I've ditched Windows 11 for Arch Linux on my Gaming Rig!

C'mon you've ditched windows but your wallpaper is full of them... /s

https://pasteboard.co/WwGnfrEBrQVJ.jpg

You can hear the doorbell

Whoo!!! Congrats, that looks great!

Thank you!! It's not all my doing (the ricing), it's based on some dotfiles from the creator of Archcraft :)
- No shame in that! Code was made to be reused and repurposed, and I'm impressed at how quickly you've gotten into modifying your dotfiles! Cheers and welcome to the Linux community!

Installed Linux on my gaming rig, now it's a rig.

I use Arsch btw

Lol, autokorrektur ftw

Gaming on Linux has improved so much it's come to the point I only need windows for one game, that game being beamng.drive, and the only reason I ztill need windows for it is because for complicated reasons (that only the Dev team fully understands) the windows build runs like shit on proton, and the multiplayer mod for it won't run on Linux, or at least haven't figured out a way to make it run. Everything else? Perfect

Happy to have more Linux gamers on board

I know it's not perfect yet, which is why when i built my PC, I went with Windows (I'm usually a Linux & macOS user), even if I didn't want to. I didn't want to waste my 2,000$ gaming PC by not being able to game well. Well, I'll eat my words because it runs all my games perfectly fine. I just need to figure out Skyrim modding with MO2 but I'm told it works :)

Hopefully all your games work fine someday!
I just yesterday decided to give Linux a try and quickly switched back to Windows. The 2 main things preventing me from switching to Linux is the lack of proper HDR support and poor refresh rate support. I'm honestly bewildered that Linux doesn't have proper support for relatively common things that have been around for pretty much 2 decades. Hope those things get added soon
- I game in 120hz on a 30 inch 4k screen. Are you on Wayland? Xorg is old and have issues. Also avoid Nvidia at all costs. Get amd.
- For VRR, using Plasma on Wayland seems to work just fine for me (after you enable it), as long as the game in question is in full screen; it doesn’t seem to trigger otherwise. I think I ran a mixed refresh rates setup once too (165hz and 60hz) and didn’t have any issues. Idk how X11 handles mixed refresh rates (if at all), but it definitely didn’t support VRR well if at all when I tried.
  
  Re: HDR, yeah. Color management is also missing in Wayland (but present on X11) iirc.
  
  (In case you didn’t know, there’s currently two display “servers”/protocols that are in popular use, X11 and Wayland. X11 is old and has screen tearing issues, but greater support in general. Wayland is newer and has far more isolation between programs, and aims to replace it (and Fedora already has made it default, iirc))

Welcome to the Linux community, friend!

Thank you! It’s cozy here :)

I still have a windows partition out of habit (a Steam partition, really) despite running Linux as my main system for 30 years or so.

However, it's now been ages since I've had to boot windows to run something. It all runs fine in Linux nowadays.

Maybe I'll stop waiting to need it and just add an extra XFS or whatever disk to my system one of those days.

I've deleted my Windows partition because I would have needed to reinstall anyways, my partition table was not to my liking and I just said screw it. I hope I won't regret it! I only have a Win 10 VM at the moment.

If you don't use the Windows drive I'd say, take that space back :)

Congrats! If you haven't already, don't be afraid to distro-hop or spin up VMs with virt-manager to test out other flavors of Linux and/or Desktop Environments. I would stick to opinionated configurations while you're starting out, since you probably don't know what exactly you like yet.

If you ever have questions, check the wiki before using search engines, because it usually has the recommended way of doing things and sometimes information online can even get outdated.

Hey there! I've tried many distros in the past and always come back to Arch :) I'm pretty familiar with how it works, where to find information, the AUR, etc.! Thanks!
That's a nice config you have there and despite what others say, Arch is an excellent choice for starter. Have a nice ride!
- Thank you. For sure, I could recommend Arch to beginners. I used to recommend Ubuntu but I'm not so sure about it anymore, it seems to have gone corporate with Caninocal's "Ubuntu One" etc. Linux Mint is also another distro I'd recommend to beginners.

@MrShelbySan Sorry to be that person, but... Source on the wallpaper? It looks very nice.

EDIT: looks like https://twitter.com/HHibikitsuki (not sure it's reverse search)

Don’t apologize! Someone else in the thread asked for it and the original artist was linked. I’m on mobile so linking it will be a pain but if you scroll you’ll find it in better resolution :)
- That's sweet of you. I missed search then, then :)

Nuking your windows drive and not dual booting is a very brave decision. Not having another OS (where you know the way) waving at you makes the Linux learning experience much more rewarding.

For sure. I wanted to dual boot at first but I had multiple partitions and drives formatted as NTFS. Plus my EFI partition was too small.

I would have needed to nuke everything anyways, create a neat partition table, install windows again, then install Arch. And then I know you get issues like the time being messed up, Bluetooth can be fudged too. I decided to just try this for a few weeks and see how it goes. :)
- FYI if you decide to dual boot at some point you can set Windows to use UTC. It's even less intuitive than how systemd can be set to local time.
  
