Welcome! I think a big thing is to realize it is a bit different and try to stick with it a while you get comfortable.
I usually keep a copy if the original system file when I edit something. Basically things in /etc.
The Arch wiki is a great resource even if you’re not using Arch.
For gaming and the occasional Windows app, if I’m not using Proton through Steam I like Lutris. Over the last several years I’ve found Windows to be far less necessary though.
Also don’t be afraid to mix things installed from your distro’s repository with Flatpaks or AppImages. I use all three types of apps with no issues. I would avoid snaps if possible though. The last few times I tried them things just didn’t work well.
I think I have a fairly good idea of where I’m going. I’ve been using my old gaming rig as a Linux self hosting server for a few months now, I’m confortable with the Terminal and SSH. Kind of understand the file structure, but not as instinctively as Windows for sure.
I’m more worried about the friction of not having every software I wish for instantly available.
For instance, I use MusicBee to listen to my music library. It’s been the case for over a decade, so I’m not sure where I’ll go.
I have to use Windows at work, and I’ve found that just about everything I use on Windows has an equal or better equivalent on Linux. I find most of the time on my work computer I miss having Linux.
Except for music management… MusicBee is really great and apparently it doesn’t work too well with wine. There are a few applications that do manage a library but I’ve found they all fall a bit short when compared to MusicBee. I’ve taken to just and old time approach of managing music with the filesystem. I also use Audacious for a touch of nostalgia since it works with Winamp 2.x skins :)
You should “distro hop” when you make a decision like this.
This is similar to having a Chevy truck and getting tired of all the problems it has had over its time with you. So you decide to look into Dodge, Ford, Toyota, etc. Of course no one wants to “hop” from vehicle to vehicle; you want to find the right truck for you now! But that’s unrealistic and your best bet is to go to different dealers, look at the different trucks, and take them for test drives.
You should be doing the same to figure out what you like, what you need, and what you want in a distro. Since 99% of them are free, install them and boot them up. Go for live installs on a USB first to give each one a try without having to go through the installation to your machine. But do know that some times, you may experience different results on live USB vs install on SSD. I experienced this with Zorin and its Nvidia drivers that allowed dual screens on live USB but didn’t when installed and I never got it set up correctly.
You’ll get a lot of recommendations here and you should take them into account and the pros that people suggest and see if they fit your specific needs/wants in an OS.
Despite what I said about my experience with Zorin, it was a pretty nice setup and a good one for someone that wants that Windows feel still but without the added Microsoft bullshit. My display issues seem to be a rarity and even despite that, I enjoyed it and have it currently installed to a Chromebook I have for any little Linux needs I need from time to time on the go.
Well, then try flatpak light be a good option, check if flatpak is installed with flatpak list, it it is, would should see a list of applications and runtimes, if thou don’t see steam there, you can easily install it with flatpak install steam
I did the windows partition at one point and I eventually told myself that I don’t need to play the games that don’t work on Linux.
But no problem in doing it.
Also I’ve been using Linux mint for years. You I’ll be tempted to hop around, but that’s part of the Linux experience, you will eventually find your “home”.
Start with something generic. Maybe not Ubuntu because of their recent hijinks. But something like Debian or Linux Mint. Just because it makes troubleshooting so much easier when because you can Google problems more easily.
Installed in the last week. Ran into an issue starting the game on EndeavourOS using Lutris without steam but quickly resolved it by deleting some of the game files so it forced a redownload.
The graphics looked fine to me using the AMD 7900 XTX in all of the menus but when I got into a match most UI elements and cards were blacked out. Switching from “ultra” to any other graphic preset fixed the colors for me.
I did not saw your comment earlier lol. I don’t remeber the error but eventually got it working with another Proton version. Thank you for your interesting in helping me though <3
Pick something basic like PopOs or Mint or whatever to start with. If youre trying to avoid distrohopping, install a virtual machine and test out distros with.
Avoiding any kind of distrohopping is kinda silly in the long term. You will want to find the distro that suits your needs best. By using a virtual machine, you can basically hop on the side, and keep a working system around til you find your goldilocks distro.
Ive been using linux for over 20 years. Ive daily driven several different distros for years at a time. If you stick with linux, you will most likely do the same.
I just did it about 2 months ago with my two laptops.
One (I use for work, self employed) I installed Manjaro, had a few hiccups in the first 2-3 weeks (some due my inexperience, some I assume is manjaro but i don’t really know), anyway now it is stable and working fine.
The other one I use for gaming I installed Garuda, also arch based but with focus in games, so it comes with a lot of stuff you will need for my gaming on linux pre-installed and so far it is great. As insane as it sounds some games that are windows only now run better on my garuda than when I was on windows lol.
The main diference I noticed is Linux sometimes is not for the faint of heart, you have to have both good reason and some commitment to use it (in my case it is also ideological, otherwise I would have stayed in win10 until EOL).
It is true that it makes better use of your hardware (with Nvidia it is complicated… both my laptops have nvidia GPUs) but there is also a learning curve.
The community have some genuine amazing people and some assholes. ignore the assholes and payback the good ones by teaching newcomers when you have earned some xp :)
If possible, maybe try dual booting a Windows install just to test if the games run better there. If they do, it’s probably a problem with your system or your configuration, but if not, it’s likely your hardware. Might also want to look at your BIOS settings and see if something somehow got reset there, like your RAM clock.
Nobara is pretty good for a “just works” gaming-centric distro. The issue that you’re coming across is plain and simple, PopOS is severly outdated. Most of System76’s dev team are likely working on COSMIC.
If you want the absolute most, contiuously up-to-date packages, then I can’t recommend anything other than Arch. I’ve used it as my daily driver for a little over 2 years now and I’ve always come crawling back if I try something else. Gaming on it isn’t a hassle, most of the time it just works, not to be a stereotypical Arch user but do read the Wiki. Arch was also my first ever distro, a friend got me into it.
If Arch is a bit dawnting for you then something Arch-based is just as good, from experience I recommend EndeavourOS. Do not use Manjaro.
On my gaming rig I run and love Garuda, which is also based on Arch. I’m technical enough to handle Arch but I don’t like having to search around a bunch to figure out which combination of packages I need to make certain things work. Garuda comes with a ton of stuff preinstalled, which makes it a lot less lean than Endeavour, but I think they generally make good choices for default settings (I love their Fish terminal setup), and things like Nvidia drivers and configuration backups through btrfs snapshots just work out of the box.
For gaming I think Garuda or Nobara are the best bets, personally.
I disagree, it just does the steps in the manual for you. You still need to know what’s happening.
I tried using it, got a bunch of python stack traces and eventually decided to do it manually. The reason why it failed was that windows put my EFI partition onto a different drive than itself.
An installer needs to catch stuff like that, so archinstall is beta at best.
It’s windows. It always does absolutely asinine shit like this. It’s only getting worse as time goes on, so the earlier you switch to a proper OS, the better.
Tell me if I'm wrong or that's not what you meant. But your Nvidia problem should go away as soon as you use nvidia-dkms (or nvidia-open-dkms) instead of the regular nvidia package (or nvidia-open). I haven't had any problems (of that kind) in a long time.
I did my personal yearly “year of the linux distro” litmus test with Nobara and I had many problems tbh, two of the most notable ones were fullscreen video stuttering and shader cache stutters.
So I was like, we are getting close, but I am not sold.
Then I decided to try arch and shit just works tbh, basically no issues with stuff I play usually, the biggest struggle was getting Battle.net up and all it took was changing proton version on steam to get it installing.
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