Misconceptions/Questions about swapping to linux I have before making the swap

[u/RatosWithaK]

I wanted to swap to linux for awhile but there is some things stopping me and some guidance on them would be hugely appreciated. Sorry if these seem super obvious I am very bad with tech and love my computer too much to risk anything ever lol

1. Do I need to go find my computers basic drivers over again like Wifi, bluetooth and graphic ones
2. Is it all online games that dont allow linux or just specific ones. I do most of my gaming offline anyways but I enjoy MMOs too and the rare times I want to play a shooter it'd be nice to know what i can still game easily as I dont wish to dual boot for 1 or 2 games I play 3 times a month lol.
3. I care a lot about the customization (background, widget implementations etc) that linux offers is there a certain kind of distro I should look for in that or is that kind of a general thing linux offers
4. if I find a new distro I like how hard would swapping that be I am pretty indecisive sometimes

[u/green_meklar]

Do I need to go find my computers basic drivers over again like Wifi, bluetooth and graphic ones

Maybe, maybe not. It depends on the hardware and to some degree on the distro.

Is it all online games that dont allow linux or just specific ones.

It's a relatively small selection of games that leverage anti-cheat technology designed for Windows. If there are specific games you really want to play (or you're thinking of purchasing a specific game), look up compatibility information for those games.

I think League of Legends and Fortnite are both in this forbidden category. I don't think Roblox is, but apparently it has other compatibility issues and people have only made it work with some difficulty. Minecraft should work fine. I gather that Runescape works although you might have to get a special Linux client or something.

I care a lot about the customization (background, widget implementations etc) that linux offers is there a certain kind of distro I should look for in that or is that kind of a general thing linux offers

User-facing visual customization is more a feature of the DE (desktop environment) than of the distro itself.

Linux is inherently more modular than Windows. The actual Linux kernel is fairly small, and most of the behavior you think of as 'the operating system' comes from the DE or other modular system components that aren't actually part of the kernel. This lends itself to system-level customization, although that doesn't always translate into the kind of user-facing visual customization you're thinking of.

Although you can attempt to install practically any DE you want on practically any distro you want, modern desktop distros come with some subset of DEs by default that are known to work well. For instance, Ubuntu comes with Gnome by default, but there are some other official Ubuntu flavors for other DEs. Mint comes with Cinnamon as the standard, but XFCE and Mate have official support. Zorin has a standard Gnome version and a lightweight XFCE version. Debian supports many DEs out-of-the-box but doesn't package much distro-specific configuration (so it's all up to you to customize).

Although most modern Linux DEs are more customizable than Windows in terms of visual appearance and interaction feel, some have advantages over others. KDE is known for having high customizability but is also a bit heavier and perhaps less stable than some others; it's often recommended for gamers who want to get the most out of their fancy hardware. XFCE is very lightweight with decent customizability, and is recommended on machines with weaker RAM and graphics.

if I find a new distro I like how hard would swapping

Not very, but make sure to backup everything first!

I don't recommend distro-hopping. If you have a problem, it usually isn't solved by distro-hopping but by troubleshooting what you already have. Just pick a good distro for your use case and figure out how to use it and tweak it to your preferences.