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[crackajack]

Installed Bazzite recently. The install file size is rather big, imho. I know Lubuntu is supposed to be a lightweight distribution but what the fuck is in the installer for Bazzite, since on first glance it's the same thing. Out of the box all Linux desktops I ever tried looked not really different or better than Win, most definitely more boring than Vista/Aero. Is Steam and Proton 4GB alone? Meanwhile Ubuntu is without that included also rather big... I guess the times were my 1GB stick was enough for Linux are long past... why does everything explode so much in recent years?
They have support for Secure Boot but stupid. Instead of just configuring it correctly, you have to google it yourself, like everything in Linux, once you get no correct boot... just include that activation with that password "universalblue" somewhere automatically instead of installing an OS into an unbootable state without a clear how to proceed error message on screen. duh? That's already a no go for the average user.
Where are the options to not write Windows into the Boot manager? The whole thing was supposed to be on separate drives to not have any interference. I did not plan on seeing GRUB ever, just like I don't want to see whatever the Windows equivalent is on the other drive.
I don't like Ubuntu, and I think gnome in general, so I went with Bazzite's regular desktop environment which is KDE. First thing that annoys me are that the windows look inconsitent. Steam comes with Windowslike window buttons, red X for close like good old Windows XP or current 11, while Firefox comes with those Ubuntu/gnome buttons ie orange small circles. Did anyone ever check this ever? How hard can it be to direct both, and any app, to the same graphics?
Installed only one game and after compiling Vulkanshaders for some time, it runs. Incl ray tracing. Nice. Even though it is a mostly online game with maybe some anticheat stuff running. While I am also on non gaming Nvidia Pro hardware.
Not sure I am digging the Steam grey for everything. I suppose the Bazzite handheld big picture gnome version might even be more grey?
That should be configurable somewhere though.

Lubuntu feels fine for hardware that isn't gaming ready anyway, I guess Xubuntu too, but not sure about being happy with Bazzite (ie Fedora). Unstable Arch and anything bleeding edge sounds terrible from the get go. Might give Mint or Debian a try, was so far anyway just a test install.

 

[rodrigolfp]

I say Fedora is the most "out of the box" distro I tried.

 

[Durin]

Im just editing json files for extensions on GNOME it's like adding new line in GNOME supported versions

Sometimes that works for me, but some extensions have their functionality break or UI elements do something wrong.

Part of it is also that the Gnome foundation could stand to be more transparent with their changes, sometimes they even seem to dislike extensions being used, and I think they could solve these problems with an actual stable extensions API...because I know some extension makers have to resort to hacky solutions to just get their stuff to work at all.

Kinda why I'm optimistic about Cosmic, because System76 has a better relationship with their community, and it draws alot from Gnome for aesthetics/organization.

Also, you mentioned that app working better than Steam recording? I haven't use the Steam recording feature much on linux, does it perform worse than the Windows version or have problems?

 

[Soodanim]

Is this just the LinuxGAF OT now? I'm not sure there's another thread but if not we do need one.

I'm not sure if I mentioned them ITT or another thread but some of the games I installed when I first started out were the native Linux builds rather than Windows versions. I've since realised that is actually inadvisable, and I don't think I've had any issues since switching over to Wine/Proton. A bit ironic really, but I'm not complaining. It shows the strength of Proton.

I still find myself drawn more to Lutris than Heroic despite the pretty interface of the latter. It's partly for the additional supported sources and runners, but mostly because if some helpful souls set them up you can have shortcuts to installing popular mods alongside the games themselves.

But on the other hand Heroic has HLTB and ProtonDB info right there in the interface along with various links. Being able to open a game's store page in the interface is great when I want a reminder of what exactly a free game I redeemed on GOG is. Heroic also has its cloud save functionality.

I did the same with my Win10.

I installed Linux on a separate drive just for experiment I said.

Long story short, Cachy is my daily lmao.

Same as that. I don't think I've booted into Windows since I installed Cachy. I will at some point, because I have in progress games that aren't on Steam and Linux won't cover 100%, but Cachy instantly became my daily driver and Windows now exists for exceptions.

Going back to Proton versions briefly, I don't know if it was mentioned but Cachy has its own fork of Steam's bleeding edge build but with extras thrown in and enhancements that take advantage of newer CPUs. It comes in Steam runtime and non-Steam variants.

Be ready for a headache inducing mess if you haven't used Linux for anything more consoles than app opening and web browsing. Even doing basic things like move files is confusing as hell as everythings in weird folders and not where you would expect.

