I would go with Mint because it has the largest selection of apps. Of course you can run any Linux program on any Linux distro, but with Mint you are able to just install almost anything without difficulty from a package manager like synaptic, or the built-in Mint Software Manager. That includes game launchers like Steam and Proton. This is, in my opinion, what makes Mint OS truly the most beginner friendly Linux distro.
Fedora is good too, but you need to grant it access to other sources of apps before you see the wider selection of apps outside of the more limited, strictly FLOSS apps that are available by default on Fedora. And these extra steps of finding trustworthy sources and installing them makes Fedora a bit harder to use, at least for beginners.
Welcome! As for the basics: Bleachbit (system cleaner) Flatseal (Flatpak permission managed) Elisa (music player) GTKHash (GUI way to verify checksums) FreeTube (YouTube front end) Okular (PDF viewer & editor)
Yes, I use K-9 for my outlook/365 accounts and it works fine. I also have my NAVER account there but I can’t send emails because I’ve been too lazy to configure the SMTP settings properly.
My typical recommendation for anyone new to Linux looking to get their feet wet would be Linux Mint. As long as you keep the system updated, it should be a decent choice for gaming.
The following is not to discourage you, but to help keep expectations in check. Gaming on Linux is not perfect. It’s not comparable to gaming on Windows. A LOT of games (with the assistance of Steam’s Proton) “just work,” but things are not to a point where that’s ever a guarantee. I would recommend looking up your staple games on https://www.protondb.com to review Linux compatibility, if the games run or need additional run options.
I say all this as someone who runs exclusively Linux, and is a gamer and occasionally streams. It’s perfectly doable, but expect to have to get your hands dirty at some point in the venture. And don’t be afraid to ask questions!
Nothing radical, but I’ve used mplayer as default video player since FreeBSD 4.0, and that’s not changing any time soon. VLC is good and all, I just prefer mplayer.
Oh, and for general purpose storage partitions I use XFS, as it plays nice with beegfs.
The biggest concern is how much ram and how fast a processor of the older computer. Most modern distros use about a gig of ram on startup and prefer a processor made in the last 20 years. If your computer has 500mb ram and a single core 1ghz pentium its gonna choke trying to run linux mint.
Instead certain Linux distributions are specifically tailored to work on extremely old and underpowered computers such as puppy Linux. These are modern distributions with updated kernels but are extremely minimalist in nature.
Sorry for not being able to offer insightful feedback. This caused me to look up current prices for 500GB spinning disks and holy shit. Something that used to be barely attainable (for me, then) is so cheap now that I said, “holy shit,” out loud.
Have you checked out OpenSUSE MicroOS at all? It’s similar to Silverblue. Runs great on my Framework 13 with Intel 13th Gen.
I wouldn’t be too concerned with “officially” supported Linux on the Framework. It is a very Linux friendly machine. The folks they have supporting Linux are active in the Framework forums and very helpful.
I eventually went back to my tried and true Debain. I loved the immutable OS thing for all the reasons people have listed here. My one issue was direct access to external devices can be a pain. IE: I just could not get USB passthrough working with virt-viewer after all my fiddiling.
I’ve tried a few on my 2008ish macbook pro and they all work. Antix and MX work well as do the others. I know MX gets some hate on here, but it works. I did cheat and shoved an old SSD in there because it really sped things up.
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