I’m currently on Win11 but I’m getting that familiar Linux itch and want to dual boot a while again. I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it’s so big and well supported by most things.
I’ve run Arch in the past but I’ve gotten too old and lazy for that if I’d be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though… and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.
Not sure what I’d try out first this time so I figured I’d get some inspiration from you guys!
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I use Pop!_OS and have been happy with it for the last couple years or so.
I think I just might have to give pop a go and see what all the fuss is about. :)
I’ve been running Linux Mint for a few years now and it’s been really good for me. Runs games through Steam and Lutris about as good as I’ve had it.
I’ve also run other distros like Pop! and Fedora here and there but they seem to give me more issues.
I’ve been on Manjaro for 3 years, honestly love it, it’s treated me great for gaming and given me so little to have to fix that my wife has also been running it for 2 years.
Got to love the wife rating :D
But yeah, I had manjaro on an old chromebook at University, it was pretty nice!
It’s funny, she’s become more of a Linux evangelist than me, she really went all in.
Sounds like a keeper! :)
She certainly is <3 celebrating 10 years this year
Good for you guys!
Thank you!
I would take a look at pop_os. It’s Ubuntu, but without Snap and a closer to mainline kernel version. They have a lot of great usability tweaks too.
I run Arch BTW. I just like to make things difficult :)
I installed Kubuntu… I couldn’t be assed to resize my efi partition to a gig and disrupt windows… Done that in the past with varying results. Wish they didn’t require it to be that big tbh.
I do miss Arch… wouldn’t surprise me if I’ll install it again soon.
Kubuntu works. But where’s the fun in that? :)
It’s like… I installed it, messed with lutris a bit (needed a newer version) and installed Diablo 4, everything works… and now I feel like I’m missing out somehow. :)
You’re missing out on chasing the dragon for the latest and greatest. :)
Arch is fine once you get it setup, but I feel like the nerd in us can never just leave it be. I’ll probably go back to pop_os next major release they have.
Sometimes I wish I had a machine dedicated to nothing but reinstalling different distros. :)
It can get a bit disrupting to do it on your main rig too often.
Use a VM?
I know, I do that too but it’s just not quite the same for some reason.
VMs are great for that
A very simple, almost stock setup of Arch + KDE.
X11 or Wayland? I find games like csgo stutter on Wayland.
I used Manjaro with Wayland last year and had no issues at all playing games.
Wayland. I’ve had no issues, but then I don’t play CS:GO. However I’ve played Cyberpunk on ultra with no issues, for example.
Make sure you’re running the sdl environment variable that makes them native on Wayland, in my experience when that’s on it makes my games that are native significantly more performant.
I have been quite happy with Arch Linux, up until I got my Steam Deck, at which point I stopped playing on my non-Deck PCs, so… SteamOS, I suppose.
… which is an immutable variant of arch.
It is, but I still count it as it’s own thing, in the same way most people count Debian and Ubuntu as two seperate distributions.
Yes, you’re correct, just a little funny that you moved from arch to basically steamarch, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, arch plus steam
Came here to say SteamOS as well. I am surprised more people aren’t saying it. But the thing is, the Steam Deck works so well I have to wonder how many people don’t know/care the OS it runs, or maybe they have forgotten it’s running Linux, or maybe they know but don’t consider themselves “Linux Gamers” just because they are using it.
Sort of like how people playing on a Switch or PS3/4/Vita are technically FreeBSD gamers deep down.
I weirdly did not see anyone mentioning SteamOS? Formerly based on Ubuntu, now based on Arch, I believe.
It’s the distribution that the #SteamDeck is packaged with, and so it’s become my main gaming distrib now. :]
Are they providing the arch based version for download now? I was under the impression they’ve only set it up for steam decks but not for general use?
According to the website the public release is based off of Debian still.
Yeah, thought so. Hope they’ll publish their newer versions as well soon.
Ah cool!
Not something I’d use now then but still neat that you can get it :)
I tried HoloISO and had pretty mixed results. I’ve had much better luck with ChimeraOS.
The devs on ChimeraOS are excellent too, they take in community feedback and are very helpful.
EOS / Arch.
I use Arch with KDE Plasma for that comfy desktop environment feel but switch to BSPWM ever so often for productivity or to use my pc as just a media center
Save yourself a lot of trouble and get a secondary SSD to put Linux on instead of doing a traditional dual boot. Normal dual boots with windows suck ass and lead to problems.
As for a distro, I keep going back to endeavourOS. It’s just so minimal out of the box, and I still can’t find anything to match the convinience of the AUR + Pacman for package management.
It’s on a laptop. I do have an external usb that I have linux installed on but it feels like a hassle to connect/disconnect every time I need to switch OS. Maybe it could’ve been worth staying on it though?
I actually usually run linux on a USB SSD myself haha, but I am on a desktop so I can just leave it there. For you that’s definitely a hassle.
I mean it works I suppose, at least when I’m at my desk at home which is where I mostly use it, but still. It’s not quite optimal. :)
I use Arch with KDE. I’ve been daily driving Arch coming up a decade now and despite testing various other distros on laptops over the years, I haven’t seen anything yet to tempt me away. I heart Pacman.
Personally I find most of the laziness factor with Arch is a non issue once you get installation done. My previous install was 6 years old and the only reason I reinstalled was because I got a new PC.
That said if an installer is a must-have then I would recommend Endeavour OS or Manjaro for best of both worlds.
True, it’s not that hard to get going either I suppose. Isn’t there a bunch of manual configuration after updates though? I have a faint memory of pacman telling me stuff that needed fixing after each update?
Last time I played around with Arth i tried their archinstall script I think it was. Pretty neat cli installer that worked rather well.
Endeavour is nice as well…
Gah, you guys are making me want to spin up a whole bunch of distros :D
Does StreamOS count?
Sure does!
A little background for context. I’m gamer and professional software developer. I’ve been dual booting windows 11 and pop os for awhile. Windows for games and pop os for everything else… Over the weekend I switched to NixOS. This came with a learning curve which I spent a day or so learning. I’ve been getting the hang of it now and I love it so much. I definitely recommend it. I managed to get steam working without much fiddling and my emulators. It’s been great! The benefits for programming are obvious. Allowing me to basically stop using docker dev containers.
I completely removed windows from my computer and I’m very happy.
We used to run Ubuntu at my last job, it was so nice! I’m back in Windows land now though…
Yeah my job recently started letting developers choose between windows and Mac now which is a step in the right direction… their excuse is that all their security software doesn’t run in Linux… Ill accept using a Mac over WSL though, that was a huge pain
I’m still happy WSL exists, it’s definitely better than nothing if you’re stuck in Windows land!
Yeah absolutely! I know I dissed it, but I was happy to have it when I was stuck on windows for work.
NixOS is the path to enlightenment. Very good stuff. Also look into steam-run if you’re not already aware!
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Tumbleweed’s always treated me very nice, you ought to try it out!
Kind of makes me wish I opted for that right now… It’s always given me a very polished feeling!
I’ve been on arch with swaywm for about 3 years now, have’t really had to tinker with it at all after getting everything set up. Mesa drivers with amd cards are awesome. Biggest issues I’ve had were not with gaming but with proprietary codecs in firefox or getting MS Teams to play nice for work. Other than that once in a blue moon the gpg keys for pacman may need to be updated before running the regular update command. I don’t recommend sway for everyone, i just find it convenient for me, gnome or kde is fine too.
Teams us a hurdle no matter the os you use…
