A few beginner questions about the differences between distros.
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You already have great answers, so I'll just drop my recommendations. LMDE if you want something more stable, and Endeavour OS if you want to go a bit more in the weeds with a rolling release.
In the end, don't be afraid to try some for a few weeks and find one you like. One of the strength of Linux is that if you mess up, you can always reinstall,and it's not scary since you did it once already.
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Distros packaging software means that it is available to install with the package manager from their repositories. No distro provides every piece of software out there. This can be mitigated with Flatpak, Snap, GUIX, AppImage or, in a pinch, by compiling the required program yourself.
Sounds like you've already done most of the work. From what you've said, Fedora with Plasma sounds great for your use case. Good luck on your journey and glad to have you aboard!
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So I don't really have experience with the gaming aspect as I pretty much get what I want from a steamdeck. I think its likely you would want to go with one of those (a gaming setup someone else suggests) or dual boot to have your gaming system and your doing other things setup. Just in case I will mention the one I use called zorin. It is based on ubuntu with gnome and its main claim to fame is its an out of the box distro that tries to emulate windows (other systems to but the paid for version unlocks that. its default is a general windows type experience). Out of the box means it has foss office, video file viewing, audio file listening, image file viewer, browser of course, rdp client, mail client, calendar, contacts, also image,video,audio file creation and editing, optical disk copier/image creator, wine with play on linux so that you can right click a windows executable and run it and such. It does non free software things like nvidia drivers right off the bat. Its great for an install and get going right away type of thing. Its always a bit out of date because its emphasis is stable, just works, get going type of thing. I have a few complaints. Mainly it does not have the windows key, right arrow thing to half screen by default. It could be a stability thing that they don't want to mess with the compiz or whatnot. Then the other thing is I find the software gui interface it have an aweful search for getting more software so either just use apt at the command line or download the .deb installation file which things like various browsers have as a linux option for download and then its really just like adding one to windows or mac. download and run the installation.
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When you mention Visual Studio, do you mean VSCode or Visual Studio. Cus VSCode is supported on Linux but Visual Studio is not. Confusing right?
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For a distro, I recommend Fedora KDE Spin. Fedora is beginner friendly, is widely supported, frequent updates (so less outdated packages), rock solid stable, works with gaming or anything else.
People recommend Linux Mint often, but I am just not a fan of how outdated the system is and its reliance on X11 (deprecated and insecure display server). I've daily driven mint before for like a year and it was good but I'm not a fan of cinnamon DE.
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Fedora Silverblue was VERY easy to install. I opted to go the GNOME route but its been great so far as a former windows user. I rebased from Fedora to Bazzite and it was dead simple. Been on Bazzite for a couple months now and have had no major issues. Figuring out my printer drivers was a bit tedious but it worked the first time once I got the process figured out.
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Bazzite is great Fedora-Atomic-based distro, especially for nvidia users. I had a friend move to Linux and that was the distro that worked. But in general, if someone is a programmer/Dev, they want to learn how to use Linux, or just install a lot of packages, I'd avoid Atomic.
Don't get me wrong, I use Atomic. But it isn't as straight forward as a traditional distro.
The equivalent of Bazzite but traditional Fedora is Nobara
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So you like tinkering? Just install Arch and go wild /s
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Okay, people have said many good things so far, so I won't add much. Simply one thing: take one problem at a time.
By this I rather mean, make your life easier, and only progressively deal with more complicated things. When it comes to distro choice, this would mean picking something with plenty of default installed packages (since you won't necessarily know what to install yourself) — this rules out my beloved openSUSE Tumbleweed as well as the popular Fedora and Debian — something that will play nice with NVidia (Desktop Environments use display managers/servers, the two most common being Wayland and X11; Wayland is better, but unfortunately will really mess up NVidia gaming, so try to stick to X11 for now — you can always switch later!), and, lastly, something with a large community (and by extension a large help forum and wiki).
I never thought I'd hear myself (see myself?) saying this (typing this!?), but Mint checks all those boxes.
I wouldn't recommend staying with Mint for long (though some people claim to enjoy it...), but as a first distro to introduce you to Linux, it really may be the easiest. Using a different DE is already difficult, don't overwhelm yourself from the get-go!
Alright, that ended up being longer than expected. I wish you the best of luck, and a lot of fun on your approaching Journey!
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That's weird, I've made over 20 fresh debian installs and they were all successful without such glitch. The commandline installer is more stable though. (had a few displaying distorted screen in gui mode for some reason)
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i've never used linux mint and i'm curious, how does it differentiate from debian? Might not matter much, but i recall hearing they have their own package with the xedit name so one can't install the original xedit and that's not really great packaging.
