I am new to Linux and never used it regularly before a couple months ago, but I’d recommend just going with Linux Mint to start off. I don’t know much about Arch, but from all the jokes I see on Lemmy, I get the impression it may be a more advanced distro for people who know what they’re doing? I wanted to try PopOS! because people said it was good for gaming, but the install wasn’t as streamlined for a dual boot Windows/Linux setup.
Linux Mint just kind of works and installed super fast. And my Windows partition is still intact and functional (but I’m wondering if I even need it tbh). My only holdup is Microsoft Office. I still haven’t tried to get that working inside of Linux, but if it’s possible, then I will certainly delete my Windows install.
But anyways, don’t over think it. Just do Linux Mint and then after a while, you’ll be able to understand why or if you should consider another distro I would guess!
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
How is it for gaming though? Nobaru apparently has gamer based fixes and tweaks
FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I don’t have numbers, but I’ve seen comments/reviews that suggest they’re all within a percent or two in terms of frame rate. Like, how much thought should someone put in to getting 101 fps instead of 100 fps, you know? After using Mint for a bit, I’m probably going to stick with this for a year or two before trying out other distros, if I even feel the need. I think there is also value in giving a couple of them a try as you learn more.
DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Can I easily switch distros or is it like installing windows again where everything is lost?
FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It’s kinda like installing windows, but the process is way faster during the actual install, and the initial setup. The OS is much smaller and took maybe 20 minutes to install after I got my partitions set up properly. After Linux is booted up, every program I needed to get going was easily located in the built in software package downloader. I didn’t have to go to NVIDIA’s website to download drivers because they were already accessible from the built-in driver manager. Telegram, Steam, and whatever popular software you want is just a quick search away and a button click from being installed as a flatpak application. Firefox was already installed. It didn’t ask me to log in to a Microsoft account before I could move on to using my computer.