Hello,
Basically I want to pick a distro and like most beginners I’m coming from windows. I don’t want to go on a full learning process from the start but I can probably handle some level of terminal usage. I, like most people play games(or thinking about playing games and it’s one of main things I’m looking into but because this isn’t the only thing I’m thinking of doing and do)
So here’s what I’m looking for to give a good idea,
-Can play steam games(since steam is compatible, this is mostly always checked(I think))
-Can play other games outside steam(like from GOG where you download the setup. Heard about apps like “bottles” but idk how good it will be)
-Video editing softwares (Resolve works but I might want to use another)
-Can run a CAD software(I do like designing and stuff so I do look forward for this(I have used some on windows and don’t know how its will be in linux. I know blender works but it’s more of a modeling than CAD))
-Programming(I don’t think this will be a problem)
-Microsoft like apps(Spreadsheet and stuff, Just need to be able to do work)
-Not sure if this is needed but I do sail the seven seas sometimes
My laptop has these if details are needed for compatibility
-GTX 1050(dedicated)
-intel i7 8th gen
-Intel UHD 630(integrated)
I heard a distro called “Pop! OS” which supports Nvidia GPUs but I also wanna know how intel stuff works too(cpu and Igraphics) It will be helpful if I can get details on how much change of performance I might have(increment or decrement as my pc is pretty weak) I just need your recommended OS and a brief explanation on what to look for in the OS and what to expect on the stuff I looked into (I’ll try doing my research according to your recommendations)\
Apologies if this is another “recommend me an OS” post, I do see all gaming related stuff but just doesn’t see much of the things that I look for
Thank you for reading!
I’ve been using fedora workstation for about a month now, you really can’t go wrong with it. It’s great for laptop, there are also ways to customize it to work with a desktop. I am running it on amd CPU/GPU, so i don’t know how well it works with nvidia and Intel, I know some distributions do a really poor job managing the drivers. I don’t use CAD, but I have done FPGA design and programming (C/C++) and it works great. Haven’t done much gaming, all I have is minecraft installed, I could imagine you can install steam on there as well. Hope this helps.
I heard that AMD are good with working on linux and that Nvidia is pretty bad with drivers and compatibility. That’s why I mentioned the Nvidia gpu. I’ll try to find more details on the driver supports and others. Other than that, I’ve never actually seen anyone saying this or that bad for fedora. Since I do have a weak gpu which is also old, I think it’s better to find something that has more supports for things I do like gaming and video editing
zorin is likely the easiest out of box distro you can get but its not a gaming distro. if gaming is that important I would consider either just using a gaming distro or dual booting one.
- Nobara
- Bazzite
- PopOS
- fedora
For more info, take a look at this
Thank you, I’ll look into it
Bazzite, built for gaming
Elementary OS, or something like Garuda or Debian with either Gnome or KDE desktops.
Nobarra, Bazzite, or CachyOS.
I’d say Nobara or Bazzite are better for ‘I install it and it just works.’
Cachy is better for the learning aspect. It’s not hard, but there are more choices to make, and you’re closer to the Arch wiki and all its excellent resources/tutorials.
I am biased, as I run CachyOS and I love it. I also love how much stuff is in its repos, including everything you need to game optimally, and how easy CUDA is (which is part of what you need for CAD).
Whatever you choose, do not, I repeat DO NOT install Fedora, Debian, or anything that doesn’t explicitly support Nvidia laptops by default, out of the box, or you are in for a world of pain. If any guide starts with ‘install these 3rd party repos’ or so, you have entered a danger zone, and you will hate linux.
I’m extremely happy with bazzite, it’s basically impossible to break, and great for gaming.
Just be aware that it is very focused on flatpaks, so installing anything that doesn’t have a flatpak version does require some extra steps.
And for beginners, a flatpak is a particular way of bundling software so that:
A) all of the dependencies come with the program so you can just download one thing and run it
and
B) it has some level of sandboxing, which means you have some level of control over what the software you downloaded has access to on your machine. In theory.
So what they’re saying is that if some software you want isn’t already bundled as a flatpak, you’re going to have a hard time with bazzite, as it’s geared around making flatpaks easy, and requires more work to install things using other methods. Still works, just not as easy.
As far as i can tell, all distros are capable of doing what you want (or if there were a problem, no distro could help)
I honestly just use ubuntu, because its user friendly, has long term support builds that are well tested. Especially if you are new, use a major distro like mint or ubuntu, not cschyOS or PopOS. I personally like the gnome interface, which ships with ubuntu.
other than that: decide if you like distro hopping as a hobby, if not, just stick to a major distro and thsts that.
Check out Distrosea. Its a website where you can test different Linux distros, before installing anything.
Woah, that’s wild. If you run the browser in fullscreen mode (F11) it’s almost like you’re running it on your own machine. Pretty cool service.
Regarding the stuff you want to do: it doesn’t matter what distro you pick, they can all run the same stuff anyways.
I would recommend something Fedora-based, because that’s most people recommend. It’s very sane and user friendly. Bazzite would be the best pick imo, but the classic Fedora KDE variant is also good for most people.
All other of your questions, like gaming stuff, are (or will) be answered anyways by a dozen other people here.
