Arch Linux

TheShadow

Member

Registered: 2023-03-24

Posts: 2

Looking for advice regarding switch to Arch

Hello.

Intro (totally skippable)

I've recently purchased new hardware and while I wait for it all to arrive, I have been pondering what OS I wish to use.
This is my private PC and up until now I have primarily used Windows on it since I am a gamer. I've tried Linux for my daily driver from time to time, but I've run into issues again and again.
Having had good experiences on my Steam Deck recently, I thought I'd give Linux another try as a daily driver with the new PC if this was feasible.

Hardware

I won't bore you with the entire list, here are the relevant components:

CPU: AMD R9 7900x
GPU: AMD RX 7900 XTX

I run a dual-monitor setup with different refresh-rates, resolutions, scaling and aspect-ratios, but both VRR, both FreeSync.

Main Monitor: LG UltraGear 34GN850-B (144Hz, 3440x1440) (125 Scaling)
Secondary: Samsung U28E590D (60Hz, 3840x2160) (150 Scaling)

I also have a projector that receives sound through HDMI and is sometimes connected, but I am not really concerned about that as it is in no way or form special.

Peripherals:

Logitech G604 Lightspeed Mouse
Logitech G513 Keyboard
Logitech C920 Webcam
Logitech G733 Headphones with Microphone

Use Cases

Gaming
Watching movies
Browsing
Discord

Actual Questions

Ok, with the info-dump out of the way, here's what I actually wish to know/understand/verify:

Can I expect any issues with my hardware? I know there were some issues with the 7900 XTX at launch. Are there any ongoing issues still present? Can I use the AMDGPU driver, or am I better off using AMDGPU PRO for gaming?

Through all my Linux use so far, I have either used Xorg or just did things in a terminal. Reading through the wiki though, It seems Xorg is not really an option for me because supporting two different monitors like in my case just frankly won't work nicely. I need Wayland. I have zero experience with Wayland, so I'd like to make sure I don't mess up at the very start.

It seems to me that KDE Plasma is the best choice of compositor for my use case based on what I've read. Is there anything about my configuration/use-cases that is likely to not work or cause issues?
My only experience with KDE so far has been fairly neutral, but I did feel like the package I installed at that time had a lot of additional stuff I did not want or need. I see that the plasma-desktop package is more minimal, but I am not sure if that would end up causing me to miss out on some functionality I may need. Any advice would be appreciated.

From what I've gathered, Wayland requires a display manager, greeter, and compositor. In the past when I installed Plasma, it came with everything included, but that was with Xorg and a less minimal package. From what I can tell though, the plasma-desktop package does not include a display manager or greeter, so that would be left up to me. Is that correct?

The KDE ArchWiki page says to make sure I install Xorg before installing Plasma, however I wish to run Plasma Wayland. Is Xorg still necessary for Plasma to work? Is it required for many applications to work? Am I likely to need XWayland in practice?

Regarding audio, Pipewire is also completely new to me. I have used Pulse in the past. What I want is relatively easy access to basic controls for my audio devices: Select primary input/output, mute, volume mixing. The basics. I wouldn't be opposed to more advance usage scenarios either. What do I need to get that done with Pipewire? Do I need WirePlumber and pipewire-pulse, what about pipewire-alsa? I saw Patchbays on the wiki, which seem really cool and powerful, but they seem to go way beyond the use-cases I have had so far and like something to play with if I want to utilize more of the power Pipewire provides, rather than an actual necessity. Am I correct about that?

Going on what I've read/seen, it seems I'd be installing the following packages:
mesa
lib32-mesa
vulkan-radeon
lib32-vulkan-radeon
xf86-video-amdgpu (Do I need this if I don't need Xorg?)
xorg-server (Do I need this with Wayland?)
plasma-desktop (Compositor)
greetd (Display Manager. I'd also get a greeter that looks nice, ofc)
pipewire
lib32-pipewire
pipewire-pulse (Do I need this?)
pipewire-alsa (Do I need this?)
wireplumber

Am I missing or misunderstanding anything?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,742

Re: Looking for advice regarding switch to Arch

List and reasoning looks generally fine.

Integration/mixing etc of audio is identical to pulseaudio with pipewire-pulse it implements the same interfaces and all tools you are used to using from pulseaudio will generally work with pipewire-pulse (you'll also want pipewire-alsa to have ALSA only clients work consistently). You don't strictly need xorg-server xorg-xwayland will be sufficient (you are going to need it in practice for steam/proton all of this currently still runs on xwayland) xf86-video-amdgpu is not required, but depending on general dependencies you might pull xorg-server anyway, but it won't generally be detrimental. AMDGPU PRO is generally worse for most gaming use cases than vulkan-radeon so that's fine as well.

Regarding issues while things are from a general working perspective expected to work, you are likely to eventually run into some stuff regardless. The launch issues should be ironed out mostly. But it's generally hard and dishonest to give a hard and clear guarantee here. This is linux and you are on a bleeding edge release. Breakage is going to happen occasionally, maybe. If you don't get disheartened by this, pay attention to news posts/read here for potential issues most of those will get/be manageable

FWIW for the mouse there's a "potential" issue with the scroll wheel going crazy if your mouse reacts poorly to the HID++ high-res scrolling enablement in 6.1+ kernels, see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=282852&p=2 for some suggestions should you run into that

Last edited by V1del (2023-03-24 20:34:37)

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,532

Website

Re: Looking for advice regarding switch to Arch

Wayland requires a display manager, greeter, and compositor.

Nope.  Just a compositor is sufficient and these can be launched directly froma  tty.  Though you can certainly add a DM/greeter if you'd like.

---

"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

TheShadow

Member

Registered: 2023-03-24

Posts: 2

Re: Looking for advice regarding switch to Arch

Thank you both for your replies.