I’m not a computer expert or planning to be. I’m just a computer user, a coder, a gamer, and I think I will get the opportunity to afford cheaper PCs if I use the Arch distro from Linux which is very lightweight and fast. I’ve heard Microsoft forces you to bloat your PC with win11.
Any linux distro is significantly more lightweight than windows. But I’d say that there is not much difference between arch and for example the most bloated distro: ubuntu.
If you are a coder, the CLI will be easy. Most of the time the use of CLI is comparable to a single line in your code where you call a function with some parameters.
But arch is difficult for a beginner. (I wrote some more about my experience with it here: https://lemy.lol/post/61578059/24360161 )
If you have time, interest and discipline to read the documentation and learn a lot, then arch is great.
If you just want to use a Linux OS, install Mint and just use it. It’s no big deal, just a normal OS. It’s very intuitive, low friction and no microslop bloat.
If you can search the internet good and can read the arch wiki you’ll be fine. If you’ve been playing on computers and maybe modding some games you’ll also be fine. The command line is only scary cause we are used to visuals.
Since you are a coder, I suppose you using CLI should be fine. However, there are many other alternatives, which is fast and even based on Arch Linux.
Is that CachyOS?
That’s one of them, another is EndeavourOS which is my distro of choice.
I switched with barely any knowledge, just an interest in the field, and a lot of free time. I believe that it is possible for everyone who really wants to use it.
Arch is not a distro for beginners. One day you’ll wreck it.
If you just want it to work, I would advise you try these and stick with the one you like the most:
- Mint (Cinnamon)
- Zorin (Gnome)
- Fedora Workstation
- Fedora KDE Plasma
- Ubuntu Desktop (Gnome)
- Kubuntu (KDE)
- Aurora (Gnome)
- Bluefin (KDE)
- Bazzite (KDE & Gnome)
All my family’s PCs run linux. We use Bazzite for gaming and Aurora for work. Easier and more reliable than Windows.
With Fedora & Ubuntu you can also switch between desktop environments without re-installing
OpenSuse Leap (or if you’re adventurous, Tumbleweed) can safely be placed here too.
If you want to lessen the barrier of entry to Arch, maybe try CachyOS. It’s Arch based and very close to normal Arch, but has some conveniences. Might be worth a look. It’s also got it’s own CPU specific repositories (same content as Arch), giving even more performance.
Thanks, I will look into that distro!
I mean try it if you are curious nobody is holding you back but personally recommend something easier to start with?
no you wont. if your a normal human wanting to use linux just use smth nornal like ubuntu, or mint.
Yeah why not? No one was born knowing how to navigate the terminal. The only “hard” part of Arch is the installation, and these days there is even a script to automatically set it up.
If you have a spare computers, an old laptop maybe, you should first practice there before doing it on your main computer.
My son had a netbook with win10 and office. This ate 27 of the 32 GB the thing had. An “important update” of 8 GB did not work, putting the device in a download and fail cycle.
I installed Linux on this machine - Kubuntu, with LibreOffice and a load of extra software. Took only about 4 GB of space.
I have an old netbook that ran win10 poorly. I have since put Debian on it and it’s been great.
Are you saying Kubuntu is not as bloated as it looks? And I think Fedora will be smaller than that?
Don’t know about Fedora. And you would have to do odd things to bloat any Linux distribution anywhere near a Winslop system.
Honestly, for any semi-modern hardware, the different amount of “bloat” between any two distros is small enough to be irrelevent for most everything you would do on a computer up to and including gaming, especially compared against Windows. Yes, Arch may be less bloated than, say, Ubuntu, but are you really going to notice or care that your system is idling at 1.2 GB of RAM usage instead of 800 MB?
don’t switch to Arch if you’re a gamer. Go with Fedora or (i’m told) Bazzite
Thanks for suggestion. I will look into Bazzite distro and also fedora. Thanks!
If you are doing some gaming maybe try Bazzite, it will come setup for the hardware option you choose. Good place to start before jumping right into arch
Thanks for the info. All this time Arch was my only option for gaming because othrer distros look as bloated as Windows. Thanks!
Bloat is relative, I guess.
Arch is incredibly user friendly - gets completely out of the way of the user so they can do exactly what they want how they want.
Arch is not very beginner friendly - depending on what you consider a beginner, it will not hold your hand except for the install process where it provides a walkthrough script. If you have configured Linux before it will be familiar but you may have to read documentation. It’s not designed to be difficult, but it is designed for people who know why the choices they are making matter. If you do not understand then there will be a gap and that may feel a bit frustrating, but it is on you to bridge that gap.
If your main concern is boat, you will likely be fine with any Linux distribution. There are more beginner friendly ones out there.
That said, if you play lots of PC games, even if they’re Linux compatible, switching away from Windows isn’t going to magically double your FPS. Hardware still matters.
My main concern is also boat.
That does look quite threatening
Ahhh look it has windows!!
I’m not a computer expert or planning to be.
Then don’t use Arch. Seriously, where are you guys even finding out about Arch, much less wanting to try it? Whoever told you Arch would be a good fit, don’t listen to them on anything Linux-related again. Arch is not for beginners, and it’s not for people who don’t want to learn the ins and outs of their computer because they’re having to dig into the guts to fix it whenever an update breaks something. Arch is a fine distro for people who WANT those things, need bleeding edge hardware support, and don’t mind having to fix it whenever it breaks. It doesn’t sound like that’s at all what you’re looking for though.
It’s likely idiots confusing normal arch and things like endeavour or cachy.
Pre built arch distros are legitimately as bullet proof as something like mint. Everything’s guis, everything’s pre done by the distro mainter, and you basically have to do nothing.
This isn’t 2003 anymore. Arch based distros dont just randomly explode any more or less then fedora or Ubuntu or popos at this point.
For heaven sake steamos is arch. Arch is unironically likely the single most commonly used distro for new users of the last few years because of the steamdeck.
A new user shouldn’t be doing arch from scratch, but a distro is a distro they don’t just go boom because of random happenstance.
I don’t know about Steam OS but with EndeavourOS, you still have to keep an eye on the Arch news and make any manual interventions that are required. If you don’t, you can end up with a broken system. If you do that, it’s utterly reliable.
I wouldn’t say arch and arch-based are the same thing. If someone specifically asks about arch, I’d be inclined to advise them it’s not suitable for people not interested in reading and learning a bit. But I also agree arch-based are pretty solid and much more beginner friendly.
I can second CachyOS. The last time it caused me headaches was kinda my own fault. VirtualBox needed some dependencies which I didn’t read thru, then it installed an older kernel version for some god damn reason and I lost my ethernet driver. Took me quite some time to figure it out, but as I said, not Cachy’s fault!
