Remote View

4mo ago

Removing Windows. Choosing a new daily driver for a gaming PC

For context:

I've been using Linux since 2000. Started with Mandrake Linux (Helios?), then I moved to Ubuntu in 2004 and alternated between Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE for a time until I settled with Kubuntu for the last few years.

Ubuntu has been rock solid for me for the past 20 years and I'm used to the APT package management and Ubuntu/Debian environment overall with all the various services and configs, setups and release cycles, etc. The stability allows me to enjoy my spare time playing games and doing other important tasks instead of troubleshooting my system and figuring out how to make something work. Ubuntu has been awesome in that regard.

I've also been dual-booting this whole time with Windows. Gaming on Linux simply wasn't up to snuff up until very recently with Steam working on Wine and Proton for the Steam Deck and Bottles, which makes running Windows games on Linux almost comparable to Windows.

Windows 10 was a great OS, except for a few flaws and privacy issues with the introduction of mandatory Microsoft accounts and One Drive integration. But you could work around those things. It was supposed to be the last Windows we would have to install with perpetual rolling releases, but apparently they changed their minds about that. Windows 11 was released and reading about it gives me nightmares. Using it for work also has been an incredibly buggy and frustrating experience. The invasion of privacy, data collection, screen monitoring and AI integration plus the additional advertisement are all reasons for which I will never install this OS on my personal computer. And some of these features have started to leak into Windows 10.

So I've made up my mind. I'm wiping Windows from my PC and will be running Linux only. I believe it's become good enough to use as a daily driver for a home gaming desktop and for productivity. But... Which distribution should I choose?

The dilemma:

There's been a whole slew of new Linux distributions that have come out lately. Some have been early in the Linux gaming aspect such as POP! OS. Others have tried to become a solid replacement for the default immutable Steam OS such as Bazzite. And there are now some pretty awesome sounding gaming-focused distros such as Nobara. And that's on top of the various existing Ubuntu flavors, Fedora's spins, OpenSuse and the many Arch variants that almost seem to pop up monthly.

I've been shopping around for a distribution to become my daily driver from now until who knows when. I'm expecting to stick to that distro as long as possible. Here's some of the things that I am looking for:

Not immutable : I find this to be adapted for devices like tablets, IoT devices and handhelds instead of an actual PC. I'll need to be able to change my system configs as I please and an Immutable distro seems like a pain in the butt to deal with that.
Rock solid : This is the most important aspect and is why a lot of the Arch or other bleeding edge distros won't do. (With some exceptions)
Hardware support : The second most important aspect. I think that's pretty much covered by most popular distros, but some have better support than others. Especially for ease of getting the right drivers. (Especially for NVidia GPUs, or gaming controllers and devices.)
Performance : Most popular distros offer ok performance, but some have been enhanced to provide improved performance according to the hardware. This is a very big nice to have, especially for gaming.
Desktop choice : I'm really not a big fan of Gnome 3. It seems nobody really is. Many Gnome based distros come with quality of life extensions out of the box to fix that. Not a big fan of GTK apps' UI ergonomics either. That's why I prefer KDE over Gnome or Cinnamon. Budgie seems like a great alternative as well. Also having a PowerToys-style FancyZones tiling system is a big big plus (KDE has that OOTB)
Applications : The thing I love about Ubuntu is the amount of available applications in their repos. I'm hoping to have the same availability in my next distribution.
Online community/support : Having a great online support community is very important. The more users, the larger the knowledge base and the easier you can find answers to questions to troubleshoot problems.
Online services integration : Optional but a very nice to have would be to have integration with Google apps like GMail, Calendar, Keep and Google Drive to name a few.
Customization : As funny as this sounds, I want to use the desktop in its most vanilla form as possible with as few customisations as possible. Over time I found that having extra customisations like extensions, applets, etc tends to break things because of lack of support over time. It's also more difficult to troubleshoot when very few people are using them.

The distributions that ended up meeting my requirements are the following in order of preferences :

Kubuntu : So far its been working great for gaming but I think there could be some performance improvements. It's my first choice because I'm just so comfortable with it already. Zero effort, but with some compromises in performance.
Nobara with KDE Plasma : This looks solid and ticks all the requirements. I think there's some amount of learning to do for using YUM/RPM packages and to understand some of the customisations, but I think this effort will be minimal. I am concerned about long term support however since this is a fairly new distro supported by individuals.
Ubuntu Budgie : I really like this DE, very simple but elegant. But, like Kubuntu, I don't know how it's going to fare performance wise. And I don't know what kind of tools there are to configure gaming controllers, etc.
Ubuntu (I'm willing to deal with Gnome 3 for simplicity's sake)
Fedora KDE Plasma spin : Everybody is raving about Fedora so maybe I'll give it a shot as an Ubuntu replacement.
~~Manjaro~~ Endeavour OS with KDE desktop :Possibly the only Arch distro I'm willing to install because they focus on stability, however learning about the packaging system and configs/environment feels like a drag. But with the great community and documentation I'm willing to make an effort for this one.

