So sitrep:

Newish desktop

  • i7-13700K
  • 64Gb DDR5 6000Mhz
  • RTX 3070Ti
  • MSI PRO Z790-P (WiFi is not a factor, permanent ethernet connection.)

Needs:

  • Gaming
  • Music composing
  • Coding (Mostly python)
  • Video editing

I’ve been using Linux on and off throughout the years, but lately I’ve fallen out of the loop somewhat. Started with Slackware around 1998, Kubuntu in the 2000’s, Ubuntu 2010’s, Kali and Mandrake 2020’s -> on my laptop, Ubuntu server on my RasPi. At work, we have a few Fedora servers I have to maintain. So not a complete novice, but somewhat obsolete info.

I have been looking at the immutable distros, like Bazzite and Pop!_OS as I’ve done the whole song and dance of constantly repairing my distro because of various issues, and I’d like my main recreational machine & distro to be low maintenance, I get to fix linux servers at work enough already, I don’t want to bring that home.

With gaming, I’ve understood that linux has come a loooooong way since I last tried sometime around TBC Launch for WoW when Wine barely worked with it.

Music composing is a little annoying, since apparently both Ableton and FL studio are not an option. I’ve heard good things about Reaper, but I’ll have to do some more research. Feel free to educate me on this topic if you have some insider info. I don’t play live sets, just compose and mix.

Video editing, currently I use Davinci Resolve, and apparently it works fine on Linux, just some limitations and shenanigans with codecs. Alternatives are welcome, I don’t need 90% of what resolve offers, I can make do with a simpler software as well.

Thank you kindly in advance for departing thine wisdom.

  • pyssla@quokk.auEnglish
    41·
    4 hours ago

    Honestly, Bazzite seems to fit like a glove:

    • RTX 3070Ti

    Nvidia can be an ass to work with on a lot of distros, but Bazzite delivers the right drivers OOTB.

    Needs:

    • Gaming

    Bazzite is setup for gaming OOTB; it’s bundled with Steam and Lutris, makes use of custom kernels/schedulers to optimize performance for gaming and contains many other goodies like excellent controller/peripheral support.

    • Coding (Mostly python)

    Provides a specialized DX (i.e. Developer Experience) image that comes with all the goodies you might expect.

    • Video editing

    Has a built-in just script that downloads, installs and sets up Davinci Resolve for ya: ujust install-resolve

    • Music composing

    This is the only I’m not 100% sure yet because you haven’t provided explicitly yet what you’d like to use. But, I can’t image it would be harder to get this running on Bazzite compared to other distros.

    And last, but not least:

    I’d like my main recreational machine & distro to be low maintenance

    Through utilizing the bootc model, Bazzite is as low maintenance as they come.