Good day nice people.

I, like many I’m sure, am taking Microsoft’s discontinuation of Windows 10 support as an opportunity so switch over to Linux. As such, I have some questions about various things. I have included some context as to my personal use case at the end of the post should it be relevant.

  1. Does the distro I pick matter? There seems to be a lot of debate around which distro is best but a lot of the discussion I’ve seen breaks down to what each distro comes packaged with. This confuses me as if a distro doesn’t come prepackaged with something can you not just install it? Or is there some advantage to preinstalled packages other than mild convenience? Are some components difficult to integrate into your local environment?

  2. One of the more salient differences I’ve seen between distros has been what the various companies and teams include aside from installed packages (such as snap and rolling out amazon search as a defult search), and the data they choose to retain/sell. Part of the reason I’m switching is due to Microsoft’s forcing in of unwanted features and advertising. Is the company that owns whatever distro I choose likely to be a problem in the future? Are there particular ones to avoid/ones to keep an eye on?

  3. I am the sort of person who does like to tinker with things from time to time but I do also want to use my computer most of the time so I’d like to end up using a mature distro. I have identified a few frontrunners in my search but I have seen conflicting information on which of them is “mature” (sufficiently stable so I spend less time fighting my computer than I do using it as well as having a large enough community and resources to help me remedy issues I might come across). Do any of these seem like they wouldn’t fit that bill? The frontrunners are: fedora, kubuntu, mint, pop and tuxedo.

  4. Does linux have issues interfacing with multiple monitors? Does it handle HDR okay?

  5. In terms of UI and workflow I really don’t mind putting in some time tinkering with the DE, exploring it and getting it how I like. It seems Plasma KDE might be good for this? Please let me know if this is an incorrect assessment. If it is, does it matter what DE I choose? If so, is there something you could recommend for my use case.

My use case: I have a Nvidea build (RTX 2080). I have heard this can be an issue with Linux. I also have intermediate experience with linux through university and my job (with servers) as well as tinkering with SteamOS.

Things I use/do on my PC (roughly ordered in terms of priority):

  • Gaming including emulation
  • Firefox
  • VLC
  • Spotify
  • Discord
  • Godot
  • Visual Studio
  • Git
  • Photoshop cs6, audacity, davinci resolve
  • Misc “Tinkering” (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)

Thank you very much for your time and help in cleaing up my confusion.

  • bastion@feddit.nl
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    27 days ago

    this might be ringing in late, but consider a large USB disk with Ventoy on it. you can just drop multiple ISOs on it, and then select which one you want you boot from right at boot time.

    this will give you the ability to easily try multiple distros without too much commitment.

    • Gaxsun@lemmy.zipOP
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      27 days ago

      Good recommendation. Seems like it’d be a good way to rapidly try a few. I’ll look into it. Thank you kindly.

    • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
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      27 days ago

      Even if you only tinker with OS installation occasionally, Ventoy is a damn godsend!

      Forget about “burning” ISO files to a usb stick, just put a bunch of raw ISO files on the stick and Ventoy will give you a nice boot menu to select from them - and a separate USB partition for user data as well. It’s glorious.

  • 3dmvr@lemm.ee
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    26 days ago

    I like plasma kde but I dont think most vnc clients support it so remote desktop with a viewer seems out, rustdesk works but you have to manually accept the connection at the computer. Which works for me since I only remote desktop when moving to another room or going to the bathroom and I need to monitor something.