What are your thoughts on this? What are your recommendations based on my requirements?

EDIT:

Thank you very much for everyone's input. I've spent a good part of the day installing distros in a VM to check out some of your suggestions and reading more about my choices.

I can't believe I am saying this, but I am reevaluating my choice of using Kubuntu. After some reading I have found out that Ubuntu and it's flavors will not be supporting flatpaks starting in 23.04. And there are several known problems with snap, such as serious performance issues. A task that would take 1-5s as a regular .deb installed app, would take up to 10 times that time to complete. Canonical is also working to modify apt to use snaps instead of installed .deb packages. They are aggressively pushing snaps to a point where they'll want to replace the majority of the software with snaps eventually.

Yeah there's security features built-in and all, which flatpaks don't necessarily have. And the security is tighter around Canonical's snap repos compared to flathub for example. But I don't know if I'm ready to move to that new way of doing things. And Canonical is going against what the community wants.

I don't know. I think I'm more confused now that I was when I started...

128 comments

Nice list, though I would remove Manjaro from that. Manjaro is far from stable, they just delay Arch packages without even testing and it will bork itself in no time or will cause some problems at least.
Anyway, I see you have included Fedora based, so I would like to suggest OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. I installed it on my sister's PC and she's been happily using it for some time now. Previously she borked Manjaro and brake updates on Pop OS just by using the system via GUI. That didn't happen on Tumbleweed yet and I don't think it will. Even if something would happen, she can revert everything by selecting a recovery image from GRUB and continue using it.
- Interesting!
  
  Try Endeavour OS, its like Manjaro but less problematic

I'm not sure what performance improvements you're talking about. As far as I'm aware, the difference between distros on performance is extremely minimal. What does matter is how up to date the DE is in the distribution provided package. For example, I wanted some nvidia+Wayland improvements that were only in kwin 6.1, and so I switched from kubuntu to neon in order to get them (and also definitely sacrificed some stability since more broken packages/combinations get pushed to users than in base ubuntu). It's also possible that the kernel version might matter in some cases, but I haven't run into this personally.
I think the main differences between distros is how apps are packaged and the defaults provided, and if you're most comfortable with apt based systems, I'm not sure what benefit there's going to be to switching (other than the joy in tinkering and learning something new, which can be fun in its own right).
For some users less experienced with linux, the initial effort required to setup Ubuntu for gaming (installing graphics drivers/possibly setting kernel options, etc) might push someone toward a distribution that removes that barrier, but the end state is going to be basically identical to whatever you've setup yourself.
The choice between distributions is probably more 'what do I want the process to getting to my desired end state to be like' and less 'how do I want the computer to run'.
- I’m not sure what performance improvements you’re talking about. As far as I’m aware, the difference between distros on performance is extremely minimal.
  Maybe. But according to the Nobara homepage, they have added a number of kernel patches to the kernel and other performance tweaks that's provided with their distro out of the box. This could be an advantage for a gaming-focused PC use. From what I hear, these little extras can provide quite a few more frames per second
  And as far as the whole X11 vs Wayland thing, as long as everything works I'll be happy. And for now, that seems to be with X11 until absolutely everything works with Wayland, which is not the case from what I read online.
  The difference between Debian/Ubuntu and RedHat/Fedora isn't huge. APT and YUM work fairly the same way. I don't think that's a big learning curve, especially since I've worked with YUM in the past for work. And I'd be sacrificing Snaps which isn't a big deal for me.
  
  All those patches seem like nice things to have, but are more focused on adding hardware support and working around bugs in software/other people's implementations. If you have one of the effected GPUs/games/etc, then those patches probably make a huge difference, but I'd guess there won't be noticeable frame rate differences on most systems. I have not tested this claim though, so maybe something on there makes a big difference. What's nice is all the packaging stuff they've done to make setting things up correctly easily, not necessarily most of the changes themselves. Like on my system I compile dxvk and various wine nvidia libs myself since Ubuntu doesn't package them. And it's easy to screw that up/it requires some knowledge of compiling things
  Reading your update, I'd still choose whatever distro packages the software you want with the versions/freshness you need. If you're willing to tweak things, then the performance stuff can be done yourself pretty easily (unless you have broken hardware that isn't well supported by the mainline kernel), but packaging things/compiling software that isn't in the repositories is a huge pain. I think this is one of the reasons people choose arch even with its need to stay on top of updates. Is that the AUR means that you don't have to figure out how to build software that the distribution managers didn't package. Ubuntu's PPAs aren't great (though I don't have personal arch experience to compare with)

My recommendation would be setting up Nobara with a separate home partition so you can easily switch if it stops being supported, although there are no sign of this yet. My second recommendation would be Opensuse Leap, it is more stable and well established but less optimized for gaming. Maybe take another look at Pop OS! when they release their independent new desktop. If you go with base Fedora be aware setting up codecs can be annoying. Avoid Manjaro, the distro breaks a lot due to dependency conflicts. Also I think you mean GNOME 40, GNOME 3 is the old design.
- Also I think you mean GNOME 40, GNOME 3 is the old design.
  Time flies! Yeah since Gnome 3, I've snubbed Gnome because I hated its new desktop UI. I've lost track of what version they are at since then.

