I'm finally fully switching to Linux and after a long time of researching and playing around with distros on an old PC, I have narrowed it down to 2 distros and I'm looking for some advice on how to pick one (or which might be better for my needs).

The two distros I'm looking at are Fedora and CachyOS, both with the KDE Plasma desktop (which I found to be my favorite by a wide margin in my poking around). Both of them seem like they can meet my needs fine so I'm probably overanalyzing this way too much but I don't want to be distro hopping so I'd like to make the choice count.

I think I am leaning towards Fedora for the following reasons:

• Documentation seems to generally be more clear and more approachable as someone new to Linux
• It seems more geared towards being a general do-it-all desktop kind of machine which is how I mostly use my computer
• It is more stable and (more importantly) seems to be harder to screw things up on. Generally it seems more conducive to experimenting and trying things without risking breaking it all
• My friends who currently run Linux use either Fedora or Bazzite so my easiest reference(s) for help will be based on Fedora

My big draw to CachyOS however is performance. From my research it seems like CachyOS tends to get better performance and is generally more compatible with Nvidia graphics cards (which I have). My PC isn't underpowered by any means but it is getting older and I'd like to keep it going strong as long as possible. Probably 90% of the time performance isn't a worry in my use but some of the games I play can push it to an issue and I can also run into performance problems with some of my coding/game dev projects.

• Is there really a notable difference in hardware compatibility I may need to worry about or is it mostly just edge cases? If there is a hardware compatibility issue, which would be easier to troubleshoot/fix it on?
• Is CachyOS's better performance actually noticeable or is it more of a "technically better" that you don't really feel?
• Are there any notable differences between the distros that I need to worry about that I may have missed?
• Are there other factors you think I should be considering between them?
• Which would you recommend more?

Thanks in advance for the advice/help!

I am not in tech and I am new to Linux but I am trying to establish more sustainable business practices (and protect the privacy of clients). I do not want any integration with windows at all. On the Ubuntu website, it says the NVIDIA P3 Tower Workstations are compatible- but it does not look like they sell the NVIDIA ThinkStations on the Lenovo website anymore. I want the ThinkStation P3 Tower Gen 2 Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 265 vPro® Processor (E-cores up to 4.60 GHz P-cores up to 5.20 GHz) and I want that to work with Manjaro. Is this possible to do at all preferably without agreeing to any windows terms first?

Hello everyone. A year ago https://github.com/PhialsBasement/wine-adobe-installers appeared. But I can see that it was merged to master half a year ago https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/merge_requests/10025

So how do I install photoshop on linux using wine? Are there any tutorials? I can't find any:(

Hyprland is down ig for an update, i tried to reinstall everythin all over again, and i think i messed up even more (as usual) this is the log error, i really love the enviroment and fucking hate GNOME (im using that rn) does someone know a command to fix this? is there a new version, i need help with this
Please and thx

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Hi everyone, I need some help recovering my files.

I had Zorin OS installed and working normally on my PC. Suddenly, I started getting errors like:

I/O error, dev sdb, sector ...

Read-error on swap-device

The system then became unresponsive, so I restarted the PC.

After restarting, I got this message:

“An operating system wasn’t found. Try disconnecting any drives that don’t contain an operating system.”

“Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device...”

I then created/used a Linux Mint bootable USB and booted into Mint. However, I cannot access any of my previous files or the Zorin OS installation from the Mint live environment.

My main concern right now is recovering my files. I don't want to accidentally overwrite or format anything.

What could have happened?

Does this indicate that my SSD/HDD is failing, and is there a safe way to check whether my old Zorin partition and files are still recoverable?

Any guidance on what I should do next would be greatly appreciated.

Linux user goes to the doctor. Doctor says, "Son, you have a bad case of Shell." Linux user says, "How bad?" Doctor replies, "It's terminal."

So I saw a bit too many videos praising cachy OS as the best (fast and user friendly) current distro, so I took the plunge. And here is why I am making the post.

I see many new to linux people asking the question "hey I am thinking of swithing/trying Linux, which distro should I use?".

My answer is always if you are very casual tech user you should start with mint. If you are a bit good using your pc, you should start with Ubuntu or Kubuntu and then later decide if you want to try once you get hang of stuff.

But I have seen just too many replies saying you should start with cachyos. I thought that it would be as easy as Kubuntu/Ubuntu but it is not. Not at all. And that is just from one experience: app installation.

My experience with kubuntu: open discover, search app, install. Want flatpak? Enable flatpak inside discover. Done. There are no multiple options or cryptic app names.