  • deadcade@lemmy.deadca.de
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    26 days ago
    1. The main fundamental differences are the package manager, the way the system is setup (partitons, immutable distros), and possibly software you don’t want installed. Aside from that, you can install basically anything on any distro. Some do make it easier than others to install new things though.
    2. Canonical (Ubuntu and direct spinoffs) and Manjaro are the ones I recommend avoiding, because their marketing and “general sentiment” goes against my opinions of the distros/maintainers. However, switching Linux distros (especially to another one with a similar base) is not nearly as daunting of a task as switching from Windows to Linux. Some corporate distro owners might pull something like advertising, but there’s often an easy way out (except with snaps).
    3. As for the distros you mentioned, Fedora, Mint, and Pop!_OS are all good options. Mint and Pop!_OS are both based on Ubuntu, which could cause issues in the future, but Mint is working on a Linux Mint Debian Edition. Aside from that, my general recommendation is to stay close to upstream. Distros further downstream tend to break more often (think spinoffs of Ubuntu, Arch derivatives, forks of Fedora, etc). There are exceptions to this rule, like when a distro stays close to upstream.
    4. In recent times, it should all be working okay! We’re “in the middle of a long time switch” from X11 to Wayland. Those are protocols for the way applications display to the screen. X11 is lacking features, like HDR, and can have issues with “weird” multimonitor setups. Wayland is being actively developed, multimonitor works fine, and HDR is available for some desktop environments (like KDE or GNOME). Not all distros default (or support) Wayland yet, so if you need HDR, pick a distro with KDE or GNOME as its desktop environment.
    5. This situation has gotten more complex with Wayland (one of the pain points still being worked on). The features you get partially depend on which DE (or wayland compositor) you choose. Previously on X11, this wasn’t the case. For Wayland DEs, KDE is moving relatively fast, with new features nearly every release. GNOME is moving slower, but should cover most people’s needs. As for tinkering around with your choice of UI/DE, there’s many options available, but KDE offers by far the easiest customization possible (it’s all in the settings menu). There’s more complex, more customizable options available, but I wouldn’t recommend them as a starting point.
    6. As for nvidia, it has been progressively getting better, but there are still nvidia specific issues that come up from time to time. There’s not really much you can do about it, aside from following changelogs and updating when the thing you’re running into is fixed.

    Now for your list of applications:

    • Gaming (through steam) works great! There’s definitely still issues, but I’d argue there’s not really more issues than on Windows, just different issues. There is one category of games that’s still problematic, games with kernel level anticheat. They do not and likely will never play on Linux. Other launchers (EA Play, Ubisoft Connect, Epic) can have their own issues, although there’s often fixes/workarounds available rather quickly.
    • Firefox works just fine on Linux.
    • VLC works great too, although there are other options available that are more modern or better in some ways. It’s up to you to decide what to use.
    • Spotify works just fine, there’s always the website in case nothing else works, but the “app” as a flatpak or even through repos works too.
    • Discord has some issues accepting that Linux exists, but have recently started making some changes with that. Most people either use Disocrd in the webbrowser (to prevent too much system access), or run a custom client like Vesktop.
    • Godot works great on Linux, I don’t have much else to say about it tbh.
    • Visual Studio too, it’s basically just a webapp. Some integrations might be slightly different (like the terminal), but otherwise stuff “just works”.
    • Git was quite literally made for Linux first (as a project, but also as a platform to run on).
    • Photoshop is going to be difficult to get running, if it works at all. You can certainly try, but it might be a good option to find an alternative for this one.
    • Audacity works great
    • Davinci Resolve does have a Linux version, but the free version can be picky about codecs. There’s always tools to reencode your inputs, but it’s not always convenient drag and drop.
    • Misc. tinkering is going to be much more fun, as things in Linux ecosystems are often open source. Not only can you mess around with tools that already exist, you can edit them, or even make your own. Some “niche” hardware might give you issues (like iirc the goxlr, or some capture cards).
  • jamesbunagna@discuss.online
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    27 days ago

    I, like many I’m sure, am taking Microsoft’s discontinuation of Windows 10 support as an opportunity so switch over to Linux.

    Welcome on board!

    Does the distro I pick matter?

    In short: Yes.