Nice write up, seems like you know what you are jumping into atleast. Personally would recommend to give Bazzite a try and not rule out immutables too quickly, nothing is more solid than these variants. If not immutable, then my best experience lies with Opensuse TW by far. Super stable, yet bleeding edge.
- Thanks. I understand your point of view but I want to have the liberty of changing system configs on the fly. I also tried it in a VM and found that it was a bit bloated with too much stuff OOTB. Might be nice for a gaming console, but I don't think I need all of that.
  One thing about OpenSuse Tumbleweed is I'm afraid I might have trouble finding some of the software I need in their repos and it might be a pain in the butt to manage? Then again I never used an OpenSuse based distro so. Maybe I oughta try it out in a VM first.
  
  You might look at Aurora or Bluefin, if Bazzite wasn't your cup of tea. They're more of a vanilla distro while being part of the Universal Blue family. They also have DX variants for devs, if that's something you want.
  I haven't had trouble messing with configs on Bazzite, so I wonder what you need to tweak that isn't possible on an immutable system.
  
  Personally never had a problem finding what i needed for opensuse. Its easy to add repos via yast, plus opensuse you can use both zypper plus obs package managers, the latter being quite fast and easy to use. OpenSuse also has support for rpm packages, meaning anything meant for rhel/Fedora systems can also be installed on opensuse.
  You can also view all installable packages here: https://software.opensuse.org/packages
  If you feel TW is too fast on the release cycle you can also try Slowroll, which is TW but with a slower release cycle.

For gaming you want the latest updates. Of all the major distros, only Arch, Suse and Fedora provide that. Arch requires you to learn to about and fix breakage. Fedora has a gaming spin which works like a Steam Deck: Bazzite.
I've distro hopped between 10+ distros, and Bazzite has been the only one that gave me a rock solid stability and latest drivers simultaneously. It's not purely immutable, Fedora calls it Atomic.
I suggest you try it, and tell me if there was anything you couldn't do.
Also: I don't support Canonical's walled garden
- I hear a lot of people say that you need bleeding edge distros for gaming. But the Steam Deck uses and old Debian release and it works just fine. Granted they have their own proprietary drivers and all.
  Gaming on Ubuntu works just fine. Others reported using Debian stable too and it's fine. I don't think you need to be bleeding edge. In fact, I think it might bring instability. You gotta make a compromise between the two in my opinion.
  I have to add, regarding Canonical's walled garden, that's not necessarily a bad thing for the vast majority of people out there. It might even be a big advantage, espeically for non-tech people.
  I've enjoyed Ubuntu distros for 20 years. But it's Canonical's attitude that's off putting.
  By the way, I've tried Bazzite and it's too bloated with too much stuff OOTB. But it's great though otherwise. I'm a bit skeptical about immutable distros however.
  
  Steamos on the steam deck is arch based, the original steam os on steam machines were Debian based
  
  Exactly, better to have latest driver and DE since a lot is going on right now in linux gaming.
  So you want a rolling update distribution (like Arch)
  I personally went for arch based endeavourOS, since I love to install my apps using AUR
  For rock solid rolling release distribution, I would point to openSuse tumbleweed, and if daily updates are too much, you can go to OpenSuse slowEoll or fedora
  If you plan to use flatpaks only anyway, then distribution does not really matter, but then you may have problems with some apps that don’t just work in sandboxed mode and you would need flatSeal app to set the right to read/write files outside of the sandbox. (Eg. wine/proton apps that need access to mounted .iso)
  
  Steam OS was Debian based in the Steam Machine era, Steam Deck uses an immutable Arch based image, and it's not rolling release. They moved to Arch because Debian took ages to update. Now they release quick and stable updates, That's the ideal compromise.
  Regular Arch is bleeding edge, Debian is old. Fedora sits in the middle. And Bazzite makes it rock solid.
  About the Bloat: after installing, you are greeting by a first run wizard, where you choose what gets installed. If you don't install anything else, you are left with KDE & Steam, nothing more. Where's the boat?
  
  The way Fedora has immutable set up allows you to layer packages on top of a base, and your home directory and etc are both writable. It might be less of a pain in the butt than you think!
- What if I have basically the same requirements as OP but for gaming only Minecraft has to work (which I assume isn't an issue on any distro)
  i7 11800h and Nvidia RTX 3060 Laptop if that matters
  
  Two options: java edition, or mobile bedrock. Both have launchers available.

Regarding your not wanting to go with an immutable distro: what configs are you thinking you'll need to mess with that makes an immutable distro a bad idea exactly? I was previously on the fence about it as well but Bazzite has absolutely served my needs and requires way less fiddling than my previous Nobara install did after major updates. I have yet to find any day to day configurations that I haven't been able to overcome with OSTree overlaying. Aside from being immutable, Bazzite literally checks every other box you've got listed.
- I can't figure out the objection to this either. I see it as a huge step forward for tinkering and tinkerers.
  
