A few beginner questions about the differences between distros.
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If you had asked me Q1 a month ago, I would have said yes (and in general, it is a yes, with enough effort). But i run endeavour (arch) and my partner runs mint (which ships with the Cinnamon WM), and a few weeks ago I recommended that she try out KDE Plasma for its wayland support. Turns out, this is not something the mint community supports, you can't just install it through their software manager, and the mint forums will all tell you to switch to another distro that supports KDE. Meanwhile, on arch, I expect to be able to install it through pacman, choose it from SDDM, and I'm done. Maybe tweak something in my
.config, but it's all downhill from there.Just a datapoint. Some distros (and their communities) seem to be more receptive to experimentation than others, which can make trying new things easier/harder.
I would recommend fedora, debian, or endeavour + KDE/gnome. Good luck!
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Sure, perhaps it was the hardware, perhaps I just got unlucky. But Ubuntu worked flawlessly and thank goodness. Unfortunately this is not the kind of experience one forgets.
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That's good advice.
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I'm very new to Linux, and the two distros that seem the most appealing are Fedora and openSUSE. Do you know why Fedora gets recommended so much more often over openSUSE? I'd like to narrow down my choice between these two. If it helps, I'd like to use KDE.
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Honestly a lot of it is just momentum and familiarity although I also think US vs Europe is a factor. Linux was popular in North America first and Red Hat was one of the most successful distros early on. The fact that SUSE uses the Red Hat package manager reflects this. Fedora is backed by Red Hat, the de facto standard Enterprise Linux.
Both have their fans though and trying to argue that one is better than the other would be a war of preferences. Many people believe that Tumbleweed is the best rolling distro.
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Mostly because Fedora is more popular. I like both.
openSUSE Tumbleweed gives you much more control of what gets installed by default (you can customize every package during the GUI installer). It has been the most stable distro ive used. It is a "rolling-release" distro, meaning that packages usually get updates quicker from upstream. If you dont like getting frequent updates it may not be for you. A key feature of openSUSE distros is the system management apl Yast, which allows you to manage a lot of stuff from a GUI.
Fedora is also quite stable. I think it's more user-friendly in my experience. After Debian/Ubuntu based distros, Fedora is the most likely to have packages built for it by developers (I'm talking 1st-party builds, not repacks). Fedora is a semi-rolling release, meaning updates are frequent but not constant.
Fedora is currently my distro off choice, but I may soon use Tumbleweed again. I daily drove Tumbleweed for a year on both my general PC and my admin computer.
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If you need a replacement for full fledged Visual Studio, JetBrains has you covered. Clion for C/C++ and Rider for C#.
Visual Studio Code works great on Linux.
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It is pretty hard to find software not available in Arch / AUR.
On non-Arch distros, installing an Arch Distrobox is my favourite way to install software not found in the native repos.
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re: Distros. Tuxedo is a strange one. I'm not saying it's bad or anything, it just doesn't normally feature in these discussions. I don't know much about it, so I couldn't say if it's a good option or not, but I'm curious what drew you to it?
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The core packages, including the desktop environment are much more up-to-date than Debian. This addresses one of the core short-comings of Debian while maintaining most of its strengths. LMDE comes with Xapps as well, the core user applications.
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Love those two recs
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Wayland [...] will really mess up NVidea gaming
What? I use the proprietary drivers and Wayland just fine? What am I missing here?
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I, like many I'm sure, am taking Microsoft's discontinuation of Windows 10 support as an opportunity so switch over to Linux.
Welcome on board!
Does the distro I pick matter?
In short: Yes.
There seems to be a lot of debate around which distro is best
TL;DR: There's no distro that is best for everyone. Each individual has their own best. You just gotta find what suits you best.
but a lot of the discussion I've seen breaks down to what each distro comes packaged with
This is a thing of the past. With the excellent Distrobox, you can install any package from any distro on whatever distro you're running.
This confuses me as if a distro doesn't come prepackaged with something can you not just install it?
Even if we would disregard Distrobox, you should be able to install software that's not packaged. So, you're intuition is right.
Or is there some advantage to preinstalled packages other than mild convenience? Are some components difficult to integrate into your local environment?
Exactly. Managing software that's not packaged in any way comes with its own set of jank. So, new users are definitely discouraged. However, as mentioned previously, this whole issue is solved with Distrobox. And if you don't like CLI, BoxBuddy provides an excellent GUI and more. Again, this is mostly a solved problem.
One of the more salient differences I've seen between distros has been what the various companies and teams include aside from installed packages (such as snap and rolling out amazon search as a defult search), and the data they choose to retain/sell. Part of the reason I'm switching is due to Microsoft's forcing in of unwanted features and advertising. Is the company that owns whatever distro I choose likely to be a problem in the future? Are there particular ones to avoid/ones to keep an eye on?
So, what you're referring to is mostly a Ubuntu problem. They've made a couple of bad decisions in the past. Other than them, this is mostly non-existent.
Some peeps got question marks regarding distros like deepin, but I don't know if there's anything conclusive on this.
Lastly, some distros and/or (so-called) desktop environments might collect telemetry to improve themselves. But this is done in a way that suits free and open source software. Thankfully, if you've got problems with this, you can always turn it off.
