This year we made good progress. You know, Linux gaming becoming better, Reddit fucking up, Metaverse failing etc. But on the other hand Big Tech has or are planning to make some moves. Such as, Google’s Web Enviroment Integrity API (EDIT: they backed off), UK’s encryption bill, etc.

So what do you think of the future? I’m currently optimistic. I think the best recent event was Reddit fucking up. Obviously one of the biggest information sources going down that path isn’t something to celebrate. But it was bound to happen. I believe decentralized social networks becoming more popular is what Aaron Swartz would have wanted if he saw how Reddit was being managed.

What are some good distros these days to dip my toes in as a gamer who is certainly no pro but knows his way around/isn’t afraid of a terminal window?

Mint is my go-to recommendation.

Ubuntu is a decent place to start.

Before anybody decides to jump down my throat over it, there are some very good reasons to not use Ubuntu generally. I know.

That said, I still recommend it as a first distro because it’s

well supported - if someone puts out Linux support, it’s likely been tested on Ubuntu.
simple to install - everything from WSL to a live boot USB drive to a full install, you’ve got lots of options
pragmatic - yes, it’s compromised vs being truly FOSS. Otoh, your consumer grade Windows-supported hardware will likely work out of the box. For a first timer, I think that’s critical.

There are many other, better distros out there for specific needs. Manjaro is a great one for gaming in particular, but can be a little harder to get setup with, or to find help for when things go wrong. But I still think Ubuntu is the best “starter” distro I’ve encountered.

I’d just like to say that if something says Ubuntu support it will very likely work on all Debian based distros unless its something really low level and your running one that swapped out systemd or something. They normally just mean that they ship their software as a .deb file and even that can be installed on non Debian distros if your willing to do some special stuff. Also as for drivers/firmware I’ve never had any issues except when trying to use a distros that doesnt include non-free firmware.

Yup, agreed on all counts.

I just feel that if it’s your first distro, it’s probably better to stick to vanilla Ubuntu until you better understand the subtle differences between the various Debians.

Still and all though, it’s easier to install a Linux than it’s ever been. My first Linux was actually an OpenSUSE, soon replaced by Debian Etch. I bought the latter online and they mailed me the installation CDs! It took me days to get the installs working.

Now, you just pop in a USB and follow the friendly install wizard. It’s friggin awesome.

I didn’t want to deal with certain Canonical shenanigans so my first distro was actually Debian Cinnamon. I was an absolute zero and it was still easy to use.

If you managed to make a Debian boot stick using just Debian’s website and your Windows-user expertise, then you are not a zero. Take that as a compliment.

I don’t remember if I was using Debian’s site specifically, but there definitely are comprehensive guides.

Yeah, with the small caveat that you first have to somehow make that USB stick. For non-techies that is still anything but easy-peasy, and most distros seem to weirdly assume that you already have the thing in your hand, as you just seemed to do. The reality is that it’s now easily the biggest single hurdle to installing Linux, the rest is easy as you say.

Fair point!

Making a Bootable USB stick: I like using balena etcher to make bootable USBs. It handles downloading, burning and making a bootable image for you. It’s great!

Just point it at an empty USB stick (or one you’re ok with Balena erasing everything on) and select the Linux distro (or downloaded ISO) you want to use. Come back later and you’re all set to reboot into Linux from the USB stick!

Booting From USB: You may need to manually select the USB stick as your boot device when you restart! If so, usually you just need to hold F8 during the reboot process to get the menu.

If that doesn’t do it, you’ll need to get into your computer’s BIOS to enable booting from the USB. That usually requires holding down either F1, F12, or Delete, depending on your particular BIOS. I usually just hold them all down.

In the BIOS you’re looking for something like “Boot” or “Boot Order”, “Disk Devices” etc. It may be hidden inside an “Advanced Options” or “Security” section.

Once you’ve found it, make sure your USB drive is A) enabled for booting from B) in the boot list before your other drives

After that, Save and Exit your BIOS (methods vary, but it’s usually written on the screen someplace).

Yes that’s all great, but really you’re just proving my point here. How do you get a non-techie past this whole obstacle? Tell them to ask instructions on an obscure forum, whereupon they’ll get a wall of text like this, full of obscure geeky jargon? (That is roughly how Debian does it, by the way.) Obviously you know exactly what you’re talking about but I’m a bit concerned that you - and most other Linux users - are slightly out of touch about just how obscure and forbidding all this is to a non-technical person. The problem is that we need at least some of those people to succeed if Linux is to thrive.

Yeah, I’m on Manjaro and things occasionally go wrong and can be frustrating to fix.

Until you’re comfortable with being in charge of a linux installation, don’t go there.

Fedora is a reasonable choice. You really don’t have to do anything other than enable flathub, and install the steam flatpak.

If using nvidia you need to install rpm fusion and get their driver… But that’s not hard.

Pop_OS! is another good option. System76 is doing great work on it

IBM will run fedora to shit same way they did with CentOS

Completely different parts of the business. Fedora does not directly compete with RHEL. CentOS was exactly RHEL without the support contract.

Not the best solution but right now I am using Geforce now. Not gaming on linux but I am gaming while on linux. Didn’t need to touch my windows partition for the past 3 months.

But unfortunately will be increasingly irrelevant if only because of its archaic installation funnel.

I recommend Nobara - it’s based on the rock-solid stable Fedora, with extra tweaks to make gaming easier.

I ended up installing Nobara on one of my drives. I was going to try Garuda but Fedora seemed liked it’d be less hassle dual booting so here we are! Thanks for the rec, you and everyone else!

I’ve been self hosting on a pi so felt like a good time to get back into a Linux desktop environment.

I’ll second Garuda, literally made for good support there. It been my daily driver forever at this point and incredibly reliable.

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