  Also if you can, if you decide to dual boot I recommend separate drives. Windows has gotten nicer but it still doesn't play well with others because, let's be honestly, most of the time it doesn't have to. So if you run recovery if Windows doesn't boot, it's not unusual for it to nuke EFI like it's still the 90s and Win98 just nuked LILO.
I went a few years with just a single boot system at home and you definitely learn a lot that way lol

Beautiful build! I heard people talking about gaming on linux but actually seeing you talking about running triple A games that weren't made with linux in mind made me get filled with joy, I can't wait to play Stray.

Thank you! I was super excited too when i did my research :) And Stray is actually what I'm playing right now ! I'm seeing some slight stutters but I haven't configured anything or tried other Proton versions yet.

Always happy to see another user join the ranks of gamers on Linux. I've been gaming for years now since proton came. The fact that it's just a checkbox in steam to use proton is fantastic.

Are you on Nvidia and if so how do you make it not suck? I feel like preformance has gotten worse not better over the years. The exact same games with the same settings preform much worse for me on Linux.

No unfortunately I'm not buying a Radeon I need the Nvidia for work.

Nope I’m full AMD. I’m not entirely sure how NVIDIA works on Linux. I just know it doesn’t work well with Wayland. And fair enough for not buying AMD. Personally, I would do some research, try some things, but I’m really not familiar with NVIDIA card I’m afraid :(
- Switched recently and using Nvidia. It's a headache either way but I've had less issues with Wayland than x11.
My dude, read the neofetch

AMD ATI Radeon RX 5600 OEM/5600 XT
- The what? Oh the tiny ass text in the image on my phone that I didn't see.
Yeah, guys. Can someone please share their experience with Arch and Nvidia? I’m looking to switch for quite some time now, because Windows is just a bloated confusion of an OS, but I always hear that Nvidia drivers are a piece of garbage on Linux. How true is this and can you do something about it?
- I'm in Nvidia EndevourOS (archbased) installed it with KDE X11, honestly didn't see any issues with it, the only real downside is that you don't have the profile manager per 3D app like on windows. Neither do you have Reflex, other than that everything works well.
- Arch, i3, GTX 3080 12GB, and no issues. I'm holding off migrating to Wayland for the sake of full compatibility with all screen-sharing solutions.
  
  I've never really experienced any issues pairing Linux with nVidia, so I have trouble personally relating to all the hate they catch. There have been a few times where the kernel and the nVidia driver were mismatched, which caused issues trying to start up Xorg, but that's easily solvable.
- It works just fine on Nvidia cards.
- Arch with a 3080 ti using the nvidia-dkms package. Had to set up some pacman hooks to rebuild init whenever Nvidia driver, Linux kernel, or systemd gets an update, otherwise the system doesn't boot, and I've had to boot from the Arch iso, chroot into my install and then run mkinitcpio. So there was some slight annoyance there.
  
  But gaming I've had little to no issues at all. Some games have performed better, some worse, but none of the games I've played have been outright broken.

I wish, but all I play right now is Diablo IV and COD:MW2 (2023 version) and neither works on Linux. Maybe in the 2030s.

Hmm, what issues did you have with D4 on Linux? That's been my preferred way of playing it since the beta.

Not sure about MW2 unfortunately though.
- The last time I bothered to try was a few years ago. I didn't realize it was possible to install Battle.net now. I'll have to take another look at it on my laptop with Manjaro installed.
Diablo IV definitely works in Linux. I played Sorc all the way to level 75 just fine. You can install Battle.net via Lutris, Bottles, or even directly via Proton Experimental in Steam and then install Diablo IV from there.
- Oh, interesting! How is performance compared to running on Windows?
D4 works fine. just use lutris.
i would prefer use linux rather an CoD player

Troll OFF

Seriously, if you need FPS game and you have not your heart in CoD, you can make the moove.
That's fair.

I love the background! Have you got a link to it?

Original artist: https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/94853837
- Thank you for crediting the artist for me! I uploaded it to imgur because I couldn't find the original. :(
- Thank you!
Sure thing, here : https://imgur.com/QL6LuVQ
- Thanks!

Steam has been working perfectly for me (except Anti-Cheat stuff) Some other titles (especially League of Legends) still don't work reliable for me. (If you know League, it can be a little ... frustrating)

I don't play it by my boyfriend does. There's a whole community over at /c/leagueoflinux that might be able to help!
Lutris install + installing wine-lol-bin from AUR as runner has been working near flawlessly for me. Only the event page sometimes bug out, but I never participating one so it doesnt bother me.
- Okay thanks, I will try it

Welcome to the club :) true freedom will feel great!

It already feels amazing! I feel ike my ultrawide display is actually being used properly. Same for my PC hardware, it feels 10x snappier and it was already super fast :)
- This is why we can't stand windows. Everything is laggy and filled with ads. Wtf. :)

I went to Arch and haven't looked back. It's a great distro!

It really is!

@MrShelbySan I would love to be able to leave Windows for Linux just sadly I can't with needing certain apps like Adobe to be useable on it.

