I have a home built PC that I want to get off Windows 11.
Specs:
- Ryzen 3700X, upgrading to a 5800X3D soon
- RTX 2080 Super
- 500GB NVME for OS, 2TB SATA SSD for files, programs, etc.
- 1440p Ultrawide monitor
- an 8bitdo Ultimate controller
Usage:
- I usually play indie games, emulators, and occasional AAA games. Most of my library is on Steam, with some games on GOG, e.g. Cyberpunk.
- I have an original Steam Link in my living room, and I use it to play games from my PC on the couch. Does Steam on Linux even support this?
- I also write game mods, so I need a distro that is a good fit for software development (C++, Python, and Lisp).
- Random miscellany: I use mullvad VPN, stream movies from a friend’s plex server, and use an SFTP client to back up photos and videos from my phone.
I’ve been an on/off Linux user in the past, so I know my way around basic/intermediate terminal usage and configuration. Buuuut every previous attempt to move to Linux ended in disaster, so I have little patience for asterisks, strings attached, etc. If you’re offering a distro I’ve never heard of before, you’re probably gonna be hard pressed to convince me.
Thanks for the help!
Fedora KDE.
upvoting the bazzite. if you want to play steam games its the obvious go to. I went to it from zorin and enjoying it.
Bazzite. Fedora based, “atomic”, has nvidia drivers and windows compatibility utilities preinstalled. Atomic means easy rollback after update in case if something breaks, and it probably doesn’t expect you to use command line much. It is expecting users to install apps with flatpak so make sure flathub has the software you need (I think it does).
I have never personally used Bazzite, but atomic distros and namely Bazzite are known to be very user friendly and breakproof.
Steam Link is available for Linux. I suppose that most Steam-things are.
Not sure why you got downvoted. Bazzite is great.
Maybe some haters of atomic distros. Never imagined people hating them more than me. But what if not this…
I suspect it’s the recommendation from someone who hasn’t used the product.
Bazzite is my first one. Was a kubuntu user before it, and sabayon way back in the day.
On other comments and what you’ve said in your other comment, I think you’d be just interested in Nobara or CachyOS. At least, if you want an out of box working experience but still have the ability to tinker and develop relatively easy.
You might prefer Nobara because it’s Fedora based rather than Arch, and your hardware specs aren’t bleeding edge anyway. If you want a bit more stability than that though, and don’t mind doing the set up yourself, plan vanilla Fedora could also work and you just add what you want / need.
I’d avoid any recommendations for immutable distros like Bazzite because they’re best for beginners that aren’t too tech savvy, or people very familiar with Linux and have no issues mucking about with OS-tree or running a distrobox. Really no in-between.
I also have 8 bitdo controllers and I do recommend updating them on Windows before you get rid of it, depending which you have - some can be updated via a Chrome based browser but others only through Windows really.
I can understand people not being comfortable with the idea of running a constant cutting-edge distro.
I’m a very old-school Linux user (the very first distro I tried was Red Hat back in 1996), and I’ve had the chance to try most distributions over the years from Debian to SuSE, Slackware to Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, Arch Linux, and various derivatives in between. I can say I know most of them.
Debian and all its derivative distros like Mint, Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, etc., are a bit too dated for nowadays’ desktop PC needs. Yes, I know some of them have some new fancy desktop stuff now (like COSMIC on Pop!_OS), but it’s like having a BMW X1 body with a Toyota 86 engine. Very fancy to look at, but not very powerful for modern hardware.
I would never recommend Ubuntu, Mint, or Pop!_OS for a modern desktop PC.
While it’s not my current distro, I’ve tried it and found it to be an excellent compromise between stability and modern tweaks (including some optimizations similar to what CachyOS does), so I strongly suggest looking into Nobara (https://nobaraproject.org/). It’s Fedora-based, it’s not immutable like Bazzite, and it comes out of the box with a lot of tweaks for gaming (see https://wiki.nobaraproject.org/#modifications).
Give it a try!