  I know, right? It's so hard to "really" mess something up and Toolboxes are very cool for things not served by Flatpaks or Overlays.
  
  I tried Bazzite a few months ago and replaced it with a non-immutable distro in the same day because I couldn't get my password manager (1Password) to work with Firefox.
  The installation of 1Password was kind of a hassle as there is no official way to install it systemwide on an immutable distro, so I followed an unofficial tutorial. That worked somehow, but then came the integration into Firefox. For this to work, you have to install firefox as a native package, too, so you have to layer it through ostree.
  But here comes the issue: The original Silverblue does already include native Firefox, and Bazzite removed it and replaced it with a flatpak. I have googled a lot and haven't found an answer yet on how to layer a package that was removed in a previous layer. I'm not sure if it's even possible, but the complete lack of documentation for such a trivial thing really turned me away from immutable distros. When I had an issue on Arch, I would find the answer in the ArchWiki 95% of the time, but here I couldn't even find a proper documentation for how the layering works.
  This on top of other issues like not being able to get Autocomplete/Intellisense working in VSCode because I can't properly install the required compilers and libraries made me turn back to Arch in a single day. Maybe it's just my mindset that's a bit stuck on how to do things the "old" way, but if I have to spent hours to get even a basic workflow going for me, then I guess I'm not yet ready for immutable distros.
- Yeah, but there's been occasions where I had to add repos to my /etc/apt/sources.list for example, or tweak my Grub config to resolve problems, or sometimes I want to change some configs and edit some files in /etc/. And besides, I like having the extra flexibility to tweak my system if I want to.
  I might install it on a MS Surface Pro though. Not sure it supports the hardware as well as Ubuntu though. There's special kernels you can download with Surface-specific modules.
  
  Adding repos can just be done inside a Toolbox, or even as Overlays. Grub can also be edited and changes applied to immutable OS's like Bazzite/Kinoite. I'd definitely say give it a shot on a non-daily driver machine and see how you like it. Having the option to mess with the underpinnings can be nice- but not having to has a lot of value as well.
  
  /etc/ is not immutable, you can change whatever you want there. Unless your software is going against Linux standards, you won't run into any issues here.
  Universal Blue has special builds for Surface devices with modified kernels.
- I tried Bazzite on my Asus laptop and I had a hard time to figure out how I am supposed to install some non-packaged stuff like https://github.com/asus-linux-drivers/asus-numberpad-driver . Could not get it to work in Distrobox or at least I might not understand how to do it. I went with Nobara then and it works just fine.
  Would like to give Bazzite another try, maybe someone here can give me some directions on how to install things like the numberpad drivers?

+1 for Fedora KDE. I've been daily driving it for 2 years now and its given me very little problems. I stopped using Windows about 5 years ago now and haven't looked back, and after distro hopping for a bit, I'm pretty satisfied with my experience with Fedora. Initial setup can take a little bit because theres some repos you need to add/enable to get nonfree software (including video/audio codecs that basically every website ever uses), but once you do that its pretty solid. You get pretty up-to-date software without it being so new that things break after every other update. It strikes a nice balance.
However, if you're familiar and comfortable with Ubuntu, you'll likely be just fine sticking with that. You probably won't notice huge performance differences between distros. It sounds like the bigger concern is if you're safe to just nuke Windows and I'm not going to be the one to discourage you from doing that. Up to you if you want to try something new or not.
- Same boat, fedora + kde, solid experience all around. Love Fedora and really enjoying KDE, though im facing some minor gripe on my laptop with the power management which always seems to kick in max performance when plugged in despite all possible tweaks I have tried (tlp, powertop and the native power management settings).
- Thanks for the advice!
  Yeah, in that case I might as well stick with Kubuntu. Especially since it provides the option to install proprietary drivers and formats easily at install time and also with a few custom tools provided by Canonical.
  The performance boost I was mentioning was about Nobara, which provides a few extra kernel patches and configs to allow for increased performance on gaming hardware. But, if it's not a big enough difference, I'll stick with Kubuntu for sure. Or might even go with Budgie. Their DE looks elegant and simple with all the necessities.

Manjaro
I highly recommend avoiding manjaro like the plague, their team is incredibly incompetent (see: https://manjarno.pages.dev/ ), I say this as someone who has given people manjaro for years and regretted it, I was also their it person, manjaro regularly broke every few months and gave people a very bad taste of linux
for example, why are kernels given version numbers in packages? This caused 3 separate peoples computers to break multiple times. Everything good about manjaro comes from arch, everything bad about manjaro comes from the manjaro team.
Y’know how it’s not rolling release because they delay packages by 2 weeks? They actually do no testing in this time. How do I know this? They pushed an update that caused steam to uninstall your desktop environment. Famously covered by linus tech tips… this is something that should have easily been caught, and yet the two week window did absolutely nothing.
the truth is for manjaro there is no real usecase, there’s no set of desires that align with manjaro being the best choice for you. I am not asking you to switch away from manjaro, but I do not think we should ever recommend it to anyone, and on your next machine, I recommend trying the arch installer.
But if what you’re looking for is an easy pre-setup arch, use endeavoros
If you want something simple and up to date, use fedora kinoite
If you’re a power user and want to configure every little thing about their system, use arch or nixos
If you don’t care at all about updates and want the most rock solid system possible, debian.
- Well, you can't take from Manjaro that they have very pretty and consistent themes across their different DE/WM versions... sure it's not much in comparison with all the shit they're infamous for.
  
