I’m a windows loser looking to make the plunge into Linux. I was thinking of switching my gaming PC to Linux in the near future. Before I make up my mind, I’ll probably try out VMs of distros.

I’ve lurked a few Linux communities here and on lemmy.ml, some I’m gonna regurgitate some things I half remember in the hope of being being corrected and starting discussion about what I should be doing.

  • Ubuntu isn’t good
  • Mint is good despite being based on Ubuntu. Made with former windows users in mind
  • Debian is good because of their packages or package manager or something. Recently sold out, but there are spinoffs that don’t use proprietary software like Duvian.
  • Fedora seemed to get some good word but I can’t remember why.
  • Arch and it’s spinoffs require a shit ton of finagling to get right but can do a lot of cool things
  • There are different desktop environments like GNOME, Cinnamon, and … others? I honestly don’t know what a desktop environment is.
  • Wine (or the fork Proton) can run windows native games on Linux
  • There are snap, flat something or other, and … other ways for installing software.

I’m sure I’m missing a lot and got some things wrong. Any help getting started is appreciated.

Edit: I ended up going with a KDE plasma spin of Fedora 36. Once I figured out how to get the nvidia drivers set up it was smooth sailing.

  • allinwonderornot@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    2 years ago

    PopOS is good enough for most beginners. Also try to substitute gaming (especially modern gaming) with learning programming and robotics, music instruments, and reading.

      • allinwonderornot@lemmygrad.ml
        0·
        2 years ago

        Yes, I read another comments saying that gaming isn’t smooth on Linux, which I think isn’t an issue at all. People shouldn’t be choosing OS based on gaming.

        • Arsen6331 ☭@lemmygrad.ml
          0·
          2 years ago

          And besides, Linux gaming works well. Not perfectly, but certainly well enough for casual gaming. Maybe it’ll need some tinkering for some particular games, but there are very nice installers like Lutris that attempt to handle that for you, so you don’t have to.

  • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
    01·
    2 years ago

    Honestly, the distribution doesn’t matter. Just get started! Remember, Linux is about control over your tools. To develop mastery requires failure. I installed probably 5 distros before finally getting good at managing Linux. I learned so much from exploring and failing.

    Don’t listen to crowds on this topic, please. Get one person to be your phone-a-friend and you’ll be fine. If you don’t have this person, you will suffer, regardless of distro choice. This person should be someone who is already comfortable with Linux, any distro will do. If you don’t have this person in your life, I will be that person for you.

    Everything else you can learn, first get the hardware you want to use (probably already done), then get a Linux friend, then go exploring!!!