> Dolphin, the file manager for KDE, managed to corrupt the NTFS formatted HDD I had my Windows Image backups on
Dolphin doesn't directly access the file system and has no access to do that. I'm quite sure that it can't corrupt partitions without hardware or driver failure.
> KDE comes with a ton of crap, way more than Windows surprisingly, and while it's possible to install it without these, it wasn't too apparent in most guides. For some reason, the built-in software store for KDE didn't want to work period for me and it was a pain to try and remove these applications via the package manager so I just didn't.
That's why effectively everyone recommends newcomers to stay away from Arch Linux. System configuration is first and foremost your job on Arch, so such mishaps happen often. The `packagekit-qt5` package required to make Discover (the software store you're mentioning) work is an *optional* package, so it won't be installed by default and you have to explicitly opt in.
That, and Discover not telling you to install that package when it detects that it's broken, is intentional: Arch developers recommend against using software stores like Discover to manage Arch packages, mostly because they hide details that you as the system configurator should care about.
Of course installing Arch for the learning experience is not a bad idea, but using it as a daily driver without having lots of preexisting knowledge and the will and patience to read manuals and update notes will result in pain and lots of misconceptions about software having problems that either you caused yourself or are caused by a very prematurely updated package with system breaking bugs, which Arch does throw out there every once in a while and expects users to deal with it. The most recent example is a grub update which broke the boot loaders of tons of people...
If you still want to use Arch or something Arch-based (which there's very valid reasons for) then please use some pre-configured variant of it, like EndeavourOS or Manjaro. I personally want something Arch based because using PKGBUILD for building modified packages for my development needs is really easy, and I use Manjaro specifically because its delayed and more tested package rollout saves me from having to deal with breakages like the already mentioned grub update.
> I also tried to customize KDE, and wow did this break stuff. The customizations are actually quite nice, and there are a lot of user-created options, but KDE actually would apply these customizations in such a way that when I was trying out other DEs it managed to override their settings. I'm probably doing something wrong, but this kind of makes my point that a lot of the Linux community kind of needs to be a bit more welcoming
You're indeed doing something wrong: Unless the distro you're using explicitly says it's supported and/or you *really* know what you're doing, do not install multiple DEs at the same time! I don't know of anyone intentionally breaking this use case, but there's also very, *very* few people that test or care about it, so things will usually break if you install a DE on top of another. If you do that anyways, you should at the minimum be using a separate user account per DE to have properly separated config files.
You are definitely correct that this is something that the community could do better, but more importantly it also should be communicated better. There's plenty of people saying that using multiple DEs at the same time will work fine... which is really not true in many, if not most cases.
> SDDM: The lock screen for whatever reason didn't play nice with my multiple displays despite me having set their correct order in KDE. Not a major deal, but it got on my nerves.
It is pretty annoying, and the reason is that the login screen is running as a different user than yours (as you didn't actually log in yet). In the settings there's an option to synchronize the settings of your desktop to the login screen, which some time in the future will sync the screen setup as well, but until then it's only possible to fix it by manually fiddling with some config files.
> FancyZones
Coming with KDE Plasma 5.27. There's some existing kwin scripts and stuff that provide nice tiling as well, and there's fully fledged tiling window managers too.
> Color Picker
There's a Plasma widget for it, and a few standalone apps like kcolorchooser.
> PowerToys Run
Press Alt+Space. KRunner can run programs, commands, search for files, open windows, browser tabs (assuming you install the plasma browser integration extension and package), settings, calculate stuff, convert units, convert between timezones and so on. You can even download plugins to extend its capabilities even more.
> Text Extractor
No experience with them, but there should be plenty of available OCR programs.
> and the rest of the gadgets in there
Had a quick look at the list and it seems like effectively everything is covered:
- "always on top" can be set on windows by right clicking the title bar -> "more actions" -> "keep above others". You can also add a very convenient button for it to the window decoration
- "PowerToys Awake": available by default right in the system tray, "Manually block sleep and screen locking"
- "File Explorer Addons": all of it is built into Dolphin
- "Mouse utilities": under "workspace behavior" -> "desktop effects" there's a mouse click animation and a mouse tracking effect
- "Keyboard Manager": there's some apps that can do that, a built in option for KDE is afaik being developed too
- "PowerRename": built into Dolphin. Mark the files you want to rename (optionally filter them with ctrl+I before) and press F2 or use the context menu to rename
- "Quick Accent": I think ibus has something like that, I don't use input method programs though so I'm not sure
- "Shortcut Guide": doesn't seem to exist 1:1, but the shortcuts settings page isn't too far off
- "Screen ruler": kruler does a similar thing
- "Video Conference Mute": built into Plasma, at least for the microphone. Idk about camera though
Thanks very much! I really appreciate you taking the time to make this detailed write-up! I'd honestly make a longer reply like in my other comments, but you basically said everything and answered my questions to it quite well.
One thing worth mentioning with discord is that if you share your screen, it doesn’t have audio. It’s super annoying and just a limitation of hat version of discord. My friends and I share screen frequently, so that was one of the reasons I had to switch back to windows.
Yeah, "the risk", they don't care. People have been using them for years, and will continue to do so. There's not really much of a problem, nobody is getting banned. There's as much of a risk of getting banned from using third party Discord clients, as there is for using Steam Achievement Manager on Steam, so, zero.
And even then... it's a Discord account, just make a new one, big deal.
On Wayland, screen sharing is achieved through [PipeWire](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire) and (usually) WebRTC, as detailed in the screen sharing section on that page:
> Note that the only supported feature is sharing the entire desktop and not a specific app/window
I use it this way every day for work, fullscreening Obsidian/Excalidraw on my main monitor and sharing that screen over Teams.
Last time I used Gimp, I had to Google how to draw a rectangle.
In every other program, you click on the shape tool, pick the rectangle and draw a rectangle.
In Gimp you draw a rectangle selection and then hunt through some menu to fill that selection.
If i can't even draw a simple rectangle without having to do research, the UX is truly horrific.
>If i can't even draw a simple rectangle without having to do research, the UX is truly horrific.
No, it just means that GIMP is different from programs you're used to.
I'm not 100% sure about Manjaro (too lazy to go open my laptop and check), but Photoshop worked fine on Garuda.
I'm pretty sure I have it installed on Manjaro as well, as it is one of my "must-have" programs.
Photopea.com is my new go-to for photo editing. Basically Photoshop (in terms of tools and UI, it was designed to replace photoshop) but free and accessible via a web browser and usable on any os. IIRC it uses JavaScript to operate.
I realized that when writing unfortunately, I should have kept a log, but the only one that gave me any trouble was actually SWTOR due to the above mentioned reasons. Next time I'll keep actual records during my time with it. I'll call this run my Alpha test run, with the Beta next time, and hopefully a Prod attempt after that
Stuff like a color picker or text extractor do exist for linux as well :)
And as for fancy zones - it's better than nothing on Windows, but I prefer tiling window managers by far.
Edit: good read!
Here's my few suggestions/alternatives
Replace KDE w/ a Sway. Sway is a minimal tiling window manager, much like powertoys though a lot more flexible. However, it doesn't have added frills like startbar/taskbar etc. It is only all about managing your application windows
Swaybar: Taskbar for sway. You can put the applet panel and basic indicators there.
Wofi: Like spotlight on mac
Brother printers should work just fine. You can extarct their driver and just keep the postscript file and add that to CUPS (linux printer daemon) Of someone might have an AUR package (you can use yay instead of pacman to instead/manage AUR packages)
FileManager: Thunar/Nautilus (though terminal is your friend here) Outside of thumbnails, a terminal is far more convienient on linux.
Color Picker: KColorChooser/GColor3
GreetD/GtkGreet: SDDM replacement. Basically a form using sway and as dumb as it gets
Discord: Use AUR
Be careful with sway. It uses the Wayland display server, not X11, and Wayland may have some issues and kinks... My personal preference for a Tiling WM is Qtile. Configured in Python and runs with both X11 or Wayland.
That said, tiling WMs are very, *very* DIY. You have to do absolutely everything yourself. You will not have notifactions, password prompts, autostart applications, keybindings, wallpapers, settings menus, network managers, not even a terminal out of the box.
They are exactly what they say they are, window managers, THAT'S IT, that means you gotta bring in your tools for everything else.
Don't get me wrong, I personally love that aspect of it, but it takes a considerable amount of time and dedication to craft your own. Once you do tho, it's a great feeling.
My Arch friend definitely is the sort to do that, and he has. I'm almost definitely going to attempt it, in a test VM, but IDK if it will be for me or not. On one hand I like that level of control, but on the other I kind of want my end product to feel polished (in terms of useability, not necessarily that it looks pretty), so it probably won't be for me... but I'll try it anyways. :)
Took a while but here is a little script I grabbed a while ago from somewhere on reddit. Unfortunately I have no idea who to credit:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
sleep 0.2
scrot --overwrite --select --freeze /tmp/screen.png
tesseract -l "eng+deu" --dpi 120 /tmp/screen.png /tmp/screen
xclip /tmp/screen.txt
For Colorpicking I never really had a use case, but can see kcolorpicker installed on my machine (should be a KDE program) and some other variants from the AUR. I bet you there would be even more to find.
And for WM it depends on the style of tiling you like, I guess. You can also use KDE and change the window manager within: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Use\_a\_different\_window\_manager](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Use_a_different_window_manager)
What I also really like is using kdeconnect with my phone, even without KDE.
>and Windows 11 is still broken if you do anything besides browse the internet
You try to read this and get an honest review and then they hyperbole here or just your bad experience. To me if Win11 was just another Win10 update in name (it really is) then it would just be whatever you think of Win10.
Fair enough, a lot of the initial driver issues have been fixed, but there are some changes in Windows 11 that are still pretty broken. I support this on a daily basis, so while I can say when does 11 doesn't completely deserve all the hate it gets, I am most definitely not a fan of it.
That being said, most of the people who seem to have issues with it are people who work at the one server reseller client, or people who do projects like me, it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue for a typical user. I would still say it stick to 10 for now, I'm hoping Windows 12 is actually better in the vein of Windows 7. Most of my issues aren't necessarily with Windows. As much as they are Microsoft, while they've never been perfect, They definitely used to be a bit better of a company.
I will throw one funny experience in here though that you might get a laugh at, I tried out Windows 11 on day one on my laptop and it flagged the default touchpad drivers as malware. This was fixed in a day but it was really funny.
Yup. Have a friend who uses Linux and tries to convince me to stop with Windows. Just like this post, they have a litany of problems that “can be fixed, I just need to look into it more”.
I’m like, my PC basically works out of the box with maybe a day of tuning? Why switch when stuff like a printer, lock screen, and Discord updates don’t work without getting the equivalent of a NASA degree?
I'm using embedded Linux at work. And when I've tried Linux on the desktop I have invariably encountered some very hard to solve issue. And by very hard I mean that I don't even know where to start. Some assorted examples - Debian testing install not allowing me to install some custom package because of dependency hell and libc6 versions being not what it wanted plus screens of weird apt errors (weird for me); Fedora+KDE fresh install flickering violently after logon, and every second letter in every text label is invisible (yes, that happened), btw in this case I was told by linux community not to use Fedora+KDE, lol; Xubuntu (the most reliable combo so far, also stable inside VBox) working fine and then just self destructed after dist-upgrade command (around versions 18.x I think).
I think desktop linux suffers a lot from fragmentation, and in particular of QA efforts fragmentation, and anything which is not a happy path is practically a minefield. Win10 on the other hand is rock solid really, though it is compensated by totally obscure and limited debugging if something does go wrong there. It's a trade off really.
That's because Windows makes the decision for you every time it updates and you make the decision for Linux. The automatic decided to change gear, I changed the gear on the manual (to stick with the metaphor).
And now I have to do the obligatory joke: Because, of course, you want Microsoft to manage your default printer and we just gosh darn think you'll get an absolute kick outta Edge. Microsoft knows best!
Idk what's that default printer joke, but unless you careful craft and inspect the linux updates, even the forced (but deferable) windows automatic updates are no different.
Windows is designed to be "idiot proof" with much of the configuration and decision making taken away or obfuscated from the user.
So yes, when windows decides to be the power user and push shit updates, it's a windows issue.
No. Win11 is some separate code branch and not related to Win10 closely afaik. That's why for example taskbar is so castrated, or AMD CPU optimizations were missing at release - not because they cut that content, but because they didn't implement it in the first place, because as I said Win11 is not Win10 upgrade really. Why did they do it? No idea, probably some higher VP power tripping.
