Source
r/archlinux•
Setriath

Would Arch be a good fit?

I've always thought kindly of the idea of Linux, but since I'm a gamer at heart I've always thought to myself that it wouldn't be worth the hassle due to the lack of support.

This has somewhat changed recently since I heard of the ability to run a seamless windows with a GPU passthrough in order to play heavier games. It's due to this feature alone that I'm considering changing, and if I can't make it work I'll probably change back. Since what's the point of going over to Linux if I'm forced to dualboot frequently anyway.

There's quite a lot of distros out there, and Arch piqued my interest. I'm not exactly afraid to tinker with stuff, but I do expect it to be reliable if it's done right. I've read quite a lot of people complaining about Arch being a real hassle, and my question is - how much of it is true? To me it seems a lot of it depends on the user itself.

Considering the feature in question above, would Arch be a good fit? I wouldn't mind spending some time on it as long as I would be able to get it to work reliably.

Posted Mar 27, 2015, 12:09 PM UTC

1060
Jellicent•

I'd suggest to give Arch a try. It was my first Linux distro and I had no knowledge prior to installing it. You'll make mistakes but you'll learn - a lot.

11
SetriathOP•

Yeah, I'm really interested in actually learning stuff along the way since it would most likely become relevant as I eventually end up at some sort of "computing" related study.

4
archover•

If your primary objective is running games, I would review the Steam focused distros. Not a gamer here so do your research.

I believe the lack of hand holding in Arch will be a distraction to running games.

Your general tone of comments reinforce my view.

10
SetriathOP•

Making assumptions is fine and all, but I'm not really looking for hand holding. I'm looking for a learning experience while still have a functional computer - tone or not.

3
archover•

Don't interpret my comment negatively.

I just know that when the tool gets in the way of the job, then the tool is wrong.

On something like Debian, a newly installed package will be up and running, requiring only minimal config. On Arch, you have to do more config. Many, and maybe rightly so, consider that a fault.

Hope you understand my constructive comments.

9
SetriathOP•

Don't worry, I agree with you and can easily see where you're coming from.

It's just that your third line was kind of unnecessary and pure speculation based on pretty much nothing.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
archover•

Fair enough.

Go to bbs.archlinux.org which is a very valuable resource. I guess I was preparing you for the kind of response you would have gotten there. I should have been more careful with my words here. Sorry.

Read the user centric section here https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way#User-centric

1
guffenberg•

Agree. I didn't get that impression at all.

1
crowseldon•

It's just that your third line was kind of unnecessary and pure speculation based on pretty much nothing.

well, you said "but I do expect it to be reliable if it's done right. "

When you come across a problem. Will you blame yourself or something that didn't get done right?

My advice:

get something like VirtualBox and the arch iso and try installing it there. You're going to learn a lot just by doing so and it will probably be a first impression to see if you are willing to go through that initial "installation learning curve".

It's not hard to maintain arch but to actually install it for the first time without prior experience can be daunting. Specially if you missread or skip something from the guide.

0
fazo96•

Then arch is perfect: updated, stable and reliable but requiring knowledge and patience, it will allow you to learn a lot. If you are careful it will be stable.

I can't help you with GPU passthrough, it requires a fairly specific hardware configuration and a LOT of tweaking

1
kkjdroid•

There's quite a lot of distros out there, and Arch piqued my interest. I'm not exactly afraid to tinker with stuff, but I do expect it to be reliable if it's done right. I've read quite a lot of people complaining about Arch being a real hassle, and my question is - how much of it is true? To me it seems a lot of it depends on the user itself.

If you haven't done some fairly heavy tinkering with Linux before, reliably broken is the only reliable you'll have with Arch. I'd suggest Ubuntu or Fedora as a first distro.

4
SetriathOP•

How is mint in that case? From what I've seen (little as that may be) I don't think ubuntu is for me.

1
kkjdroid•

Mint is very similar to Ubuntu. I'd definitely recommend it as well.

2
[deleted]•

Mint is pretty much Ubuntu under the hood as far as I know.

1
emlun•

reliably broken is the only reliable you'll have with Arch

Care to elaborate on that? I've used Arch for about 5 years on my netbook and one year on my home and work computers, and "reliably broken" is quite the opposite of my experience with it (except for systemd --user services, but that's a whole other story).

1
kkjdroid•

Well, the installer is CLI-only, so if you only know how to use a Windows CLI or GUI then you're going to be following a guide verbatim with no understanding of what you're doing. You'll then boot into an environment that may or may not have such necessities as sound output and WPA support (neither is in the wiki guide), no GUI, and a CLI that you've barely used and never tinkered with. Getting from there to a fully-functioning system is going to require a lot of learning that would be far easier to do on a more beginner-friendly distro.

