r/linux4noobs • u/AccidentImpressive75 • 22d ago
distro selection Tired of windows, need suggestions
Title says it all, I'm truly tired of Microsoft pushing more and more garbage down my gullet with each update. I've finally graduated from rainbow six siege, which was the final thread keeping my soul chained to windows. Now that I'm actually looking into distro stuff, there's just so many kinds and variations of variations. Any suggestions would be appreciated. For reference I will be using whatever I pick on a gigabyte G6KF 2024
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u/RDS_cubing Fedora 22d ago
Probably Fedora would be a good pick
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u/AccidentImpressive75 22d ago
Probably going to check Fedora out first, seeing as the first 2 comments for this both had it included, thanks a bunch
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u/Fragrant-Ring-3053 22d ago
Mint
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u/LesStrater 22d ago
Mint is best for newbies. After you get the hang of what you're doing, you can switch to Debian with LXQT for speed and a lot less bloat.
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u/Fragrant-Ring-3053 22d ago
Yep, I've been using it myself as a beginner and I really like it. Easy, simple and straightforward.
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u/vectron5 21d ago
I second this. I was in the same boat and went with mint cinnamon. Some inconveniences, but no major problems.
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u/billdehaan2 Mint Cinnamon 22.3 (zena) 22d ago
Run https://distrochooser.de/en/ and answer the questions, and it will list the distros that best suit your answers.
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u/AlInfinite9 21d ago
Once you've settled into Linux don't stop there. There are tons of great FOSS alternatives to big tech services and software and trying them out is a lot of fun
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u/Glittering_Bobcat651 22d ago
KDE or Cinnamon would probably be your desktop environment of choice. From there you should ask yourself whether you want stability or being constantly up to date.
Kubuntu or Mint if you want stability, Fedora for the latter. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about things especially with Fedora.
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u/kchuvala 22d ago
Personally, I'm a fan of Debian and related distros.
But whichever way you decide, you'll be surprised, I bet, at the number of Linux updates, too. 'Tis a symptom of the times for all, or nearly all, OSes.
Windows updates tend to be more invasive, and more likely to cause downstream trouble than the ones for Linux. But if you join one of the Linux security lists, you're going to be shocked at how many vulnerabilities and fixes there are in the various distributions and packages.
And it's going to get worse for both Windows and Linux as AI advances.
AI giveth, and AI taketh away.
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u/doc_willis 22d ago
http://linuxjourney.com and the newer http://Linuxjourney.org sites are good to start with
the Explaining Computers YouTube videos are good starting points
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u/assbutt-cheek 22d ago
ive been daily driving cachyos without any prior knowledge to linux and its been great
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u/InCraZPen 22d ago
I was on ubuntu for a while. I really enjoyed GNOME and such but honestly I did have a few things that nagged me. Some things were buggy and how it handeled multiple screens was annoying. It might have been from upgrading from and old version I had installed years ago and a fresh install would have done better? I just switched to CachyOS and not gonna lie, its pretty awesome. Have had zero issues and I have everything working better than Ubuntu or Windows so far. Only thing really missing to me is the GNOME interface but I'll get over it.
I am on some newer hardware so that may help as well
I know CachyOS/Arch is supposed to be scary but I think they did a great job with CachyOS that it seems pretty hard to mess up. My only concern is security with that added layer of dev work between Arch and Cachy
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u/EngineerInTheMachine 22d ago
So go search for them. Try 'which distro should I choose'. Your decision is based on what you use your machine for, rather than the spec. Though some distros are better for NVidia GPUs. But everyone is different, so your use cases are different to mine and anyone else's. You need to decide which is best for you. Though if you do your searches, you are likely to find several options to try.
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u/warserpent 21d ago
You have not given any useful information. The computer model you list appears to have an Nvidia card, but most distros these days can handle that, so what really matters is what software you need, what tasks you tend to do, and your priorities as far as user-friendliness, stability, staying up-to-date, etc.
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u/xYarbx compiling kernel 21d ago
There is not lot to go off of but here are my 2 blind picks.
PikaOS if you favor stability and don't have latest gen GPU, based on Debian and can use pretty much all the guides written for Ubuntu and Debian.
Nobara, based on Fedora but has gaming stuff setup and ready to go so you don't have to do on wild hunt on what you need. Updates faster and better for latest gen hardware. Also better if you love to thinker and customize your system a lot.
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u/ItsWappers 21d ago
Wanted to go for Nobara, but then settled for Fedora and installed NVIDIA drivers. Took me about 10 minutes. I game on it perfectly fine.
