I’ve been using fedora but I would like to try something new and I think about arch linux but I don’t know if it’s good for gaming. What do you think?
yeah it’s fine
Every distro is going to be good for gaming. Arch is going to be about equal to Fedora when it comes to gaming (both are good).
SteamOS is based on Arch, for instance.
You’re not really going to see a difference when it comes to compatibility or performance, and even if you did, that’s usually just a configuration issue (like setting a large enough VM heap size, which distros are starting to do by default anyway).
SteamOS is based on Arch, for instance.
Heavily tweaked and customized by Valve… you’re not going to get the same experience on vanilla Arch.
well … SteamOS is based on Arch …
Arch is perfectly fine for gaming. I use EndeavourOS with KDE and Steam + Lutris (as Flatpaks) on top. Quite similar to the setup you would have on Steam OS, but I would highly recommend using btrfs as your file system and setting up snapshots.*
While I have had little to no problems so far, compatibility issues can still occur on rolling release distros, and it’s extremely convenient to just be able to undo an update.
*This is quite simple btw., you just need to install snapper, snap-pac and btrfs-assistant. The latter serves as a GUI for btrfs setup in general. Create a config for your filesystem root (‘/’) under ‘Snapper’, and under ‘Snapper Settings’ enable ‘Snapper cleanup’. You can also set the number of snapshots to retain there, but note that two will be created per system upgrade by snap-pac. I would suggest to also enable balances and scrubs for ‘/’ and ‘/home’ in the maintenance-tab.
You’ve just reminded me that I need to get snapshots setup on my EOS install, thank you!
Is there a Arch with Installer that delivers this as Standart for rollbacks? I use Fedora Silverblue thats really great but only in my Laptop.
Garuda Linux has a setup where you can even boot into the snapshots from GRUB, but it is a little more bloated than EndeavourOS and I feel like it’s also less stable. Still definitely worth a try.
Is there a Arch with Installer that delivers this as Standart for rollbacks?
Yes, Manjaro. It will set everything up for you if you choose btrfs for the root partition. It will take snapshots before every upgrade and you will find them in a Grub submenu.
Obligatory disclaimer, Manjaro is a super-opinionated and customized Arch derivative, to the point some people don’t consider it Arch. It uses the Arch binary packages but delays and curates them into a “stable” branch which doesn’t exist on Arch. It basically requires you to stick to this stable branch, to use a LTS kernel, to install drivers through their driver manager etc.
Personally I like it because I like the idea of a rolling distro with a safety net, and it’s been working great for me over the last 4 years (daily driver for work and gaming). But it’s not everybody’s cup of tea.
I use arch for gaming btw.
Its the best distro for gaming. Valve is using it, rolling distro.
I don’t think Valve is rolling it though, I’m pretty sure they do feature freezes for stability.
Distro doesn’t really matter when it comes to gaming.
Alpine has enters the chat
You’re going to struggle a bit on Debian. I know you can install backports and flatpaks but it’s not 100% the same as native recent packages.
It’s good. The steam deck’s version of steamOS is arch based, so that should tell you a lot about its capabilities.
I’d recommend choosing an Arch-based distro like Endeavour or Garuda so you don’t have to go through the rigmarole of installing vanilla Arch.
While SteamOS is Arch based, i don’t think they really use it the Arch way. It’s run as an image based immutable OS, so they control the packages and not run at the bleeding edge.
You might run into problems more likely than SteamOS will.
Although i didnt’t have problems gaming on Arch, it’s not the same
I think they confirmed in an interview at one point that they don’t roll with it. They take the binaries they need from it, test it and freeze it. Initially they were using Debian but ended up needing more recent package versions and apparently Arch binaries in core and extra were more suitable to their purposes than Debian testing.
Valve was using Debian way-back-when, but the pace of getting new stuff into debian proper is too glacial for Valve. Valve is putting a lot of work into “making the linux graphics stack rather good for games”, and having those improvements integrated upstream quicker means that Valve can get to work on the next set of improvements.
