Planning to switch to Linux for my next PC
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Yeah, on immutable distros, you can't just delete system32, it is read-only (changes on restart with updates applied)
Depending on how you define immutable distros, you absolutely can.
For example with Fedora Atomic, which most peeps refer to when talking about immutable distros, you absolutely can do
rm -rf /*. At best, it might require you to include the--dont-preserve-rootflag (or something like that) to actually start the process. And, arguably, it ain't as satisfying as doing it on say Arch due to the many error messages. But you'll end up breaking your system.Immutable distros aren't indestructible by definition. Even a dumb user can break it without ill intent; I know cuz I have done so myself
. However, it does offer better protection. Furthermore, there are multiple issue trackers on GitHub that indicate that the developers want to iron out these things and perhaps convert them to features instead. Like, wouldn't it make sense for an immutable distro to 'factory-reset' whenever rm -rf /*is invoked? -
So all I know that the Linux mascot is a penguin and Arch users meme about using Arch. Jokes aside Iām planning on making to the jump to Linux as Iām planning on getting a tower PC. I recently got a steam deck and that kinda demystified the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble. This all very future oriented questions* as I havenāt even picked out hardware (probably gonna go prebuilt since I do not trust me) and thereās also the matter of saving up the money for a new PC.
As for my use case (cus I know some software is wonky on Linux compared to windows) itās mostly between games running on steam, which most of my games play fine on the steam deck, and essays and note taking for my college classes, which I use libre office and obsidian (with excalidraw to hand write my notes) saved to my proton drive and also sync those documents between my surface laptop and home laptop
My ideal OS would be plug it in, let it doā¦ thingsā¦ and itās ready to be a PC to install steam and stuff
But first question, as someone who isnāt tech inclined and tinkering is pretty much just a few VERY basic settings in the settings app on windows, so is there a Linuxā¦ idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards because like hardware, I do not trust me with setting it up. As for installing it after I wipe whatever computer I choose I assume Iām gonna have some OS installer on a USB and let it work its magic.
Second question, is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux, I canāt really think of any examples cus with installers and updaters I just the computer handle it, like updating Nvidia stuff in the GeForce app for all I know itās genuinely performing dark magic during the automated updates
Anyways I probably have way more questions that I have no idea I had, but to wrap up Iām not super tech inclined since I let automated stuff do its thang on windows (if the computer can manage and install it Iām gonna let it do that) and my pc mostly just plays games and do documents on libre office and obsidian
I'm actually going to go against the grain here and recommend that you NOT use Mint. I've been using a linux for a month now, so I'm new to it like you.
My first time trying Linux was Mint, and I didn't like it at all. There was too much crap downloaded on it, and it abstracted the underlying system too much, and I found it confusing. I suggest that you download the basis of Mint, and then install the actual stuff you want on it.
Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. I decided to go with Debian as a total noob and it makes waaay more sense to me this time around. I enjoy customizing it to my liking rather than Mint doing it all for meāoften in ways I don't like.
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Super happy with Bazzite as a gaming PC. I think only a power user might find the "immutableness" of it annoying. You can still install OS packages, it's just highly discouraged. 90% of the time you'd just be running Flatpaks (a mostly self-contained app that is easy to install and remove). I'm using it with an old-ish NVIDIA card and at first it was troublesome but I think it worked itself out after a few updates. AMD has better compatibility from what I understand.
Wow, Iām completely out of the loop as far as Linux on the desktop is concerned (run Debian on a bunch of servers, used to run Debian on a laptop as well), but Bazzite looks really cool!
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I'm actually going to go against the grain here and recommend that you NOT use Mint. I've been using a linux for a month now, so I'm new to it like you.
My first time trying Linux was Mint, and I didn't like it at all. There was too much crap downloaded on it, and it abstracted the underlying system too much, and I found it confusing. I suggest that you download the basis of Mint, and then install the actual stuff you want on it.
Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. I decided to go with Debian as a total noob and it makes waaay more sense to me this time around. I enjoy customizing it to my liking rather than Mint doing it all for meāoften in ways I don't like.
Thanks for the input, like I said though in my post Iām not really looking for something I can fiddle with but thanks for advice
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I feel itās important to note for new people that, while an immutable OS is great at keeping you from breaking your system, the way it achieves this can make some things you would want to do more difficult. In Bazzite, installing software, for example, works differently than under a typical distribution.
Iāll give the example of two pieces of software that I use regularly: 1Password and Espanso. It took a fair bit of digging to figure out how to install 1Password in a way that would preserve its tight system integrationā¦ and it still doesnāt quite work ā copying a password in particular contexts just doesnāt put that password on the clipboard, while it works fine in other contexts. Espanso on the other hand just wonāt work under Bazzite best I can tell. I havenāt found a way to install it at all so Iām just doing without. Oh My ZSH was also quite tricky, and I got yelled at in the Bazzite Discord for doing it the wrong way.
Plenty of the software I use works fine and was easy to install: FreeTube, Kdenlive, VLC, Zen Browserā¦ unless you count the fact that the 1Password browser integration just wonāt work with Zen Browser, presumably because I havenāt found the exact right combination of Flatpak permissions plus settings that will allow it to.