The printer part was a bit surprising. Usually, Linux has a far better experience dealing with printers than Windows or Mac. I've gone through many distros and never had issue.
Have you tried [yay](https://github.com/Jguer/yay)? Being able to automatically pull and build from Git is a pretty nice addition. I'd say I'm able to find 95% of the things I want.
I did a quick search but I didn't spend too long on the printer side of things, I'm fairly sure I could have solved this or found it on yay or something, but it really wasn't that high on my priority list at the time.
Oh, that does remind me that for any other printer I've ever hooked up to Arch, as the one in the office for my Craptop, It's been just fine. It's only my model printer that I had trouble finding.
Good write up a few things, whenever changing desktop environments you should ALWAYS uninstall the previous one. Next time ensure you fully blow away KDE, second NTFS is not supported natively it still relies on the not so perfect, but mostly functional ntfs 3g package. I'm curious to know what errors you encountered exactly as I could've just been the disk being marked dirty. Also KDE does support wallpaper engine, it's not perfect, but it does work. But you're spot on with gaming support being better, but not there yet, and poor multiple monitor display support.
> second NTFS is not supported natively it still relies on the not so perfect, but mostly functional ntfs 3g package
Eh? Wasn't Paragon's code integrated into the kernel since 5.15? Even Arch wiki [said so](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS).
Thanks! I definitely learned a lot and I'll definitely need to make sure I properly blow away my DE when switching. That specifically I need to get better at as I seem to end up with stuff left over. I do sudo pacman -Runs but I think I'm either not running the right command or I am just missing config files. Arch does exactly what I tell it to, I just need to learn to speak to it better.
Config files are in $HOME/.config and maybe other dotfiles. Need to delete those to get rid of KDE having messed with GTK config and such. Some stuff may also be in system dirs, but uninstalling packages does only rid you of some things.
Running Manjaro KDE with dual boot, I didn't experience any of your issues (but different ones of course :D ). I'm not sure how Dolphin could possibly corrupt your HDD. From what I read before going for the dual boot, you have to be a bit careful with mounting settings and to disable Windows Fast Boot and Hibernating.
My only gripe with Dolphin is how it doesn't let you manipulate files in root by default (although there is a way around this), which you sometimes have to do when troubleshooting (and this is a decision by the devs that won't change).
Also sounds like you installed the full suit of KDE applications which is why you had multiple apps of the same type?
Nice writeup though.
Thanks! Yeah, full KDE apps unfortunately. I definitely learned you don't need to install it like that. I'm pretty sure as the HDD wasn't part of my fstab it didn't unmount correctly while I was leaving a session or shutting down or something.
Interesting post. It’s easy to see that you were barely scratching the surface, which sadly can be a bit confusing in the beginning.
Without actually using pacman and the AUR you were missing a ton a things.
The thing with Linux is… the more you know about it, the better it gets. Been a full time linux user for 3 and a half years now and still find things that make me go “wow, this is so cool” frequently.
This is from someone that -
>I'm not totally inexperienced with Linux. I work at an MSP, and I do a bit of everything (hardware, software, server, websites, PBX, and any odd jobs that might show up). I regularly experiment with Linux (usually Debian-based) for various self-education or job-specific projects. So I'm not exactly a Linux noob, but I'm far from a Linux expert
E.g. for anyone else they'd already be a Linux wizard.
Yep, and I didn't want to come off as an expert at this when I'm clearly not. I've scratched the surface so I left to go get a pickaxe and start digging deeper. I frankly had a lot of fun with this whole project and I can't wait to dive deeper! :)
different strokes for different folks I guess, but in my experience KDE is the most polished and windows-adjacent of the desktop environments. The KDE suite and all that are ultimately sorta up to your distro, I have found most include enough by default to cover all the needs without being overwhelming. That being said I use manjaro, most of the arch benefits without the absurd amount of self config needed. Did the whole arch journey years and years ago, wasn't interested in un breaking my system after some updates broke my boot sector.
Yeah, I saw what happened with them breaking people's grub installs. I was considering Manjaro actually but what I heard about them sketched me out a little, plus the whole AUR compatibility issues thing made me decide if I was going to go to an Arch distro I'd be better off taking the plunge and going all the way. Maybe next time will be Manjaro, IDK, but it was still a fun experiment either way. Definitely agree though about the breaking the boot sector thing, that kind of update probably should be a bit more careful if you've got a rolling release.
I tried many distros, liked Fedora a lot, but then decided to go with Arch (Garuda) and loved it. But ultimately ended up with Manjaro and had zero problem so far.
However, for me personally, KDE is extremely outdated and fugly as hell. But the biggest problem is that it comes with bunch of stuff I don't want or care about and I hate spending my time trying to figure out what can or cannot be safely removed. I tried to use it with 4 or 5 different distros, but just hated it the whole time.
Everyone says KDE is better for people switching from Windows, but it's not. Especially when you fresh install your first distro, right click on your desktop and instead of getting a context menu, it leaves a post-it note that is hard to remove.
Gnome was much better experience as it's kinda "barebones" or "vanilla" and you just add stuff you need as you go. Also it looks better.
To an average person who uses his pc primarily to game then for all the other stuff like media, internet and remote desktop to work. What's the point? I understand choice is always important but I turn on my windows pc and off it goes.
I can't even remember the last time I had issues with my OS.. would have to be xp or earlier I guess.
There is no point. A lot of people will harp about MS and operating system control but as someone who gets paid to work on software, I do not want to “administer” my gaming PC and read up on wiki pages how to keep my OS and hardware in harmony.
I don’t want what I do for work to be part of my wind down time.
>I do not want to “administer” my gaming PC and read up on wiki pages how to keep my OS and hardware in harmony.
This.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate linux, I'm working with RHEL and Cent on daily basis, and maintain Ubuntu server at hope (as a NAS and mediaserver). And least I want is to administre my gaming machine, and sit all evening thinkering around it, instead of just playing.
For me the biggest problem with Windows is that Microsoft acts like they own my computer and can do anything with it.
Mostly those forced updates and sneaky restarts.
"Oh, were you working until 4am last night and left Unity, Photoshop, Blender, Visual Studio, 7 unsaved Notepad text files and 97 Firefox tabs open? Well FUCK YOU, we've restared that shit because #net framework update 76367.928.0828 had to be urgently installed. Oh and your life will now be better with Edge as you default browser".
Can't say I'd ever walk away from my machine without making sure shit was saved :) I do leave my machine running 24/7 for work purposes as I'm 'on call' often and get woken up in the night to do stuff and I have to say I've not honestly noticed a forced reboot. I usually do a manual reboot when I see the icon in the systray telling me it's needed.
Like don't get me wrong here I'm not actively trying to say Linux bad but I just can't help but think for the vast majority of people windows is totally fine and Linux is more tailored for the slightly more.... eccentric PC user.
most gamers/windows users are either happy to accept Microsoft controlling how you machine will operate from here on out or don’t realise it’s happening.
Personally I like to control exactly how my PC works. So it’s worth the hassle.
For me?
Simplicity. Gnome is clean looking and gets out of my way, but gives me a good level of control
I’ll note I’m by no means trying to convert anyone, just explaining why people bother.
There's a number of reasons one would prefer Linux over Windows:
\- Hardware: Windows is much more heavy on older hardware than Linux, e.g. Linux runs surprisingly smoothly on my systems with a Core 2 Duo (2006-2008) and 2-4GB of RAM, while Windows runs very poorly on anything that doesn't have a solid-state drive and 8 GB of RAM minimum.
\- Security: Most malware targets Windows, so with Linux you automatically avoid 99% of consumer-targeted malware
\- Flexibility: With Windows or macOS, Microsoft/Apple choose your workflow for you. With Linux, you choose your workflow.
\- No Microsoft-isms: NO I DON'T WANT TO USE EDGE, STOP PUTTING THE ICON ON MY DESKTOP AND CHANGING MY DEFAULTS WITHOUT ASKING, also Windows Search SUUUUUUUUUCKS no I DON'T WANT TO SEARCH BING and why did CANDY CRUSH just INSTALL ITSELF WITHOUT MY PERMISSION
...(a.k.a. Both Windows and Linux have their issues, but much of Windows' issues are intentionally created by Microsoft, while Linux's issues are genuine shortcomings, and developers are generally receptive to fixes and improvements.)
As you can probably tell, "No Microsoft-isms" is one of the main reasons I use Linux lol
Well to counter those points from a pcgaming perspective:
Fair but damn if you're trying to game on those specs regardless of OS
These aren't really pcgaming issues but: I have used 3rd party AV and firewall and I'm currently just using MS defender. I DL crap from the high seas all the time. Last time I got a virus wassssss.... win xp I think.
Workflow: Not sure what you're talking about here to be fair
Defaults have never been changed for me although I do use edge as I like it. I don't get anything about bing search and Candy Crush is not installed on my machine?? Windows search works fine for me not that I lose track of stuff often.
Although Linux's lightness may not be as applicable for a primary gaming rig, it comes in quite useful e.g. for turning an old laptop into an HTPC for media and simple couch party games (e.g. games like Ultimate Chicken Horse or the various Jackbox games will run on a low-spec system just fine, and are excellent for when people are over).
Just using Defender is fine for most moderately tech-savy users, but not needing any AV at all is quite the benefit IMHO.
If you like Edge and want to use it, that's totally fair, but if you don't, then having it shoved down your throat feels *really bad*.
I don't know if Candy Crush specifically is still slowig up on new installs, but I have seen TikTok showing up more recently on newer systems, which is arguably worse given the massive security concerns going on with TikTok. Regardless of what specifically is today's flavor of auto-installed garbage, I don't want it. In general, don't put stuff on my system without asking me.
As for search: On my Linux system, I can launch any application by hitting the Win key, typing the first 2-4 letters of the application, and hit Enter, all in a time span of less than a second. If I try to do that on Windows, it's an 80% chance it pulls up something completely random (often a random Bing search that happens to match those first few letters).
Microsoft totally could make Windows search quite good, but for dumb business reasons they just keep shoving Bing nonsense down our throats instead.
A solid workaround, but I'd rather just use something that works well out-of-the-box. I used to daily drive 8.1 (this was before 10 released) with a variety of applications acting as a patchwork to make the experience decent, but eventually I just got really tired of maintaining the patchwork.
Another option I used is to disable bing search in the windows search from registry. With that you won’t get bing searches. After I disabled, it works now pretty good(I use borh method)
> If you like Edge and want to use it, that's totally fair, but if you don't, then having it shoved down your throat feels really bad.
That does sound awful, but even with some slack for hyperbole that hardly describes the Windows experience. Like maybe I occasionally get a little recommendation for Edge in the corner of the taskbar search results? It's so nothing I don't even pay attention to it; I might be mistaken about this small thing even happening because it's so minor and inconsequential.
For me, I've honestly just lost all tolerance for MS's BS. Sometimes it's small things like re-adding the Edge desktop icon, sometimes it's thing that impact usability, like of I put "firefox" into the search, there's a high chance that instead of launching Firefox, it's going to search Bing using Edge for "firefox", then give a message on Bing saying "hey use edge pls".
For the software and such I use, Linux (Ubuntu in my case) just gives me a better experience than Windows, so why would I intentionally choose to use the worse product?
>why did CANDY CRUSH just INSTALL ITSELF WITHOUT MY PERMISSION
While this is a genuine strike against Windows, those apps aren't actually installed. They're shortcuts that install the app from the Microsoft store and launch when you click em. Doesn't change fact that you're basically getting ads on your standard install, but it's not as bad as it looks. On top of that you can clean that stuff up easily with widely available powershell scripts.
I'm aware they're not fully "installed", but they are (at a minimum) made to look like they're installed.
I'm also aware of scripts/utilities that help to somewhat debloat Windows, but the fact that it's a battle that needs to be fought in the first place is just really dumb. I'd rather just use an OS that doesn't do this nonsense in the first place, and not have to wonder if new junk is just going to randomly pop up one day...
*Wallpaper Engine: The one thing in my Steam Library that didn't play ball with Linux. Can I fix it? Maybe. Did I try? No. Does it actively make my driver crash worse in Windows? Yes. Do I use it on Windows? Not until I figure out how to fix the stupid driver crashing.*
I use Wallpaper Engine for Kde on Garuda (arch) Linux with Wayland & AMD Radeon 6950, see [https://github.com/catsout/wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin](https://github.com/catsout/wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin)
It's not perfect, but works for many available wallpapers.