  ...i think almost every distro does that well enough
  and even if they didn't, you can just install the manjaro theme really easily on any other distro.
- Yeah! That's what I heard! Apparently they don't follow the Arch standards at all and kind of do their own thing which messes everything up.
  No, I was actually thinking of Endeavor OS. I got it mixed up with Manjaro in my head. BIG difference!
  I won't consider Manjaro at all. Don't worry. But thanks a lot for the warning! 😁

Sounds like you're ready to join the ~~cult~~ club of Debian.
It's stable, performant, and adaptable. Tons of window manager options. And I've found that anything I like from *buntu distros I can backport into Debian by finding a .deb file.
- You know what? I'm taking back what I said. Debian might just be what I'm looking for after all.
  Uses .deb packages with APT, which I am very comfortable with. And thanks to Ubuntu using the same package system, I can easily add any PPMs or other repos that Ubuntu uses.
  Its stable releases are the most stable out there and with a 2 year release cycle on average, that's pretty similar to Ubuntu's and is totally acceptable.
  People complaining that the packages are older, that's really not a problem for me. I'm patient. I can wait. Worst case I'll use a flatpak for a desktop app or compile from source. I've done it before. It's not that hard. And for my purposes, that doesn't happen very often. Or there's the option of using backports as well.
  Hardware support is solid. All the drivers I need are provided as .deb packages or through 3rd party repos provided by the manufacturer. (NVidia) And media codecs are available now so that's not an issue either.
  Debian is the next best thing to Ubuntu IMO. A pretty solid choice I think.
- Yeah, I used it for work once when I worked at Xandros back in 2008.
  It's like Ubuntu, minus the quality of life customizations. Might as well stick with an Ubuntu flavor.
  
  Look into Spiral Linux if you want to go with Debian. I believe it includes several quality of life improvements while being mostly just an easy way to install Debian (kind of like how EndeavorOS is for Arch).
  ETA: also, look at NixOS, since it might be the combination of stability and semi-mutability you're looking for.

I might have missed it, but why isn't Mint on there? From what I read on your list of requirements, it fits in. I will say this, Mint with the Cinnamon desktop has become my workhorse distro of choice.
It's the most stable and no-fuss distro I've used, and I've tried many.
That being said, I personally use Nobara for my gaming PC and it's been really good. It's not as stable though, and that is partially my fault, I'm a tinkerer on that system. Part of it is KDE Plasma though, especially on Wayland.
Don't get me wrong, it still works great and plays everything super well! But there are several little annoyances that happen. Menus not popping up in the right place. Windows sometimes opening completely off screen so I have to manually drag them back into view, some recent flickering with certain games in the menus. Once every 4-6 weeks, my mouse will stop responding when I unlock the PC., and I have to unplug and re-plug it in.
Again, nothing game-breaking or super frustrating, just little annoyances. Comes with the territory of tweaking your systems and using newer tech like Wayland.
If you like Kubuntu and it's been working well for you, stick with it, it's a solid Ubuntu spin for sure. Don't fall into the grass-is-greener trap.
- True. I've used it before. Since it's Ubuntu based, I ended up using Ubuntu MATE over Linux Mint and Ubuntu had a MATE flavor already. I feel the looks are a little outdated. But I'll give it another shot in a VM with the Cinnamon desktop to try it out. Maybe I'll be surprised.
  
  That's my only complaint with Cinnamon, is it looks kind of dated. Not bad, but dated for sure.
  Like I said, if you already like something else and it's working for you, no need to switch. But, if stability and out of the box functionality are your top priorities, Mint with Cinnamon is a great choice.

I see mostly Tumbleweed on protondb. I myself am on my 4th attempted transition and keep borking my system. So take my input with a bucket of salt but its making me think of trying it.
- I mean the idea of install once, upgrade never is extremely appealing.
  What do you mean by you are on your 4th attempt? On Tumbleweed?
  
  No, sorry that was confusing. I first used Mint on my desktop after liking it on my work laptop. It worked alright, then I went to Ubuntu and hated it so tbh I didn't even finish messing with it I just installed Arch over it. I really like arch, but I can't get my games running on it. I have a few bookmarked comments with helpful advice that I need to try when I get the will to destroy my free time again.

Nobara is nice.
- Yeah, but I did a bit more reading on it and its flaw is that it only has one maintainer. This is bad for long term support. I think I'll stick with something more mainstream after all.

