So much stability and reliability, while modern packages. Just using Debian or Mint (Ubuntu LTS with an outdated Desktop and opinionated theming) is not a solution for a good experience, as you need updates.
Btw I broke every other Distro before, so I ended up on Fedora Kinoite
You need to first understand what kind of interaction you expect with your OS. For this, you can start by considering what you use your OS for and currently what you do for your OS. e.g. Before I jumped to Linux, I was just starting to learn PowerShell on Win, because I saw a lot of places in my system where I wanted to use it. I felt consistently dissatisfied with the lack of things I could just tell the system to do, making me go to scripting. This way, I knew I won’t have a problem with putting time into something that takes a lot of configuring. But since I was still new and wanted an easy start, I went with Manjaro KDE. It was based on Arch, but had a system of differed updates, giving me a feel of it being easier. Plus, it had a lot of customisations out of the box, some of which, I learnt from, when making my own configurations for EndeavourOS. EndeavourOS considers itself to be more terminal oriented, and it is possible to easily get a full-fledged tty system, just by selecting it in the installer. I chose KDE because I like changing the Appearance a lot, but you might want to look at other DEs depending upon your expectations.
Ubuntu has been shifting a lot to snaps, so if you want your computer to be snappy (the literal meaning), you might want to avoid it (ironically). But at the same time, if you want less configuration requirements and want to keep most of your exp outside the terminal, on top of finding it easier to install software from vendors’ websites, you can consider it. If you are fine with putting in the minimal amount of brain usage it takes to understand the installation instructions of the website - and by that I mean, read the heading telling you which distro the copy-paste text is meant for (I know ppl too lazy to do that and trying paste an apt command into Red Hat) - I suggest Fedora/Linux Mint and a slew of others.
DE = Desktop Environment apt = Package Manager (kinda like an app store on terminal) used for Ubuntu
P.S.: If you choose an Arch-based distro, make sure you keep a backup OS that is in the Debian/Fedora tree. I keep a Debian KDE, mainly for older linux games, which ask for packages that have been long removed from Arch, but it is useful in case you break something. That way you won’t have to wait for the time it takes to make a Live USB and can just restart.
You can always start sooner and dual boot on Linux Mint to get familiar test your usecases. I have been dual booting and haven’t logged into Windows in over 6 months. Gaming is pretty good for many games on Linux.
Ubuntu will work, sticking to Ubuntu based system is good to have stuff just work. For Gnome UI just use Ubuntu, for KDE use Kubuntu.
If you don’t like Ubuntu as a company you can always use these instead: PopOS for Gnome and KDE Neon for KDE. Both are very stable with great support. I’ve been running KDE Neon for years now.
Hi, I tried endeavor, Linux mint, manjaro, mx Linux, and I don’t remember what else. I have a question, is Gnome really popular? For me it doesn’t make sense, it feels it was made for tablets or something like that.
Absolutely, it’s very popular. It’s pretty similar to MacOS since it comes with a global menu by default. It’s pretty popular since the design is very consistent and looks good. They also have excellent support for new features (except Wayland). Gnome is popular with people that only want to customise the most important ports and just want a standard OS that is well thought out and accessible.
I do watch a lot of content about Linux distros, but I’m not a Gnome user so I can’t give good examples of customisation and differences between KDE and Gnome.
Btw, can replicate the same layout on KDE because of the high level of customization it provides. It can all done through the UI, as all OS changes should be done.
I was running CentOS then migrated to Rocky. It handles various VMs and containers great and has been trouble free for years. 10 core Haswell-era Xeon with 64 GB RAM and a lot of ZFS storage.
I moved from Arch to Fedora on my desktop/laptop as well. Really helps my mental state not keeping up with the different distro-specific knowledge between hosts.
Did you get bored of dealing with packages dependencies and always relying on AUR when you wanted to download a corpo software? I’m planning to do the Arch to Fedora pill too tbf.
Somewhat but it was more driven on the server-side decision. I wanted something that I could set and forget, that didn’t have a ton of updates but prioritized stability/security patches.
Of course, speaking of packages I do regularly use rpmfusion and epel for the extra stuff the normal repos don’t have, but I understand why.
Also being a heavy user of KVM, PCIe and GPU passthrough I found the experience easier and less likely to break between updates. A lot of Red Hat devs work on these subsystems so I assume it’s better QA’d.
Food for thought: you should start getting familiar with Linux, either with Virtualbox/VMware, or dual booting right now. When the time comes and Win10 reaches EOL, you know you will find reasons to just go with the flow and stay with Microsoft.
As for what flavor? There are a few that come to mind as “windowy”: Zorin, Mint, and the anything that uses KDE Plasma. Personally, I prefer Pop!_OS because I use MacOS as well and prefer that feel to windows a bit more, and System76 has done a fantastic job of making a polished product.
That’s what I did, anyway. The mental load of still having windows to fall back on if I couldn’t do something helped make the anxiety lighter and also helped me be motivated to try new things out. I couldn’t imagine having to learn something with a gun to my head!
Linux Mint is great, I used it as a daily driver in college on an old IBM T42, however, modern Linux on a modern PC – Debian/Ubuntu with KDE.
Basically, Kubuntu.
Kubuntu gets you off the ground running with Debian core, KDE Plasma, which is familiar to the Windows workflow and all the compatibility of Debian/Ubuntu. Steam and Proton work FLAWLESSLY via Vulkan API. Zero loss of performance.
If you want to spend a ton of time relearning an OS/tinkering however, get some flavor of Arch.
The AUR is crazy, it’s like a huge software library and the Wiki is expansive, BUT, you will be relearning absolutely everything.
Sorry other Linux people, I’m a jaded lifelong Windows user, who unironically uses Kubuntu and Artix on seperate machines.
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