Also trying to copy something somewhere in a guide and you can't because you need admin cr3ds but it's your pc and you installed the os. So you have to look it up and fine out how to use command line interfaces, sudo and super user command line login and the ins and outs of the file system that seems ass backwards if you are used to 30 plus years in windows and DOS.

Oh don't even get me started trying to get certain hardware to work if there is no dedicated drivers and you download only to find it doesn't work with your version of Linux. Then there is the wine stuff.

There's definitely a learning curve, and it's because it isn't always something that comes up when talking about Windows vs Linux it can be daunting if you're not expecting it. I've barely delved into it myself, not that I've needed to. Just dipping my toe in for this and that, really.

 

[Wolzard]

Where does that information come from?

From Collabora's presentation last month: They discovered that the performance loss of Nvidia GPUs in DX12 is due to Nvidia using DX12 features that Vulkan doesn't have an equivalent for. So Collabora began a process of rewriting parts of the Vulkan specification to correct this problem. Considering that they said a good portion has already been done and that there are tests and everything else, then there's the part where the Proton developers make the necessary adjustments and finally Nvidia adapts the new drivers to the new specifications, it's predicted that this problem will be fixed by Q126.

If you want to read the presentation slides, here's the link. It's quite technical, so it might be difficult to read.

https://indico.freedesktop.org/event/10/contributions/402/attachments/243/327/2025-09-29%20-%20XDC%202025%20-%20Descriptors%20are%20Hard.pdf

This YouTuber made a video about it:

 

[Soren01]

From Collabora's presentation last month: They discovered that the performance loss of Nvidia GPUs in DX12 is due to Nvidia using DX12 features that Vulkan doesn't have an equivalent for. So Collabora began a process of rewriting parts of the Vulkan specification to correct this problem. Considering that they said a good portion has already been done and that there are tests and everything else, then there's the part where the Proton developers make the necessary adjustments and finally Nvidia adapts the new drivers to the new specifications, it's predicted that this problem will be fixed by Q126.

If you want to read the presentation slides, here's the link. It's quite technical, so it might be difficult to read.

https://indico.freedesktop.org/event/10/contributions/402/attachments/243/327/2025-09-29%20-%20XDC%202025%20-%20Descriptors%20are%20Hard.pdf

This YouTuber made a video about it:

Thanks!

 

[BeardSpike]

Good, the more options the better later on.

How's Nvidia RT on Linux drivers?

The only thing about RADV I don't like is a performance hit in RT workloads in most games. Not everything can run as well as Eternal RT on my 9070xt.

I think Persona 3 Reload in RT gets a huge hit performance wise on Linux compared to Windows.

And with their Windows (AMD) shenanigans lately, which they did backtrack on hopefully. I've decided to look towards Nvidia too in the future.

Them abandoning AMDVK gave me some hope they could help with RADV performance in RT but now I dunno honestly, lmao.

 

[BeardSpike]

Also, you mentioned that app working better than Steam recording? I haven't use the Steam recording feature much on linux, does it perform worse than the Windows version or have problems?

I think it behaves similarly to Windows don't get me wrong. For me there are two problems with Steam Recording both on Windows and Linux.

First it records to disk storage, thats bad for SSDs. You could basically recorect that and do a Ram Disk fairly easily on Linux and even on Windows there is some software to do basically just that too. Just Linux can do that out of the box.

But, now on to the second problem, it has huge artifacts on both Linux and Windows, it looks like bitrate is rapidly going down during fast paced action.

So I haven't been really using that.

AMD ReLive in Adrenalin Software does much better job in AV1.

Also GPU Screen Recorder seems to officially support AV1 GPU encoding now on Linux, I had some problems with it in the past but now I think it works just as well as AMD ReLive feature. Amazing .

Today I've recorded some 1440p 120fps footage on Linux in AV1 in both Doom Eternal and Helldivers 2 and I haven't have had any problems.

 

[Soodanim]

Good, the more options the better later on.

How's Nvidia RT on Linux drivers?

The only thing about RADV I don't like is a performance hit in RT workloads in most games. Not everything can run as well as Eternal RT on my 9070xt.

I think Persona 3 Reload in RT gets a huge hit performance wise on Linux compared to Windows.

And with their Windows (AMD) shenanigans lately, which they did backtrack on hopefully. I've decided to look towards Nvidia too in the future.

Them abandoning AMDVK gave me some hope they could help with RADV performance in RT but now I dunno honestly, lmao.

I must have missed all this AMD stuff, what happened?

