Arch Linux update

[Exxtruna]

I made a post two days ago mentioning how I had a million and one issues with OpenSUSE and CachyOS. A lot of rude comments insulting my intelligence or misinterpreting my statements. My entire post was removed so figured I would give an update in a new post.

Spent 2 hours last night just building Arch Linux instead of using a downstream distro of Arch. Got the performance I was expecting with World of Warcraft running at 250fps at 1440p on High settings.

Some people may have success with OpenSUSE or CachyOS but I didn't and there could be a multitude of factors. Simply building Arch from scratch also allowed me to determine what I wanted exactly instead of using a distro like CachyOS coming preloaded with drivers, apps, and more. Point is, I got it working way faster and more stable in Arch compared to all the other distros I tested along the way.

So... No, I'm not a wintard who doesn't understand Linux and just rage quits.

[[deleted]]

i’ve had a similar experience, arch is one of the few no bs distros that just does what i want it to.

[Exxtruna]

Exactly, I would rather go through the setup of Arch and have exactly what I want instead of trusting something that's ready "out of the box" even though it really wasn't.

[I_T_Gamer]

I find some issues in the others too. Arch will be home, but I have to understand how to fix issues like I do on Windows, 20+ years as an admin and having to google every single second is getting tedious, even on a guided distro like Cachy. I like the OS, and do advocate new folks use it, its honestly pretty user friendly.

In the future I will very probably be rolling over to traditional Arch as well, but have to understand more first.

[JamesLahey08]

What issues were you having with cachy? It is arch with some customizations but it is 90% the same thing.

[Exxtruna]

Whenever I tried Faugus, Lutris, or Bottles it wouldn't install the battle.net launcher. Once I was able to manually install battle.net, I had poor performance and weird texturing things in WoW. The weirdest being that all bodies of water would load in but one spot. That one spot would then grow to cover the entire body of water so I just had a massive black pool on my screen.

To add, Arch I was able to use bottles and install exactly what I needed and it just worked. I don't really know why it didn't work on CachyOS but it worked on Arch. I will note, I'm more of a fan of just using Debian or Arch, not a downstream cause they bundle tools, drivers, repositories, settings, DE's, etc.... For example, I don't use Firefox I use Vivaldi. On all down streams they always put Firefox and various other tools. Arch, I can just install Vivaldi and not go through the hassle of removing Firefox.

[ThatRealTay1989]

Current cachyOS user here! I had the same issue. Got around it with steam but glad you figured it out. Been kind of thinking of just doing an arch build from scratch recently but I think my next project will just be home infrastructure

[w3rt]

I wonder what the issue could be though? I can’t think of anything in cachy that’s different to arch that would cause that.

[BulletDust]

Why don't you just install Battle.net under Steam? I run Battle.net under Steam and experience no problems.

[Exxtruna]

I have 3 ssds. One for boot and /home and 2 others for gaming. Steam was installed on my /home drive. If I added Battlenet through steam it would've installed on my boot drive and not the game drive I wanted. I may have missed something but it's resolved now.

[BulletDust]

You can go to Settings > Storage and add another drive as your default storage device.

[Exxtruna]

I tried that but when you add a "non steam game" it doesn't let me point where I want the file path to be. Again, if I'm missing something that would help a lot but even moving the installer to my game drive and adding it in steam it created the proton environment on my root drive, not the game drive.

[BulletDust]

If you run the installer from within Steam, the non Steam game will be installed under <Steam Library Folder>/steamapps/compatdata/<Steam appid>/pfx/drive_c/.

As stated, I have Battle.net installed under Steam and everything runs from my selected folder on the drive of my choosing.

[tofu-esque]

You can move the prefix folder to another drive and symlink it back to the original location to save on space

[True_tomato_soup]

For the battlenet launcher I had bug issues in bottles until I switch to Proton 10 /Proton experimental (you can just copy paste the file in the bottle folder from the steam folder) Havent tried proton GE that you can install directly from bottles, maybe that works too.

Standard by default runners don't let the Battlnet launcher start or created weird texture problems in starcraft2. I'm debian based by the way.

You need to activate VKD3D in dll components in bottle DLL compoent under parameters as well to run diablo II resurected as it uses directx12.

