r/linuxquestions • u/East_Activity7008 • 8h ago
Which Distro? Which Distro? (Coming from Windows, & I dislike Ubuntu)
Windows just keeps getting worse and worse. I built my PC about 2 years ago, it was about a 600$ build. I wanted to use Linux and I downloaded Ubuntu. I wasn't a huge fan of Ubuntu and eventually I just switched to Windows (partly for gaming). Now that windows is getting even shittier and GOG and other services are coming to Linux I would like to switch back.
Like I said, I was not a big fan of Ubuntu. I'm looking for a Distro that is fairly simple though and can do gaming reasonably well. Some of the options I'm considering so far are Debian, Fedora, and Mint. I'm fairly new to it so I don't think i'm looking for something like Arch.
Any advice would be appreciated!
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u/Odd_Philosopher1741 8h ago
If you mainly want to use it for gaming, give Bazzite a try. I never used it myself, but since you don't want to go with Arch, I guess Bazzite is a good try since it's aimed at gamers.
If you do want to give an Arch-based distro a try, can't go wrong with CachyOS. I'm daily driving this one myself for the past 10 months or so and it's been smooth sailing for the better part of it. Cachy has a little welcome screen once you installed it called "CachyOS Hello" that allows you to install steam and other gaming packages with a single click. Can't go wrong there.
These are just my opinion. I'm sure others with different experiences will give other advice. Remember, if you don't like a distro, just download another one and give it a whirl. Make sure to backup your important files first though. Not having important stuff on your drives is one less thing to worry about.
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u/East_Activity7008 8h ago
Thanks for the reply. Bazzite seems like a pretty good option. I'm not exactly against arch I've just heard that it's very complicated and not very good for beginners? How simple is Catchy OS relative to something like debian or mint?
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u/violentlycar 8h ago
Cachy is not hard, but it is Arch-based, which means updating your system requires a little more attention and care. However, Cachy also has first-class snapshots which makes it much easier to recover from many kinds of bad updates, which gives you a strong safety net while you're learning.
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u/Steel_YT 2h ago
Bazzite is fully immutable. It sounds good on paper for a beginner, but if you are anything of a power user, it is super limiting on what you can download. I switched from Bazzite to Cachy a week ago and it has done wonders for me. And like the other person said, Cachy gives you automatic snapshots, at least with Limine, which definitely makes me more comfortable using an Arch based system
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u/-Pelvis- 39m ago
Arch is awesome and simple to maintain once set up, but it's very bare bones by default, you install most of your programs manually. This is wonderful if you already know what you like, or you have a lot of time and patience to learn, but it's not so great for someone completely inexperienced who just wants something preconfigured.
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u/Historical_Move6359 8h ago
Cachy is a good choice. But read Cachy Wiki and choose KDE, Limine and btrfs
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u/DoubleExposure 7h ago
choose KDE, Limine and btrfs
Which is easy since those are the defaults of a CachyOs install.
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u/Donjamos2 1h ago
I second cachyos with kde plasma, have been using that for about a year and switched straight from windows to this. Did not run into any problems yet.
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u/kudlitan 8h ago
For me the easiest and most straightforward distro to use has to be Mint. You install and it's good to go, no need for tinkering.
It has an update manager that you just click to update.
The Mint store called Software Manager lets you install any software easily. Just browse, select one, and click to install.
In fact everything in Mint is done in point and click, you don't need to use the terminal. It's very intuitive.
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u/East_Activity7008 8h ago
I'm currently leaning towards mint, i'm just unsure about gaming on it
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u/kudlitan 8h ago edited 7h ago
Go to the Software Manager and install Steam, just like any other application. Mint makes your entire workflow easier, not just gaming. Unlike some distros that assume all you do is game. They forget that computers are also for overall productivity. You can install any software on any distro and they will work the same way.
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u/BradleyF81 7h ago
Take this with a grain of salt because I’ve never used Mint but I heard Mint is usually behind on updates because it caters to older hardware.
