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. ^^

  • cheer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    37·
    1 year ago

    Nice writeup. Seconding not using Manjaro. If you want something Arch based, try EndeavourOS instead.

  • nottheengineer@feddit.deEnglish
    241·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Skimmer@lemmy.zipEnglish
      11·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • angrymouse@lemmy.worldEnglish
        42·
        1 year ago

        Ahh yes, the chaotic-AUR problem, luckly no one uses chaotic on endevour right? (͡•_ ͡• )

    • seaQueue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • neomis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    221·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • Neshura@bookwormstory.socialEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        given the recent (? not sure, could already be a couple of months) reskin of Mint to be even more in line with Windows Icons and colors I second this

      • sorghum@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        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.

    • angrymouse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • Oikio@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      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.

      • Nilz@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        82·
        1 year ago

        I’d prefer plain Arch over Arch-based since the latter will exclude you from receiving any support from Arch forums.

        • priapus@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          7·
          1 year ago

          EndeavourOS has a large community, you’ll find plenty of help there while having an easier install and first time setup.

          • Polyester6435@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            With archinstall being included by default on arch iso’s idk if this is the case anymore. The arch install script also has good defaults

  • antihumanitarian@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • krimson@feddit.nlEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    I fired up Steam last night and was surprised how many games in my library just work, including AAA titles. Amazing.

    • seaQueue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • psmgx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    1 year ago

    arch linux is not what i’d recommend for new users. great distro, love pacman, but ubuntu will get you there just as fast and with less headaches. manjaro is an option if you’re adamant about arch.

    haven’t had good luck w/ VR with valve index, still a lot of pain points.

  • sasquash471@feddit.deEnglish
    7·
    1 year ago

    Embarrassing, but I never knew that you actually have to activate proton in the steam settings in order to install games which natively don’t support Linux. This kept me from switching completely.

    Now I use Fedora with KDE and can also run MS games like AoE without any problem. Even the performance is often a lot better for example in BG3.

    • Nilz@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      To clarify: native Linux support means the game ships with Linux binaries. For non-native games (Windows only) you use Proton. (For some games the Windows version with Proton actually works better than the Linux native version)

      The setting you are referring to enables Proton for all games, instead of the selection of games that have a predefined Proton version which has been tested by Valve.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      It says that downgrading a lib resolves that issue, maybe that’s why it’s had less priority?

      • RiQuYEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        The problem solves reverting a commit and building Mesa with that change. If I do that I will have to rebuild Mesa everytime I want to update. That doesn’t sound like a solution for me.

        • vividspecterEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          If I do that I will have to rebuild Mesa everytime I want to update.

          Mesa is a pretty quick compile on a recent system, but if you’re doing that manually I get that would be annoying.

  • Jayemecee@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    Do you have a secondary monitor? How do you handle sleep? Using laptop? How do you close your lid and get everything to hibernate/sleep? Those are my biggest gripes right now

    • Oikio@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Two monitors do work (second display is my tv), I tried it couple of times - just worked,but maybe I need to retest.

      Currently I have stationary pc. But ten years ago closing lid worked for me on laptop. I think arch wiki has good guidance about this topic. It was not a plug and play experience for sure.

  • DeconceptualistEnglish
    62·
    1 year ago

    Good notes, but man this could really use bullet points.