I did it, I jumped ship from Ubuntu to Antergos and I honestly can’t see myself going back. Here’s some thoughts on that.
Why I switched
There’s many reasons for my switch, but the main one has been stability. Ubuntu has been getting more problem-filled with every new release for me so I had enough. Not only that, but due to it being dependent on GNOME packages, stuff was being stripped away too and it’s just a mess now. Some applications have normal title-bars, some have GNOME’s new styling with everything sodding hidden and it’s just all mashed together.
Audacity would constantly screw up and just skip over audio while trying to record or playback, or just flat out not work.
Multiple games wouldn’t give me audio until I killed PulseAudio and reloaded it or did other trickery. It was becoming a nuisance, especially when I want to livestream and “oh sorry guys, let me fix my audio, fuc…”.
It seems Ubuntu has a lot of problems with their setup of PulseAudio. I don’t know what they’re doing to it, but they’re murdering the poor thing.
Antergos, I choose you!
If Antergos is anything, it’s like walking in heavy rain without a coat and — suddenly the clouds part and the almighty sun is shining down on you to make everything better. Something like this essentially (thanks Samsai):
I’mdefinitely probably not overselling it — okay maybe a little.
I adore the Arch User Repository (AUR) and have found it so incredibly useful for multiple applications I use on a daily basis, especially when those same applications on Ubuntu could be out of date for weeks and months. The brand new Minecraft launcher was in it the day it was release by the official developers, the itch.io app is in it, everything I need is right there and tested by tons of people. It’s essentially a far better PPA-like system. It’s easier to understand too, thanks to a much clearer layout on the actual website.
Just don't outright trust everything on the AUR, make sure you read a few comments before installing a random package. I'm sure you're all smart enough to know to do that anyway.
Getting used to KDE after being on GNOME or GNOME-like desktops for many years has been a challenge by itself, but wow, it’s actually a lot nicer. Things aren’t hidden away where I don’t expect them to be, if I want something it’s usually right where I would expect it in a proper menu.
There was two “gotchas” I had to sort out. I couldn’t figure out why OBS Studio wouldn’t pick up any video, so eventually I tested gaming and games ran at 5 FPS. Turns out that installing the nvidia drivers didn’t come with the 32bit libs as a dependency. So, if you do decide to check out Antergos with Nvidia, make sure “lib32-nvidia-libgl” is installed too. This took me a good day to figure out too, as I didn’t think to test games until the next day and that made me realize it was a driver issue.
The second was that one day I booted up to a black screen with a cursor, as the system booted so fast that LightDM didn't load (Arch Wiki entry). I had to edit "/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf" to include:
I also learnt about bash aliases thanks to being on Arch, so instead of running something I can never remember like “Yuarty -sYusudaadasdas” to update, I have it setup so I just run “upall” in terminal and it updates everything for me — glorious! It’s easy to do as well, simply edit:
Add at the bottom:
You can substitute “yaourt -Syua” for anything, like “apt-get update && apt-get upgrade” for Debian/Ubuntu and so on.
And then save it.
Lastly, enjoy a shot of my KDE Antergos dual-desktop:
Seriously, you should give Antergos a try. It’s Arch, but a more tame Arch since it has a live-media option and you can pick what desktop you want from the installer. This was a key selling point for me, and the installer was a breeze too. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Why I switched
There’s many reasons for my switch, but the main one has been stability. Ubuntu has been getting more problem-filled with every new release for me so I had enough. Not only that, but due to it being dependent on GNOME packages, stuff was being stripped away too and it’s just a mess now. Some applications have normal title-bars, some have GNOME’s new styling with everything sodding hidden and it’s just all mashed together.
Audacity would constantly screw up and just skip over audio while trying to record or playback, or just flat out not work.
Multiple games wouldn’t give me audio until I killed PulseAudio and reloaded it or did other trickery. It was becoming a nuisance, especially when I want to livestream and “oh sorry guys, let me fix my audio, fuc…”.
It seems Ubuntu has a lot of problems with their setup of PulseAudio. I don’t know what they’re doing to it, but they’re murdering the poor thing.
Antergos, I choose you!
If Antergos is anything, it’s like walking in heavy rain without a coat and — suddenly the clouds part and the almighty sun is shining down on you to make everything better. Something like this essentially (thanks Samsai):
I’m
I adore the Arch User Repository (AUR) and have found it so incredibly useful for multiple applications I use on a daily basis, especially when those same applications on Ubuntu could be out of date for weeks and months. The brand new Minecraft launcher was in it the day it was release by the official developers, the itch.io app is in it, everything I need is right there and tested by tons of people. It’s essentially a far better PPA-like system. It’s easier to understand too, thanks to a much clearer layout on the actual website.
Just don't outright trust everything on the AUR, make sure you read a few comments before installing a random package. I'm sure you're all smart enough to know to do that anyway.