 

[BeardSpike]

I must have missed all this AMD stuff, what happened?

On Windows they moved RDNA 1 and 2 GPUs to Legacy branch.

They got grilled by famous YT channels and did 180 on that. AMD is gonna AMD, lmao. Honestly their GPU division does some weird shit from time to time, even AMD Jesus called them stupid.

But it doesn't affect RADV like at all, even if they try to do something yet again on Windows. It supports GPUs even from 2002, lmao.

 

[Soodanim]

On Windows they moved RDNA 1 and 2 GPUs to Legacy branch.

They got grilled by famous YT channels and did 180 on that. AMD is gonna AMD, lmao. Honestly their GPU division does some weird shit from time to time, even AMD Jesus called them stupid.

But it doesn't affect RADV like at all, even if they try to do something yet again on Windows. It supports GPUs even from 2002, lmao.

Ohhh okay, thanks. I saw the headline, but took it at face value and didn't read on because at first glance I would have thought they're all old cards that wouldn't be supported anyway

AMD are strange, you want them to compete in the market but they seem to just shoot themselves in the foot instead. Happy with my 9070 XT, though.

 

[Durin]

I think it behaves similarly to Windows don't get me wrong. For me there are two problems with Steam Recording both on Windows and Linux.

First it records to disk storage, thats bad for SSDs. You could basically recorect that and do a Ram Disk fairly easily on Linux and even on Windows there is some software to do basically just that too. Just Linux can do that out of the box.

But, now on to the second problem, it has huge artifacts on both Linux and Windows, it looks like bitrate is rapidly going down during fast paced action.

So I haven't been really using that.

AMD ReLive in Adrenalin Software does much better job in AV1.

Also GPU Screen Recorder seems to officially support AV1 GPU encoding now on Linux, I had some problems with it in the past but now I think it works just as well as AMD ReLive feature. Amazing .

Today I've recorded some 1440p 120fps footage on Linux in AV1 in both Doom Eternal and Helldivers 2 and I haven't have had any problems.

Ok, I'll have to try a game where I record with both Steam recording and that, just to see the difference. I have an older 4tb drive that I use for my recordings, so I haven't touched my ssds with it.

 

[BeardSpike]

Ohhh okay, thanks. I saw the headline, but took it at face value and didn't read on because at first glance I would have thought they're all old cards that wouldn't be supported anyway

AMD are strange, you want them to compete in the market but they seem to just shoot themselves in the foot instead. Happy with my 9070 XT, though.

Me too, rocking same GPU, but if they still will try to move 4 year old GPUs to Legacy branch it may be difficult to sell it later on when it's time to upgrade, lmao.

But it has also opened my eyes to not be too attached to one brand.

I'm gonna see how UDNA will compete with RTX 6000 series and if they improve Raytrqcing performance in RADV, I guess and then when I think it will be time to upgrade, I will also look towards Nvidia not only AMD.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

From Collabora's presentation last month: They discovered that the performance loss of Nvidia GPUs in DX12 is due to Nvidia using DX12 features that Vulkan doesn't have an equivalent for. So Collabora began a process of rewriting parts of the Vulkan specification to correct this problem. Considering that they said a good portion has already been done and that there are tests and everything else, then there's the part where the Proton developers make the necessary adjustments and finally Nvidia adapts the new drivers to the new specifications, it's predicted that this problem will be fixed by Q126.

If you want to read the presentation slides, here's the link. It's quite technical, so it might be difficult to read.

https://indico.freedesktop.org/event/10/contributions/402/attachments/243/327/2025-09-29%20-%20XDC%202025%20-%20Descriptors%20are%20Hard.pdf

This YouTuber made a video about it:

Its obvious that the best thing would be for developers to dump DX12 and just use Vulkan. Supports Linux and Windows with minimal issues.

DX12 on AMD in Linux works reasonably well, but Windows still has the advantage in many instances.

I'd say we are likely two years away from nvidia being completely viable on Linux. Even if they solve the DX12 to VK, there are still other quirks that need to be worked out.

 

[Hudo]

You compile your shit from source, like a real man. Distros are for the weak.

 

[Soodanim]

Me too, rocking same GPU, but if they still will try to move 4 year old GPUs to Legacy branch it may be difficult to sell it later on when it's time to upgrade, lmao.

But it has also opened my eyes to not be too attached to one brand.

I'm gonna see how UDNA will compete with RTX 6000 series and if they improve Raytrqcing performance in RADV, I guess and then when I think it will be time to upgrade, I will also look towards Nvidia not only AMD.

