If you're willing to learn Arch it really isn't that difficult. I wouldn't reccommend it to a noob but seeing as you're already using it why not give it a try? I wouldn't reccommend the Steam flatpak as Valve reccommends against it and it doesn't work as well. Feel free to DM for advice from someone who uses it daily.

cachyos, post install click install gaming packages, in steam goto compotability switch it to proton cachyos, done, there is no struggle, it grabs heroic and lutris too for non steam stuff

You're probably better off with Fedora, Mint, or Bazzite to be honest

Once your computer's working to your satisfaction, pretty much all you'll need to do is alias sudo packman -Syu and try to remember to run that every so often. The arch Linux wiki is second to none, and if you stick with the distro you should find it all feels very familiar in no time.

sudo pacman - Syu

And done., usually. Lol

Welcome to Linux where you maintain your own os.. You are literally the owner of this ship you want to destroy your system to ahead you want to do whatever cause windows pissed you off go ahead.. evening can be fixed usually.. try all the distros till you like some and use those.

How does it feel to be in control and not have to listen to the Man ?

Arch Linux's whole claim to fame is Some Assembly Required. Go with something like Mint or Fedora (the latter of which is available with the KDE desktop, source: am typing this on a gaming computer running Fedora KDE) and they're much more complete out of the box.

Uninstall Arch and install Linux Mint. Give yourself that gift. It'd still be easier than installing Arch Linux, and you'll be way more comfortable most of the time in the long term. It's not that you can't use Arch, but their approach is not beginner-friendly.

I admire your energetic here. I only installed the latest ubuntu (cause of latest gpu driver updates) then I installed steam from software center and it works nothing to do anymore.

Arch has a bit of a steeper learning curve. Ubuntu is probably the most "mainstream", but I prefer Mint (based on Ubuntu) for some user-friendly changes. PopOS (already based on Ubuntu) is also supposed to be a bit more gaming centric if you've got an Nvidia card.

I've got an AMD kit in my main machine and Nvidia/Intel in my laptop and both work fine with most Steam games using Proton.

If your only exposure is steamos bazzite might be easier for you

First, I would like to give you some major props. Installing Arch, in itself, is a big deal. It is not a beginner-friendly distro. It is a very power-user friendly distro and has an incredible wiki that is helpful, at least to some degree, for many distros.

For a beginner distro, I would recommend Linux Mint for its easy transition and great focus on user experiences or Bazzite if you really want to install and get gaming.

When taking drivers in Linux, most are provided as either kernel modules (integrated into the kernel, so you don't have to worry about installing anything) or packaged for the distro, in which case, once installed via package manager, they'll auto-update whenever you update system packages. They are so much easier to deal with than Windows drivers (for the end user). For example, to use a Wacom drawing tablet, all one has to do is plug it in.

Arch is very high-maintenance. Try Debian 13, it just came out this week. Ubuntu is okay but it has a lot of crapware compared to Debian. If your Wi-Fi and GPU work on Debian you do not need Ubuntu.

I'm an experienced Linux desktop user of about 15 years and I switched from Arch to Debian and I don't miss Arch. If you need bleeding-edge software you can use a combo of Nix, language package managers, and building from source. Arch doesn't add much plus I frequently ran the wrong pacman command and soft-locked myself out of the OS. Debian doesn't do that to me.

if you're a first timer and already got arch with kde set up you're pretty fucking tech savvy ngl

You haven't provided a lot of detail on what your current setup looks like. If you use a gaming-focused distro like Cachy or Bazzite they should essentially work "out of the box." Bazzite is also very difficult to break since the immutability makes for very effective guard rails for new users.

If you went with Arch right off the bat, you did take on quite a lot for a new user, but - and I do genuinely mean this - there is no better way to learn the ins and outs of Linux than jumping into the Arch deep end. Even if you choose to switch to a lower-maintenance distro, your effort with Arch is never wasted.

Want a very low maintenance gaming distro with almost no setup? Bazzite.
Want a more hands-on gaming centric distro like SteamOS? CachyOS.
Want a more stable all-around distro that also works great for gaming? Fedora.

Avoid Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu. You will see Mint recommended often, but I personally only recommend it for older hardware that you are trying to revitalize. There are better options.

A new version of Debian just released, and there is no more rock solid distro than Debian. Add KDE Plasma and you will have a very low maintenance, pleasantly familiar, extremely reliable system.

You are 90% of the way there.

Just keep your system up to date (update packages weekly maybe) and you will be fine. The system mostly manages itself.

I recommend installing both the current kernel and an LTS kernel. If you ever have a problem with a driver or a filesystem or something after an update, just boot into LTS and you are back up and running.

If you're the type of new user that likes to go balls deep straight away, then Arch is arguably one of the better options thanks to its excellent Wiki. However, please don't blatantly overestimate yourself for the heck of it. Consider checking out ArchWiki's own entries on this matter:

• Why would I not want to use Arch?
• I am a complete GNU/Linux beginner. Should I use Arch?
• System maintenance

i found a tutorial on it with 3 - 4 pages full of text and was a bit overwhelmed

I don't think this attitude is helpful for conquering Arch, but YMMV.

recently i just finished building a new pc. mostly for gaming since my only exposure to linux is steam os and i heard its uses arch with kde plasma so i try to emulate it as close as i can.

FWIW, if you just want to emulate SteamOS, perhaps consider Bazzite instead. It's not based on Arch, but it arguably is the closest to SteamOS (but better). More so than any Arch-based distro*.

recently i just finished building a new pc. mostly for gaming since my only exposure to linux is steam os and i heard its uses arch with kde plasma so i try to emulate it as close as i can. however soon i realized how different it is and it requires more setup than i initially thought.

It sounds like you're thinking of Arch + KDE as similar to building a PC, where if you get the same parts you can hook them up for the same experience.

I think their team chose Arch to build their distro off of because it's very customizable and made it easy for them to add their configurations, interface layers, hardware optimizations etc. That doesn't make it the best choice for a beginner unless you want to be thrown into the deep end and spend some time to learn a bunch.

IMO you should look into something like Bazzite or some other atomic Fedora, or OpenSuse, so that you can have a running operating system you can game on. Then you can spend some time learning about Linux with the functioning PC. There are ways to run other Linux distros inside your main one if you want to play with them and learn about them.

Unless you have another machine to use day to day, I find it annoying to be learning with the same machine I need for other things.

You're not screwed. Depends on how much you enjoy tinkering and troubleshooting.

My main advice would be to keep your data backed up and completely disconnected from the PC. And make sure your machine is not critical (i.e. for working from home or something). Other than that you do what you want. If you want to dive deep in Arch then that's fine.

One thing to know is that the important part relevant to you is: the desktop environment (KDE) and the Linux distro (Arch) are different things. The far more important thing for you is to have KDE.... the distro underneath just needs to not get in the way.

If you've got Arch up and running then stick with it until it gives you trouble. I naturally ended up distro hopping in the beginning because I would catastrophically break something I couldn't repair and could change distros naturally when reinstalling.

Good options for easy distros with KDE would be:

1. Tuxedo OS (or Kubuntu) - easiest and there's lots of support online.

2. Fredora - rock solid and highly recommend. Although I would recommend OpenSUSE Tumbleweed instead, this got me hooked on Linux and was the least problematic for a bleeding edge updated distro, where I happily used Discover for installing and updating.

3. CachyOS - good option for sticking with Arch.