Finally migrated from Windows to Linux. For anyone wondering, what is the state of Linux as your primary OS for home PC\laptop in 2023.
I’ve finalised my Archlinux installation yesterday, I dropped of Linux more than 10 years ago and experience in 2023 in comparison is awesome and beyond even wildest dreams back then:
- For average user looking for more out of the box experience I would suggest something Arch based (people in comments suggest EndeavourOS, please do your research). Archlinux installation took me quite some time
- Almost everything works out of the box, by just installing corresponding package
- KDE Plasma environment is fast and beautiful
- Pipewire audio server (Jack\Pulseaudio replacement) works great
- Wayland window server is not there yet, especially if you have Nvidia with proprietary drivers and want to use VR. Waking up, session restoration and other scenarios have issues. Use X11.
- Wine is great!
- Music making - Bitwig Studio DAW has linux native version, yabridge allow you to use windows VSTs, which are easily installed via wine
- Gaming works out of the box with Steam for majority of titles, some games have native linux version. Performance is great. In worst case windows game might loose 5-15% in performance. Was not case for my titles
- Gaming outside steam is fine too. Use Wine, Lutris, Proton
- VR is a mixed bag. Not everything is there (Desktop view, sound control and mirroring, camera, motions smooth, lighthouses do not wake up os go to sleep. I use my phone to turn them on/off). But if its not the problem for you, quite some titles work. Tried: native HF Alyx, Lab, windows: Beat Saber and Boneworks. For me it’s a surprise, I did not count on it. Performance is great.
So overall my experience is great. Eventually I’m going to get rid of WIndows on other computers and laptops at howe. I can finally wave goodbye to Windows, with lots of ads and bloatware. Alway glad to help with answers regarding installation while my memory and history logs are fresh. ^^
I wouldn’t recommend Arch to Linux beginners, though. It’ll take quite a bit of tinkering to get to work and you have to develop a pretty detailed understanding of the whole thing. Which is absolutely fine, of course, if this is what you want to do. But if you just want something that works with minimal hassle, try Mint.
Yes, I find this obsession with Arch on Lemmy very weird. It’s certainly not a distro for beginners. Ubuntu (let the hate flow), Mint, Fedora, and many others would be better choices.
If it is what you like, fair enough but I feel that it is encouraged around here as a default for both beginners and advanced users, which is bizarre. It’s too complex for beginners and not optimisable enough for very advanced users. I don’t hate it but I hate to see it become the standard.
I used to use Arch Linux. It’s really good, honestly, especially if you want to know how the OS components work from inside or make something custom. For anything else, I would recommend Debian and its non-snap-based derivatives (Linux Mint Debian Edition or Tuxedo OS, or KDE Neon).
not optimisable enough for very advanced users
In what way?
Compared to gentoo for instance, packages are not compiled depending on the HW they are installed on. So, not enough resource optimisation and customisation for some users
Of course, any distro is customisable if you spend the time to do it voluntarily, but by default it’s not the way it works
I suppose, although you are getting very little performance improvements compiling from sources. Like very, very little. Considering that you will be waiting for emerge a lot, there’s a good handful of folks that consider it a net positive.
Absolutely, it used to be important, now it’s more of a hobby for me…
Yet, for some people who love to have everything under control, Arch is a step below the fully optimisable distros. That’s why I think it’s maybe not for the ultimate Linux extremists among us :) Although there is definitely some respect to give to people who completely mod Mint or Ubuntu, they’re among the bravest
I moved from Gentoo to Arch years ago and was unable to notice any performance difference. There may have been one, but it wasn’t perceptible to me.
For very specific uses, it can be useful. Some scientific SW, niche applications, or if you have older HW. Most of the time, it’s a flex now (I use gentoo BTW, what about that?)
It’s because it’s bleeding edge, extremely well documented and extremely popular. Bleeding edge is exciting and you’re gonna end up on the arch wiki anyway regardless of distro, so you may as well go to the source.
Do mind though it doesn’t mean it’s easy, like at all, and I fundamentally agree, there’s a million better choices for first timers.
you’re gonna end up on the arch wiki anyway regardless of distro, so you may as well go to the source.