Getting used to KDE after being on GNOME or GNOME-like desktops for many years has been a challenge by itself, but wow, it’s actually a lot nicer. Things aren’t hidden away where I don’t expect them to be, if I want something it’s usually right where I would expect it in a proper menu.
There was two “gotchas” I had to sort out. I couldn’t figure out why OBS Studio wouldn’t pick up any video, so eventually I tested gaming and games ran at 5 FPS. Turns out that installing the nvidia drivers didn’t come with the 32bit libs as a dependency. So, if you do decide to check out Antergos with Nvidia, make sure “lib32-nvidia-libgl” is installed too. This took me a good day to figure out too, as I didn’t think to test games until the next day and that made me realize it was a driver issue.
The second was that one day I booted up to a black screen with a cursor, as the system booted so fast that LightDM didn't load (Arch Wiki entry). I had to edit "/etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf" to include:
[LightDM]
logind-check-graphical=trueI also learnt about bash aliases thanks to being on Arch, so instead of running something I can never remember like “Yuarty -sYusudaadasdas” to update, I have it setup so I just run “upall” in terminal and it updates everything for me — glorious! It’s easy to do as well, simply edit:
~/.bashrcAdd at the bottom:
alias upall='yaourt -Syua'You can substitute “yaourt -Syua” for anything, like “apt-get update && apt-get upgrade” for Debian/Ubuntu and so on.
And then save it.
Lastly, enjoy a shot of my KDE Antergos dual-desktop:
Seriously, you should give Antergos a try. It’s Arch, but a more tame Arch since it has a live-media option and you can pick what desktop you want from the installer. This was a key selling point for me, and the installer was a breeze too. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
morgancoxuk Jan 18, 2017
I run kubuntu + project-neon and never have pulseaudio issues (they are both based on Ubuntu), perhaps the desktop you were using (unity) was the main cause of your issue.
Kubuntu 16.10 (+plasma 5.8 PPA_ and project neon are both excellent desktops, as is Arch (with plasma 5.8), in fact most distros work as really good desktops as long as you use a decent desktop (imo not Unity or Gnome)
Kubuntu 16.10 (+plasma 5.8 PPA_ and project neon are both excellent desktops, as is Arch (with plasma 5.8), in fact most distros work as really good desktops as long as you use a decent desktop (imo not Unity or Gnome)
0 Likes
Been using Manjaro lately and very fond of it. What would be the key points on switching to Antergos? I know they are both Arch based.
1 Likes, Who?
As a Manjaro + KDE user, I can say than I cant go back to an Ubuntu-based distro, there are so much flaws on ubuntu than are fixed on arch and derivates. And manjaro fixes some of the flaws of arch (and even artengos), but I will leave it just as a subjective opinion. Arch-based distros are the way to go definitely.
Something than I dislike of artengos is the web-based installer. That approach its just too slow. Other than that it looks good, its arch.
Last edited by edo on 18 January 2017 at 10:40 pm UTC
Something than I dislike of artengos is the web-based installer. That approach its just too slow. Other than that it looks good, its arch.
Last edited by edo on 18 January 2017 at 10:40 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
I can feel your pains with Ubuntu. The issues I've been having with it have kept me on a Windows side for quite long before I tried other distro (sadly I believed that other ones are difficult - which turned out so untrue, quite the contrary). I can appreciate the work Canonical initially did , showing others that if you want to make mainstream distro you need to make it more user friendly. Sadly from there I think it was downward slope, with unfinished pieces and unfulfilled promises.
Currently I'm on Fedora and I'm super happy with it. Zero problems with the system - the only ones I had were not with the system itself, but with proprietary apps I use for work (which is kinda ironic considering one of the reasons I chose RPM based distro was that most of commercial apps for 3D are tested against those).
Also kudos for the Fedora team efforts on pushing the most promising tech into mainstream as soon as (sanely) possible. One of computers in my office runs Wayland session and I can clearly see why it is a big thing. If Nvidia had finally did the right thing and made the driver for it according to specs I'm pretty sure I'd made the switch with all the pcs in the workshop.
I'm also quite tempted to try one of Arch derivatives or Solus on my test laptop - but it will have to wait till I have a bit of extra time for such experiments :) .
Currently I'm on Fedora and I'm super happy with it. Zero problems with the system - the only ones I had were not with the system itself, but with proprietary apps I use for work (which is kinda ironic considering one of the reasons I chose RPM based distro was that most of commercial apps for 3D are tested against those).
Also kudos for the Fedora team efforts on pushing the most promising tech into mainstream as soon as (sanely) possible. One of computers in my office runs Wayland session and I can clearly see why it is a big thing. If Nvidia had finally did the right thing and made the driver for it according to specs I'm pretty sure I'd made the switch with all the pcs in the workshop.
