My current rig is featuring an I7 10th gen and a nvidia 4070ti. Is there a distro that you recommend me to use as a linux beginner that is also good for gaming and streaming, that will work with my pc parts? Because I heard that intel and nvidia are famous for causing issues on Linux.
I’ve been using Mint for almost a year now and what few problems I’ve had have been fixed with a few easy searches and a bit of forum help. Love it! :)
👆🏻 This is what I install everywhere for others that I’d need to maintain as I can leave it for 6 months and then do an update.
For more advanced users that want to play & learn, plain vanilla Arch. You learn what the hell is in your own machine.
But, as someone else said, get a feel for different desktop environments (DE) as Linux has many whereas Windows only had 1.
All you need for games can be grabbed from flathub, like what you need to grab ge proton, that and steam you are mostly set. I also use faugus launcher every once in a while. All distros support flathub, id worry more about what de you want since thats the real commitment. Marginal differences in actual usage if any, like being on bazzite, cachyos, or mint, I use the same exact apps, installed different ways sometimes.
My only 2 issues with bazzite has been that it names the computer bazzite, so my handheld with bazzite can’t use an app to share its mouse across monitors since they have the same usernames and it causes issues and my amazon handbrake doesnt work, seems to be a bazzite issue and not all of linux since their are workarounds that work for others not using bazzite.
ZorinOS or PopOS with nvidia drivers
Zorin is great for a grandma, but for someone who knows computers I think it’s too simple.
From OP’s post it sounded like they want simple / not tweaking their OS so they can focus on gaming.
Don’t get me wrong I love what Zorin is doing but I still think Bazzite is going to be much more “set it and forge it” for gaming than Zorin.
I’m also assuming OP doesn’t want a gaming-only setup / wants to actually have a general purpose use desktop too for work, etc.
Bazzite isn’t well suited as a general purpose work + gaming machine.
Are you kidding? It’s excellent as an everyday desktop! It is basically Fedora Kinoite with a bunch of quality of life stuff for gaming.
Ahh I see. Won’t the immutability impede work? I guess that depends on the type of work. But given OP is switching from Windows for first time it’s unlikely they’ll be wanting to mess that.
yeah Bazzite is also a fine gaming + typical work option
Immutability just means the system files can’t be edited easily. Basically every time you update you’re updating the entire OS all at once. Which is a good way to keep things stable while also modern!
Unless there’s an application not available via Appimage or Flatpak (“app store”), most users will never even come up against the immutability aspect.
As a Guix user, I recommend Ubuntu. If you stick with it, there are specific distros for gaming, but, Ubuntu has such a large user base it makes it very easy to get answers to questions that are specific to your distro. Ubuntu makes it easy to install nvidia and other ‘3rd party drivers’, it’ll just work. I do recommend installing software in the terminal, the Ubuntu app store I feel has some rough edges.
You’ve already gotten several good replies, and I’ll add a couple more details that might be related to your use case:
Bazzite is a “gaming distro” with built-in Steam integrations. It’s great if all you do on the machine is game and do gaming-related things, like streaming. It’s what I use on my dedicated gaming PC, under my TV. Things mostly Just Work, and I’ve only had to mess with configuration files when setting up things like wake-on-USB and my custom Network shares.
Gaming and streaming will work on basically any distro. And if you pick a distro based on Debian or Fedora, it should be stable and fairly easy to get used to.
Don’t wipe out Windows yet. Install Linux on a separate partition, or even better a separate drive. That way, you can switch off between them until you’re fully used to Linux. Let yourself transition over a few months. That way, if you struggle to do something in Linux, you can switch back over to Windows and get it done.
Some folks try to change all at once, then get frustrated if they hit a stumbling block. It’s safer to keep Windows as a backup, so you don’t feel trapped if something goes wrong.
This is what I’ve been doing, and I’ve been on Bazzite for about 4-6 weeks now. I haven’t booted my Windows drive since the first week. It’s definitely an adjustment, but I’m finding my way around. Gaming on it has been pretty easy, it’s figuring out the Linux command line that is taking me more time. Knowledge of MS-DOS is really not transferable; all the commands are different. It’s kind of like learning a new language.
But I also don’t depend on a bunch of proprietary software that won’t run on Linux, as I’d been moving away from that over the past 1-2 years. I think that’s made my transition a lot easier. My goal is to get to a point where the only proprietary stuff on my computer is video games.
I boarded my friend on arch and he took it like a champ. Beware, it has a very steep learning curve and needs patience. But otherwise, a more pre-configured distro is better. Cachy os, endeavour, or as much as hate to say, fedora.