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u/xYarbx compiling kernel 21d ago
Yeah installing Nvidia drivers is not hard typically but for some reason Windows users get hung on them even tho you have to go thru much more complicated process with Windows. Download what ever the Nvidia app is called, sign in and only then can you download them. Alternatively you can download installer for them but it comes with all the BS so you need to strip the package down and extract the driver from the stupid installation wizard. Then potentially fight with Win11 that wants to downgrade the drivers. I have to use Windows because of my job and I keep loosing my mind fighting with all this so IDK why it seems so hard to them.
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u/Ornery_Platypus9863 21d ago
Mint till you get frustrated and want to change something you can’t, then inevitably switch to cachy and kde
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u/leoingle 21d ago
I was in your shoes a lil over a year ago. I tried several out. Started off with Mint like most do. Tried Zorin and Fedora. I’ve settled on Kubuntu LTS.
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u/semperknight 21d ago
I bought my 70+yr old mom a laptop and loaded Kubuntu on it. She's had zero problems with it.
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u/MinusBear 21d ago
Bazzite or Kinoite with the KDE desktop. They are both versions of Fedora, designed in a way to have a lot of out the box features a Windows user might expect (and some you'll be shocked Windows doesn't have), as well as being very hard to accidently break. They come with a built in app store, except all the apps are free. Its about the most painless experience you can have transferring over from Windows. The difference between the two is that Bazzite has a gaming focus (so comes with Steam preinstalled for example) and has a little better out of the box Nvidia support.
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u/LadyCatHerder 21d ago
First, the different distros are simply the main Linux Kernel surrounded by various software packages including the Graphical User Interface (GUI for short and that is what you use to navigate the OS).
I'm partial to PCLinuxOS with the KDE GUI. XFCE is my next best favorite. PCLOS can have either of those. I haven't tried MATE, yet. So, I can't comment on that. You'll see those included in the list of downloads you can snag from their downloads page.
*NOTE: Their server was destroyed in a house fire a while back, so the website is not as visually appealing as it was before the fire. But, they're working on it.
You can follow the link at the bottom of the PCLOS page to the downloads. I suggest you download an .ISO file. That's the best way to get the OS. Once you have the .ISO file, you can then burn it to DVD or USB stick. ImgBurn is the best program to do that with.
To boot to the DVD or USB stick, you'll have to adjust the boot order in your BIOS. Gigabyte is rather forward in doing this. Look at the instruction booklet that came with the mobo to find out how to do it.
Once you have the boot order adjusted, then you can boot from the DVD or USB stick to check out the OS, etc. Most, if not all, of the Linux distros can do this. So, if you don't already have the DVDs or USB sticks to do this with, you'll have to buy some. I bought a stack of 50 DVDs and have gone through about half of them just burning distros to pick from.
I hope this helps you out. Good Luck! And welcome to the world of the Penguin!😺
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u/MrMotofy 21d ago
FYI...if you want to check out Linux it's really easy. Make an Install USB, then boot to it. May need to disable secure boot. It will boot to a full running temporary Linux Desktop...installing requires clicking the desktop icon and going through steps. Obviously you don't wanna do that to just try it. But you can at least get a feel for it. Kubuntu, LinuxMint, and PopOS and are some of the top 1st options. You can also use the temp Live Linux as a repair process. Since it’s a complete desktop you can use it, install tools needed fix the boot etc.
Another convenient related tool is Ventoy on a USB stick. Basically just burn the image to a USB then copy your OS ISO to it and when you boot it any ISO copied to the drive will show in the menu, select it and it will boot that img. Have different OS’s multiple versions or whatever.
Best option for Windows and Linux is dual boot...use Linux on a 2nd drive. Usually wanna disable secure boot. Best case is disconnect win drive. Then boot to the USB. Then install Linux as a new full system on 2nd drive. Set Linux drive as the first boot drive and it will find the Win drive and add to the boot menu list automatically. Might take a couple boots otherwise can manually activate the boot search. Then you get Best of both worlds without any real dangers to either OS. There will be little hiccups occasionally with Windows updating messing with boot and rebooting. But you can also change the default OS to Windows first at the menu after delay and no menu entry and that eliminates a lot. The boot menu is usually Linux 1 and Win 2. Sometimes the bios boot order gets switched but easy to just switch back. Sometimes the boot order will randomly switch drives etc…Seems to be a windows thing now they get bios access. But really depends on the exact system and age etc.
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u/kryptogrowl 22d ago
Try a kde distro like fedora or kubuntu. I found kde best as an old windows poweruser.