I'm also quite tempted to try one of Arch derivatives or Solus on my test laptop - but it will have to wait till I have a bit of extra time for such experiments :) .
1 Likes, Who?
I tried installing Anteregos but for some reason it wouldn’t accept my mouse input, so trying to tab through the installer is a pain. I am however going to try Arch once I finalise my setup in a VM going to bash script my way to an auto install. (Meaning If I break something I just have to run the script to restore rather than try and remember all my settings as I manually type the install process!
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I had Antergos installed 2 years ago, but in the end I crashed the OS completely. Last year I installed Manjaro XFCE Edition, which was great and satisfied. But I had some technical problems, which i can´t solved it.
Currently, I´m using Solus, which is faster than Antergos and Manjaro. And it looks sweat and modern.
Currently, I´m using Solus, which is faster than Antergos and Manjaro. And it looks sweat and modern.
1 Likes, Who?
I had similar pulse audio problems until I turned off my wlan. It was a scheduling delay in alsa-sink.c. I didn't fix it yet but turning off my wlan is a good workaround for me because I didn't need it on my desktop pc. In the case of problems it is best to start pulseaudio in debug mode. Then you see what goes wrong.
I would never change a distribution due to technical problems without having analyzed it. Antergos has a rolling release. Problems can occur at any time in any distribution. Which distributions I use is completely different from technical problems. I personally would always use a Debian based distribution because of package management and the community. But these are personal preferences. They are different for everyone. As Linux users we have the choice.
Last edited by 1xok on 18 January 2017 at 10:49 pm UTC
I would never change a distribution due to technical problems without having analyzed it. Antergos has a rolling release. Problems can occur at any time in any distribution. Which distributions I use is completely different from technical problems. I personally would always use a Debian based distribution because of package management and the community. But these are personal preferences. They are different for everyone. As Linux users we have the choice.
Last edited by 1xok on 18 January 2017 at 10:49 pm UTC
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Fancied playing with an Arch based distro for a while now but sadly I can't get the live media to boot on my main machine. Despite the fact that I have UEFI set to legacy mode.
My current experimental OS is Solus because I find their attitude to fixing issues(not workarounds) in Linux that should have been sorted years ago a breath of fresh air. Other than a couple of missing programs it leaves me very little to complain about.
Last edited by Duckeenie on 18 January 2017 at 11:02 pm UTC
My current experimental OS is Solus because I find their attitude to fixing issues(not workarounds) in Linux that should have been sorted years ago a breath of fresh air. Other than a couple of missing programs it leaves me very little to complain about.
Last edited by Duckeenie on 18 January 2017 at 11:02 pm UTC
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NovenTheHero Jan 18, 2017
I use kubuntu with few issues.
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I started with Mint 17.3 and then moved to Manjaro and the improvment was so huge that I am still using it to this day. Gaming has not been an issue for me since moving to Manjaro and the performance has been excellent.
It was a little strange at first as I had to learn Pacman and a number of other changes but the best change for me were the ability to easily install new kernels and access to the AUR.
I have tried Antergos on my laptop as I had some issues getting Manjaro installed on my MSI Skylake laptop due to nvidia intel dual graphics. I did like it but I prefered Manjaro so I have now switched back as I managed to get this installed now that kernel 4.9 is out.
I am not ready to try pure arch yet but plan to give it a try in the future. I may give Antergos another try on a spare desktop machine.
It was a little strange at first as I had to learn Pacman and a number of other changes but the best change for me were the ability to easily install new kernels and access to the AUR.
I have tried Antergos on my laptop as I had some issues getting Manjaro installed on my MSI Skylake laptop due to nvidia intel dual graphics. I did like it but I prefered Manjaro so I have now switched back as I managed to get this installed now that kernel 4.9 is out.
I am not ready to try pure arch yet but plan to give it a try in the future. I may give Antergos another try on a spare desktop machine.
1 Likes, Who?
Welcome to the bleeding edge!!
I switched from Ubuntu to Arch about three years ago, and I've never even thought about switching to anything else. I don't think I could ever switch from a rolling release at this point - it just doesn't make sense. With Ubuntu, I had a dist-upgrade bork things up badly going from 10.04 to 10.10, and I never trusted dist-upgrade again. That meant I had to reinstall every six months to stay current with Ubuntu. I haven't reinstalled Arch since 2013.
Last edited by hummer010 on 18 January 2017 at 11:22 pm UTC
I switched from Ubuntu to Arch about three years ago, and I've never even thought about switching to anything else. I don't think I could ever switch from a rolling release at this point - it just doesn't make sense. With Ubuntu, I had a dist-upgrade bork things up badly going from 10.04 to 10.10, and I never trusted dist-upgrade again. That meant I had to reinstall every six months to stay current with Ubuntu. I haven't reinstalled Arch since 2013.
