In the somewhat distant future you’re looking to switch to Linux. Okay, the question of distros can wait.
What you want to do in the not-too-distant-future if possible is start finding FOSS alternatives to the software you use. Stuff like LibreOffice and Krita have Windows versions, so in the meantime start learning and using those apps. Because that’s the real pain point.
As for distro…distros don’t really matter. Most of the user experience comes from the desktop environment, and that’s a matter of preference so personal that the real answer is “try several and use the one you like.”
From my experience, download many distros from Linux Mint to Zorin, maybe Fedora and OpenSuse if you want something non Ubuntu bases, or Manjaro and Endeavor OS if you are up for a challenge.
Then install them in a Virtual Machine like Virtual Box. This way you can test which OS you like, and see if the software you want works.
In my experience the Desktop Environment makes the biggest impact on your user experience.
Followed by the package manager (app store)
Then available software (steam lutris libre office)
Finally the terminal for when things go south (or you installed arch)
And now I settled with Garuda and Nobara. Like them.
I used Nobara for niche gaming (rarely use it now).
And Garuda Linux for dev work, and downloading and installing stuff, including proprietary packages. And I don’t have to configure all the things to make it capable of allowing me to download stuff from all the nice mirrors, such as the community arch mirror.
Nobara, on the other hand, is great at handling compatibility issues kinda out of the box. Such [Edit1: as GPU] drivers.
The reason I disliked the aforementioned distros was solely because of how much involved I had to be to configure them to integrate with my rare WiFi chip drivers, which triggered me when I banged my head at the keyboard for hours only to find out that my WiFi driver was not supported.
But Garuda and Nobara or a blessing, and a chef’s kiss.
That’s coming from a person who tried more than 20+ distros and/or their derivatives.
[Edit2:] All in all, I would recommend what the comment above suggested, as that will help you find your own path. The samurai path, the kenjutsu path, or the kendo path, the peaceful path, or the hackers path. ;)
[Edit3: sorry Debian users, but I DID try your distros, I just didn’t want to bother with them much as they had compatibility issues too !]
I’ve been wanting to do this for years, and tried several years ago but my AMD graphics card didn’t have available drivers. I now have an rtx 2070 super, do you know if it’s compatible?
I saw in a comment above that mint cinnamon is great for gaming, does that use wine or something similar? The gaming aspect is really holding me back.
Also slight concern with my dev environment but I’m sure that’s been solved 100 different ways.
Drivers. I’ve yet to run across any major issues except for Intel Compute not working with Davinci Resolve but that’s well documented.
Now for gaming on Linux. There are 2 ways to game on Linux.
Native ports. Most valve games and some third parties (mostly indie) are natively compatible. I’ve had no issues playing these ports and they run like any other application.
Windows Compatibility Layer. Now asking for 20+ year old games to be ported to Linux is a bit of an ask. Let alone asking devs to add Linux support to their games when Linux had such a small install base.
So what some very smart devs did, was make 2 pieces of software that makes playing native Windows games on Linux possible.
WINE, or WIne Is Not an Emulator, is a compatibility layer to run native Windows Software in Linux. With a primary focus on Windows System Calls. Gaming in wine isn’t graphically the best.
Then there is DXVK, or Direct X to Vulkan compatibility layer, which translates DX9-DX11 code to the open source Vulkan that runs in Linux. Intel’s Arc graphics uses this for their legacy compatibility.
Now you don’t need to worry about installing any of this since Valve packages these apps, and some choice software like .Net Runtime in a package called Proton. This is a checkbox in Steam and when Steam Play is enabled, the Windows versions of games will be installed and will work.
Compatibility is very good at this point but there are edge cases that still need to be ironed out. Like anti cheat, DRM, and more.
Lutris is another prices of software that can be used like Steam Play but for non steam games. Its also good, but can be fiddly.
Install process is no more involved than actual Windows, but when a Ubisoft game crashes it won’t take your entire machine down with it.
For the love of god and all that is holy just use mint cinnamon it’s the easies most stable with little learning curve ever. High performance great for work gaming browsing whatever lol. If you can use windows 7/10 you can use mint cinnamon
I’ve been using Mint for quite a while now on a spare machine and it’s the first linux strain that has me not giving up in frustration. I can definitely recommend.
I recommend first switching Windows-only software to crossplatform software so you won’t have to get used to another operating system and different software at the same time.
Start off with Gentoo to get the hang of the basics. Switch to Arch because compile times and heat burns. Try Linux from Scratch for a laugh, giggle and move on, but with a new found respect for distro maintainers.
