Going to Linux and would like suggestions

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Chris_84

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Hello everybody!
I'm a windows 10 user who's making the switch to Linux. My reasons are 1) Windows sucks, 2) Microsoft is spying on me and I don't like that, and 3) Linux distros seem to be more stable and just better all around.

I've got a tower with a Ryzen 5 and a Geforce 3080TI in it. I've read here and there that there are compatibility issues between linux and nvidia drivers, but I'm far from an expert on the matter. What I'm looking for is a distro that will allow me to game without going to too much trouble to make everything work. I'm not opposed to running a VM with windows if needed, but I'd rather not have to go to that kind of work. I also have a Surface tablet on which I'd also like to install the same distro, though my main goal is to use something like Sync so that I could have certain folders and files shared between the two.

My experience with windows consists of running ubuntu off a thumb drive as a trial and building a slackware laptop. I'm not opposed to using a distro like Arch and building it up since I have experience builidng a distro from the ground up, but if there's a distro that's ready made, I'll take it.

Thank you
 


Hello @Chris_84
Welcome to the Linux.org forum, enjoy!
My best advise is to try several distros live and see which one you like the best , which one works with your hardware and will accomplish your desires.
 
Hi Chris.
Very good reasons for making the switch! Which ever distro you decide on, welcome to the Linux world. It's full of seemingly never ending options and preferences. It does take some time at first, but after a bit, it's fun to relax with coffee and enjoy Linux freedom. I been using Linux since the internet got started. I'm still no guru and get puzzled all the time with my fiddling. Backups are your best friend, especially in the beginning as you tweak and experiment. I can say, I've never had any real issues with my Nvidia card with Linux. There were lots troubles long ago, but mostly all is good these days I think.
 
Welcome To The Forums! I Hear a lot about Fedora-Based distros for compatibility, but I can't vouch personally as I use Kubuntu and Lubuntu. As for the Surface, If I may ask what Pro (or Go) do you run? I also run on a surface as my fully "Main" PC and usually require a special kernel from Github to get touch/cameras and sometimes keyboard to work- https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface.

It all depends on what kind of Surface you run on.
 
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If you need propriety drivers for your GeForce card we have plenty of members who can talk you through it [depending on your choice of distribution]
as for choosing a distribution see links below.
 
Thank you, everybody, for the warm welcomes and the tips so far. I think something like Pop!_OS would be a good place to start. I'm going to build a virtual machine with it once I get enough free time to get to it since its a distro that's built for gaming and has gpu support out of the box. My ego wants to build an arch machine but that feels way too advanced of a starting point, even though I've dabbled with slackware.

@Rocketing-warp9 I've got a Surface Pro 5. I'd really like a distro that can handle touch screens out of the box, though the bigger priority is ensuring that it's keyboard will work as well; I'm not sure if the driver support is different considering the physical port it uses. I'll be using syncthing on both of these devices as well, but I don't anticipate a compatibility issue.
 
With our devices, (especially 7+) you usually need that kernel to get started with full touch support. It's how MS Built them with their own controllers, so the community had to reverse-engineer them to get the basics. Thankfully, your surface lies in the "Golden Zone" of compatibility where most features would work easier. I personally use Kubuntu 25.10 on mine, but Fedora is worth looking at, and might get you better results as I hear much about their driver support. I can't vouch personally, though as I have not used it yet.
If you want more info, just let me know!
 
Chris_84 said:
though my main goal is to use something like Sync so that I could have certain folders and files shared between the two.
Click to expand...
Seems like something Syncthing could help with.

Personally, for new users I'd recommend Linux Mint or Zorin. It's all up to user preference, distrohopping exists for a reason :D
I'm not qualified enough to speak on these things, though.
 
I also have an Nvidia GPU and I run games almost every day. I can't tell you what distro to choose but personally I started with Ubuntu. It's quite user friendly and handles Nvidia drivers automatically during setup. I haven't encountered a game I couldn't run yet although a few required a bit of troubleshooting. I would recommend looking up the various distros and reading up on what they're about. They all have slightly different objectives so you'll no doubt find one that fits you.
 