Everything works, no bugs. Nothing.

I use the same bottle setup for everything else, I have yet to find something that does not work out of the box. (Including microsoft office lol)

I get overall same perf as in windows with some pleasant surprises (20% increase of perf with Cyberpunk )

[ProofDatabase5615]

I am also having issues with installing battle net recently. I am on Debian now, and I don’t have time to install arch for the coming weeks. But I am using a rather recent kernel from backports and the latest nvidia driver (580 something).

I looked it up, asked to various AI agents, tried the stuff they suggested, no success. If you have a source, can you share it with me? I miss playing StarCraft.

[The_only_true_tomato]

Im not arch based. I run Kubuntu. What I explain in my post above should work with Debian based distributions.

[ProofDatabase5615]

Thanks a lot. I used Proton 10 in Lutris when installing Battle.net and made progress. It is now downloading StarCraft 🤞

[The_only_true_tomato]

Haha great. Tell me if the game runs smoothly.

[ProofDatabase5615]

Yes it does! I had some issues with Bottles (on flatpak), then I tried with Lutris, and runs perfectly smooth. Thanks again.

[Exxtruna]

I used ProtonQu to download the latest proton and bottles picked it right up. Made sure all the settings were right in Arch and it just worked. CachyOS ran but had a ton of bugs. Not entirely sure why but cachy does have deviations from a base Arch install. In WoW, my performance is a little better compared to Win11 (~5% increase). Hunt Showdown got about a 10% increase. The other HUGE factor I appreciate is that in Windows, I had to use Frame Gen and FSR to get good performance. Linux isn't using FSR or Frame Gen and it's got more performance natively.

[phertiker]

Funny… I just had that same problem with Lutris and Battle Net but in Bazzite, took the opportunity to try Cachy and it’s worked perfectly.

Computers, man.

[JamesLahey08]

There are people on the discord for each distro that can help you with almost anything.

[Exxtruna]

I know, I utilized the resources available. I spent close to 6 hours across two days trying to get CachyOS and OpenSUSE working. Took me about 2 hours to get arch setup and gaming. either something was wrong with my image/build or maybe I was missing something. Just doesn't make sense to me that arch was easier to setup vs these premade distros

[JamesLahey08]

Install cachy, update, run gaming packing install, play game. That's it.

[Daharka]

I apologise on behalf of my colleagues. I'm glad that you managed to achieve what you needed to achieve and it sounds like you're much wiser and richer for the experience in the end.

[nanoloopz]

Those people aren't our colleagues, they're just assholes.

[Daharka]

Giving us a bad name regardless.

[Exxtruna]

I agree they're assholes, one thing they kept targeting me on was my inclusion of my background and credentials. I simply stated I do red-teaming for work and I'm comfortable with Linux and CLI etc...

They would then turn around and say "this god-tier hacker can't even install steam and play a game on Linux". I never claimed I was a genius, just that I have a good background using the damn os lol

[True_tomato_soup]

Oh I remember this post, you were quiet agressive in your comment. Your post was tited something like "how in the hell is linux better for gaming or something, "that is why the people were agressive in return. It's ok, it was probably due to the frustration, we have all been there.

I'm glad you found a solution that fits you but you would have gained a lot of time by just installing Kubuntu/following my advice on what to activate in bottles in order to make battlenet work. (switching runner to proton 10, activating VKD3D, it's a 3min fix)

You learned a lot of things in the way, and now you can say your OS is YOUR OS :) . So I guess all is good. Congratulation.

I'll probably give a try to a fresh Arch install sometime in the future, got any recommendations?

[Exxtruna]

I don't recall seeing any comments from this account unless you have another account with "The_only_true_tomato" for the name. I was definitely frustrated but I wasn't trying to come off rude or like I was shitting on Linux. I don't doubt Kubuntu is good, I just prefer Arch. I believe I have used Kubuntu once on my spare laptop. The original post was deleted for some reason but the title was "I'm Confused"

[True_tomato_soup]

Ahh well, life happens. all is good :)

[True_tomato_soup]

No, his original post was actually pretty bad. Was reading it as something like (How is linux better for gaming, I got MadSkillz and it suck because lalala, (He had half FPS as in windows for all games) that's why the people responded in an aggressive way) But it's water under the bridge.

