I play a lot of games over steam, and I am coming from windows.
Bazzite, Linux Mint, CachyOS
Try each of them out, see what you mesh best with, join their respective discord/matrix for further help and details 👍
I’m just glad that someone FINALLY asked this question!
Mint is beginner friendly. The Cinnamon desktop is very Windows-like. But if you want HDR support I don’t recommend Mint because its desktops are mostly on X11. It updates the kernel less frequently, so it’s more stable, less cutting edge.
Pop!_OS is also beginner friendly, gaming oriented, makes installing NVIDIA drivers easy, and since its desktops are on Wayland, you can get HDR support. Its kernel updates more frequently, so newer hardware gets support sooner.
Mint is not a great idea. Its pretty nice for starters, but not for gamers. I had a lot of problems with fps and the mint compositor.
That was kind of my point saying HDR support is hard on Mint. However, I game plenty on Mint and never had any problems aside from that.
Had 0 issues on mint with gaming. I play plenty of modern AAA, AA games.
Pick something with a good window manager, typing into a terminal without fingers and thumbs is going to be tricky.
From what I hear, gaming = bazzite.
Also you can check compatibility of your games with ProtonDB.
My wife and I play a lot of games; my wife is also not super technical — she can get her way around some problems, but not deeper ones, and never uses the terminal, — and we’ve enjoyed bazzite quite a bit with almost no issues.
I also do development, and that’s been fine as well.
Try this: https://distrochooser.de/en
CachyOS or Bazzite if you play games
SteamOS if you ONLY play games…and replace your windows for general stuff with Linux Mint
They’re all pretty much the same except for a couple, like nix, Gentoo, slackware, etc. maybe stay away from those. fuck around and find out is the best way.
actually genuinely this. The recommendations here are if you just want to install linux once and not think about it again but distro-hopping is really the best thing to do if you’re ok with re-installing everything once in a while.
gentoo!!no but actually, linux mint is very good for newcomers, especially as its desktop has resemblance to windows. Pop!_os is also really good and better for gaming maybe? I would avoid ubuntu (slower and a lot more bloated) and especially manjaro (breaks a LOT without you even doing anything).
I might also cautiously suggest arch? It’s kind of a meme in the community because of its own community being seen as a bit toxic, but once you’ve got past the install and customization process (which does admittedly take a lot of time and reading), you have a system that is entirely your own in almost every way. For example, in the case of desktop environments, you can use cinammon from mint or gnome from pop!_os or even a more lightweight one like xfce. You also tend to have a more stable system, as you won’t have unknowingly have some unstable packages hidden in the bowels of your system that get relied on by 73 other packages and could break at any moment.
This question is useless, especially here where you’re going to get a million different answers from some of the most opinionated experts on the Internet.
They are all effectively the same with very minor (and shrinking) differences. The actual biggest difference is the type of release cycle (atomic, rolling, etc) and you can find multiple of those in the same distro. Again… It’s all effectively the same.
I’m gonna recommend what works for me, but it might not work for you. I like these because (again, in my specific use case) they “just worked” with little to no problems: Fedora for a desktop/laptop and bazzite for a handheld. Again… YMMV.
Go check distrowatch and try a few different distros until you find one you like. The more popular, the more likely you can find a community to support your questions.
One thing to note is that Linux can read your Windows partitions. If you have data on drives you’ll still need, you can leave them and Linux can access them fine. (Windows can’t read most file systems though, so the other direction of this mostly doesn’t work. Windows can’t read most Linux partitions).
If you’re reasonably technologically competent, I’d recommend CachyOS or Garuda. These are Arch based, so the Arch wiki and Arch User Repository are available, and great resources. They come with everything you need for gaming though, unlike base Arch. You don’t need to fiddle with things or set things up. They just work out-of-the-box.
If you’re not really technologically competent, but want to learn, the Mint recommendations are fine. It’s one of the most used distros, so there’s still plenty of help available. Alternatively, and I think better, there’s Fedora. For either of these, choose KDE versions, not Gnome or anything else. KDE is more customizable and closer to Windows too. (Though it can be customized to be more like anything else, or whatever you want too.)
