I’m currently on Win11 but I’m getting that familiar Linux itch and want to dual boot a while again. I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it’s so big and well supported by most things.

I’ve run Arch in the past but I’ve gotten too old and lazy for that if I’d be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though… and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.

Not sure what I’d try out first this time so I figured I’d get some inspiration from you guys!

  • Nyanix@beehaw.orgEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been on Manjaro for 3 years, honestly love it, it’s treated me great for gaming and given me so little to have to fix that my wife has also been running it for 2 years.

  • s900mhz@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    A little background for context. I’m gamer and professional software developer. I’ve been dual booting windows 11 and pop os for awhile. Windows for games and pop os for everything else… Over the weekend I switched to NixOS. This came with a learning curve which I spent a day or so learning. I’ve been getting the hang of it now and I love it so much. I definitely recommend it. I managed to get steam working without much fiddling and my emulators. It’s been great! The benefits for programming are obvious. Allowing me to basically stop using docker dev containers.

    I completely removed windows from my computer and I’m very happy.

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      We used to run Ubuntu at my last job, it was so nice! I’m back in Windows land now though…

      • s900mhz@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Yeah my job recently started letting developers choose between windows and Mac now which is a step in the right direction… their excuse is that all their security software doesn’t run in Linux… Ill accept using a Mac over WSL though, that was a huge pain

        • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I’m still happy WSL exists, it’s definitely better than nothing if you’re stuck in Windows land!

          • s900mhz@beehaw.orgEnglish
            0·
            1 year ago

            Yeah absolutely! I know I dissed it, but I was happy to have it when I was stuck on windows for work.

  • jakepi@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I would take a look at pop_os. It’s Ubuntu, but without Snap and a closer to mainline kernel version. They have a lot of great usability tweaks too.

    I run Arch BTW. I just like to make things difficult :)

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      I installed Kubuntu… I couldn’t be assed to resize my efi partition to a gig and disrupt windows… Done that in the past with varying results. Wish they didn’t require it to be that big tbh.

      I do miss Arch… wouldn’t surprise me if I’ll install it again soon.

      Kubuntu works. But where’s the fun in that? :)

      It’s like… I installed it, messed with lutris a bit (needed a newer version) and installed Diablo 4, everything works… and now I feel like I’m missing out somehow. :)

      • jakepi@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        You’re missing out on chasing the dragon for the latest and greatest. :)

        Arch is fine once you get it setup, but I feel like the nerd in us can never just leave it be. I’ll probably go back to pop_os next major release they have.

  • thayer@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    All of my workstations are now running Fedora Silverblue. Steam is installed via flatpak, and GPU is a Radeon 6800 XT. I also have a Steam Link for couch co-op. All is well on the gaming front!

    Debian Sid and Arch have run equally well with this setup. Your choice of distro matters much less now compared to a few years ago, especially if you favour a flatpak workflow.

    Edit: typos!

  • brotherballan@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been running Linux Mint for a few years now and it’s been really good for me. Runs games through Steam and Lutris about as good as I’ve had it.

    I’ve also run other distros like Pop! and Fedora here and there but they seem to give me more issues.

      • Communist@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Make sure you’re running the sdl environment variable that makes them native on Wayland, in my experience when that’s on it makes my games that are native significantly more performant.

  • ctrl@lemmy.cafeEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    gentoo!

    i love the versatility it offers, but it’s very much so DIY. it has great documentation. anyone who considers themselves a “linux enthusiast” should try an install in a VM at some point or another, if nothing else it’s a great learning experience.

    for gaming in particular: flatpak steam / lutris / bottles. it’s great because it’s completely distro agnostic. i can take the $USER/.var directory and put it on any distro with flatpak installed and it’ll just work.

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I am starting to realize how handy flatpaks can be!

      I’ve been distro hopping like a madman these last couple of days and it’s gotten so much easier to get going with my games now!

  • elehayyme@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been running Pop for a bit over a year now and am (mostly) satisfied with it. The only issues I had were due to kernel updates, it would cause flickering on my screen and (like someone else mentioned) had to revert to an older kernel until the situation was resolved.

    • MT_Book_Wyrm@kbin.social
      0·
      1 year ago

      Pop here also. I tried several different distro’s, pop worked out of the box. Only issue was my cheap little Bluetooth USB wart, but five minutes of searching showed me how to get it working. That’s it. I like it. Familiar enough for a windows refugee, plays enough steam games without issues to keep me happy. No crashes, no freezes, unlike windows 10/11.

  • Gamma@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I’m on EndeavourOS, but my laptop will be moving to Fedora Sericea (Silverblue, but Sway) to try that out.

  • sadreality@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    Win11 is worse than a phone vis a vis spying. Finally made a switch. could not install popOS, so ended up with mint.

    • Icarus@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      My last two laptops have been System76 models. The first time I didn’t really love Pop!_OS but the most recent laptop I gave it another shot and it’s come a long way. Really enjoying it overall (still prefer KDE over gnomey stuff tho, lol)

  • Xeelee@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    I’ve been using Mint without any issues for a while now. I only play Steam games, though.