I have been using Arch Linux with i3wm for around 5 years for work, on my ThinkPad. I am fairly comfortable with pacman and setting up a distro. I have previously tried Mint, Manjaro, KDE Neon, Elementary, and MX Linux, all for the same use case (Work: where I need a browser, Slack, and a MongoDB GUI).

However, I have been using Windows on my desktop that I use for gaming and the Adobe suite (photoshop and illustrator mainly). With the increasing enshittification of Win11, I want to migrate full time to a Linux system on desktop as well. I prefer a more stable experience on this machine so I chose Pop OS (other suggestions are welcome. I like Plasma). I need some help getting started (I did some preliminary trials on a VM where I was able to run a small game off GOG, but the part I need help with needs some trickery wrt different disks).

PC specs:

  • Ryzen 3 3300X
  • 16 GB DDR4
  • 1 NVMe boot drive, 1 SATA SSD for games, 1 HDD
  • RX 570 8 GB

My copies of Photoshop and some of my games are pirated. I’m planning to run a Tiny10 VM for the Adobe stuff but the games will need to run on bare metal linux, off the NTFS formatted game drive. Edit : Most importantly, Content Manager and mods for Assetto Corsa need to work (not pirated), with my Thrustmaster T128

I would be grateful for a guide for this.

    • ulkesh@beehaw.orgEnglish
      3·
      23 days ago

      For someone coming from Arch, that could be a tough sell. When I tried it, I was greeted with numerous instances where I couldn’t find the software I needed or expected and didn’t understand or know how to acquire because it wasn’t in the add/remove software at all (no flatpak available).

      I get why people think atomic/immutable OSes are the future — it’s just not for me presently.

      • MalReynoldsEnglish
        2·
        22 days ago

        Fair enough, it’s not well explained. If something isn’t available, install it in a distrobox and export it, same effect, but you keep your OS clean…

        I’m ex-Arch, but I use Arch distroboxes (yes, plural) for dev work. All the AUR goodness, none of the OS stability issues, it’s glorious.