What is the best distro for me?

davidd02

New Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2020
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Credits
20
Hello friends, i'm currently using Windows and i want change to Linux because i think my GPU can't stand the Windows OS.
My school have a partnership with Microsoft and i have free acess to some paid Microsoft services and softwares like Office and i don't want to lose that privilege at all.
I have low experience with Linux, the only distro i've used was the Mint Cinnamon, which was the pre installed OS on my computer but i changed to Windows soon after (and i regretted it).
My PC's specifications is:
Intel Core I5-2400 @3.10GHz CPU;
10 Gbytes DDR3 RAM;
NVIDIA GeForce 210 Video card;
generic Motherboard with American Megratrends 4.5.6 BIOS;
300w Font.
The softwares i use most is Microsoft Teams for online classes, Visual Studio, Notepad++, MySQL Workbench, Astah, Photoshop for Software development and Postal2, Mount and Blade and Geometry dash are the only games i play. I know that some these apps don't works on Linux, if you can recommend me alternatives to these applications I would be happy:).
So that's all the information i can give about how i use my computer and i want to know what is the best Linux for me.
i'm sorry if this post have a bad layout, it's the first time i use a forum, sorry for bad english too.
Thank you for the help.
 


Hi

In terms of performance, pretty much anything will run. In terms of software, there are notorious alternatives; two that I can recommend are for MySQL and Visual Studio. MySQL is multi-platform, so the workbench should run; for Visual Studio you have Monodevelop or Visual Studio Code, etc., and you can always try Vine to run windows native software. Alternatives are not difficult to find.

Where you will find most of the differences is in the distribution model for the software, in terms of updates and how to manage the software packages (e.g.: the tool to do so).

In terms of updates, there are three main flavours of Linux distributions:
  • Point-Release(release at a given point in time), like Debian Stable, Fedora, Ubuntu and Mint: you will install one version, get a few upgrades and security patches. When another version comes out at a very specific point in time, you'll have to back up, check release notes in order to not break anything, and manually upgrade. This usually happens every 6 months or every year, and the previous releases usually have one year of extra updates.
    • Most of these point-release distributions ship a Long Term Support (LTS) with longer cycles, being released every 2 years or so, and getting updates up to 5 years since publishing.
  • Rolling Release like Arch, Manjaro, Tumbleweed, Debian Sid and others: you get the newest software when it is released, and there is no concept of release at a point in time.
The main difference is the stability of them, being LTS more stable than standard Point-Release, and this one generally (there are exceptions) more stable than rolling release. Also, the amount and freshness of the software available. Generally, Debian would compete with the LTS in having the oldest versions (very boring!), and a rolling release will have the crudest newest versions.

The way you install and and uninstall the software is also noteworthy: debian children use dpkg and frontends like apt, aptitude or sinaptic, Red Hat derivates like Fedora use yum and dnf, and Arch and Manjaro use pacman; they have different interfaces and ways of use. It's a matter of taste, mostly, and you will be always able to use things like flatpak, appimage and snap to install pretty much anything.

Another discussion is whether to pick a distribution that uses SystemD vs. one of the very few that still doesn't, but although this issue can start a war, I think this is not a discussion for all users.
 
Last edited:
You can use either lutris or steam/proton for gaming under GNU/Linux. Just use the search to find the games you are looking for and the details in how well they run on either via Lutris or Steam/Proton. Here are the links to protondb to the games you mentioned.
Postal 2
Geometry Dash
Mountain and Blade

Photoshop doesn't run under GNU/Linux. You can use GIMP or Krita as an alternative, if that isn't good enough you could try running Photoshop in a Windows virtual machine using virtualization software such as virtualbox or kvm/qemu.
 

Members online


Top