I’d recommend pop os over bazzite because it’s a more standard distro, bazzite is immutible (update entire system at once instead of individual apps, and part of the filesystem are read only. It’s harder to break stuff on an immutible distro, but they’re less common and most resources online are for normal distros). It isn’t hard to get nvdia drivers working on pop os, so I’d just google it after you get it set up.
I’d make sure your windows drive is unplugged before installing, so you don’t accidentally wipe it! I’ve never dealt with swapping what drive the os is on, but I’d expect some stuff to break because the filesystem is pointing to unique IDs that no longer match. That shouldn’t be hard to fix by googling the errors, but I’d watch out for it.
Windows updates like to mess up bootloaders sometimes, I’ve never had that happen, so I don’t have any advice there. Unplugging the windows drive when you instsl should help, and just make sure the default is to boot into linux, that way any auto restarts won’t get into windows to mess stuff up unless you let it.
The only things id be concerned about is that multi monitor will work better under Wayland but nvidia may not. Nvidia and wayland is getting better while multimonitor on X isn’t, but I don’t know exactly how things are rn enough to say
That started the process already with the 545 drivers, but I saw a ton of bugs when I tried to update to 545. Probably won’t be ready for another year or two.
Yeah, I’ve heard it’s getting better, but I have an amd card, so not really sure where it’s actually at. X would probably be better for nvdia for a while, especially on pop_os, but idk what the actual state is.
Could you expand on that a bit? What do you mean by ‘work better’?
For context, my main monitor is the one I want working well (any gaming is exclusively on my main). My second monitor is only used for more screen space, and occasionally playing videos (I don’t care if it’s high quality if it’s on my second).
Multimonitor is just a better experience on Wayland. For instance, you can have different refresh rates for your monitors and the way it’s handled isn’t janky and hacky.
Noted. both my monitors are 75hz and capable of variable refresh rate, so in theory they don’t need to have different refresh rates for my setup, but I imagine playing games and watching a video might throw a slight wrench in that. Just out of curiosity for my options, would plugging my second monitor directly into my Mother board help mitigate any issues on that front (instead of having both plugged into my GPU)?
it’s not a setup issue, it’s a hard limit of xorg. maybe having two xservers may help, but then you wouldn’t be able to move windows between them. the way multiple monitors are done using x is that they’re treated as one continuous screen, but that means it can get a bit wacky because they’re not the same.
Hell yeah, thanks. I’ll likely not use bazzite then (I’m less concerned with breakage if it means I have more options). Is there any other distros that you might recommend? I don’t know what’s out there, and it seems like a lot.
Also, thanks for the links! I’ll check around there too.
The basic recomendations I’d give for distro is something popular based off Ubuntu or fedora. Both are pretty friendly distros, and most things based off them aren’t going to make too many changes to how core systems work.
If it’s based off one of those I’d argue the more important question is what user interface (called a desktop environment) you like. Watch a few videos of each distro in action and pick what you think looks best.
A lot of big distros have “spins” or varieties that have different desktop environments. So if you
Some specifics I’d recommend:
Linux mint: a distro based on Ubuntu that’s designed to be easy to use, without much setup. Most stuff will just work, but being based on Ubuntu, it’s a stable distro, so updates will be a bit slower, and there won’t be any major changes in the same version. (I would reccomend this over standard Ubuntu personally because the company behind Ubuntu has made decisions I don’t like (like prioritizing their own way of installing programs that, in my opinion, is a inferior to other methods))
Slightly less highly recomended:
Fedora: takes a quicker approach to updates, but isn’t as focused on being friendly to new users. It has a variety of spins: https://fedoraproject.org/spins/ if you go with fedora, I’d recommend GNOME (the default, more similar to Mac), KDE (similar to windows), or cinnamon (what linux mint uses, similar to windows).
nobara: I’ve heard good things about nobara, but I’m not super familiar with it. It’s basically fedora KDE with some extra patches added to better support gaming. The one negative I’ve heard is the maintainer is very busy, so ocasionally updates will be delayed vs fedora. It’s more of a hobbyist distro, but the maintainer seems pretty dedicated, and they also maintain a version of valve’s proton (one of the things that lets you play windows games on linux called proton ge that includes additional patches)
In order I’d recommend pop_os, linux mint, fedora, nobara. If you look at KDE and decide you like it, then I’d go withth fedora or nobara.
The main reason I’d recommend pop_os or mint is because you have an nvdia graphics card. Nvdia drivers have tended to be worse on linux, especially under a newer protocol called Wayland, which fedora is moving over to in it’s next release. Mint and pop_os slower update cycles are more likely to stay on x11 (the older protocol, but better supported by nvdia cards) until everything’s very solid.
Fedora’s trying to push linux forward, which is good imo, and most things should be fine with nvdia, but there will be more bugs. (I’ve heard it’s gotten pretty good, but I have an amd card and don’t want to recommend them without warning until I know for sure there aren’t issues)
Thanks for the recommendations, and another thanks for giving a quick rundown on them too! These comments have been wildly helpful for essentially laying down some framework in my head about it.
