I have a home built PC that I want to get off Windows 11.
Specs:
- Ryzen 3700X, upgrading to a 5800X3D soon
- RTX 2080 Super
- 500GB NVME for OS, 2TB SATA SSD for files, programs, etc.
- 1440p Ultrawide monitor
- an 8bitdo Ultimate controller
Usage:
- I usually play indie games, emulators, and occasional AAA games. Most of my library is on Steam, with some games on GOG, e.g. Cyberpunk.
- I have an original Steam Link in my living room, and I use it to play games from my PC on the couch. Does Steam on Linux even support this?
- I also write game mods, so I need a distro that is a good fit for software development (C++, Python, and Lisp).
- Random miscellany: I use mullvad VPN, stream movies from a friend’s plex server, and use an SFTP client to back up photos and videos from my phone.
I’ve been an on/off Linux user in the past, so I know my way around basic/intermediate terminal usage and configuration. Buuuut every previous attempt to move to Linux ended in disaster, so I have little patience for asterisks, strings attached, etc. If you’re offering a distro I’ve never heard of before, you’re probably gonna be hard pressed to convince me.
Thanks for the help!
Ubuntu based distros are going to have a very easy Nvidia driver experience (just open the driver tool from the start menu and select the version you want, and bam, done). However, one downside of Ubuntu itself is their pushing of snap packaged apps, which are considered a bit crap, and can cause weirdness (I think Valve officially don’t recommend the Snap version of Steam).
You can avoid the snap stuff with Linux Mint, as they totally strip that out. Only downside of Mint is that it’s still on an older LTS version of Ubuntu, 24.04 (the latest is now 26.04, two years newer). You will need to add an additional PPA (a third party repository) to access the latest 610 Nvidia drivers on it, which some of the very latest games like the James bond require to launch in Proton. That may or may not be an issue for you. Mint also has the best built in app store, IMO.
Fedora is nice, but the Nvidia driver isn’t quite as easy to install, and it doesn’t come with some needed video codecs out of the box, though this script maker can make those pretty easy to get. I’d recommend it if you want more up to date apps in the repos and don’t want to encounter Ubuntu’s snaps.
Nobara is a spin of Fedora with all that stuff included (and has an installer with the Nvidia driver pre-installed, I think), made by the Glorious Eggroll who makes improved versions of Proton.
I personally would suggest choosing between those options, since both Ubuntu and Fedora based distros have a lot of 3rd party support, such as Mullvad, which only supports those two officially, and they have large communities with lots of help.
I always recommend Fedora or Debian these days. Eventually you get anything running with those.
But yeah, Ubuntu makes it easy for nvidia, but is also has snaps.
Anyway, I would always go with a main distro instead of something that is based on them. You’re just a bit closer to upstream. That’s at least my opinion. So far, it did not fail me.
Standard Debian would be hard for me to recommend to someone new or not interested in tinkering with Linux, or for someone with an Nvidia GPU. I do think Mint’s Debian Edition is a very good Debian option for those without an Nvidia GPU, though, and is what I use myself. It’s basically just standard Debian but preconfigured with sane defaults to minimize tinkering.