I know my way around a command line. I work in IT, but when it comes to my personal fun time more often than not I’m quite lazy. I use windows a lot because just plugging in anything or installing any game and it just working is great.
But support for windows 10 is ending and I should probably switch sonner rather than later, so I’m wondering if Arch would be a good pick for me? For reference, I mostly game and do Godot stuff in my free time.
Well, it depends on what you want from your OS.
If you want games to work with as little bother as possible then a gaming distro might be a better option. The only distro I tried where games JUST WORK on their own is Nobara. They have lots of patches to make games actually work. If you want to play Windows games on steam then be sure to install It’s made by the same guy that makes ProtonGE, which you should definitely install if you want to play Windows games on steam, whatever your distro (if it’s not Nobara, you can use ProtonUp-Qt to avoid having to install it manually).
Some games just won’t run on any of the distros I tried except Nobara. I’m sure you could get them working fine on Arch or any other distro with some work… but that’s work. When it comes to gaming I don’t want to go in computer wizard mode, I just want to ride dinosaurs. (Yes I realize the irony of saying that after ditching Nobara on my gaming pc because I would rather have Arch with some games not working than Nobara with everything working)
Other than gaming I’d say it depends if you like being forced to do things yourself.
I’m a very lazy woman who switched from Windows 10 less than one year ago and tried several distro before ending up with Arch, and it is absolute heaven compared to Windows.
Lots of stuff don’t don’t work on my computer, but not because Arch is broken, I just haven’t got around to configuring them (lazy + adhd) or I tried but failed because I have no clue what I am doing (four months on Arch for a grand total of eight on linux, so that’s to be expected). But I prefer it that way. When I really need a feature it forces me to learn how stuff work, and that was the point of installing Arch instead of a distro that would do everything for me. I’ve learned a dozen times more in four months on Arch than in the same time on other distros. Or in 25+ years on Windows… I’ve still got a long way to go and there are lot of stuff that I can’t get working yet (looking at you Wayland portals >_<) but I really like it and I don’t think I’ll switch (though I’m very tempted to try Nix…).
It you do decide on Arch, please don’t listen to people who insist that you shouldn’t use the archinstall script because the only “right” way to install Arch is to do a manual install. They’re morons. The script is a great way to have a working Arch install quickly and easily, so you can actually use Arch and see if you like it. There’s a lot to be learned by doing a manual install, yes. But it’s ridiculous to ask people who really want to use Arch to keep using other distros for however long it takes them to learn enough to do a manual Arch install, when they could just use the script and do the same learning while using Arch. If you want to do a manual install go for it, but pressuring people into it is just stupid.
I just switched over today just to see what its all about. I’ve been using linux as my only OS for about a year now. Been on ubuntu, pop, fedora, etc… Sysadmin by trade. I am a linux novice I’d say. Not a noob, but not an expert. Still have a lot of issues just figuring out startup/service stuff, etc…
Followed this guide: https://gist.github.com/mjnaderi/28264ce68f87f52f2cabb823a503e673 (I wanted my drive encrytped).
I am up and running and basically back to where I was on fedora 40. I was doing this mainly to always be on the latest. Having to learn pacman and yay. I am finding I can get everything running but it’s definitely more involved.
No regrets just it did take a few hours. Not sure if it was worth it tbh at this point. lol
If I need to reinstall arch, I’m going to use endeavorOS. The entire time I was setting it up, I was like “why am I doing this?”. I automate everything I can at my job, why am I doing this the old fashion way…
It was really worth it for me. Having control of what stays and what doesn’t is a big relief for me. I wanted switch away a few times when something broke but nothing was as smooth and curated like my arch linux setup.
I will say a day or two later I am really enjoying it thus far. A bit turned off by the manual install but now I know exactly what is on my system, like you said “curated” and I am really liking yay.
That’s nice to know. I’m low on storage 256gb SSD so minimalism is quite important for me. But you have to be aware that there will be few hiccups especially when you don’t update for over a month, so make sure you don’t land into that. Also avoid arch linux discord/reddit unless you need help. They are the most toxic, entitled people you have ever seen.
As a Mint user who just starting test-driving Arch: once you get through the installation the switch isn’t at all difficult. Now,t hat having been said, the installation can have some frustrating moments depending on how you go about it.
I was an Ubuntu WSL user and installed Arch Linux on my laptop without the install script and it took me a whole day plus a few more hours in the following days (reading the wiki and such). I learned a lot and it was a lot of fun.
I installed EndeavorOS on my desktop and it was… Weird. It was so weird that I broke things and had to reinstall it twice. Endeavour is great but I had already gotten used on setting things up by myself.
I have both computers running perfectly since then but you need to keep in mind that you’ll be responsible for doing maintenance on your system. Updating, checking logs, reading and rereading the arch wiki.
I wish I had tried getting into Arch sooner but I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that isn’t willing to dedicate to it. Maybe try Endeavour and see if you like it?
If you have an interest in Arch, I’d recommend starting with a derivative distro like EndeavourOS. It’ll give you an easy installation process and a desktop that’s ready to use.
Then just use it as your daily driver. You’ll eventually run into the occasional issue when package X or Y upgrades and breaks something, learn to fix that, and eventually learn the “ins and outs” of Arch. That’s how I started, I went from Mint to Antergos, used that for a while, then when Antergos was discontinued (RIP) I converted my install to “pure” Arch and never looked back.
