Planning to switch to Linux for my next PC
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I really like fedora out of the box but if you’re used to windows some will recommend Linux mint. In fedora there are a lot of packages installable via the software store as well as downloading app images and RPM files.
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So I think I’ll look at mint then considering I have no idea what you mean by RPM files but app images ring a bell when I was getting yuzu set up on my steam deck
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Mint vs fedora is completely irrelevant here.
GNOME vs KDE is more important and fedora supports both.Which packages can be installed is also completely irrelevant since you can use nix and distrobox and flatpaks on all distros. Package availability is no reason to choose one distro over another.
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Agreed here. On CPU side, don’t go with Intel 13th or 14 th gen, mostly due to the manufacturing defects, check gamers nexus on YouTube if you want to catch back up to speed, the new Intel stuff is fine manufacturing wise, terrible performance, check if the prices are good. GPU, NVIDIA usually has kinkier/ more annoying drivers, but if you want to play with AI or anything like that, NVIDIA is still better.
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So nothing in that sentence made sense to me lol, mind explaining?
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If you have time to learn how your distro works: Archlinux. If you just want to easily install a distro and everything just works: Linux Mint.
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Some distro's still require you to setup those things yourself and in the terminal.
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Definitely go Linux Mint. Especially if it's your first time with Linux.
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Try Bazzite:
It will give you an experience that's familiar compared to the Steam Deck, and everything will "just work" out of the box.
It already has Steam installed and is a great desktop for general use.
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Yeah I’m kinda looking for a “it just works” since I’m not big on tweaking every little thing and I just really wanna play games and work on my documents
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if you liked the design of older style windows (think like windows XP), you could look into Q4OS. I use it for my laptop and it's Debian based so you will have pretty decent support applications wise and it has a pretty simple UI. I had never heard of it prior to a few months ago but I have had no issues with it.
Being said, I can't remember if it has UnattendedUpgrades by default, but that program can be configured on any debian based system to allow for automatic updates. It does take a little bit of configuration if it isn't pre-installed though.
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From the post:
But first question, as someone who isn’t tech inclined and tinkering [...] that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards because like hardware
Don't recommend Arch to users who doesn't want to tinker please. I know, I use Arch. Arch regularly requires user intervention, you should see them on the news: https://archlinux.org/news/ You can see, 3-4 times a year you have to fiddle with some settings, otherwise you can get an unbootable system.
And that's how we get "the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble."
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The difference between distros are the package manager and choice of default software and settings.
E.g. Debian has no wifi enabled. Hence, ubuntu (which is like debian) is much easier because it's user friendly. Ubuntu uses a disliked packaging format, snap, which is not used by mint. That's why people love mint, becaus it's as easy as ubuntu and has no snaps. Blablabla
Whenever you want to know some linux thing, read the arch wiki and you'll know more about it.
Distrobox is like a vm, you spin up a distro within your OS with no overhead and can use arch on debian. Or ubuntu on arch. Or fedora on opensuse, or all at the same time because why not?
I'd try https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/ or https://vanillaos.org/ and install most apps as flatpaks. Vanilla is like ubuntu but you don't mess with the underlying system. Atomic fedora is "the same" but with fedora style. Problems arise at the dev level, not the user level. It should be good to go on your system
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But keep in mind Mint is a non rolling distro, it means you have to upgrade to a newer Version in a periodic time (like win XP to win vista). Rolling release distro (like Arch) doesnt have a Version.
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Pro tip is to install a virtual machine like virtualbox or something on your Windows system. They're super easy to set up with loads of tutorials on youtube.
From there you can install any number of linux distros (I recommend Mint or Pop!) and try them out without having to commit to real hardware. I would put the VM in fullscreen and pretend it was a real system, and use it as my dedicated machine for as long as possible. You can even install steam to get a feel of the setup process (bear in mind you'll need to set up stuff for graphics acceleration to play most games but the basic setup should be fine!)
At that point you won't be wondering if youve made the right choice when it comes to your next build, and you can get right down to actually using your PC instead of googling things. Good luck!
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There are also "easy" Arch like endeavour or cachy, but yeah, for users like him is Arch based not the best choice
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I also recommend Linux Mint. It's been hands down the best experience of all the Linux distros I've tried.
The installation is done with a USB stick. In short, you download the Linux iso image and create a bootable USB stick with a software. In Windows I have always used Rufus for that.
The Linux installer gives you a choise to wipe everything and install Linux. Installing Mint has always been very straight forward.
I can't comment on hardware since I've only used Linux on +5 year old laptops. They seem to work fine.
There most likely will be many new things that can feel confusing in the beginning, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. There also are tons of good tutorials of everything.
Best of luck to your Linux project!
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Distro - System level stuff. A "type" of linux. Mint, Fedora, Arch, Ubuntu etc.
DE (Desktop environment) - Surface level stuff, i.e. how it looks, behaves, and often what default apps you use for basic stuff like text editing. Gnome, KDE, etc.
Distros have a default DE but often provide different versions using others for people who prefer them.
You likely won't need to interact with any of that other stuff except flatpaks. Just think of it as a form of distributing and running software.
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You can just buy a system with Linux preinstalled. Laptop is from System76. I usually build desktops/towers from scratch but they sell those too.
Installing apps has always been easier on Linux then on Windows as Linux has had large free app stores back 30 years. The question is more are the apps you want in the app store. If not things get harder. I like Debian based distros like Ubuntu or Linux Mint as they have large app stores.
You might want to look at distrowatch.com. Mint is currently at the top.
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Good point. I still use what it came with, gnome, but kde is more windows like