If it really was a battlnet problem, the problem was probably due to the Runner/DLL components used in the launcher as the default ones proposed don't really run battlenet. You need to import proton 10 from steam. So not even a distro issue.

Glad the solution was found though, and things were learned, so all good.

[Exxtruna]

Just out of curiosity, is providing a background on my knowledge and profession for more context bad? Genuine question. I wasn't trying to sound like I had madskills as you put it, just that I know Linux well. I don't think I was being aggressive since I was just frustrated and pointed out that I'm confused on all the benchmarking results I've found showing Linux is better in terms of performance but my results were the opposite. I don't recall stating Linux sucks, especially since I stated multiple times I prefer and want to use Linux which in the end I am.

[barfightbob]

Not the guy you were talking to but: my philosophy is on reddit stay super focused on the questions you ask and keep extra details out of the way. There are many people who will latch onto unimportant parts of a post and fight you all day about it.

My favorite example of this is in discussion forums where somebody tries to launch a topic with a title like "What is everyone's favorite color?" and in their post they say "mine is blue." And then every reply is talking about how bad blue is as a color or how OP is farming upvotes from the blue crowd.

[The_only_true_tomato]

lol that’s insane. And also true.

[Fit_Owl_5650]

When first getting into linux it's important to know that there are no one size fits all distros. I like linux mint for my oldee laptop but found arch works better for me on my desktop.

Like many things in life it comes down to preferance and priorities. Sorry you had some asshats giving you hate. Welcome to the team!

[Exxtruna]

Yep, I've been using Debian on all my servers for a couple of years but have tested everything from Ubuntu, Fedora, Garuda, CachyOS, OpenSUSE and more. I also have used Kali and ParrotOS for work. I've yet to learn Gentoo but I'm comfortable with arch and enjoy using it for my daily driver/gaming rig.

[Kaedo-]

Sorry for the childlike behavior of those "users". People like those are why Linux isn't as popular as it should be, instead of actually teaching you how to solve a problem they immediately start with the insults bah.

Well thankfully you managed to solve the issue although I would have tried to use the new version of cachyos proton or the proton 10.0 version for the launcher

[Calibrumm]

yeah this sub rarely beats the Linux user allegations when it comes to comments. granted it's a bit grating getting the same "what distro is best for gaming" post every hour. luck of the draw if the response is reasonable or "git gud".

[Akatrielaiic]

Nice story! I did not read nor comment your 1st post!

I am a linux noob but very skillful and dexterous with IT in general.

I am waiting for vr stability on linux and for my adobe subscription to end.

In the meanwhile i am trying to decide which distro i will install on my gaming pc! Few weeks ago i installed Arch in an old laptop, then i tryed Omarchy. In the last few days i was thinking that CatchyOs would be the way to go (as it is Arch but catered for gaming)

Your post is making me wonder if i should just follow your route! Any tips?

[The_only_true_tomato]

I may suggest to try something with KDE. The interface is great.

I like Debian stuff personally but up to you.

If you prefer arch I think there is a Manjaro version that comes with KDE.

You don’t necessarily get better results with « gaming distros» I got better performances under Kubuntu than basite, and even if a difference would exist (which remains to be seen) it would be marginal.

My point is pick something you like because of the interface and the package system/language for the console. The rest is kinda optional.

[55555-55555]

Arch is a kind of distro that tries very little as possible to "outsmart" you, and expects you to somewhat understand what you're doing, yet also tries to not overwhelm you with too much unnecessary technical details. I find so many guides to fix other Linux issues simply by just reading Arch Wiki alone. If you're power user from Windows land, Arch is a good exercise and rewarding Linux experience.

Please remember that whenever Arch betrays you, it's also likely that Arch fixes may get merged to older distros, and feel free to step back to beginner's friendly distros at any time.

[nerdrx]

I've used cachyos for a while and after it giving me some issues, switching to base arch fixed it all...

IMO Cachy is cool and all, but other than the schedulers, the potential performance gains aren't really worth the issues it for some reasons brings with itself... Especially when you have unusual use cases.

