Finally got tired of my Windows 11 install, and I considered a Linux move. For years and years, I tried to move over, even all the way back in the Ubuntu 16.04 days, even daily drove for a few months, but there would always be something that would make me move back (including but not limited to HDR, support for my old iPod, Outlook calendars, so on). However, on my most recent attempt (running Arch and KDE) things just… work? Yeah, some command line trickery is needed for stuff like HDR gaming (and turns out the screenshots work now, they just get downsampled to SDR by Steam), but this works so so much better than my previous attempts to move over. In recent years, the experience is just so much more polished than it used to be. The situation is no longer “that won’t work”, it is “you can do that, with some minor tweaks”. All my Steam games work nearly perfectly, with only a few changes like Proton GE needed. There are now even improvements like how text on my QD-OLED monitor (which is notoriously fuzzy on Windows) is crisp and clear, or how my Xbox controller’s screenshot button works over Bluetooth on Steam unlike Windows which ignores the button entirely over Bluetooth. Things are really looking up!
Just FYI: While Arch isn’t “For experienced users only”, it still might require some more work after your install.
It usually comes pretty minimal by default, and then you might wonder why printing doesn’t work out of the box for example.
It also makes the inexperienced user very easy to bork the system, and then you have to fix it.
I often hear from other users, that sometimes, this just happens out of the blue too.
If Arch works perfectly for you, then congratulations! Keep using it.
But if you notice, that you have to fight against the OS too often, consider a different distro that is supposed to just work.
One of those might be Bazzite (if you game) or Aurora. Both are almost the same, but Bazzite is more for gaming, while Aurora is more for general, non-gaming use. But you can use them interchangeably.
They belong to the uBlue project, which is a customized Fedora Atomic.
They are already set up for you with everything you want and need, are zero-maintenence and basically indestructible.
So, if you’re done with Arch, consider them.
Arch is to complicated
proceeds to recommend immutable distros
To be fair, the best standard would be to send off new users to immutable distros
Maybe sometime in the future. However, not today. It is still complex and requires some knowledge of how file systems work
True if they are somewhat technical to search for solutions on their own. If they just use web browser then there is bothing to worry about
They will find answers that won’t work as the core system hasn’t changed much over the last 20 years.