audaxdreik

Arch gets a bad rep, but I think it's a great first distro for anyone with moderate or above skills. The primary factor is that you have to actually be interested in learning it, not looking for something that "just works".

I use Arch on my beefy gaming PC and I run updates every day because I'm a dork. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I've had better stability doing this than with the monthly patches on Windows. That's not to say there haven't been issues, Windows sets a low bar. But here in this year 2025, the "innovation" of paid software is excessive and often not worth the cost of dealing with service subscriptions and whatnot. The software in FOSS land tends to be more conservative in its construction with a focus on doing the thing it's supposed to and usability. People want their distros to work, it's not like Arch maintainers are just breaking it all over the place because, "oopsy, gotta stay up to date!"

Anyways, here's how I prioritize things:

1. pacman: This should be your PRIMARY source. Think of everything in the official Arch repos as part of the OS, just things you haven't installed on your system yet because you don't need it. The most care has been put into ensuring all these packages work together and I have the highest confidence that these will be maintained for the greatest duration into the future. One of the big benefits of using pacman is that especially with Arch, you upgrade your entire system at once with pacman -Syu. Conversely on Windows, you have to update all software yourself by either downloading a newer version and running the installer, having the program install a system tray icon to pester you, MAYBE the program implements a self/auto update? Or maybe it prompts you for an update and then just sends you to the website to download the latest version and install it yourself. Kind of a mess, really.
2. yay: If I want a piece of software that's not part of the main distribution, I'll turn to the Arch User Repository (AUR). If it helps, just think of this as the unofficial pacman. It downloads the files from the AUR and builds them directly on your system (all using scripts, using yay is as easy as using pacman). The downside is that because the AUR is unofficial, occasionally things can break when something in the official repository updates. It happens from time to time, but you can always check the AUR pages and see that people are on top of things for popular programs. It's fine to place your trust in the AUR (IMHO) but if you have an absolutely critical app that cannot afford to break, maybe consider a flatpak or appimage instead.
3. flatpaks: again, this is another package manager that behaves much like pacman and yay do. The difference here is that flatpaks are contained. This makes a big difference especially with Arch since the whole system updates at once with Syu. The biggest downside (IMHO) is space, a package that might only take ~15MB from the official repo may instead be >300MB when packaged with all its dependencies in a flatpak. I think this is what the Discover Software Center actually hooks into but I'm not sure since I do all command line. You could, if you wanted, begin uninstalling applications you installed through pacman (obviously not system related ones) and install the flatpaks in their place. For reasons I still don't understand myself, the OBS that you install through pacman doesn't have browser sources available, but the one I installed from https://flathub.org/ does. I need the browser sources so I've made that decision, I'll switch back to the official repo one if they ever get that sorted.
4. AppImages: AppImages are entirely self-contained. Download a .AppImage and you can place it almost anywhere on your system and it'll run, no requirement for further dependencies. It doesn't install, however it will still create files on the system required for its operation such as anything needed under ~/.config or wherever. To update these, you just need to download the newer file.

I hope that helps a little bit, let me know if you'd like further clarification on any of the points.

It seems like a lot when you're first learning, but I keep all my notes in Obsidian and once you understand how you're building the stack of software on your Arch installation I think it'll click for you. To fully update my system I run:

• pacman -Syu
• yay -Sua
• flatpak update

You can update pacman packages with yay, and you can update flatpaks with Discover (I think) but I do it this way just because I'm meticulous and I like keeping my eye on things. Still, pretty easy I think?

Being kinda serious for a second here, I think this is a byproduct of chasing ever higher production values in service of "realism". The more they try to spackle over all the cracks, the more the ones they can't/don't become obvious to the player. Just like movies, videogames often require a bit of temporary suspension of disbelief.

I'm not gonna write a whole essay about chasing some perfect, mythical balance here, but it's a design aspect that I feel a lot of developers just don't consider at all. Maintaining a high level of illusion is extremely difficult and not even always all that worth it. Sometimes it's just nice to admit you don't know why that enemy dropped a glowing hamburger that restored 25% health, but those are the rules you're playing by and you don't have to question it.

A lot of the advice out there is anecdotal - ask a dozen people, get a dozen answers.

For my part, I installed plain Arch on a custom built system. I use the Nvidia proprietary drivers for my 3080 and I've had no issues with drivers or gaming. If you're talking retro, RetroArch or other assorted emulators have you covered no prob. If you're talking modern stuff, Elden Ring works online with its Easy Anti-Cheat and I play a ton of Trackmania which chains Uplay launcher (ugh) and have even managed to install mods with Openplanet which is a Windows only mod manager. One time my friend was telling me about an old Windows 3.1 pinball game. I downloaded it from abandonware (https://www.myabandonware.com/game/3-d-ultra-pinball-creep-night-3fh) and just launched the installer with WINE, it even placed a shortcut for it on my app launcher (kinda hated that actually 😅). I feel like that worked more flawlessly than it would have on Windows 11. Most games simply launch with Proton, however sometimes you do get weird issues that may involve trying some different versions of Proton. Dark Souls III for example still gets angry at anything beyond 8.X or whatever.

I think a lot of people look at the troubleshooting you have to do in Linux and dread it as an utter failstate of the system. Not true. In Windows when your system is hosed you're likely down for a reinstall or patiently waiting for Microsoft to do their part and patch it. On Linux, when something goes wrong you pop the hood and take a look. You don't HAVE to do it, you GET to do it.