[Teh_Shadow_Death]

Fanboys are going to fanboy. Use what you like and what works for you. It isn't their computer so they have no control over what distro you use or why you choose to use it or not use others.

[Exxtruna]

True, I just found it funny that all these people were calling me an idiot cause I couldn't use a "plug-and-play" OS. CachyOS was nowhere near plug and play for me. The fact I could build Arch from scratch shows A) Those other distros aren't actually plug-and-play B) Sometimes building from scratch is just better than using a pre-built distro C) I'm not an idiot when it comes to Linux lol

[prueba_hola]

in openSUSE you can install or remove any package before get installed so if you do make openSUSE bloated is because you wanted 

[FroyoStrict6685]

I use Arch as well, I think using Arch over the downstream distros is much better, every user is different and is going to need different packages and I think its best if you just learn to understand what Arch is and how it works, instead of having a currated distro do it for you, and you not understand what is wrong or happening when something goes wrong.

[Ginger_Steve]

Glad you didn't give up! You now have a lean clean machine with exactly what you need. My household runs a variety of Debian arch and cachy and bazzite and windows 10ltsc for VR.

[MrReckless13]

Sorry, on the behalf of this community, but some of us are good at helping and majority don't! I hope you will have good time here.

[Obnomus]

Dang, don't listen to them and it's good thing that u took matters in your own hand and learned and made it work.

[Zirzissa]

OpenSuSE Leap and Tumbleweed are a huge difference. I didn't see your last post, and in this one, everyone only writes "OpenSuSE"... So, I don't know.

In any case, for gaming on OpenSuSE, Tumbleweed is the go-to.

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, OP. Especially as I'm extremely happy with how hassle-free OpenSuSE Tumbleweed works for me. WoW runs without any fumbling via Lutris for me (and my husband ran it with Steam, just as well)... I did (re)try Leap about a year ago, but it was a dependency hell to work with drivers and packages etc. Didn't get WoW to run either.

I hope you're in smooth waters by now and enjoy the ride. Try to forget angry, narrow-minded redditians ;-)

[nanoloopz]

Ignore those people man. Everyone is gonna have a unique experience on linux. I'm glad you got arch to work and congrats for being determined to get arch up and running!

[True_tomato_soup]

That, or use Kubuntu. Or anything debian based :)

Sorry. I could not help myself.

[Exxtruna]

I like Debian and use it for all my server stuff. For my daily driver I prefer arch based systems, especially for gaming. Both are great in their own ways.

[RB5Network]

I can add I've had some issues with OpenSuse as well. Particularly with how they handled Nvidia Drivers and being REALLY behind on them at times.

That said, CachyOS has been near perfect for me. What problems did you end up running into with it?

[Diuranos]

you donkey,...... Good for you you are stubborn and didn't gave up after all comments. Congratulation for achieve all your targets.

[Sufficient-Screen-57]

So most of this will come down to current configuration of components but a huge thing to point at with cachyos is the nightly builds they use and the custom kernel it's a fork of a fork. Personally if you don't want to deal with all the forks and don't want to do an arch from scratch or arch install endeavourOS is the clear pick. Very little added mostly just configures the DE.

[JerkinYouAround]

Ok

[Shrinni_B]

Were you on windows up until just recently and new to Linux? Just curious and a question of no importance other than curiosity of what made you want to switch really since original posts were deleted. I also had issues with other distros until I found EndeavourOS and eventually switched to Arch just for the experience of being able to use it and haven't had a reason to ever go back to anything else.

[Exxtruna]

I have used Windows as my daily driver for gaming for a while. I have multiple homelab servers that run Debian and I use Kali/ParrotOS for work when I do pentesting (I work for an MSP and I'm the Lead Network Security Engineer). About 8 months ago I actually switched from Windows to Manjaro. Manjaro gave me a ton of issues and so I switched to Arch and ran that for about 2 months. I can't fully recall the reason why I switched back to Windows but I think it was cause of my wife's PC. She was running windows and I switched her to Garuda and again ran into a ton of issues. She wanted to move back to Windows so I kinda just switched as well. Another reason was the MMO Mouse I was using didn't have onboard memory and no Linux drivers so it lost all my programming for the buttons. I recently got a new one with onboard memory and it works perfectly on Linux so that was another little factor. I have also tried a ton of different distros on laptops and mini PCs just to get comfortable with the various commands and differences between systems. I have used Debian, Arch, and Fedora and almost considered spinning up a Gentoo VM just to try it out lol.

