Good day nice people.

I, like many I’m sure, am taking Microsoft’s discontinuation of Windows 10 support as an opportunity so switch over to Linux. As such, I have some questions about various things. I have included some context as to my personal use case at the end of the post should it be relevant.

  1. Does the distro I pick matter? There seems to be a lot of debate around which distro is best but a lot of the discussion I’ve seen breaks down to what each distro comes packaged with. This confuses me as if a distro doesn’t come prepackaged with something can you not just install it? Or is there some advantage to preinstalled packages other than mild convenience? Are some components difficult to integrate into your local environment?

  2. One of the more salient differences I’ve seen between distros has been what the various companies and teams include aside from installed packages (such as snap and rolling out amazon search as a defult search), and the data they choose to retain/sell. Part of the reason I’m switching is due to Microsoft’s forcing in of unwanted features and advertising. Is the company that owns whatever distro I choose likely to be a problem in the future? Are there particular ones to avoid/ones to keep an eye on?

  3. I am the sort of person who does like to tinker with things from time to time but I do also want to use my computer most of the time so I’d like to end up using a mature distro. I have identified a few frontrunners in my search but I have seen conflicting information on which of them is “mature” (sufficiently stable so I spend less time fighting my computer than I do using it as well as having a large enough community and resources to help me remedy issues I might come across). Do any of these seem like they wouldn’t fit that bill? The frontrunners are: fedora, kubuntu, mint, pop and tuxedo.

  4. Does linux have issues interfacing with multiple monitors? Does it handle HDR okay?

  5. In terms of UI and workflow I really don’t mind putting in some time tinkering with the DE, exploring it and getting it how I like. It seems Plasma KDE might be good for this? Please let me know if this is an incorrect assessment. If it is, does it matter what DE I choose? If so, is there something you could recommend for my use case.

My use case: I have a Nvidea build (RTX 2080). I have heard this can be an issue with Linux. I also have intermediate experience with linux through university and my job (with servers) as well as tinkering with SteamOS.

Things I use/do on my PC (roughly ordered in terms of priority):

  • Gaming including emulation
  • Firefox
  • VLC
  • Spotify
  • Discord
  • Godot
  • Visual Studio
  • Git
  • Photoshop cs6, audacity, davinci resolve
  • Misc “Tinkering” (Handbrake, dvd burners/rippers, Really any weird thing I come across that I want to tinker with)

Thank you very much for your time and help in cleaing up my confusion.

  • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
    2·
    13 days ago

    1. It does. If you’re new, pick Ubuntu, Fedora or derivates of those like Linux Mint or Nobara. Don’t use something like Arch or Debian (not that the distros are bad, they just don’t try to be easy for beginners). As for preinstalled apps, it might matter and it might not. Things are not hard to install, but part of the problem might be that you don’t know what you should install. For example Nobara makes it painfully simple to install everything you need, same for Linux Mint.

    2. Avoid Ubuntu if that’s a concern.

    3. Fedora, Kubuntu and Mint are all solid options, possibly the other two as well (at least PopOS is mentioned from time to time), but I don’t know enough about them. Note that you should maybe avoid Kubuntu due to point 2.

    4. No idea, though I seem to remember the are some kind of issues with multiple monitors, but I’m not the one to answer that.

    5. Plasma KDE is great, so is Cinnamon (the Linux Mint DE), can’t speak for Gnome (last time I used it it was version 2.x) and others like XFCE and LXDE are made for low resources computers. You can install multiple and switch between them on login.

    If you get Nvidia drivers and there are no issues with your particular graphics card model on Linux, gaming should be fine.

    Firefox works well, so does VLC, Spotify and Discord. No idea about Godot. Visual Studio doesn’t work, you can replace it with JetBrains IDEs (paid, but vastly superior to VS) or with VSCode and plugins (free, but inferior to both JetBrains and VS). Git is Linux native, works much better than on Windows.

    Photoshop CS6 works using Wine, but it’s slightly worse than on Windows. If you were a graphics designer, the experience is subpar, but if it’s for occasional edits or opening of existing PSDs, it works really well.

    I remember that Audacity works, but it’s been over a decade since I last used it.

    Linux is generally better for tinkering, especially with video stuff.

    • GaxsunOPEnglish
      1·
      13 days ago

      Thank you kindly. I really don’t mind Putting in a little work but I don’t want to make a second career out of maintaining an OS. Might shy away from Arch. I’m also not really a photoshop power user. Also wouldn’t mind alternatives

      • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.worldEnglish
        2·
        13 days ago

        The free alternatives to Photoshop are all bad, that’s why I went the Wine route. You can do some stuff in Gimp, but everything seems illogical there and it’s very limited. The online Photopea editor is very good for some light editing.