My current rig is featuring an I7 10th gen and a nvidia 4070ti. Is there a distro that you recommend me to use as a linux beginner that is also good for gaming and streaming, that will work with my pc parts? Because I heard that intel and nvidia are famous for causing issues on Linux.
I had very few issues with a GTX 970 and i7-4790k. The only issues I hear about with either any more is the linux kernel not supporting some of the features of newer GPUs (e.g. I know ray-tracing was a pain-point at one point).
I don’t like recommending distros based on such a general use case, mainly because every distro can be tweaked and configured to exactly what you want. Instead, you should research the different mainline distros that have been around for decades—Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Guix, NixOS, OpenSuse, Slackware—and see what they’re about, what sets them apart from others, what the maintainers’ philosophies are, and what kind of package management system they work with. Once one sounds better than the others, look into it and try it out.
#Dos and Don’ts:
Don’t try a niche distro. They are harder to troubleshoot and less likely to be actively maintained.
Don’t use Ubuntu. It’s just a suckier version of Debian. It used to be user-friendly Debian, but now Debian is more user-friendly than it.
Don’t dual-boot with windows. This just solidifies your reliance on windows, especially if you’re the type to give up on problem-solving issues that you didn’t have in Windows. It also can cause issues with making Linux unbootable.
Do try a live usb with persistence before you commit entirely. It’s not exactly the same as a complete install, but it’s close enough to let you know how the OS feels and what hardware will or won’t work with it. Some people say try a VM first, but that won’t have direct hardware access.
Do problem solve the little things. Anything that irks you or bothers you or just slows down your workflow. It doesn’t have to be an actual bug or glitch, just anything that could be better. This not only solidifies the feeling of ownership over your OS—you no longer have to settle for anyone else’s lousy design choices—it teaches you the resources for troubleshooting larger issues.
Do plan around things not being plug and play at first. Want to test if a game runs on Linux? Great, set aside a couple of hours beforehand: first to install steam and set it up, then to figure out Proton, then to troubleshoot the game not even booting up, then to fix any glitches or whatnot, then to get your controller working. This won’t always be the case, but it will irk you a lot less when it is if you expect it. The more you make time for solving these issues now, the less time they’ll take up in the future (either they’ll be gone, or you’ll immediately know how to fix them, or your troubleshooting will be more streamlined).
Do set aside time to learn about Linux “under the hood.” You don’t have to become a computer scientist, but it will save you a lot of headaches, show you cool things you can do, and make your computer a smoother experience. It especially helps if you take the time to learn as they come up: e.g. installer asks you what “bootloader” you want, but you’re not sure what that is, what it does, or why it’s necessary? Now’s the best time to take a little learning detour.
Do ask questions on forums.
Don’t listen to the people who shame you for asking.
Do listen to the people who try to show you a better way of doing things, even if it’s not your way.
Stay away from the “bandwagon” distros for your first time. Bazzite, Pop_OS, Cachy, etc. There’s nothing wrong with them, but a lot more people use and have been using the more established distros such as Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc. So if you run into any weird edge case issues it’s much more likely that someone else has already been there and discovered solutions. Once you’re comfortable with Linux you can start exploring the more niche distros that are better tailored to you. Have fun!
I’m not sure about this. I’m my experience, 90-99% of the solutions originally for Ubuntu worked for me in Pop.
Yeah, and since System76 supports Nvidia cards in their hardware, the drivers tend to work out of the box.
if you run into any weird edge case issues it’s much more likely that someone else has already been there and discovered solutions
While that is true, the amount of those weird edge cases that you’ll get varies wildly between distros. In my experience so far on a somewhat comparable rig to OP, Bazzite has been the only one that actually just worked out of the box and had not a single hickup, while any other distro I’ve tried (Pop, Fedora and Arch) all had several issues that required troubleshooting.
So, I guess, for someone willing to actually understand Linux, learn, and troubleshoot issues themselves, your advice is the way to go, but for the relative who wants their system to just work and would call me anyway at any sign of trouble, I’m recommending Bazzite (or Aurora, I guess) all the way
Every Linux distro will work with your hardware, aside from edge case components in certain situations. There is no difference in distros for hardware compatibility, unless you’re thinking of running a very old versions of something. Anything will work.
There is also no major difference between distros for gaming performance. The only difference in “gaming” distros is that they have certain software preselected and installed. You can just do this yourself anyway.