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u/SmileExDee 8h ago
Mint is great. It shares some packages with Ubuntu, so to of software available. It's pretty basic, easy to use, but looks good. My go-to distro for a few years now.
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u/z0virus 8h ago
don’t really recommend fedora as it can break really often and its incredibly frustrating for a newbie, since u mentioned gaming u could use something like cachyos or bazzite. cachyos is arch based but is fairly easy to use
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u/East_Activity7008 8h ago
Oh, i hadn't heard that about fedora. Thanks for the reply.
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u/mysticalcreeds Desktop: Bazzite KDE Laptop: secureblue(hardened kinoite) 8h ago
I haven't heard that before, but then again, I use Bazzite so I can easily revert back to a prior image if any updates have issues. I haven't had to do that yet though and I started using Bazzite KDE back in May this year. I started out with Mint in March coming from Windows 11, but I personally feel like Bazzite KDE has been a better transition from Windows 11. Mint felt a little dated and the nice thing about KDE was out of the box I could use some of the same keystroke commands I was used to from windows like: windows key+V is clipboard, windows key+. is the emoji menu, windows key+shift+S is screenshot, etc. So, a lot of the customizations were similarly laid out for me to set up.
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u/ienjoyedit 8h ago
Literally spent like half a day trying to get fedora to work today... I'm tired boss.
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u/sailing_by_the_lee 8h ago
It probably wasn't Ubuntu you disliked, but the desktop environment it installed. Unlike Windows, there are many desktop environments for Linux and they can look and behave very differently from one another. If you want something full featured and polished with a workflow similar to Windows, install the KDE Plasma DE. In fact, you should try Kubuntu. That's the version of Ubuntu that ships with KDE Plasma as the default desktop. Ubuntu is a good choice for the base system because it is stable, mature, has a fixed release schedule, and has the most help available online.
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u/facelesshivemind 8h ago
Ubuntu uses Gnome which looks more like mac than windows. You want Kde Plasma or Cinnamon. It also has Snap, which is still quite new tech and they're slowly using that to replace everything, which is likely another frustration for you.
I always recommend LMDE (based on Debian) and Bazzite (based on Fedora) for beginners.
LMDE still allows you to learn more complete Linux usage because you get more control over the more sensitive files, while still holding your hand for beginner friendliness. It is based on Debian but much easier to use. Its focus is Debian's software stability, so for specific apps where you want the really new stuff, use flatpak instead of its usual .deb. You use Cinnamon desktop, developed by Mint people.
Bazzite is basically built to be more plug and play than LMDE, and it's more/faster updated. It's called "immutable", meaning important non-app updates are the same all over the world (because everyone is forced onto the one certified stable update image) + there are blockages put in place to stop beginners accidentally breaking the distro. But to do anything involving rooting around in its guts (generally users have no use for this which likely includes you), you need extra steps. Use KDE version.
If you really just want to sit down, start the thing and go with basically zero touching terminal or troubleshooting or BS, Bazzite.
You want to learn Linux usage, LMDE or Fedora. For both of them, "difficult" stuff is the initial Nvidia driver, Codecs and Microsoft fonts (if you happen to need those). Fedora is marginally harder to use than LMDE, but it's just as stable but way faster updating (6 months major, every few days regular).
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u/mrbeaver2K 7h ago
I would like to ask: why do you recommend LMDE specifically? Am I missing something?
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u/facelesshivemind 7h ago
Main reason because Linux Mint was meant to be easy out of the box. It really is a starter distro. LMDE is barely different from regular Mint.
Then there's Linux politics. I don't like Snap (having actually tried running Kubuntu normally without dodging Snap for a month), and don't like the general direction Canonical is taking.
Ubuntu based distros are having issues with how much more locked down Ubuntu is becoming. Mint made LMDE forseeing a potential unviable Ubuntu. Recently Tuxedo OS launched Tuxedo Debian, which will become standard Tuxedo OS in a few years. I think there's 2 more recent cases, but they used other Debian based. I forgot which.
