Any distro I should use?

  • Ramin Honary@lemmy.ml
    1·
    11 months ago

    I have a blog article about this. Here is the short version:

    I can tell you how not to choose a distro: what its screenshots look like or what its default desktop environment is. Many begin shopping around for a distro that suits them best, which means visiting a website like DistroWatch.com, looking at the various screen shots, and picking one that looks nice. But any Linux distro can be made to look like any other distro without too much effort, what you see in the screen shots is just the default look. Really, the the screen shots should be the least of your concerns.

    So don’t worry about Xfce, KDE, Gnome, LXDE, LXQt or whatever else right now, you can try all of those in good time. First, just get Linux and, worry about figuring out which apps that you can get that work best for your work flow. Almost none of the apps you use now are available in Linux, the hardest part is figuring out how to replace the apps you use daily right now.

    You should choose the distribution with the best web service, and the best apps.

    • Is the service reliable? Do they have a good team of people making sure the packages are always online, and making sure they are providing timely security updates?

    • Do they have corporate, or non-profit, sources of funding? Do you trust the people who are running it?

    • Do they have the apps you want, are the apps up to date? Do they have things you need, like word processing, presentation software, photo scrap booking, file sharing, video editing, music editing, personal organizers, video conferencing (can you install Zoom, for example?). Can you easily install Flatpaks or AppImages?

    Many of the really big Linux distros all provide completely reliable service, which satisfy the above requirements, but I recommend any of the following four:

    • Mint
    • Fedora
    • Ubuntu
    • Pop!_OS

    Mint and Fedora are community-run with backing from various sponsors, Ubuntu is run by the Canonical corporation, Pop!_OS is developed by the System 76 company (a medium sized US-based business that sells laptops and PCs).

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Mint is my recommendation, having using it myself for many years now.

    If you have a Nvidia GPU, a case could be made for POP! due to the built in drivers, but installing Nvidia drivers is rather painless in Mint.

  • the16bitgamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    11 months ago

    From my experience, download many distros from Linux Mint to Zorin, maybe Fedora and OpenSuse if you want something non Ubuntu bases, or Manjaro and Endeavor OS if you are up for a challenge.

    Then install them in a Virtual Machine like Virtual Box. This way you can test which OS you like, and see if the software you want works.

    In my experience the Desktop Environment makes the biggest impact on your user experience.

    Followed by the package manager (app store)

    Then available software (steam lutris libre office)

    Finally the terminal for when things go south (or you installed arch)

    • Bransons404@lemmy.world
      0·
      11 months ago

      I’ve been wanting to do this for years, and tried several years ago but my AMD graphics card didn’t have available drivers. I now have an rtx 2070 super, do you know if it’s compatible?

      I saw in a comment above that mint cinnamon is great for gaming, does that use wine or something similar? The gaming aspect is really holding me back.

      Also slight concern with my dev environment but I’m sure that’s been solved 100 different ways.

      • the16bitgamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        Drivers. I’ve yet to run across any major issues except for Intel Compute not working with Davinci Resolve but that’s well documented.

        Now for gaming on Linux. There are 2 ways to game on Linux.

        1. Native ports. Most valve games and some third parties (mostly indie) are natively compatible. I’ve had no issues playing these ports and they run like any other application.

        2. Windows Compatibility Layer. Now asking for 20+ year old games to be ported to Linux is a bit of an ask. Let alone asking devs to add Linux support to their games when Linux had such a small install base.

        So what some very smart devs did, was make 2 pieces of software that makes playing native Windows games on Linux possible.

        WINE, or WIne Is Not an Emulator, is a compatibility layer to run native Windows Software in Linux. With a primary focus on Windows System Calls. Gaming in wine isn’t graphically the best.

        Then there is DXVK, or Direct X to Vulkan compatibility layer, which translates DX9-DX11 code to the open source Vulkan that runs in Linux. Intel’s Arc graphics uses this for their legacy compatibility.

        Now you don’t need to worry about installing any of this since Valve packages these apps, and some choice software like .Net Runtime in a package called Proton. This is a checkbox in Steam and when Steam Play is enabled, the Windows versions of games will be installed and will work.

        Compatibility is very good at this point but there are edge cases that still need to be ironed out. Like anti cheat, DRM, and more.

        Lutris is another prices of software that can be used like Steam Play but for non steam games. Its also good, but can be fiddly.

        Install process is no more involved than actual Windows, but when a Ubisoft game crashes it won’t take your entire machine down with it.