    There seems to be a lot of debate around which distro is best

    TL;DR: There’s no distro that is best for everyone. Each individual has their own best. You just gotta find what suits you best.

    but a lot of the discussion I’ve seen breaks down to what each distro comes packaged with

    This is a thing of the past. With the excellent Distrobox, you can install any package from any distro on whatever distro you’re running.

    This confuses me as if a distro doesn’t come prepackaged with something can you not just install it?

    Even if we would disregard Distrobox, you should be able to install software that’s not packaged. So, you’re intuition is right.

    Or is there some advantage to preinstalled packages other than mild convenience? Are some components difficult to integrate into your local environment?

    Exactly. Managing software that’s not packaged in any way comes with its own set of jank. So, new users are definitely discouraged. However, as mentioned previously, this whole issue is solved with Distrobox. And if you don’t like CLI, BoxBuddy provides an excellent GUI and more. Again, this is mostly a solved problem.

    One of the more salient differences I’ve seen between distros has been what the various companies and teams include aside from installed packages (such as snap and rolling out amazon search as a defult search), and the data they choose to retain/sell. Part of the reason I’m switching is due to Microsoft’s forcing in of unwanted features and advertising. Is the company that owns whatever distro I choose likely to be a problem in the future? Are there particular ones to avoid/ones to keep an eye on?

    So, what you’re referring to is mostly a Ubuntu problem. They’ve made a couple of bad decisions in the past. Other than them, this is mostly non-existent.

    Some peeps got question marks regarding distros like deepin, but I don’t know if there’s anything conclusive on this.

    Lastly, some distros and/or (so-called) desktop environments might collect telemetry to improve themselves. But this is done in a way that suits free and open source software. Thankfully, if you’ve got problems with this, you can always turn it off.

    I am the sort of person who does like to tinker with things from time to time but I do also want to use my computer most of the time so I’d like to end up using a mature distro.

    So, all distros allow you to tinker. My question is: What is it you’re tinkering with?

    • If you just want to have complete control on how your desktop environment behaves without going into (unofficial) extensions or editing text files, then you should at least take a look at the KDE Plasma desktop environment; which is literally found on all distros and very well supported.
    • If, instead, your definition of tinkering is more broad or otherwise different than what I suggested, then please feel free to elaborate.

    I have identified a few frontrunners in my search but I have seen conflicting information on which of them is “mature” (sufficiently stable so I spend less time fighting my computer than I do using it as well as having a large enough community and resources to help me remedy issues I might come across). Do any of these seem like they wouldn’t fit that bill? The frontrunners are: fedora, kubuntu, mint, pop and tuxedo.

    • Fedora is a good pick. Though, I’ve been daily-driving (a) Fedora(-derivative) for almost three years now. So I might be biased :P .
    • Regarding Kubuntu, let’s just say that it’s at least a controversial pick; problem being the Ubuntu part of the equation. I’d personally discourage you from going that route, but it’s ultimately your choice.
    • Linux Mint is cool. I’d argue it does more hand-holding than Fedora, which is great to have as a beginner.
    • Pop!_OS is interesting. It has garnered a great fanbase for a good reason: System76 sells hardware with their software (i.e. Pop!_OS), so they obviously care. However, Pop!_OS has definitely seen better days. It’s currently in limbo; the ambitious COSMIC desktop environment is just around the corner. But how smooth will the transition be? How much longer will Pop!_OS users have to endure with the relative lack of work put to the system they actually daily-drive? A lot of questions, but not a lot of answers. I’d personally discourage this as well.
    • Tuxedo OS is similar to Pop!_OS. But where Pop!_OS first went to champion the GNOME desktop environment to later ‘abandon’ it for their own COSMIC. Tuxedo OS, instead, turned their eyes towards KDE Plasma. From what I’ve heard, it’s a good pick. As TUXEDO makes hardware just like System76 does, it’s unsurprising for them to care as well.

    Does linux have issues interfacing with multiple monitors?

    Unfortunately, I’m not very familiar with multiple monitors. The few times I did need it, which was on Fedora with GNOME, it did work well. I suppose it should be fine.