What’s your use case? If it involves AAA games then that will narrow things a bit but if you simply want a bit of docs n that and, internet browsing and a spot of email and realtime sound and CAD then we’ll need a broader chat.
Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Mint - those would be my starters for 10 in no particular order. Pick yours and your hip angle. I personally run Arch (actually) and Gentoo. I don’t recommend them as a dip your toe in the water job 8)
Know that you’ll probably hate what you try first. Personally I say you shouldn’t use Pop_OS!, but its better than being scared of making a wrong choice. “distrohopping” is a great way to learn.
From personal experience: if you’re trying to dual-boot with Windows, I recommend using completely separate drives (rather than separate partitions). Windows is very shitty about overwriting your Linux boot partitions when it updates. Having a separate drive isn’t fool-proof, but it helps.
I haven’t needed Windows in >10 years though, so maybe it’s not as shitty about that, but I recommend caution.
Back in the late 1900s, you could open a laptop and remove a hard drive with only a #2 phillips screw driver. So I think they mean that. Physically remove your Windows drive, install a fresh drive, install/play/learn Linux. With your Windows drive disconnected, you can do ANYTHING in Linux without fear of losing any data on that other drive.
Frustrated and just "need to work"? Reverse the process back to the Windows drive.
Feeling a little more confident and want to access your files on the Windows drive? Get a SATA-USB adapter. No need to go all enclosure just yet as that just adds steps when you need the Windows setup.
Comfortable in Linux? Copy your important data over to the Linux system, format the original drive, NOW put it in an enclosure for a handy backup drive.
Feeling confident in your newfound prowess? Connect that external drive to a Raspberry Pi and turn the Pi into a basic NAS, maybe drop a little VPN on it, and now you can access that device/drive from anywhere. At the very least, you now have a place to backup important data in case the laptop falls into a volcano. Hell, now you've got a reason to subscribe to SelfHosted & HomeLab.
Reference: 1998-2001 I ran a "dual boot" using removable hard drive bays on a full tower system. As noted above, Windows can sometimes mess up what makes your dual boot possible.
Currently running Mint on an older HP Envy AMD laptop to get back into the Linux swing. Win10 is my daily driver on the desktop from that need of things to work. When you're fixing other people's/company's computers all day, the last thing you want to do is work on your own computer. That and a lack of real gaming support/documentation forever ago is what pushed me back to Windows. The old argument of "Linux is free" wasn't too heavy a talking point when MS kept giving me free licenses to stick with what I was more comfortable with. Win11 reminds me of Win8, reminds me of WinME, and the cycle of MS dysfunction continues. I want off the ride.
With Gaming as viable as it is on Linux, plus much nicer tools for VMs (AND Docker exists now), I've got about year to convert my daily driver desktop (2025 end of Win10).
Oh and I did try to put Arch on that laptop. It was overwritten by Mint as soon as it booted up without a GUI. Now, might of been my fault for using a "base image" or something, but again I need it to just work without spending what limited time I have trying to make it work. But hey, at least folks aren't trying to get you to install Slackware from 3.5" floppies.
Maybe invest in an external drive you can copy important files to. Dual booting is usually issue free but it’s always possible to have data loss in general. Data loss, especially data that is personally important to you is a tragedy.
Also try LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition). I think it’s their best flavor actually, but not enough people know about it and usually only try the regular Mint.
Almost all of those support forms are from way back when Ubuntu was user friendly and community driven. However they are no longer serving the community and shouldn’t be considered user friendly like it was previously.
Anyway almost all of the Ubuntu specific stuff will work on Linux mint as its Ubuntu based.
Your hardware is supported; consider to check driver support over at linux-hardware.org. Honestly, most hardware should be well-supported, unless it has been released very recently or is hardware from known troublemakers (i.e. Nvidia GPUs or Broadcom etc).
Your ‘computer-literacy’ is at least (slightly) higher than average.
You’ve primarily used Windows in the past.
You prefer asking others instead of finding it out for yourself; the existence of this post supports that. (It’s either that or you like to have a second opinion in all cases; but I would have expected more input from you if that was the case 😅.)
Your hardware is somewhat modern.
You will mostly stick to defaults (at least initially).
You’re aware that while hundreds of actively maintained distros exist, most of them are either niche or not worth your time in the first place. If, from the remaining ones, the less impactful derivatives are surgically removed, followed by the removal of newbie-unfriendly distros, then only 10-20 distros would remain; most of which have been named in this thread already. And your needs dictate which one out of these would suit you best.
