recently i just finished building a new pc. mostly for gaming since my only exposure to linux is steam os and i heard its uses arch with kde plasma so i try to emulate it as close as i can. however soon i realized how different it is and it requires more setup than i initially thought. i spent a whole day or two setting it up and i read now im responsible on maintaining it, what does it mean? is it just finding and testing drivers? or system update? what is the easiest way to do it? and what i getting myself into?
when i was about to install steam i found a tutorial on it with 3 - 4 pages full of text and was a bit overwhelmed, i decided just set it up using discover with flatpak, the problem is when i was about to find out how to do that i read mostly people really hate when you ask how to enable it in arch, is it really bad? should i just use konsole instead?
im not very tech savvy and at first I was really reluctant to use konsole but since i decided to use arch its inevitable that i have to use konsole and so far its not that bad, yet.
I’m just wondering for the long term, should i just change distro? or i should just powertrough arch and see where it goes.
thank you for your time.
edit:
thank you for all the kind words, support and information everyone. i decided that i’ll stick with arch until it breaks and ill see either i retry arch or try different linux flavors. i never feels so excited about os since i was messing around in win 2000
I don’t know exactly what u are talking about steam cause it just sudo pacman -Syu steam and that it .everything else if u have modern nvidia then do sudo pacman -Syu nvidia-dkms if amd setup then u will no need anything else .In the end as for beginner try CachyOS if u the most close experience to vanilla arch .this guys just do some performance tweaks while staying maximum vanilla as possible about arch linux
i mixed wiki as a tutorial step by step on how to install steam on linuk it seems
You haven’t provided a lot of detail on what your current setup looks like. If you use a gaming-focused distro like Cachy or Bazzite they should essentially work “out of the box.” Bazzite is also very difficult to break since the immutability makes for very effective guard rails for new users.
If you went with Arch right off the bat, you did take on quite a lot for a new user, but - and I do genuinely mean this - there is no better way to learn the ins and outs of Linux than jumping into the Arch deep end. Even if you choose to switch to a lower-maintenance distro, your effort with Arch is never wasted.
Want a very low maintenance gaming distro with almost no setup? Bazzite.
Want a more hands-on gaming centric distro like SteamOS? CachyOS.
Want a more stable all-around distro that also works great for gaming? Fedora.Avoid Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu. You will see Mint recommended often, but I personally only recommend it for older hardware that you are trying to revitalize. There are better options.
A new version of Debian just released, and there is no more rock solid distro than Debian. Add KDE Plasma and you will have a very low maintenance, pleasantly familiar, extremely reliable system.
cachyos, post install click install gaming packages, in steam goto compotability switch it to proton cachyos, done, there is no struggle, it grabs heroic and lutris too for non steam stuff
The only tweaking I’ve ever needed to do was for Helldivers 2. I had to swap from cachy’s proton to the actual proton which was literally just a menu in Steam. (Multiplayer wouldn’t work otherwise. Everything else was fine.)
Highly recommend this for you OP. This would be the easiest course of action. Do you have to use Konsole, yes but for a few commands and once done you can do everything you need via GUI and not have to touch shell again for daily operations.
Catchy have a very powerful script that attaches all their pacman.conf (list of places where arch will look for it’s software)
Here’s a link to the section Adding CachyOS to existing Arch Install
Once that’s done you only need one more command
sudo pacman -Syu octopiOctopi will let you manage all your software and kernel updates without having to touch terminal or having to use flatpaks.
I would recommend packages:
- cachyos-hooks
- linux-cachyos
- linux-cachyos-header
- cachyos-kernel-manager
- proton-cachyos
- wine-cachyos
- cachyos-gaming-meta
This will have you fully set up and ready to seamlessly game on your machine without having to reinstall a OS.
thank you for the kind recommendation, ill give it a look. im ankle deep in arch now. ill see where it goes and when it broke ill try different distros.
You are 90% of the way there.
Just keep your system up to date (update packages weekly maybe) and you will be fine. The system mostly manages itself.
I recommend installing both the current kernel and an LTS kernel. If you ever have a problem with a driver or a filesystem or something after an update, just boot into LTS and you are back up and running.
First, I would like to give you some major props. Installing Arch, in itself, is a big deal. It is not a beginner-friendly distro. It is a very power-user friendly distro and has an incredible wiki that is helpful, at least to some degree, for many distros.
For a beginner distro, I would recommend Linux Mint for its easy transition and great focus on user experiences or Bazzite if you really want to install and get gaming.
