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this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Already did and it's glorious! Steam works beautifully and the only final thing that I'm missing is Adobe products.
I recommend, if you want to try Linux, that you try out the 'Debian' distribution, and use the 'KDE Plasma' desktop environment. It makes for a very Windows-like experience and really assisted me with the transition between OSs.
Outside of Steam, how have you found gaming compatibility? I know Xbox Gamepass doesn't work as that's very specifically a Windows app, but how about other standalone games/platforms?
Outside of steam will be a case by case basis. I wouldn't expect a lot of luck, and it may require that you use a compatibility layer like Wine.
for newcomers, maybe this is the best combo. Debian stable with KDE Plasma.
Unless you're using NVIDIA. Didn't work out of the box for me and required a couple hours of fiddling. Mint worked seamlessly.
PopOS (scroll down to the "Pop_OS with Nvidia" link).
It is tailored for Nvidia cards, is Debian(Ubuntu) based, & super friendly for new users.
EDIT: Here's a link to the 24.04 release that provides only the Cosmic desktop environment (no X11, no gnome or kde). This is what I use, but it's in alpha so user beware.
Saving this.
Manjaro with KDE Plasma has been working pretty flawlessly with an nvidia card for me.
Wrangling my Nvidia drivers into Mint also took a couple hours for me but I haven't had problems afterward
Debian is not a good choice for beginners. It's extremely bare bones compared to Ubuntu or Mint.
Drivers on Debian stable are also heavily outdated
Drivers being outdated is not a big deal, unless you use recent hardware, then it might make sense to make a jump to current testing release (trixie), or just stay on testing indefinitely.
Also it being "barebones" is a good thing in my eyes, since I can configure it how I want.
It's definitely a good thing if you're interested and knowledgeable enough to build what you want. I was just arguing it's not the best choice for a casual user because a lot things they'll want won't work out of the box.
Even updating to the next stable Debian version requires editing system files and running the command line.
Drivers can matter quite a bit if for example you're on an Nvidia card and the Debian drivers are 2 years old. It happened to me and caused dlss to not work in some games. And with Nvidia you can't just move to testing, you need to backport the driversc and that's quite involved.
I run a Debian server and it's amazing for that.
I definitely agree with most of the points but I don't get what do you mean that you can't move to testing, because that's what I literally did recently by upgrading from bookworm to trixie with no issues whatsoever and I have Nvidia card, although older one (GTX 1060 3GB).
When I tried it, testing was on the same version of Nvidia drivers as stable so it didn't solve my problem. It was possible to manually backport them, but it wasn't straightforward to do.
I completely disagree. Debian is not beginner-friendly. Go with Bazzite if your focus is gaming.
It is a gaming-focused distribution. It's also an "atomic" distribution, which basically means it's really hard to break it. It's more like Android or IOS where the OS and base system are managed by someone else. They're read-only so you can't accidentally break them.
For example, instead of trying to manage your own video card drivers, they come packaged with the base system image, and they're tested to make sure they work with all the other base components.
I've been using Linux since the 1990s, so I've run my share of distributions: Slackware, RedHat, Gentoo, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. Even for someone experienced, atomic distributions are great. But, for a newcomer they're so much better.
How does Bazzite fare when I want to do something a bit different. Install docker, Python, PHP, sqlite, etc. I'd normally just install them, but does this work for Bazzite and other atomic/immutable distros?
So, there are multiple ways of installing things. For GUI apps the standard way is flatpaks. Some non-GUI things are installed that way, but it's less common.
For CLI apps, homebrew is installed by default and it's recommended as a way to install CLI things.
The method I like for apps that have a lot of interdependencies is to use a distrobox. If you want a development environment where multiple apps all talk to each-other, you can isolate them on their own distrobox and install them however you like there.
I currently have a distrobox running ubuntu that I use for a kubernetes project. In that distrobox I install anything I need with apt, or sometimes from source. Within that kubernetes project I use mise-en-place to manage tools just for that particular sub-project. What I like about doing things this way is that when I'm working on that project I have all the tools I need, and don't have to worry about the tools for other projects. My base bazzite image is basically unchanged, but my k8s project is highly customized.
