Check your games’ compatibilty first on protondb if they’re not specifically made for Linux, so you know what to expect.
If your mind is set for Arch, go for it, it has an installer these days, but consider some other distributions of Linux that are easier for a novice user. Reserve some time to install a few, if you don’t like the first one or it’s not working out then you can just move on to the next.
Stick to the big ones, because you’ll be able to get the most support for then and find the most information about them.
Linux generally works with software repositories that will contain most of the software you’ll ever need. You rarely need to search for software on websites to install manually.
If you like to get the latest versions of software as it is released, consider OpenSUSE Tumbleweed or Arch Linux. They are so called rolling releases. They are not tied down to versions, like Windows, but perpetually update their building blocks as time goes on. Your version is always the latest version.
If you like a more traditional approach with stable releases, consider distros such as Ubuntu or Fedora. Twice per year they bring out a new version (with software updates regularly still) but they tend to stick to large point releases of the software they are built on. You can expect things to work as they are until you install the next version of the distro. In this sense stability means that features generally don’t change. You still get security patches nevertheless. If you don’t like to update the entire system every 6 months you can choose to use their “long term support” versions instead. This will feel the most like new Windows versions, only you’ll get to see the rolling distros on newer cooler stuff, “beta-testing” all the things before your distro’s next LTS rolls them out. I’m starting to digress here.
I never bothered with distros that are built around specific niches, like “gaming distros”. If that maintainer stops you’ll need to switch distros anyway.
I can recommend rolling releases, always have the latest version of everything, as far as the maintainers of your distro can keep up (in which case it helps to go with a large well known distro with lots of maintainers).
Flatpak is fast, lightweight actual open-source and provides security via isolation. Snap is the usual BS Canonical tries to get people to use, has a ton of bloat.
Personally I’ve had zero issues with Flatpak under Debian for desktop usage. It integrates nicely with the GNOME Software “store” and allows you to get the latest and best of everything you might need without polluting your system. Flatpak solves the usual complaints about Debian only having “old” software - allows you to run the latest and greatest while keeping a clean and rock solid Debian system underneath.
I’ve been running Nobara, based on Fedora but with a bunch of tweaks specific to gaming. So far so good. I was using Mint but needed a newer kernel to support my (Ed: AMD) graphics card.
I have a fairly opinionated stance on this. Except in your sudo example where you’re specifically using sudo for a reason, I document all commands as non-root, and do not instruct them to raise privs. Whether or not they have, want or need privs, and how they raise them, is their system not mine.
It’s not exactly user friendly, but I don’t like to encourage people to blindly copy & paste commands that raise privs. That should be a conscious decision where they stop and ask themselves if & why it’s necessary.
Why? Because it works and is reliable. I’ve been using Opensuse now for ten years on a server and it updated through all the releases over the years without problems. The machine is getting retired now, though. But the replacement will get Leap again for sure.
Well I’m sticking with it for a while at least. Usually I don’t need to Google much to get a Distro going but for once in a long while a lot of things feel new. And that’s always been fun.
Maybe eventually I’ll get my servers switched from Debian if I get used to it
What SteamOS uses is largely irrelevant to the end user as Valve likely uses it as a base to build and test the versions of SteamOS that make it out. What ships out is likely not the same as running the latest Arch. Kinda like using AOSP because Samsung uses AOSP to build their Android OS.
But to be fair, openSUSE was my first linux distro after Windows and YaST had been helpful to me before I learned how to use console commands. And then I switched to another distro.
It’s not exactly a gaming mouse, but I recently got a Glorious Model O and it works just fine on Linux, wired or wireless. OpenRGB works with it too. The mouse itself is lightweight, comfortable, and accurate, which is all I need. I thought I would miss having a bunch of thumb buttons (this one has two) but I don’t.
The scroll wheel is fine, but honestly the one feature I do miss from my old Logitech was a button I could click that put the scroll wheel into free wheel mode where it would spin instead of ratcheting. If Glorious made a mouse with that I would probably buy it tomorrow
I also have a Glorious, in my case a Model I (because I have small hands on long fingers). Love the shape, its very comfortable, and how light weight it is. I like it more than my previous Logitech mouse. And the Glorious just works.
People have already made lots of good replies but here’s my summary:
tmux is a terminal multiplexer. It allows multitasking in command line only environments. For example if you have to do a sudo apt upgrade but don’t want to leave your ssh client logged in until it finishes, you can run it in a tmux session so it will happen in the background even if you’re not logged in.
To start a new session, type “tmux”
To view running sessions, type “tmux list-sessions”
To switch to a running session, type “tmux attach-session -c N” where N is the number of the session.
To exit a tmux terminal and go back to the main terminal, do ctrl+b and then press d.
Maybe a slightly controversial stance, but consider straight Debian. With flatpak support in both Plasma and Gnome being stellar, you can have up-to-date apps with a rock solid base that runs on almost anything.
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