Pick one, that is the one
Yeah I feel like you can game on anything these days. I’m on Arch, which is what SteamOS is based on afaik. Works great. Gaming on Steam and Heroic launcher for Epic games. No complaints.
I love how there are already 38 replies. Linux distro questions are like Lemmy catnip, heh.
Fort what its worth:
-
I have very similar hardware: 7800, 3090, 1440p ultrawide, NVMe+SATA
-
Similar needs (GoG, game modding, python, Plex, photo backup)
-
Problems with linux before.
CachyOS has been my “end boss” distro.
Ive had the same stable partition for like ~3 years now, which Ive never had on linux so long. Its just perfect in so many ways, like development libs being optimized, and every gaming/optimization package you could ever want being packaged by the distro. It saved me from getting hacked or screwing up my own system in a few ways.
THAT BEING SAID,
I still dual boot to (heavily neutered) Windows. Some games, like Cyberpunk, just seem to perform slightly (but measurably) better on Windows when I A/B benchmark them, even when I try to make linux the best case scenario.
And some things I do (like HDR content wheb hooked up to a TV, or rendering HEIF files) still have some quirks on linux.
You dont have to choose. You can keep a tiny Windows partition, and/or a shared NTFS partition that both linux and Windows can access.
You dont have to choose. You can keep a tiny Windows partition, and/or a shared NTFS partition that both linux and Windows can access.
How is support for NTFS these days? Any degradation in performance or stability if I run games off a separate NTFS drive?
I haven’t benchmarked NTFS vs Linux partitions in games, but it’s fine. No stability issues. You can absolutely install GoG games there, and run the same files in Linux or Windows.
I have run benchmarks for more extreme workloads (like writing tens of thousands of image files for a dataset), and Linux F2FS and XFS tends to handle it waaay better than NTFS. But this isn’t really applicable to gaming.
The issue, as always, is the classic Linux thing if “you have to configure it right.”
It’s best to edit the NTFS drive’s mounting options, in /etc/fstab, and put it in a special “compatibility” mode to work better with Windows. I am away from my PC, but I can find the documentation later if you wish.
I’d appreciate that thank you
Another plus of CachyOS: the Arch wiki, suppemented by their own.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS#Prevent_creation_of_names_not_allowed_by_Windows
(linked from there): https://man.archlinux.org/man/mount.8
https://wiki.cachyos.org/configuration/automount_with_fstab/
Here’s how my /etc/fstab file (which controls how drive partitions are mounted at boot) looks:
UUID=30F6DF29F6DEEDDA /home/alpha/Windows ntfs3 defaults,lazytime,sys_immutable,uid=1000,gid=1000,exec,windows_names,discard,ro,iocharset=utf8 0 0 UUID=1496470F9646F132 /home/alpha/Storage ntfs3 defaults,lazytime,sys_immutable,uid=1000,gid=1000,exec,windows_names,discard,rw,iocharset=utf8 0 0-
lazytimeanddiscardare performance things for SSDs. -
sys_immutablemarks files with the “system file” attribute in Windows (like stuff in the Windows folder) as unchangable on linux, as you don’t want to mess with these. -
uuid/gid explicity sets the owner as me, as Windows does not handle granular file ownership like linux does, hence its best to default to a user explicitly.
-
iocharset=utf8andexecare probably redundant, but makes sure it doesn’t use an ancient linux defaut. -
I will quote the
windows_namesdescription from the link above:
Prevents the creation of files and directories with a name not allowed by Windows, either because it contains some not allowed character (which are the characters “ * / : < > ? \ | and those whose code is less than 0x20), because the name (with or without extension) is a reserved file name (CON, AUX, NUL, PRN, LPT1-9, COM1-9) or because the last character is a space or a dot. Existing such files can still be read and renamed.
Note I have the Windows partition set as
ro. Read-only. So linux can read files of the windows partition, but can’t write or change anything, just in case./Storage is my SATA drive, which I have set as
rwso linux can write files too.