Last edited by hummer010 on 18 January 2017 at 11:22 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Hi Liam, I can understand your frustration with Ubuntu from a personal point of view. I used Ubuntu for a long time, until I needed a more "Windows like" interface for computers belonging to family members, so I installed Mint for them and then found I preferred it myself for both gaming and programming. However, as owner and main contributor to GOL, I guess you need to take a wider view on which distribution(s) to use for your GOL activities.
Currently, I assume that your game reviews are performed on the current Ubuntu LTS. So, if a game works well for you, it should work well for me on my up to date Mint OS (as mostly on the same code base). Similarly, most commercial Linux games are tested against Ubuntu (and perhaps Steam OS), but often not against Arch type distributions. Assuming that you will use only Antergos for future reviews, can you give your views about the relevance of those future reviews for the current majority of the GOL readership, that if I understand your stats properly, use a Ubuntu based distribution.
Please do not take my above questions as criticism, as I am thinking of trying Fedora and Arch myself, but I am concerned about loosing simple and reliable execution of games in my now large games library.
Currently, I assume that your game reviews are performed on the current Ubuntu LTS. So, if a game works well for you, it should work well for me on my up to date Mint OS (as mostly on the same code base). Similarly, most commercial Linux games are tested against Ubuntu (and perhaps Steam OS), but often not against Arch type distributions. Assuming that you will use only Antergos for future reviews, can you give your views about the relevance of those future reviews for the current majority of the GOL readership, that if I understand your stats properly, use a Ubuntu based distribution.
Please do not take my above questions as criticism, as I am thinking of trying Fedora and Arch myself, but I am concerned about loosing simple and reliable execution of games in my now large games library.
5 Likes, Who?
natewardawg Jan 18, 2017
Welcome to Arch! :)
I'm personally a Manjaro user, however I've also rolled my own pure Arch install, used both Antergos and Apricity, and even dip my toes into the Ubuntu pool every few releases just to see how things are going, but for several years now I've found myself always going back to Manjaro. It blends stability with bleeding edge, doesn't break as often as the more pure Arch(s) and makes drivers super easy to install. However, if it were to go away Antergos would be next on my list.
It's probably a good time to get on Arch now that (AFAIK) both Gnome 3 and KDE 5 are going into stable mode for a while :)
Congrats and Enjoy!
Last edited by natewardawg on 18 January 2017 at 11:24 pm UTC
I'm personally a Manjaro user, however I've also rolled my own pure Arch install, used both Antergos and Apricity, and even dip my toes into the Ubuntu pool every few releases just to see how things are going, but for several years now I've found myself always going back to Manjaro. It blends stability with bleeding edge, doesn't break as often as the more pure Arch(s) and makes drivers super easy to install. However, if it were to go away Antergos would be next on my list.
It's probably a good time to get on Arch now that (AFAIK) both Gnome 3 and KDE 5 are going into stable mode for a while :)
Congrats and Enjoy!
Last edited by natewardawg on 18 January 2017 at 11:24 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: lordheavywelcome to the dark side :)
Muhahahahaha, ahem.
Yes, welcome :)
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Quotea proper menu.So much this. Although my 'proper menu' of choice is Cinnamon's. The approach of both Unity and GNOME are abhorring to me.
Funny story, actually. I installed a bunch of DE's on my laptop so my mom could try a few before I'd try and install Linux on her machine. She picked Cinnamon, so then I gave it a go. Not looked back since. I wouldn't call it 'fancy', 'flashy' or 'modern', I would call it decent, proper and timeless.
But about the distro: I had originally planned to install Arch (or Antergos/Manjaro) when I upgrade my PC (planned for this summer), but this all sounds like I'm gonna give it a go way sooner.
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@liamdawe I'm sorry to hear that you've went KDE, but especially because you had troubles with GNOME... But reading your post, I'm not sure if you were using a regular Ubuntu or an Ubuntu GNOME spin, since you're talking about the mixes between "normal" and "GNOME’s new styling" title-bars. If you were running vanilla GNOME, you shouldn't have this kind of problem, all the applications look and feel are the same (at least on Fedora). So, could you clarify that please?
Last edited by Creak on 19 January 2017 at 12:19 am UTC
Last edited by Creak on 19 January 2017 at 12:19 am UTC
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welcome to arch family brow
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UnholyVision Jan 19, 2017
As others have said, welcome to the Arch life. :D
QuoteYuarty -sYusudaadasdas” to updateOnly a suggestion (For the people wanting the more lazy route), but if you want Yaourt fancy, you should try out "yaourt-gui" in the AUR. At least anyone that doesn't blindly install everything from AUR. Because it makes Yaourt very basic user-friendly. You still need to know package names, but it makes searching the names easier too. As you just type the number 8 for "yaourt -Ss", follwed by a prompt you enter text for said search.
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