I’d recommend pop os over bazzite because it’s a more standard distro, bazzite is immutible (update entire system at once instead of individual apps, and part of the filesystem are read only. It’s harder to break stuff on an immutible distro, but they’re less common and most resources online are for normal distros). It isn’t hard to get nvdia drivers working on pop os, so I’d just google it after you get it set up.
I’d make sure your windows drive is unplugged before installing, so you don’t accidentally wipe it! I’ve never dealt with swapping what drive the os is on, but I’d expect some stuff to break because the filesystem is pointing to unique IDs that no longer match. That shouldn’t be hard to fix by googling the errors, but I’d watch out for it.
Windows updates like to mess up bootloaders sometimes, I’ve never had that happen, so I don’t have any advice there. Unplugging the windows drive when you instsl should help, and just make sure the default is to boot into linux, that way any auto restarts won’t get into windows to mess stuff up unless you let it.
c/[email protected]
c/[email protected]
Could also be good places to ask
The only things id be concerned about is that multi monitor will work better under Wayland but nvidia may not. Nvidia and wayland is getting better while multimonitor on X isn’t, but I don’t know exactly how things are rn enough to say
I think I read there was a big nvidia compatibility fix for Wayland coming down the pipeline, but who knows when it’ll reach distros.
That started the process already with the 545 drivers, but I saw a ton of bugs when I tried to update to 545. Probably won’t be ready for another year or two.
Yeah, I’ve heard it’s getting better, but I have an amd card, so not really sure where it’s actually at. X would probably be better for nvdia for a while, especially on pop_os, but idk what the actual state is.
Could you expand on that a bit? What do you mean by ‘work better’?
For context, my main monitor is the one I want working well (any gaming is exclusively on my main). My second monitor is only used for more screen space, and occasionally playing videos (I don’t care if it’s high quality if it’s on my second).
Multimonitor is just a better experience on Wayland. For instance, you can have different refresh rates for your monitors and the way it’s handled isn’t janky and hacky.
Noted. both my monitors are 75hz and capable of variable refresh rate, so in theory they don’t need to have different refresh rates for my setup, but I imagine playing games and watching a video might throw a slight wrench in that. Just out of curiosity for my options, would plugging my second monitor directly into my Mother board help mitigate any issues on that front (instead of having both plugged into my GPU)?
it’s not a setup issue, it’s a hard limit of xorg. maybe having two xservers may help, but then you wouldn’t be able to move windows between them. the way multiple monitors are done using x is that they’re treated as one continuous screen, but that means it can get a bit wacky because they’re not the same.
Ah, makes sense. I kinda figured it wouldn’t be that easy to solve, but I had hope that it might have a ‘cheap’ workaround.
Hell yeah, thanks. I’ll likely not use bazzite then (I’m less concerned with breakage if it means I have more options). Is there any other distros that you might recommend? I don’t know what’s out there, and it seems like a lot.
Also, thanks for the links! I’ll check around there too.
The basic recomendations I’d give for distro is something popular based off Ubuntu or fedora. Both are pretty friendly distros, and most things based off them aren’t going to make too many changes to how core systems work.
If it’s based off one of those I’d argue the more important question is what user interface (called a desktop environment) you like. Watch a few videos of each distro in action and pick what you think looks best.
A lot of big distros have “spins” or varieties that have different desktop environments. So if you
Some specifics I’d recommend:
Slightly less highly recomended:
Fedora: takes a quicker approach to updates, but isn’t as focused on being friendly to new users. It has a variety of spins: https://fedoraproject.org/spins/ if you go with fedora, I’d recommend GNOME (the default, more similar to Mac), KDE (similar to windows), or cinnamon (what linux mint uses, similar to windows).
nobara: I’ve heard good things about nobara, but I’m not super familiar with it. It’s basically fedora KDE with some extra patches added to better support gaming. The one negative I’ve heard is the maintainer is very busy, so ocasionally updates will be delayed vs fedora. It’s more of a hobbyist distro, but the maintainer seems pretty dedicated, and they also maintain a version of valve’s proton (one of the things that lets you play windows games on linux called proton ge that includes additional patches)
In order I’d recommend pop_os, linux mint, fedora, nobara. If you look at KDE and decide you like it, then I’d go withth fedora or nobara.
The main reason I’d recommend pop_os or mint is because you have an nvdia graphics card. Nvdia drivers have tended to be worse on linux, especially under a newer protocol called Wayland, which fedora is moving over to in it’s next release. Mint and pop_os slower update cycles are more likely to stay on x11 (the older protocol, but better supported by nvdia cards) until everything’s very solid.
Fedora’s trying to push linux forward, which is good imo, and most things should be fine with nvdia, but there will be more bugs. (I’ve heard it’s gotten pretty good, but I have an amd card and don’t want to recommend them without warning until I know for sure there aren’t issues)
Thanks for the recommendations, and another thanks for giving a quick rundown on them too! These comments have been wildly helpful for essentially laying down some framework in my head about it.