Valve is still using Debian as the basis for their runtime environments for games (pressure vessel). Debian’s slowness is great for providing a stable ABI for the parts that come into contact with (seldom maintained) game code. There is some amount of magic that goes into gluing the stable runtimes with rapidly changing stuff like Mesa.
Arch installs aren’t too bad, it’s the post-install setup that’ll get you though since a fresh install is guaranteed to detonate if you don’t disarm it.
It doesn’t even have to be complex anymore thanks to
archinstall.Disarm? I don’t remember having to do anything like that…
Pretty much everything in the General Recommendations section.
Arch-install had me create a user iirc. Most of the rest of that page was done by installing the KDE meta package for me.
A lot of the things on that page are FYIs, not things you need to do. I still don’t know what you mean by detonate or disarm .
Satire, the stereotypical “Arch just breaks after some time” trope. I’m saying that trope is correct if you don’t fix it.
Arch documentation is great, if you’re only doing it once it shouldn’t really be a concern.
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How about doing it never.
I’ll never understand why some people think that the arch install is such a transcendental event that you absolutely must subject yourself to.
And even if it were, sometimes you just want to install Linux not have a life-changing experience.
people using a system should understand how it works and theretically every linux user should do lfs atleast once
Neither installing Arch nor doing LFS will teach you how Linux works. They’re at least one or two steps removed from the system’s inner workings.
Secondly, that’s way too high a bar.
it definitely taught me about how linux works, at least the parts that are relevant for most users. starting from a clean install without any kind of gui (or common networking tools) really made me understand all the building blocks modern desktop linux uses. sure, installing a full blown desktop environment skips most things, but going with just a window manager and adding required features package by package really does help with understanding, and if a problem does pop up later you’ll know exactly where to look, instead of having to search super generic terms.
Just because Linux as an operating system can have that experience, doesn’t mean everyone wants or, really, needs that experience. Some people buy cars to drive and want it to just work. Others buy cars to play with. Some people dj music that is already made, others buy a guitar.
It’s pretty damn informative, that’s why I encourage people who are interested in Arch to do it once.
I agree that if you are doing it several times it’s a waste to do manually all the time.
I’ve been using Nobara for some time and it’s amazing. Nice installer and gets all drivers and fixed applied from the get go. Also it is maintained by GloriousEggroll himself.
Echo nobara.
Been the most stable nvidia experience for my odd setup.
Able to handle an ultrawide and normal monitor 1440 at different hz and one is display port other is hdmi.
Would run into the occasional hickup with manjaro. Been all good on nobara
Fedora > arch confirmed
Bazzite, specifically crafted for gaming and isos tailored to types of hardward. https://bazzite.gg/
Omg this is something i have to try!!! I switched to Fedora Silverblue for Laptop and this ostree Thing is insane! Thanks!
This looks really awesome. Probably going to have to install this a few places soon.
Arch gamer here. I can confirm that it works well.
hello, hi, do you play cs2? If yes, does fullscreen work for you?
I have not played CS2, sorry.
alr, still thanks
any distro can do anything another can, itll be fine for gaming and has a massive community
As others have said I doubt you will see a difference but I can attest to arch working just fine for gaming. Between steam and Lutris I haven’t run into any real issues.
So if you’re wanting to try arch go for it with confidence that your gaming experience likely won’t be impacted.
Arch works well for gaming. However, depending on what you’re doing, you should keep this in mind:
- on any distro, updates may break things or change the behavior of apps. The difference in arch is that youll update no less than weekly on average, maybe biweekly at worst. This would matter more if you have a complex setup. If you’re just using steam, I wouldn’t worry
- arch only uses the latest versions of software. If you ever install something from outside the arch repos, you have to make sure it is compatible with recent versions. Sometimes it may not be.
Whatever you use, make sure it’s the furthest upstream. Everything else is dependent on the upstream to update systemwide. Yes, some downstream distros will fix certain issues before upstream does, but because their teams are generally smaller, they won’t fix all the issues in any given distro. And feature/major version updates start at the top and trickle down.