All this to say, I love Bazzite for gaming and use it every day, but the moment you step outside that world and want your computer to do something a little bit differently, itās a major headache. In the context of gaming, itās much closer to ājust worksā than any other distro Iāve tried.
I think a lot of the problem is every tutorial expects Fedora/RedHat/Ubuntu/Debian and itās easy to figure out which instructions are compatible with your distribution, but there isnāt a good knowledge base for Fedora Atomic or related OS. I have a Bazzite VM. Normally I use Ubuntu and am familiar with RHEL compatible, but am constantly lost with Bazzite, trying to use the wrong instructions.
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Thanks for the input, like I said though in my post Iām not really looking for something I can fiddle with but thanks for advice
I'm going to agree with you, and I've been using Linux for over 25 years, and used to moderate the Mint subreddit.
Mint isn't ready for gaming without a lot of work that I don't think you want to put in, it's Wayland support is sadly lacking, and overall it's gotten a bit behind for anything more demanding than browsing and office work.
If you want a low-fiddle distro with good gaming support and graphics tweaks already in there, I'd say Nobara or Bazzite. Bazzite is very similiar to SteamOS in that it's an immutable distro, and it is very up to date without you having to do much beyond keeping it updated. But the immutable part might make installing things a little non-intuitive. In which case, Nobara is a normally installed distro with all the tweaks, and it's based on Fedora, uses Wayland, and has pretty much all the gaming software pre-installed.
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I'm going to agree with you, and I've been using Linux for over 25 years, and used to moderate the Mint subreddit.
Mint isn't ready for gaming without a lot of work that I don't think you want to put in, it's Wayland support is sadly lacking, and overall it's gotten a bit behind for anything more demanding than browsing and office work.
If you want a low-fiddle distro with good gaming support and graphics tweaks already in there, I'd say Nobara or Bazzite. Bazzite is very similiar to SteamOS in that it's an immutable distro, and it is very up to date without you having to do much beyond keeping it updated. But the immutable part might make installing things a little non-intuitive. In which case, Nobara is a normally installed distro with all the tweaks, and it's based on Fedora, uses Wayland, and has pretty much all the gaming software pre-installed.
Well thatās quite the resume! Yeah idk if I mentioned it to you but I was planning on using bazzite first
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Good to know
FWIW, if you decide to go with KDE and manage to delete your panel, it's
- right click on the desktop
- enter edit mode
- add panel
- default panel
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FWIW, if you decide to go with KDE and manage to delete your panel, it's
- right click on the desktop
- enter edit mode
- add panel
- default panel
Good to know
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Ooooooooo that sounds nice
I might just go from Amazon depending on hardware and price but Iām definitely gonna add this to my list
If you go with Amazon you might get a PC that works with Linux but it probrally wont be preinstalled or optimized for Linux
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If you go with Amazon you might get a PC that works with Linux but it probrally wont be preinstalled or optimized for Linux
Oh I highly doubt something has Linux which is why I wanna figure out installation and stuff
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Oh I highly doubt something has Linux which is why I wanna figure out installation and stuff
Keep in mind by purchasing from Linux brands such as System76 you directly support the development of Linux. In addition Amazon is great for finding PC parts but awful for finding a decently priced prebuilt.
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So all I know that the Linux mascot is a penguin and Arch users meme about using Arch. Jokes aside Iām planning on making to the jump to Linux as Iām planning on getting a tower PC. I recently got a steam deck and that kinda demystified the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble. This all very future oriented questions* as I havenāt even picked out hardware (probably gonna go prebuilt since I do not trust me) and thereās also the matter of saving up the money for a new PC.
As for my use case (cus I know some software is wonky on Linux compared to windows) itās mostly between games running on steam, which most of my games play fine on the steam deck, and essays and note taking for my college classes, which I use libre office and obsidian (with excalidraw to hand write my notes) saved to my proton drive and also sync those documents between my surface laptop and home laptop
My ideal OS would be plug it in, let it doā¦ thingsā¦ and itās ready to be a PC to install steam and stuff
But first question, as someone who isnāt tech inclined and tinkering is pretty much just a few VERY basic settings in the settings app on windows, so is there a Linuxā¦ idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards because like hardware, I do not trust me with setting it up. As for installing it after I wipe whatever computer I choose I assume Iām gonna have some OS installer on a USB and let it work its magic.
Second question, is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux, I canāt really think of any examples cus with installers and updaters I just the computer handle it, like updating Nvidia stuff in the GeForce app for all I know itās genuinely performing dark magic during the automated updates
Anyways I probably have way more questions that I have no idea I had, but to wrap up Iām not super tech inclined since I let automated stuff do its thang on windows (if the computer can manage and install it Iām gonna let it do that) and my pc mostly just plays games and do documents on libre office and obsidian
Using Linux since 2008 ish.... (As non IT user), I recommend going and route, and using pop os (or bazzite which people say also works well but is personally haven't tried), I am currently using tuxedo os on my laptop but my pop os journey for your use case on the home machine has been the smoothest, and if you go do route which I did, I had never thought about any driver issues.... The only thing in pop (which I haven't updated for a year now, yeah life got crazy), was that always do apt get updates / upgrades as pop OS's package manager gui used to get stuck sometimes, once the terminal completes the updates then use the GUI to update the pop os things. Other than this small hiccup, never had to do anything else.
