I’m going to be building a new computer soon for myself. (Going AMD for the first time, since intel microcode issue.)
I would say I’m an expert or advanced user, as been using pcs for 25 years and set up arch and slackware in the past. I have tried many distros and would like some feedback.
I mainly use my pc for gaming. I want something customizable, KDE ish, and without bloatware. A good wiki is a plus.
I think that i may end up with arch… is it better for gaming since it’s bleeding edge and isn’t steamos built off it?
Side question is distro chooser accurate?
EndeavourOS, Simply Arch with an installer, has KDE as an option for DE.
I use it, I love it. Arch is great. E-OS just cuts out the first few hours/days of set up.
Lol that’s on my current rig. It’s not bad, but I feel if that I’ll end up back on arch instead of having the endeavouros overlay.
Why?
As I said, to avoid bloat, why run an os over an os? Endeavouros has its update but there’s also an arch update. I don’t need hand holding for the install and that’s one of the benefits of Endeavouros, at least that’s my understanding.
It is not a OS over an OS just some packages that are preinstalled
EndeavourOS has its own packages ( https://github.com/endeavouros-team/PKGBUILDS ), but they are mostly driver stuff and some presets for the different desktop environments. Rest is all from arch, arch extra, arch extra multilib(32bit) and AUR.
And yea, you understand it right, if you don’t want help managing arch, it is not for you.
EOS is about 24 additional packages on top of the 70,000 Arch already offers, many of which are already on the AUR ( like yay and paru ). EOS uses the real Arch kernel. Once installed, EOS is Arch in my view.
There are not “two updates”. It is not an OS over an OS. EOS is awesome but it is a glorified Arch installer with opinionated defaults.
Endeavour is really good
Endeavour is great but it’s not simply Arch with an installer. Quite a few things are configured differently under the hood.
Personally, I find Debian pretty good these days. I used to default to Testing, but I’ve gravitated towards stable.
Honestly, in the age of Flatpak and Steam, almost any distro works.
Ok thanks. Good to hear.
Funny, flatpak works on MX, but it kills performance. I launch any flatpak program and it’s literally up to five minutes to launch. After re-imaging and using AppImages instead, it’s blazing fast. There must be something about the way MX implements flatpaks that screws the pooch.
nah, it’s basically my experience with flatpak and snaps on ANY distro on ANY machine. the fact that everyone’s moving to this crap is beyond me. Am I the only person on the planet that expects a modern computer to run snappier than a PC from early 2000? sure seems like it sometimes, especially when pretty much any software released since 2018 runs electron. Hell, now every manufacturer is moving to ARM like it’s some revolutionary hardware - no, it just vastly improved energy usage AT THE EXPENSE OF PERFORMANCE. we might as well stick with what we have and just pump less energy into the damn thing and have the exact same results.
blimey.
I get the convenience; I do …but it can’t possibly be worth the sacrifices?? sigh.
the day of coders who knew what they were doing is long since gone. now it’s just click and play frameworks to pump out garbage and oversaturate the ecosystem.
Arch w/ KDE gamer here. I have generally had a good experience with it. I think everything you said is generally accurate. In terms of customization, lack of bloat, and a good wiki, Arch is generally considered to be all of those things. A rolling distro like Arch I believe will also be getting the latest proton updates, which may help with sooner game compatibility/optimization updates on more recent releases.
I say go for it.
Thanks for your feedback.
Because others already suggested Arch/ EndeavourOS, I’ll be suggesting something else: Bazzite.
It’s part of the image based (“immutable”) Fedora series and is basically Fedora Kinoite, with all drivers and codecs already set up for you, self managing, with many gaming tweaks included.
It’s rock solid and basically unbreakable, while also being extremely modern and updated. On Arch, even if it doesn’t break, you always get the newest stuff, which might not be as polished. On Fedora, it matures a few months, while still being very modern.
The main target group is “For Linux users who don’t want to use Linux”, meaning, it runs all your favourite stuff (KDE, etc.) without having to care for anything. It even updates itself automatically in the background without any interference.
If you prefer something with less “bloat” (a lot of optional tools and software to choose from, but nothing mandatory), then check out Aurora, which is basically the same, but without gaming stuff.
For more information, check out universal-blue.org
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic.
Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
Just use Flatpaks for 95% you do graphically, and for CLI stuff or software that isn’t available as Flatpak, I would recommend you to create an Arch Distrobox container (already set up IIRC) and use that. You can even install stuff from the AUR and export it, so it works just like it is supposed to.
Thanks for the detailed response. Yeah I’m reading up on distrobox.
Look into:
- Bazzite (Fedora Atomic)
- Nobara (Fedora)
- ChimeraOS (Arch, AMD-only)
- Garuda (Arch)
All are preconfigured for gaming. Bazzite and Nobara use the fsync kernel, not sure what Chimera uses, and Garuda uses the zen kernel.
Otherwise, Arch is still the most popular choice for gaming if you look at the statistics.
Thanks, I’ll look into them.
OpenSuse Tumbleweed.
I use Debian stable because I’m tired of constantly twiddling with breaking stuff, I just want a distro that keeps working without issues and tinkering.
If you still want to learn Linux stuff and debug packages, then go for a bleeding edge distro.
Understood, thanks for the response.
Since no one answered you here, I’ll say distrochooser.de isn’t bad at all. For the new linux user who is comfortable enough trying new things, I think it’s perfect. It does lose its usefulness if you’ve already tried all of the options it offers, but at that point you probably don’t need distrochooser anyway.