The more important thing is the DE. I strongly suggest Plasma (kde).
Agreed. I installed kubuntu on my desktop today and I’m super happy with it. Not snaps etc but kde plasma feels like a cross between windows 7 and 10. Like you know it’s not windows but it’s close enough where you can pick it up. I’m used to openbox so it feels very different.
I forgot to mention the I DO NOT recommend ubuntu :)) but a start is a start.
I would recommend debian or MX linux instead.
Now board another friend on NixOS and break their soul :)
Don’t worry, Arch will do that over time.
I’m a Guix guy myself. So I’m boarding them on arch+guix like myself slowly 😁 l think if you have someone to walk you through, guix is pretty easy to get started with.
Fedora Kinoite or Bazzite (which is based on Fedora Kinoite).
Both are “immutable” which all you need to know means they are essentially impossible to meaningfully break.
Both use the KDE interface which is very similar to Windows and very tweak-able.
They’re very similar, but Bazzite is the one to go with if you do a lot of gaming. It’s basically the Steam Deck OS plus a little more. I’ve tested Bazzite with an Nvidia card and had no issues whatsoever and performance was nearly identical to what I was getting with Windows.
I thought Bazzite was now dying?
Yeah please elaborate?
Searching ‘bazzite development status’ on ddg barfed up This article and scrolling a bit further, saw no official or nonofficial discussion of fedoras changes (being any different for an already atomic distro??). The article is AI, and very SEO’d to be showing in the top from august last year
(Bold not added)
The future of the Bazzite Linux gaming distro hangs in the balance. While the inherent relationship with Fedora creates a symbiotic partnership, it also introduces significant challenges. To thrive in this dynamic environment, the Bazzite team must embrace proactive planning, foster a strong community, and implement smart mitigation strategies.
Nobody types this shit, I won’t lie you had me worried because I’ve very much enjoyed my experience with it so far across 3 PCs. And would be verh bummed if it came to that. But ffs this is the shit just searching for development status, and I wish sifting through this garbage wasn’t a requirement now
Really? Why though?
A recent post in here linked to this: https://ba.antheas.dev/bazzite-postmortem.html
The 4070 was released almost 3 years ago, so the driver should be decently stable and not cause that much issues, no matter the distro.
Just know that whatever distro you are choosing, it is a different workflow than Windows and it will take time to get used to it, and there will be some friction. And that’s fine. The first month is the hardest and it gets a lot easier fast.
Take a popular distro because it has a bigger user base and the chances that someone else has already fixed your issue and detailed the steps is a lot bigger than a niche distro.
If you want to easily test a few distro, take a usb key and install Ventoy on it. It will allow you to plug the usb key and drop ISO directly on it and boot from it. It will allow you to easily test distros without having to reformat the usb key each time.
I had very few issues with a GTX 970 and i7-4790k. The only issues I hear about with either any more is the linux kernel not supporting some of the features of newer GPUs (e.g. I know ray-tracing was a pain-point at one point).
I don’t like recommending distros based on such a general use case, mainly because every distro can be tweaked and configured to exactly what you want. Instead, you should research the different mainline distros that have been around for decades—Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Guix, NixOS, OpenSuse, Slackware—and see what they’re about, what sets them apart from others, what the maintainers’ philosophies are, and what kind of package management system they work with. Once one sounds better than the others, look into it and try it out.
#Dos and Don’ts:
Don’t try a niche distro. They are harder to troubleshoot and less likely to be actively maintained.
Don’t use Ubuntu. It’s just a suckier version of Debian. It used to be user-friendly Debian, but now Debian is more user-friendly than it.
Don’t dual-boot with windows. This just solidifies your reliance on windows, especially if you’re the type to give up on problem-solving issues that you didn’t have in Windows. It also can cause issues with making Linux unbootable.
Do try a live usb with persistence before you commit entirely. It’s not exactly the same as a complete install, but it’s close enough to let you know how the OS feels and what hardware will or won’t work with it. Some people say try a VM first, but that won’t have direct hardware access.
Do problem solve the little things. Anything that irks you or bothers you or just slows down your workflow. It doesn’t have to be an actual bug or glitch, just anything that could be better. This not only solidifies the feeling of ownership over your OS—you no longer have to settle for anyone else’s lousy design choices—it teaches you the resources for troubleshooting larger issues.