But I can give you some perspective regarding CAD and video editing.
CAD on Linux sucks. Most is made as Windows only, and many people have tried running it through Wine (Bottles) or other janky methods. Don’t even try it.
FreeCAD is also not the best choice in my personal opinion, especially if you come from other CAD software. But you can try it of course, maybe you’ll like it.The only “proper” recommendation, and what I also use personally, is Onshape. It’s browser based, intuitive to use, has a good UX and many features. Downside: it’s proprietary and browser based, including all your files. If the company behind it decides to piss in your face, there is nothing that will stop them.
Video editing is a lot better.
As you already mentioned, there’s Davinci Resolve, which is available for Linux too.
I recommend you, especially if you choose Bazzite or any other distro where it isn’t available officially, to check out Distrobox and install it from there, so it won’t mess up the rest of your host OS.
But maybe try Kdenlive first. It’s a one click install and works great too, while being FOSS on top.+1 for Bazzite, I did pretty much exactly the switch you are describing a couple months ago and tried mint first but didn’t love it for gaming (problems with my Nvidia card) but have had literally no issues whatsoever with Bazzite. It just works ™
CAD on Linux sucks. Most is made as Windows only, and many people have tried running it through Wine (Bottles) or other janky methods. Don’t even try it.
How is gaming not a problem any more, but CAD is? Shouldn’t the same tools work to enable both?
There is no Valve invested in bringing CAD to the masses.
None of your requirements are distribution specific. I do all (Steam, non Steam, Kdenlive, Blender/OpenSCAD, vim/Podman, LibreOffice, Transmission) of that and I’m running Debian with an NVIDIA GPU. Consequently I can personally recommend it.
since you’re on a laptop with a dedicated nvidia GPU DO NOT use Mint, Ubuntu, or hell anything Debian based. it won’t go well for you.
As other’s have said Nobara, Bazzite, Cachy, or Pop
Isnt Pop_OS in the Debian family since its based on Ubuntu?
Deb based on nvidia always went well for me.
* Shrug *
I ran pure Devuan for a couple years on such hardware. (Besides that, all Suse, Sabayon, Gentoo, BedrockLinux, VoidLinux, all happy, did go well.).
I don’t know why people keep saying this. I wonder if it’s an old thing? I’ve got three people with dedicated Nvidia gpus on mint and they’re just fine. The driver manager just works.
Well Mint is technically fine, right? Their Nvidia support is 1st party, so it should work out of the box.
Pretty sure Ubuntu does too.
Debian, specifically, does not though. And I’m not sure how ‘behind’ Mint and Ubuntu are on their DE and Nvidia driver packages these days, which could be an issue sometimes. But I think many remember Ubuntu/Mint from older days when they were worse in this regard.
I’m using Mint with a 3060 on my PC, and my wife has Mint installed with one of the very old low powered cards, a gt 710 I think. Neither of us have had problems with them 🤷🏻♂️
Linux Mint
Don’t use fucking linux mint for playing video games, are you guys insane or just bots?
let’s go over some cons of linux mint again for the unitiated
-ancient packages -installing a separate ppa for graphics drivers that BRICKS YOUR SYSTEM if you don’t remove it before every update and then reinstall it -completely garbage dpkg based package manager that makes everything harder than it needs to be
just use nobara, endeavor, fedora, or arch if you’re feeling daring. I swear I see at least one person recommending mint to beginners for every one of these posts even though the distro is complete trash
I can’t understand why Mint is still recommended there are so many better alternatives
I am not here to defend mint, never used it, but saying that a graphic driver can brick your system is spreading misinformation.
Bricking is very serious and means that your device becomes as useful as a brick. It can happen when damaging the hardware or firmware.
It seems you had a bad experience with graphic driver, this is 99% of the time the responsibility/fault of the GPU manufacturer (I guess Nvidia for you, AMD is not that friendly either). At worse you plug a bootable USB to recover your files and reinstall Linux.
this is 11 years ago situation. there are still ppa requirements for Nvidia last time I checked but not for mesa.
I can’t read anything from that website but I trust you. It’s been a while I am away from debian based distro and digging a bit : the problem is not that you need a ppa but you want the very latest version of the driver. You can have your reasons for that.
Mesa drivers are properly packaged from debian and forks alike. Going out of this way to install package from unknown people/org has its risk indeed. If newer GPU/graphics chipset would need newer driver I still make a point that this should be the manufacturer responsibility and not community to work from opaque implementation.
Huh, I wonder what OP is using…
Sure, Pop!OS’ll likely be fine.
AntiX first sprang to mind before reading further through your list.
Mint, MXLinux, and SuSe also came to mind.
Not sure how well each and every part sought is covered. Though probably almost any distro will do.
When someone is switching from windows to Linux the first distro I recommend is Linux Mint. Mint feels similar enough to Win7 that any windows user can drop in and learn it in no time, my, tech illiterate, 76 year old mother has been trying a Mint live USB and has needed very little help.
I say start with Mint and get to know Linux, then if you want to try other distros you can, but at least you’ll have a solid foundation to jump off from.
What ever you choose, welcome to Linux!
My recommendation is, that you read ALL the other post about the same topic. Because there are plenty of answers to your question there.