Awesome, thanks I appreciate the response. This makes sense.
I game on arch (btw) But honestly I don’t think the distro itself really matters for gaming? Just choose the one you want and give er
It kinda does matter if you want updated drivers and packages and stuff. I use Debian because I love its bare bones, generic approach and I’m used to it, but I’d never recommend it for anyone playing the latest games unless they like cruising five years in the past.
That’s what I thought about debian is that it’s very stable, but this causes drivers and possibly other stuff to not be updated as quickly.
Valid point.
I kind of wanted to see if there’s something I wasn’t aware of.
I don’t have anywhere near your experience, but the key points (customizable, no bloat, good wiki) all scream Arch, as you predicted 🙂
Understood
I always come back to OpenSuse Tumbleweed. Once I have everything setup, it’s stable as a rock and kde works really well on it.
Not many of you left these days it feels, any debate I always see openSUSE is missing, I don’t use it myself atm, but it was my rock in the past. Either openSUSE community is not vocal or it’s just very tiny on lemmy.
uBlue Bazzite. Nothing better than that.
Customizable is a broad term.
Yes I understand. I like to tinker and fiddle with dials and buttons so to speak. I want to be able to make my system do whatever I tell it. Change icons, buttons, widgets, as well as being able to remove/ avoid apps that I don’t use.
These are all configurable per-user, so no issue at all. SDDM themes are an exception, here you can use sddm2rpm or other methods. sddm2rpm is the most elegant, without changing much on the system.
You can also install rpm packages.
Go to discussion.fedoraproject.org if you need help. Use the tags #atomic-desktops #rpm-ostree and similar ones and you will get help quickly.
This is still fully possible on Immutable distros (which is why the name is misleading, but unfortunately is what stuck- “image-based” is a better description) and uBlue has a mechanism for it- since they’re delivered using OCI containers, it’s trivial to fork or derive from the project and add, remove or tweak whatever you need. There’s also BlueBuild which is YAML but that’s a third party project.
The name is misleading, but even if the core system was unchangeable, Linux desktops are all configurable per-user (i.e. without sudo) so even on SteamOS etc. this would be fine.
I use arch btw
I run Gentoo as my main distro, and have for a couple years now. It’s a pretty stable rolling release (IMO more stable than Arch), and since you’re already an advanced user, the experience should be pretty rewarding!
The wiki is great, and the installation handbook is top notch.
You get to control exactly what features each package is compiled with, so no bloat at all.
KDE 6 just landed too!
Thanks, I’m investigating Gentoo. It’s rolling release and custom built. Updated frequently is good and stability is good too, IMO.
Fedora Silverblue (atomic GNOME) and Kinoite (atomic KDE) have been solid for both work and gaming. System maintenance is largely seamless and automatic once configured. I still use Arch daily, but only in the terminal (distrobox and containers).
Going AMD is so worth it too, I have zero regrets swapping my RTX 2080s for RX 6800 XTs. Secure boot, Wayland, no fuss updates. Couldn’t be happier.
You mentioned needing customization…not sure what you’re hoping for there, but the atomic distros allow for plenty of userspace tweaks. It’s the system-level stuff, like boot and greeter themes, that require a bit more work to implement. My time is too precious to fuss about that stuff these days.
Thanks for your response. I like to fiddle with things. I’m a bit of a tinkerer and like too customize various parts of my os. Basically more user space stuff. How it looks, buttons, themes, and whatnot. Also able to remove/avoid apps that I don’t use. Simple, but unique.
May I ask, why fedora for core system, but arch for distrobox?
I totally get it as I’m a tinkerer too, but these days I spend most of that energy on webdev, house projects, thrifting/restoring stuff, etc. If only there was more time in a day lol.
There’s plenty of freedom to tweak local themes with atomic distros, as your home dir itself is entirely mutable and can be changed to your liking.
As to why Fedora/Arch… I love Arch and have used it daily for almost 20 years. I was an Arch dev once upon a time (Judd/Aaron era), and I designed the logo and web branding in use today. The project means a lot to me.
The inherent benefits of atomic systems caught my attention a couple years ago, and Fedora’s implementation won me over.
My hope is that Arch eventually (and officially) adopts a similar approach as these image-based systems become mainstream, at which point I’ll happily be the first in line for testing!
I also made a very similar comment, but with uBlue (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin) instead.
They are still pretty vanilla, but include a big list of QoL stuff added in, like staged updates, Distrobox, a huge list gaming tweaks in Bazzite, and much more.
It’s basically stock Atomic made right!
I’ve used them for a year now, and they’re fantastic!
Just a small heads up for OP: You have to do quite a lot of (advanced) things differently from now on if you choose Atomic. Use containers (Distrobox, etc.) for everything you can, avoid installing stuff on the host if possible, etc.
I still haven’t taken any of the uBlue images for a spin, but I sincerely appreciate what they’re doing and Jorge has been the perfect champion for the project.
I like to use upstream as much as possible. Partly to minimize breakage and complexity, but also for the increased security and overall focus of resources on a given project. That said, I have no doubt they’re awesome builds and have helped win a lot of folks over to this way of computing!
Thanks for the kind words! <3
Hah any time, man! Your work and YT vids are what really got me hooked me on Silverblue and the cloud native workflow! I’ll never look at computing the same way again lol.