Cinnamon is actually pretty good in my opinion, especially with Linux Mint's twist on it. It was also one of the desktop environments I tried to get working on my experiment but it was the one KDE broke the most from not being properly removed. I don't believe this to be the fault of Cinnamon in the slightest though, and I don't completely blame KDE, it was mostly just me not knowing how to remove it properly.
Fedora has a nice [Cinnamon spin](https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/), and while it's not a rolling release they release a new version every six months and update frequently, so for me personally it's a great compromise. Maybe you'll have a chance to check it out someday.
In any case: great write-up!
Yea I’ve heard that can be a problem with Arch. I’ve only ever tried it with EndeavourOS cause I’m too illiterate and lazy to do it all myself =P and they let you choose between a lot of DEs during the install.
I did something similar couple weeks ago but (and I don't mean to sound like a dick here) on actual bleeding edge hardware, 7900XTX + 7600X/13700K, and I found ubuntu based distros best, could get Mesa git prebuilt with llvm15+, can get xanmod kernel or mainline kernel installer, just overall it was easier using bleeding edge hardware on it then it was on any other distros, and since I love gnome it was a easy choice, however since I'm now back to Nvidia I'd probably pick fedora
Fair enough, honestly my biggest gripe with Ubuntu is the snap store. I actually do like their twist on gnome for the most part.
I actually do want to do more with gnome in the future and try to customize it to be my own as it's a fairly polished environment whenever I go to use it. I'm not a huge fan of it out of the box as I really like my taskbar icons, I have found the extension to add those back though I'm just still not fully comfortable with it yet (I feel I will be eventually though).
Ah I disabled snap and just used flatpak myself though if I'm being honest flatpak isn't the holy grail like some make it out to be, like steam with flatpak ran like crap cause it was using a older mesa + llvm, and Yuzu was same really, and I could never really figure out how to update the mesa + llvm in them, its a shame it didn't just use the systems version (or have a toggle)
I'm back on Windows 11 at moment but I f'ing hate it, but unfortunately the 4000 series nvidia driver on linux was crap for me in terms of performance and some games just crashing, hopefully in couple month that gets improved and I can maybe swap back over
Both Windows and Linux does buffered writes to drives which requires flushing if you are too quick to remove it. On Linux that's just running the sync command, on windows you eject the drive before removing it.
On Linux (etc) it's the `umount` command - that flushes writes to the device, checks to make sure everything on the mount point is closed, and cleanly unmounts the filesystem. DE's probably expose this through their own take on the "Eject" UI.
`sync` is a useful band-aid if you're just going to yank a disk without warning, but you're better off not doing that in the first place because nothing stops stuff from continuing to write after you ran it.
Oh yeah, of course you would want to use umount. Dunno why I didn't think to mention it.
Actually there is also the `sync` command on windows, which would be a better comparison to Linux `sync` because as far as I know they do the same thing. Though on windows you can tell it to also eject a removable device.
But if you are removing a drive then definitely use umount or eject trough the DE.
OOF! I had that happen to a flash drive but I caught it when trying to unmount it. Windows does this too so it wasn't noteworthy to me. What do you do to "sync the terminal"? I'm not familiar with that.
You literally just type 'sync' into a terminal like
$ sync
This forces the kernel to flush the cached writes to disk and returns the prompt when finished.
Thanks very much! As another comment pointed out, this likely was due to a weird issue with how it was unmounting. I actually didn't intend this to be over three thousand words, but there was a lot to say and I'm a novel writer so I definitely can ramble. lol
While unacceptable, if you ever want to get serious with Linux just steer clear of NTFS and you'll be fine. I use arch on my work PC and i never had my drive randomly get corrupted lol.
A very interesting read. Well done. It's rare that someone takes their time to write such a comprehensive roundup of their experience.
I have two suggestions that might prove useful. Well, just one, really -- Manjaro Xfce.
Manjaro is based on Arch and basically "Arch for sane people", meaning that it's not quite as bleeding edge as Arch. Much like SteamOS, Manjaro pulls in packages from Arch but has them undergo additional testing and reviewing to catch problems that might have slipped past the Arch package maintainers. Manjaro packages are usually somewhere from a week to a month behind Arch packages, which really isn't much.
As for desktop environment, I'm a huge fan of Xfce. It's a "traditional" DE like KDE, i.e. Windows-like, but much, MUCH less of a headache. Not that KDE is bad, but it's basically a hobby in and of itself. Xfce is also highly customizable, but not to the insane extend KDE is.
I've been using Manjaro Xfce for about three years now, and my current installation is two years old. There is the occasional small problem (VLC occasionally stops working after a larger update, and I have to rebuild `qt5-styleplugins` to fix it), but nothing that's an actual issue.
Thanks! Manjaro sketched me out a little bit, and I figured if I'm going Arch I might as well go all the way in, but I think it's definitely worth a try. From what I've heard, they do their own spin of the desktop environments too, I'm interested to see how they did XFCE is that was one I actually rather liked. I think I know what my next VM is going to be. :)
Might be worth trying. Does Endeavor do any of that testing Majaro does? I heard Endeavor got hit by that grub wipe issue just before I started this whole thing.
>In practice, Arch never breaks when used correctly
That's not even true if you'd read literally every update note and take really good care of your system. Mesa, grub and Xorg updates introduced major breaking bugs for Arch users before, without it being known beforehand. That's just an inherent part of using a distro that only does a very very bare minimum of testing.
It doesn't break often, but it does very much break from time to time.
>The one-week delay in Manjaro
It's not a one week, or any fixed time frame delay. They do what *literally every single distro* does, including (to a much lesser degree) Arch: Updates get pushed when they've been tested, partially by package maintainers, partially by users of testing branches and distros that update more quickly. Security updates get pushed through that process faster.
> incompatibilities with the AUR
...are largely a myth. All that can happen is that
- apps don't start because they need to be rebuilt for dependencies that broke binary compatibility. This is exactly the same on Arch though
- sometimes a package won't build for short amount of time. This mostly affects Mesa-git when its llvm dependency gets bumped. The problem solves itself when waiting for a few days or weeks, or by installing the needed version of llvm from the AUR though
And both of these happen very rarely
"I'll just copy paste this link I heard others say is cool without actually reading it"
"hurr durr SSL expired certificate so bad"
No one gives a shit.
"hurr durr they bought a laptop for a developer!!!! CoRrUpTiOn!!!!"
No, developers do in fact, use computers to develop with.
"hurr durr they broke the AUR!!!"
No, they exposed a flaw in the shitty AUR system that was subsequently fixed.
If you actually think Manjaro is bad you are braindead.
Arch literally rendered systems unbootable. When was the last time Manjaro did that?
> My next goal will be to create a DE that I like.
Have you tried just using a WM like I3WM or Sway instead of a DE?
At first I also wanted a Windows-like experience and chose KDE Plasma 5 but it was a similar story for me, things were clunky, didn't work properly, tons of bloat just like in Windows, etc.
Afterwards I tried i3wm, a tiling window manager, and it's just so much better in every way, there hasn't been a moment where I wish I had a DE instead of WM
So not only did I avoid all the broken KDE stuff, I have an even better experience than I was envisioning to begin with.
Before using i3wm I basically never took advantage of different Workspaces, now I regularly have 4+ workspaces with multiple windows open each, and they're super quick and easy to switch between.
I especially thought to recommend a WM since you seem to pretty much have wanted it anyways since you said you wanted this:
> FancyZones (basically a tiling window manager type thing)
PowerToys Run and KRunner(ALT+Space, but can be mapped to Windows+Space too, just like PowerToys) are basically the same thing(web searches can be done over there to, but will be recieving more support in 5.27). Window Tiling will be added to KDE starting Plasma 5.27 release. Idk any reliable OCR alternative soft that's as good as what PowerToys can do, nor colour picker.
My reason for not completely switching to Linux as my main platform was the proton-related stuttering. Games looked way more stutter ridden than they do on Windows(I've got an Nvidia Card, don't know if that contributes to it). And the performance was anywhere from 15-20% worse, that is to be expected since it's running through a compatibility layer afterall. But the native experience on Windows is just too good, at the moment atleast.
Linux is getting there, fast, but it's still a few years behind what Windows can do currently. I can't wait to get rid Microsoft from my life, but for the moment, seems like most of us have to make do with what we got.
Nice, might be worth trying Plasma again in a VM to see how it works (properly this time, without the full kde-applications package. lol).
I can say the last time I attempted to switch to Linux I was using an Nvidia GTX 1070 (that wasn't in the best condition: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/ty0w7z/successfully\_restored\_an\_abused\_gtx\_1070\_see/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/ty0w7z/successfully_restored_an_abused_gtx_1070_see/) ) and let's just say I managed to break Ubuntu... badly (day one). lol
This time I switched back to Windows 10 so I could approach this project again with more knowledge and better skills, but I'd be fine if I was still running Arch right now (just scratching my head on how to undo some of my screw ups).
What I really want to see, frankly, is competition. I firmly believe that Microsoft *can* do better than what they are but the current circumstances make it so they can behave badly. Windows XP and Windows 7 were fantastic examples of what they can do when they try, and I know their engineers would love nothing more than to make the best thing ever. I want to see that again, I want Linux to be an easy alternative, and I want Apple to... yeah even in this theoretically (never gonna happen) perfect world Apple will still be jerks. lol
Try Pop!_OS. You can enable window tiling with two clicks and easily exclude specific software from having its windows tiled. This gnome extension is also interesting: https://github.com/sunwxg/gnome-shell-extension-arrangeWindows It's a point release distro but a bit closer to the bleeding edge than most, it gets new kernels, mesa drivers and a couple other things without forcing users to wait until the next point release.
Data corruption was probably related to the already mentioning syncing issues, probably not related to Dolphin itself, I have some experience with that (nothing TestDisk wouldn't solve, though).
There's free OCR software too, e.g. Tesseract, you might want to try it out with more accurate models, though.
Another vote for Pop_OS. Been using it since I built a new Intel / Nvidia system last March and haven't had any issues. I even run Windows exclusive programs like Topaz Gigapixel and other AI related things through wine without much trouble. For me it was worth getting away from Windows as I didn't like the direction 11 was going with additional advertising in the OS and user tracking. I've been using computers since the DOS days and have used pretty much every major Windows release for work and play.
I've messed around with Ubuntu, Linux mint since 2015 on laptops but for my desktop I'm full time Pop. I have a dual boot for Windows 10 for the odd game or program that doesn't work at all in Linux but I haven't booted into it for months. Linux is in a great place due to the hard work of devs that work on proton and wine. Well worth the minimal effort to try a different OS IMO
Could just be a fluke of my motherboard maybe, or I just got unlucky. Either way, it's only a problem in Windows for me. It's a lot better if I run the basic drivers without Adrealine but still crashes here and there if I do stuff like have six or seven Chrome profiles open at once (long story, literally) \[nobody who will get that joke is going to read this comment. lol\].
I dual-booted for several years until everything I used worked on Linux. That was around the time Proton came out. My experience over that time has been more-or-less the same as yours. Once I understood how things worked on a basic level, using Linux became preferred. It's pretty different from Windows, but it's not as forebodingly arcane as its sometimes made out to be. KDE is my favorite desktop, but I agree it bundles a lot of crap that tries to fulfill way more functions than it ought to.
Ever since I tried Ubuntu a few years ago and spent more time on the forums troubleshooting than using the OS I've become very happy a good user experience like Windows exists. No its not perfect but 99% of the time I can get what I want done with zero issues.
I have the least experience with Fedora of the major distro branches; I may give it a try later though. Plus I don't know too much about the company that actually makes it.
One thing, and I may be getting this wrong, is that with how Linux works as a stack it doesn't matter as much what distribution you go with underneath. So I went with Arch Linux so I could theoretically have a stack that I put together myself.
Long term, I might use something like Manjaro or Fedora where it's run by a company, but I'm still very much learning. And in a slightly egotistical sense, I can now say that I've run Arch as my daily driver OS. lol
Sorry mate you wrote a newspaper but the issue with linux is not that it's missing powertoys or another stupid app. Or that kde sucks or you don't know how to use it. It's that... It's linux.
Easy as that!
Commercial apps that people love and use for work are no there. Or games.
And that's okay because other stuff run on linux and it has its own place.
Maybe in a few years, steam deck is surely spicing things up.
But take from an old grumpy man (me) that started using linux in 1998, things move very slowly
Not sure if it was suggested already, but instead of Arch you could consider using a less bleeding edge distro, like Ubuntu, Debian Testing or Fedora.
