Submitted 1 month ago by Arandomguyontheinternet@sh.itjust.works to [deleted]
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/6010f6f8-75f0-4a97-b7e9-1a4a206df2e7.jpeg
I play a lot of games over steam, and I am coming from windows.
I also game a lot and made the switch a little over a year ago. I use a 3090 so i chose Pop!_OS and it has been treating me super well! Highly recommended, especially their new Cosmic version.
I recommend Debian for new users and Arch fir experienced users, but use what feels right to you.
CachyOS or Bazzite if you play games
One thing to note is that Linux can read your Windows partitions. If you have data on drives you’ll still need, you can leave them and Linux can access them fine. (Windows can’t read most file systems though, so the other direction of this mostly doesn’t work. Windows can’t read most Linux drives partitions).
If you’re reasonably technologically competent, I’d recommend CachyOS or Garuda. These are Arch based, so the Arch wiki and Arch User Repository are available, and great resources. They come with everything you need for gaming though, unlike base Arch. You don’t need to fiddle with things or set things up. They just work out-of-the-box.
If you not really but want to learn, the Mint recommendations are fine. It’s one of the most used distros, so there’s still plenty of help available. Alternatively, and I think better, there’s Fedora. For either of these, choose KDE versions, not Gnome or anything else. KDE is more customizable and closer to Windows too. (Though it can be customized to be more like anything else, or whatever you want too.)
If you really don’t want to learn, Bazzite or maybe Zorin are there.
Honestly, if you’re mostly using Steam for gaming, pretty much any major distro will work. Linux Mint is my personal choice for newbies but if something else strikes your fancy, go for it. I second the recommendation for checking on ProtonDB to see if your games are supported. I would also recommend ProtonUp-Qt as a program once you’ve installed Linux; it’s really good for managing different Proton installs on Steam quickly and easily. Also also, I have personally had better luck with the Flatpak version of Steam, rather than the native distro versions, because it has less weird dependency issues, but YMMV. Good luck!
I run Mint myself and it’s fairly idiot proof. While I don’t have as much free time as I used to, running most of the games I enjoy on steam is possible there. I’ve heard good things about Bazzite, as it seems to specifically cater to the gaming crowd. I haven’t tried it out myself though, since gaming isn’t my biggest priority.
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
A lot of these things look really sleek and fancy. I’m still using Arch Linux with i3 and can play whatever games. It’s all the same shit under the hood once you’ve installed what you need