    Does it handle HDR okay?

    On KDE Plasma, yes. On GNOME, from what I could gather, it should work starting from GNOME 48. Which is a couple of months away. Though, IIRC, some ‘GNOME-powered’ distros may have tried to support HDR in its experimental stage already. On Cinnamon, what we find on Linux Mint’s flagship distro, AFAIK it’s not great (yet) 😅.

    In terms of UI and workflow I really don’t mind putting in some time tinkering with the DE, exploring it and getting it how I like. It seems Plasma KDE might be good for this? Please let me know if this is an incorrect assessment. If it is, does it matter what DE I choose? If so, is there something you could recommend for my use case.

    You hit the nail on the coffin. KDE Plasma would probably serve you best, yes. Eventually, you may want to explore Window Managers for how they could further enhance your workflow. But, let’s take it easy :P . One step at a time. Start with KDE Plasma. Get comfortable with Linux and the whole ecosystem. And if it so happens that you’re not satiated with KDE Plasma’s workflow options and you’d like to explore other possibilities, then looking into WMs is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.

    I have a Nvidea build (RTX 2080). I have heard this can be an issue with Linux.

    Yup. It has been better lately, but thank you for bringing this up.

    I also have intermediate experience with linux through university and my job (with servers) as well as tinkering with SteamOS.

    Things I use/do on my PC (roughly ordered in terms of priority):

    • Gaming including emulation

    Have you considered Bazzite?

    Photoshop cs6

    Out of everything, this could be a slight concern. You could make it work through Wine, and it seems to have decent results. If you’re not opposed to using Photoshop CC 2021, there’s this GitHub repo worth looking at as well.

    davinci resolve

    This is notoriously difficult to install. Thankfully, the excellent davincibox comes to the rescue. Furthermore, it’s also found in the AUR and nixpkgs. Note that the Nix package manager can be installed on (almost) any distro, though it’s relatively advanced.

    Misc “Tinkering” (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)

    Assuming this “Tinkering” is the same as the one I asked you to elaborate/clarify before, then I can inform you that most distros handle it pretty well.


    Alrighty, I think you’ve clearly demonstrated to have done your research. Thank you for that!

    FWIW, assuming that KDE Plasma is your DE of choice (at least for now) for both its (relatively mature) HDR support and tinker-friendliness, then -out of your selected distros- only Fedora and Tuxedo OS remain to be considered.

    • Gaxsun@lemmy.zipOP
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      27 days ago

      I think your response has so far been the most comprehensive. Thank you so much.

      This is a thing of the past. With the excellent Distrobox, you can install any package from any distro on whatever distro you’re running.

      I’d not heard of Distrobox sounds to me to be a perfect foil to the disparate package solutions out there. It gives me some peace of mind about not being locked into a package manager (Although as you point out, even without distrobox that wouldn’t be an issue).

      Lastly, some distros and/or (so-called) desktop environments might collect telemetry to improve themselves. But this is done in a way that suits free and open source software. Thankfully, if you’ve got problems with this, you can always turn it off.

      I’ve really not got any problems with telemetry so long as it’s just limited to the technicals and for OS improvement purposes. Sounds like I should be fine.

      So, all distros allow you to tinker. My question is: What is it you’re tinkering with?

      “Tinkering” in my case is pretty broad. You’re correct when you suppose that I like to mess with UI aesthetics and workflows. The other misc tinkering I more mentioned in case there’s some distros that are unsuited to working with strange or niche programs (such as the media encoding and physical media management stuff I mentioned). It sounds like that’s not really much of a problem though. Anyway what counts as “niche” is very subjective so probably wasn’t that helpful to mention.

      Have you considered Bazzite?