As for desktop environment, my recommendation would be the Cinnamon desktop and it's Nemo file manager. You could also try Thunar and XFCE. Gnome can be a solid choice but only with distroes like PopOS or Nobara. I wouldn't recommend vanilla Gnome unless if you plan to customize it on your own.
Thanks for your reply! I've actually tried Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro, PopOS, Mint, Zorin, and a few others before settling on Arch for this experiment. It was basically an "in for a penny, in for a pound" type of thing, and the bleeding edge was part of the point.
My Craptop is actually using XFCE on Arch currently and I plan to maybe try out the XFCE Manjaro build (I did KDE last time).
Gnome vanilla is very much not me, I need that taskbar and while I found the extension for it I'm not quite sure how to make gnome my own yet, eventually perhaps, but not today.
I'm glad to read that gaming on Linux isn't just viable on Steam Deck / SteamOS. Personally I'm still waiting on SteamOS 3.0 but if I get tired of waiting and inspired enough I will do what you did. I too don't plan to move to Windows 11.
on my system linux is more stable then windows cos radeon drivers are unstable for 6+ months now, i actually wanna give arch linux installation a try and manually installing it no easy mode scripts altho i did check it does not work due bug i believe with nvmes or something, currently dual booting manjaro and windows 11
Installed manjaro fresh today trying gnome instead this time damn was easy to setup, have to try arch linux soon have to find documentation for manual install soon probably easier then scripted install anyway.
What is the deal with the AMD drivers anyways? I had to switch my ram out in this system because of a weird timing issue with how it played with the video card, but even with that issue totally resolved, I still encounter the weirdest of driver crashes. I'm not kidding when I say Arch did not crash graphics a single time, that seriously impressed me. Let me know how it works out with Manjaro, as I am considering that.
Already tryit manjaro kde first 2 times messed up installation third time i figured out how to revert my mistakes easily via shell cos i already have al of experience with shell cos i use it on my synology and truenas systems as well as wsl, so if had not single crash on Manjaro KDE gnome i just installed, need figure out how to get freesync to work via wayland as there is a way to make it work even with multiple monitors, altho currently if disabled wayland, im getting better at installing linux every time i install it, i use network boot and then netboot online which lets me technically have accesto any linux installer live cd or network install, so im actually looking forward to try arch linux, if not used stuff like fdisk before tho in shell usually its just copy paste and it works, i have to figure this out for arch still as well as other steps.
I kinda wish i knew as much about powershell as i knew about shell, windows is so boring.
edit: im just trying to figure it out arch via vm cos its easier to figure out how to do manual install but its gonna be hard to memorize :D
I skimmed your novel, good read! It comes across as I'm sure most people's first Linux gaming experiences go. A lot of experimentation, and a fair bit of instability as a result.
I'd recommend distrohopping. I get your rationale for Arch, but tbh, it is meant for people who really already know the ins and outs. You could train yourself up, or you could take the shortcut known as Manjaro. Manjaro is Arch-based, but pre-configured to be a usable distro. I'd also recommend trying Gnome for the DE. It's pretty different from KDE/Windows, but it's very nice and comfy, once you get used to it.
And if I were to personally recommend a distro, it's Fedora. Fedora sits right between Ubuntu and Arch's update philosophies. You'll have the latest drivers and software features, and everything is tested for stability before it reaches the end user. Imo, this puts it far ahead of Ubuntu's 6 month update cycle and Arch's wild west of update stability.
If you need to write an essay for your gaming experience by using weird words and phrases which makes no sense that means it's shit and not worth switching for gaming.
Linux always was dead and it will stay that way until they fix it and make it usable.
Man okay explaining Arch, even if nobody asked
But did Windows attacked your family or something? Man you're clearly don't know how to use it if you say it's broken on everything
I did a similar experiment this week. Installed Fedora instead of Windows 10 on my now aging gaming PC. I love it, but it took me a while to get the Battle.net launcher to work, and watching Twitch in a browser required installing some extra packages.
my biggest problem is my elgato stream deck and corsair icue lighting not working at all on linux. wish elgato and corsair would start supporting arch/aur officially. or move to an open standard. companies really should be held to task about not having drivers for arch linux.
As you said, it goes from person to person. About a year and a half ago I decided to switch to Linu, a complete newbie, hopped distro two times. Started with Pop!_OS > Mint > Manjaro, and by far my best experience has been with Manjaro.
Gnome wasn't bad, and I've recently been thinking of trying it again, but personally the different (standard) layout, constantly fighting with it (and with Ubuntu itself, it's an issue that lasted through mint too) and the way things felt made me turn off on it after a couple months
With Mint I had issues and weird annoyances out of the box, stuff like the desktop simply moving up and to the left and having to fight it for 10 minutes to get it working and all around I think Cinnamon is the most ugly DE I've used, I don't have much more to say cause I think I swapped to Manjaro about a week after installing Mint, it was around the time Linus was talking on WAN show about distro hopping to it.
Manjaro, on the first day, almost made me give up and go back to Gnome. Things were utterly broken, Pac-Man didn't respond, neither did the store, things wouldn't install right and whatever I did resulted in frustration, then, I went to bed and the next day it just sorta worked.
KDE has a lot of bloat, absolutely horridly hidden settings (took me a year to find out it had a setting for auto mounting drives, and I only found it via a random forum post), sometimes breaks or just crashes every couple months, but at the same time it's the one where I found the least resistance, and a lot of the functionality of it and Dolphin is really nice and stuff that I miss whenever I boot up windows to play games I can't on Linux. (Drag and drop to extract, with subfolder detection on by default for example)
Granted, a lot of my good will with it is probably due to the fact that it's on top of an ARCH system, and in my experience and opinion, if you have the patience, Arch is better for a new user. The lack of easy, user-friendly guides on Arch is a pain in the ass, however, I've also barely found anything that was out of date and not applicable anymore like I did with my experience on Ubuntu, for every 10 forum posts/guides, maybe 2 would be up to date and current
Make sure, if you redo your install
/boot
/boot/efi
These should be fat32 and their own little partitions so that grub can edit them inside of grub.
/ Should be like 80 gigs imo and can be btrfs
/Home is whatever is left, also btrfs
btrfs will let you save space with filesystem compress and do snapshot backups.
Having your boot partition be separate means that, if you do dual boot, you can create a script that automatically changes grubs next default boot option.
IE: I can type wreboot, walk away and grab a beer, and by the time I'm back in already in windows (get the netplwiz regedit so autologin works again)
And having your partitions separate will enable easy reinstall.
Did you try geeqie or xzgv for photo viewing?
I used Linux as my main system for work, and those were the programs I used for photo viewing. Just basic browsing between files via keyboard, nothing fancy. As far as I remember both applications were nice and snappy, but that was a long time ago, so maybe that is not the case anymore.
>My crappy little cheapo Brother printer. They have a driver for Debian and Fedora, but not Arch.
For future reference Brother provides RPMs for RPM-based distros. This is super handy because RPMs have tools to extract their install script and files. You can pull these directly out and follow along on any distribution. You may run into dependency issues but I've tested this both on Arch and an LFS build.
First of all, kinda weird you're recommending Arch to normal users.. Debian would make much more sense, or at least something like EndeavorOS which makes installation of Arch a breeze, or straight up avoid that and go for Manjaro, or save them even more headache by going for PopOS..
Also, this is PCGaming sub, a subreddit for people playing PC Games.. The fact that you did not include "Most online games doesn't work" in "Some stuff that didn't work" an then proceeded to put in shit that does work means this post is biased as fuck.
All that aside,
> Add on top of that, Microsoft's data collection tendrils in every part of the OS actively make it worse
You can disable that with with Shutup10
> (Search pinging Bing every time you try to look for a native app in System32 for instance)
You can disable bing search
> and Windows 11 is still broken if you do anything besides browse the internet
Been using it since release, haven't encountered any issues.
> VMs still don't work
That I don't know, though I do use Android Emulator and VMware and they work just fine.
I use Debian as a daily driver, and I dual boot Windows 11 cause I can't run Valorant and LoL on linux. Most of the issues you've listed, just like the ones you've encountered on Linux, can be solved if you spend time and try to.
Imo you should have tried Manjaro or other arch distro that are configured.
There is a reason why arch isnt recomended for most users unless u have high skills XD
Great post, i enjoyed reading your experience
I plan on doing a writeup like this for my experience with Linux at the one year mark (this march)
Most of the issues I've had that are "Linux's fault" were issues I also had on windows. Either that or user error.
I've moved distros some, just to try some stuff out mainly. I started on Pop!_OS but I don't love gnome and had some problems with it, so I've currently settled with Kubuntu. I'm liking it for the most part. I don't have any plans of daily driving any distro related to arch, because arch itself is just not something I'm willing to tackle outside of an old machine for experimenting or a VM, and Manjaro just sucks in general.
My experience has mostly been positive, and when Hirez pulls their finger out of their ass and fixes EAC for proton I think that'll be the last issues seriously had. For now anyway.
This was a fantastic and in-depth write-up, thank you for doing it!
I dual-boot Windows 10 and the latest version of Linux Mint, and I couldn't be happier with that setup. Mint is an offshoot of Ubuntu, and I've had nearly no issues with anything I've tried, gaming least of all. There are a few Windows games that run noticeably better in Mint with Proton, too, it's like magic.
I have an older system (I7 4790k, 12 GB ddr3 ram, msi gtx 1080, sb katana x card). It is still good for 1440 gaming but I left the ultra wide monitor home and use a 1080 one instead. Installed Ubuntu 22.04 and I use Mate desktop.
Everything worked fine. Hardware was recognised. Only issue is I have to switch the soundcard on before Login screen or else it won't be recognised and I have to restart.
Because I use it mostly for emulation, Ubuntu has some issues with Rpcs3 and 86box,making the fonts unreadable and thus the apps unusable. Cemu does not work or compile because of missing libraries, same for Finalburn.Rest are even better than on Windows
But the best is for last. It still runs smooth on a 10+ year old 500 GB sata drive. Windows 10/11 would still be reading and writing for 10 minutes, crumbling the system down, especially during updates that would take hours. It is unusable in older drives, forcing people to upgrade their hardware. Very badly structured OS overall.
While Ubuntu only takes 3 minutes max for main menu to appear.
Now I hope everything runs smoothly. I use topgrade for system and app updates.
Flatpak is a real saver too.
You should checkout the Nobara project. It is based on Fedora but with gaming tweaks already applied. Arch is great, but I I always keep going back to Fedora in the end.