Damn, I really misinterpreted. They tried to legacy something 4 years old?!

I'm the same, take each product on its own merits. If an nVidia card is better value for money when the times comes then I'll consider it. Especially if the future holds an improved Linux experience.

 

[b0uncyfr0]

Most of the gaming distros are identical performance wise. You need to pick the one thats gonna make your life easiest.

If you want something super solid that isnt gonna break with every update, bazzite. Something bleeding edge, Cachy. Throw in Nobara and others in there too.

I personally use bazzite, it's been very good.

 

[BeardSpike]

Damn, I really misinterpreted. They tried to legacy something 4 years old?!

Yeah. GPUs they are actively selling...

Puts ending AMDVK in a different spotlight now, does it?

This few vids will catch you up on this shit show.

 

[Broad Spectrum]

I also learned before I installed Bazzite when I was dipping my toes back into Linux, that installing any Linux distro on the same physical drive as the core Windows files, risks a windows update breaking the bootloader. Just keep the core OS files for each on a separate drive, then you can separate partitions on those drives for whatever extra storage you want formatted to whatever file system each os takes.

Even if you decide to have two separate drives, you need to physically remove the Linux drive when installing Windows because Windows will put it's bootloader on the Linux drive and there's no way to point it to a different drive.

If you do not do this, when you re-install Linux, it will wipe your Windows bootloader because Windows has placed it on your Linux drive.

 

[Durin]

Even if you decide to have two separate drives, you need to physically remove the Linux drive when installing Windows because Windows will put it's bootloader on the Linux drive and there's no way to point it to a different drive.

If you do not do this, when you re-install Linux, it will wipe your Windows bootloader because Windows has placed it on your Linux drive.

Yeah, I've heard that. I just forget to mention it since I assume most people are either going to install Linux on a device that already has Windows, or a device that is fresh with no OS installed.

Damn, I really misinterpreted. They tried to legacy something 4 years old?!

All these GPU makers are trying to sunset stuff faster, just because they don't want to spend the money on support for it. It's good that consumers pushed back on AMD, because their reversal is the same thing that happened when people complained when Sony tried to shut down the PSN store on PS3s.

One of the reasons I'm not going to sell my RTX 4080 when I decide to upgrade it later, is Nvidia decided to drop physx support on all future GPUs. A decent chunk of PC games from 2000s into the 2010s used it. I'm honestly hoping Intel sticks around with their GPUs, because their $250 B580 is the cheapest 12gb vram card on the market.

Is this just the LinuxGAF OT now? I'm not sure there's another thread but if not we do need one

We probably should just have a dedicated Linux thread, because anytime I've had news to share I just drop it here since there is still activity. What do you think BeardSpike ? I'd imagine early next year if Nvidia turns driver performance around (+ vulkan impreovements), they'll be more interest/viability in Linux since you won't take a big performance hit anymore.

 

[BeardSpike]

We probably should just have a dedicated Linux thread, because anytime I've had news to share I just drop it here since there is still activity. What do you think BeardSpike ? I'd imagine early next year if Nvidia turns driver performance around (+ vulkan impreovements), they'll be more interest/viability in Linux since you won't take a big performance hit anymore.

Yeah, we could do that next year!

Maybe there will be further improvements with HDR too!

Btw.

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 gamemoderun %command%

When I use these variables I can't seem to get mangohud working using ProtonGE and ProtonEM.

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 gamemoderun mangohud %command%

Does nothing.

I have narrowed it down to PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1

It seems to make HDR work better but it is disabling mangohud.

I've read somewhere that I could use

PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1 MANGOHUD=1 gamemoderun %command%

But it doesn't work.

Any ideas??

EDIT: I just remembered that with gamescope you enable mangohud with

--mangoapp

Haven't have tried it here. But it may be a specific flag for gamescope only.

 

[BeardSpike]

Yeah, I've heard that. I just forget to mention it since I assume most people are either going to install Linux on a device that already has Windows, or a device that is fresh with no OS installed.

This happened during my Hyprland adventures, lmao.

And I had to update Windows already and I think it did its EFi file on my Linux drive now, lmao and it doesnt work.

But the one I made myself on Windows drive through disk part works... So rEFInd picks up my EFI drive, whatever Windows made now and it doesnt work, and my CachyOS lmao.

All these GPU makers are trying to sunset stuff faster, just because they don't want to spend the money on support for it. It's good that consumers pushed back on AMD, because their reversal is the same thing that happened when people complained when Sony tried to shut down the PSN store on PS3s.

