So all I know that the Linux mascot is a penguin and Arch users meme about using Arch. Jokes aside I’m planning on making to the jump to Linux as I’m planning on getting a tower PC. I recently got a steam deck and that kinda demystified the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble. This all very future oriented questions* as I haven’t even picked out hardware (probably gonna go prebuilt since I do not trust me) and there’s also the matter of saving up the money for a new PC.
As for my use case (cus I know some software is wonky on Linux compared to windows) it’s mostly between games running on steam, which most of my games play fine on the steam deck, and essays and note taking for my college classes, which I use libre office and obsidian (with excalidraw to hand write my notes) saved to my proton drive and also sync those documents between my surface laptop and home laptop
My ideal OS would be plug it in, let it do… things… and it’s ready to be a PC to install steam and stuff
But first question, as someone who isn’t tech inclined and tinkering is pretty much just a few VERY basic settings in the settings app on windows, so is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards because like hardware, I do not trust me with setting it up. As for installing it after I wipe whatever computer I choose I assume I’m gonna have some OS installer on a USB and let it work its magic.
Second question, is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux, I can’t really think of any examples cus with installers and updaters I just the computer handle it, like updating Nvidia stuff in the GeForce app for all I know it’s genuinely performing dark magic during the automated updates
Anyways I probably have way more questions that I have no idea I had, but to wrap up I’m not super tech inclined since I let automated stuff do its thang on windows (if the computer can manage and install it I’m gonna let it do that) and my pc mostly just plays games and do documents on libre office and obsidian
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Generally, Linuxmint is the go to distro if you want something that holds your hand, but due to your limited needs outside of gaming and already having a Steam deck you should take a look at Bazzite, which is basically the desktop mode of the Steam deck for PCs.
As for hardware, one thing that can be annoying is NVIDIA (drivers), but that shouldn’t be a major problem with these distros as mint has a built in manager that does everything for you and with Bazzite you just need to specify your GPU when downloading and don’t have to do anything.
My recommendation is download the distros you want to try, get Rufus put them on a USB and then play around with them in demo mode, make sure everything works (graphic card, printers) and if you like the distro then start the installer. If you don’t like it you can just unplug the USB and reboot without anything persisting.
Super happy with Bazzite as a gaming PC. I think only a power user might find the “immutableness” of it annoying. You can still install OS packages, it’s just highly discouraged. 90% of the time you’d just be running Flatpaks (a mostly self-contained app that is easy to install and remove). I’m using it with an old-ish NVIDIA card and at first it was troublesome but I think it worked itself out after a few updates. AMD has better compatibility from what I understand.
The difference between NVIDIA and AMD/Intel is that Linux has a different way of handling drivers compared to windows (all drivers are part of the Kernel). AMD/Intel respect this. NVIDIA develop there drivers like on windows even though Linux is not designed this way. Also sometimes a new standard is made (eg Wayland) but NVIDIA has little to no support for a long time. Additionally there drivers are proprietary which limits how distros can/want to ship them.
Wow, I’m completely out of the loop as far as Linux on the desktop is concerned (run Debian on a bunch of servers, used to run Debian on a laptop as well), but Bazzite looks really cool!
Yeah I was gonna check out bazzite first then Linux mint
Another comment said that mint will wipe the windows install if I “run” it from an external usb so would I just boot windows like normal
Also does bazzite do the same thing cus I’m probably gonna use that first
As for that Rufus tool is the demo mode something I would use on the new pc
If you start the demo mode there will be no changes to disk until you open the installer for both distros. Most distros will boot into the demo mode directly from the USB and then have a shortcut to start installing. Once you have created a bootable USB it will work with any device so you can test the distros out now with your current machined and when you get the new one you can just plug it in there and see if there are any hardware specific issues
Oh nice, I think that makes some sense to me lol
Try Bazzite:
It will give you an experience that’s familiar compared to the Steam Deck, and everything will “just work” out of the box.
It already has Steam installed and is a great desktop for general use.
Bazzite is probably the best recommendation out of everything I’ve seen so far. It is meant to be like the Steam Deck experience on any machine, and if OP is already familiar with that, why not transition easily?
Couple the familiarity along with Bazzite being an immutable distro, OP can just roll back if they break something.
So what does immutable mean?
But I’ve seen it’s similar to the decks desktop mode from some other comments as well so that seems nice
I haven’t really interacted with desktop mode outside setting up emudeck (mostly DS and switch games)
So what does immutable mean?