And FYI, I have my linux partition (and a secondary NVMe drive) set as f2fs. I’ve been happy with that filesystem for a long time:
UUID=787e85c8-5a65-4265-ad91-de756ac2a8d3 / f2fs defaults,gc_merge,lazytime 0 1
A lot of issues you see surrounding NTFS (like games not working or reported corruption) are because people and distros don’t set these options.
But CachyOS may default to some of this by now. I set this up explicitly a long time ago.
-
In my experience it works with some games but doesn’t with others. And if it breaks, the game just stops without any error message/information (you can get some info on the terminal). I would avoid it if at all possible. NTFS support is also overall still rather poor (e.g. my Mint install recently stopped working with NTFS drive until I ran chkdsk on Windows).
deleted by creator
-
First time I’ve seen this! Tried it out and it was entertaining to root for my favorites, and a lot of fun reading the various jabs they make at each other!
My winners were exactly the ones I use, so I’m happy (Fedora + KDE Plasma)I just learned about it from Brodies channel (a Linux YouTuber). As you say, its entertaining. It may or may not get a good recommendation. Some questions aren’t really suited to ask beiginners, but that’s okay. And some questions like what the use case is, would need 3 answers to me: Gaming, Development and the regular Daily stuff. But I love the idea how its presented and the audiovisual style. Pretty cool.
I heard CachyOS is quite popular these days. Other dedicated gaming distros are Bazzite, Nobara, Garuda Linux …
+1 for CachyOS
My PC has an AMD CPU / Nvidia GTX 1060 GPU which was fine when I originally set it up with Kubuntu but had some unrelated issues. So I took the opportunity to try it with Arch and had an absolute bastard of a time getting the Nvidia drivers to work. Cut my losses and tried CachyOS instead and pretty much everything just worked from the off.
I’ve been running Garuda with KDE (dr4g0nized gaming spin) for over a year and have had a great experience. Arch gets a bad rep for breaking updates, but I’ve never experienced any. My Steam Link in the living room has mostly functioned fine, but it has been a bit finicky lately. As for the AUR, I think I have maybe a dozen packages from there in my machine, partially because Garuda ships with Chaotic-AUR, which has a more robust (read: existant) review process for submissions. I have used both Nvidia and AMD GPUs and both have worked flawlessly. I don’t game as much as I used to, but I’ve been nothing but happy with my Arch gaming experience.
I’ve switched to Fedora recently and it feels like a well-balanced everyday distro. The software is fresh enough, you get regular updates, but the system is stable and super easy to install.
Linux Mint!
It’s based on Ubuntu, which means broad support for basically everything, including niche things like the Mullvad VPN client.
Mint has been around for a long time and they have had plenty of time to prove their place as a stable and reliable alternative.
Their software center includes well integrated support for Flatpaks, which is a a must have for things like Steam.
Mint is polished both visually and technically speaking. It’s a great general purpose option for both beginners and experienced users.
However. I might not be as ‘cool’ as some other new shiny players, which seems to be important for some, but I don’t feel comfortable recommending something that most likely last for a few years.
Mint is not something that I use myself, but it’s what I generally recommend to most users. I hope that excludes me me as some Mint fanboy.
Second that, ubuntu sucked, but mint is great so far.
I use Mint for gaming (Steam), some light development and AI work and all everyday computing tasks. It works really well and with minimal hassle. The cool kids will scoff, but for people who just want to get stuff done it’s great.
My go-to advise for people new to linux or just wanting something that works is Linux Mint (Or Ubuntu if you don’t mind the commercial aftertaste). End of discussion.
It is based on Ubuntu packages which are well maintained (things just work), it has been around and popular for a very long time, has a big and active community, and it prioritises ease of use.
The only downsides are support for brand new hardware (<6-12 months) which takes a while to be supported. But that doesn’t seem to apply to you.
If you want bleeding edge, extensive customizations, or a cool unconventional desktop you can check out any kind of desktop.
I like discussing distros as much as the next person. But in my long distrohopping career I realised that with new or novice linux users it’s best to stick to the easiest, most out of the box experience. I would argue this is linux mint.
I’ve seen too many times that people send new linux users to the most wild distro’s and then be suprised that the user gives up on linux completely after a week.
