I still can't decide which distro to choose

Software & Operating Systems Linux
47

Some are easier than others, depending on what games you want to play :smiley:

One of the reasons I jumped to Fedora is the out-of-box support for Vega and more recent kernels (which impact vega performance) for example.

So that side is easier. But making individual games work can be more hassle as steamOS is based on Ubuntu/Debian, and there are often library dependencies to chase down/fix that would not be an issue if i was running Ubuntu for example.

Itā€™s a trade-off. But as above, for me, the other benefit is more in common with my server platform. Until YOU work out what issues you have with say, Ubuntu (which is pretty noob friendly and well supported by third party software), youā€™re best off staying put until you run into something thatā€™s easier on another distro, and then evaluate whether or not the other trade-offs are ā€œworth itā€.

48

Choosu rolling or not rolling, what package manager you like, tada you have your distro of choice.

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49

I include the stipulation that youā€™re using a different computer or VMs to try distros rather than your main machine.

There will be some variation, but at the end of the day theyā€™re all usable

50

https://www.vmware.com/products/workstation-pro/workstation-pro-evaluation.html

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51

distro hopping is wasted time

for the most part, outside of learning purposes (you can just as easily do inside a VM without trashing your host OS)

Disagree.

Hardware compatibility canā€™t be tested using a VM. For servers, yeah, distrohopping is stupid. For workstations, and especially for consumer desktops, hardware testing is important.

If you follow bleeding edge hardware, distrohopping is incredibly useful. Since LiveCDs canā€™t be updated to take advantage of latest kernel and driver releases, doing an install is the only way to test how youā€™re target distro of choice handles that.

(Iā€™d argue that making a custom LiveCD/USB is just distrohopping to your own distro.)

The number of times Iā€™ve had to pull kernel configs, boot parameters, and specific firmware versons from one distro to apply on another in order to boot and be usable is non-zero, and no single distro gets it right 100% of the time.

52

Hardware compatibility is pretty much down to the kernel, and the kernel can be updated on any distro. But yes, granted - that is work.

Iā€™d say compatibility risk is a major reason NOT to hop if you have a currently working box. Just update/fix the box you have running unless thereā€™s some major concrete reason to switch.

Use of a VM is more for learning how the distro works (outside of hardware issues) - where the config files are, what the package management is like, etc. Hardware compat is an issue that can be relatively trivially fixed - replacing the package manager or privacy policy for example is not.

You can get an up to date user-land on DEBIAN (for example) by tracking SID. No need to ā€œhop distroā€, just run the nightly build.

53

agree on those two plus a preference of DE

switching distributions is good learning experience for a while,
but so much of Linux is the same on all distributions
choosing to stay with one distribution got me into a deeper learning process of how to repair and maintain system

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54

Most DEs work on all distributions

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55

Dude, I play several windows games on Linux. I currently am back to playing Overwatch. I used Lutris to get it to work. And from my testing nearly 85% of the games I bought on steam work with proton. Not to mention the hundreds of games that NATIVELY work on Linux. Linux is even great for playing much older titles too. Lots of games i loved from my teenage years work GREAT on linux through a combination of Lutris, Wine or Proton.

So to say that no distro works for gaming is a pile of crap. Iā€™m running stock Ubuntu. And Iā€™ve got 95 games working on it. And Iā€™m a noob. I just read, and had the patience and the passion to do it.

Edit: Edited for spelling errors.

56

-inserts the animated gif/video of:
ā€œHello thereā€

Iā€™m getting old, so I donā€™t know which games are mainstream nowdays, but I have been running World of warcraft at 95% performance compared to win for last year and a half, dota2 runs even better than on windows since its release, cs-go ainā€™t so perfect but playable, but generally gaming on linux has been improved a lot in last year or so. Iā€™m thinking that only people that are about to start bitching like : wue BabyRage I canā€™t play this specific game at 300fps like I do on windows, are putting in the negativism towards the community. Anyways how are you doing @SgtAwesomesauce ?

57

Iā€™m well. Been a long week so far, but if you wanna chat, @ me in the lounge.

Iā€™m pretty busy at the moment though.

Unironically considering locking this thread due to OPā€™s HNR.

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58

most games do work on linux but you need to know the work arounds for them.
my experience is more in productivity lines than gaming ,
each distro does have its quirks and foibles but you will find once you get under the covers most distros are similar enough to understand easily.
aside from my mainstays (debian, fedora, and slax, (Knoppix on occasion)) I distro hop a little with spare machines just to check them out.

while running live gives you a taste of the distro its not running at full speed.
no distro will work perfectly out of the box on every possible machine, and looking for one is an exercise in futility. Choose one that can do as much as it can of what you want and learn to work around the rest.

59

Solus 4 is awesome! Just installed and it runs like a train-toilet.
Feels good!

60

that means it has a big download stuck or has a bad memory leakā€¦

/jk

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61

Whoooooosssssshing noises

62

This is all anecdotal, but I moved to fedora on just about everything in the last year. Even working in a windows environment for my job I run Fedora as host on my machine.

As someone who hates stock GNOME with a passion which almost every distro uses nowadays I run Cinnamon on all my machines, except servers.

Iā€™ve found on a desktop environment Cinnamon makes more of a difference than any distro iā€™ve tried.

Really the only problems Iā€™ve had lately with Fedora is Virtual Box, its 50/50 on working out of the box but then all you have to do is maybe download kernel headers to get it working.

But IMO you get more noticable difference out of your desktop environment than your distro. Almost all major packages work with all the distros. I have not run across any deb packages i canā€™t convert to rpm with minimal effort.

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63

i think this is the salient point.

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64

Wow this thread was a trip!

At first I was going to say that distro hopping isnā€™t a bad idea when you first start out. You know, like, for your first three or so years. You get exposure to how different distros ā€œhandleā€ things. Assuming you care about Linux and want to use it, especially if you get into administering Linux systems. You never know when you might encounter any of the distros out in the wild and being familiar with several distros can be helpfulā€¦ as long as you donā€™t hop because you donā€™t understand something or run into a road block and bounce around rather than learn how it works.

Then I read the OP wants to game on Linux. At that point my advice switched to quit Linux, now - Windows already does this and does it better.

Finally, I reread the question and can now provide my best advice, which isā€¦

Decide what your motivation is for using Linux. There are a lot of distros which attemt to fill roles. So, for example, Mint - thatā€™s going to be for desktop users who typically are one or more of the following: noob, like Debian based systems, or donā€™t want to have to upgrade their OS very often. CentOS, on the other hand, thatā€™s for the server space.

So ask yourself, ā€œWhy do I want to use Linux?ā€ If itā€™s I donā€™t want to pay for software for a desktop and I donā€™t want to update often : Consider Ubuntu or Mint. If itā€™s ā€œI like computers and want to learn how they work and about computer networkingā€ check out Kali.

Finally, and I canā€™t speak to this too much because I donā€™t game - if you want to game - stick to Windows.

It all boils down to - what do you want to do and then research the distros and match what their intended for to your use case.

PS - there is a version of Linux for every use case, believe me. There is seriously a Justinf Bieber or Miley Cirus Linux for those who want a Linux desktop, and love The Bieb or Miley. Just state what you want from the OS and Iā€™m sure someone here can suggest a good distro for you.

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