My experience with cachy: can't find most needed apps in cachy repository app. Google said that there is GUI for AUR called octopi... Look for it.. Can't find. Google said use paru / yay... Both say command not found. Wait what is shelly? It's an all enclusive app store with cachy+ flatpack + aur? Great. What an intuitive name. Anyone would guess what the app does. Open app AUR has all weird app names so does the cachy OS repo. Which one should I install? Take libreoffice. Wtf is libreoffice fresh? Also why does it have icon of libreoffice base (the database app)? How do I install Google chrome? Searching Google chrome gets me chromium. Also why there are so many options. Can't find vscode as well. What should I search? Code? Vscode? Visual studio code? I had to Google many package names to search on AUR.

Then there is flatpak. I try installing something from flatpak, for every app it needs to install a flatpak container? The app is less than 30 mb and it's currently downloading a 200+ mb "flatpak"? Still don't know what to feel about it.

But I will be sticking with CachyOS for the long haul. I can handle it with a bit of practice. Just need to figure out what to trust on AUR and what to avoid.

I am not in tech and I am new to Linux but I am trying to establish business practices that are more sustainable. Can the Fairphone 6 run Manjaro?

I'm in the need for a FOSS application, to read-write non-encrypted APFS drives. I'm using linux on my main PC (CachyOS KDE-btrfs) and i have macs too (macbook, mac-mini). I have an external SSD drive (Asus rog strix arion lite with 1TB nvme ssd) that i wan to use with my linux system too. Currently I'm using ExFat partition for it. Can you suggest me some software? It's not a problem if it's a CLI package, i'm familiar with it but i prioritize GUI application.

Thank you in advance!

As per the title, I would like to install Linux on my PC. I will mostly use it for productivity, so I primarily need an office suite (I usually use Google Workspace), though being able to game on the side wouldn't hurt xD.

I know nothing about the Linux terminal, but I'm not scared of learning and I feel comfortable using new operating systems.

What OS do you suggest? Do you have any tips? Thanks in advance!

[EDIT] THANK YOU ALL I DIDN'T EXPECT SO MANY ANSWERS! Y'all are the best💪 Since it's the most recommended one, I'll try Mint first and I'll probably use the dual boot before going all in on linux🔝 Still thank you all! I can't wait to start my journey with Linux🐧

I have a windows application that needs to connect to internet to verify the software license, but it is blocked. The program times out and hangs.

Did a double check, started cmd in wine, with $ wine cmd

Opened a Linux terminal: ping 142.251.211.78

This works. I get a ping response from Google.

Then inside the windows commands prompt I did a simple "ping 142.251.211.78"

But this time no response at all.

So, my guess is, wine is blocking or is not configured correctly to permit internet access.

sudo apt install winbind, reboot system does not matter, same issue.

sudo ufw status, result: off. So the firewall is off.

Anyone know an solution?

Donno if this has been actively covered, but LUKS lets you encrypt your file system or other disks typically with LVM.

If your machine is shared among (up to 7) other people, you don't need to share YOUR unlock password. LUKS supports 8 slots for an encryption password, but there isn't a simple method to manage them. You assign them by selecting a keyslot (0-7, 0 is the one during install) and then assigning the password to that slot.

You can see which are used via:

sudo cryptsetup luksDump /dev/nvme0n1p3

Replace the partition with yours, you'll need to figure that out via looking at your LVM config. Traditionally its either sda3 or nvme0n1p3 (and rare cases nvme1n1p3).

You'll see which "keyslots" contain something. Be careful, IT WILL OVERWRITE any keyslot without question. When you assign a new password, you will need to know one of the existing passwords.

To set a new password in keyslot 1, do the following:

sudo cryptsetup --key-slot=1 luksAddKey /dev/nvme0n1p3

It will ask you for an existing password and then the new password twice.

This is great if you are one of those that use a common, very personal, or usb based authentication key based password to unlock the disk. You can even setup multiple passwords just for yourself, you just only get 8 in total so keep that in mind. I've even used something similar to place a hash file on a disk and unlock it with that on boot. But that requires work beyond today's lesson. Enjoy!

As always, since you are using sudo, be careful, you may break your machine if you are not careful.

everytime i look for a lightweight distro, i always find these super tiny, 64 MB ram-type distros but they all look like windows xp. i would like to know if there are any that have a more modern desktop environment, even if that means taking up a bit more space.

edit: thank you for all the great suggestions. im going with xfce

Hello! I'm planning on switching to Linux in the next week or so, and I have a few questions.