I currently suggest Fedora for beginners because it’s dead simple. The big difference between any distro is going to be the default Desktop Environment, and you can choose whatever you want after you install anyway.
If you like Windows’ UI, give KDE a shot. If you want something more like MacOS, go for Gnome. Either work great.
If you want to try multiple, download some LiveUSB images, start em up and poke around a bit. If you change your mind after install, you can just install a different DE and switch over without needing to reinstall the entire OS.
Just use Fedora.
I’ve been using Mint for almost a year now and what few problems I’ve had have been fixed with a few easy searches and a bit of forum help. Love it! :)
Check https://bazzite.gg/
I have similar specs and use pop!_os with no problems. I’ve found it to be great for gaming.
1: You’re not yet ready for Arch and Arch derivatives (CachyOS, EndeavorOS, etc.)
2: Fedora KDE
3: Fedora KDE
4: Fedora KDE
Linux Mint is good, but it, like Ubuntu and Debian, are “vintage” linuxes that are very behind on software versions. Things are moving very fast right now with a lot of back end linux stuff changing rapidly to support more people and programs coming off Windows. Fedora is the best “middle ground” in that it’s not Arch bleeding edge, but it is also not Debian stable “vintage”.
You do need to install RPM Fusion for Fedora to go from nvidia open source driver to nvidia proprietary driver, though.
KDE is a fully featured desktop that will give you familiarity with Windows-like layouts. Some other desktops, like GNOME, tend to reinvent the wheel and have very different desktop workflows. You’ll have to boot the live discs / sticks and poke around to understand what I mean.
To make a boot disc, use an 8GB+ usb stick and rufus - https://rufus.ie/
Things are moving very fast right now with a lot of back end linux stuff changing rapidly to support more people and programs coming off Windows.
Please, indulge me. What exactly is it you’re talking about here?
Imo, not having access to the most recent Thunderbird or LibreOffice version doesn’t matter at all to beginners, making Debian-based systems perfectly viable.
Fedora KDE, on the other hand, may turn out to be an annoyance once they need to install proprietary drivers (as OP is due to their NVIDIA card).
1: WINE and Proton 2: Wayland switchover 3: Linux kernel features and fixes
I’ve been using fedora for 3 months now and second this. fedora gud.
This sounds like a good idea.
I started my Linux journey with Mint. Installation was fine and everything worked, but gaming performance was terrible. I think because not properly supporting my 9700 gre.
Then I installed nobara (fedora) and was really happy. Everything work smoothly. Also the gaming performance was at least as good as on windows. But the fact, that this distro is a small project of a single person I started too loog around for an alternative.
This led to me installing CashyOS (Arch). The setup was a little more complicated and I needed to install more additional packages, than on nobara. It has been a few weeks now, everything is working without much problems, but still… I somehow do not feel at home, like when running nobara.
I thought about switching back to nobara, but maybe fedora KDE is also an option…
Ubuntu, linux mint, Bazzite… they’ll all work great. My advice? Download all ISOs into a USB with Ventoy installed in it, so you can drag and drop .iso files into the usb, and boot each live image so you can play around for a bit and see which one you like more.
Good advice on the Ventoy front. It makes trying out things very comfortable, if you have a large enough thumbdrive (>32GB).
Don’t push beginners towards immutable distros such as Bazzite though. Some things there can only be installed within distroboxes, and expecting beginners to fiddle with containers and images of other distros is way more than they should have to contend with.
As a beginner on Bazzite who’s been struggling to figure out said distroboxes (via Distroshelf), is there a good guide somewhere to them? On like, a conceptual level. I.e., when do I need to use a distrobox and why? A lot of information I’ve been finding has just been command line instructions and that’s great, but I really want to know the ‘why’ of things so I understand what I’m doing.
Very basically (ELI5):
- Bazzite is an immutable distro, meaning anything in the file system but your /home is read-only. That makes the OS pretty secure: from the user (who cannot break it by messing around), from software bugs (which cannot really take down the system with them) and from potential malware incursions.
- Nice… But how do we install software on such a system? Linux software does need write access to system directories (e.g. /bin, /lib, /etc and others) during installation, and now it can’t. So we need to work around that. Bazzite does that in two ways:
- installing Flatpaks, a special way of packaging software together with all of its dependencies and running it in a kind of sandbox, separated from the rest of the system.
- installing it inside distrobox containers (for any software that does not come as Flatpaks). These are, essentially, a separate complete Linux distro (though stripped down as much as possible) running in a sandbox. And on these we do have system level write access. If we mess up, the software messes up or it’s malware, only the distrobox will be affected, not our host machine.