I just started using Bazzite. It's my second attempt at a Linux gaming setup (Pop_OS was first, Bazzite is working out much better).
What made you lean away from Bazzite, if you don't mind expanding on that?
- It's an immutable OS. That's not what I'm looking for. I find it too restrictive. Plus it comes loaded with way too much gaming software. I don't need all that stuff. I'd rather install as I need.
  
  Thank you for the reply.
  I’m just getting into these things. And immutability seems like a double edged sword.

This might not help, but I'd seriously recommend reconsidering Arch derivatives.
I've been 100% Linux for almost 2 years now, with Garuda Linux on my primary desktop and Fedora on my laptop. I've had zero major issues with Garuda (and very few minor ones, to the point I can't think of any specific problems in the moment), gaming performance has been fantastic, and the availability of software in the AUR is nothing short of amazing.
In my experience, keeping up with updates is not at all an impediment to use, and I've yet to have stability issues of any kind. I've been seriously considering replacing Fedora with Garuda on my laptop, the experience has been so smooth.
Just stay away from Manjaro. I feel like Arch fan-boys being dicks and people recommending Manjaro to new Linux converts are the only two problems with Arch (or at least its derivite distros, I haven't raw dogged vanilla Arch before).
- I think it's important to keep in mind here that there is a very marked difference between vanilla Arch and its derivatives. A lot of derivatives will set up a lot of base system software with sensible defaults, whereas with vanilla Arch it's often up to you to find out that you need that software, and then you also need to figure out a lot of configuration. Not having to do that saves you from a lot of issues.
  
  Sounds about like I would expect. I do feel like a lot of the "Core" distros are similar though, although not to the same degree. You get more "out of the box" from something like Mint or PopOS than you do straight Debian, for example.
  The derivative distros i've tried come with a lot of help getting things setup just how you want/need, a lot of it GUI based which is nice for new converts.

My advice is: make your data eternal, not your distro. Your kde config and customization should work across distros (but don't dualboot with 2 distros messing in the same /home). Don't know about you, but I like the separated work/play dynamic I have with linux/windows so I'm waiting for bazzite to become dual bootable with linux to be my playstation. If you put your game library on it's own partition/disk you can mount it from dualboot distros.
Every distribution is always the most stabellest, maintained piece of software on their website but fuckups happen, teams change, users get blamed for exotic circumstances tarnishing their reputation. Have a backup and use whatever feels right currently.
Pop_os is also ubuntu based btw, hate the name but maybe system76 is able to keep you safe from the snappification while you use what you are accustumed to?
- Thanks for the advice, but I want to avoid dual-booting altogether. I would prefer to install and forget. Then upgrade when new stable releases come around.

Re the flatpak issue, what you linked is just saying that flatpak won't be a default installed program and packages provided by flatpaks won't be officially supported by Ubuntu support as of 23.03. I don't think this effects your use of Ubuntu in any way. If you want to use flatpaks, just install the program. It will still be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories. 23.04 was over a year ago. I still use flatpak without a problem on my kubuntu 24.04 system. It's just a one time thing to do sudo apt-get install flatpak and maybe a second package for KDE's flatpak packagekit back end and it's like canonical never made that decision.
The push of snaps instead of debs is a bit more concerning because it removes the deb as an option in the official repositories. But as of right now I think only Mozilla software has this happening? If your timeline is 5-10 years though, this may be more of an issue depending on how hard canonical pushes snaps and how large their downsides remain
- Great reply! Thank you for the clarification.
  What's your opinion on Canonical's behavior with snaps? Like having Mozilla software exclusively as snaps? Are people making too much of a big deal?

Garuda has been an A+ gaming distro for me so far, been daily driving it for about 6 months.
https://garudalinux.org/
- Yeah, but it's supported by a very small team. I don't think that'll do it for long term support. I intend to use it for the next 10 years until I buy a new PC. That's why I'm probably going to drop Nobara after all. (It's like, ONE guy behind the distro.)

A bit off topic, but I have been using Arch for over a decade now, and it has been pretty stable for me. My only issue in last few years were if my kernel got updated which needed updated nvidia driver, and I rebooted before noticing that. (Very old laptop, so nvidia drivers for this aren't in repos, hence the issue). I didn't use it for gaming though (very old laptop, wouldn't even run old games)
BTW I recently went the opposite way, have been using only Linux for over a decade but got a new laptop a month back and kept the windows as a dual boot, though my main interest is to use it only for MS/Xbox first party games, that don't have Linux support. Saving me from buying a separate Xbox.
- Oh yeah! I haven't really thought about this. The only MS game I ever bought was Forza Horizon 4 to practice left-side driving before a trip to Scotland. Hahahahaha!
  So you're saying it won't work in Linux?
  
  No idea tbh. I mainly play on consoles, and until a few days back I didn't even know Xbox publishes game on Steam too. Will have to check protondb. Will take a look.

