I have always been tempted by Linux, and the past few times I have tried it, I spent days setting it up, only to be forced back to Windows.
I want to be more committed, and create a support network before I format everything and start again.
I use my PC for gaming and work. For work I connect to the system via a vpn client which has a linux version, so thats ok
Games are mostly Steam, though I occasionally play Fortnite with my son, and I am aware Heroic/Lutris can help with that.
The last time I installed Linux (Ubuntu) my second monitor kept switching from extend to mirror. It might not sound like a big deal, but having to change it back every time it went to sleep was a pain, and it never happened on Windows which just worked. I also had some trouble with dark mode, some apps would set the text to white but not the background to black, so you couldnt read anything.
The time before I think I was using Mint, there was an issue with the boot script which made boot up times take up to 15 minutes which again just doesnt happen on Windows.
I dont know Linux enough to be able to sort these things myself, and I have tried message boards, but it can take days for a reply, if you get a reply at all.
I have heard a lot of people are switching to Bazzite, but does it have a desktop like other OSes, or is it just gaming? Its hard to figure out.
Is one of these better for support, advice, compatibility?
Games are mostly Steam, though I occasionally play Fortnite with my son, and I am aware Heroic/Lutris can help with that.
You cannot play Fortnite on Linux, and if you try to play it by bypassing the Easy Anti-Cheat your account will get banned.
Go with bazzite cuz when yiu download it from the website it’ll ask you if you want desktop or handheld edition. And you’re not gonna be able to play fortnite on Linux until fortnite adds support for Linux.
Bazzite is beginner friendly all the optimozations is already done so u don’t have to do nothing. But keep in mind to check which games you can play on Linux.
You can check on protondb.com
I use Fedora and it works flawlessly.
Debian. Debian is stable. Debian has great wiki. Debian is home.
Would not advise Debian to a new user. Old packages and difficulties installing non free software may frustrate people.
I did use Debian as my daily driver and I have it in a few servers, it is a very good system. But to the common user stability is not the priority which should prevail over everything else.
Fedora then? Just choose the default Workstation. Easy to setup. Easy to do stuff too.
Fedora - easy - https://umatechnology.org/getting-started-with-fedora/
Linux Mint - easier - https://helpdeskgeek.com/linux-mint-a-beginners-guide-and-pro-tips/
Gaming idk but for regular office and personal work: Linux Mint. It is stable like no other OS and has a much friendlier UI than Ubuntu (and not the terrible snap)
I was in the sane situation as you and what I did was buy a new drive to put Linux on so I could dual boot and get used to things without wiping everything. Linux can even mount your Window drive if you need to access data on it.
I tried a few distro myself but landed on Garuda Dr460onized Gaming. (You can look at different versions here) The gaming version came with steam and Heroic installed and had a nice colour theme picked. Gaming has been great and all Windows games that I’ve tried have worked better than when I was running Windows. (Rocket League, Hades 2, Uncharted 4 to name some) You can always keep Windows on your other drive and boot it for games like Fortnite that have kernel level anti cheat.
The only issue you might have is that Garuda is pretty bleeding edge with when updates get applied. This can be good or bad. There were some issues getting dual screens working for me at first, but those issues have gone away completely now. I also had issues with the top menu bar crashing and disappearing. Lasted about 2 weeks and then an update fixed it. (Survived by using the Meta + Spacebar search launcher and Ctrl + Alt + T to get into a terminal) So updates to fix issues come out somewhat quickly, but issues pop up too. I actually think it’s been pretty stable right now.
I tried Bazzite first and switched to Garuda after. Both were easy and good for gaming.
I use Fedora Worstation… Is stable, easy, robust… You don’t need to use the terminal… unless you want to. I’ve been using Fedora for 3 years and I don’t plan on change. I have two monitors with different resolutions, and they work perfectly. I play games too, some reciently AAA games. Unfortunately, games like Fortnite or PUBG don’t work on linux due to anti-cheat measures. But there are many other games to enjoy just as much.
Id go straight fedora
I am no expert and can only tell from my own experience: i recently installed CachyOS with KDE, it is an Arch based distro, despite that I, a fresh linux user, think it is really accessible and it worked out of the box. Gaming is not really an issue for me, if issues arise i just check ProtonDB, but that´s really rare thanks to Lutris being pre-installed. You also benefit from the Arch Wiki which, in my opinion, has a REALLY good documentation of any question or issue you encounter with that operating system.
You have to get comfortable with the terminal though, but i think that applies to any linux distro (my only other distro experience is Mint 10 yrs ago)
Linux Mint is very user friendly, it’s build on debian (like Ubuntu), it’s easy to install Steam. Prior bad experiences might have been happening for a number of reasons, but I’d still give it a go…
Somone on Lemmy made an distro chooser flowchart a few days back. It was pretty good.
