I’m planning on moving to linux from windows(personal) and macos(work use), although I prefer mac os, so I don’t really want to use mint, and I feel like I should add that I don’t care if GNOME isn’t that similar to macos, I want something different, and I also use my computer for gaming
I’d say popos. It’s very polished and they are both developers as well as hardware people. It works very well. For servers I’d go with Ubuntu, but not for desktops.
Why have you narrowed it down to those two options, if I may ask? Between those two, I’d go for Pop_OS but if you are open for another suggestion, you may want to look at EndeavourOS, which is based on the same Linux distribution as SteamOS (since you said you also want to game).
+1 for EndeavourOS. Just installed it on an older notebook (ThinkPad X220) and damn, was it a breeze to set up properly.
I don’t think we should recommend any rolling release to beginners, I love Arch but that’s just going to cause issues!
At least not without warning. I begun with Manjaro and am very happy with it, so much it’s still my main OS maybe 5 years later, but I’m happy I was warned and read a few things beforehand.
Definitely, you have to want to learn Linux fast and possibly a little more painful if you choose that path. Especially that SteamOS comparison annoys me, you spend basically all your time in a completely sandboxed environment with that (Steam uses Flatpaks for everything) so it has very little to do with Arch for most users!
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I don’t think we should recommend any rolling release to beginners
Why not?
They aren’t unstable perse but there are always issues with some update and as a beginner with no clue about Linux I even struggled to solve Mints very rare issues, I think it’s better to learn Linux first or that person might have a very frustrating experience!
Yeah, you’re probably right. Haven’t had any issues the last time I used Manjaro, though. But that’s only anecdotal evidence at best.
I’ll be that guy - I still default to Ubuntu. The concerns about snap are valid but it’s still a rock solid OS. Every server I have has been running it for years, virtually no problems except during upgrades if I’m careless about config updates.
Pop_OS! is a greatly extended version of Ubuntu. It offers an unique 1 password encryption + login solution. I don’t have Nvidia gpu but many people has claimed it offers the best Nvidia support out of the box.
It’s better than it used to be but for gaming a Debian base can still get in your way and if you don’t mind the change in interface anyway it might be worth checking out Nobora. That’s a gaming focused edition of Fedora by Glorious Eggroll, the creator of a really cool version of Valves Proton called ProtonGE and highly regarded in the community! It’s basically Fedora with a few modifications and great defaults for gaming and only a Gnome version.
How much RAM do you have? Ubuntu and Pop use Gnome and it’s heavy on RAM. Linux Mint is light on RAM, for example, especially Mint MATE.
I’m sure there must be a way to install the latest drivers via backports. You’d have to research it.
16 gb currently but I may upgrade it when I replace my computer
Ok that’s plenty. Ubuntu uses about 1.6GB at cold boot. Pop should be similar. Mint uses about 745MB at cold boot. Mint MATE about 500MB.
It’s really up to you. They all have an ubuntu base so just decide which desktop environment you like.
What device are you intending to use, you mention you’re using macos so I’m guessing Apple hardware?
Just thought I’d share my experience with pop on my MacBook in case we can help each other 😂. Basically I was dead set on pop but couldn’t get it to install for the life of me - the installer showed my disk as being a fraction of the size it was, even exfat volumes created by the installer. So I had to shrink other os petitions like crazy so I could trick it into thinking there was enough space.
There was no option to encrypt the disk in the installer and it didn’t play nice when I created my own LUKS container.
After several hours of trying to beat it into submission I ended up using Ubuntu’s legacy installer and was up and running in 15 mins.
So yeah if you are using Apple hardware and get pop playing nice please share any tips :)
I’m only using a MacBook for work, I will be using a computer that is intended to run windows
Fedora