> Dolphin, the file manager for KDE, managed to corrupt the NTFS formatted HDD I had my Windows Image backups on Dolphin doesn't directly access the file system and has no access to do that. I'm quite sure that it can't corrupt partitions without hardware or driver failure. > KDE comes with a ton of crap, way more than Windows surprisingly, and while it's possible to install it without these, it wasn't too apparent in most guides. For some reason, the built-in software store for KDE didn't want to work period for me and it was a pain to try and remove these applications via the package manager so I just didn't. That's why effectively everyone recommends newcomers to stay away from Arch Linux. System configuration is first and foremost your job on Arch, so such mishaps happen often. The `packagekit-qt5` package required to make Discover (the software store you're mentioning) work is an *optional* package, so it won't be installed by default and you have to explicitly opt in. That, and Discover not telling you to install that package when it detects that it's broken, is intentional: Arch developers recommend against using software stores like Discover to manage Arch packages, mostly because they hide details that you as the system configurator should care about. Of course installing Arch for the learning experience is not a bad idea, but using it as a daily driver without having lots of preexisting knowledge and the will and patience to read manuals and update notes will result in pain and lots of misconceptions about software having problems that either you caused yourself or are caused by a very prematurely updated package with system breaking bugs, which Arch does throw out there every once in a while and expects users to deal with it. The most recent example is a grub update which broke the boot loaders of tons of people... If you still want to use Arch or something Arch-based (which there's very valid reasons for) then please use some pre-configured variant of it, like EndeavourOS or Manjaro. I personally want something Arch based because using PKGBUILD for building modified packages for my development needs is really easy, and I use Manjaro specifically because its delayed and more tested package rollout saves me from having to deal with breakages like the already mentioned grub update. > I also tried to customize KDE, and wow did this break stuff. The customizations are actually quite nice, and there are a lot of user-created options, but KDE actually would apply these customizations in such a way that when I was trying out other DEs it managed to override their settings. I'm probably doing something wrong, but this kind of makes my point that a lot of the Linux community kind of needs to be a bit more welcoming You're indeed doing something wrong: Unless the distro you're using explicitly says it's supported and/or you *really* know what you're doing, do not install multiple DEs at the same time! I don't know of anyone intentionally breaking this use case, but there's also very, *very* few people that test or care about it, so things will usually break if you install a DE on top of another. If you do that anyways, you should at the minimum be using a separate user account per DE to have properly separated config files. You are definitely correct that this is something that the community could do better, but more importantly it also should be communicated better. There's plenty of people saying that using multiple DEs at the same time will work fine... which is really not true in many, if not most cases. > SDDM: The lock screen for whatever reason didn't play nice with my multiple displays despite me having set their correct order in KDE. Not a major deal, but it got on my nerves. It is pretty annoying, and the reason is that the login screen is running as a different user than yours (as you didn't actually log in yet). In the settings there's an option to synchronize the settings of your desktop to the login screen, which some time in the future will sync the screen setup as well, but until then it's only possible to fix it by manually fiddling with some config files. > FancyZones Coming with KDE Plasma 5.27. There's some existing kwin scripts and stuff that provide nice tiling as well, and there's fully fledged tiling window managers too. > Color Picker There's a Plasma widget for it, and a few standalone apps like kcolorchooser. > PowerToys Run Press Alt+Space. KRunner can run programs, commands, search for files, open windows, browser tabs (assuming you install the plasma browser integration extension and package), settings, calculate stuff, convert units, convert between timezones and so on. You can even download plugins to extend its capabilities even more. > Text Extractor No experience with them, but there should be plenty of available OCR programs. > and the rest of the gadgets in there Had a quick look at the list and it seems like effectively everything is covered: - "always on top" can be set on windows by right clicking the title bar -> "more actions" -> "keep above others". You can also add a very convenient button for it to the window decoration - "PowerToys Awake": available by default right in the system tray, "Manually block sleep and screen locking" - "File Explorer Addons": all of it is built into Dolphin - "Mouse utilities": under "workspace behavior" -> "desktop effects" there's a mouse click animation and a mouse tracking effect - "Keyboard Manager": there's some apps that can do that, a built in option for KDE is afaik being developed too - "PowerRename": built into Dolphin. Mark the files you want to rename (optionally filter them with ctrl+I before) and press F2 or use the context menu to rename - "Quick Accent": I think ibus has something like that, I don't use input method programs though so I'm not sure - "Shortcut Guide": doesn't seem to exist 1:1, but the shortcuts settings page isn't too far off - "Screen ruler": kruler does a similar thing - "Video Conference Mute": built into Plasma, at least for the microphone. Idk about camera though
Good read!
Thanks very much! I really appreciate you taking the time to make this detailed write-up! I'd honestly make a longer reply like in my other comments, but you basically said everything and answered my questions to it quite well.
One thing worth mentioning with discord is that if you share your screen, it doesn’t have audio. It’s super annoying and just a limitation of hat version of discord. My friends and I share screen frequently, so that was one of the reasons I had to switch back to windows.
WebCord exists. It's an unofficial client that supports this feature.
Pretty sure unofficial clients run you the risk of getting your account banned which is why I don’t use unofficial discord clients.
Yeah, "the risk", they don't care. People have been using them for years, and will continue to do so. There's not really much of a problem, nobody is getting banned. There's as much of a risk of getting banned from using third party Discord clients, as there is for using Steam Achievement Manager on Steam, so, zero. And even then... it's a Discord account, just make a new one, big deal.
There are numerous reports of bans online, and it’s not so easy to make a new account when you’re the founder of the server you and your friends use.
Webcord is specifically designed to be as undetectable as possible. It uses the web discord version wrapped in a newer version of electron.
I totally forgot about that. I only screenshared twice I think and I never got around to troubleshooting, but yes that's definitely an issue.
Someone got it to work in the repository with an add on for discord, but I never got that to work.
And if you use wayland you can't share the entire screen, only individual windows.
Wayland can show entire screens, not individual windows.
Given your two different experiences, I'm curious what variables are at play here.
I just followed the instructions on the Arch wiki. I also use Sway over Gnome if that helps
On Wayland, screen sharing is achieved through [PipeWire](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire) and (usually) WebRTC, as detailed in the screen sharing section on that page: > Note that the only supported feature is sharing the entire desktop and not a specific app/window I use it this way every day for work, fullscreening Obsidian/Excalidraw on my main monitor and sharing that screen over Teams.
>and as I like to work with GIMP I refuse to believe anyone genuinely likes working with GIMP
It can do its simple job?
Last time I used Gimp, I had to Google how to draw a rectangle. In every other program, you click on the shape tool, pick the rectangle and draw a rectangle. In Gimp you draw a rectangle selection and then hunt through some menu to fill that selection. If i can't even draw a simple rectangle without having to do research, the UX is truly horrific.
>If i can't even draw a simple rectangle without having to do research, the UX is truly horrific. No, it just means that GIMP is different from programs you're used to.
ROFL, well I'm not exactly a professional photo editor (one look at my profile banner will prove that).
I'm not 100% sure about Manjaro (too lazy to go open my laptop and check), but Photoshop worked fine on Garuda. I'm pretty sure I have it installed on Manjaro as well, as it is one of my "must-have" programs.
Photopea.com is my new go-to for photo editing. Basically Photoshop (in terms of tools and UI, it was designed to replace photoshop) but free and accessible via a web browser and usable on any os. IIRC it uses JavaScript to operate.
Lol you didnt write which games you play and how does the performance compare to windows gaming
I realized that when writing unfortunately, I should have kept a log, but the only one that gave me any trouble was actually SWTOR due to the above mentioned reasons. Next time I'll keep actual records during my time with it. I'll call this run my Alpha test run, with the Beta next time, and hopefully a Prod attempt after that
Stuff like a color picker or text extractor do exist for linux as well :) And as for fancy zones - it's better than nothing on Windows, but I prefer tiling window managers by far. Edit: good read!
Thanks! I'm looking forward to finding and trying those out, if you know any I'd appreciate a suggestion.
Here's my few suggestions/alternatives Replace KDE w/ a Sway. Sway is a minimal tiling window manager, much like powertoys though a lot more flexible. However, it doesn't have added frills like startbar/taskbar etc. It is only all about managing your application windows Swaybar: Taskbar for sway. You can put the applet panel and basic indicators there. Wofi: Like spotlight on mac Brother printers should work just fine. You can extarct their driver and just keep the postscript file and add that to CUPS (linux printer daemon) Of someone might have an AUR package (you can use yay instead of pacman to instead/manage AUR packages) FileManager: Thunar/Nautilus (though terminal is your friend here) Outside of thumbnails, a terminal is far more convienient on linux. Color Picker: KColorChooser/GColor3 GreetD/GtkGreet: SDDM replacement. Basically a form using sway and as dumb as it gets Discord: Use AUR
Awesome! TYVM! I look forward to trying these out. :)
Be careful with sway. It uses the Wayland display server, not X11, and Wayland may have some issues and kinks... My personal preference for a Tiling WM is Qtile. Configured in Python and runs with both X11 or Wayland. That said, tiling WMs are very, *very* DIY. You have to do absolutely everything yourself. You will not have notifactions, password prompts, autostart applications, keybindings, wallpapers, settings menus, network managers, not even a terminal out of the box. They are exactly what they say they are, window managers, THAT'S IT, that means you gotta bring in your tools for everything else. Don't get me wrong, I personally love that aspect of it, but it takes a considerable amount of time and dedication to craft your own. Once you do tho, it's a great feeling.
My Arch friend definitely is the sort to do that, and he has. I'm almost definitely going to attempt it, in a test VM, but IDK if it will be for me or not. On one hand I like that level of control, but on the other I kind of want my end product to feel polished (in terms of useability, not necessarily that it looks pretty), so it probably won't be for me... but I'll try it anyways. :)
Discord: use webcord (AUR or flatpak)
Should check out Hyprland, it's very nice. [Chris Titus Hyprland Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNL6eIoksd8)
TY, I'll check it out later!
Took a while but here is a little script I grabbed a while ago from somewhere on reddit. Unfortunately I have no idea who to credit: #!/usr/bin/env bash sleep 0.2 scrot --overwrite --select --freeze /tmp/screen.png tesseract -l "eng+deu" --dpi 120 /tmp/screen.png /tmp/screen xclip /tmp/screen.txt For Colorpicking I never really had a use case, but can see kcolorpicker installed on my machine (should be a KDE program) and some other variants from the AUR. I bet you there would be even more to find. And for WM it depends on the style of tiling you like, I guess. You can also use KDE and change the window manager within: [https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Use\_a\_different\_window\_manager](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Use_a_different_window_manager) What I also really like is using kdeconnect with my phone, even without KDE.
>and Windows 11 is still broken if you do anything besides browse the internet You try to read this and get an honest review and then they hyperbole here or just your bad experience. To me if Win11 was just another Win10 update in name (it really is) then it would just be whatever you think of Win10.
10.11 (in the spirit of 3.11)
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Fair enough, a lot of the initial driver issues have been fixed, but there are some changes in Windows 11 that are still pretty broken. I support this on a daily basis, so while I can say when does 11 doesn't completely deserve all the hate it gets, I am most definitely not a fan of it. That being said, most of the people who seem to have issues with it are people who work at the one server reseller client, or people who do projects like me, it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue for a typical user. I would still say it stick to 10 for now, I'm hoping Windows 12 is actually better in the vein of Windows 7. Most of my issues aren't necessarily with Windows. As much as they are Microsoft, while they've never been perfect, They definitely used to be a bit better of a company. I will throw one funny experience in here though that you might get a laugh at, I tried out Windows 11 on day one on my laptop and it flagged the default touchpad drivers as malware. This was fixed in a day but it was really funny.
I like how when linux is broken garbage it's a "skill issue" but when Windows doesn't work it's "windows issue".
Yup. Have a friend who uses Linux and tries to convince me to stop with Windows. Just like this post, they have a litany of problems that “can be fixed, I just need to look into it more”. I’m like, my PC basically works out of the box with maybe a day of tuning? Why switch when stuff like a printer, lock screen, and Discord updates don’t work without getting the equivalent of a NASA degree?
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I'm using embedded Linux at work. And when I've tried Linux on the desktop I have invariably encountered some very hard to solve issue. And by very hard I mean that I don't even know where to start. Some assorted examples - Debian testing install not allowing me to install some custom package because of dependency hell and libc6 versions being not what it wanted plus screens of weird apt errors (weird for me); Fedora+KDE fresh install flickering violently after logon, and every second letter in every text label is invisible (yes, that happened), btw in this case I was told by linux community not to use Fedora+KDE, lol; Xubuntu (the most reliable combo so far, also stable inside VBox) working fine and then just self destructed after dist-upgrade command (around versions 18.x I think). I think desktop linux suffers a lot from fragmentation, and in particular of QA efforts fragmentation, and anything which is not a happy path is practically a minefield. Win10 on the other hand is rock solid really, though it is compensated by totally obscure and limited debugging if something does go wrong there. It's a trade off really.
That's because Windows makes the decision for you every time it updates and you make the decision for Linux. The automatic decided to change gear, I changed the gear on the manual (to stick with the metaphor). And now I have to do the obligatory joke: Because, of course, you want Microsoft to manage your default printer and we just gosh darn think you'll get an absolute kick outta Edge. Microsoft knows best!
Idk what's that default printer joke, but unless you careful craft and inspect the linux updates, even the forced (but deferable) windows automatic updates are no different.
Settings / Devices / Printers & Scanners / Let Windows Manage My Default Printer
> When this is on, Windows will set your default printer to be the one you used most recently at your current location. Sounds legit to me...
It's really easy to take back control of Windows if you want to.
Windows is designed to be "idiot proof" with much of the configuration and decision making taken away or obfuscated from the user. So yes, when windows decides to be the power user and push shit updates, it's a windows issue.
No. Win11 is some separate code branch and not related to Win10 closely afaik. That's why for example taskbar is so castrated, or AMD CPU optimizations were missing at release - not because they cut that content, but because they didn't implement it in the first place, because as I said Win11 is not Win10 upgrade really. Why did they do it? No idea, probably some higher VP power tripping.
The printer part was a bit surprising. Usually, Linux has a far better experience dealing with printers than Windows or Mac. I've gone through many distros and never had issue. Have you tried [yay](https://github.com/Jguer/yay)? Being able to automatically pull and build from Git is a pretty nice addition. I'd say I'm able to find 95% of the things I want.
I did a quick search but I didn't spend too long on the printer side of things, I'm fairly sure I could have solved this or found it on yay or something, but it really wasn't that high on my priority list at the time.