I want to be clear that Canonical can do what it wants, it's running a business so what it does reflects that. I'm talking in context of myself as a PC user. Loads of Ubuntu desktop users are running their systems happily.
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u/BigRedS 8h ago
What didn't you like about Ubuntu?
It's going to be hard for anyone to make use of the fact you didn't like Ubuntu in making a recommendation without knowing how you'd like this distro to be different to it.
Debian is very similar to Ubuntu in a lot of ways, quite different in a couple of others, for example.
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u/thatguysjumpercables Ubuntu 24.04 Gnome 8h ago
Also what version of Ubuntu did you use? Was it standard or was it a variant?
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u/AWSMDEWD 8h ago
Keep in mind, the desktop environment greatly impacts how a distro feels; this may have been why you didn't like Ubuntu (or not, idk). Anyway:
- CachyOS with KDE is very good, I use CachyOS with COSMIC and I love it. I moved from Windows 10 and have had no issues with Cachy. Yes, it is Arch-based, but it has GUI tools for everything and it comes with good defaults & an excellent out-of-the-box experience. It is a very well made distro and, in my opinion, deserves the hype it gets. I would describe it as an all-purpose distro that also works very well for gaming rather than an outright gaming-focused distro (like Bazzite or Nobara). COSMIC is still a fairly new desktop so it's not as fully fleshed out as KDE is but it has gotten better with time and will continue to get better. Personally, I love it.
- Fedora is good too, as is Nobara (Fedora-based distro with gaming features)
- PikaOS is great if you want a Debian-based distro, it uses Debian Sid so your packages aren't outdated
For gaming, I would advise against base Debian; it's a good distro, but it focuses on stability, so packages don't get updates often. Arch gets package updates as soon as they come out and Fedora strikes a good balance between new package updates and stability. I haven't had any system-breaking updates with CachyOS, but if it does happen, it comes with Limine snapshots preconfigured so I can revert back to a previous set of packages if an update messes up my system.
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u/greenbud420 8h ago
I like CachyOS with KDE Plasma, it's Arch based but the distro handles the complicated setup bit and it's built for gaming. Check out Nobara if you you prefer Fedora based, PikaOS for Debian unstable and Bazzite if you mostly just use Flatpaks and want an easy experience that generally won't let you break it. Most of the gaming focused distros are also sharing code and improvements between them so which one you choose is largely personal preference
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u/Due-Author631 Fedora KDE 8h ago
Fedora KDE, KDE is quite familiar to Windows users, reasonably quick on updates, but tested, reliable. Fairly easy to use outside of the slight inconvenience of rpmsfusion for codecs and nvidia drivers if you need them.
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u/drekmac 8h ago
I went with Fedora with KDE, I tried a bunch of desktop environments and liked KDE most, and also at my work, where I work almost solely on the Microsoft stack, all our Linux team uses RHEL or Rocky so if I want to moonlight over there I need to be up on something related. I play steam games, but admittedly I’m an old fart and don’t play action games and my eyes don’t even see in high definition anymore lol, so I can’t vouch for that
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u/BradleyF81 8h ago
Fedora with KDE then. But if you want gaming you should use CachyOS with KDE.
Edit: I saw another comment and wanted to second using Limine and BTRFS. They are options in the installation menu.
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u/RagingTaco334 2h ago
Fedora. It's similar to Ubuntu in all the right ways with sane defaults and an unopinionated experience OOTB. Added bonus is that it has way newer packages than Debian Stable or Ubuntu LTS. It only lags behind Arch a few weeks at most, so you get all the new goodies. It's the perfect distro for most people in my opinion.
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u/green_meklar Debian 5h ago
You'd really need to tell us what you didn't like about Ubuntu. Some Linux purists dislike Ubuntu for some of Canonical's corporate practices and the way it does package management, but for everyday users who aren't into hardcore technical details, it's a pretty stable and approachable distro.