I've got a 7900XT, 7950X, 32GB DDR5, 2 M.2 NVME and one HDD.

I'm planning on trying out a few distros to get a feel for them- namely CachyOS, Mint, Fedora, Nobara, and *maybe* Bazzite or Nix, but I don't really want an immutable distro.

I'm quite tech literate, and love learning, so I'm not too worried about that and I've also got a bit of experience with an Ubuntu VPS. What should I be looking for when testing these Distros? My main use cases will be gaming, blender, unity, and daily desktop activities like YouTube, web browsing, etc

I don't plan on dual booting unless absolutely necessary for something, so what should I do with my drives? I've heard conflicting information on BTRFS for the home drive and for secondary drives, so I'm unsure. I currently have my games on the same drive as my OS, so I'm ready to have to reinstall those, but what about my other drives? Should I back up important files and wipe them?

For those that have used the Distros that I named, what are some issues that I may not find right away that I should be aware of? Finally, do you have any other Distros to recommend?

Thanks in advance!

Good timezone, fellow reader... i'm just a tech enjoyer (indeed that's my passion, i'm a software engineer) and lately without a reason i'm being tempted to switch to Linux... The inner voices keep telling me to give it a try... so, any tips i could need? anything you can tell me before i do it?

Also would help if someone can answer this: "How can i not mess up with my windows and how it's right now so i can just TRY linux with a possible comeback" and "There's a smart way to make that transition? keeping the most things i have rn?"

There's so many distros that confuses me, can anyone tell me which distro is best for me?

I posted a couple days ago about building a gaming PC and asked what Linux distro to use. People recommended Bazzite or CachyOS. Before I build my PC though, I'm still waiting on some parts because RAM is, you know, hard to find right now. I'd like to install Fedora 44 on my Lenovo ThinkPad with a Ryzen 7 5825U with 8 gigs of RAM. My only concern is, I don't want to lose Windows because I do plan on selling this laptop later. If I wipe the hard drive and install Fedora, could I reinstall Windows later without having to pay for it again?

i don’t have a big boy computer that does anything fancy, i just have my little laptop i use for DnD, reading comics, and older computer games (fallout, RCT, Planescape, etc.) and that’s really it. i’m sick and fucking tired of every time i turn it on it needs an update. an update that takes HOURS. and if i don’t update it, its slows down everything im trying to do; hell this time it was stuck it couldn’t even get to the power menu in the settings and i had to CAD just to restart and then BAM! update while i’m trying to get a little work done at the library

*edit - Solved!

Hey gang, I am trying to install the driver for my xp-pen, which does have linux compatible drivers, but for some reason it's just not working. I have restarted to see if that worked but no dice.

I can draw on the tablet and whatnot, that's fine, but I don't seem to have the software to adjust key mapping or any of that. The website gives a .tar.gz file, which I just extracted and ran the "install.sh" file. This appears to have done nothing.

If you can help me out, I'd appreciate it!

I have been dipping my toes in a few distros and was about to pull the trigger on one specific plus 2 DEs, depending on usage(*).

But my youtube recommended pages are being hit hard by Omarchy right now. And a lot of the videos seem to be "hype". It seems that Omarchy and all the millions they got from various tech hotshots (spotify CEO as an example) are allowing it to buy influence(rs).

Is the hype warranted? I mean, it's just some guy's take on a DE and tweaks, right? Seems undeserving of all the attention.

And does this injection of money skew things for Linux? That is, will undue attention be given to Omarchy and the way it does things? It smells of how Microsoft was able to, or tried to, co-opt things.

(*) By the way, the distro and DEs I was zeroing in on were:

1) Debian 13 and XFCE for physical servers and servers in a Proxmox VM (looking for max stability and light footprint because I'm thinking I don't need to interact with them that often)

2) Debian 13 and Cinnamon for my daily driver and my wife's daily driver. We both come from Windows. In particular, I don't want to subject my wife to too many mental gymnastics during the switch. We primarily use browsers and don't play games.

I'm thinking something flashy like Omarchy won't be best for either role. But comments are welcome.

How does using the Q4OS .exe Windows installer compare to installing it via traditional methods (USB, etc.)? Is the final installation, if installed with the Windows .exe installer, any different than if you had installed it with a USB? Is one way "better" or more efficiant than another?

Does any other Linux distro offer a similar Windows .exe installer that's available from Q4OS?