(Oh yeah when buying hardware some people told me that getting the latest and greatest cutting edge sometimes takes time for the kernel to catch up to the optimizations of drivers, but I always bought 1 or 2 gen behind the latest and never had any issues, I mostly play Indy games other than 1/or 2 like Tekken series at 2k monitor so I never cared about 4k 120 or above fps.) -
Bazzite would be a great choice in my opinion. It's meant for gaming, has drivers preinstalled and is immutable (basically impossible to break). I'd suggest using KDE because it's Windows-like and is the default for desktop mode on SteamOS.
I second this. I installed bazzite on my basement pc and am very happy with it. As a total linux noob it was easy to use. I use that pc more now than my actual gaming pc, because win 11 is just so annoying and slow.
Iād like to add one thing: Donāt use Nvidia graphics, as they donāt play nice with linux. It saves you a lot of time in the future if you build your computer with amd stuff. -
Keep in mind by purchasing from Linux brands such as System76 you directly support the development of Linux. In addition Amazon is great for finding PC parts but awful for finding a decently priced prebuilt.
Ah good to know, any recommended parts I donāt really keep up with hardware
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i have given linux to many many people at this point and neither of these things have been problems, when's the last time you used kde?
Fwiw I'm new to Linux and went with KDE and it seems totally buggy as shit. I love it though. I don't even wanna try the other desktop environments
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Ah good to know, any recommended parts I donāt really keep up with hardware
I would get a 6000 series radeon gpu and a x3d ryzen cpu
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I would get a 6000 series radeon gpu and a x3d ryzen cpu
Alright thanks! I was probably gonna make a follow up post specifally for hardware today just so I can ah more info
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I feel itās important to note for new people that, while an immutable OS is great at keeping you from breaking your system, the way it achieves this can make some things you would want to do more difficult. In Bazzite, installing software, for example, works differently than under a typical distribution.
Iāll give the example of two pieces of software that I use regularly: 1Password and Espanso. It took a fair bit of digging to figure out how to install 1Password in a way that would preserve its tight system integrationā¦ and it still doesnāt quite work ā copying a password in particular contexts just doesnāt put that password on the clipboard, while it works fine in other contexts. Espanso on the other hand just wonāt work under Bazzite best I can tell. I havenāt found a way to install it at all so Iām just doing without. Oh My ZSH was also quite tricky, and I got yelled at in the Bazzite Discord for doing it the wrong way.
Plenty of the software I use works fine and was easy to install: FreeTube, Kdenlive, VLC, Zen Browserā¦ unless you count the fact that the 1Password browser integration just wonāt work with Zen Browser, presumably because I havenāt found the exact right combination of Flatpak permissions plus settings that will allow it to.
All this to say, I love Bazzite for gaming and use it every day, but the moment you step outside that world and want your computer to do something a little bit differently, itās a major headache. In the context of gaming, itās much closer to ājust worksā than any other distro Iāve tried.
In Bazzite, installing software, for example, works differently than under a typical distribution.
This is true, but it's also on the whole a lot more familiar to a non-Linux user (open app store, search, download).
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So all I know that the Linux mascot is a penguin and Arch users meme about using Arch. Jokes aside Iām planning on making to the jump to Linux as Iām planning on getting a tower PC. I recently got a steam deck and that kinda demystified the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble. This all very future oriented questions* as I havenāt even picked out hardware (probably gonna go prebuilt since I do not trust me) and thereās also the matter of saving up the money for a new PC.
As for my use case (cus I know some software is wonky on Linux compared to windows) itās mostly between games running on steam, which most of my games play fine on the steam deck, and essays and note taking for my college classes, which I use libre office and obsidian (with excalidraw to hand write my notes) saved to my proton drive and also sync those documents between my surface laptop and home laptop
My ideal OS would be plug it in, let it doā¦ thingsā¦ and itās ready to be a PC to install steam and stuff
But first question, as someone who isnāt tech inclined and tinkering is pretty much just a few VERY basic settings in the settings app on windows, so is there a Linuxā¦ idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards because like hardware, I do not trust me with setting it up. As for installing it after I wipe whatever computer I choose I assume Iām gonna have some OS installer on a USB and let it work its magic.
Second question, is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux, I canāt really think of any examples cus with installers and updaters I just the computer handle it, like updating Nvidia stuff in the GeForce app for all I know itās genuinely performing dark magic during the automated updates
Anyways I probably have way more questions that I have no idea I had, but to wrap up Iām not super tech inclined since I let automated stuff do its thang on windows (if the computer can manage and install it Iām gonna let it do that) and my pc mostly just plays games and do documents on libre office and obsidian
Just get an all AMD (CPU & GPU) build and flash a thumb drive with Bazzite (bazzite-deck), your PC will be very similar to your Steam Deck.
I did this, best decision ever.
