Debian to Arch migration

I finally decided to try out Arch as I was bored of waiting for the Hyprlock and Hypridle packages to come into Debian Sid, and Hyprland has also been stuck on 0.42 vs 0.49 on Arch.

Install

wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sebday/hyprdots/dracula/install.sh | bash

Brave

In brave://flags/ search for "ozone" and set to Wayland
In settings search for "fonts" and set the default to Caskaydia
Chrome Dracula Theme

Firefox

Install Stylus, PopupWindow and uBlock

VS Code Dracula Theme

Conclusion

I'm used to a Debian netinst and building from there so I know my package list already and my dot files will migrate straight over. But Arch really is minimal - I immediately restarted after installing and tried to nano my first config file - only to find not even an editor included. In the same vain I needed a few attempts to get networking up on my laptop as iwd is available during the install, but is then not installed by default. I just reinstalled rather than messing around chrooting. Arch also never enables a service when installed though pacman, whereas I'm used to Debian enabling and starting everything after an apt install

Much love to Vaxry

Pros

• archinstall is very similar to the Debian install, and possibly slightly easier.
• Arch defaults are "more modern". I went with butterfs this time and it was nice that the installer created all the sub-volumes for me - Debian does not.
• Grub feels clunky to setup compared to Arch default systemd-boot, networkd is simple, timesyncd just works.
• Using yay to install appimages with menu entries and icons is nicer than manually sticking them in bin
• In the end I only need the AUR for Brave, Obsidian & InSync
• Fixed a bug that locked up Electron or Brave when dragging a tab around
• Feels slightly snappier. Probably the newer versions of hypr
• My font Caskaydia is in the repos
• The Arch wiki is brilliant

Cons

• The much vaunted package manager on Arch needs... another package manager 😄 I was laughing when yay isn't in the master repos.

Not really anything of note in the cons list !

Before and after