      I have not heard of Bazzite. It kinda looks to be perfect if I end up going with Fedora (It’s the most recommended so far). My only concern is longevity, It seems to be quite new and I don’t want to jump on just for it to be a flash in the pan. As I understand it though, even if it is, it’s easy enough to change distros. Others have said to not be worried about locking oneself in and to just jump in and try. Also not a fan of “Gaming Mode” style UI but I guess I can just not use it.

      Out of everything, this could be a slight concern. You could make it work through Wine, and it seems to have decent results. If you’re not opposed to using Photoshop CC 2021, there’s this GitHub repo worth looking at as well.

      Honestly, not married to Photoshop at all. That’s just what I use and I’m not any sort of power user by any measure.

      Again, thank you very much for your detailed response.

      • jamesbunagna@discuss.online
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        27 days ago

        I think your response has so far been the most comprehensive. Thank you so much.

        It has been my pleasure :D ! Thank you for reading through all of that 😅.

        “Tinkering” in my case is pretty broad. You’re correct when you suppose that I like to mess with UI aesthetics and workflows. The other misc tinkering I more mentioned in case there’s some distros that are unsuited to working with strange or niche programs (such as the media encoding and physical media management stuff I mentioned). It sounds like that’s not really much of a problem though. Anyway what counts as “niche” is very subjective so probably wasn’t that helpful to mention.

        Thanks for the clarification!

        I have not heard of Bazzite.

        Interesting. Its fan base can be rather vocal. Furthermore, it has been enjoying a very healthy amount of media coverage. Digital Foundry dedicated a video on it. And even LTT briefly mentioned it recently.

        It kinda looks to be perfect if I end up going with Fedora (It’s the most recommended so far).

        I didn’t quite capture the intent of this sentence. My bad. Would you mind elaborating/clarifying/explaining? Apologies if I’m coming across as obtuse 😅.

        It seems to be quite new

        Correct.

        and I don’t want to jump on just for it to be a flash in the pan.

        I understand. I absolutely agree with you that e.g. Fedora’s future is more certain than Bazzite. Even if the latter recently reiterated their continued support.

        As I understand it though, even if it is, it’s easy enough to change distros.

        FWIW, the complete Fedora Atomic ecosystem -that Bazzite is part of- allows changing distros with a single command. The only limitation being that the designated distro has to be part of the ecosystem as well. So, even if Bazzite would implode one day after you’ve switched to it, you could just ‘rebase’ to (say) Fedora Kinoite.

        Others have said to not be worried about locking oneself in

        Agreed.

        and to just jump in and try.

        Kinda. It’s more nuanced I think 😅.

        Also not a fan of “Gaming Mode” style UI but I guess I can just not use it.

        Exactly. Bazzite on desktops/laptops defaults to the DE after logging in. So, as you’ve noted already, you don’t have to use it ;) .

        Again, thank you very much for your detailed response.

        You doubled down on the kind words. I appreciate it. Thank you for being you!

        • Gaxsun@lemmy.zipOP
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          27 days ago
          It kinda looks to be perfect if I end up going with Fedora (It’s the most recommended so far).
          

          I didn’t quite capture the intent of this sentence. My bad. Would you mind elaborating/clarifying/explaining? Apologies if I’m coming across as obtuse 😅.

          Ah, sorry. Just wanted to express that Bazzite seems to fit my needs quite well and that fedora has been recommended to me more than any other repo so far. So if after my investigations I do end up choosing fedora, Bazzite seems to be a good flavor to try.

          • jamesbunagna@discuss.online
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            26 days ago

            No worries fam. And thanks for clarifying! With that clarification, I think I’ve found what has caused the confusion for me.

            Bazzite, even if it’s ultimately derived from Fedora, is actually not closely related to (‘traditional’) Fedora, but instead to Fedora Atomic.

            Most of the people that have been recommending Fedora, actually meant the non-Atomic variants. And while this might seem minor, which arguably it is, it is important to be conscious of this distinction.

