My 10-Hour Battle with Arch Linux & Hyprland (On Legacy Hardware)

Source: Dev.to

Yesterday I decided to take a step forward in my Linux journey. Because I like to complicate things, I didn’t just want to install Arch; I wanted to try Hyprland as my window manager.

My goal was to see if I could squeeze more performance out of my modest setup (i5 2400, GT 1030, H61 motherboard) compared to my daily driver, Linux Mint. Below is how it went, from the surprisingly fast install to the 10‑hour debugging nightmare.

The “Easy” Part

I installed the base Arch system in less than an hour. It was fast and clean, which made me wonder, “Where’s the difficulty in Arch?” after hearing many people claim it was hard even with archinstall.

The Nvidia Nightmare

The trouble started when I tried to change the screen resolution. The Nvidia driver refused to detect my GT 1030.

• I spent 10 hours troubleshooting.
• Initially I chose the Zen Kernel for maximum performance and installed the latest 590‑series driver, trusting an AI assistant that said it was supported.
• Early‑morning digging revealed that support for my card was dropped (or broken) in that driver version, and the Zen Kernel didn’t cooperate with the older driver I needed.
• After several re‑installs, I switched to the LTS Kernel as the documentation suggested.
  The LTS kernel accepted the legacy driver, and the correct resolution finally appeared.

The Hyprland Experience

Once the display worked, Hyprland proved to be an interesting shift.

• Keyboard‑first workflow: Doing everything via keyboard is cool, but losing classic shortcuts like Alt+Tab or standard minimize functions felt jarring and occasionally buggy.
• Aesthetic philosophy: Hyprland is built for users who want to distance themselves from traditional desktop metaphors. I respect the idea, even if I don’t need such strict separation.

Verdict: Performance & Usability

I tested gaming performance with Roblox (through Sober). The result was about the same as Linux Mint.

• I didn’t see a magical FPS boost or a significant RAM reduction (400‑500 MB) that would noticeably improve the experience.
• In some cases, FPS was even lower than on Mint.

Final Thoughts

Arch Linux is fascinating—free, flexible, and surprisingly user‑friendly once configured. I didn’t end up living in the terminal as much as I feared.

Will I switch permanently? Probably not right now; the “optimization” didn’t outweigh the comfort of my current setup. Next time I might try a lightweight, customized XFCE instead of a tiling window manager to see if that hits the sweet spot for my i5 2400.