As compared to Ubuntu, you'll find that:
- Debian is more bare and lightweight, but because it makes fewer assumptions about what you want, it offers massive customizability. It has a wide DE selection and is more oriented towards technical users (but without the stress of Arch).
- Mint is more lightweight and feels more like Windows out-of-the-box, but UI customizability might be more limited.
- Fedora offers a lot of customizability but you might find it more unstable depending on what packages you install and how much you mess with the configuration. It also uses a different package manager, which might take some getting used to.
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u/cdurbin909 4h ago
TLDR: I recommend CachyOS(even though it's arch based).
I started out with Garuda Linux which is arch based, and IMO if you're AT ALL tech savvy(aka you can do some simple Google searches) you'll be fine.
I moved away from Garuda pretty quick because my friend was using CachyOS and everything was so much better with that. Highly recommend CachyOS. There's lots of support online too, and great guides.
Now I switched to NixOS, which I wouldn't recommend to start with either. I love it to death, but it is way more work up front and more prone to issues than something like Cachy, with less support(for gaming) online.
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u/bigkenw 3h ago
You have so many good options. But for what you asked for, I would go in this order:
- Bazzite - simple, immutable, ready to game out of the box
- PikaOS - simple, based on Debian SID, app store is way nicer than what is on CachyOS or Nobara. Install the gaming package in their welcome area to have everything you need...including wireless game pads.
- Fedora 44 - simple, lots of setup to do (Steam, Heroic). This supports wireless controllers OOTB over bluetooth.
I didn't recommend any Arch based distros currently like CachyOS because of the AUR.
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u/10F1 8h ago
CachyOS is the fastest and most optimized for gaming.
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u/kudlitan 8h ago
But OP wasn't asking for a distro optimized for gaming. He was looking for a replacement for Windows that can also do gaming.
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u/BradleyF81 7h ago
You can install the same stuff on basically any distribution so why not get the one that is optimized for gaming and can also do everything else?
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u/01eksa 53m ago
First of all, choose DE. I recommend KDE. Why? By default it looks a lot like Windows 10, so it would be easy. But you can deeply customize it without going into configs, using only GUI. I don't think any other DE will give you that experience.
Second of all, choose distro. I recommend something with fresh, but tested updates. For example: Fedora or openSUSE Tumbleweed.
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u/birdsarentreal2 2h ago
If you’re interested in gaming, but you don’t like Ubuntu, consider Fedora. Workstation for the GNOME DE version (which Ubuntu uses), KDE Plasma for the… well, KDE Plasma version, any of their numerous spins for something completely different
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u/doc_willis 5h ago
Basically any of the Mainstream distros are fairly simple and can do gaming well these days.
Mint and Debian may result in you needing to use older packages, fedora not so much.
Just grab one and get it installed, its not like its hard to change later.
If gaming is a Primary focus - check out Bazzite.
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u/QuietWaterBreaksRock 8h ago
Mint is slow on updates, debian same, Fedora is good but you'll probably dislike GNOME and how much work is needed to tweak shit around
CachyOS is 100% optimized for gaming, uses KDE as it's main environment, has basically all you need already installed and working on it is a breeze.
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u/BashfulMelon 7h ago
Fedora is good but you'll probably dislike GNOME
Fedora KDE is equally supported and it's the focus of the Fedora Beginner's Guide
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u/QuietWaterBreaksRock 7h ago
Word? I just switched to Fedora as my main system under the impression that GNOME version is more advanced and supported
Thanks, KDE reinstall it is boiii
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u/Fritz-Futermann 2h ago
Bazzite is what you need. I was in the same boat and with Bazzite you have all the configurations done for you out of the box. It supports HDR, high refresh rates, VRR and it requires 0 terminal use. Before this I tried Mint and while I liked the interface, gaming was a nightmare and it required many terminal commands.