2
emlun•

Ah, seems like I glossed over the "If you haven't done some fairly heavy tinkering with Linux before" part. Yeah, that makes sense.

2
[deleted]•

on a more beginner-friendly distro you'd never learn those things though, because you don't need to.

1
kkjdroid•

You still learn basic Bash, which goes a long way in installing Arch from a Zsh prompt.

1
guffenberg•

ditto

1
[deleted]•

This is not necessarily true. I ran Ubuntu for a week and a half or so and then immediately switch to Arch with no other *nix experience, and have had a pretty stable system. I think the only major issues I had were moving to rootless X, mpd/ncmpcpp and friends breaking once or twice on update (and that was my fault, I had been using yaourt and running ncmpcpp-git and forgotten that I was doing that)

1
guffenberg•

I do expect it to be reliable if it's done right

No pun intended, but you sound like an Archer already.

4
[deleted]•

Arch is very reliable if done right. It requires tinkering and I have small system breaks from time to time which require fixing.

Arch is really great but its rolling release (which is awesome but not for everyone). If you haven't run Linux before I'd start with a stable release like mint or Debian.

3
SetriathOP•

It would be my first run, yes. I don't really have any insight on any of the distros spesifically, but I'll probably end up on Arch or mint as it is now.

1
guffenberg•

Arch and Mint is very different. With Mint, everything comes neatly packaged and ready to go.

With Arch you build your system from scratch, and then you fine tune stuff. Its a completely different experience.

1
czipperz•

I think that's why those were the two options. He found the best solution for both scenarios

1
guffenberg•

Are you saying he is going to install both?

1
cyrusol•

Arch needs quite a good chunk of initial configuration (as it's not an opnionated distro) and reading through alot of manuals before you can actually do something useful. If you are impatient, that's a bad thing, but considering you will probably need this knowledge anyway at some point, it might be worthwhile.

However, setting up a VM environment with GPU passthrough is not trivial, so don't underestimate the time needed, and be sure you match the hardware requirements first (at least 2 GPUs with at least one of them being very well supported under Linux).

For me Arch is the first choice for desktops and laptops of any kind.

3
SirUtnut•

Gaming on Linux is totally fine. I think it's even better. Installing steam was just

pacman -S steam

I do about 80% of my games through linux, and keep windows for the 20% that don't work on Windows, as well as other windows only applications like Sketchup.

That said, I don't recommend Arch as a first distro. You might be able to work with it, but the transition won't be smooth. Arch is reliable if you do it right, but if this is your first foray into Linux, you can't expect to get it all right. That's totally fine. Messing up is how you learn, and where I think a lot of the fun is. So I think you should learn in an environment where you can mess up safely. And that's not Arch.

3
archover•

won't be smooth.

Nothing truly great is easy. Arch included.

I know the pros and cons about this statement, but maybe we should direct OP to that Evo/lution "distro"? http://www.evolutionlinux.com/

I tried it, through the base install, so I could be educated about it. To me, it seemed the same as Arch was under the AIF (was that the name?...)

1
TheManCalledK•

If all you want to do is play Windows games, don't waste your time with GPU passthrough. It's not easy to make it work, and it's going to be even more difficult if you know nothing about Linux to begin with. It also requires very specific hardware features.

2
SetriathOP•

I'm aware of the specific hardware features - if I didn't meet them it wouldn't be a viable option.

I'm intending to do more than playing games though, it's just that if I'm unable to do so through Linux I'm fine with using windows for now.

4
TheManCalledK•

I'm aware of the specific hardware features - if I didn't meet them it wouldn't be a viable option.

You didn't really describe your level of experience, I was simply attempting to make sure you are aware of the very specific requirements.

I'm intending to do more than playing games though, it's just that if I'm unable to do so through Linux I'm fine with using windows for now.

It sounds like playing games is your primary intention, though. If that's the case, it might make more sense to get a cloud server or run Arch in virtual machine instead of Windows.

1
plumkefan•

I don't think this is a very constructive or supportive comment.

OP seems to be interested in learning something difficult and seems to accept that risk. There's no need to try to discourage others from seeking knowledge or experience just because it is difficult. With that mindset, nobody would even want to try Arch because many people consider it hard.

3
TheManCalledK•

It's a pragmatic comment. The guy's primary concern seems to be running Windows games. He even says:

It's due to this feature alone that I'm considering changing, and if I can't make it work I'll probably change back.

Yes, it's great that he's willing to learn. But based on his requirements and the complexity of what he is attempting to do, it seems silly to suggest that this is a reasonable course of action. It's analogous to taking a calculus I course before taking algebra. Why set yourself up for failure?

