I'm a person that use Windows since I'm still a kid
Hi, I'm a SWE that been using Windows before I even understand what "girlfriend" even meaning. From good old days when every home's pc have McAfee on their pc. But then I decided to move to Linux.
The reason I move to Linux is not because AI slop or anything, it's just a random day and I have a random thought: "Why Windows?". And then the journey begin.
At first, like all other newbies, I head to community of Linux to make a question that we all know
Hey, I come from Windows, what distro do you guys suggest me to use.
And I was kinda surprise. Not like the myth of Linux user always a not-friendly community, they actually kinda friendly. They suggest me to use distro that many people using such
- Ubuntu
- Mint
- Debian
But then a guy slide into my DMs and say
you should try fedora, they just release KDE
And without even understand what is 'KDE'. I hop on google and search "Fedora KDE". Go to the first link and download the .iso.
After burning the .iso file into the USB and boot into the USB. Oh boy the KDE UI make me drop my jaws. Not any alike the myth where "Linux user need to type 30 commands just to install browser". Fedora KDE offer me a installer with just a single click.
And after install the fedora KDE and reboot. I got my first ever step into the Linux world.
My first ever thought is "Woah this look cool, and smooth as hell"
It can do anything Windows do but smooth like butter instead slow like a snail.
But that just a first step, now is the journey.
1. Nvidia problem
Welp nvidia decided to not open source their driver anymore. So things just tear apart for Linux user. I cannot get my screen to use my card with 100% potential. I cannot get discord to screen share. Screen sometimes stuttering. Super high latency when in X11. All just pain.
2. Fedora is not the promised land
After a few weeks of daily driving Fedora, the cracks started to show.
It works fine for basic stuff — browsing, coding, watching YouTube. Smooth, stable, no complaints. But I'm not a "basic stuff" person. I tinker. I customize. I want my desktop to feel like mine, not like someone else's default.
And Fedora pushes back when you tinker. DNF (their package manager) is slow. Finding niche packages means adding 3 different COPR repos. KDE is pretty but heavy — my laptop fan spins up just opening the settings panel. Every time I fixed one thing, two other things broke.
So I spent days scrolling Reddit, lurking in Discord servers, watching YouTube videos at 2AM. And one name kept coming up.
Arch Linux.
Everyone described it the same way: "hard to install, but after that, it's exactly what you want it to be." No bloat. No hand-holding. Just you and the system.
I was scared. I was also curious.
3. The Arch install — first attempt, first fail
I downloaded the Arch ISO. Burned it. Booted.
And then I stared at a black screen with a blinking cursor.
No installer. No "click here to continue." Just a terminal. And me.
I followed the wiki. Step by step. Partition the disk with fdisk. Format with mkfs.ext4. Mount everything. pacstrap the base system. Generate fstab. Chroot in.
Somewhere around step 14, I typed the wrong thing and the system wouldn't boot. I didn't even know what I did wrong. Just a wall of text and "kernel panic."
Second attempt. Third. Fourth. I lost count.
On the fifth try — around 4AM — it booted. A black screen with white text: archlinux login: _
I literally said "oh my god" out loud to an empty room.
4. The real pain: drivers, internet, audio, video
Booting is one thing. Making it usable is another.
Nvidia — nouveau (the open source driver) gave me 720p resolution and screen tearing. Installing the proprietary nvidia driver meant figuring out kernel modules, DKMS, and praying it doesn't break on the next pacman -Syu. It broke twice. I learned to read the Arch news before every update.
Internet — iwctl to connect to WiFi from the terminal. Not hard once you know the commands. But the first time, staring at station wlan0 scan and seeing nothing? I thought my WiFi card wasn't supported. Turns out I just forgot to bring the interface up.
Audio — PipeWire vs PulseAudio. I didn't even know this was a debate. My speakers worked, my headphone jack didn't. Two days of reading wiki pages about wireplumber config before I got both working simultaneously.
Video — Discord screen sharing on Wayland. This is still not fully solved today, but on X11 it was worse. My whole screen would freeze for 3 seconds when I clicked "share." My friends heard my voice but saw a gray box. I eventually switched to OBS virtual camera as a workaround.
5. Why I stayed
Here's the thing nobody tells you about Arch.
After you go through all that pain — the failed installs, the broken drivers, the 4AM wiki reading sessions — you come out the other side and realize you understand your computer for the first time.
On Windows, when something breaks, you restart. Maybe you Google the error code, find a forum post from 2019, run some .reg file, and pray. On Arch, when something breaks, you know why. You broke it. You fix it.
And the system you end up with? It's exactly what you want. Nothing less, nothing more.
My current setup:
- Arch (btw)
- RiverWM — a Wayland tiling window manager that starts in 0.3 seconds
- Neovim 0.12 with native LSP
- fish shell with autosuggestions
- Hermes Agent to handle boilerplate work
No desktop environment. No bloat. My laptop from 2021 runs smoother than my friend's 2024 Windows machine with double the RAM.
Was it worth it?
If you just want to browse the web and edit documents — stick with Ubuntu or Mint. Seriously. Don't suffer for no reason.
But if you're a developer who wants to understand their machine, who enjoys the process of building something from nothing, who looks at Windows and thinks "why?" — Arch is waiting for you.
Just clear your weekend. And maybe the next weekend too.
This is part of my tools and setup series. I also wrote about my full dev setup here.
If you're a NestJS dev tired of setup time, I built a starter kit with auth + i18n + MongoDB + Redis pre-configured: fadow.gumroad.com