Do plan around things not being plug and play at first. Want to test if a game runs on Linux? Great, set aside a couple of hours beforehand: first to install steam and set it up, then to figure out Proton, then to troubleshoot the game not even booting up, then to fix any glitches or whatnot, then to get your controller working. This won’t always be the case, but it will irk you a lot less when it is if you expect it. The more you make time for solving these issues now, the less time they’ll take up in the future (either they’ll be gone, or you’ll immediately know how to fix them, or your troubleshooting will be more streamlined).
Do set aside time to learn about Linux “under the hood.” You don’t have to become a computer scientist, but it will save you a lot of headaches, show you cool things you can do, and make your computer a smoother experience. It especially helps if you take the time to learn as they come up: e.g. installer asks you what “bootloader” you want, but you’re not sure what that is, what it does, or why it’s necessary? Now’s the best time to take a little learning detour.
Do ask questions on forums.
Don’t listen to the people who shame you for asking.
Do listen to the people who try to show you a better way of doing things, even if it’s not your way.
Want to test if a game runs on Linux? Great, set aside a couple of hours beforehand: first to install steam and set it up, then to figure out Proton, then to troubleshoot the game not even booting up, then to fix any glitches or whatnot, then to get your controller working.
Alternately, install Linux Mint. Search the software store for Steam. Click Install. Let Steam do it’s first run install stuff. Sign into Steam. Click the little Penguin icon to see which games should run fine on Linux. Install some by clicking on them. Enjoy games.
It usually is this simple for any distro anymore. My advice is mostly tailored to worst-case scenarios so that people don’t get overly pissy when things don’t Just Work™
Don’t use Ubuntu. It’s just a suckier version of Debian. It used to be user-friendly Debian, but now Debian is more user-friendly than it.
As a reasonably new Linux user, who’s merrily used Kubuntu for the past year, what makes Ubuntu sucky? Aside from dabbling in Asahi and a little bit of Arch, just to see why everyone loves it (I don’t think my use-case is advanced enough to really tell the difference), my only real experience with Linux has been Mint and Kubuntu, both of which have been fine for me.
This isn’t a bad-faith query, btw, I’m genuinely interested in what the actual differences are between Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
There’s nothing I can say to convince you Ubuntu is sucky if you don’t personally experience problems with it/have the occasional “I wish I could do this, but I guess it’s not possible” thoughts—spoiler: it’s usually possible, just not with that distro; this is true for all distros though, there will always be things they cannot do that others can.
That being said, my biggest gripe with Ubuntu, besides canonical’s geologic-paced attempts to make it profit-driven (which was what I was thinking of when I mentioned user-friendliness), is Snaps. I understand the motivation behind them, but the implementation was just sucky for many nitpicky reasons that I don’t really care to enumerate rn.
I also just don’t see much value in downstream for my needs. I can basically turn Debian into a Ubuntu clone if I want to, and my packages will still largely be supported by upstream maintainers. For bespoke distros it makes sense, but those are usually ill-maintained or hobby projects that update at glacial speeds.
I’m not saying that Debian >>>>> Ubuntu. It’s better just enough that I’d recommend Debian before I would recommend Ubuntu.
People don’t like Ubuntu because they’re(Ubuntu) trying to make money with it. For end users, it’s can be a non issue because “pro” is free for 5 computers. But seeing the paywall for some is really off putting to some (myself included).
Snap really sucks and is Ubuntu’s attempt at a private garden. I hate it so much.
But yet I still use Ubuntu because it works, and if it doesn’t work there’s a post somewhere with details on how to fix it.
I’ve been using Linux off and on since Red Hat 5.2 ish era. I can handle the tech geek stuff. I just don’t want to.
+1
Hate pro, but more than that - hate Snap! Switched to Mint and couldn’t be happier, it was seamless. I already only use none of Ubuntu defaults, so switching to mint and copying my dotfiles was almost as if I didn’t even do anything. On my other machine, I just uninstalled Snap, which is close, but I feel like switching to Mint entirely would be even better. I just can’t bring myself to backup everything to do a fresh install.
I just deal with snap and don’t use it unless I have to. The pro thing is kind of stupid. I have 6 computers and vms on pro. There is no actual check preventing it from working. They have some bug where it appears like your have double the computers checking in sometimes. So when I had 5, it’d show 10 sometimes. So now it just shows 6 or 12.
Everything works fine. I’m ignoring it for now.
Someday I’ll switch, but until that day, I’m chillin’.
Ubuntu, linux mint, Bazzite… they’ll all work great. My advice? Download all ISOs into a USB with Ventoy installed in it, so you can drag and drop .iso files into the usb, and boot each live image so you can play around for a bit and see which one you like more.