            (‘Traditional’) Fedora behaves a lot like most other distros. Fedora Atomic, instead, introduces a new paradigm. Bazzite goes all-in on this new model and we might even refer to it as next-gen (if you will). Though, it’s important to mention that the next-gen part is only true within the context of Fedora. This is because Fedora has been the only distro to have clearly pronounced their ambitions in this direction. They even reiterated this in their Fedora Strategy 2028 and I quote: Objective: Immutable variants are the majority of Fedora Linux in use”. (Note that atomic is a rebranding of immutable)

            So, within the context of Fedora, even if I don’t see the traditional model being sunset anytime soon, the atomic variants do seem more promising in terms of longevity.

            Personally, I’m a huge fan of Fedora Atomic; in particular the uBlue projects, so that includes Bazzite. Therefore, I absolutely welcome you on board for Bazzite. But, it’s important to be aware that Bazzite is not representative of what (‘traditional’) Fedora is (or vice versa); it’s not a “flavor”.

  • Gayhitler@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    None of that matters.

    You need experience, not recommendations.

    Install anything and play with it to learn.

    If you will not go forward without a recommendation, Debian is fine and anything you learn will generally transfer to other distributions.

  • 737@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    26 days ago

    use fedora, arch, or ubuntu. dont use any of the pointless ones (mint, endeavour, manjaro,…). they are not worth your time. only use wayland (plasma, river, qtile). xorg is not worth your time or sanity.

    simplest pick is fedora kde spin. just use that. hdr should work too.

  • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
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    27 days ago

    If you had asked me Q1 a month ago, I would have said yes (and in general, it is a yes, with enough effort). But i run endeavour (arch) and my partner runs mint (which ships with the Cinnamon WM), and a few weeks ago I recommended that she try out KDE Plasma for its wayland support. Turns out, this is not something the mint community supports, you can’t just install it through their software manager, and the mint forums will all tell you to switch to another distro that supports KDE. Meanwhile, on arch, I expect to be able to install it through pacman, choose it from SDDM, and I’m done. Maybe tweak something in my .config, but it’s all downhill from there.

    Just a datapoint. Some distros (and their communities) seem to be more receptive to experimentation than others, which can make trying new things easier/harder.

    I would recommend fedora, debian, or endeavour + KDE/gnome. Good luck!

    • JustFudgnWork@sh.itjust.works
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      27 days ago

      I did install Plasma + apps on mint btw (just apt installed and crossed my fingers)! Have been running issue free for about 6 months but I didnt uninstall the gnome apps so theres a duplicate for everything.

      Edit: I still wouldn’t reccomend it if you are starting out, I only did it because I couldnt be bothered switching distros

  • LeFantome@programming.dev
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    27 days ago

    Distros matter. Maybe less than you think.

    For the most part, they all run the same software, including the desktop environment (user experience).

    So, in many ways, choosing your distro is mostly choosing how it comes out of the box and how much work it will be to configure it how you want after the fact. Some distros will be closer to what you want out of the box. But you can basically turn any distro into any other distro with a little effort.

    That said, some choices do run a bit deeper and are a lot harder to change. Package manager, init system, C library, and others are pretty baked in.

  • noughtnaut@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    I would recommend you visit distrowatch.org as they have reviews of a great many distros over a long period. That would prepare you to form an opinion on what kind of experience you want to have.

    Example - UI, ie. Desktop Environment: chose Gnome if you like Apples way of making things very polished and giving the user few (visible) options to tinker. Choose KDE if you like a “busy” UI with *all* the options exposed and a ton of desktop widgets. Choose MATE or LXDE if you like a snappy and minimalist approach.

    Possibly the biggest differentiator between distros is their native package manager. You can take any distro and swap out eg. KDE for Gnome, but the package manager is fundamental and probably(?) impossible to replace fully.