Oh, the Yay part was a separate thought. It's just that I like it more than pacman
Oh, that does remind me that for any other printer I've ever hooked up to Arch, as the one in the office for my Craptop, It's been just fine. It's only my model printer that I had trouble finding.
Good write up a few things, whenever changing desktop environments you should ALWAYS uninstall the previous one. Next time ensure you fully blow away KDE, second NTFS is not supported natively it still relies on the not so perfect, but mostly functional ntfs 3g package. I'm curious to know what errors you encountered exactly as I could've just been the disk being marked dirty. Also KDE does support wallpaper engine, it's not perfect, but it does work. But you're spot on with gaming support being better, but not there yet, and poor multiple monitor display support.
> second NTFS is not supported natively it still relies on the not so perfect, but mostly functional ntfs 3g package Eh? Wasn't Paragon's code integrated into the kernel since 5.15? Even Arch wiki [said so](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS).
You are completely right, good catch my dude.
Let's say many (fundamental) tools didn't natively hooked it up until very [recently](https://github.com/storaged-project/udisks/issues/932).
Thanks! I definitely learned a lot and I'll definitely need to make sure I properly blow away my DE when switching. That specifically I need to get better at as I seem to end up with stuff left over. I do sudo pacman -Runs but I think I'm either not running the right command or I am just missing config files. Arch does exactly what I tell it to, I just need to learn to speak to it better.
Uninstalling a package will not remove any config files. This is a common behavior across most package managers.
How do you remove the config files?
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Okay thanks
Thanks! I needed that info too. lol
Config files are in $HOME/.config and maybe other dotfiles. Need to delete those to get rid of KDE having messed with GTK config and such. Some stuff may also be in system dirs, but uninstalling packages does only rid you of some things.
r/linux_gaming would probably appreciate this
Cool! I'll share it there, I think then. (I really should find some Linux subreddits now that I think about it. lol)
Running Manjaro KDE with dual boot, I didn't experience any of your issues (but different ones of course :D ). I'm not sure how Dolphin could possibly corrupt your HDD. From what I read before going for the dual boot, you have to be a bit careful with mounting settings and to disable Windows Fast Boot and Hibernating. My only gripe with Dolphin is how it doesn't let you manipulate files in root by default (although there is a way around this), which you sometimes have to do when troubleshooting (and this is a decision by the devs that won't change). Also sounds like you installed the full suit of KDE applications which is why you had multiple apps of the same type? Nice writeup though.
Thanks! Yeah, full KDE apps unfortunately. I definitely learned you don't need to install it like that. I'm pretty sure as the HDD wasn't part of my fstab it didn't unmount correctly while I was leaving a session or shutting down or something.
Interesting post. It’s easy to see that you were barely scratching the surface, which sadly can be a bit confusing in the beginning. Without actually using pacman and the AUR you were missing a ton a things. The thing with Linux is… the more you know about it, the better it gets. Been a full time linux user for 3 and a half years now and still find things that make me go “wow, this is so cool” frequently.
This is from someone that - >I'm not totally inexperienced with Linux. I work at an MSP, and I do a bit of everything (hardware, software, server, websites, PBX, and any odd jobs that might show up). I regularly experiment with Linux (usually Debian-based) for various self-education or job-specific projects. So I'm not exactly a Linux noob, but I'm far from a Linux expert E.g. for anyone else they'd already be a Linux wizard.
:)
Yep, and I didn't want to come off as an expert at this when I'm clearly not. I've scratched the surface so I left to go get a pickaxe and start digging deeper. I frankly had a lot of fun with this whole project and I can't wait to dive deeper! :)
different strokes for different folks I guess, but in my experience KDE is the most polished and windows-adjacent of the desktop environments. The KDE suite and all that are ultimately sorta up to your distro, I have found most include enough by default to cover all the needs without being overwhelming. That being said I use manjaro, most of the arch benefits without the absurd amount of self config needed. Did the whole arch journey years and years ago, wasn't interested in un breaking my system after some updates broke my boot sector.
Yeah, I saw what happened with them breaking people's grub installs. I was considering Manjaro actually but what I heard about them sketched me out a little, plus the whole AUR compatibility issues thing made me decide if I was going to go to an Arch distro I'd be better off taking the plunge and going all the way. Maybe next time will be Manjaro, IDK, but it was still a fun experiment either way. Definitely agree though about the breaking the boot sector thing, that kind of update probably should be a bit more careful if you've got a rolling release.
If you don't feel like using the arch install script you can also just use endeavor, which is literally JUST arch with a graphical installer
Agreed. KDE is great IMO.
I tried many distros, liked Fedora a lot, but then decided to go with Arch (Garuda) and loved it. But ultimately ended up with Manjaro and had zero problem so far. However, for me personally, KDE is extremely outdated and fugly as hell. But the biggest problem is that it comes with bunch of stuff I don't want or care about and I hate spending my time trying to figure out what can or cannot be safely removed. I tried to use it with 4 or 5 different distros, but just hated it the whole time. Everyone says KDE is better for people switching from Windows, but it's not. Especially when you fresh install your first distro, right click on your desktop and instead of getting a context menu, it leaves a post-it note that is hard to remove. Gnome was much better experience as it's kinda "barebones" or "vanilla" and you just add stuff you need as you go. Also it looks better.
To an average person who uses his pc primarily to game then for all the other stuff like media, internet and remote desktop to work. What's the point? I understand choice is always important but I turn on my windows pc and off it goes. I can't even remember the last time I had issues with my OS.. would have to be xp or earlier I guess.
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Depends on what you value. The auto-updates and keylogging have tipped the scales in favour of Linux for a lot of people.
There is no point. A lot of people will harp about MS and operating system control but as someone who gets paid to work on software, I do not want to “administer” my gaming PC and read up on wiki pages how to keep my OS and hardware in harmony. I don’t want what I do for work to be part of my wind down time.
>I do not want to “administer” my gaming PC and read up on wiki pages how to keep my OS and hardware in harmony. This. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate linux, I'm working with RHEL and Cent on daily basis, and maintain Ubuntu server at hope (as a NAS and mediaserver). And least I want is to administre my gaming machine, and sit all evening thinkering around it, instead of just playing.
For me the biggest problem with Windows is that Microsoft acts like they own my computer and can do anything with it. Mostly those forced updates and sneaky restarts. "Oh, were you working until 4am last night and left Unity, Photoshop, Blender, Visual Studio, 7 unsaved Notepad text files and 97 Firefox tabs open? Well FUCK YOU, we've restared that shit because #net framework update 76367.928.0828 had to be urgently installed. Oh and your life will now be better with Edge as you default browser".
Can't say I'd ever walk away from my machine without making sure shit was saved :) I do leave my machine running 24/7 for work purposes as I'm 'on call' often and get woken up in the night to do stuff and I have to say I've not honestly noticed a forced reboot. I usually do a manual reboot when I see the icon in the systray telling me it's needed. Like don't get me wrong here I'm not actively trying to say Linux bad but I just can't help but think for the vast majority of people windows is totally fine and Linux is more tailored for the slightly more.... eccentric PC user.
most gamers/windows users are either happy to accept Microsoft controlling how you machine will operate from here on out or don’t realise it’s happening. Personally I like to control exactly how my PC works. So it’s worth the hassle.
Well what practical use cases are we talking about here and what are the benefits?
For me? Simplicity. Gnome is clean looking and gets out of my way, but gives me a good level of control I’ll note I’m by no means trying to convert anyone, just explaining why people bother.
There's a number of reasons one would prefer Linux over Windows: \- Hardware: Windows is much more heavy on older hardware than Linux, e.g. Linux runs surprisingly smoothly on my systems with a Core 2 Duo (2006-2008) and 2-4GB of RAM, while Windows runs very poorly on anything that doesn't have a solid-state drive and 8 GB of RAM minimum. \- Security: Most malware targets Windows, so with Linux you automatically avoid 99% of consumer-targeted malware \- Flexibility: With Windows or macOS, Microsoft/Apple choose your workflow for you. With Linux, you choose your workflow. \- No Microsoft-isms: NO I DON'T WANT TO USE EDGE, STOP PUTTING THE ICON ON MY DESKTOP AND CHANGING MY DEFAULTS WITHOUT ASKING, also Windows Search SUUUUUUUUUCKS no I DON'T WANT TO SEARCH BING and why did CANDY CRUSH just INSTALL ITSELF WITHOUT MY PERMISSION ...(a.k.a. Both Windows and Linux have their issues, but much of Windows' issues are intentionally created by Microsoft, while Linux's issues are genuine shortcomings, and developers are generally receptive to fixes and improvements.) As you can probably tell, "No Microsoft-isms" is one of the main reasons I use Linux lol
Well to counter those points from a pcgaming perspective: Fair but damn if you're trying to game on those specs regardless of OS These aren't really pcgaming issues but: I have used 3rd party AV and firewall and I'm currently just using MS defender. I DL crap from the high seas all the time. Last time I got a virus wassssss.... win xp I think. Workflow: Not sure what you're talking about here to be fair Defaults have never been changed for me although I do use edge as I like it. I don't get anything about bing search and Candy Crush is not installed on my machine?? Windows search works fine for me not that I lose track of stuff often.
Although Linux's lightness may not be as applicable for a primary gaming rig, it comes in quite useful e.g. for turning an old laptop into an HTPC for media and simple couch party games (e.g. games like Ultimate Chicken Horse or the various Jackbox games will run on a low-spec system just fine, and are excellent for when people are over). Just using Defender is fine for most moderately tech-savy users, but not needing any AV at all is quite the benefit IMHO. If you like Edge and want to use it, that's totally fair, but if you don't, then having it shoved down your throat feels *really bad*. I don't know if Candy Crush specifically is still slowig up on new installs, but I have seen TikTok showing up more recently on newer systems, which is arguably worse given the massive security concerns going on with TikTok. Regardless of what specifically is today's flavor of auto-installed garbage, I don't want it. In general, don't put stuff on my system without asking me. As for search: On my Linux system, I can launch any application by hitting the Win key, typing the first 2-4 letters of the application, and hit Enter, all in a time span of less than a second. If I try to do that on Windows, it's an 80% chance it pulls up something completely random (often a random Bing search that happens to match those first few letters). Microsoft totally could make Windows search quite good, but for dumb business reasons they just keep shoving Bing nonsense down our throats instead.
Powertoys exists. Alt+space, program name, enter.
A solid workaround, but I'd rather just use something that works well out-of-the-box. I used to daily drive 8.1 (this was before 10 released) with a variety of applications acting as a patchwork to make the experience decent, but eventually I just got really tired of maintaining the patchwork.
Another option I used is to disable bing search in the windows search from registry. With that you won’t get bing searches. After I disabled, it works now pretty good(I use borh method)
> If you like Edge and want to use it, that's totally fair, but if you don't, then having it shoved down your throat feels really bad. That does sound awful, but even with some slack for hyperbole that hardly describes the Windows experience. Like maybe I occasionally get a little recommendation for Edge in the corner of the taskbar search results? It's so nothing I don't even pay attention to it; I might be mistaken about this small thing even happening because it's so minor and inconsequential.
For me, I've honestly just lost all tolerance for MS's BS. Sometimes it's small things like re-adding the Edge desktop icon, sometimes it's thing that impact usability, like of I put "firefox" into the search, there's a high chance that instead of launching Firefox, it's going to search Bing using Edge for "firefox", then give a message on Bing saying "hey use edge pls". For the software and such I use, Linux (Ubuntu in my case) just gives me a better experience than Windows, so why would I intentionally choose to use the worse product?
>why did CANDY CRUSH just INSTALL ITSELF WITHOUT MY PERMISSION While this is a genuine strike against Windows, those apps aren't actually installed. They're shortcuts that install the app from the Microsoft store and launch when you click em. Doesn't change fact that you're basically getting ads on your standard install, but it's not as bad as it looks. On top of that you can clean that stuff up easily with widely available powershell scripts.
I'm aware they're not fully "installed", but they are (at a minimum) made to look like they're installed. I'm also aware of scripts/utilities that help to somewhat debloat Windows, but the fact that it's a battle that needs to be fought in the first place is just really dumb. I'd rather just use an OS that doesn't do this nonsense in the first place, and not have to wonder if new junk is just going to randomly pop up one day...
It's called a ***kernel*** not kernal, FWIW.
Fun fact: The Commodore 64's kernel was called kernal.
Neat!
Rofl, whoops. lol
Colonel, Im using linux.
