Arch Linux with NVIDIA is definitely not great for newbies, especially for people who can’t keep up with the distro. If left unupdated for too long, your system may break. Even if you update every day, you could break something. You just never win with a rolling release distro like this. My only saving grace is that I run with an AMD gpu and so far, that thing has just worked.
My tip for anyone switching to Linux is to switch to AMD. Even if NVIDIA is better overall for performance and features, even if the last time you tried AMD on your windows system it was slow and a bit buggy, on Linux, AMD just works, without extra steps.
My point is less that leaving Arch alone breaks things and more that updating after a really long time can break something. It also kinda defeats the point of using a rolling release distro. I can see how you thought i was spreading misinformation though. My bad for poor wording.
Didn’t mean no offence. If it works for you, great! But personally I got too into customisations and missed a lot of work which was the whole actual point, " productivity" lol. But damn did my setup look slick that week.
If you use KDE, look for the “TV Glitch [burn-my-windows]” opening and closing animation. It’s a default setting in the KDE Settings > Workspace behavior > Desktop effects > Window open/close animation section. It’s really good in my opinion, especially if you tinker with the open/close timing to make it a little more crisp.
KDE has your back. You .mostly use regular windows but with meta+T you can configure tiles that can be used to snap windows to them using shift when dragging a window
Unfortunately for my free time I really enjoy the endless customisation loop
Also tiling WM with virtual desktops makes one monitor feel like many, I often actively choose to use my hyprland laptop and trackpad instead of a triple monitor setup without tiling
Partially true… I’ve been using i3 for roughly 8 years so setup and usage is pretty dang quick these days. I’d say it’s worth it if tiling piques your interest.
Took me a few goes here and there but now I love my minimal tiling setup. Never really got it but just played with them here and there out of curiosity. Last time I tried it something clicked for me and now I’ve no desire to go back.
Ain’t that the truth. But I love the workflow they offer. You don’t have to go looking for new windows. You can easily pin applications to virtual desktops and I prefer the multihead model they use over the one used by gnome or KDE.
I love KDE a lot but if I’m honest, I dislike that they posted that… That wasn’t kind of them and it was rude to Microsoft!!! I wouldn’t insult them (“ditch Windows for good”), well, Microsoft has been using and including Linux too!! So both should be fine and friends.
Just as a note, I believe you still need to tick the “Enable Steam Play for all titles” in Steam settings to allow it to be used with non-verified games.
I will probably use your approach, because the windows like gui should only help me transition. Getting to know how to use the terminal is my next step. Thanks!
Careful here. Absolutely start learning bash, but one of the points of Mint is that everything a normal user needs to do can be done through a settings gui. Don’t feel bad for reaching for the gui if you need to get something done and don’t have time right then and there to learn. Have fun!
It’s called Software Manager in Mint. It’s in the start menu. It’s basically like an app store, but without the surveillance and ads. Just type steam in the search field and click install. Really couldn’t be easier.
I used to use Linux exclusively, but I eventually gave in to the appeal of Windows. I’m just too into gaming, even with all the advancements Steam and Proton are bringing into Linux. The main difference I’ve had is which OS type hosts which OS type.
It’s not a specific one, it’s about not having to worry about which one are in the ProtonDB list and how it actually performs and can be configured. I just lose less out of having Linux in a VM for what I use it for, and have less surprises running the games on the system they are marketing and testing for.
Just make sure you back up any important data before wiping your own hard drive. And yeah, Steam handles a lot of the weirdness of running windows only games pretty well automatically.
On C I only have my windows OS , data is on D. I think that should be enough precaution? If course I backed up everything but I don’t plan on backup everything again. Or do you think it could “leech”?
@OmnipotentEntity makes a good point. Most (and definitely older) laptops have 1 drive. Which would mean your C and D ‘drives’ are actually 2 partitions on 1 physical hard drive. This is fine, but you need to be extra cautious when installing Linux. Many linux installers push you to the easiest choice and select ‘wipe whole disk and install linux’, which in your case would possibly lead to inadvertently wiping the D partition too.
You might want to pay extra attention to this during the installation, when selecting which disk to use for installation. Make sure you only let the installer delete the C partition (which will probably not be named as such, so be ready to find another way to identify the correct partition (maybe by its size?)), and let the installer use the free space that gives to create linux partitions it needs there (next to the D partition).
