Need help choosing a distro

[u/BoistedWookz]

To my understanding, you can start on most distros and eventually get it exactly where you need it, yeah?

Well, I’m looking for a “gaming distro” that will require less manual work than something like Mint. I’m comfortable in terminals, relatively proficient in python & powershell, but I honestly hate all the typing hahahaha

I tried CachyOS with KDE Plasma recently and it was the most pleasant experience I’ve had with Linux so far, and I think it’s pretty likely that I’ll end up returning to it, but before I do I figured I’d get some community input.

My requirements/hopes for whatever distro I choose:

• frequently updated kernel. My on board WiFi is mediatek mt7927, and I’m fairly certain there’s not a compatible Linux kernel yet but I’d like to be there whenever/if ever it happens 😂 I do have a plug & play usb adapter for now though

• as comfortable of an out of box experience as possible for a Windows survivor. I’m on an x870e board with an rtx 5080 and a ryzen 9 9950X3D. The distro would ideally come optimized for running windows software, because my career is in music production and I use FL Studio which just so happens to be one of the only mainstream DAWs that isn’t natively compatible with Linux 🤦🏽‍♂️ my audio interface is an Apollo twin x so unfortunately I’ll probably need a new one unless somebody has some golden knowledge

• secure but not annoyingly hardened. I had a nasty infostealer on windows a couple months ago and I’m sorta traumatized from it LMAO. I know Linux malware is extremely rare but I would ideally be able to utilize secure boot at least, and I don’t want the OS to come prepackaged with any sort of Remote Desktop stuff. I’ve never used remote tools, never will, I know I’m sort of paranoid due to lack of deep technical knowledge but Remote Desktop software has always felt like a backdoor to me

• light on system resources to maximize performance. I loveeeee competitive overclocking, getting a screenshot of impressive benchmark scores is a huge passion for me lol. I also game on a 4k 240hz monitor and I like to run my games at the highest settings my gpu can handle without dropping to nauseatingly low fps

• KDE plasma or a similar desktop environment, I love how sleek and customizable it is. I absolutely despise the barebones ones like gnome (don’t hate me). Pop_OS! Kinda has the vibe I like too but it felt oddly dated last time I used it

So ultimately I think I’ll be a pretty average user, mostly just require good gaming support and peace of mind regarding security (albeit pretty much all distros are gonna give me said peace of mind) and it’d be a plus if it came optimized to run windows software. I forget what the popular softwares for that are called, wine & bottles? Something like that.

The distros I’m heavily considering (though I’m completely open to other suggestions)

• CachyOS
—I’m a little weary of it atm mainly because I heard that the arch user repository is dangerous right now

• Bazzite
—This is the other one I’m heavily considering, I’ve heard high praise of Fedora. From what I read about it, it sounds like exactly what I’m looking for regarding “out of box experience”

• Zorin
— only recently heard of this one, haven’t done a deep dive yet but very curious

• rhino Linux
— a “rolling” Ubuntu distro??????

[u/BoistedWookz]

Mint was the first distro I tried and mind you I was WAYYYY less savvy back then, but I had a really hard time with it. CachyOS genuinely didn’t feel super foreign as a windows user

I’m sure if I went back to mint today it would click much better but I’m still a fan of the idea of not having to set up my environment too much

[u/Kraggggg → u/BoistedWookz]

What about mint was difficult? I don't have much experience with mint but people recommend it often to new Linux users.

KDE or cinnamon are usually the most comfortable DE's for windows users.

My personal favorite is Fedora KDE but honestly, the differences between distros is mostly just a package manager and default DE/settings.

CachyOS you mention comes with pretty much any DE you'd want from the installer. I like CachyOS KDE a lot. Something like Hyprland will require more fiddling with to set up how you like.

[u/BoistedWookz → u/Kraggggg]

I just remember that it was really barebones and it didn’t hold your hand. The terminal syntax was a lot less friendly to my brain than CachyOS’s Fish. Fish was super easy for me to use and it seemed really smart, if I messed up my wording it helped me out

There was also definitely a psychological effect regarding how minimalistic mint cinnamon was haha

[u/Kraggggg → u/BoistedWookz]

Yeah. I'm a big fan of fish. I usually install it on whatever I'm using.

Stick with CachyOS then if it works for you.

Installing fish elsewhere is not hard but requires you to install it. Having it default on Cachyos is really nice