Finally migrated from Windows to Linux. For anyone wondering, what is the state of Linux as your primary OS for home PC\laptop in 2023.
I’ve finalised my Archlinux installation yesterday, I dropped of Linux more than 10 years ago and experience in 2023 in comparison is awesome and beyond even wildest dreams back then:
- For average user looking for more out of the box experience I would suggest something Arch based (people in comments suggest EndeavourOS, please do your research). Archlinux installation took me quite some time
- Almost everything works out of the box, by just installing corresponding package
- KDE Plasma environment is fast and beautiful
- Pipewire audio server (Jack\Pulseaudio replacement) works great
- Wayland window server is not there yet, especially if you have Nvidia with proprietary drivers and want to use VR. Waking up, session restoration and other scenarios have issues. Use X11.
- Wine is great!
- Music making - Bitwig Studio DAW has linux native version, yabridge allow you to use windows VSTs, which are easily installed via wine
- Gaming works out of the box with Steam for majority of titles, some games have native linux version. Performance is great. In worst case windows game might loose 5-15% in performance. Was not case for my titles
- Gaming outside steam is fine too. Use Wine, Lutris, Proton
- VR is a mixed bag. Not everything is there (Desktop view, sound control and mirroring, camera, motions smooth, lighthouses do not wake up os go to sleep. I use my phone to turn them on/off). But if its not the problem for you, quite some titles work. Tried: native HF Alyx, Lab, windows: Beat Saber and Boneworks. For me it’s a surprise, I did not count on it. Performance is great.
So overall my experience is great. Eventually I’m going to get rid of WIndows on other computers and laptops at howe. I can finally wave goodbye to Windows, with lots of ads and bloatware. Alway glad to help with answers regarding installation while my memory and history logs are fresh. ^^
Nice writeup. Seconding not using Manjaro. If you want something Arch based, try EndeavourOS instead.
Great to hear, but I’d recommend against manjaro. While it appears to just be arch with an installer and some more preset, it has its own repos that are behind the arch repos. This causes a huge amount of issues that normal arch doesn’t have.
While I haven’t tried garuda yet and installed arch on my own, it seems like it actually does what people think manjaro does: Make arch easy and keep the benefits.
Garuda appears to have some security issues unfortunately, see here.
To quote:
Garuda: They use Chaotic-AUR which automatically and blindly compiles packages from the AUR. There is no verification process to make sure that the AUR packages don’t suffer from supply chain attacks.
Their complaint about chaotic is the exact same that is mentioned 4 paragraphs before as coming from AUR in general, and they also mention the same thing can happen with other distros / package managers… It all loops back around to not blindly trusting everything in the repos. Which loops around to not blindly trusting anything on the internet in general.
Also I’m pretty sure you can use Garuda and avoid chaotic and use standard AUR instead, if you for some reason trust AUR fully but don’t trust chaotic at all. I’d have to double check that about system level packages, but it’s definitely possible with anything you seek out to install after the initial install of the OS.
People often claim that Manjaro holds packages for a couple of weeks for “stability” but I’ve never seen the benefit. They tend to just update packages after Arch does and it doesn’t seem like they do any particular stability testing that the Arch community hasn’t done already.
They also tend to break the AUR occasionally for funsies, so that sucks.
EndeavourOS, Garuda, and any of the other Arch derivatives that use the Arch repos and drop some of their own tooling/customization on top should be a better experience for most.
New to Linux and chose arch? I know it’s got issues but isn’t Ubuntu still the stupid easy way to run Linux. Steam out of the box, no driver issues.
That was the consensus the last time I brought it up (in response to Windows 11 being so shitty). I asked if the transition would be smooth for my non-tech savvy family members. So far no problems; kids run Minecraft and Roblox just fine, Steam handles much of my games and my scanner and printer works, wife made the switch to Libre Office and doesn’t miss Chrome. The only problem I have is getting a driver to work with my ancient Brother HL-5170DN that still is running like a tank for 20 years.
Edit: Had a job for a big print, got a driver to actually print proper, now it just duplicates everything, lol. I miss having projects like this since exiting the professional IT career.
All distro with a good installer using kde plasma, mate or something similar to windows are great, mint, endevour, Ubuntu or even mocaccinoOS. Driver issues should not be a thing for almost all distros, Debian or slack maybe but just becaus.
Anyway, OP mentioned it was not his first rodeo.
For me Arch was a way to go, because as I used it before - ~10 years ago. And it’s philosophy is appealing to me.
I’d prefer plain Arch over Arch-based since the latter will exclude you from receiving any support from Arch forums.
EndeavourOS has a large community, you’ll find plenty of help there while having an easier install and first time setup.
I use Arch for my daily, and I would highly recommend against it for new users. 99% of the time it’s just fine. 1% of the time some edge case sneaks by and you update before a fix is pushed. In those cases, I’ve had installations be deeply broken, far beyond my expectations of normal users.
For actual recommendations, something Debian based for sure. Vanilla Debian, Mint, or Mint Debian edition. If you wanna live on the edge, Sid is rolling but in my experience was more stable than Arch.
I fired up Steam last night and was surprised how many games in my library just work, including AAA titles. Amazing.
I bought a hybrid AMD/Nvidia laptop in 2021, installed Arch, the Nvidia dkms driver and flatpak steam and everything I wanted to play just worked. Getting gaming up and running is so much easier now thanks to valve’s work on proton.
Same experience on two more machines after.