Absolutely not. I’ve never used a distro that required me to check the forums or wiki of another distro.
it’s bleeding edge
What now? I feel I have fallen asleep and just woke up at a marketing meeting at my job.
I’ve ended up on the arch wiki a few times on non-arch distros, it covers many generic Linux tools very well
Being on NIX I’m very jealous of the volumes of documentation for Arch. Found my way to the Arch wiki a few times.
There is a certain kind of beginner I would recommend Arch to, those rare folks who really do learn best from the bottom up. Candidates must also see “computers” as a hobby, and have separate hardware from their daily driver they’re installing/learning Linux on.
Honestly, I’m still not sure I would recommend Arch to those people. I think most of those people would be better off on something like Gentoo or NixOS (depending on the class of weirdo we’re talking about). Arch in my experience is just more painful than it needs to be. Like, honest to god, there is no reason the user should have to fiddle with the keyring when updating… Figure it out.
Sure. If you want to tinker and look under the hood, Arch is great. But if you just want stuff to work, there are better alternatives.
I’ve been living in Mint for a decade now, it’s as close to “just works” as I’ve seen a desktop computer get.
Endeavor OS solves most of those problems. Out of box experience is fantastic, and the installer is the best I’ve ever used.
That being said, I still wouldn’t recommend it due to the Arch package maintainers willingness to break userspace.
You will do a system update and it will break something. Most recent for me was Python packages. I updated my system and suddenly pip stopped working because they decided to follow PEP-668 and force the user to install packages using pacman.
The rationale given was allowing the user to install packages outside of the distro’s control can potentially break system tools like Fedora’s DNF, which is python based.
Now, I’ve done this on Fedora, it’s not fun. But you know what else? FEDORA DOESN’T EVEN ENABLE THIS FEATURE YOU FUCKING IMBECILES.
Mint all the way
Mint all the way
Arch is the one of the last things I’d recommend for an out of the box experience.
I’d recommend Fedora with Gnome if people are coming from iOS and KDE if people come from Windows.
It’s also one of the last things I’d recommend to someone migrating from Windows to Linux lol it has a fairly high learning curve
Yeah, something arch based is a really weird recommendation for beginners…
Don’t forget Tumbleweed KDE!
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I have Nvidia and 1 monitor, so did not run into mentioned issues. Wayland on KDE did not work well for me, also https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland_Showstoppers have some blockers for me. Gnome on Wayland as far as I understood does not work with DRM, so no chance to run VR. Also though I used Gnome before it does not appeal to me today. Plasma on the other hand was exactly what I was looking for, plus it’s actively maintained and updated. Looking forward to see Plasma 6.
When it comes to VR - I was very surprised, it was something I did not expect to work at all. My setup for reference: I have Nvidia proprietary drivers, SteamVR Beta and Valve Index. I had problems with sound (cracking, quality and etc), but using sof-firmware helped to choose proper output channel on Nvidia GPU via Pro profile and it just started working.
Gnome before it does not appeal to me today. Plasma on the other hand was exactly what I was looking for, plus it’s actively maintained and updated.
Very confused by this statement, are you implying Gnome isn’t actively maintained and updated or am I missing something?
No, I just said it’s not appealing to me today as it did before, when I used it, years ago. I’m not implying anythings here, personal taste. I chose plasma.
Ok that was what I thought until I read the last part and got very confused lol
Welcome back to Linux!
(＾＾)ｂ
Archinstall is included on the Arch installation ISO. Which makes it a bit easier to get into Arch Linux.
That sounds fantastic. Long term Linux user here. I hope you like the world of Linux and Free Software.
migrated […] to Linux 10I don’t think there is a Linux 10. Arch has installer version numbers like 2023.09.01 After thatit’s a ‘rolling release’ that means there are no version numbers, it changes continuously and is constantly updated.Archlinux installation took me quite some time
That is correct. Arch Linux isn’t recommended as a beginners distro. YMMV. If you managed to do it: Nice. You shouldn’t have. But you’re probably fine, now that it works and you’ve probably learned more in the process than lots of other people have in the first few weeks.
