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Should I give Arch a shot?

I've been using Linux as my main OS for a couple of years now, first on a slightly older Dell Inspiron 15. Last year I upgraded to an Inspiron 15 7510 with i7-11800H and RTX3050. Since purchasing this laptop I've used Manjaro, Debian 11, Pop OS, Void Linux, Fedora Silverblue (37 & 38) and now Debian 12. I need to reinstall soon since I've stuffed up my NVIDIA drivers trying to install CUDA and didn't realise that they changed the default swap size to 1GB.

I use this laptop for everything - development in C/C++, dart/flutter, nodejs and sometimes PHP. I occasionally play games on it through Proton and sometimes need to re-encode videos using Handbrake. I need some amount of reliability since I also use this for University.

I've previously been against trying Arch due to instability issues such as the recent GRUB thing. But I have been reading about BTRFS and snapshots which make me think I can have an up to date system and reliability (by rebooting into a snapshot). What's everyone's perspective on this, is there anything major I should keep an eye on?

Should also note I use GNOME, vscode, Firefox and will need MATLAB to be installed, if there is anything to do with those that is problematic on Arch?

Edit: I went with Arch thanks everyone for the advice

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  • on the other end of the spectrum, if you really don't want to learn shit about linux, use Linux Mint. it's easier to install than Windows, and I only use the terminal for updates using lolcat so I can feel like a rainbow hacker.

    frequent questions and thoughts I have as a Linux Mint user:

    • why tf is everyone arguing about over whatever systemd is?

    • wow, that guy uses Arch, btw 😮

    • I don't understand this Linux meme

    • where is this program installed??

    • wtf are Vulcan Shaders?

    • should I use apt or apt-get to install? eh, it depends on how lazy I'm feeling

    • check out my screenfetch. I'm such a hacker.

    • i wonder if the people on Linux Mint forums are sick of me asking for help without helping anyone else.

    • all these Linux privacy benefits don't mean shit since I use Chrome

    • how come no one ever brags about Cinnamon?

    • Systemd is a Programm starter which is used for starting your system programms. It made a lot of things much easier, but since there's no competitor people are arguing about it for ethical reasons since it can do literally anything it wants to do. Vulkan is the Linux equivalent do directX on Windows. Also, Cinnamon is bloat and actually a kinda bad design. KDE and gnome have a lot of things that are much better than in Cinnamon. Cinnamon is good for new users who need the "Windows like System" but I personally don't like it at all.

      • So I installed Kubuntu, and I LOVE KDE. Thanks for the encouragement 😀

        • I really like KDE. My current system is fedora KDE spin though I also have sway installed but I don't use it much. I changed some KDE keybinds to feel more like sway and i3.

          • cool! i went with kubuntu, but am interested in other distros because of the issues with snap. i've heard good things about kde neon. what do you think about that? any other kde recommendations? im not a linux amateur professional, btw.

            • While fedora kde spin is my favorite some other good opinions are opensuse, debian, and something arch based if you want something a bit different. Out of all of those debian will feel the most comfy but its not known for having up to date packages since they do lots of testing before pushing an update.

              • cool 😎 beans 🫘

                I'm waiting for my brain to come back, then I'll do some testing. You're right about Debian being a bit behind for my taste. I hear great things about Fedora, but that means I'd have to learn a whole new distro compared to Debian based ones. I still might give it a try on a laptop to see what I think. Arch is way too much for my level of Linux competence and willingness to put effort into learning and troubleshooting it. I've heard good things about Tuxedo OS, though the YouTuber that promoted it was transparent that he was being paid by Tuxedo for advertisement.

                If you don't mind sharing just a little, what do you think I should know or read up on regarding switching to Fedora? Or another way of asking is what difficulties can I expect and how can I prepare? I'm guessing the terminal commands, installation process, and package repos would work differently? Also, since Fedora uses a different package system (so not deb), would I be more limited on what programs I can install in general?

                • The main version of fedora comes with gnome but you have opinions for KDE. A lot of people just install KDE along side gnome but I like Fedora KDE spin because it feels cleaner not having the gnome apps. Even though you can use fedora right after install there are a few things most people like to do first. You will use dnf (its like apt but in fedora) and flatpaks mostly.

                  • Fedora doesn't have the best multimedia by default so you need to install some stuff using this thing here.
                  • Next you should enable rpm fusion. rpm fusion lets you install more stuff using fedoras package manager dnf. look here to see how to enable rpm fusion.
                  • Next enable flathub. flathub adds more packages to flatpak. flatpak in fedora here.

                  After that you should be good to go. With rpm fusion and flathub there really isn't going to be any packages you can get in debian but not fedora

      • I appreciate the info. If you don't mind, what's directX?

        I went with Cinnamon because I assumed that LM was streamlined for it, but I have used both Gnome and KDE, and I really liked KDE. I can install it and give it a shot again. Thank you for the info!!

        • It's an API, a set of function declarations and tools, which gives a standard way to control GPUs to make them put stuff on the screen as well as 3D maths. DirectX is a proprietary standard owned and developed by Microsoft and as such only supported on Windows. Though we have libraries such as dxvk which act as DirectX drivers and instead of directly interacting with the GPU, use Vulkan, which is similar to DirectX but and open standard, to put stuff on the screen.

          • Thank you! Now I at least know what's taking my games on Steam so long to start

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