The easiest explanation is: You can’t screw it up :)
That’s the reason I use it. It means that the system areas are read-only, and as a user you can’t “wreck” anything by mistake.
Ok cool so that’s probably a positive thing in my case since I don’t plan to tweak things and have no idea what I’m doing
Yeah, on immutable distros, you can’t just “delete system32” (rm -rf /* in Linux parlance), it is read-only (changes on restart with updates applied)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX0f_vyV06k
This video explains it well
Yeah I’ve seen bazzite pop in a few steam deck discussions, some other comments recommend Mint how do they compare/differ
But like I said in another comment I’m not looking to tweak much, if anything at all, so I think it might be a good fit, definitely gonna take a look at that link when I’m off work
Cool I’ve never seen this.
Bazzite would be a great choice in my opinion. It’s meant for gaming, has drivers preinstalled and is immutable (basically impossible to break). I’d suggest using KDE because it’s Windows-like and is the default for desktop mode on SteamOS.
Ah nice, yeah I was thinking bazzite since it looks hard to break based on what you’ve all been saying and KDE so I have some vague sense of familiarity between windows and my steam deck
Bit of warning about KDE:
It is very customizable, but as a by product is also really easy to completely fuck up. The first time I used it (eons ago) I ended up removing the task bar and couldn’t figure out how to bring it back or launch programs.
Just spend a bit of time reading up on it and you’ll be fine though.
Good to know
FWIW, if you decide to go with KDE and manage to delete your panel, it’s
- right click on the desktop
- enter edit mode
- add panel
- default panel
😉
Good to know
I second this. I installed bazzite on my basement pc and am very happy with it. As a total linux noob it was easy to use. I use that pc more now than my actual gaming pc, because win 11 is just so annoying and slow. I’d like to add one thing: Don’t use Nvidia graphics, as they don’t play nice with linux. It saves you a lot of time in the future if you build your computer with amd stuff.
I second the recommendations for Mint. It should work out of the box. You can download the .iso file from their website and use a program called Rufus to write it to a USB stick. You should be able to plug it in, shut down windows, boot from the USB (may have to go into the boot menu in the UEFI), and it will install linux for you. This will be the same process for most linux distributions.
For installing software on Linux, there is an important difference between Windows and Linux; on windows you typically download an installer .exe and use that to install a program. On Linux, each distro has its own “package manager” which functions a lot like an app store on a phone. The package manager will install the program for you and take care of keeping everything updated for you, so if your GPU drivers, steam, or whatever else needs updating, just run an update on the package manager and it will do everything for you. Some will support automatic updates, so you may need to google how to turn that on for any given distribution’s package manager.
In terms of what hardware works better, most folks will tell you to use AMD graphics cards over Nvidia, but that is about it. Nvidia still has proprietary drivers which don’t always play nice with linux, but as an nvidia user myself, the problems seem to be getting fewer and fewer.
is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards
The word you are looking for is called a distribution, or distro for short.
I’m surprised no one else has mentioned Bazzite, which should be exactly what you’re looking for.
is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux
An AMD GPU for sure. Nvidia drivers have come a long way, but they don’t generally behave as well out of the box like AMD.
Yeah bazzite seems like a recurring topic here so I think I’ll check it out first since others have all said it’s similar to the steam decks setup (which has been limited to me installing emudeck but seeing familiar stuff might help me
Pro tip is to install a virtual machine like virtualbox or something on your Windows system. They’re super easy to set up with loads of tutorials on youtube.
From there you can install any number of linux distros (I recommend Mint or Pop!) and try them out without having to commit to real hardware. I would put the VM in fullscreen and pretend it was a real system, and use it as my dedicated machine for as long as possible. You can even install steam to get a feel of the setup process (bear in mind you’ll need to set up stuff for graphics acceleration to play most games but the basic setup should be fine!)
As for setup. Most Linux distros are as easy to set up as Windows or MacOS: USB in, boot, select a few basic options and stick to defaults. Reboot. Install stuff. You don’t even need to deal with drivers (even Nvidia is cared for by most installers) which was nicer than burrowing through NV/AMD’s websites to get their driver installers set up.
At that point you won’t be wondering if youve made the right choice when it comes to your next build, and you can get right down to actually using your PC instead of googling things. Good luck!
Yeah a few other comments were talking about the installation process but I just run windows like normal on the new PC then run the Linux installer
You can just buy a system with Linux preinstalled. My laptop is from System76. I usually build desktops/towers from scratch but they sell those too.