    Example: All the Debian based distros use DEB packages. You’ll find a ton, though dine distros lag behind the most recent versions. Others use Redhat’s RPM system, while still others build everything from source (which is slow as fuck but gets you to the cutting edge with all the knobs and dials). There’s also the Snap and Flatpak systems which strive to supply platform agnostic packages, but do so with very different approaches.

    Good luck!

  • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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    27 days ago

    Too many distros to compare. If you want to tinker as a beginner and not have to reinstall for minor mistakes, go for something like OpenSUSE, it has Snapshotting with Rollback built in. You make a mistake, reboot to the previous snapshot and make it the default if everything is normal. NVidia also hosts a specific repo for OoenSUSE so I have never had graphics issues.

    • jesse@sh.itjust.works
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      26 days ago

      As a 20+ year SuSE user, I agree it’s a great distro. So much of this is just picking a distro that’s decent on the desktop and going with it. I would say there are some wrong choices but there isn’t one right choice.

      Whatever distro OP picks, they should join the Lemmy/subreddit/forums for that distro and keep an eye on them.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    27 days ago

    So I don’t really have experience with the gaming aspect as I pretty much get what I want from a steamdeck. I think its likely you would want to go with one of those (a gaming setup someone else suggests) or dual boot to have your gaming system and your doing other things setup. Just in case I will mention the one I use called zorin. It is based on ubuntu with gnome and its main claim to fame is its an out of the box distro that tries to emulate windows (other systems to but the paid for version unlocks that. its default is a general windows type experience). Out of the box means it has foss office, video file viewing, audio file listening, image file viewer, browser of course, rdp client, mail client, calendar, contacts, also image,video,audio file creation and editing, optical disk copier/image creator, wine with play on linux so that you can right click a windows executable and run it and such. It does non free software things like nvidia drivers right off the bat. Its great for an install and get going right away type of thing. Its always a bit out of date because its emphasis is stable, just works, get going type of thing. I have a few complaints. Mainly it does not have the windows key, right arrow thing to half screen by default. It could be a stability thing that they don’t want to mess with the compiz or whatnot. Then the other thing is I find the software gui interface it have an aweful search for getting more software so either just use apt at the command line or download the .deb installation file which things like various browsers have as a linux option for download and then its really just like adding one to windows or mac. download and run the installation.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    There is no right answer. There are many distros to choose from and each has its pros and cons. My suggestion would be to try a few things in VMs before fully making the jump. Personally I use Mint. It just works and takes a minimal amount of hassle to install and run. If that’s a priority to you, I’d suggest checking it out.

  • Übercomplicated@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    Okay, people have said many good things so far, so I won’t add much. Simply one thing: take one problem at a time.

    By this I rather mean, make your life easier, and only progressively deal with more complicated things. When it comes to distro choice, this would mean picking something with plenty of default installed packages (since you won’t necessarily know what to install yourself) — this rules out my beloved openSUSE Tumbleweed as well as the popular Fedora and Debian — something that will play nice with NVidia (Desktop Environments use display managers/servers, the two most common being Wayland and X11; Wayland is better, but unfortunately will really mess up NVidia gaming, so try to stick to X11 for now — you can always switch later!), and, lastly, something with a large community (and by extension a large help forum and wiki).

    I never thought I’d hear myself (see myself?) saying this (typing this!?), but Mint checks all those boxes.

    I wouldn’t recommend staying with Mint for long (though some people claim to enjoy it…), but as a first distro to introduce you to Linux, it really may be the easiest. Using a different DE is already difficult, don’t overwhelm yourself from the get-go!

    Alright, that ended up being longer than expected. I wish you the best of luck, and a lot of fun on your approaching Journey!

    • Kraiden@kbin.earth
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      27 days ago

      Wayland […] will really mess up NVidea gaming

      What? I use the proprietary drivers and Wayland just fine? What am I missing here?

  • ImFineJustABitTired@lemmy.ml
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    27 days ago

    I don’t have anything to say that everyone else hasn’t so I’ll just wish you good luck and hope you have an enjoyable experience