You will educate yourself regarding desktop environments like GNOME, KDE Plasma, Cinnamon, Xfce etc. Perhaps you will even boot into a live environment to check them out for yourself; loading a bunch of distros on your USB through Ventoy is excellent for that. This is important as they’re arguably the biggest contributor to how you perceive your Linux system. You should also be aware that in almost all cases a second (or heck; even third, fourth etc) desktop environment can be installed on your system and you should be able to switch between them relatively easily. However, in most cases, the one provided on first installation works close to flawless while others that have been tacked on later on are generally less polished.
You will educate yourself (eventually) regarding universal package managers (read: AppImage, Flatpak, Nix and Snap) and Distrobox as collectively they’ve (mostly) ridden the Linux ecosystem of problems related to software not being packaged in the native repos. Don’t feel the need to indulge into all of them simultaneously from the get-go. But be aware that they exist and that they enable one to install (almost) any package that has been made available to Linux regardless of their chosen distro.
Any distro I should use?
Typically, distros like Arch, Debian, Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE, Pop!_OS and Ubuntu (or their derivatives) will be mentioned in these kinds of queries. And it becomes mostly a popularity poll that measures what the community thinks is the preferred distro for beginners. And honestly, I don’t blame them as you haven’t really given us a lot to work with. My entry to that popularity poll would be Linux Mint. If you prefer to use GNOME or KDE Plasma instead, then consider either Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed. Additionally, Pop!_OS should be considered if Nvidia causes problems on all the others.
Feel free to inquire if you so desire!
EDIT: I just noticed how you mentioned to someone that your use case will be primarily gaming. First of all, gaming is somewhat equal on most distros; especially with the likes of Bazzite-Arch and Conty providing excellent environments for gaming regardless of installed distro. Though, these containers do still rely on the hosts kernel, therefore any perceived difference on same hardware but different kernels might be attributed to said kernels. Newer kernels generally come with improved performance; at least for newer hardware*. Though, perhaps more performance could be gained through other means as well. I will spare you the details, however, as this is potentially another rabbit hole within the initial rabbit hole. Therefore, instead, I will name a couple of distros known for being excellent for gaming purposes: Bazzite, Garuda Linux, Nobara Linux, PikaOS and RegataOS. If you want a no-nonsense system, just go for Bazzite; while initial setup might seem slightly more involved, it’s by far the most robust system out of these. This does come at the cost of being ‘unique’ amongst the others, but I believe it’s a great fit for your use case.
Completely agree that these kinds of threads end up being more a popularity poll than anything more actionable and usable. Everyone has their own opinions and preferences (which is great!), but that can end up being extremely overwhelming for a newbie.
sorry for being inactive here, I have other things happening at the moment. i’m just gonna put some stuff here
You will mostly stick to defaults (at least initially).
Kinda, I recently started to get interested in modding! It isn’t stuff like homebrew (although I was planning to root my phone, until OEM unlock was disabled. Thanks wiko.), I mostly just use something like vencord and Bloxstrap (just tweaks the Roblox client a bit, no exploits tho) This might be not seen as modding, but who cares.
Your ‘computer-literacy’ is at least (slightly) higher than average.
slightly, I do know how to use HTML to an extent, and can know whats the difference between RAM and hard drives, I still have a long way to go.
Ok here are some of the specs that I can remember (I’m currently not home as of typing this)
I have a HP 2022 Laptop, decent enough to play games
I have a 512 hard drive and 12 GB of RAM
only has 2 USB ports, most of it was replaced by type C, so dual booting with.something USB related might be hard
Dabbled a bit into linux with a VM (a few years ago tho, it was Ubuntu)
and thats all I could remember, I do plan to do an update post after trying out some distros on a VM, hopefully it works!
OP, I have an entire guide for Linux/Windows computing, having been a couple decades old user of Windows. I am using Linux for the past 6+ years, and am using Debian as of now.
Start with Ubuntu LTS. Your priority is being able to search your solutions easily on AskUbuntu, StackOverflow or similar websites within the first few search results, and NOT needing to interact with and/or get harassed by the toxic evangelists in Linux community. I assume you already got a taste of that evangelism with the comments here.
Also, it is essential to require optimal corporate and community software support, and maximum stability/compatibility with WINE, without your system breaking upon automatic/random updates. This lessens the need for you to go around scrambling on the internet for solutions. Make sure to utilise whatever you need, Snaps, AppImages, regardless of what people say, to make your Linux life easier.
Mint is my favourite beginner distro, can’t really go wrong with it. What’s your main use for your PC (gaming, office, development etc.)? There are some distros that are more well suited for certain tasks.
Alternatively, don’t use Pop_OS. I installed it on an ex’s laptop because it was easy but it’d have all the same problems as Ubuntu without the helpful diagnostic tools and extensive documentation. Hers messed up far more than my Arch install
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