@Chris_84 :-

I'm no expert to be giving advice about distros! I "found" 'Puppy' Linux nearly 13 years ago, fell in love with its quirky nature & have basically been there ever since. I may not have personal experience of the majority of mainstream distros, but that doesn't mean I don't read about & keep abreast of developments...

I feel this needs saying. From what I understand, Pop_OS! is NOT a good place to start....for the simple reason that it's built specifically to work with System 76 hardware. It's their personal project.

It's offered for public download, yes. If it works with your hardware, that's great.....but I've heard of multiple cases where some people have had nothing but a never-ending stream of grief with it. Try it by all means....but just don't get your hopes up TOO high, OK? o_O



Mike. :P
 
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MikeWalsh said:
feel this needs saying. From what I understand, Pop_OS! is NOT a good place to start....for the simple reason that it's built specifically to work with System 76 hardware. It's their personal project.
Click to expand...
Also, It would be a good idea to wait as COSMIC (The Interface) is still being worked on. It might be wise to hold off until it is all done before if you choose to fully "Install" it if you do go that route. (But try in a VM, It definitely seems interesting!). Gnome would be a viable, close-to for the time being.
 
Welcome to the Forum.
1775083581366.gif


There are plenty of Distros the look at...but only you know which is best for you...mine is Linux Mint but that's me.
1775083758066.gif
 
^^^^^^, what he said above.....and me.

Get one thing straight. Linux is not 'easy' ....If you approach whatever distro expecting an easier time than with some other distro, you are going to be disappointed.
Switching to Linux (IMO) is a life lesson. You will learn things, on a similar scale to learning between the ages of (approx) 7 - 12/14 ~....
It has screw all similarities to windows.

The MINDSET required is, (thank God) remarkably different.

Try not to procrastinate too long....you'll probably end up talking yourself out of it.

Linux Mint is the place to start. WHY?....because you will receive more SUPPORT for that, than any other distro..... simple....there are more users.
 
Some claim Linux Mint is a beginners Distro but there's no such thing because if it was...no one would have problems.

With Linux...you must relearn everything the Linux way as there's no other way.
1775086587760.gif
 
Chris_84 said:
Hello everybody!
I'm a windows 10 user who's making the switch to Linux. My reasons are 1) Windows sucks, 2) Microsoft is spying on me and I don't like that, and 3) Linux distros seem to be more stable and just better all around.

I've got a tower with a Ryzen 5 and a Geforce 3080TI in it. I've read here and there that there are compatibility issues between linux and nvidia drivers, but I'm far from an expert on the matter. What I'm looking for is a distro that will allow me to game without going to too much trouble to make everything work. I'm not opposed to running a VM with windows if needed, but I'd rather not have to go to that kind of work. I also have a Surface tablet on which I'd also like to install the same distro, though my main goal is to use something like Sync so that I could have certain folders and files shared between the two.

My experience with windows consists of running ubuntu off a thumb drive as a trial and building a slackware laptop. I'm not opposed to using a distro like Arch and building it up since I have experience builidng a distro from the ground up, but if there's a distro that's ready made, I'll take it.

Thank you
Click to expand...
If you want the easiest transition from windows to Linux (most is automatically installed, nvidia drivers and such) then pick CachyOS. If i never found CachyOS i wouldn't be on Linux today. I consider this very beginner friendly distro, mostly cause important components are automatically installed that can be complicated. Nvidia drivers on example debian is a bit complicated and should install those through extrepo for minimal issues.

Although CachyOS is based on the notorious non beginner friendly Arch, as stated before most things are installed automatic so makes it more ideal starting point to become comfortable using Linux. You do need to run a few commands for system updates but that is hassle free, also there should be a package manager where you can use GUI to install packages, octopi i think it was called. You might even be able to do system updates there, but unsure since i didn't use that much, just learned the install, search, update and remove terminal commands for pacman.