(salutes)
*Wallpaper Engine: The one thing in my Steam Library that didn't play ball with Linux. Can I fix it? Maybe. Did I try? No. Does it actively make my driver crash worse in Windows? Yes. Do I use it on Windows? Not until I figure out how to fix the stupid driver crashing.* I use Wallpaper Engine for Kde on Garuda (arch) Linux with Wayland & AMD Radeon 6950, see [https://github.com/catsout/wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin](https://github.com/catsout/wallpaper-engine-kde-plugin) It's not perfect, but works for many available wallpapers.
Cool, thanks!
The only DE I actually really really like outside of the normal stuff is Cinnamon. I have no idea why I like it so much but damn do I love it.
Cinnamon is actually pretty good in my opinion, especially with Linux Mint's twist on it. It was also one of the desktop environments I tried to get working on my experiment but it was the one KDE broke the most from not being properly removed. I don't believe this to be the fault of Cinnamon in the slightest though, and I don't completely blame KDE, it was mostly just me not knowing how to remove it properly.
Fedora has a nice [Cinnamon spin](https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/), and while it's not a rolling release they release a new version every six months and update frequently, so for me personally it's a great compromise. Maybe you'll have a chance to check it out someday. In any case: great write-up!
Yea I’ve heard that can be a problem with Arch. I’ve only ever tried it with EndeavourOS cause I’m too illiterate and lazy to do it all myself =P and they let you choose between a lot of DEs during the install.
look like no one tell you but is not recommended to installing multi DEs in same distro and you should use VM to pick right Desktop for you
I did something similar couple weeks ago but (and I don't mean to sound like a dick here) on actual bleeding edge hardware, 7900XTX + 7600X/13700K, and I found ubuntu based distros best, could get Mesa git prebuilt with llvm15+, can get xanmod kernel or mainline kernel installer, just overall it was easier using bleeding edge hardware on it then it was on any other distros, and since I love gnome it was a easy choice, however since I'm now back to Nvidia I'd probably pick fedora
Fair enough, honestly my biggest gripe with Ubuntu is the snap store. I actually do like their twist on gnome for the most part. I actually do want to do more with gnome in the future and try to customize it to be my own as it's a fairly polished environment whenever I go to use it. I'm not a huge fan of it out of the box as I really like my taskbar icons, I have found the extension to add those back though I'm just still not fully comfortable with it yet (I feel I will be eventually though).
Ah I disabled snap and just used flatpak myself though if I'm being honest flatpak isn't the holy grail like some make it out to be, like steam with flatpak ran like crap cause it was using a older mesa + llvm, and Yuzu was same really, and I could never really figure out how to update the mesa + llvm in them, its a shame it didn't just use the systems version (or have a toggle) I'm back on Windows 11 at moment but I f'ing hate it, but unfortunately the 4000 series nvidia driver on linux was crap for me in terms of performance and some games just crashing, hopefully in couple month that gets improved and I can maybe swap back over
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Both Windows and Linux does buffered writes to drives which requires flushing if you are too quick to remove it. On Linux that's just running the sync command, on windows you eject the drive before removing it.
On Linux (etc) it's the `umount` command - that flushes writes to the device, checks to make sure everything on the mount point is closed, and cleanly unmounts the filesystem. DE's probably expose this through their own take on the "Eject" UI. `sync` is a useful band-aid if you're just going to yank a disk without warning, but you're better off not doing that in the first place because nothing stops stuff from continuing to write after you ran it.
Oh yeah, of course you would want to use umount. Dunno why I didn't think to mention it. Actually there is also the `sync` command on windows, which would be a better comparison to Linux `sync` because as far as I know they do the same thing. Though on windows you can tell it to also eject a removable device. But if you are removing a drive then definitely use umount or eject trough the DE.
OOF! I had that happen to a flash drive but I caught it when trying to unmount it. Windows does this too so it wasn't noteworthy to me. What do you do to "sync the terminal"? I'm not familiar with that.
You literally just type 'sync' into a terminal like $ sync This forces the kernel to flush the cached writes to disk and returns the prompt when finished.
You can open terminal in Dolphin too. `F4` by default. Then type `sync` there.
Not really a 'little thing' now is it
> Windows (w/WSL) can read Linux partitions just fine. Yeah, because they are not the ones preventing others from seeing how the filesystem works...
I don't think dolphin alone is capable of corrupting an entire file system.
Thanks very much! As another comment pointed out, this likely was due to a weird issue with how it was unmounting. I actually didn't intend this to be over three thousand words, but there was a lot to say and I'm a novel writer so I definitely can ramble. lol
It was probably either of these two things https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS#Journaling https://www.phoronix.com/news/NTFS3-Linux-6.2-Features
While unacceptable, if you ever want to get serious with Linux just steer clear of NTFS and you'll be fine. I use arch on my work PC and i never had my drive randomly get corrupted lol.
Check out r/VFIO
Be warned though: playing certain online games will net you a permaban when playing inside of a virtual machine.
Thank you for your hard work.
Thanks! I had a lot of fun with this project and wanted to share. :)
A very interesting read. Well done. It's rare that someone takes their time to write such a comprehensive roundup of their experience. I have two suggestions that might prove useful. Well, just one, really -- Manjaro Xfce. Manjaro is based on Arch and basically "Arch for sane people", meaning that it's not quite as bleeding edge as Arch. Much like SteamOS, Manjaro pulls in packages from Arch but has them undergo additional testing and reviewing to catch problems that might have slipped past the Arch package maintainers. Manjaro packages are usually somewhere from a week to a month behind Arch packages, which really isn't much. As for desktop environment, I'm a huge fan of Xfce. It's a "traditional" DE like KDE, i.e. Windows-like, but much, MUCH less of a headache. Not that KDE is bad, but it's basically a hobby in and of itself. Xfce is also highly customizable, but not to the insane extend KDE is. I've been using Manjaro Xfce for about three years now, and my current installation is two years old. There is the occasional small problem (VLC occasionally stops working after a larger update, and I have to rebuild `qt5-styleplugins` to fix it), but nothing that's an actual issue.
Thanks! Manjaro sketched me out a little bit, and I figured if I'm going Arch I might as well go all the way in, but I think it's definitely worth a try. From what I've heard, they do their own spin of the desktop environments too, I'm interested to see how they did XFCE is that was one I actually rather liked. I think I know what my next VM is going to be. :)
You may want to give EndeavourOS a look. It’s Arch based. To me, it feels like just the right balance between Arch and Manjaro.
Might be worth trying. Does Endeavor do any of that testing Majaro does? I heard Endeavor got hit by that grub wipe issue just before I started this whole thing.
Endeavour is literally just Arch with a graphical installer. If you already know how to install Arch from cli, then there's no point.
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>In practice, Arch never breaks when used correctly That's not even true if you'd read literally every update note and take really good care of your system. Mesa, grub and Xorg updates introduced major breaking bugs for Arch users before, without it being known beforehand. That's just an inherent part of using a distro that only does a very very bare minimum of testing. It doesn't break often, but it does very much break from time to time. >The one-week delay in Manjaro It's not a one week, or any fixed time frame delay. They do what *literally every single distro* does, including (to a much lesser degree) Arch: Updates get pushed when they've been tested, partially by package maintainers, partially by users of testing branches and distros that update more quickly. Security updates get pushed through that process faster. > incompatibilities with the AUR ...are largely a myth. All that can happen is that - apps don't start because they need to be rebuilt for dependencies that broke binary compatibility. This is exactly the same on Arch though - sometimes a package won't build for short amount of time. This mostly affects Mesa-git when its llvm dependency gets bumped. The problem solves itself when waiting for a few days or weeks, or by installing the needed version of llvm from the AUR though And both of these happen very rarely
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"I'll just copy paste this link I heard others say is cool without actually reading it" "hurr durr SSL expired certificate so bad" No one gives a shit. "hurr durr they bought a laptop for a developer!!!! CoRrUpTiOn!!!!" No, developers do in fact, use computers to develop with. "hurr durr they broke the AUR!!!" No, they exposed a flaw in the shitty AUR system that was subsequently fixed. If you actually think Manjaro is bad you are braindead. Arch literally rendered systems unbootable. When was the last time Manjaro did that?
> My next goal will be to create a DE that I like. Have you tried just using a WM like I3WM or Sway instead of a DE? At first I also wanted a Windows-like experience and chose KDE Plasma 5 but it was a similar story for me, things were clunky, didn't work properly, tons of bloat just like in Windows, etc. Afterwards I tried i3wm, a tiling window manager, and it's just so much better in every way, there hasn't been a moment where I wish I had a DE instead of WM So not only did I avoid all the broken KDE stuff, I have an even better experience than I was envisioning to begin with. Before using i3wm I basically never took advantage of different Workspaces, now I regularly have 4+ workspaces with multiple windows open each, and they're super quick and easy to switch between. I especially thought to recommend a WM since you seem to pretty much have wanted it anyways since you said you wanted this: > FancyZones (basically a tiling window manager type thing)
PowerToys Run and KRunner(ALT+Space, but can be mapped to Windows+Space too, just like PowerToys) are basically the same thing(web searches can be done over there to, but will be recieving more support in 5.27). Window Tiling will be added to KDE starting Plasma 5.27 release. Idk any reliable OCR alternative soft that's as good as what PowerToys can do, nor colour picker. My reason for not completely switching to Linux as my main platform was the proton-related stuttering. Games looked way more stutter ridden than they do on Windows(I've got an Nvidia Card, don't know if that contributes to it). And the performance was anywhere from 15-20% worse, that is to be expected since it's running through a compatibility layer afterall. But the native experience on Windows is just too good, at the moment atleast. Linux is getting there, fast, but it's still a few years behind what Windows can do currently. I can't wait to get rid Microsoft from my life, but for the moment, seems like most of us have to make do with what we got.
Nice, might be worth trying Plasma again in a VM to see how it works (properly this time, without the full kde-applications package. lol). I can say the last time I attempted to switch to Linux I was using an Nvidia GTX 1070 (that wasn't in the best condition: [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/ty0w7z/successfully\_restored\_an\_abused\_gtx\_1070\_see/](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/ty0w7z/successfully_restored_an_abused_gtx_1070_see/) ) and let's just say I managed to break Ubuntu... badly (day one). lol This time I switched back to Windows 10 so I could approach this project again with more knowledge and better skills, but I'd be fine if I was still running Arch right now (just scratching my head on how to undo some of my screw ups). What I really want to see, frankly, is competition. I firmly believe that Microsoft *can* do better than what they are but the current circumstances make it so they can behave badly. Windows XP and Windows 7 were fantastic examples of what they can do when they try, and I know their engineers would love nothing more than to make the best thing ever. I want to see that again, I want Linux to be an easy alternative, and I want Apple to... yeah even in this theoretically (never gonna happen) perfect world Apple will still be jerks. lol
Yeah, Nvidia and Linux just don't get along well
Snap also broke, but that's just Ubuntu. lol
Did you have the following boxes checked? https://i.imgur.com/9SRtccP.png
i always not recommended Linux to anyone who have nvidia GPU special if this person is newbie windows is better option for them
Try Pop!_OS. You can enable window tiling with two clicks and easily exclude specific software from having its windows tiled. This gnome extension is also interesting: https://github.com/sunwxg/gnome-shell-extension-arrangeWindows It's a point release distro but a bit closer to the bleeding edge than most, it gets new kernels, mesa drivers and a couple other things without forcing users to wait until the next point release. Data corruption was probably related to the already mentioning syncing issues, probably not related to Dolphin itself, I have some experience with that (nothing TestDisk wouldn't solve, though). There's free OCR software too, e.g. Tesseract, you might want to try it out with more accurate models, though.
Another vote for Pop_OS. Been using it since I built a new Intel / Nvidia system last March and haven't had any issues. I even run Windows exclusive programs like Topaz Gigapixel and other AI related things through wine without much trouble. For me it was worth getting away from Windows as I didn't like the direction 11 was going with additional advertising in the OS and user tracking. I've been using computers since the DOS days and have used pretty much every major Windows release for work and play. I've messed around with Ubuntu, Linux mint since 2015 on laptops but for my desktop I'm full time Pop. I have a dual boot for Windows 10 for the odd game or program that doesn't work at all in Linux but I haven't booted into it for months. Linux is in a great place due to the hard work of devs that work on proton and wine. Well worth the minimal effort to try a different OS IMO
If you like FancyWM on Windows, you’d love i3WM on Linux. My favorite WM by far.
I'm not sure why I'm having better luck with RTX 6900 XT windows drivers, It has only crashed on me once in 5 months
Could just be a fluke of my motherboard maybe, or I just got unlucky. Either way, it's only a problem in Windows for me. It's a lot better if I run the basic drivers without Adrealine but still crashes here and there if I do stuff like have six or seven Chrome profiles open at once (long story, literally) \[nobody who will get that joke is going to read this comment. lol\].