If you want to get some terminal/technical experience or like to make your hands dirty feel free to experiment.
But make your feet wet in the shallow well known puddles.Can second this - My PC is Arch BTW but my partner, on my recommendation, installed Mint. Smooth af install and I almost never taught them a terminal command because it has this easy enough repo library app, and prompts for updates. Things just work.
Thank you for understanding where I’m coming from lol. Mint supposedly, with enough tinkering, can handle all my use cases?
Don’t end up in the Ubuntu train, just avoid from the start. If you want Mint, go with the debian based Mint. Ubuntu was good 15 years ago. Don’t get yourself involved if you’re starting out. Mint DE is good. I think Fedora with KDE is honestly the best place to start. Then just turn on Flatpaks in Discover settings if they are not on by default.
Love Linux Mint for the easy transition away from Windows.
Fedora flavors are a good mix of quicker updates and also very stable. KDE Plasma is a very well thought out desktop environment and familiar to Windows users. I’ve been using Mint and it feels dated. Also I recommend not using anything from Ubuntu as they keep enshittifing.
Fedora Aurora might suit you. It’s immutable but you can still install Mullvad via ostree or a community Flatpak.
Needing Ostree is probably not a good newbie experience, and VPN’s in particular should only be installed from secure sources, not an unverified community package.
its as easy as:
rpm-ostree install https://repository.mullvad.net/rpm/stable/x86_64/MullvadVPN-2026.3_x86_64.rpm
with the last version link from https://repository.mullvad.net/rpm/stable/x86_64/
and then
systemctl enable mullvad-daemon
systemctl start mullvad-daemon
https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/rpm-ostree/#__tabbed_2_2
Without meaning to offend, I think your experience in both using an immutable distro as well as your general knowledge of how to use Linux from the commandline may be clouding your perception of how intimidating that would look to an inexperienced user.
As an example, despite using Linux for many years, I have never had need to interact with systemd, and thus I wouldn’t have known to start it with systemctl or to use -daemon. I could learn that if needed without any hesitation, but to someone way less experienced in Linux? That would more than likely just reinforce the perception of Linux having a high learning curve or only being good for people who like to tinker and fiddle in the command line.
In contrast on a normal Fedora install, the user can just copy and paste the commands on the Mullvad website without having to research or look through a specific distro’s manual, and at the end the app will be added to their launcher for them to use as normal. That method is likely to give a better impression, especially if they feel like their previous Linux attempts were janky or didn’t go well, as the OP has mentioned.
Far from it tbh, I’m mostly a newb in Linux wizardry too. Everything I learned from linux is by making mistakes and learning from those. If you go in with the expectation to never making any compromise or touching anything its not realistic imo. I thought this is the perfect opportunity to show how it’s done in case someone is looking for the way.
I had multiple failed attempts with non immutable/ rolling releases before, they do break from my experience and the frustration that comes from those broken promises might lead to the frustrating Linux experience you described more so than stating realistic expectations. I’m not trying to trying to show that Linux is bad or complicated, I’m just trying to say, you learned windows for decades to make it yours, you have to learn a couple of things for Linux to do the same. Thinking different is not realistic.
If you go in with the expectation to never making any compromise or touching anything its not realistic imo.
I agree, but I would argue it doesn’t really make sense for someone to recommend a distro that is more likely to need tinkering and research over one that is more likely to not need much intervention, especially to someone who is averse to needing too much tinkering.
Immutable distros have great promise, and I believe in the future they will become the standard, but right now their potential benefits aren’t likely to be realized by most average users yet, as the ecosystem isn’t quite ready for them to be as easy as a normal distro is currently, IMHO.
I mean we are kinda splitting hairs at this point, would you rather check, how to install something on a system that doesn’t break, or check how to restore your system that broke from you installing something once the next major update came along. This happened to me before and from my experience that’s exactly where the stability of immutable Distros shine.
Both can be argued for and against, I’m not saying one is better than the other.
