I’ve been using Debian (and formerly Ubuntu) for many years.

But I’ve been wanting to tell people that I use Arch.

I’ve been considering the following distros:

  • Arch
  • Cachy
  • Manjaro
  • Any others?

I’m leaning towards Arch or Cachy. This is for a mediocre laptop that I’m planning to use as a media center: Kodi, Retroarch, Steam, etc. Should I even be using Arch for this? Maybe Debian is more stable…

Sorry if this has been asked before. Thanks for any tips!

  • HexagonSun@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    5 hours ago

    For the reasons I switched to Debian see my other reply.

    I use the computer for:

    • Learning and understanding Linux, in the broader sense. It’s a “spare” computer and over the past 3 years I’ve installed Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Gnome, Pop! OS, Spiral Linux, G4OS, Linux Mint, LMDE, Spiral Linux, Debian, EndeavourOS, Fedora, Garuda… and I’ve failed to install (wouldn’t boot to live USB, or wouldn’t boot after installation) many more, including Void, PikaOS, MX Linux, OpenSUSE, and probably a few others…
    • Playing old games. I’ve got a steam deck, but for things like Return To Castle Wolfenstein and the Settlers II you just need a mouse and keyboard. Lutris has been awesome.

    If you have a 15” Retina MBP, it’s been a huge pain in the ass, and multiple distros just stopped working after updates, often not long after installation. But also it’s been a good learning experience for the very same same reason. To work well in 2026 it needs the Nvidia graphics disabling - but the NVRAM defaults that Mac to Nvidia at startup for Linux, so even that bit isn’t straightforward! If you simply blacklist Nvidia it won’t boot.

    I also bought a USB WiFi adapter as the Broadcom card doesn’t work initially on most distros, and can’t support WPA3 even when it does work.