The only thing really preinstalled is basic stuff like desktop environments and a few tools to help with updates and manage the system (eos-update, etc). Even almost all the package repositories are the ones maintained by arch.

I guess this could also be based on the distro you use as well as your graphics card. For me, I use EndeavourOS, which is very close to base arch, so I had to do some extra setup to get proton working on it. For some reason, Proton refused to work on the Arch repo’s Steam package, so I had to use the flatpak version instead

To be fair there still is a lot of tinkering involved to get gaming on Linux working properly (unless you’re on the steamdeck, but even them you’ll have to tinker for anything that’s not verified). Switching proton runners, changing launch options, fighting updates. It’s definitely more than most people are willing to deal with. For me personally, I’ve had to stop updating my video drivers because Nvidia 555 causes all Proton games to crash for me.

I enjoy the experience of tinkering and troubleshooting, so I’m okay with all that, but I completely understand why most people wouldn’t want to use Linux for gaming.

I mean you could always hack the firmware…

I don’t have any experience with them honestly so I can’t help you there

Look into ollama. It shouldn’t be an issue if you stick to 7b parameter models

Both? Both is good

I’m guessing cyberpunk since that’s the game shown

Maybe if you can use it with a locally running LLM server like ollama, but otherwise fuck no

I think you missed the OP’s point about the ongoing enshitification of paid services. From the words of Gabe Newell, "The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”

The reason why so many people are pirating even when they can afford it is because companies continue to make their services worse for their paying customers. Simply “paying for your content” will encourage these companies to continue their predatory, behavior.

Edit: I think I should add this isn’t really true if you can buy physical copies of the content, but that’s becoming less and less of an option as large streaming services make sure the only way to watch their content legally is buying their shitty subscriptions

I started messing around with Linux when I was ~15. I was trying to install it on an old laptop so I could actually use it. I started with Debian before moving to Linux mint. Eventually I bought a raspberry pi and started to tinker with that and made my own website for shits and giggles. Eventually, I kinda stopped tinkering with Linux for a while

Flash forward a few years and my job has a piece of software that boots into a live gentoo environment in order to perform hard drive wiping, and I got a lot more familiar with the Linux command line (bash in this case) as I had to do a lot of troubleshooting as well as testing as I was in technical support and then later QA. This was also my first experience with VI, as I had to edit configuration files while inside of the live environment.

At that point, I started to experiment with Linux again, and even managed to install arch on my laptop. I did end up switching to Manjaro as my daily driver, as I couldn’t be assed to spend enough time to get arch working how I needed. I also now have an Ubuntu server (I know) that I use as a media and game server, and continue to daily drive manjaro though I’m planning on switching to EndeavorOS soon.

Kinda weird that they’re calling it an OS, but ig they’re just trying to cater to the windows audience

No u

As others have said, there’s no reason not to be using virt manager with qemu/KVM at this point

This should get you started: https://hrishikeshpathak.com/blog/install-and-configure-linux-virtual-machine-using-virt-manager/

The arch wiki is a great source for this. Usually I’ll just search the model and it’ll come up.

I found your laptop there for reference: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dell_XPS_13_(9310)

I’ve not had any issues with the stylus - it works flawlessly . It uses the Wacom drivers, I believe, and has all pressure sensitivity. Of course the drawback is that it’s a glass screen so it’s more slippery than a drawing tablet, but it’s still good imo.

I don’t have any issues with the bulkiness, but I use it primarily as a laptop for school and switch it to tablet mode if I need to draw or read PDFs, but besides that I usually just use it as a laptop. If you plan on spending most time with it as a tablet, you may want to go with that duet

I use a Lenovo IdeaPad flex 5 14" running Manjaro as my daily driver. Tablet with stylus works fine, and the fingerprint reader even works using some 3rs-party library for libfprintd. Only issue I have is sleep doesn’t always work, (though that’s a pretty standard problem for most Linux laptops) and I could never get it to rotate into portrait mode successfully (I tried tools to manually change the screen orientation but that makes the digitizer not line up properly with the new orientation.

Another small note is that the built in keyboard started failing on me, and it’s very difficult to replace, so I have to use an external keyboard now. This may be something you have to deal with but it didn’t seem to be a common issue online.

Arch wiki link: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_IdeaPad_Flex_5_14ARE05

Surfaces are notoriously hard to repair so good luck

Just start practicing the vim motions in vscode

That’s a good point, however I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.