Moral of the story is, your best bet is to try a dual boot if you can and give it a go yourself. I suspect the issues a lot of people are having is because they get too carried away with customizations and system configs. I try to keep most things basic unless I have a really good reason to alter them.

Took them long enough! Nobody but tourists drive down there anyways, if you're on Pike Place you made a bad decision.

I'm a big Linux advocate these days and my best advice is to set realistic expectations. If your intent is to recreate your Windows experience exactly, you'll always be left disappointed. There's simply nothing better than OneNote at what it does, but I migrated my note taking habits over to Obsidian and I'm perfectly happy there now. Turns out I didn't need 90% of OneNote's immense functionality.

At the end of the day though, Linux is FOSS: it's made by people, for people, to solve the computing problems people have. There are a variety of solutions out there. Reexamine your workflows and be open to fitting new solutions to them, there are just SO MANY choices out there for how to handle most problems.

Aside from that, there's always going to be a small learning curve. People tend to view that as simply a hassle that takes time to overcome and while that's not entirely wrong, it very much undercuts the real value of learning how to operate and maintain the OS that you most likely use every day, all day. It's extremely hard to accurately describe the value of investing that time and having an OS that isn't bloated with corporate nonsense and fighting you to dictate your workflows into their intended patterns so they can agitate you with ads and paid services at every step. There's a reason we all come out sounding like zealots and while I acknowledge it can feel a little cult-ish, who you gonna trust? Your online nerd community or a corporation who has shown time and time again that they do not value you as an individual user?

It's not entirely clear from the post, but allow me to provide some further context as I received this same pop-up myself.

I had purchased a legit Windows 10 Pro license with my own money for a custom built PC. Was always a trim installation because that's how I roll. Still got this out of nowhere when I booted back into my Windows partition the other day, was unclear what app or process pushed it. Some update either added a new app responsible for pushing these desktop level ads or enabled a pre-existing notification feature I had previously disabled. Just a typical Win10 toast notification a few moments after logging in. Dismissed it quickly and did not care to investigate, but that's about as bad as you can really get, IMHO. They've slowly been pushing the bounds, but here we are: ads straight to the desktop.

The aesthetic is impeccable, but I can't even begin to see anything from the trailer that makes this stand out as an MP shooter? I was already not interested in the slightest because I'm just not down for any sort of GaaS these days, I want single player experiences, but WTF was that?

They threw in some kinda line about death not being the end ... in 2025? Death and rebirth is not a new thing. Go play Deathloop instead, I think it's tragically underrated and the MP can be totally ignored if you like, although its asymmetric design is also interesting if you want to engage with it.

Right? It's amazing how easy it is to stand up to people who can't do anything about it!

As an American close to the tech industry, I'm often jealous of the GDPR. I understand it may not be perfect and often feels restrictive, but I think we're seeing the results of unfettered "innovation" here in America right now and realizing that most of this "innovation" is not anything any of us ever wanted or needed and not nearly worth the price.

At some point in the past I noticed there is no longer an option to even opt-out of most emails. When purchasing something from a site, they'll usually get my email as part of the ordering process and while I have searched and searched, most don't make any indication for opting out. You'll only notice days later when you're getting spammed with promotions, sometimes daily.

As well, further restrictions must've been loosened because there are companies I've dealt with years ago that have begun emailing me promotions. Just the other week I got an email from a company that sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn't recall. When I searched my inbox, I had bought a custom USB cable from them nearly 6 years ago.

Complete and utter lack of respect for consumer privacy. Disgusting. I hate it here.

“It trivialises what we’re facing,” says epidemiologist Michael Osterholm.

Oh, OK. So it's worse than "zombie deer disease". Cool. Cool, cool, cool.

I cannot upvote this enough. "Just migrate to X, it's every bit as good!" when end users know it's not is a disingenuous argument and even if they don't have the technical know-how to explain exactly why they feel this way, they'll feel the deception. It only reinforces a growing distrust in tech.

The argument has to be made honestly. It's not quite as good, but almost. Those few things you'll miss will require an adjustment, but the overall value (a lot of times just literally, it costs less!) will become evident.

I know we're all Linux nerds here and enthused to get people onboard, but the battle right now we're facing is one of trust and security and must be grounded in those notions because while great strides have been made in convenience and accessibility, big corps will always be able to bankroll themselves over those points.

As someone who has worked in the tech industry near Seattle, I don't know how well known it is to the wider populace or people in Europe, but open source is absolutely anathema here. It's seen as insecure, unstable, and unreliable.

I work in IT so I've tangentially worked across a number of sectors supporting their stacks and it's pervasive within the American culture. There is a major de-prioritization of in-house IT knowledge and sysadmins in favor of enterprise support contracts. When shit hits the fan, it's less important to have a knowledgeable team and more important to have a foot to stamp down on until the issue is resolved. Often that foot has another foot that stamps down, onward and onward until someone manages to engage the MSP or cloud provider that set the service up initially with their scant documentation.

It's a nightmare both for tech workers and from a cyber security perspective. A lot of this contains my own personal bias and perspective on the matters, but let me say, I have stared into the void and I can't stop screaming.