If you really don’t want to learn, Bazzite or maybe Zorin are there.
Look at zorinOS or Mint. Those are good starting points
Thank you
Always remember, distrohopping is allowed. Your first distribution doesn’t have to stray with you forever. It can, but doesn’t have to. If you hear about a cool new distro, feel free to try it out.
Worth mentioning that if you’re on AMD, you’re pretty much open for choice. If you have nVidia, make sure the OS you go with calls out nVidia support as a feature. Even then, your specific config may require that you try out a couple before finding the right fit.
I personally tried Bazzite and had a rough experience with performance and haven’t had issues on EndeavorOS, but have read reports from other nVidia users that had the opposite experience. All to say, your mileage may vary, and don’t give up right away if the first one doesn’t feel right.
Sample size of one here - I am on EndeavourOS and have an Nvidia card. I had issues with KDE and with Cinnamon (weird UI hiccups). Switched over to Hyprland and haven’t had those issues since (I did have a TON of issues when Hyprland updated from .52 to .53) and also don’t recommend Hyprland setup for a new user, but just wanted to share my experience here.
I also tried Niri but had issues getting steam games to launch - I plan to revisit it in a year or so to see if anything changes. I found videos/reviews where some folks were saying they could game with no problem so it might be a skill issue on my part.
The install experience with EOS was totally painless and I’ll likely continue to use it on future PC builds (if ram prices ever come down). Looking forward to switching everything to AMD one day.
I installed Fedora on my wife’s PC and she hasn’t had any issues at all (her build is totally AMD). I hate to say it but the answer is likely “it depends” based on how you will use your machine and what hardware you’ve got). Might be easiest to go with Zorin or Mint as mentioned in one of the top comments.
If you have nVidia, make sure the OS you go with calls out nVidia support as a feature.
That makes the setup easier, but the capacity of making it work or not doesn’t actually change.
I’d say not only pick an OS that explicitly supports it, but make sure to test first as a live-image without installing and overwriting the OS that is already there working.
I wish there was an easy way to test this, but I got two weeks into my setup before I noticed performance issues because it was only affecting some of my games. This is still a good idea, just not a guarantee.
I don’t think you can install Linux on a cat. Please do not the cat
PLEASE DO NOT THE CAT
Doesn’t matter. You can install it on any other hardware because Linux includes ‘cat’ already. You will not need the old one anymore.
I switched to Bazzite on my gaming rig a month ago and felt great. I managed to install and mod Skyrim effortlessly and yesterday I installed Tarkov and SPT with no problem whatsoever. Highly recommend.
But check if your favorite games are compatible, mainly the multiplayer ones: Tarkov can only be single player PvE, GTA is story mode only and forget about Destiny 2. Not a problem for me, plenty of alternatives, but you should check for yourself.
Seconding bazzite here. If you want to “get to know Linux” you might want to consider something else, but if you just want a well-running system with minimal use of the command line, Bazzite is an amazing option. I’ve been using it since August last year, and have only had to use the command line once in that time. Which isn’t a problem for me, but it may be a bit daunting for others (and that is totally fine!).
I’ll throw my vote in for Bazzite. It’s best if you want to use your PC instead of tinkering with Linux. Plus it’s quite gaming focused so Steam etc will work out of the box, although each game’s compatibility will vary. Check protondb.com for compatibility reports on Steam games.
Bazzite scared me when it chose not to boot one day. I had to do some sort of command and got it working again (saved the details to my system build notes). I can’t have stuff breaking on me so I was concerned. I haven’t had an issue since, so I’m pretty stoked on Bazzite now. I will say, I couldn’t get Steam Play working (the thing that let’s you play games remotely on a tablet or phone or whatever, Steam itself works fine). I fixed the issue with Sunlight/Moonlight which does the sane thing but did it with less lag, picture degradation. Personally, I suggest you hold out on choosing and load a few different distros on USB sticks to try. I recently built a PC for a family member and did some distrohopping to find the right OS for them.