Installing apps has always been easier on Linux then on Windows as Linux has had large free app stores back 30 years. The question is more are the apps you want in the app store. If not things get harder. I like Debian based distros like Ubuntu or Linux Mint as they have large app stores.
You might want to look at distrowatch.com. Mint is currently at the top.
I also recommend Linux Mint. It’s been hands down the best experience of all the Linux distros I’ve tried.
The installation is done with a USB stick. In short, you download the Linux iso image and create a bootable USB stick with a software. In Windows I have always used Rufus for that.
The Linux installer gives you a choise to wipe everything and install Linux. Installing Mint has always been very straight forward.
I can’t comment on hardware since I’ve only used Linux on +5 year old laptops. They seem to work fine.
There most likely will be many new things that can feel confusing in the beginning, but I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. There also are tons of good tutorials of everything.
Best of luck to your Linux project!
Oh nice, so I just boot windows as normal then “run” the installer from a usb. As for whatever an iso image that makes no sense to me is that just the “program” that the installer is?
A lot of people have recommended bazzite so i might try that first but mint definitely sounds like a good “I have no idea what I’m doing just start working distro”
I’d just recommend against NVIDIA GPUs if you don’t want to tinker, I’m sure it’s not as bad as it was back when I had NVIDIA cards, but faffing around trying to get NVIDIA drivers to play nice was the bane of my existence (and where I was forced to learn the most about Linux).
Oh and the screen tearing was a nuisance too that went away as soon as I got an AMD card.
Looks like you got lots of great advice on the OS. Good luck, and enjoy whatever you end up doing!
I have nvidia 4 series and my linux skill is low enough that I think its insane gnome doesn’t have right click-create file by default and I have had 0 issues. You just need to disable secureboot or enroll keys.
Yeah I was probably gonna go with bazzite and it sounds like there’s some demo installer I can play around with but yeah definitely gonna break my nvidia streak (past 2 and my only gaming laptops) to finally get a proper tower with an amd gpu
I’m going to go against the grain here and recommend that you NOT use Mint. I’ve been using a linux for a month now, so I’m new to it like you.
My first time trying Linux was Mint, and I didn’t like it at all. There was too much crap downloaded on it, and it abstracted the underlying systems too much, so I found it all very confusing. I suggest that you download a distro that Mint is based on, and then install the actual stuff you want on it.
Mint is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. I decided to go with Debian as a total noob and it makes waaay more sense to me this time around. I enjoy customizing it to my liking rather than Mint doing it all for me—often in ways I don’t like.
Thanks for the input, like I said though in my post I’m not really looking for something I can fiddle with but thanks for advice
I’m going to agree with you, and I’ve been using Linux for over 25 years, and used to moderate the Mint subreddit.
Mint isn’t ready for gaming without a lot of work that I don’t think you want to put in, it’s Wayland support is sadly lacking, and overall it’s gotten a bit behind for anything more demanding than browsing and office work.
If you want a low-fiddle distro with good gaming support and graphics tweaks already in there, I’d say Nobara or Bazzite. Bazzite is very similiar to SteamOS in that it’s an immutable distro, and it is very up to date without you having to do much beyond keeping it updated. But the immutable part might make installing things a little non-intuitive. In which case, Nobara is a normally installed distro with all the tweaks, and it’s based on Fedora, uses Wayland, and has pretty much all the gaming software pre-installed.
Well that’s quite the resume! Yeah idk if I mentioned it to you but I was planning on using bazzite first
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The various versions or flavors of Linux are called “distributions” or “distros.” There are several that are intended to be ready to go out of the box. Linux Mint is a pretty good one for general desktop use though they’re kinda behind the times with Wayland and such. I see a lot of folks recommend Bazzite but I personally know nothing about it. I’m using Fedora KDE, Fedora is meh, KDE is pretty good.
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If you’re building a gaming desktop specifically for Linux, I recommend going with AMD GPU and an Intel wi-fi adapter. There are some Wi-Fi adapters that don’t play nice with Linux but Intel’s drivers are pretty good. AMD releases their drivers right into the kernel, there’s nothing you need to do at all to get AMD GPUs working on Linux, Nvidia is a bit more of a pain. Also, with desktop peripherals, avoid anything that needs one of those configuration utilities, they tend not to be available for Linux. I use a Coolermaster MasterKeys Pro M keyboard which all configuration happens on the board, they don’t offer any software for it. Highly recommended.
Oh also: Asrock’s RGB lighting weird and non-standard. If you want to use open source stuff to control your RGB lighting and that’s important to you, I recommend against Asrock. Just so happens my build’s RGB is controlled via a controller built into my case.