Is dual booting not an option?
Same, so I installed Windows 10 in a VM within my Arch OS and now I'm good - I can digitally sign and create PDFs with Acrobat Pro and manipulate images in Photoshop as if I had the OS natively installed.
I found Adobe to be barely usable even on windows. For some reason I faced the most bizzaire bugs.
Oh that's very understandable. I have some small, niche apps I'll keep using in a QEMU VM (which I need to get around to setting up..) myself.
- @MrShelbySan Yeah VMs seem to very complex to me so I haven't quite got into them just yet but it looks like I'll have to look into them as otherwise I won't be able to run half the programs I need.

How long have you been using Linux for?

Hey! It's been a long time since I've used it as my main OS, but since Ubuntu 11.04, I've been on and off on Linux. I've tried many distros, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Arch, Manjaro, Antergos, elementaryOS, Fedora, Solus... I've tried pretty much every "mainstream" distro, and always come back to Arch.

How do you install non-steam games? Specifically Cyberpunk and Eve Online?

Check out Lutris
- Thanks!
Those are both on Steam. Heroic Launcher exists for Epic/GOG games, though, and Lutris exists for games with their own launchers.
- Can you install Cyberpunk on Steam if you didn't buy it through Steam?
lutris. even has a little button to add it to steam.
- This is basically the recommended way to install Eve these days.
  
  At one point when they were testing what is now the current launcher it worked flawlessly on Linux because it was based on Qt and they were compiling a Linux binary for it. It fired the game up in Wine and all was great.
  
  They dropped that support fairly quick though sadly once it became the actual new launcher.
Just a heads up, Eve works but it’s pretty flaky. It’s working better then it was a few months ago but I still can’t play more then maybe 15-30 min before it just totally crashes. A lot of time when leaving stations it freezes for awhile and a lot of the game assets don’t seem to always render in. Sometimes opening the menus or settings crashes it, for some reason opening the map and selecting jump points is really bad about causing freezing. Trying it again about a week ago I lost a ship because the game froze then crashed mid fight and when I managed to get back in my ship was destroyed.
- That's not really playable then when the risks are as high as they are in Eve. Thanks for the heads-up.

howwwwww. i have a pretty nice amd chip and radeon graphics card, on arch with wayland. i get stuttering, which i read was normal, on my more intensive games like dead space. deep rock galactic i can't play with my friends and it also stutters...what were the small issues you troubleshooted?

I have made quite a few tweaks to my system :

My kernel is the linux-tkg kernel

I've installed gamemode

I use wine-tkg to get FSYNC

I check ProtonDB for each game I install, to check for any launch parameters that might be needed / help with performance
- Yeah, the linux-zen kernel is a good alternative to linux-tkg for gaming that's available in the official repos. What most likely makes the biggest difference and is probably the issue for @inurblacchole is the lack of gamemode. Depending on the cpu and the default governor used it might not boost enough in games where performance or schedutil is needed.

My man just went from 0 to hero in one single tap! Nicely done.

It took me like a couple months (4'ish) to start using Arch Linux.

It's not my first distro, as mentioned below, I've tried pretty much every "mainstream" distro. I tried Arch on a pal's computer a few years ago, practiced installing it in a VM and kept it for a few years. I went back to Windows when I built my gaming PC before I didn't know how far Linux gaming had gone. :) So i'm already very familiar with Arch, just not with Window Managers like Wayfire or Hyprland, learning one config file at a time!
- Oop. Despise my "oopsie", you've done a great job regardless and I hope you have a great time in the marvelous world of Linux/GNU.

Isn't it a lot of effort to set up the games, though?

It depends and I'm not going to sugarcoat it.

You can look up the ProtonDB pages for the games you plan to play, and see how they fare. Some will work out of the box, some will require some tweaks, some will require MAJOR tweaks (I've yet to encounter any of those), and some will just flat out not run.

So far, the most "configuration" I've had to make was changing the Proton version used by same games. Example: Cult of the Lamb has major issues on the latest Experimental build of Proton, but on 7.0-6, it runs perfectly.

It depends if you're ready to spend a bit of time on getting bigger games working.
- As an addition to what he said. Some game will not work no matter what you do mainly because of anti-cheats. Some examples would be R6S, Destiny 2, any recent COD game, the site AreWeAntiCheatYet shows that list.

Nice but why are you using a RX5600 for 1440p

it's a 5700XT, not sure why it show up as a 5600, and because when I built my PC, GPUs were expensive as hell and it's all I could get my hands on. I'll upgrade in the coming months :)

Does Archcraft provide rolling releases like e.g. Manjaro?

Archcraft is just a slightly modified version of Arch Linux, so it's rollling release. Manjaro is based on Arch Linux. Manjaro holds back updates for 2 weeks, however. I haven't heard very good things about it, but feel free to correct me.
- I’m currently running Manjaro on my primary Linux machine, coming from Linux Mint before. I have no issues at all with Manjaro, but I’m open to new flavors. Since I’m not sticking to a specific operating system (I’m also having MacOS and Windows running on my machines), I sometimes reinstall my Linux machines with new distros 🙃

You probably want to replace your neofetch with fastfetch from AUR :)

Noted! I'll check it out! :)