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.

  • Caveman@lemmy.world
    61·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • KrispeeIguana@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    My first distro was Mint. It’s great for beginner Linux users, and it’s pretty stable. It also avoids the Snap problem Ubuntu forces upon their users.

    If you’re looking for a more bleeding edge solution, I recommend Garuda Linux. It’s Arch-based, and it has a bunch of game-related stuff already installed. It might be a tad less stable due to the Arch underbelly, but I personally like the package system (pacman) a lot more than apt. Also, you get the unmatched power of the Arch wiki when you’re in trouble.

  • Crozekiel@lemmy.zipEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    Any and all advice anyone gives you is going to be heavily weighted by their personal experiences, which is not bad, but also may not be your experience. Truly the best thing to do, if you are willing, is to try a bunch.

    Download several different distributions. Get as many USB sticks as you reasonably can. Flash a different distro to each drive. Boot to them one at a time, and try them out. See what you like about one versus another. Hopefully you find one that just “clicks” for you, and then you actually install it to the computer. From there, if everything works, great - enjoy your computer. However, if you immediately run into problems, just go install your number 2 favorite and see if those problems exist there. There’s a reasonable chance they won’t.

    Good places to start:

    • Mint
    • Debian
    • PopOS
    • Fedora (check out their “spins”, there are a lot of flavors of Fedora)
    • Bazzite
    • OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
    • Cachy
    • Endeavor
    • Garuda

    (There is a thing called Ventoy which kinda lets you use several distros from one usb stick, but I’ve also seen several distro’s instructions warn against using it so maybe it isn’t the best choice for a new convert). Also, obligatory stay away from Manjaro. It isn’t worth it as a new convert…

  • Broken@lemmy.ml
    3·
    6 days ago

    There’s a lot of info in these comments and a ton of it is good.

    I will say that the best advice is to boot from a USB and try out a system for a bit. You can easily swap around that way without a commitment.

    I will also say that my opinion is to start with Mint. It’s similar enough to windows in layout/workflow to feel familiar and is “boring” in a stable, easy to use way.

    Use it and learn Linux. I say learn, because it doesn’t matter what the OS looks like as much as how it works, and Linux (any flavor) works differently than windows. Learn those idiosyncrasies and then of you decide you want to try something else then you’re up to speed to move on and judge a different system with a baseline.

  • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
    4·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    From my experience running a setup with a RTX 3080, I recommend CachyOS. It has all the latest Nvidia drivers out of the box and you can download additional gaming packages in the “Hello” window. You can try other OSs but I found this one to be the most capable and versatile for me. As long as you make backups regularly and customize your experience with caution you’ll have a good time.

  • JoeMontayna@lemmy.ml
    2·
    6 days ago

    For us dummies that are just getting started, and most of us are only doing it now because gaming has kept us on Windows, it would be nice if there were a Linux distribution that was singlularly focused on gaming.

  • Horsey@lemmy.world
    2·
    6 days ago

    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