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Arch Linux limitations? (programming.dev)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by staircase@programming.dev to c/linux@programming.dev

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I'm curious about trying Arch Linux, but I want to know what's difficult or impossible with it first, as that's usually what stops me sticking with a distro.

I'm particularly interested in software/driver support. For example, NVIDIA doesn't mention Arch in its CUDA download page.

UPDATE: OK it sounds like Arch is for bleeding edge. That sounds fun, but I like things simple and reliable, so I'll still with Ubuntu. I might run Arch on my secondary drive, or toy with it in Docker.

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[–] BassTurd@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago

The first time I setup Arch from scratch (no archinstall) it took me about 7 hours to get a working desktop environment. A lot of that was figuring what specifics I wanted, like boot loader and desktop environment. If you aren't already familiar with Linux architecture, the kernel, and basic terminal commands, you will be spending a lot of time on the Arch wiki. If you do already have a decent understanding of these concepts, then you will also spend a lot of time on Arch wiki.

Honestly, based on this response from you, Arch isn't this distro for you. It's work to setup, it's work to configure, and it's work to maintain. I jumped straight in myself with basically no Linux experience but about a decade of experience as a sys admin and power user for Windows. It's been a couple of years and I have no desire to even branch out because I enjoy the tinkering and resources.

I have an Nvidia GPU and the first 6 months I had issues, but there have significant improvements and now I almost never have any GPU related.

An example of needing to fiddle with things, I couldn't get audio to pass through my HDMI the other day when hooking my laptop up to a TV. I had to install a couple missing packages and then I was able to see the HDMI option in my sound settings, so then I could sell that as my output. Arch won't ever tell you what you need, it just won't work, so you have to read and figure it out yourself. Fortunately, the community is huge and the Arch wiki is fantastic. There are some shitty neck beards that like to gate keep, but ignore them and your experience will be better.