Hopefully they've backdown and it won't devalue our RX 9070XTs when we will try to upgrade in the future Soodanim

One of the reasons I'm not going to sell my RTX 4080 when I decide to upgrade it later, is Nvidia decided to drop physx support on all future GPUs. A decent chunk of PC games from 2000s into the 2010s used it. I'm honestly hoping Intel sticks around with their GPUs, because their $250 B580 is the cheapest 12gb vram card on the market.

Yeah, I've heard about that. If I would be in your shoes I would probably do the same.

 

[crackajack]

was in a fiddling around mood so installed Virtualbox and so far had a look on 8 Linux distros.

Linux Lite
7.6 refused to install, 7.4 ignored the language selection and is also stuck in 0% update. Might just be at war with VirtualBox but it's a hell no.
Linux Mint, cinamon
looks nice, this old gnome fork, and this is my provisional choice so far for my slightly older laptop as the safe & stable option.
Debian, kde, gnome, xfce, lxqt
Wayland options did not work and nothing really impressed either way. Nothing cool, nothing bad. Since I chose several desktops, it installed a ton of crap, but that is hardly something I can actually hold against it. Even though having two trash cans on some of the desktops at once is a bit odd still.
Endeavour OS, KDE
I like that it installs only rather few packages. But not having a graphical package manager at all recommended, doing everything via pacman ie. terminal is just a bit meh imho. A desktop is a gui tool, why control that via text inputs which anyone has to extract from a probably gui browser anyway? Even though installing a package manager is no problem at all, for some reason they don't recommend it. They truly mean "terminal heavy" serious, or whatever was written somewhere on their site.
Fedora, KDE
Seems fine, like everything without anything immediately different than other KDE plasmas.
openSuse tumbleweed, KDE
like above, but I liked the installer and the choice list it provides. Also I think it provides a rather safe fallback system, so even if it is rolling release, backups are written often. My current choice I will properly install on my PC soon.
openSuse Leap, xfce
slightly better than "regular" xfce, but still feels off and just old.
Zorin OS, gnome
At least they adapted gnome and some of the options look decent unlike the mobile phone OS, Win8, MacOS whatever shit gnome is apparantly going for since version 4. Brave browser as default might also be interesting. All others seem either to go full ancient with Konqueror, or regular Firefox or evil corporate Chromium.

So far the differences at least on surface level are non existent other than the desktop environment itself, where most look exactly like everyone else's and at most only different install processes, which are in the end very similar, only a few offering a few choices, most just the same as a Windows setup and bloat the system with junk you never touch. All those dozen choices appear rather pointless since mostly it is one core choice about the desktop environment itself and then the packages should at least in theory run anyway on all. Utter nonsense the fragmentation in the Linux world and then also the various "MS stores". The system appears even less open for that reason. On Windows every setup.exe you download anywhere runs on it, while Linux distributions pretend that only the version you find in the supported package library is good and anything else is use at your own risk. That's backwards. Windows demanding MS-store and Linux allowing install from anywhere would be what open (but potentially insecure) software would be.

I might also try now Manjaro, Cachy and Nobara and a supposed to be harder actual Arch. Only LFS looks like a no thank you, when the website screams 90s. In any case, will be interesting if Win11 and Steam enabling gaming if both move some people to open source.

 

[Deraj]

If anyone wants to run Veracrypt on Bazzite, the only way I found was to download the Linux AppImage and launch it with an app' called 'Gear Lever'. It works fine with the Veracrypt container I made on Windows. Funnily enough, I couldn't get the Fedora RPM version to work, and Bazzite is based on Fedora.

 

[draliko]

My experience with Linux as of today is this:
I like the core idea of it, but even as an ex it guy (used to work as a programmer) it's a pain to do something out of the basic stuff without putting yourself into it and really learning and shift your habits. Had a Plex server with arr stack configured on Ubuntu via docker, followed a guide to set it up, didn't really know how anything was configured, it did work but I didn't know why. Out of curiosity I tried to make the same setup ex Novo and sincerely after 3 days of reading and testing I gave up and made a tiny11 machine that works wonder for now (I'll probably test again in the future maybe with a dual boot distro)(I know it's a me fault dictated from my ignorance, still win is way more friendlier mainly because it's less secure at the low levels and simply ignores lot of stuff).
For gaming I'm trying cachyos and for now it works wonder, but gaming is way more simpler thing than messing around with users, groups, permission, and generally cli (simpler in the sense of installing and running games, the backend of it with proton and everything else it's simply a very complex software miracle). Don't think I'll make a full shift yet, but it's refreshing having an alternative for now, but for Linux to really have a boost just steam is/gaming distro won't be enough, there's need to be a big big fuckup by ms, and something a la Steam box with fixed HW and "generations". The majority of people around me want to just sit and play a game without messing with a single parameter, they just check if the game is for PS5 or not and that's it, for as simple a steamos can make gaming on pc it's still way more complex than a console for non tech savvy people or people that don't want to be bothered. Sorry for the digress