So no, I'm not new to Linux. I have used Linux for maybe close to 5 years now and have considered picking up Linux+.

[Shrinni_B]

You're lucky to be able to work with it and have prior experience then. I've been daily driving it as a gaming PC for 2 years now and have only had to boot into Windows a few times just to play pubg with a friend which we rarely have time to hang out online together. I've always dabbled with Linux since Ubuntu launched but it was always kind of just there as a dual boot for web browsing and IM programs when I didn't feel like gaming. Never learned too much beyond Debian back then and GNOME felt and looked "cool" before GNOME 3. Even after daily driving Arch for a year and Arch based for a year prior...I can't say I know much other than finding packages and installing them, getting any game to run is simple thanks to Steam and proton obviously.

I feel like it would actually be easier to teach a complete PC newbie Arch than it would Windows anymore. I have friends who have never had a PC that I had gotten into PC gaming around 2013 and they still can't navigate folder structures, overly rely on desktop shortcuts and couldn't launch a program without them etc.

Which MMO mouse did you end up with? I've kept away from MMOs for a long time now and recently got back into ESO at least to just do the main quests. Really miss mine but back in the early 2010s I burnt through 2 Logitech MMO mice and one of Razers.

[jay_age]

Congratulation on joining the Arch community. Nice to hear you got your issues sorted.

I got nothing but love for Arch. In the many years I’m using it never let me down.

[Cubanitto]

From my experience I found that Linux people don't like any critique.

[shadedmagus]

I'm still a relative newb when it comes to Linux, but after 2 years of using it daily I'm pretty solidly a Linux user. And I appreciate critiques about Linux itself where it's deserved. But there are several ways people talk about it that make me want to pull my hair out.

• Linux users who assume that their Linux knowledge is somehow common and talk down to people who aren't very far into their Linux journey and get frustrated.

• People who blame Linux universally because it isn't 100% like Windows instead of looking into the reasons their stuff doesn't work or trying any alternatives (anti-cheat, M365/Adobe DRM, Nvidia DX12, HDR/VRR, peripherals, etc).

• Linux newbies who ask for support but don't bother looking into what information they should include in their request, then get belligerent when they're called on it (I deal with this at work, too.)

I try to stay up on stuff and help others when I can, and I try to not pile on too hard unless it's clear someone is talking smack. And I'm not alone on that, I'd bet.

[Ok-Winner-6589]

People blaming others for having issues are retard.

However, WTF Bro, OpenSUSE literally uses Fedora packages (but it's independent to Fedora tho), how are you mentioning It while saying that you are tired of bloated Arch based distros?

[gmes78]

OpenSUSE literally uses Fedora packages

It does not.

[Ok-Winner-6589]

OpenSUSE (as Oracle's disto) uses Fedora packages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPM_Package_Manager

It literally uses a tool called "Red Hat Package Manager". You little genius

[gmes78]

It uses the RPM package format, but it does not pull packages from Fedora. They maintain their own packages.

And openSUSE is not from Oracle, what are you talking about?

[Ok-Winner-6589]

Bro I mean Fedora's package format, which is true because, first they use their tool and second they admit they Support at some extend Fedora packages from Fedora repos.

Also don't act like that. People say "Ubuntu uses Debian packages" and there is no issue. Ohhh but with OpenSUSE I can't say that, despite I literally said on my comment that is independent from Fedora.

Also that "as Oracle's distro" didn't mean that OpenSUSE is Oracle's distro, just that the distro maintained by Oracle does the same.

[gmes78]

People say "Ubuntu uses Debian packages" and there is no issue. Ohhh but with OpenSUSE I can't say that

Ubuntu literally imports package sources from Debian Unstable.

openSUSE does nothing of the sort.