Music making
Make sure to also check out the free software for music making. “LMMS”, “Ardour” and similar.
Gaming works out of the box with Steam
That’s also my observation. Steam works fine. And Proton is awesome. Also, check out a few of the free games from your package repository. I like “0 A.D.”, “Supertuxkart”, “Super Tux Party”, “Supertux”, “Slingshot”, “Mindustry”, “Minetest”, “Performous”, “Sauerbraten”, “Hedgewars”, “X-Moto” Just to name a few. There are hundreds more.
Thanks for the updates, there was a typo when it comes to Linux10 ^^, I’m quite good at making them
I can relate to that 😂😂
You made different choices than me. I run Debian and the Gnome desktop on my main machine. But Arch and KDE are awesome, too. It’s more a matter of personal preferences and maybe less so what you’re trying to do with it. I think the vast amount of possibilities and choices to make is a big hurdle for new users. I always tell people it doesn’t really matter. Just pick something. The desktop environment you find attractive and a distribution with a nice and helpful community. Doesn’t really matter what you end up with, there are many excellent ones.
True, I’ve chosen Arch only because I used it before and it left good impressions. Plus philosophy - “make of it whatever you want\need” appeals to me. As long as distro is supported well, it all comes to your needs and taste.
Good choice. Arch has a big community and there are lots of resources out there. If you can handle it, you’re unlikely to get disappointed.
I can recommend lmms too
I recently found an Android app on F-Droid called “Linux Command Library” and for the first time I’m not as intimidated to try Linux for my main driver/gaming rig. Previously, I had always fucked my installs up by facing an issue I wanted to fix, and using any info online to do so, even if I had no idea what the command was actually doing. Almost always I end up fucking everything up and needing to reinstall.
I’ve been saving posts and comments regarding Linux info for the last month on Lemmy and cannot wait to take the plunge and finally rid myself of Microsoft!
Try using virtual machines. You can do this entirely free. Install then take a snapshot. You can learn about the OS in a safety net. If you fuck up too badly, roll back to the snapshot and try again.
Thanks for the tip. I like to live hard and fast! But this really is an idea I hadn’t considered and I use VMs at work all the time…with Windows.
There was a good suggestion about usimg VMs, but if you want the bare metal expwrience use something like OpenSUSE Leap, slowroll, or Tumbleweed. if you wreck your system trying sruff,you just reboot and choose an earlier snapshot.
Holy shit, I love you! That’s what I was always wanting in any OS.
Honestly it is great, i have run the same install since 2017 without having to reinstall. the filesystem is btrfs, it is configured to take a pre and poat snapshot whenever you enter any of the Yast2 GUI GTK apps for system changes, or use zypper cli etc. You can add remove software or make manual changes and break your system. Reboot, go into advanced option scroll through the time stamped snapshots and select the one you want to boot with. it will be read only, but if it is back to the state you want, drop to command line and issue “sudo snapper rollback” that will set current readonly snapshot as your default writable boot snapshot. you can also manually generate a snapahot at any time using the yast fileaystems. They take up little space or time because it is only saving the delta differeneces.
I see you’re using KDE (I love it too), have you had a look at KDE Connect? It’s an app to connect your phone seamlessly with KDE, and it’s one of the things Linux does way better than Windows
I did, though I do not have a use case for that. It looks like a great solution if you have a scenario.
I love KDE Connect! And it’s even available for Windows users. Great piece of software that can do so many things. I’ve used it on many occasions to quickly get a link or something like that from my PC, having the ability to share your clipboard is amazing.
It’s also been my main “share the password manager file” application for the longest time before someone else on Lemmy recommended Syncthing. But KDE Connect is still fantastic!
I love the wii remote mouse thing in Connect, it’s really nice when I want to interact with my computer, but am too lazy to get out of my bed to do so
Wait until you find out that your BIOS and Firmware are also proprietary! Gotta get rid of those, but Coreboot/Heads is a real rabbithole and needs lots of work to be usable.
Does Archlinux take some time to set up but then is as easy to maintain as Manjaro or does the struggle never end?
