this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2024
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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.
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.