help me choose a distro.i am a longterm windows user, and i want to move to linux, my rig is very basic, 4060ti, 5 5600 cpu, 32gb of ram, so i think i can get by playing any games, but choosing is hard, is mint enough? i dont work on my desktop, but on a company laptop, so i primary use my pc for vidya and basic stuff, but vidya comes from steam and battlenet
>>108108139Do you have opinions about Snap, Wayland, and systemd? If not, just use Ubuntu. If so, try Mint or Pop! OS.
>>108108139>4060 TiMint doesn't support Wayland so your gaming needs will not be met.
>>108108139Most people recommend Zorin over Mint, but Mint should work fine regardless. It's just another easy ready out-of-the-box distro. If it is in distrowatch's top ten it is going to be an easy distro.You'll only have problems if you choose something stupid hard like Gentoo, Nix, or original Arch. Ubuntu-based distros are the easiest to use
Debian or LMDE
>>108108153how so? i mostly play old stuff, like terraria, and wc3
>>108108161If your monitor's got VRR, or if you have multiple monitors with different refresh rates, using Mint will still screw with old games.
>>108108153>Wayland>gaminglol, lmao
CachyOS with KDE Plasma. It's Arch-based so you'll get up to date packages. Plus it has repos for more modern CPUs so you'll get a slight performance boost.>MintThis is a decent choice. The only potential issues are lack of Wayland (if you actually want Wayland) and slightly older packages (not much older). This is the only just-werks distro I would recommend other than CachyOS.>UbuntuThere's no reason to use this over Mint.>ZorinWhy?>Debian/LMDEThese are decent but they have very old packages so you might have a bad time.
>>108108155>Most people recommend ZorinLiterally never heard of it until just now and I'm here every day.
>>108108173>"heh X11 is so much better for gaming">plays game without disabling compositor in advance>"AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
>>108108183It's based on Ubuntu. The goal is to look as close to Windows/MacOS as possible. There's not much reason to use it but they have a large marketing budget from their $78 Pro Version.
>>108108175>Claims Mint, which is based on Ubuntu 24.04, has "slightly older packages" (eg 2018 version of GIMP)>Decries Debian and LMDE, which came out last year, for having "very old packages" (eg 2025 version of GIMP)
>>108108184Told me you haven't gamed on GNU+Linux without telling me you haven't gamed on GNU+Linux. Thanks. >>108108196The Arch/Wayland fags are desperate.
op here, ok the replies are making me even more confused, should i use linux mint with my rig and use proton and leave it as it is? what is the go-to browser for "muh privacy"?
>>108108211Firefox or Brave
>>108108196/g/ told me Debian is old so that's what I said. At the very least, neither of those have the latest version of GIMP, but Arch does.
>>108108139>>108108161>>108108211install gentoo
>>108108217>neither of those have the latest version of GIMP, but Arch doesYeah Arch has GIMP 3.0.8 which is from a few weeks ago. Debian has backports though so you can do sudo apt-get install -t forky gimp to get GIMP 3.2.0 which is newer
sudo apt-get install -t forky gimp
>>108108211Why not install https://bazzite.gg/ ?
>>108108230>The current stable release of GIMP is 3.0.8 (2026-01-24).
>>108108236The 3.2.0 version in forky is a release candidate ie essentially stable
>>108108217GIMP 3.0.8 has some very slight changes over Debian Stable's 3.0.4: https://www.gimp.org/news/2026/01/24/gimp-3-0-8-released/
I've used minimal install Kubuntu (w/o snaps) for about 5 years and it has worked well for me. Fedora KDE is another solid distro which should just werk.
>>108108139Ubuntu, unironically.>Mint?Mint is based on ancient technology and is basically a customised Ubuntu.Might as well just run the real thing.>SteamSteam's official Linux installer is a .DEB, which is the Debian/Ubuntu native package format.>Battle.netYou want Lutris from Flathub, which you can get via Flatpak, which is easily installable on Ubuntu.>NVIDIAUbuntu ships with proprietary NVIDIA drivers available via Software & Updates app.
>>108108211>Browser?Brave, which has an official Ubuntu repo.https://brave.com/linux/
>>108108213>>108108314Vivaldi is superior in every way
>>108108139Linux Mint, if you're an absolute beginner. Learn a couple "apt" commands to feel like a hacker and that's it.If you want to go beyond, I'd give Fedora a chance. Fedora Workstation if you enjoy the aesthetic and philosophy, or KDE if you want a "Windows-like" environment.Just remember that Mint aims for stability, while Fedora is more like a cutting-edge distro.PS: I own an Nvidia GPU and I use Fedora Workstation for daily use/gaming/emulation.
>>108108692Can I use KDE Plasma as a complete beginner for browsing gaming and emulation?
>>108108139Ever since I installed Aurora my pussy cannot stop squirting in all direction. It's like broken pipe... Nothing beats Aurora for actual real work.
>>108108139Pop!_OS
>>108108175The one thing i found about Zorin to be somewhat worth it for some over others is that without even touching the terminal, native support for installing and running windows applications is more seamless than with other distros. Once you install the "windows application pack" or whatever they call it, you can just double click an installer, install an application, and run it. For someone who doesn't want to learn linux or care to do any setup, it requires no setup compared to others. The UI is also very modern, so it might be a good jumping off point for some windows-only users.Downside is that it's a pretty heavy distro, sitting at a little over 1.5gb of ram usage under idle conditions
>>108108700KDE is very user friendly, but has a lot of extra bits that may be just bloat for some. I've had personal issues with some of their features not working as expected or straight up not working, making it feel less polished than it looks.In coming from windows, cinnamon feels the most straight forward, least bloated, and everything feels like it just works as it should, so that would be my recommendation.
>>108108700I don't see why not.If you want to have a bite of different distributions without installign anything, feel free to try the live installations through https://distrosea.com
>>108108139bazzite,cachyos,nobarabasically anything that comes with nvidia drivers preinstalled is fine.
just use ubuntu, everything else is meme
>>108108139Fedora KDE, stable but still up to date
Fedora Silverblue. Install GUI programs from Flatpak and CLI ones from Toolbox.
>>108108139If you only play vidya and watch videos then Bazzite is a safe choice. If you need something more similar to Windows, then try Zorin. I won't be recommending Mint until they won't fully implement Wayland. Cachy and Pop are good too, but both are more complex for a noob.
>>108108211I would get mint if I were you, and just use firefox. Dig through the settings and disable the telemetry. If you're willing to tinker a bit (and nowadays AIs can help), I would try out fedora workstation.
I'm told cachyOS is good for gayming, but it's arch-based so I haven't tried it myself t. 20+ years on debian and derivatesI like mint and use it on several computers, but cinnamon just feels like a toy compared to kde
>>108108153I don't see a gaming use case for Wayland unless you are deliberately trying to lower your fps.Hyprland and Waydroid are currently the only reasons I can see for using Wayland at all.
Anyone on xubuntu have anything to say about it? I switched to mint after ubuntu got too bloated. But I'm not really a cinnamon fan. xubuntu is probably what I'll end up going to next.
>>108108139Yes, go with Linux Mint and ignore most of the replies. Mint is pretty good for beginners. You don't have to worry about Wayland and other stuff like that at this point. Try out alternatives and research the docs only if you really want to learn how it all works, or need a special kind of setup.
>>108111883based minty
>>108108139Fedora or CachyOS, everyone else is a faggot
