Gnome and KDE are two different “desktop environments”. Each distro has a default desktop environment (DE for short), but it’s like a regular application that you can swap out for a different one that does the same thing. The DE is (roughly, I think) the graphical interface to the operating system. So it can feel like the DE is the operating system (especially on Windows or Mac, which don’t have options to change the DE).

Most Linux distros, and certainly all of the beginner friendly ones, make it relatively easy to switch to a different DE. (Or, so I’ve heard. I’ve been using Linux as my daily driver for I’ve a decade, and I barely understand what’s involve in installing a new DE.)

Same, but we knew it was going to be about tortillas didn’t we.

Oh, haha, that’s a weird bug; thanks for the tip.

Thanks!!!

Lol, that was my first thought too, but I was surprised to find that a lot of people are using other stuff, so it got me curious.

Oh yeah, the setup assistant from garuda sounds like it might be helpful for him.

Oh thanks for the endeavor recommendation. It might be a bit too much of a change for us, but I’ll let him take a look.

I know that any distro can be a gaming distro in principle, but we don’t really know what changes we should be making to improve his experience, so that’s what we’re hoping one of the gaming distros can help with. I’m fairly comfortable with what I need to do for my daily use, but not so much for games.

Thanks, yeah my impression of Wayland was similar. Curious why not flatpak steam; that’s what he was using before, and it seemed fine.

I think he wants to try something different. He was frustrated that gaming on Linux requires “so much fiddling” (the kids today truly have no idea). So he tried installing windows, and that went about as well as you could expect (I did try to warn him, but he had to see for himself). So, he’s ready to reinstall Linux, and I suggested trying a gaming distro just so he doesn’t feel like it was a total waste of time.

Cold-brewing pop user here

Another happy pop user here! The business model for system76 is basically to make a distro that works seamlessly on the hardware they sell. Side benefit: their distro also works seamlessly on a bunch of other modern hardware, and they pay a lot of attention to quality of life features that make hardware customers happy.