If you really want to, you can still install RPMs as overlays to the base system, it's just not recommended because that slows down upgrades.
More details here:
https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/
I moved to endeavouros. First time using a rolling release, and I was struggling with some webdev stuff cause node was on a recent non-lts build and a few other things.
Not a problem for building, cause I already have that containerised. But things like installing packages was refusing, and obviously couldn't run dev workflows.
Until I realised I should just work inside a container.
I know vscode is still Microsoft (and I'm sure I could get it to work with vscodium), but the dev container workflow is fantastic.
Absolute game changer.
And I know I can easily work on a different platform, os whatever. And still have the same dev environment.
Yeah, it's a game changer. Especially if you have different projects on the go. I'm used to having to deal with an ugly path with all kind of random things in it because I need them for one project. But, with containers / distroboxes / toolbx you can keep those changes isolated.
I find this interesting as I'm a beginner with only about 3 months of Linux use under my belt, whereas Ive used Windows since I was like 5 years old, and I found Debian to be a really good introduction to Linux. I was originally recommended Mint, like many are, and I found the experience to be a negative one as opposed to my later experience with Debian. (Note I have no experience with Bazzite or any other distros).
The additional 'bloat' in Mint obfuscated from me various aspects of Linux. It insulated me from learning how Linux is different from Windows, and that actually hindered me from understanding the OS. By starting with Debian I got a feel for using the CLI, setting up my drivers, package installer, and desktop environment. And, while those aspects can be complicated for new users, i think its somewhat necessary that they get a feel for them if Linux is going to be recommended as their OS.
Debian is fine as an introduction to Linux, if that's what you want. But, as a beginner, you're going to screw up, and Debian doesn't do anything to protect you from that.
Atomic distributions let you use Linux but make it harder to shoot yourself in the foot. It's much harder to break the system in a way you can't just reboot to fix it.
It all depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to learn Linux by using it, then by all means, go for a traditional distribution. Debian is nice, but I'd go for Ubuntu. But, if your goal is to have a stable system that you can't screw up as a beginner I'd go with an atomic distribution. If your goal is to play games, Bazzite is hard to beat.
You can still learn Linux if you use an atomic distribution. Configuring and using the desktop environment is basically the same. But, you don't need to worry about your drivers, and you don't install packages the traditional way. If you want to learn those things, you can run a VM or a distrobox.
In what world is a Debian base not beginner friendly my fiancé that could barely use windows is using it just fine
Has your fiancé had to update drivers? Has he had to upgrade to a new release? Has he had to figure out how to install a version of something that isn't in the Debian stable repositories?
If the only application your fiancé uses is Firefox, then he might go a long time before having any kind of problem. It all depends on how he uses it.
Did she set it up herself?
For the most part
I miss Affinity Designer! Bought a license and I like it but no linux port 🙄
I can't get used Inkscape, it's so different and confusing for me
Have you ever seen how to draw a circle in GIMP?
Krita > Gimp
Krita and GIMP are tools for different use cases.
On a more professional/advanced level I agree.
But for average users, they accomplish 90% identical tasks, but Krita, while less mature, is more intuitively designed (superiorly designed I would argue), and uses better algorithms for things like select & fill.
Also Krita is less ugly. Sorry, I'm notoriously shallow.
I hate you :c that was... Disturbing
I think torrenting a copy of Photoshop would be faster than drawing a circle in GIMP
As long as you're running KDE, it will feel familiar to a Windows user. I started with Kubuntu which was great until I had a system update, and it completely shat itself. Wanted to try Bazzite next, but the installer wouldn't work properly, so I installed OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, and I've seen no reason to switch since.
Not having access to Adobe products is a feature not a bug.
If you're into primarily gaming, try PikaOS. It's Debian based and uses the same tooling, but it's on an optimized kernel. Is generally geared toward gaming.
There are other gaming specific distros of course, this is just the "Debian"-related one. I would not recommend the real debian if you're mainly into gaming. It'll need manual intervention and/or optimization to get games running, or at least get them running well. It's not impossible (it even hard if you've got but is Linux experience), but just harder than necessary.