You may now begin to understand why I wouldn’t recommend Bazzite to beginners: it’s a cool, but advanced concept, and you need to understand its limitations and workarounds. Otherwise, you will just be roadblocked at some point, or, like you are, hacking away on the command line without actually understanding what you’re doing. On that note, props to you for succeeding! But also, at the risk of sounding like a gatekeeper, it shouldn’t be that way, for two reasons:
As a beginner switching from Windows, you have enough things to familiarise yourself with: the file system structure is different (“Where’s my C:\ drive?”), software installation is different (“Wait? I don’t just download random binaries from the Internet like a caveman?”) and a lot of software is different (“Where is Paint? Where is Outlook? And where did the ribbon menu in Office go?”). You really shouldn’t have to tackle the command line to get basic functionality working.
If and when you start working on the command line, you must understand what you’re doing, because the command line assumes you do. It lets you do anything with and to your system, which makes it a very powerful tool. But powerful tools need to be handled with caution, and as you can see from your experience, Bazzite does not teach you that: it expects you to use the terminal right away, and since you can’t, you just resort to copy-pasting random commands off the internet. In Bazzite, this cannot hurt you much because of how the distro ist built. But it’s an absolutely terrible habit for new Linux users to get into. Once you switch distros and move to something else than Bazzite, just running random commands on the command line can absolutely wreck your system.
It’s definitely not something I would throw at my parents or my less tech-inclined friends. I think it’s alright for me precisely because I’m already motivated to learn the command line and this gives me more incentive. There’s more I want to do with my machine and I’ll get there, but I already feel annoyed when I have to use my work laptop (which has Windows 11 on it). I didn’t think I’d get to a point where I despise Windows File Explorer, but every time it lags I long for Dolphin, lol
I may throw Mint on my personal laptop just to get some experience with it. While I like bazzite, I absolutely see why I can’t recommend it to most people starting out. I think more software will need to run on Wine before I can convert people, though.
First pick a desktop environment, currently KDE, Gnome and Cinnamon are the best.
- Gnome: Opinionated design like apple
- KDE: tons of options.
- Cinnamon: A bit fewer options than KDE but still a lot.
All of them are very robust and have a massive user base.
Then pick a base to operate on. Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint are all good options.
- Fedora and Ubuntu are good for newer hardware and 99% of the time just works.
- Mint just works all the except for newer hardware.
Nvidia GPUs are not a big issue but you have to install the proprietary driver yourself for best performance and fewest bugs.
My pick for you is something your friend uses if you have a friend on Linux otherwise Fedora KDE or Kubuntu.
I started with a Steam Deck. Now I’m running PopOS on my Framework 13 and Bazzite on a home theatre PC. I’ve had far fewer issues with them than any flavor of Windows.
I can’t go back. I won’t.
The desktop environment you choose is really down to what you prefer:
Like trackpads? Gnome
Like the Windows desktop (and/or like customization)? KDE
Like windows XP flat UI or brutally simple UI? Cinnamon/XFCE
Want to dive into the unknown cutting edge? Cosmic
I boarded my friend on arch and he took it like a champ. Beware, it has a very steep learning curve and needs patience. But otherwise, a more pre-configured distro is better. Cachy os, endeavour, or as much as hate to say, fedora.
The more important thing is the DE. I strongly suggest Plasma (kde).
Now board another friend on NixOS and break their soul :)
Don’t worry, Arch will do that over time.
I’m a Guix guy myself. So I’m boarding them on arch+guix like myself slowly 😁 l think if you have someone to walk you through, guix is pretty easy to get started with.
I’m a Guix guy myself
Oh that’s cool! I don’t meet people using Guix often. Could you tell me about your experience? Why have you chosen it? Are there enough packages? How can Guix be compared to NixOS (if you’ve used the latter)?
On the CPU side, the only Intel procs I’ve used are old enterprise gear for my homelab. No issues there.
On the GPU side, I’ve exclusively used Nvidia for… Actually I don’t remember the last time I used a non-nvidia GPU. The most common problem I’ve run into is updating my drivers and forgetting to reboot. the only other problem I’ve had is years back, I bought the latest gen card, and Nvidia hadn’t updated their official Linux drivers yet.
With your hardware, I’d expect things to work fine.
Debian, it’s 30+ years old for a reason.
