irrelevant to anything.
I prefer the Red Hat/Fedora family of Linux, but I also like, in general, CachyOS (which is Arch-based, I know), NixOS (philosophically similar to Arch but better), and Pop!_OS.
I don't like Arch not because I don't know how to use it - it's not hard; not because it's doing anything unusual; I don't like Arch because it's a time-consuming pain in the ass to setup and maintain. I don't like Arch because they do not give a shit either way about system security or user privacy. I don't like Arch because the Arch maintainers are lazy. I don't like Arch because the community is full of toxic gatekeeping assholes who have an overinflated sense of self-worth.
In my neck of the woods, you need a smartphone just to summon what passes here for public transportation.
All rideshares require a smartphone app to use (either as a driver or passenger), so I'm not sure what your point is. Rideshare apps would also work on this phone.
Also, no one *needs* an EV let alone a vehicle of any kind.
EV apps probably run on this phone just fine.
Unless your banking app requires Google services or web browser to function, the app probably would still work on this "dumb" smart phone.
Nothing against pacman. I even occasionally use an Arch Distrobox to use pacman. Arch does not support SELinux but it does support AppArmor and TOMOYO. However, due to their entire philosophy they neither include any security frameworks nor does their install script/guides mention or suggest using them. At the barest of minimums they should be recommending that users install and configure a security framework - especially in today's age. If users don't want it, fine. But it should be that the user has to say no to it rather than already know about and say yes to it. It would not be difficult at all for the guided install script to ask "Do you want to install and configure a supported security framework? [y/n]" If no, cool, move along. If yes, it pacmans the chosen framework for you and walks you through the basics for configuring it. So, it's Arch's lax attitude towards system security and privacy that I take issue with. Those two should always come first before absolutely anything else.
Personally, I would prefer to not give users the option of not having a security framework, but I understand there can be niche cases where it is entirely unneeded.
No one actually needs a smart phone, nor does a smart phone provide any additional security to anything.
The 'pain' here is that Arch wanted to provide a way for users to manage 'ad hoc' packages within the pacman system and make them available to other users if necessary.
Because Arch's entire design philosophy, and how they go about it, is stupid.
I can find examples of only 4 other linux distros that support an equivalent
And these aren't having any issues. I don't know much about Nix other than it is an immutable distro, probably harder to target. The rest, barely anyone uses. Gentoo, Slackware, and CRUX are all have extremely low user counts. Arch and Nix are the only two of these five that are still actually growing, the rest either are holding on or dying. So they aren't good targets.
but I think it's idiotic to paint Arch as a whole in a negative light for a niche user contribution add-on that is totally separate to their official package line
AUR is just one reason to paint Arch in a negative light. Their entire approach and mindset leaves users vulnerable. I have nothing against the minimalist, DIY idea, but they implement it so fucking poorly.
These are the same pains every distribution has to deal with presently.
No one outside the Arch (and it's derivatives) community is dealing with any external pains at the moment.
extremely good memory usage
This is not true. It's gotten *better* to the point of being, at best, average. The Chromium engine is very fast and good, but the Chrome browser itself is bloated and mid.
The AUR is lazy and poorly implemented. Arch users fall broadly into two categories: those who would never use AUR because it cannot be trusted and those who freely use AUR because they trust that the submitters are all other Arch users with no malicious intent. For the former, AUR is useless to exist. For the latter, AUR is a field of landmines.
Arch sucks, in general, because starting bare-bones and building up your entire OS is stupid. I'm all for modularity and being able to customize everything, and only having what you need. But too many people easily overlook things that they need - like security. AppArmor, which I assume most people use, is pretty good but SELinux is better and will never be configured to work correctly on Arch. There are better methods to accomplish the same concepts as what Arch tries to do.
No, stop blaming the victim.
These people are not victims.
You are correct in that the physical smartphone by itself doesn't cause those issues. It's how you use it that's the issue and so many things about smartphones and the apps/websites people use on them are designed to enhance those addictive properties.
Apps and websites are not addictive.
If they were inherently flawed as you believe, then they wouldn't be able to get better without meds.
They do require meds, because they are inherently flawed. Most humans are.
Reduce someone's screen time and their underlying issues improve.
I'd rather solve the underlying issue instead of putting a blanket over it and pretending it isn't there.
feel better and stronger than them. You're not.
I feel better and stronger than them because I am. No blaming needed.
Use your device the same way they use theirs and you'll end up with the same issues.
I have and didn't. I've been using smartphones for over 20 years at this point.
You have to know you have an issue, have a reason to fix yourself, have the knowledge on what to change, and have the willpower to do that in order to fix your issues. Kids don't have any of that. They can't fix themselves without outside aid because to them there's nothing to fix.
And that is what being a parent, and regular mental healthcare, is supposed to be for. Every single person should get a mental health checkup every, single year - even children.
Taking away or limiting smartphones is not a real solution. That's like shutting down all the casinos thinking that it gets rid of gambling. Find and solve the underlying issues and educate people on that.
many people can't seem to ignore or put aside
Which is a problem with those individuals, not the devices, or any apps, themselves.
Mitigation is fine, but you have to mitigate the right parts of the equation in order to have an actual affect on the result. Mitigating the usage of cell phones isn't the solution you think it is. Better mental healthcare is. It also doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does actually mitigate it like you want.
The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.