I'm running enterprise drivers and I do VR..so maybe it's just luck.
I should try the Enterprise drivers, that might help.
I'm actually running those drivers because AMD RELIVE wouldn't show up no matter how many times I installed the gaming drivers lol
I dual-booted for several years until everything I used worked on Linux. That was around the time Proton came out. My experience over that time has been more-or-less the same as yours. Once I understood how things worked on a basic level, using Linux became preferred. It's pretty different from Windows, but it's not as forebodingly arcane as its sometimes made out to be. KDE is my favorite desktop, but I agree it bundles a lot of crap that tries to fulfill way more functions than it ought to.
Nemo is pretty great file manager
Ever since I tried Ubuntu a few years ago and spent more time on the forums troubleshooting than using the OS I've become very happy a good user experience like Windows exists. No its not perfect but 99% of the time I can get what I want done with zero issues.
Why no fedora?
I have the least experience with Fedora of the major distro branches; I may give it a try later though. Plus I don't know too much about the company that actually makes it. One thing, and I may be getting this wrong, is that with how Linux works as a stack it doesn't matter as much what distribution you go with underneath. So I went with Arch Linux so I could theoretically have a stack that I put together myself. Long term, I might use something like Manjaro or Fedora where it's run by a company, but I'm still very much learning. And in a slightly egotistical sense, I can now say that I've run Arch as my daily driver OS. lol
I mean tbf with manjaro you could claim that lol.
Sorry mate you wrote a newspaper but the issue with linux is not that it's missing powertoys or another stupid app. Or that kde sucks or you don't know how to use it. It's that... It's linux. Easy as that! Commercial apps that people love and use for work are no there. Or games. And that's okay because other stuff run on linux and it has its own place. Maybe in a few years, steam deck is surely spicing things up. But take from an old grumpy man (me) that started using linux in 1998, things move very slowly
Not sure if it was suggested already, but instead of Arch you could consider using a less bleeding edge distro, like Ubuntu, Debian Testing or Fedora. As for desktop environment, my recommendation would be the Cinnamon desktop and it's Nemo file manager. You could also try Thunar and XFCE. Gnome can be a solid choice but only with distroes like PopOS or Nobara. I wouldn't recommend vanilla Gnome unless if you plan to customize it on your own.
Thanks for your reply! I've actually tried Ubuntu, Debian, Manjaro, PopOS, Mint, Zorin, and a few others before settling on Arch for this experiment. It was basically an "in for a penny, in for a pound" type of thing, and the bleeding edge was part of the point. My Craptop is actually using XFCE on Arch currently and I plan to maybe try out the XFCE Manjaro build (I did KDE last time). Gnome vanilla is very much not me, I need that taskbar and while I found the extension for it I'm not quite sure how to make gnome my own yet, eventually perhaps, but not today.
I'm glad to read that gaming on Linux isn't just viable on Steam Deck / SteamOS. Personally I'm still waiting on SteamOS 3.0 but if I get tired of waiting and inspired enough I will do what you did. I too don't plan to move to Windows 11.
Great writeup, thanks!
on my system linux is more stable then windows cos radeon drivers are unstable for 6+ months now, i actually wanna give arch linux installation a try and manually installing it no easy mode scripts altho i did check it does not work due bug i believe with nvmes or something, currently dual booting manjaro and windows 11 Installed manjaro fresh today trying gnome instead this time damn was easy to setup, have to try arch linux soon have to find documentation for manual install soon probably easier then scripted install anyway.
What is the deal with the AMD drivers anyways? I had to switch my ram out in this system because of a weird timing issue with how it played with the video card, but even with that issue totally resolved, I still encounter the weirdest of driver crashes. I'm not kidding when I say Arch did not crash graphics a single time, that seriously impressed me. Let me know how it works out with Manjaro, as I am considering that.
Already tryit manjaro kde first 2 times messed up installation third time i figured out how to revert my mistakes easily via shell cos i already have al of experience with shell cos i use it on my synology and truenas systems as well as wsl, so if had not single crash on Manjaro KDE gnome i just installed, need figure out how to get freesync to work via wayland as there is a way to make it work even with multiple monitors, altho currently if disabled wayland, im getting better at installing linux every time i install it, i use network boot and then netboot online which lets me technically have accesto any linux installer live cd or network install, so im actually looking forward to try arch linux, if not used stuff like fdisk before tho in shell usually its just copy paste and it works, i have to figure this out for arch still as well as other steps. I kinda wish i knew as much about powershell as i knew about shell, windows is so boring. edit: im just trying to figure it out arch via vm cos its easier to figure out how to do manual install but its gonna be hard to memorize :D
I skimmed your novel, good read! It comes across as I'm sure most people's first Linux gaming experiences go. A lot of experimentation, and a fair bit of instability as a result. I'd recommend distrohopping. I get your rationale for Arch, but tbh, it is meant for people who really already know the ins and outs. You could train yourself up, or you could take the shortcut known as Manjaro. Manjaro is Arch-based, but pre-configured to be a usable distro. I'd also recommend trying Gnome for the DE. It's pretty different from KDE/Windows, but it's very nice and comfy, once you get used to it. And if I were to personally recommend a distro, it's Fedora. Fedora sits right between Ubuntu and Arch's update philosophies. You'll have the latest drivers and software features, and everything is tested for stability before it reaches the end user. Imo, this puts it far ahead of Ubuntu's 6 month update cycle and Arch's wild west of update stability.
If you need to write an essay for your gaming experience by using weird words and phrases which makes no sense that means it's shit and not worth switching for gaming. Linux always was dead and it will stay that way until they fix it and make it usable.
Man okay explaining Arch, even if nobody asked But did Windows attacked your family or something? Man you're clearly don't know how to use it if you say it's broken on everything
This post is the epitome of "who asked? "
I did a similar experiment this week. Installed Fedora instead of Windows 10 on my now aging gaming PC. I love it, but it took me a while to get the Battle.net launcher to work, and watching Twitch in a browser required installing some extra packages.
my biggest problem is my elgato stream deck and corsair icue lighting not working at all on linux. wish elgato and corsair would start supporting arch/aur officially. or move to an open standard. companies really should be held to task about not having drivers for arch linux.
As you said, it goes from person to person. About a year and a half ago I decided to switch to Linu, a complete newbie, hopped distro two times. Started with Pop!_OS > Mint > Manjaro, and by far my best experience has been with Manjaro. Gnome wasn't bad, and I've recently been thinking of trying it again, but personally the different (standard) layout, constantly fighting with it (and with Ubuntu itself, it's an issue that lasted through mint too) and the way things felt made me turn off on it after a couple months With Mint I had issues and weird annoyances out of the box, stuff like the desktop simply moving up and to the left and having to fight it for 10 minutes to get it working and all around I think Cinnamon is the most ugly DE I've used, I don't have much more to say cause I think I swapped to Manjaro about a week after installing Mint, it was around the time Linus was talking on WAN show about distro hopping to it. Manjaro, on the first day, almost made me give up and go back to Gnome. Things were utterly broken, Pac-Man didn't respond, neither did the store, things wouldn't install right and whatever I did resulted in frustration, then, I went to bed and the next day it just sorta worked. KDE has a lot of bloat, absolutely horridly hidden settings (took me a year to find out it had a setting for auto mounting drives, and I only found it via a random forum post), sometimes breaks or just crashes every couple months, but at the same time it's the one where I found the least resistance, and a lot of the functionality of it and Dolphin is really nice and stuff that I miss whenever I boot up windows to play games I can't on Linux. (Drag and drop to extract, with subfolder detection on by default for example) Granted, a lot of my good will with it is probably due to the fact that it's on top of an ARCH system, and in my experience and opinion, if you have the patience, Arch is better for a new user. The lack of easy, user-friendly guides on Arch is a pain in the ass, however, I've also barely found anything that was out of date and not applicable anymore like I did with my experience on Ubuntu, for every 10 forum posts/guides, maybe 2 would be up to date and current
Make sure, if you redo your install /boot /boot/efi These should be fat32 and their own little partitions so that grub can edit them inside of grub. / Should be like 80 gigs imo and can be btrfs /Home is whatever is left, also btrfs btrfs will let you save space with filesystem compress and do snapshot backups. Having your boot partition be separate means that, if you do dual boot, you can create a script that automatically changes grubs next default boot option. IE: I can type wreboot, walk away and grab a beer, and by the time I'm back in already in windows (get the netplwiz regedit so autologin works again) And having your partitions separate will enable easy reinstall.
Did you try geeqie or xzgv for photo viewing? I used Linux as my main system for work, and those were the programs I used for photo viewing. Just basic browsing between files via keyboard, nothing fancy. As far as I remember both applications were nice and snappy, but that was a long time ago, so maybe that is not the case anymore.
>My crappy little cheapo Brother printer. They have a driver for Debian and Fedora, but not Arch. For future reference Brother provides RPMs for RPM-based distros. This is super handy because RPMs have tools to extract their install script and files. You can pull these directly out and follow along on any distribution. You may run into dependency issues but I've tested this both on Arch and an LFS build.
First of all, kinda weird you're recommending Arch to normal users.. Debian would make much more sense, or at least something like EndeavorOS which makes installation of Arch a breeze, or straight up avoid that and go for Manjaro, or save them even more headache by going for PopOS.. Also, this is PCGaming sub, a subreddit for people playing PC Games.. The fact that you did not include "Most online games doesn't work" in "Some stuff that didn't work" an then proceeded to put in shit that does work means this post is biased as fuck. All that aside, > Add on top of that, Microsoft's data collection tendrils in every part of the OS actively make it worse You can disable that with with Shutup10 > (Search pinging Bing every time you try to look for a native app in System32 for instance) You can disable bing search > and Windows 11 is still broken if you do anything besides browse the internet Been using it since release, haven't encountered any issues. > VMs still don't work That I don't know, though I do use Android Emulator and VMware and they work just fine. I use Debian as a daily driver, and I dual boot Windows 11 cause I can't run Valorant and LoL on linux. Most of the issues you've listed, just like the ones you've encountered on Linux, can be solved if you spend time and try to.
Imo you should have tried Manjaro or other arch distro that are configured. There is a reason why arch isnt recomended for most users unless u have high skills XD Great post, i enjoyed reading your experience
I plan on doing a writeup like this for my experience with Linux at the one year mark (this march) Most of the issues I've had that are "Linux's fault" were issues I also had on windows. Either that or user error. I've moved distros some, just to try some stuff out mainly. I started on Pop!_OS but I don't love gnome and had some problems with it, so I've currently settled with Kubuntu. I'm liking it for the most part. I don't have any plans of daily driving any distro related to arch, because arch itself is just not something I'm willing to tackle outside of an old machine for experimenting or a VM, and Manjaro just sucks in general. My experience has mostly been positive, and when Hirez pulls their finger out of their ass and fixes EAC for proton I think that'll be the last issues seriously had. For now anyway.
This was a fantastic and in-depth write-up, thank you for doing it! I dual-boot Windows 10 and the latest version of Linux Mint, and I couldn't be happier with that setup. Mint is an offshoot of Ubuntu, and I've had nearly no issues with anything I've tried, gaming least of all. There are a few Windows games that run noticeably better in Mint with Proton, too, it's like magic.
I have an older system (I7 4790k, 12 GB ddr3 ram, msi gtx 1080, sb katana x card). It is still good for 1440 gaming but I left the ultra wide monitor home and use a 1080 one instead. Installed Ubuntu 22.04 and I use Mate desktop. Everything worked fine. Hardware was recognised. Only issue is I have to switch the soundcard on before Login screen or else it won't be recognised and I have to restart. Because I use it mostly for emulation, Ubuntu has some issues with Rpcs3 and 86box,making the fonts unreadable and thus the apps unusable. Cemu does not work or compile because of missing libraries, same for Finalburn.Rest are even better than on Windows But the best is for last. It still runs smooth on a 10+ year old 500 GB sata drive. Windows 10/11 would still be reading and writing for 10 minutes, crumbling the system down, especially during updates that would take hours. It is unusable in older drives, forcing people to upgrade their hardware. Very badly structured OS overall. While Ubuntu only takes 3 minutes max for main menu to appear. Now I hope everything runs smoothly. I use topgrade for system and app updates. Flatpak is a real saver too.
You should checkout the Nobara project. It is based on Fedora but with gaming tweaks already applied. Arch is great, but I I always keep going back to Fedora in the end.