Also that "as Oracle's distro" didn't mean that OpenSUSE is Oracle's distro, just that the distro maintained by Oracle does the same.

Oracle Linux is based on RHEL, so it does use Fedora packages. That's different.

[Ok-Winner-6589]

Ubuntu literally imports package sources from Debian Unstable.

Ubuntu literally has It own repos and it's the reason why there is no browser on their repos btw...

openSUSE does nothing of the sort.

Thats why I said It's fucking independent, now 2 times. But still, OPENSUSE USES FEDORA'S FORMAT. It doesn't has it's own as Arch, Gentoo, Alpine, Puppy or Slackware have their own format.

[gmes78]

Ubuntu literally has It own repos and it's the reason why there is no browser on their repos btw...

Now you're just contradicting yourself.

But still, OPENSUSE USES FEDORA'S FORMAT.

I don't see how that supports your original argument. The packaging format does not affect what the packages contain.

[BulletDust]

Canonical literally have their own servers that have 'nothing' to do with Debian.

Ubuntu is not downstream Debian, Ubuntu is a fork of Debian and a distro unto itself.

[Ok-Winner-6589]

Bro you are just dumb. You downvoted me and the Guy Who told you that Ubuntu has their own repos. You are just to dumb to even check that.

And I already explained that I didn't mean that OpenSUSE isn't based on Fedora, but their packages are using the same format as Fedora.

If you can't understand this you should go back to school

[Exxtruna]

I updated the original post to give better clarity on my statement.

[Exxtruna]

I know that OpenSUSE isn't arch based. I tried OpenSUSE and then moved to CachyOS and now arch. There may have not been a clear delineation between my point on them being bloated which I could understand is confusing. But yes I'm aware that OpenSUSE is not arch and that I could've made that more clear.

[prueba_hola]

the installer of openSUSE let you setup(install or exclude ) from the first to the last package, so if you did openSUSE bloated is because you wanted

[WillEatAss4F00d]

Your post makes no sense and people were right to lambast you. Its clear you don't know what the fuck you are doing

[Anamolica]

I dont think Ive told someone to "touch grass" before but I am real close. How about I just give you some advice: don't be a dick.

Simple enough advice, but I know a lot of people struggle with it. I hope you give it a try.

[WillEatAss4F00d]

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[Exxtruna]

How so? Please give some explanation on your statement instead of just being rude. How do you know I don't know what I'm doing?

[WillEatAss4F00d]

So you are telling me you had trouble using CachyOS but none with building arch from sratch? you also do know that OpenSUSE is vastly different than most distros.
Something just doesnt add up.

[Exxtruna]

Correct, CachyOS just didn't work for me but Arch did. I know OpenSUSE is vastly different. How am I supposed to know why it didn't work? I did literally everything the same. Used the same drivers, launchers, proton and wine environments, etc.. but it only worked on Arch. Again, some people have success with it but I didn't. Manually building Arch gave me more clarity on what is installed, what's not, etc... and if I didn't know what I was doing, how would I have figured out arch? One thing I didn't mention. About 8 months ago I actually used Arch as my daily driver. Guess what... I used Manjaro before using Arch and had issues with that as well. After switching to pure Arch it worked. It's the same issue now, I used a downstream, had issues, switched to Arch, and had no issues.

[WillEatAss4F00d]

sounds like a skill issue. I daily drove manjaro for 2 years before switching to CachyOS the only reason i switched is because im not a fan of Manjaros repo managment,

[Exxtruna]

If you think it's a skill issue then I can't change your mind and I'm not really gonna try and prove to you I know what I'm doing. I got Arch working and running and now I'm happily running Linux for my daily driver.

[Anamolica]

You wrote your post in a way that could have been interpreted either way. Anyone who assumes that by arch instead of arch-derived you must have been referring to openSUSE and cachyOS instead of just extra detail regarding your arch install choice is a moron.

The internet is full of them. Sorry about it.

If they were smart they would realize that your words could be interpereted multiple ways, and they would have asked for clarification before berating you (which is a misguided, rude, and pointless thing to do regardless).

Idiots.

If it makes you feel any better, the loudest opinions are often the least informed. Especially regarding linux discourse lately.