Good day nice people.

I, like many I’m sure, am taking Microsoft’s discontinuation of Windows 10 support as an opportunity so switch over to Linux. As such, I have some questions about various things. I have included some context as to my personal use case at the end of the post should it be relevant.

  1. Does the distro I pick matter? There seems to be a lot of debate around which distro is best but a lot of the discussion I’ve seen breaks down to what each distro comes packaged with. This confuses me as if a distro doesn’t come prepackaged with something can you not just install it? Or is there some advantage to preinstalled packages other than mild convenience? Are some components difficult to integrate into your local environment?

  2. One of the more salient differences I’ve seen between distros has been what the various companies and teams include aside from installed packages (such as snap and rolling out amazon search as a defult search), and the data they choose to retain/sell. Part of the reason I’m switching is due to Microsoft’s forcing in of unwanted features and advertising. Is the company that owns whatever distro I choose likely to be a problem in the future? Are there particular ones to avoid/ones to keep an eye on?

  3. I am the sort of person who does like to tinker with things from time to time but I do also want to use my computer most of the time so I’d like to end up using a mature distro. I have identified a few frontrunners in my search but I have seen conflicting information on which of them is “mature” (sufficiently stable so I spend less time fighting my computer than I do using it as well as having a large enough community and resources to help me remedy issues I might come across). Do any of these seem like they wouldn’t fit that bill? The frontrunners are: fedora, kubuntu, mint, pop and tuxedo.

  4. Does linux have issues interfacing with multiple monitors? Does it handle HDR okay?

  5. In terms of UI and workflow I really don’t mind putting in some time tinkering with the DE, exploring it and getting it how I like. It seems Plasma KDE might be good for this? Please let me know if this is an incorrect assessment. If it is, does it matter what DE I choose? If so, is there something you could recommend for my use case.

My use case: I have a Nvidea build (RTX 2080). I have heard this can be an issue with Linux. I also have intermediate experience with linux through university and my job (with servers) as well as tinkering with SteamOS.

Things I use/do on my PC (roughly ordered in terms of priority):

  • Gaming including emulation
  • Firefox
  • VLC
  • Spotify
  • Discord
  • Godot
  • Visual Studio
  • Git
  • Photoshop cs6, audacity, davinci resolve
  • Misc “Tinkering” (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)

Thank you very much for your time and help in cleaing up my confusion.

  • anamethatisnt@lemmy.world
    51·
    7 days ago

    1. Does the distro I pick matter?
      Packages
      When you install a distro it will have repositories of apps that you can easily install and easily keep updated using either the GUI (GNOME Software for GNOME, Discover for KDE) or the package manager in terminal (dnf in Fedora, apt in kubuntu and mint). It’s similar to how you install apps on a smartphone.
      The good thing about the apps from the default repository is that they’re (in theory) tested to work well with the distro.
      You can also install applications from other sources when necessary.
      Update Frequency and new tech
      Another difference is how new kernel and software you get from the repos.
      The latest Debian Stable runs kernel 6.1 while Fedora just updated to 6.12 and arch has been running 6.12 since december.
      If you’re running the newest hardware then the chance of having drivers available automatically increases with a newer kernel.

    2. Company-run distros and alternatives:
      In my opinion Ubuntu is the ones doing the most forcing as of now, and even they are angels compared to Microsoft.
      Fedora had discussions about including opt-out Telemetry to aid them getting data to improve the distro. They listened to community feedback and backpedaled that into opt-in metrics:
      https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Telemetry
      https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Metrics
      Debian and Arch are both examples of distros without enterprise involvement and that have no upstream distro that can affect their releases.
      Map of distros here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg

    3. Stability of the distro:
      Of your frontrunners I’ve only run Fedora but that has been stable and been working well for me for my primary PC. So has Debian which I run on my servers (I have a Debian VM running Portainer for dockers, one for running Jellyfin and a third for Forgejo).

    4. Monitor support
      Multi monitor support
      I don’t have the desktop space for double monitors personally, but I’ve heard that KDE 6 (Plasma) handles multi monitor support well.
      HDR
      Should be working since November

    1. Both KDE and GNOME are customizable. KDE is more similar to Windows and I realized that most of my GNOME customizations was to make it more similar to Windows and KDE. I’ve since switched to KDE and must say I really enjoy having a proper file browser as default. Nautilus (default GNOME file browser) has been simplified to death and caused me to create a script to replace it with nemo.

    Nvidia is a whole lot simpler to use than people make it sound like, though I’ll stay team red:
    https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/NVIDIA#Current_GeForce.2FQuadro.2FTesla
    Fedora guide for Nvidia drivers unless you’re running a really old card:

    sudo dnf update -y # Update your machine and reboot
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia # Installs the driver
sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda #optional for cuda/nvdec/nvenc support (required for Davinci Resolve)
    • Gaming including emulation
      First person shooters with kernel intrusive Anticheat won’t work in Linux as they expect to spy on a Windows OS.
      Other than that gaming on Linux is really getting there as I’m sure you’ve realized when using a Steamdeck.
      Outside of Steam you have Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris and Bottles for running windows games on Linux.
      I’m mostly using Lutris but I think Heroic Games launcher is the more popular one.
    • Firefox
      Default browser in most distros
    • VLC
      Available in most default distro repositories.
    • Spotify
      Available as a Flatpak on Flathub, haven’t used it myself.
    • Discord
      I know people has had some trouble with screen sharing but that the DiscordCanary (think Beta version) solves it.
      https://github.com/flathub/com.discordapp.Discord/issues/380
    • Godot
      Can be downloaded as a simple bin file from their own site: https://godotengine.org/download/linux/
      Also available as a Flatpak on Flathub
    • Visual Studio
      The closest you get is VSCode.
    • Git
      Not a problem.
    • Photoshop cs6, audacity, davinci resolve
      Photoshop might be trouble, Audacity and Davinci Resolve should work.
    • Misc “Tinkering” (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)
      Handbrake is available as a Flatpak on Flathub, there’s dvd burner applications available too.
    • Gaxsun@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      3·
      7 days ago

      Wow, that was really comprehensive and clear, thank you. I’ll digest and factor into the deliberations. Reckon I’ll also switch to AMD with my next build. Main reason I went Intel/Nvidea is cuz AMD’s old reputation was still ringing in my ears when I build it.