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I'll answer point by point, but the short answer is pick one and use it, if you have issues with it or want to try something different, switch, otherwise stick with it.
- Your understanding is mostly correct. There's the difference that each distro has a family tree which determines which package manager they use, Red hat based distros like Fedora use rpm, Debian based distros like Mint, Pop or Kubuntu use apt, etc. So it would be easier to switch from Mint to Kubuntu than from Fedora to Pop although not by much. The main difference between distros is philosophy, which honestly you shouldn't care too much currently as long as you aim at something beginner friendly.
- Probably not something to worry about, and if it comes to that you can just jump to another distro, trust me once you're familiar with Linux the distro matters less and less.
- Any of them (except for tuxedo which might be a good option but I don't know it) would be a good option. Personally I would recommend Mint, or at least a Debian based one since 3 of the ones you suggested are Debian based it would give you more options to switch easily if needed.
- It should, but your mileage might vary
- Any of them should be good for that, KDE/Plasma is a bit similar to Windows while also being very eye candy, so it's a good choice. Also it's the one used on the Steam Deck so you might be somewhat familiar with it already.
Extra: Nvidia should be fine as long as you use the official proprietary drivers (named
nvidia, NOTnouveau). Photoshop doesn't work on Linux, so you might need to jump through hoops there, if it's not a hard requirement I suggest looking at Gimp for photo manipulation or Krista for drawing, good luck either way since it's uphill battle either way, one against Adobe anti-piracy measures and the other against an unfamiliar software. -
try a bunch in live usbs and see for yourself
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OP just bear in mind that gimp has a fraction of the functionality of Photoshop. So depending on whether you are power user or not, that may matter. If you just need basic image manipulation and then some, then it will do the job.
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The main reason for Ubuntu against Debian is the packages. For Ubuntu, they're much newer, and with PPAs (launchpad.net), you can often get more and/or newer packages built by other users. For debian, good luck, you're stuck with old packages (which is the intent of Debian stable, but not nice as a user, that's for server)
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Distros matter. Maybe less than you think.
For the most part, they all run the same software, including the desktop environment (user experience).
So, in many ways, choosing your distro is mostly choosing how it comes out of the box and how much work it will be to configure it how you want after the fact. Some distros will be closer to what you want out of the box. But you can basically turn any distro into any other distro with a little effort.
That said, some choices do run a bit deeper and are a lot harder to change. Package manager, init system, C library, and others are pretty baked in.
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If you do not want your distro to force changes down your throat like Microsoft, maybe avoid Ubuntu.
“Stability” on Linux means two things. “Stable” distros like Debian or RHEL change their software infrequently. This is indeed stable. However, you will likely be unhappy with the old software and want to install newer stuff. Many of the ways this is done will cause actual instability (bugs and crashes). Also, old software may be missing features or hardware support. If you are a gamer for example, this could be a big deal—especially if you use NVIDIA.
Things are a bit better than they used to be with tech like Distrobox and Flatpak.
The frequently updated distros can actually be “more stable” for the same reasons as above. However, every once in a while some package is going to have a bug that may hit you before it is found. Arch or EOS are examples of such distros.
Distros that fall in the middle, like Mint or Fedora, are what I would recommend for a new user. Compared to Windows, you will find them very tinker friendly and tweakable.
HDR is very, very new and is part of a change in core graphics tech from something called X11 to something called Wayland. From this point forward, Wayland is the better bet but, today, the quality of your experience is going to be very dependent of the “age of your software” issue above. For Wayland, you want very up-to-date versions.
KDE Plasma is the most mature Wayland environments today, in my assessment. Others are coming along quickly.
Photoshop is going to be a problem for you. The most often recommended replacement for PS is GIMP. Unfortunately, GIMP has been on the verge of a major update for years. GIMP 3 has not shipped yet and most distros ship a far older version (2.10). Version 3 is a massive upgrade. However, you still find it an unsatisfactory PS replacement. Some people use Photopea online.
Gaming on Linux works really well now. However, multi-player anti-cheat systems are Windows kernel only and so these games are going to be a problem. So, your experience will depend on what you play.
The other stuff on your list will work well. Linux of course has a lot more to offer, especially if you are a dev.
Good luck!
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None of that matters.
You need experience, not recommendations.
Install anything and play with it to learn.
If you will not go forward without a recommendation, Debian is fine and anything you learn will generally transfer to other distributions.
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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.
