yeah yeah there's flathub and stuff but that's more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.

Dude, there is no correct or wrong way. Many prefer Flatpaks, because they ship with all they need and work on every distro.

Also, you can just use Distrobox on any distro and use anything you want.

But calling Arch easier than Zorin or similar is just wrong.

Congrats. Now you know why distrobox is so good. The package manager of the host doesn't matter anymore. Nix package manager also works on any system. And finally, nowadays you use flatpak to install apps whereever possible.

You can't take the package manager as a reference to judge which OS is better.

Arch is not only about installing but keeping up to date. A normal person does not want to read about selinux. Debian doesn't use it either but uses something comparable. On arch you have to take care of it. On debian the maintainers take care of it.

You took one narrow use case whose significant downsides you're unaware of and made an OS ease of use judgement based on that. Therefore while you're entitled to it, it's not a useful judgement. ☺️

You should check out Nix (the package manager). NixOS's Nix package manager can be used outside its own system. It supports the vast majority of Linux operating systems as well as MacOS.

Nix's package repository is gigantic like you wouldn't believe, and Reaper is in it.

Dog. I'm an arch user. You can't just say "Arch is easier than Debian" and then in the first part of your argument say:

Yes there is the apt repository but if you want something that's not in there, get ready to read the documentation or follow random guides.

You do realize Arch just frontloads that effort right? It's not any "easier." We embrace the fucking manual. (Arch based distros aside...)

Now if you were praising the simplicity of makepkg and the PKGBUILD syntax then sure. As is, though, this is just a bad take.

At least for me, AUR is last resort. I mainly use Flatpak, then offical repos, then finally AUR

So the thing with Debian and any Debian based distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint is there is no big centralized software repo like the AUR.

The platform for this would be available (https://mpr.makedeb.org).

Yes there is the apt repository but if you want something that’s not in there, get ready to read the documentation or follow random guides.

Not everything is available in the AUR either. It may therefore be necessary to create a own PKGBUILD file. And since anyone can publish something in the AUR, you should check the PKGBUILD file before installing or updating it. Both also require reading guides (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PKGBUILD and so on).

On Arch, all I have to do is Paru -S Reaper,

This would give me the error message that the command was not found. Why do some people assume that everyone uses the same AUR helper as they do? I use aurutils, for example. This AUR helper offers more options but is more cumbersome to use in some cases.

Apart from that, the name of the package is reaper and not Reaper. So even if I would use paru, it would not work.

Now that Arch is so easy to install with the Archscript,

Easier? Yes. But archinstall had and still has some bugs. And archinstall, understandably, does not cover everything so that a manual installation is more flexible.

yeah yeah there’s flathub and stuff but that’s more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.

Appimages or flatpaks are often the correct way to go, as many projects only publish such packages.

So the thing with Debian and any Debian based distro like Ubuntu or Linux Mint is there is no big centralized software repo like the AUR.

There is https://pacstall.dev/ the AUR for Ubuntu. It has a Lemmy community https://lemmy.ml/c/pacstall And there is PPA for Ubuntu. With the Arch AUR anyone can just upload something, and it is up to you to check whether it is uploaded malware or not. Sure, you can check how many others upvoted an AUR package but that is still no guarantee it is safe.

Reaper is as easy to install on Linux (any distro) as it is on Windows or OSX. Any packaged versions of it, other than the tar file that you can download from Reaper.fm, are maintained by a third party and have nothing to do with the distribution.

PS: IMHO, you want tools like Reaper and Bitwig to install directly unto your system rather than Snap, Flatpak, etc., due to the low level audio hardware interaction.

Edit: yeah yeah there’s flathub and stuff but that’s more of a last resort, optimally, you want to get it the correct way.

There's also Homebrew, which is more like the AUR than any APT repository or other package solutions. The formulae are built from source by homebrew, so it's basically like yay or, in your case, Paru in that regards.

This doesn't necessarily negate the point of your post, but it's still a myth that I bought into for a long time, so let's nip it in the bud: there is no "correct way" to install apps/programs/packages. There may be a correct way for your use case, but everyone has different use cases, even people using the same OS on the same hardware. I prefer system installs like .deb packages because it minimizes disk space and memory usage, whereas someone might prefer sandboxed packages like flatpaks or AppImages because of the security implications; hell, some people might opt for containers like docker or k8s for the compartmentalization.

On to the point of your post: I just want a set and forget OS. I don't care if it has the most recent updates or bleeding-edge features, I don't care about squeezing every last drop of benchmark numbers out of my hardware. I just want to boot up my PC and get to doing the things I use a computer for, not maintain my OS and configure and reconfigure and rereconfigure settings.

Linux newbies regularly come on here, in this exact community, and lament about their arch install, levying the above complaint. The regulars' responses usually boil down to "shouldn't have gone with arch if you didn't want to get your hands dirty." I'm not gonna say it's the same people, but it is the same userbase who will gleefully squeal "install Arch" when someone comes in asking "hey, I've never used Linux before, what distro should I use?"

"Use our distro, but all your problems are because you refuse to tailor your computer habits and schedule around the OS' needs" is not a community I'd particularly want to be a part of either.

Also, Pacman is an absolute migraine if you go a week without updating. I have sunk hours into fixing dependency issues only to get so frustrated I just uninstalled the app because Pacman would hold up 1300 updates (not hyperbole) over a single dependency issue.

Imo Flathub/Flatpak is the correct way most of the time. I see zero need to install desktop apps any other way on Arch these days. It takes a lot of headaches away from users and developers. Different story for core packages and in case you actually want to compile stuff yourself of course, but I don't see why I need an Arch-native version of LibreOffice or something. For some apps the Flatpak experience is even better than native (e.g. Lutris, Firefox).

The AUR and Arch's packaging system are still amazing tho, because of the great flexibility they offer. I agree that setting up Arch based distros (not Arch itself, sorry :D) are easier to setup than Debian based ones partly because of this. Another big reason is the info readily available in the Arch Wiki imo. But maybe I'm just used to setting up Arch.

https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian

You really should never download a Debian package or install via a script. The proper way is to use a container or flatpak.

You gotta add the fact, that ArchLinux sometimes requires you to fiddle a lot when a update failed and broke a lot of stuff, there's also the installation process, Debian is much more stable (and while archlinux is too), debian is generally a better option for beginners to its approach, And also Reaper is practically Avaliable on a crapton of distros, the fact that it provides binaries officially, and also that its avaliable on FlatHub.

Everyone is downvoting OP, but OP is literally the common case of what users actually want...

TRY ARCH

PS: Just a meme to joke, if you want to analyze, please don't point at me.

Now that Arch is so easy to install with the Archscript

Trash. Not true arch user.

Switch to BSD instead, it is easy to use while being better in quality.