When taking drivers in Linux, most are provided as either kernel modules (integrated into the kernel, so you don’t have to worry about installing anything) or packaged for the distro, in which case, once installed via package manager, they’ll auto-update whenever you update system packages. They are so much easier to deal with than Windows drivers (for the end user). For example, to use a Wacom drawing tablet, all one has to do is plug it in.
i knew a fair amount about linux cli since ive used ubuntu and debian for servers for like 15 years so i was someone knowledgeable but when i decided to wipe away windows on my desktops i picked linuz mint because it was ubuntu based but also it was recommended for beginners. for the most part it works great, i can use steam and heroic. i cant get warcraft classic working but i just need to dig in more.
the one problem i had was when i first started and it wouldnt boot up but i just command line restored using timeshift and it fixed it and i havent had a problem since.
i havent once had issues with drivers or anything. i even installed it on an old computer for my dads church who mostly use it for powerpoint (now libreoffice) and projecting. they know nothing about computers and theyve been fine. i do want to enable auto updates for them though so they dont have to do that.
If your only exposure is steamos bazzite might be easier for you
Try bazzite if you are willing to learn, otherwise just pick Zorin OS or Linux Mint and you will be fine (You will just have to learn the basics of how linux works, but nothing too complex as arch linux)
If you’re using an Nvidia card, the easiest way into Linux for gaming (in my opinion) is Bazzite, as aguasemgas mentioned.
Otherwise, any distro will do. I prefer Fedora Workstation, which is what I use for work (as do my wife and kids) but use Bazzite in my laptop because it’s a System76 Gazelle with a 3050TI,and I don’t like the current status of PopOS. All my games run great, and everything else is a FlatPak, so not much need to tweak anything really.
You’re probably better off with Fedora, Mint, or Bazzite to be honest
Seconding Fedora.
deleted by creator
Seconding Bazzite, it’s great for gaming.
Third
ford
If you’re willing to learn Arch it really isn’t that difficult. I wouldn’t reccommend it to a noob but seeing as you’re already using it why not give it a try? I wouldn’t reccommend the Steam flatpak as Valve reccommends against it and it doesn’t work as well. Feel free to DM for advice from someone who uses it daily.
thank you for the kind offer. ill try to use arch as long as possible. i hope i am a fast learner because I’m a bit lazy to setup a new distro and reconfig everything again
I’m the laziest fuck there is man. You’re in good company lol.
I second this. The initial setup is the hard part. Give it a couple days. The arch wiki is the best resource in the whole Linux ecosystem in my opinion. If that’s the long manual you were looking at for installing steam, know that 90% of it is info on strange edge cases and all a typical user will need to do is
sudo pacman -Syuthensudo pacman -S steam(I forgot you have to enable the multilib repository if you haven’t already. You seem smart, you’ll find the info in the wiki)A couple times a year or so something will break after an update. When that happens
- Google if anyone else has posted your exact problem
- See if chatgpt knows anything
- Humbly post in the arch user forum
One of those will solve it. Good luck!
WHOA. Please be VERY HESITANT to use anything ChatGPT outputs. Sanity check any commands it gives you from other places first.
i see. thank you for the info. i dont exactly remember if i have enabled multilib, it does sound familiar. maybe i alr enabled it when i tried a bunch of random things…
Once your computer’s working to your satisfaction, pretty much all you’ll need to do is alias
sudo packman -Syuand try to remember to run that every so often. The arch Linux wiki is second to none, and if you stick with the distro you should find it all feels very familiar in no time.🤞🏿 I just found out about ricing. so satisfactory is probably an illusive state…
As a completely new user who’s self-described as “not very tech savvy”, Arch is probably a terrible idea, and you should switch distros.
I really like Debian, but something like Linux Mint or Fedora might be wiser for you; all three hold your hand more, which would be very important in your case. Fedora and Debian specifically are designed to work well with KDE, although Fedora will have newer versions.
You certainly seem willing to learn (you got through the Arch install process), and I think you still have a great opportunity to enjoy Linux, but considering you’re calling the terminal emulator “Konsole”, your self-description is probably apt. FYI Konsole is just one application to access the terminal, kind of like how Firefox and Chrome are both web browsers, but you don’t use “Chrome” to refer to web browsers.
anything that have good implementation of kde is worth a look for me. i love kde.
thank you for your info
Go with Bazzite, it tries to mimic SteamOS out of the box. Very easy install/setup process (easier than windows).
Bazzite is Fedora Kinoite with some extra stuff, Kinoite might be better for a desktop setup but either one is totally useable for gaming and desktop so don’t overthink it.
Arch has a bit of a steeper learning curve. Ubuntu is probably the most “mainstream”, but I prefer Mint (based on Ubuntu) for some user-friendly changes. PopOS (already based on Ubuntu) is also supposed to be a bit more gaming centric if you’ve got an Nvidia card.
I’ve got an AMD kit in my main machine and Nvidia/Intel in my laptop and both work fine with most Steam games using Proton.
You’re going to break things. Then you’ll fix things. Then your break them again. Then you’ll realize there was an easier way to fix that last issue. It’s a fun learning experience.
Cachyos bro, installing all gaming related things is one click or installed by default on Bazzite