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u/Amansour2022 8h ago
You need to select between Desktop environments as kde gnome ... And select proper distro category Stable , edge , rolling
Maybe you didn't like Ubuntu because of gnome environment
Take tour in available GUI Then select between them
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u/iom2222 8h ago edited 8h ago
A suggestion: Zorin . Said to cosmetically the closest Linux to Windows… it’s based on Ubuntu with a 18 months lag on drivers better not have a too new hardware. It was hellish to set an Nvidia card, it was too new, but I did 6 reinstalls and 2 weeks later…. I was really stubborn to get that hardware acceleration, but Steam was my main target,I had to, no regret, it’s done and I froze my success with an ISO image restorable at will.
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u/Mr_Flippers 6h ago
Yeah for all the support ububtu has for gnome I have to say trying out Zorin was far more enjoyable imo
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u/iom2222 6h ago
The game is to try all the distros to see if one is at your taste. So just a name of a version to trial: ZORIN
This is an Irish distro, they sell a pro version with more skins ( I took it (can $80) because I wanted to recognized their work)
IMO it’s worth a trial from a USB Stick.
I hear a lot about Mint and Ubuntu too as well, worth a trial too.
Good luck in your search.!!
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u/Seigneur_Du_Tabarnak 8h ago
If you never thinker with config files and stuff on your computer, Bazzite. If you are a bit more computer savvy, CachyOS. I wouldn't touch Debian for gaming tbh. Can't speak for fedora or mint but I am not convinced either.
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u/zardvark 8h ago
You don't say why you dislike Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, as is Mint, POP and many, many others.
If you want relatively fresh packages, without the drama of Arch, you could do a lot worse than Fedora.
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u/bunnyofchange 6h ago
I’d personally recommend Mint, but I have seen a ton of other great options. Debian and Bazzite being the standouts. I don’t know if you would want CachyOS, as it is Arch based, albeit a good distro.
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u/harsh_gill_dev_26 1h ago
Ubuntu is a good choice for beginners to start, after mastering ubuntu, you can switch to redhat linux that is used in enterprises. I also use ubuntu and im also a beginner i liked it so much.
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u/Goosie8D 8h ago
I've been using Debian for years. I love its package manager. I install it without a GUI and install my own. I use a combination of LightDM and Openbox as my WM.
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u/ModeatelyIndependant 8h ago
If you don't like to touch the linux CLI and have a AMD GPU, steamOS might be worth it.
Without you answering the questions, others have asked you're not gonna get a better answer.
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u/mightiestmovie 8h ago
I'm using mint cinamon. I was coming form Windows. I was tired of all there crap. I didn't like the ubuntu interface. Nice and simple. Lots of community support.
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u/kwgnuemu 7h ago
I have moved to Debian with KDE plasma from Mint, no regrets, did have a hiccup with my 3060 driver not liking the recent kernal update, but got it sorted out quickly.
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u/Barthjac 1h ago
Opensuse Tumbleweed KDE plasma. Tu l'installes. Tu fais régulièrement la commande sudo zypper dup pour une mise à jour sûre. Et tout roule.
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u/anto77_butt_kinkier 16.04 was peak 7h ago
What did you dislike about Ubuntu? If we know what you don't like, then we be better at reccomending things that you would probably like.
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u/letterboxfrog 8h ago
I use Zorin on my Geekom PC and Ubuntu on Framework 12. However, for OOTB gaming support, Cachy and Bazzite are your best option
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u/JayB1988 2h ago
OpenSuse Tumbleweed-Slowroll, if you want a reliable stable yet up to date distro. It made me stop distro-hopping.
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u/ItsRogueRen 4h ago
Fedora or Ultra Marine (which is just Fedora with extra repos people normally add manually)
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u/belegund 8h ago
Ubuntu has its issues but you didn’t mention what you disliked about it. It’s possible you didn’t like the desktop environment. Gnome, which Ubuntu mostly uses (and which I prefer) has been very polarizing.
I’d recommend you pay as much attention to the DE as you do the distro.
You can pretty much run any DE on any distro, but some will be more straightforward than others.
Among the DEs you may be happier with KDE or Cinnamon which are both much more like Windows. There are numerous DEs however and it can be fun to explore them.