Install of Arch on a Dell xps 13 (Broadcom wifi)

[fox]

Sorry I misunderstood. Yes, Arch keeps old kernels, but they are removed when you update. I could have rectified my problem by installing another kernel with an ethernet connection and enabling it at startup (or removing the new kernel altogether). Since the older kernel wasn't retained, I doubt if it would appear on the Arch grub menu. I can't say for sure because I don't use the Arch grub menu. I use refind, a bootloader that sees Linux, MacOS and Windows installations and allows you to boot into any of these.

[Jason]

I think that I tried to use refind. Apparently, it only works with EFI unless I'm mistaken. I have EFI on my desktop and laptop now but it's not enabled on either and my understanding is that you have to enable it before you install the OS.

[fox]

I'm not sure, but I think you are right about EFI. I certainly have it on my Macs that I use refind with.

[fox]

It is now 2 years and a month since I installed Arch. I hadn't touched it for several months (it's on the xps that I am selling), and I thought that just for fun, I would check again and see if it continues to function after an update. This latest update required a download of some 1.1 gb, but it downloaded and updated successfully. But that just covers the programs that are in the Arch repository, not AUR. Other than the one time I had an ethernet/wifi failure (near the time of my original installation), the only problems I have ever had were with programs installed from AUR. Unfortunately, I need about a dozen such programs, and two of them were not working even before the latest update.

I use a front-end program called pamac to install and update programs from the "unsanctioned" (by Arch) AUR repository. And this time, two of them gave problems (Mendeleydesktop, a cross-platform reference manager; and rstudio-desktop, a front end for the statistical package, R). Mendeley built successfully, but wouldn't run; rstudio wouldn't build. In both cases I was able to find a solution on the Arch or AUR sites, but it took more work than a lot of folks would be willing to do, to build them successfully. (That's what pamac actually does, automatically.)

I have posted this because I will soon destroy the Arch partition, as I remove the Linux distros on it once I have a buyer. The experiment can be considered mostly a success, and I conclude the following:

• It isn't difficult to install Arch for anyone that can follow instructions and has a rudimentary ability to use the command line.
• Despite it being a cutting-edge rolling-release distro, Arch is pretty reliable, at least for programs in the Arch repositories. In terms of breakability, it was just as reliable for me as Manjaro, its ease-of-use derivative.
• Where you are most likely to have problems with Arch is when you need applications that are found in AUR, but not the repositories that Arch maintains. Expect to do more work to keep these working in Arch.
• In my opinion, Arch is not for beginners to Linux unless they have the time and skills to learn how to maintain it properly. I would classify it as "intermediate", but even then, it requires more time and effort to maintain than an intermediate non-rolling release like Debian.
• Arch is very fast and cutting-edge; two good reasons to use it.