I am the sort of person who does like to tinker with things from time to time but I do also want to use my computer most of the time so I'd like to end up using a mature distro.
So, all distros allow you to tinker. My question is: What is it you're tinkering with?
- If you just want to have complete control on how your desktop environment behaves without going into (unofficial) extensions or editing text files, then you should at least take a look at the KDE Plasma desktop environment; which is literally found on all distros and very well supported.
- If, instead, your definition of tinkering is more broad or otherwise different than what I suggested, then please feel free to elaborate.
I have identified a few frontrunners in my search but I have seen conflicting information on which of them is "mature" (sufficiently stable so I spend less time fighting my computer than I do using it as well as having a large enough community and resources to help me remedy issues I might come across). Do any of these seem like they wouldn't fit that bill? The frontrunners are: fedora, kubuntu, mint, pop and tuxedo.
- Fedora is a good pick. Though, I've been daily-driving (a) Fedora(-derivative) for almost three years now. So I might be biased
. - Regarding Kubuntu, let's just say that it's at least a controversial pick; problem being the Ubuntu part of the equation. I'd personally discourage you from going that route, but it's ultimately your choice.
- Linux Mint is cool. I'd argue it does more hand-holding than Fedora, which is great to have as a beginner.
- Pop!_OS is interesting. It has garnered a great fanbase for a good reason: System76 sells hardware with their software (i.e. Pop!_OS), so they obviously care. However, Pop!_OS has definitely seen better days. It's currently in limbo; the ambitious COSMIC desktop environment is just around the corner. But how smooth will the transition be? How much longer will Pop!_OS users have to endure with the relative lack of work put to the system they actually daily-drive? A lot of questions, but not a lot of answers. I'd personally discourage this as well.
- Tuxedo OS is similar to Pop!_OS. But where Pop!_OS first went to champion the GNOME desktop environment to later 'abandon' it for their own COSMIC. Tuxedo OS, instead, turned their eyes towards KDE Plasma. From what I've heard, it's a good pick. As TUXEDO makes hardware just like System76 does, it's unsurprising for them to care as well.
Does linux have issues interfacing with multiple monitors?
Unfortunately, I'm not very familiar with multiple monitors. The few times I did need it, which was on Fedora with GNOME, it did work well. I suppose it should be fine.
Does it handle HDR okay?
On KDE Plasma, yes. On GNOME, from what I could gather, it should work starting from GNOME 48. Which is a couple of months away. Though, IIRC, some 'GNOME-powered' distros may have tried to support HDR in its experimental stage already. On Cinnamon, what we find on Linux Mint's flagship distro, AFAIK it's not great (yet)
.In terms of UI and workflow I really don't mind putting in some time tinkering with the DE, exploring it and getting it how I like. It seems Plasma KDE might be good for this? Please let me know if this is an incorrect assessment. If it is, does it matter what DE I choose? If so, is there something you could recommend for my use case.
You hit the nail on the coffin. KDE Plasma would probably serve you best, yes. Eventually, you may want to explore Window Managers for how they could further enhance your workflow. But, let's take it easy
. One step at a time. Start with KDE Plasma. Get comfortable with Linux and the whole ecosystem. And if it so happens that you're not satiated with KDE Plasma's workflow options and you'd like to explore other possibilities, then looking into WMs is definitely a worthwhile endeavor.I have a Nvidea build (RTX 2080). I have heard this can be an issue with Linux.
Yup. It has been better lately, but thank you for bringing this up.
I also have intermediate experience with linux through university and my job (with servers) as well as tinkering with SteamOS.
Things I use/do on my PC (roughly ordered in terms of priority
- Gaming including emulation
Have you considered Bazzite?
Photoshop cs6
Out of everything, this could be a slight concern. You could make it work through Wine, and it seems to have decent results. If you're not opposed to using Photoshop CC 2021, there's this GitHub repo worth looking at as well.
davinci resolve
This is notoriously difficult to install. Thankfully, the excellent davincibox comes to the rescue. Furthermore, it's also found in the AUR and nixpkgs. Note that the Nix package manager can be installed on (almost) any distro, though it's relatively advanced.
Misc "Tinkering" (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)
Assuming this "Tinkering" is the same as the one I asked you to elaborate/clarify before, then I can inform you that most distros handle it pretty well.
Alrighty, I think you've clearly demonstrated to have done your research. Thank you for that!
FWIW, assuming that KDE Plasma is your DE of choice (at least for now) for both its (relatively mature) HDR support and tinker-friendliness, then -out of your selected distros- only Fedora and Tuxedo OS remain to be considered.
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Couldn't say anything in particular. I think I was looking for Plasma KDE default and it claims to have the stability, support and ease of use of Ubuntu while ripping out the stuff people didn't like that canonical put in.
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Copy that. Sounds like I'm off to set up a Boot USB.
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Cheers. Sounds like package management is going to be a bit of a learning experience but what isn't? Should end up being fine
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Thank you kindly. Sounds like wayland will be just dandy for me. Not married to Photoshop. It's just what I use. I'm sure I can figure my way around something else.
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If you can figure out how to make a Debian usb installer without help then you’ll be fine.
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Thanks for your comment. Sounds like KDE's the way foward. Package management sounds like it'll be part of the learning curve but nothing I can't handle.