NB: Still in Windows, you may also want to check whether or not your D drive is encrypted with Bitlocker, as that is a Windows-type encryption and cant be unlocked without a recovery key (aside from it not being practical to use Bitlocker encryption in combination with linux (or NTFS for that sake, as OmnipotentEntity also already mentioned)). If so, you might want to decrypt the D partition so you can still access it from Linux (while it is of course better to have encryption enabled, it may be a temporary convenience).
Edit: Solid choice of Linux Mint btw. It’s been a while since I’ve used it, but in my memory (also as a starting Linux user) it made the right things easy. If your laptop is quite old, and Cinnamon (also solid) doesn’t feel quite snappy enough, you could give XFCE a try. It’s less polished (some say ugly 😆) out-of-the-box, but also less resource hungry (Cinnamon and XFCE are both Desktop Environments (DE’s). On Linux you can have multiple DE’s installed side-by-side; and then make a choice which DE you want to use when you login)
If “D” is physically on the same hard drive, then you’ll probably want to back it up before installing. Technically, you can manage to do it without screwing everything up, but I would not trust myself to. It’s always a good idea to have backups anyway.
Also, user files typically reside on C by default and it takes some effort to put them on a different drive. Things like Downloads, Documents, Pictures, etc. so it’s worth checking that before wiping as well.
Additionally, you’ll probably want to format your “D” drive to a Linux native filesystem (eventually, after you back it up, because formatting results in data loss). While Linux does support NTFS quite well, it’s not perfect, and your data would probably be safer on ext4 or f2fs (depending on if you have HDDs or SSDs) (or zfs or btrfs is you’re into COW filesystems).
In Linux, you have all of your files mounted to a single “drive” called /. Everything is below /, which is called the “root” of your filesystem.
Typically, user data is stored in “/home” and this resides in the same directory structure as the rest of your OS, but on most systems it’s on a different filesystem or even on a different drive entirely. This is because in Linux it is routine to put a “D” drive just in a folder. On my computer, I have several of these mount points defined, so the different types of data don’t get mixed around, and I don’t have to worry about downloading too much bullshit affecting my computer’s updates.
You don’t need to worry about formatting. The installer can do that for you as part of the process. Just make sure you merge all of the existing Windows partitions into one, then let the installer partition as needed. I’m not 100% sure about the Steam question, but I think I remember reading somewhere that this is the case.
Keep in mind, Linux isn’t magic. If the hardware sucks, the hardware sucks. Games can take a lot of resources. Just make sure your old LAN party laptop can handle the games you want to play on it.
Side note: Mint Cinnamon is a perfect choice for a starter distro.
I made sure that only the OS is on C. That’s my MO since I had some bad experiences concerning windows installations (my first PC was running Windows ME)
That’s a good MO to have. I was talking about the partitions that Windows does on its own, depending on the version, of course, and the ones that the manufacturer does. For example, Lenovo has a recovery partition with a (supposedly) untouched installer for the Lenovo bloatwared OOTB Windows installation. Since you never plan on using that laptop for that version of windows again, you can just merge all partitions on that drive, and let the Mint installer use the whole drive for its purpose.
Arch isn’t inherently unstable. It’s just that most users don’t maintain it properly. Tips:
learn to backup for real: rsync, borg, etc. you broke something? Just back up to that image you made right before you updated ;)
use flatpaks. It’s kind of hard to run into AUR or dependency issues if you’re as close to a base arch install as possible.
read the maintenance page and understand it. You can’t just “yay” every week and be done with it. You need to know how to handle pacnew, read the wiki for manual interventions, look for errors and warnings in the pacman log, etc. it’s not hard at all once you figure it out, but it takes a little learning.
you don’t need to update every day. If it’s working - you can just let it ride. If you don’t update forever, then just update your keyring first and you’ll be good to go.
If you have the time + know how to keep up with Arch, and want the latest packages or need the latest drivers, then go for it.
If you only want an Arch install experience, then fire up a virtual machine and stick with Endeavor or switch to a stable release like Debian on bare metal.
But most importantly, if it brings you value (in productivity or experience) then whatever you decide isn’t a stupid decision.
I do eventually plan on switching over to OpenSUSE when I have more free time on my hands for a full fresh setup and to learn a new distro, but as of now I am a busy college student so I am not looking to switch until the summer
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