If I were op I’d probably go cachyOS keep my eyes out on major e.g. fedora release updates and make at least manually important backups of the home folder. Just learn the feeling of Linux for a while. Given that OP stated they have little patience for fiddeling I’m sure they will come around to stable Debian or immutable releases eventually.
Fun story about why I’m such a curmudgeon about this:
Long before Proton even existed, I once researched how to run a Windows VM for gaming on a Linux host machine, with GPU passthrough. At the time I had an Intel iGPU and an Nvidia discrete GPU, so I figured the iGPU could run the host, while the discrete GPU could run the guest.
I asked around reddit and some of my tech savvy friends on what the best distro would be to accomplish this. A few people steered me toward Debian, because I expressed concern that the system wouldn’t be stable or would be difficult to work with.
Well, turns out Debian was a fucking terrible choice. First I had graphics driver problems, naturally. Secondly, I couldn’t even install qemu if I wanted to because it wasn’t in the apt repositories that shipped with Debian. So I had to learn to add those. Then I had to learn how to stop Debian from recognizing the nvidia GPU during boot, so that the PCI device could be reserved for the passthrough. That was a monumental headache to figure out. And finally, once everything was set up, I learned that nvidia had more or less disabled their consumer-grade cards from being used in a virtual machine. I spent over a month trying to get that working, and eventually just said fuck it and stayed on Windows. And I caught a ton of flak for that, because obviously I should have known that nvidia was a bad choice of GPU, and I should have just purchased an AMD GPU instead… in the middle of GPU mining bubble, when cards were going for $500 a pop.
I’m really hoping to not have a repeat of that experience.
Yeah, some people are really bad at recommending a Distro for specific usage.
When I started with Linux, quite a while back, I was recommended gentoo.
It’s now my least favorite choice 😁
Secondly, I couldn’t even install qemu if I wanted to because it wasn’t in the apt repositories that shipped with Debian.
Debian has a non-free repo containing non-open-source software that it hasn’t historically enabled by default, but I don’t think that that’d apply to qemu. I’m pretty sure that’s all open-source.
goes looking.
qemu’s been in the Debian repos since…checks sarge, which was released as a stable release in 2005.
And it was in main, not non-free, so it should have been there as an out-of-the-box enabled repo:
https://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20050312T000000Z/pool/main/q/qemu/
QEMU only came out in 2003.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QEMU
QEMU is free software originally developed by Fabrice Bellard; the first preview release was in 2003.
It looks like it was packaged in Debian unstable since 2004, though I wouldn’t recommend jumping right on unstable to a new user.
$ apt changelog qemu-system 2>/dev/null|tail -n 15 -- Paul Russell <prussell@debian.org> Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:56:25 +0100 qemu (0.5.2-2) unstable; urgency=low * Fix build problem so bios.bin etc. can be found. (Closes: #237553) -- Paul Russell <prussell@debian.org> Fri, 12 Mar 2004 05:43:00 +0100 qemu (0.5.2-1) unstable; urgency=low * Initial Release. (Closes: #187407) -- Paul Russell <prussell@debian.org> Wed, 3 Mar 2004 02:18:54 +0100 Fetched 314 kB in 0s (1,431 kB/s) $I don’t know, maybe I’m misremembering a detail, it was 10 years ago. I think I needed KVM as well, maybe that’s what was missing. Either way, I had to add newer repos to an older version. I think the codenames were Jessie and Wheezy.
I’m currently running qemu in trixie because one of my bosses demanded me to run office. It was pretty straight forward, but for some reason i had to create a group and do some permissions tinkering for it to work… nothing too complicated. I dont really remember what issues i had with it.
Currently i managed to set a share folder, keys to give orders to the host (mainly to switch back to civilization quickly) and also i convinced my boss that internet isnt working (it’s working from day 0) so she cant force me to use one drive.
I will say it was a good decision to just separate my work PC from my home PC. I didn’t want to end up like that guy who got his company hacked just because he was running a vulnerable version of Plex Media Server. So I have a Windows laptop just for remoting into work and nothing else.
bazzite is really great and user friendly
highly recommend and run it myself for years