Linux newbie here, so this information may be for other newbies. I tried Nobara when I had problems with my Manjaro. But Nobara fresh out the box had some problems and it being a "one person project" kinda bugged me. Also not having the AUR(Arch User Repository) anymore was making me try Endeavour OS.
Manjaro is pretty good, but Endeavour OS has better Nvidia integration, also it comes with yay and other quality of life stuff already setup. Better for a noob like me.
Oh, I also tried Fedora KDE but at that point I was hooked to Arch. It is just so much easier to install programs from AUR with the terminal than what other distros try with "app-stores"
- Hi! Yeah upon further reading thanks to the great replies I received here, I've reconsidered using Nobara. The one guy's project aspect of it scares me in terms of long term support. This needs to become an official Fedora project or even community project supported by a community at least.
  I was really thinking of Endeavour OS rather than Manjaro. But I've never used an Arch based distro before. Been on Ubuntu flavors for the past 20 years. I mean there's probably people on here that replied that weren't even born when I started using it lol!!! (Fuck I'm old)
  Reading about AUR gives me a feeling of insecurity. It sounds like a repo of packages that anyone can push and distribute.
  Also, I remember there being some issues with Arch, among other distros, being too bleeding edge and receiving packages with security problems. Something about a backdoor in SSH. Maybe being too bleeding edge is a double "edged" sword.
  
  Security is a give and take, and with bleeding edge you have to balance it more. Yes bleeding edge can mean bleeding hearts when a security issue is discovered in new code. But just as often, if not more frequently, it also means you get security patches before almost anyone else. And the AUR is insecure, as it's a user repository. But 99% of the time if you read the PKGBUILD (it's really easy, you can usually skim it) and check the sources you'll be fine. The AUR being insecure isn't bad, it just means you need to put more effort into checking on stuff and you need to be responsible for your security. These aren't bad habits to have in general, but it's a bit of a learning curve coming from systems that expect to handle most of your security for you.

It can be (pretty much) any distro you want -- just make a minimal install, install the stuff you want, pull config files from your github and throw em in $HOME, that's it.
- I always hear stuff like this. What config files are worth dragging from one distro install to another? I would assume that a lot of it wouldn't apply any more.
  
  He's probably talking about DE configs which can pretty much be the same from one distro to another. If I use KDE on Arch or Kubuntu or Fedora or whatever, I can have the same experience on all of them.
  EDIT: I misread their comment. Storing configs in a git repo is practical. Stuff like VIM configs, bash scripts and some other text based configs that you have to perfect over time.

I'm a die-hard Ubuntu fan, but just use whatever works for you.
- Same. But I've been questioning my loyalty lately because of their obsession with Snap. Canonical has been increasingly imposing their business decisions on their users and it's a bit off putting.
  I'm considering moving to Fedora or maybe even OpenSuse. Possibly even Endeavor! I can't believe I'd ever consider an Arch based distro.
  Honestly this research has left me even more indecisive about what to install. But I have an increasingly big feeling that I might be ditching Ubuntu. I don't think anyone should be messing with APT in such a way that it would end up installing snap packages instead of debian packages. This is too much.
  They should simply provide the option to use snaps to users in the app store and not enforce it like with some apps, such as Firefox and Thunderbird.

My advice: try them all and see what works.
I'd recommend nobara if you don't like gnome, but I am fairly biased towards it, so idk what my recommendation is worth.
Endeavor is also a decent choice, provided that you wanna deal with some arch Linux quirkiness from time to time.
But yeah, try them all and see what works best...
- Yeah I don't know if I want to "deal" with anything. I just want to install it and forget it. I might be steering towards more stable established distros.

I really like cachyos myself.
- Someone else mentioned it in this thread. But I don't know if I want to install a fringe distro instead of something that's established and stable with long term support from a solid community or company. But who knows.
  
  Yeah I totally get that. I’ve been loving it though :)

Since your main priority is stability, I'd suggest either Debian Stable or Mint. Debian Stable is rock solid, but the software is ancient; Mint is a good compromise. They both have a nice package selection.
The reason why I don't recommend Ubuntu itself is snaps. Huge downloads with lots of wasted disk space, wasted memory, less user control, mismatching themes, larger loading times... urgh.
Desktop environment is such a personal matter that it's hard to say which one would be the best for you. I'm a big fan of MATE - it's small, it's nice, you can reasonably customise it without new extensions or applets. Xfce would be also a good performance-focused choice.
- I agree about the Snaps. But isn't it kind of the same deal with Flatpaks? The whole objective is to deliver the application with all its dependencies packaged in, and running in a pseudo fenced environment. So of course it will take up more storage space. The speed issue is because some of these are compressed to take up less space. It's a compromise.
  Worst case, you can disable snaps easily. But, I've found using Snaps and Flakpaks somewhat easier, especially for when it comes to removing the software. I dunno. I might stick with Kubuntu or even Ubuntu Budgie. (Still testing some distros out in a VM.)
  
  The problem is that Ubuntu overuses snaps, even when there are completely acceptable .deb alternatives, that will perform consistently better; typically distros using appimage and flatpak don't do the same.
  That said if this isn't a big deal for you Ubuntu might be still an option. As the saying goes, better the devil that we know.