Good advice on the Ventoy front. It makes trying out things very comfortable, if you have a large enough thumbdrive (>32GB).
Don’t push beginners towards immutable distros such as Bazzite though. Some things there can only be installed within distroboxes, and expecting beginners to fiddle with containers and images of other distros is way more than they should have to contend with.
As a beginner on Bazzite who’s been struggling to figure out said distroboxes (via Distroshelf), is there a good guide somewhere to them? On like, a conceptual level. I.e., when do I need to use a distrobox and why? A lot of information I’ve been finding has just been command line instructions and that’s great, but I really want to know the ‘why’ of things so I understand what I’m doing.
Very basically (ELI5):
- Bazzite is an immutable distro, meaning anything in the file system but your /home is read-only. That makes the OS pretty secure: from the user (who cannot break it by messing around), from software bugs (which cannot really take down the system with them) and from potential malware incursions.
- Nice… But how do we install software on such a system? Linux software does need write access to system directories (e.g. /bin, /lib, /etc and others) during installation, and now it can’t. So we need to work around that. Bazzite does that in two ways:
- installing Flatpaks, a special way of packaging software together with all of its dependencies and running it in a kind of sandbox, separated from the rest of the system.
- installing it inside distrobox containers (for any software that does not come as Flatpaks). These are, essentially, a separate complete Linux distro (though stripped down as much as possible) running in a sandbox. And on these we do have system level write access. If we mess up, the software messes up or it’s malware, only the distrobox will be affected, not our host machine.
You may now begin to understand why I wouldn’t recommend Bazzite to beginners: it’s a cool, but advanced concept, and you need to understand its limitations and workarounds. Otherwise, you will just be roadblocked at some point, or, like you are, hacking away on the command line without actually understanding what you’re doing. On that note, props to you for succeeding so far! But also, at the risk of sounding like a gatekeeper, it shouldn’t be that way, for two reasons:
As a beginner switching from Windows, you have enough things to familiarise yourself with: the file system structure is different (“Where’s my C:\ drive?”), software installation is different (“Wait? I don’t just download random binaries from the Internet like a caveman?”) and a lot of software is different (“Where is Paint? Where is Outlook? And where did the ribbon menu in Office go?”). You really shouldn’t have to tackle the command line to get basic functionality working.
If and when you start working on the command line, you must understand what you’re doing, because the command line assumes you do. It lets you do anything with and to your system, which makes it a very powerful tool. But powerful tools need to be handled with caution, and as you can see from your experience, Bazzite does not teach you that: it expects you to use the terminal right away, and since you can’t, you just resort to copy-pasting random commands off the internet. In Bazzite, this cannot hurt you much because of how the distro ist built. But it’s an absolutely terrible habit for new Linux users to get into. Once you switch distros and move to something else than Bazzite, just running random commands on the command line can absolutely wreck your system.
It’s definitely not something I would throw at my parents or my less tech-inclined friends. I think it’s alright for me precisely because I’m already motivated to learn the command line and this gives me more incentive. There’s more I want to do with my machine and I’ll get there, but I already feel annoyed when I have to use my work laptop (which has Windows 11 on it). I didn’t think I’d get to a point where I despise Windows File Explorer, but every time it lags I long for Dolphin, lol
I may throw Mint on my personal laptop just to get some experience with it. While I like bazzite, I absolutely see why I can’t recommend it to most people starting out. I think more software will need to run on Wine before I can convert people, though.
I started on Nobara and it’s pretty stable now, been on it for a year. I think it’s the perfect place as it’s based on Fedora so easy to look stuff up and know how to handle problems, but it auto-installs the Nvidia drivers and gets you going immediately.
They have a pretty good discord for support too!
1: You’re not yet ready for Arch and Arch derivatives (CachyOS, EndeavorOS, etc.)
2: Fedora KDE
3: Fedora KDE
4: Fedora KDE
Linux Mint is good, but it, like Ubuntu and Debian, are “vintage” linuxes that are very behind on software versions. Things are moving very fast right now with a lot of back end linux stuff changing rapidly to support more people and programs coming off Windows. Fedora is the best “middle ground” in that it’s not Arch bleeding edge, but it is also not Debian stable “vintage”.
You do need to install RPM Fusion for Fedora to go from nvidia open source driver to nvidia proprietary driver, though.
KDE is a fully featured desktop that will give you familiarity with Windows-like layouts. Some other desktops, like GNOME, tend to reinvent the wheel and have very different desktop workflows. You’ll have to boot the live discs / sticks and poke around to understand what I mean.