 

[Wolzard]

If anyone wants to run Veracrypt on Bazzite, the only way I found was to download the Linux AppImage and launch it with an app' called 'Gear Lever'. It works fine with the Veracrypt container I made on Windows. Funnily enough, I couldn't get the Fedora RPM version to work, and Bazzite is based on Fedora.

Based on Fedora Silverblue, an immutable distro.
You should not use rpms (or even cannot use), that will manipulate /usr, since it is immutable. In case you really need something, you can use a toolbox for it or overlay with rpm-ostree.

 

[crackajack]

checked out a few more

Nobara
Takes forever in the final "configure system" step but just like Bazzite , also based on Fedora, comes with a full gaming install, installing Steam and stuff already. Replaces the KDE logo with something that isn't the nobara logo either. Imho weird.
Manjaro
kinda same as openSuse Tubleweed, just slightly older, and Arch based. Has its own GUI package manager. Kinda weird that it has an imho nice logo but like some others does not replace the KDE Plasma standard logo. Most seem to really just put stuff in their installer, add their package manager if there is one, and maybe change the accent color. Maybe add a few desktop backgrounds to the regular gnome/KDE set. It's just odd how similar everything is because of that.
CachyOS
Installing in a VirtualBox seems to be not recommend (you have to manually switch to Wayland otherwise you get stuck on a login for users that were not even yet created) and also potentially pointless since the high end optimisations are naturally not working with the limited gpu access a VM provides. But did it anyway. It struggles a bit to install and also to start once installed. But everything is the same KDE again. Also Arch. Weirdly enough does not install steam even though it is also one of the "gaming distributions".

I think I'll try openSuse Tumbleweed for the proper install. I don't like rather pointless forks and company backed versions are probably safe to stay alive. So it basically was a choice bewteeen Fedora or openSuse from the start and Arch would only have had a chance if any of those had something that made it different. Which Cachy might actually do... but Nobara with the work and knowledge from the Proton guy is then probably the better choice.

For my low end system test, also looked at MX Linux
MX Fluxbox
Oh my, that thing feels like Windows 95 or maybe even older. While probably requiring at least FHD to have decently short menu lists. Insane system. I guess it's aimed at people rocking an original Pentium or Pentium 2 or whatever.
MX xfce
Finally an xfce build that imo looks decent. Moving the vertical taskbar to horizontal is a challenge to find, but so is everything. But I guess for actual low end Lubuntu feels like the most polished decently modern version.

ArchLinux
Tried for a couple of minutes, but when fixing typing is already a struggle as the first step. (anything not English layout will fight with "wrong" keys) I checked out not much longer afterwards. You have to be a masochist to actually install Arch that way. There is zero benefit in doing so, other than a probably inflated ego afterwards. There are steps that are just necessary but should not be ever acceessed in that way by users. Setting up Debian (or Ubuntu?) Server Edition, so only terminal and text lists, a couple of years ago was easier than this. The same procedure actually, but the steps are triggered in their order automatically and not by the user who has to have a guide open on another device. Or done it so often that he actually knows the shit by heart. Actual Arch is like starting your car still with a manual crank... to each their own but god damn.

 

[Wolzard]

ArchLinux
Tried for a couple of minutes, but when fixing typing is already a struggle as the first step. (anything not English layout will fight with "wrong" keys) I checked out not much longer afterwards. You have to be a masochist to actually install Arch that way. There is zero benefit in doing so, other than a probably inflated ego afterwards. There are steps that are just necessary but should not be ever acceessed in that way by users. Setting up Debian (or Ubuntu?) Server Edition, so only terminal and text lists, a couple of years ago was easier than this. The same procedure actually, but the steps are triggered in their order automatically and not by the user who has to have a guide open on another device. Or done it so often that he actually knows the shit by heart. Actual Arch is like starting your car still with a manual crank... to each their own but god damn.

Use archinstall. When booting from the USB drive, type archinstall, which will start a simpler and more automated process.