Thanks for the info good to see another point for point mint haha. But I was gonna get a prebuilt rather than build my own
But some other comments and my own y point towards getting a Pre-built with an AMD, as for the WiFi thing is there anything in specific I should be looking for while shopping
I just make sure that the word “Intel” is used somewhere in the bullet point about the Wi-Fi. If it’s built into the motherboard or on a separate card.
So basically look for intel when talking about WiFi
I’ll probably make a follow up post specifically for hardware once I saved up some money and decided on a distro
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Using Linux since 2008 ish… (As non IT user), I recommend going and route, and using pop os (or bazzite which people say also works well but is personally haven’t tried), I am currently using tuxedo os on my laptop but my pop os journey for your use case on the home machine has been the smoothest, and if you go do route which I did, I had never thought about any driver issues… The only thing in pop (which I haven’t updated for a year now, yeah life got crazy), was that always do apt get updates / upgrades as pop OS’s package manager gui used to get stuck sometimes, once the terminal completes the updates then use the GUI to update the pop os things. Other than this small hiccup, never had to do anything else. (Oh yeah when buying hardware some people told me that getting the latest and greatest cutting edge sometimes takes time for the kernel to catch up to the optimizations of drivers, but I always bought 1 or 2 gen behind the latest and never had any issues, I mostly play Indy games other than 1/or 2 like Tekken series at 2k monitor so I never cared about 4k 120 or above fps.)
I personally started out with Debian given that a vast majority of distributions are Debian based, typically paired with KDE Plasma 5 for my desktop environment, and learned from there.
Now Debian is really stable but does require command-line configuration quite often so it may feel complicated but if you’re capable of reading & following documentation then you should be all good.
So a lot of people have recommended bazzite so I might start with that and move to mint if that doesn’t work out for me, how does plasma and Debian fit in cus that stuff is ringing a bell. Like plasma being separate than a distro
how does plasma and Debian fit in cus that stuff is ringing a bell.
Distributions like Ubuntu, Kali Linux, Linux Mint are actually based off of Debian however, each distribution provides their own packages and typically have system files in different places, so packages made for Ubuntu may or may not work with Debian and vice-versa.
Like plasma being separate than a distro
KDE Plasma is a Desktop Environment (aka your desktop). When you install a Linux distro on your computer you’ll typically be given an option on which software you want to pre install. You’ll see software like GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, Cinnamon, etc and by doing a little research into them you can pick the environment that suites you best.
GNOME gave me MacOS vibes while KDE is more Windows.
Edit; I should’ve mentioned you can choose to go headless without a GUI and only run the shell which saves a lot of resources.
Hope this explains things easily!
Yeah I think makes sense thanks!
Basically Linux mint or bazzite is the system and how it’s organized while plasma is how I’m seeing that system represented and interacting with it in other words?
Basically Linux mint or bazzite is the system and how it’s organized while plasma is how I’m seeing that system represented and interacting with it in other words?
Yup, seems like you got the gist of it!
Obviously once you start reading documents on software you’ll start to understand it all better. Suggest reading into the Docker engine for self-hosting software on your network!
I made the mistake of trying Debian on a new system. While I will eventually transition to Debian for it’s stability, it’s glacial speed of change means that new hardware isn’t very compatible. I tried the half-step that was LMDE (Linux Mint Debian Edition) and even that was missing some support for my hardware. Not until I moved to Ubuntu-based Linux Mint did I finally have everything working, after some poking and prodding. I’m guessing once Debian Trixie comes out, I can test again.
You have to have more mature hardware if you go Debian. It’s not something I’d tell anyone to install on a new build.
Just get an all AMD (CPU & GPU) build and flash a thumb drive with Bazzite (bazzite-deck), your PC will be very similar to your Steam Deck.
I did this, best decision ever.
Yeah I was looking at some AMD stuff and pretending all the tech specs make sense
If you want, post what you are looking at and we can help you chose.
Oh yeah that’s 100% what I was planning to do, I’m just talking with a few friends who actually know computer stuff so I can have a selection when I consult the Linux wizards once more
Seems like you’ve got a lot of distro recommendations haha which is good - go for one of those and you should be ok (I’m on mint for the record). My suggestion if you have a bit if extra money and less time is to buy a prebuilt system with linux already installed, tuxedo and system76 are two big names but I can’t comment on what to go with there.
However the advantage with buying an integrated system like that is that the hardware is all guaranteed and you can ring them for support if needed.
My other suggestion is to BACKUP your files!