Always wanted to try out Arch but feel intimidated by all the people telling me not to :P
In my experience, once you’ve got Arch set up, it less work to maintain than Manjaro. On Arch, you have noticeably more frequent, but smaller, package updates. On Manjaro, compatibility issues with the AUR may occur, which happened a few times for me, while that won’t happen on Arch.
On Manjaro, compatibility issues with the AUR may occur, which happened a few times for me, while that won’t happen on Arch.
You can prevent that by using their unstable repositories which mirror the Arch repositories.
I ended up installing Arch on my 2011 Macbook Pro with
archinstalland everything went surprisingly smooth. Only had a small hiccup with the wi-fi drivers, as is tradition. Loving it so far.
Install Manjaro on VM, see how they did it. Then install Arch with the same packages. It is best if you have life example. That’s how I matched my 1st Arch.
These days there’s archinstall script on standard Arch install image. It supports LUKS 2 disc encryption and BTRFS root. If you save your configuration and load it, then retry attempts take no time. Saving configuration is best done to a separate USB stick.
As far as maintenance. It is near zero cost. Check website for warnings then
pacman -SyuWhile officially yay is not supported, it is a great tool to keep AUR packages up to date. These days it updates system prior to running AUR updates.
Manjaro breaks more often than Arch, but as a 1st time OS is great.
When you set it up - it just works. For me installation took 4-6 of hours (I had to read all the topics), until I had bare bones operating system with desktop env. Just follow wiki installation guide (precisely! I made couple of mistakes, because was not paying attention) and you will be fine.
Rare problems during update I had 10 years ago seems to be even rarer today, just check out feed https://archlinux.org/ before update, or after. You can always rollback any package with pacman using local cache. Lots of solutions are easy to find on the internet.
Beware that, on Arch, “once you’ve got it set up” can be a loaded statement. Once your OS is running and all your programs reinstalled, there will still be a dozen little configuration files somewhere that you don’t know about and that will annoy you until you spend the time to problem solve. If you let those problems linger, it can lead to a “struggle never end[s]” situation. Part of the beauty of Manjaro is sensible defaults. But if you want to try out Arch, you should. It’s not hard; it’s just annoying for a while.
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NixOS is great and you’d probably see benefits from using it even if your usage is fairly simple to be honest (and potentially some challenges as well, haha). If nothing else easy rollbacks are a win on the rare occasion when a system update borks something. That said, there is a learning curve, and if what you currently have is working for you and you don’t want to switch… Then you don’t have to switch :).
There are quite some comments and to clarify all misunderstanding regarding Arch vs something else or any other debates in this thread, I would like to add this comment.
I do not recommend Arch based distro over Debian based or anything else. Topic is about using Linux at its current state, I assume that most of distros will be more or less similar when it comes to statements of the post. In my case it was Archlinux distro, because I had prior experience and it’s philosophy is appealing to me. Like rolling release, configure yourself, install only necessary for you things and etc.
I do not recommend to use Arch itself for a new user. I hope from the post it was clear, that new user should not care much about mentioned topics, like Pipewire vs Pulseaudio or Wayland VS X. One can use more high order distros or even different base, like Linux Mint. Which I also used long time ago and was quite happy about.
I do not say that KDE is better or worse than Gnome or whatever. For me it’s just a preference, like possibility to have more control over UI and looks and to avoid some blockers, like DRM on Wayland. You can have them all on your machine, beauty of Linux.
And please do your own research on the topic and do take everything with grain of salt. There are a lots of great distros, desktop environments and other things. And there are tons of good and bad advices, navigating through which sometimes is not so easy.
And I would like to underline that there are not so many up to date objectivly better things when it comes to software, pick what you need and like.
For gaming, I would add Heroic Games Launcher for Epic Games ang GoG titles. Otherwise a great summary. Welcome back to Linux! I made the switch a couple of years ago and have not had Windows installed on any of my computers since.
I switched because w10 got too heavy for my old shitty laptop. Now I got new shitty laptop with w11 and will soon it will be cured by Linux.
My old laptop will retire as server.
Same, I have surface as jellyfin/torrent server. Want to migrate it to Arch next