To make a boot disc, use an 8GB+ usb stick and rufus - https://rufus.ie/
Things are moving very fast right now with a lot of back end linux stuff changing rapidly to support more people and programs coming off Windows.
Please, indulge me. What exactly is it you’re talking about here?
Imo, not having access to the most recent Thunderbird or LibreOffice version doesn’t matter at all to beginners, making Debian-based systems perfectly viable.
Fedora KDE, on the other hand, may turn out to be an annoyance once they need to install proprietary drivers (as OP is due to their NVIDIA card).
Stay away from the “bandwagon” distros for your first time. Bazzite, Pop_OS, Cachy, etc. There’s nothing wrong with them, but a lot more people use and have been using the more established distros such as Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc. So if you run into any weird edge case issues it’s much more likely that someone else has already been there and discovered solutions. Once you’re comfortable with Linux you can start exploring the more niche distros that are better tailored to you. Have fun!
I’m not sure I agree totally. In particular for CachyOS, since it’s Arch based, most solutions for Arch also apply. The Arch wiki is a great resource, and is often the place fixes are found even when not on Arch. Also, CachyOS (and others, like Garuda) are set up to run on modern gaming hardware. They are more likely to work for Nvidia and Intel hardware I believe. Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc are great if you’re using it for an old laptop or something, but I think gamers, in particular, are likely better served by these other distros.
if you run into any weird edge case issues it’s much more likely that someone else has already been there and discovered solutions
While that is true, the amount of those weird edge cases that you’ll get varies wildly between distros. In my experience so far on a somewhat comparable rig to OP, Bazzite has been the only one that actually just worked out of the box and had not a single hickup, while any other distro I’ve tried (Pop, Fedora and Arch) all had several issues that required troubleshooting.
So, I guess, for someone willing to actually understand Linux, learn, and troubleshoot issues themselves, your advice is the way to go, but for the relative who wants their system to just work and would call me anyway at any sign of trouble, I’m recommending Bazzite (or Aurora, I guess) all the way
I’m not sure about this. I’m my experience, 90-99% of the solutions originally for Ubuntu worked for me in Pop.
Yeah, and since System76 supports Nvidia cards in their hardware, the drivers tend to work out of the box.
90-99% of the solutions originally for Ubuntu worked for me in Pop.
Yes. When I’m running Debian, Mint, or various other Debian variants, the vast majority of “Ubuntu” recipes just work.
Sometimes on Debian, itself, an Ubuntu recipe doesn’t work because some feature hasn’t made it into “Debian stable” yet. But usually it’s fine if the Ubuntu article is at least a year old.
I’d suggest getting Linux Mint or another distro with a large user base like Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse or Debian. That way if you do run into problems, there’ll be a lot of people online that can help you.
The main advantage of gaming-focused distros like Bazzite is that Nvidia’s proprietary drivers and Steam come pre-installed. However, if you’re a gamer and a streamer, you’re probably used to a little tinkering, so you should be able to install both of those by hand. (Both can be done through a GUI.) You might also get marginally better performance from these, but IMO this won’t be noticeable enough to be worth the trouble.
If you do choose to go with Mint, I recommend installing the Nvidia drivers through the “Driver Manager” and a newer kernel through the “Update Manager”.
I recommend EndeavourOS to newbies because I’m biased towards Arch. I think it’s a relatively low BS distro that gets you up and running. You also have access to the AUR which is awesome.
If that seems like too much I’ve heard Linux Mint is dead simple and stable.
I love EndeavourOS and I use it myself, but inflicting CLI package management and pacnew files on someone fresh from Windows is like throwing a baby into shark-infested oceans to teach it to swim.
My recommendation for new users is Fedora KDE:
- Almost never has any problems
- Works out of the box
- Up-to-date packages
- GUI package management and upgrades with Discover
- Lots of useful features vs. other desktop environments (such as GNOME that doesn’t even have a minimize button)
Mint is what I’d recommend for an elderly person who just needs to browse the internet and reply to emails, but for someone who needs to get work done it’s Fedora KDE all the way.
EndeavourOS meets all of those criteria except for the GUI package management which, admittedly, is unnatural to the Windows convert. However conquering that small, surmountable hump will unlock the AUR which imo is the real value add. There are many packages that are not included in standard repos that are included in the AUR. Regardless users can choose whatever they want. EndeavourOS is a great distro that is not complicated. It uses the calamares installer and ships with KDE. An afternoon of reading about how pacman works and installing yay/paru provides a great user experience and they will never have to do a system upgrade.