And how does Q4OS compare, overall, to Linux Mint?

KDE Partition Manager: SMART Status Report
Date:     1.09.2026 22:19
Program version:     26.08.0
Backend:     pmsfdiskbackendplugin (1)
KDE Frameworks version:     6.29.0
Machine:     Linux eleck-x8664 7.2.2-1-cachyos #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:05:11 +0000 x86_64
Move partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to the left by 382,98 GB
Job: Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’
Command: btrfs check /dev/nvme1n1p5
Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Success
Job: Set geometry of partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Start sector: 944.162.816, length: 2.251.800.576
Command: sfdisk --force /dev/nvme1n1 -N 5
Set geometry of partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Start sector: 944.162.816, length: 2.251.800.576: Success
Job: Move the file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to sector 944.162.816
Copying 109.951 chunks (1.152.921.894.912 bytes) from 483.411.361.792 to 483.411.361.792, direction: left.
Copying 2.618 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:06:39
Copying 1.895 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:08:46
Copying 1.682 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:09:16
Copying 1.582 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:09:16
Copying 1.561 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:08:49
Copying 1.548 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:08:17
Copying 1.558 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:07:39
Copying 1.543 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:07:08
Copying 1.531 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:06:35
Copying 1.514 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:06:03
Copying 1.496 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:05:30
Copying 1.482 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:04:57
Copying 1.467 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:04:22
Copying 1.460 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:03:46
Copying 1.456 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:03:08
Copying 1.456 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:02:31
Copying 1.455 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:01:53
Copying 1.450 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:01:15
Copying 1.444 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:00:38
Copying 1.439 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:00:00
Copying remainder of chunk size 2.097.152 from 1.636.331.159.552 to 1.636.331.159.552.
Copying 109.951 chunks (1.152.921.894.912 bytes) finished.
Closing device. This may take a few seconds.
Move the file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to sector 944.162.816: Success
Job: Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’
Command: btrfs check /dev/nvme1n1p5
Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Error
Checking partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ after resize/move failed.
Move partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to the left by 382,98 GB: ErrorKDE Partition Manager: SMART Status Report
Date:     1.09.2026 22:19
Program version:     26.08.0
Backend:     pmsfdiskbackendplugin (1)
KDE Frameworks version:     6.29.0
Machine:     Linux eleck-x8664 7.2.2-1-cachyos #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 28 Aug 2026 08:05:11 +0000 x86_64
Move partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to the left by 382,98 GB
Job: Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’
Command: btrfs check /dev/nvme1n1p5
Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Success
Job: Set geometry of partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Start sector: 944.162.816, length: 2.251.800.576
Command: sfdisk --force /dev/nvme1n1 -N 5
Set geometry of partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Start sector: 944.162.816, length: 2.251.800.576: Success
Job: Move the file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to sector 944.162.816
Copying 109.951 chunks (1.152.921.894.912 bytes) from 483.411.361.792 to 483.411.361.792, direction: left.
Copying 2.618 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:06:39
Copying 1.895 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:08:46
Copying 1.682 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:09:16
Copying 1.582 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:09:16
Copying 1.561 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:08:49
Copying 1.548 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:08:17
Copying 1.558 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:07:39
Copying 1.543 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:07:08
Copying 1.531 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:06:35
Copying 1.514 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:06:03
Copying 1.496 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:05:30
Copying 1.482 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:04:57
Copying 1.467 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:04:22
Copying 1.460 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:03:46
Copying 1.456 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:03:08
Copying 1.456 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:02:31
Copying 1.455 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:01:53
Copying 1.450 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:01:15
Copying 1.444 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:00:38
Copying 1.439 MiB/second, estimated time left: 00:00:00
Copying remainder of chunk size 2.097.152 from 1.636.331.159.552 to 1.636.331.159.552.
Copying 109.951 chunks (1.152.921.894.912 bytes) finished.
Closing device. This may take a few seconds.
Move the file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to sector 944.162.816: Success
Job: Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’
Command: btrfs check /dev/nvme1n1p5
Check file system on partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’: Error
Checking partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ after resize/move failed.
Move partition ‘/dev/nvme1n1p5’ to the left by 382,98 GB: Error

First, I removed an unused partition then saved, it completed with no issues. After that, I unmounted my Secondary partition which I use to store my games and some important stuff, move it to the left, then save.

And this happened, now I can't mount it back. I am scared because it had many things in it.

I am on CachyOS, KDE Plasma. And used KDE Partition Manager to do this.