Were he an experienced Linux user, I would probably make a different recommendation.

0
plumkefan•

Experienced Linux user does not ensure success, much the same as inexperience does not guarantee failure.

I have introduced many people to Arch as their first *nix based OS and some picked it up right away, some learned slowly, and some did not like it at all.

Everyone is different and you should not discourage anyone for trying. The world is round.

2
TheManCalledK•

Experienced Linux user does not ensure success, much the same as inexperience does not guarantee failure.

So what? If I go challenge Tiger Woods to a game of golf today, there's a chance I might beat him. But the chance is so ridiculously tiny that it's not even worth entertaining as a possibility.

I have introduced many people to Arch as their first *nix based OS and some picked it up right away

Do you mean that people were able to install by following the wiki?

You're doing this community a disservice by telling people they can run before they can walk. There's a good chance OP is going to get frustrated and give up because he's not equipped with the knowledge to do what he needs to do. Is that any way to expand the Linux community? No.

Everyone is different and you should not discourage anyone for trying.

I think what you're really trying to say here is "don't be realistic." I gave my opinion on whether or not it was a good first project, which is exactly what the OP asked for.

Maybe you should not tell people not to provide opinions that you don't like.

0
Uninformedperson•

Sounds like you are interested in Linux as a hobby, and should run it in a Virtual Machine instead of replacing Windows.

Even with GPU passthrough, you'll still get less performance in a Virtual Machine then natively.

So run Arch in a VM. It'll run great with 2d acceleration.

2
mentatf•

Arch can be nothing but "a good fit" since you're supposed to KISS! You have countrol over everything, as long as you have an idea of what you want/need. Moreover the documentation is a masterpiece, it never lets you alone - for installation steps, and also for benchmarking if you lack knowledge of all the software available. You will even find entries for specific hardware if needed !

The only downside is that it takes a bit of time - but not too much, and it's a good investment, because you learn it once and then it's for life.

About gaming, I'm not too sure about that, but I guess you can make it work pretty reliably. I have decent performances on steam games on a laptop with Optimus technology.

edit: typos

2
arch_maniac•

Arch is not really a hassle at all. The biggest tip to make it hassle-free is to read the news on the Archlinux home page every time before you run your system updates. They will tell you about potential problems and post-update actions you might need to perform. Most days, there is nothing special at all.

2
exscape•

Either that, or you just sign up for the mailing list. Since there's usually like 1-2 posts a month, checking the homepage every time would become old quickly.

1
K900_•

Keep in mind that graphics passthrough requires two cards - one for the Linux host and one for the Windows guest.

1
kkjdroid•

Well, that's if you require video output from the host while the guest is running. You could just treat the guest like its own computer and shut it down to get back to Linux. You can also use your IGPU if you have one.

1
K900_•

You can't use a single graphics card for the host and the guest.

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kkjdroid•

But you can make the host headless while the guest is up, can't you?

1
K900_•

You can't. KVM still needs something to render to.

2
Hllowrld•

May I ask why you don't dual boot?

1
SetriathOP•

Wouldn't be worth the effort in my opinion. Having to reboot every time seems to be very unpractical and would eventually drive me nuts/away from Linux most likely (mostly speculation of course, but it does seem like a drag).

Seamless on the other hand would fit all of my current needs in Linux. Not to mention it seems like a fun challenge to do as well.

2
plumkefan•

For someone who seems ambitious enough to give it a try and enjoys a challenge, I think Arch really would be an enjoyable experience.

As far as natively gaming on Arch is concerned, as others have mentioned, Steam offers a variety of games as does Desura. I am more of casual gamer these days, and I get most of my games from Humble Bundle in exchange for donations.

If you have games that are only available for Windows, I would suggest checking if wine can run them and if not, then move on to setting up KVM or Xen with VGA passthrough. There is a bit of documentation out there.

I suggest checking out this thread if you are interested in VGA passthrough with KVM.

1
[deleted]•

I've been dual-booting Windows 8 and Arch for some time now. I find I just don't boot Windows much. Moving from Windows to Arch is fine, because Arch boots very quickly. Booting Windows always feels like a damned chore when I need it for something.

1
deviaan•

Honestly, if all you want is to run games then you should just stick to Windows. You can do a lot with Linux, but it will be work and things can (and depending on what you're doing will) break.

If you are still interested in Arch for learning and tinkering, just install it in a virtual machine. Also remember that a lot of other distros have a minimal version. So you could build them up in a similar way to Arch.

1
asympdote•

The answer to every last one of these types of post is identical: try it and see.

1