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Sorry Arch (EndeavourOS), it's not working out any more and hello Fedora

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There comes a time when everyone has to sit and think about what they use on their PC, especially if you're on Linux. For me, Arch Linux (via EndeavourOS) just wasn't working out any more and so I've moved to Fedora.

While I was reasonably happy with Arch Linux, it's just not stable enough for me personally. It's a very subjective thing of course, and highly dependent on what hardware you use — along with how often you update. For me, it just messed things up a bit too often, and last night was the final straw.

I updated either that day, or the day before, and just before a livestream was due to start, my SteelSeries headset no longer worked. No matter what I tried, following guide after guide about PipeWire, nothing helped. Just this weird and very quiet electrical static noise whenever I tried piping audio to it. Eventually it worked again by some downgrading, plus random hotplugging and testing it on a Windows machine for a sanity check and it started somewhat working again. My Microphone was another issue, at the same time it decided to be ridiculously quiet for no apparent reason I could see so there were wider problems. I had enough, I had work to do and after hours of hair-pulling — hello from Fedora.

Fedora's KDE Spin

Thankfully, with the likes of Flathub / Flatpak packages and how far along apps like Discover have come along for installing packages and setting things up, there's not a whole lot to learn. It's been a very long time since I used Fedora, and it was one of my first Linux distributions I tried sticking with back when it was "Fedora Core" and wow — it's always surprising to see how far we've come as a platform for doing anything.

Fedora does come with some of its own issues, like NVIDIA drivers being a nuisance to install, which they definitely should improve. If other distributions can do one-click or one-line installs, I'm sure they could do it too. However, it's just another point towards me swapping to AMD when prices settle, or perhaps Intel when Arc properly launches for desktop. I also need to figure out why Dropbox won't load on startup, some little things like that.

Anyway, are you really a Linux nerd if you don't distro-hop at least once a year? Jokes aside, I look forward to seeing why people keep recommending Fedora nowadays as a stable distribution, let's see how long it takes me to break it.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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Acrophobic Apr 8, 2022
Quotemy SteelSeries headset no longer worked. No matter what I tried, following guide after guide about PipeWire, nothing helped.
Huh, I thought I was the only one to face this issue, since every guides and wiki that I found only sing praises about PipeWire. In my case, my headset and speaker works properly after boot, then randomly stop working later. Sometimes it stop working several minutes after boot, sometimes several days after.

I'm planning to move to new distro, but I'm really, really lazy right now .
CyborgZeta Apr 8, 2022
I've been using EndeavourOS since I finished my PC back in December and have no plans to switch, much less try, anything else myself (unless SteamOS 3.0 gets a public release this year).

I run sudo pacman -Syu and flatpak update twice a day and have had no stability problems. Can't complain at all. The impression I got before switching to an Arch-based system was that Arch was volatile as hell, but any hassles I've had since switching to EOS have had nothing to do with Arch itself.
ljrk Apr 8, 2022
Hm, interesting, I'm using Arch-Testing and always joke that it's so stable it has become boring. Are you sure it's not to do with mismatched currently-installed-linux-package vs. currently-booted-kernel? I.e., if `pacman -Qi linux` and `uname` mismatch?

This is due to Arch only keeping the currently installed kernel in the filesystem. So, if you boot kernel version A and then upgrade to kernel version B, only the latter is in the filesystem. This isn't a problem per-se, but kernel drivers for peripherals are usually only loaded when plugged in. Thus, if you plug in your headset now, the driver in the filesystem is for version B and not A, and cannot be loaded.

Ubuntu/Debian and Fedora (and others) solve this by keeping the currently booted kernel installed on updates.

The solution is to simply upgrade (the kernel) only after working or reboot immediately.
Boldos Apr 8, 2022
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As I need to be productive (day-by-day, both office and home, both desktop and server) I just have to say: God bless for LTS distros! (Now running desktops on ZorinOS, and it is a blast!)

And yes, migration to AMD two years ago have helped with driver install issues a lot!

Enjoy the hopping!
STiAT Apr 8, 2022
Quoting: BoldosAs I need to be productive (day-by-day, both office and home, both desktop and server) I just have to say: God bless for LTS distros! (Now running desktops on ZorinOS, and it is a blast!)

And yes, migration to AMD two years ago have helped with driver install issues a lot!

Enjoy the hopping!

I still wish I have had an option when the GPU prices were just too high and my rig burned down. The only AMD cards I could get I couldn't get equipment to cool them passively, and the most vendors which got the cards on "normal" prices had no proper option for passively cooled AMD cards.

This rig will last a few years with it's 3070Ti. But I'll very likely opt for a AMD card if there is any possibility next time.

Though, it's not as bad as it sounds with NVidia, the lack of support for official open source drivers is buggering me.
Hooly Apr 8, 2022
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QuoteAnyway, are you really a Linux nerd if you don't distro-hop at least once a year?
Does rpm-ostree rebase count as distro-hopping?
wvstolzing Apr 8, 2022
I also use Fedora, btw.

(I've been a total convert to the RHEL 'ecosystem' for a while now; my router & VPS are on AlmaLinux, & I'm perfectly happy with all of them.)
sudoer Apr 8, 2022
That problem sounds pipewire related to me. Been on Arch for 4+ years and it never failed me, then again I'm still using pulseaudio. KDE in Fedora is 2nd-class citizen, Xfce is 3rd-class citizen, etc, as you have already experienced. Also using Fedora is no different than using Ubuntu to me, each one pushes its own corp-agenda, both heavily GNOME with wayland, flatpaks, pipewire, snaps... sorry not wanting to participate in that and become a puppet shouting around how greater flatpaks are compared to snaps, and which one is the future, they both suck. If I was to choose a fixed, "corporate" release updating once a year I would probably use openSUSE Leap which from 15.3 is binary identical to SLE, meaning much more robust than Fedora and Ubuntu.

My prediction: see you in EndeavourOS (weren't you using and praising that?) in... 3 weeks?


Last edited by sudoer on 8 April 2022 at 1:24 pm UTC
setzer22 Apr 8, 2022
My experience with Arch (Manjaro, nowadays) and Linux in general substantially improved the moment I started choosing boring proved technology over the shiny new stuff.

Instead of being mad at Linux about my new fancy bluetooth headset not working, I now just the boring 3.5mm jack. When it comes to graphics cards, I just gave nvidia the middle finger and been happy ever since: No more messing around with their propietary drivers or worry about how easily distros will let me install their crap.

That said, I've also had my share of breakage after an arch update, and after years using it I'm still hesitant to recommend it to my peers for that reason, so I totally see the point.
mohammedziad Apr 8, 2022
QuoteFedora does come with some of its own issues, like NVIDIA drivers being a nuisance to install, which they definitely should improve. If other distributions can do one-click or one-line installs, I'm sure they could do it too.
I like to install the NVIDIA driver using this it is still not an official support from fedora but it is the fastest way on fedora also note that the devs says that it's Only tested on 9XX/10XX/20XX/30XX series discrete NVIDIA cards.
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