I used Antergos because I couldn’t get networking to work in my VirtualBox VM, which I used to test the waters. While I did like Antergos a lot, may you rest in peace, I don’t think that it would be that hard to install Arch. Then again, I managed to successfully install Gentoo, so… Still, it’s not that hard to have the wiki (or the handbook in Gentoo’s case) open on my phone, since I don’t need to go through every single command, just the ones I don’t remember well.
Note: I am the last person that could possibly have eidetic memory.
I really struggle reading instructions on my mobile, maybe I’m getting too old. Anyway there is a Arch install gui project around that apparently is just like AntergosOS but without the custom repository which is just fine imo.
BUT my Pop_OS install is working fine atm and I also paid for the kernel update utility (use to be free) so figured I better get some use out of it! (I believe it was only $5 or $10, thats ok for supporting a linux software developer)
Open-source is fantastic and all but for allot of people, it makes it very hard to earn money to help fund development (not many people donate).
If you’re wanting real world linux skills that transfer to things other than playing games (and i would argue that if you’re going through the initial pain of learning linux anyway, you may as well learn something that is useful for non-gaming purposes as well?), i’d suggest either ubuntu (or something based heavily on it) or Fedora (due to reasons explained below).
Unless you’re in some niche job, the majority of linux use in the real world is either on top of Ubuntu server or RHEL/CentOS. Real world companies do not run on stuff like Arch or other distros unless their core business is linux development, and even then - they likely primarily target the big 2-3 popular commercially supported platforms.
Real world companies also don’t normally care if you can compile bits and pieces of source code to build your own OS, knowing how to administer a supported environment properly is far more useful. Most of the time. Because that’s what you’ll spin up in a cloud provider…
Now, given RHEL/CentOS suck as a desktop gaming platform (kernel 3.1, really? - ok as a server but…) , Fedora is the closest that is actually up to date enough to not suck, and is generally what RHEL/CentOS will become in a few years time anyway.
Get familiar with Fedora, be ahead of the curve for what’s coming in RHEL/CentOS. Or focus on Ubuntu - that’s popular in the cloud (or as the back-end OS for many random applications) as well.
I don’t know about Fedora’s policies with regards to 32 bit libraries, but I know about Ubuntu’s, Ubuntu’s can make WINE and Steam problematic, and Ubuntu’s app-armor gets in the way of some VFIO passthrough stuff. (Fedora, otoh, is excellent for VFIO passthrough gaming; they offer a repo with the latest QEMU/libvirt.)
Arch happens to run under systemd, so there aren’t that many big differences between it and Fedora and Ubuntu. Anyone who’s competent can learn a new distro very quickly… even if HR wouldn’t recognize that fact.
If you want to become a power user, my advice, get the most cutting edge and unstable environment and make it stable.
You’ll get much better understanding Linux by fixing it. The minute you download and install a linux - congrats! you’re now the owner of that machine, and by default, a sysadmin. From my experience, most admin tasks are done to bring the environment into a more stable state.
Get the newest Fedora (https://getfedora.org/), install it on the metal, and then install virtual box on it and attempt to virtualize a Windows machine. Trust me, it’ll be a challenge and get you used to fixing things by researching the problem and learning about why your system isn’t working.
From my experience, the more difficult problems I faced when “learning” Linux (which, btw - I’m still doing) lead to the most knowledge gained. It’s because you have to solve the problem.
Trust me, the grind on this one is totally worth it! Give it enough hard work and effort and you’ll be able to do some really awesome stuff with Linux and become a good hacker along the way.
The only problem I have with Linux atm is that I play at 4k, which is a HARD sell under Linux, allot of games will straight up fail to run correctly or perform well at 4k, but almost everything will be fine with 1080p.
For this reason I often find myself booting back into windows10, I’m sure one day GPU hardware will come along that won’t make it a issue, but for now some recent games just perform trash under Linux.
Phoenix Point and MW5 for example, just unplayable at 4k, but if I played at 1080p they generally run fine. But why would I do that? I want to play at 4k with my 1080TI so here I am on Win10 again for the time being.
- ok as a server but…) , Fedora is the closest that is actually up to date enough to not suck, and is generally what RHEL/CentOS will become in a few years time anyway.