I've been thinking the same thing lately, and based on my recent Linux usage on my other machines, I would probably pick something Fedora based with KDE. I've been using Arch on my "work" laptop and it's been really fine and fun, but also a LOT of work (especially when I break something myself). Having a ton of very up to date packages to install, plus the AUR and Flatpaks to shore up anything that might be missing makes for a very "compatible" system. And of course, the freedom and courage to set it up just exactly the way I want.
I used Linux Mint for several years, it's the one I can say I'm most comfortable with. If I had to set up another low power laptop or a computer for a family member I'd either use that or MX Linux. They just don't break. I have also tried Fedora for a short time, and it made me start liking KDE Plasma, and it was honestly the easiest one to set up for Steam out of the box. And it had more in variety and more up to date packages than Mint, and also easily augmentable with Flatpaks for what's missing. OpenSUSE was similar, but the package manager was excruciatingly slow, and there were no good mirrors for fast downloads, dropped that very quickly.
Although, overall from your past experience in the post and other responses in the thread, I think you'll do just fine with Kubuntu. You're already plenty familiar with how to use it and how to set it up the way you need it to. I've been considering Nobara for my gaming PC as basically a better Fedora, but I'm afraid of projects with so few people taking care of them fizzling out in a couple years, and it's not as simple as just replacing it with base Fedora if that happens. So yeah, my personal choices would be Arch, Mint or Fedora. But my case is not the same as yours.
- I’ve been considering Nobara for my gaming PC as basically a better Fedora, but I’m afraid of projects with so few people taking care of them fizzling out in a couple years, and it’s not as simple as just replacing it with base Fedora if that happens.
  Yeah. Doing a bit more digging after I posted this, that's what I found out also. It's only maintained by one guy??? That doesn't sound too good. Also, reading some Reddit posts, it looks like it ain't all that great actually. People are recommending using more mainstream distributions instead of "fringe distros".
  Also, a few in this thread also advised against installing Manjaro due to breakage.
  Yeah, I think I'll just stick with Kubuntu. I'm also considering Ubuntu Budgie. The desktop looks very clean and simple and not too complex. This is what I loved about Gnome. The amount of personalization isn't excessive to a point you can break your DE, which is something I find KDE Plasma to be guilty of. But Budgie isn't widely used so it'll be harder to find support if something breaks. I might just add the DE on the side alongside KDE Plasma.
  So bottom line: Kubuntu will probably be my first choice.

You're wrong about immutable, nixos is extremely configurable, I'd say even more than a normal distro
https://www.howtogeek.com/why-i-use-nixos-and-why-you-should-too/
check them out, I actually think there's no downside these days, I say this with a customized down to every detail setup that I moved from arch, no reason not to go immutable these days if you're new to linux especially

I have been using Linux forever. I've used Red hat, SUSE, Debian, Slackware, Mandrake, Ubuntu and now Arch with KDE. Part of the fun is trying different distros.
I've currently settled with vanilla Arch with KDE (Gnome get it together) and a bunch of flatpaks for user software stuff. I really like rolling releases these days. Just keep the core install minimal and tight.
Also the Arch forum community is top notch.
With that said I would start with package manager and desktop GUI you like and then go from there.

Is mint good for gaming? I'm looking to switch as well
- Absolutely.
  It's desktop environment is very light on resource usage and very easy to use. It's great for new Linux users.
  It's package repository includes Ubuntu's which is rich with great up to date and stable and secure packages. Plus Mint adds it's own to allow the user to avoid using Snap packages. (You can ask if you're not sure what that is. I don't know your level of experience in Linux.)
  Because it's based on Ubuntu you also have the little added features that allow you to install 3rd party audio/video codecs to play proprietary formats and to install and manage proprietary graphics drivers as well. (Nvidia for example).
  There's great hardware support for PC hardware and gaming devices.
  There's a huge community and lots of documentation for Ubuntu and Mint.
  It's a great no hassle OS for both gaming and productivity.
  
  Thanks!
  Why'd you get downvoted though?

Ubuntu...it always come back to ubuntu

Gentoo
- Hahahahahaha
  I've always associated Gentoo users with car tuners buying a 1998 Honda Civic and tuning the crap out of it for max performance. Sure the car will look rad with all the big spoilers, neat paint job and rims with parts that provide an amazing performance that pushes the car's limits. But you'll have spent a few years building it.
  No offense. I do admire the work that goes into customizing and compiling your whole OS that way, but it's not my cup of tea.
  
  Jokes aside, you can do different stage installs where you don’t have to compile the whole OS. However I feel like the quality has dropped during the past few years and it requires too much tinkering. Back when everything was on spinning rust, the performance difference was very noticeable though.

I have really enjoyed using Solus for the last couple of years. Stable yet up to date.
- I've NEVER heard of it. Based on the PiSi packaging system developed for Pardus OS, a Linux distro developed by Turkey? Wow ok.
  Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll stick to something more mainstream.

Didn't read. Install CachyOS.
- Thanks but no thanks. There's a lot of fringe Arch based distros out there with very little amount of support an no community and that's specifically what I don't want had you bothered to read. Though I can't blame you. That's a long ass post.

128 comments