Mint and kubuntu is the worst distros i ever used and it was those two i tried first, i gave a 2nd shot with CachyOS and still on Linux but not CachyOS.

TLDR: CachyOS

EDIT: CachyOS with Kde Plasma of course.
 
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bob466 said:
Some claim Linux Mint is a beginners Distro but there's no such thing because if it was...no one would have problems.

With Linux...you must relearn everything the Linux way as there's no other way. View attachment 31107
Click to expand...
Moving too Linux i never understood why it was considered beginner distro. Moving from windows it is not a great first impression.

CachyOS is the true beginner distro, some might find this funny but it is my opinion and too a large degree facts depending on what you put into beginner friendly.
 
Comments re cachyOS.
I have been dual-booting both distros for a couple weeks now to see what I like (work on Mint, play on Cachy) and there’s very little difference in game performance, maybe the average 1% lows are a few frames higher. I have a R9 7950X + RTX 3080.

I came to Linux MInt from Ubuntu a few years ago when I got annoyed at them pushing Ubuntu Pro every time I ran apt. I switched to CachyOS because my new desktop was so new, I thought I would need the newer packages, and everything was supposed to be optimized. Sure, it's customizable, But everything is so finicky to get working right, I came back to Linux Mint. I don't bother to customize the look and feel, I like the look just fine, I just turn on dark mode so i'm not blinding myself. but I formatted my system drive as btrfs to take advantage of the feature in Timeshift, installed a custom Kernel for the performance and support of my hardware. Compiled some programs from source instead of just taking the distributed binaries to really take advantage of my hardware, like HandBrake. Overall, I think Linux Mint has the best fit and polish for ease of use and "just works"

Hi all, I am a new Mint user . I come from Cachy os with its tweaks for gaming etc. so far I am having equal if not better performance in Mint. Thats the last time already that I listen to any of that hype. Anyways , glad I made the switch as Mint feels fantastic. Cheers and have a good weekend

Mint always delivers.
One of the best traits they have is that they are so conservative, they never release bleeding edge, everything is literally tested to oblivion before they as much as dare to send an update to anything.

This usually results in a rock stable experience where things seldom break, it even comes with Timeshift as standard, so you can take a snapshot of the "perfect tuned installation" you made, and always roll back to a known state if you dared venture out on an experimentation run of your own (such as install weird obscure software that isn't a part of the official repositories, and maybe break your sound or graphics system), then you can always bail out, safely.

And did I mention I also run all my VR games now with both Pico 4 ultra and Quest 3? All my steam games since 20 years back to totally new untested in linux games, just works out of the box.
Love it!

________________________________________

I can find how many people have downloaded and installed cachos......but I cannot find how many have uninstalled (deleted) it since.

Interesting fact: if a member over at reddit posts a support question re cachyos, they are lucky to yield half a dozen replies.
Any support question at reddit re Linux Mint attracts dozens of replies.

If you are going to need support......Linux Mint

if you have no desire/need for support..... go for cachy
 
For future reference, I just discovered a fedora remix with COSMIC DE, once the DE is done that would probably be the best bet on hardware-wise support if you want cosmic. Just pulled an old Optiplex out of a cabinet earlier, will see it I can try it on there and report back.
 
Chris_84 said:
I've got a tower with a Ryzen 5 and a Geforce 3080TI in it. I've read here and there that there are compatibility issues between linux and nvidia drivers, but I'm far from an expert on the matter. What I'm looking for is a distro that will allow me to game without going to too much trouble to make everything work. I'm not opposed to running a VM with windows if needed, but I'd rather not have to go to that kind of work. I also have a Surface tablet on which I'd also like to install the same distro, though my main goal is to use something like Sync so that I could have certain folders and files shared between the two.
Click to expand...
in this case try nobara or cashy os
 
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