I have many PCs of different time periods and like playing games on appropriate hardware and software. Usually Win7 stuff runs on Win10, but this won’t be the case with Win17 without hassle.
These are the times I’m glad I don’t buy games on steam.
Now excuse me, I have to get back to my 386 to play some Monkey Island.
Or are you just more used to Windows? As a long time Mac user, i find using Windows only slightly easier to use than ubuntu which is not an easiness-maximized version of linux.
That might be because you've been using a pre-school OS.
I kid, MacOS is a perfectly reasonable OS to use... but its well known to hold your hand at all times. Theres a reason its recommended for the elderly and tech illiterate.
MacOS has layers. There's the hand-holding sort of OS that I want my mom to use. Then there's the unrestricted root access and CLI I want to use. Most of the people I've worked with who interface with Linux machines use Macs.
I agree but since many things require tweaking still it’s got a long way to go before your average person can consider it an easy alternative to windows
You can still upgrade, you’ll just have unactivated windows 10; that can be fixed in less than 5 minutes with a trip over to github. You might need a boot drive, but you won’t lose any data which I assume is the main concern.
I play games on Ubuntu. You can play games on any Linux distro as long as you can install steam or WINE or Lutris or any of the other compatibility layers that let you play most Windows games.
My home PC is on Linux Mint. Playing games on Linux is easy. Especially with Steam Proton that helps people run games on Linux easier than ever, the last major hurdle is anti-cheat which is on the dev's side for the most part. For the games I play 100% of it are either natively on Linux or runs through Proton just fine. https://www.protondb.com/ is a website you can check how compatible a game is and if there are any tweaks you can do to run stuff on Linux. There are some hiccups here and there but from my personal experience it's no more than when I was on Windows.
AFAIK gaming distros are mostly just comes with some stuff pre-installed. Nothing you can't install yourself. Mint made the transition from Windows to Linux very easy for me. I haven't touched Windows for my own PC for around 5 years now. Like the other comment said, even if you just give it a try running it off of a USB drive, just give it a try. Maybe like a weekend project.
Garuda makes it easier, and by easier i mean steam and everything you need to run it comes out of the box so you don’t need to download the one or two things. That said, it was like 5 minutes and no effort to get steam on kubuntu. Garuda does have the consequences of its very different from windows and isn’t as stable as many other beginner friendly distros
You probably won’t notice performance differences between distros. It’s likely a few percent at most. You can generally install all the same apps and tools.
If you’re new to Linux, pick based on the update schedule and desktop environment.
For updates you have periodic vs rolling release. Debian-based distros (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora) tend to be periodic and give good stability if you’re using your PC for more than gaming. Arch-based distros (Endeavour, Garuda) tend to be more cutting edge if you’re solely focused on games.
For DEs it basically comes down to KDE If you prefer Windows or Gnome if you’re used to Mac. Though Cinnamon and XFCE are great lighter alternatives, and similar enough to classic Windows.
Mint with Cinnamon is a great starting point, and should be stable and comfortable. I’m personally switching to EndeavourOS with KDE mostly for its closeness to SteamOS.
If in doubt, grab a portable HDD, install Ventoy, and drop some live images on there to try the distros yourself.
If you don't update your software then Linux will be even worse choice than Windows. I can guarantee that you won't be able to play modern Steam games using this year GPU on Debian 7 or Ubuntu 13.04 lol.
I got linux mint on a little laptop with a 2060 i got from a friend but for some reason steam and any games i try to run on it run ABYSMALLY it may just be the laptop and nvidia drivers but i havent had a chance to diagnose it much yet as I gotta replace the screen
Yeah you’ll want to make sure you have the latest proprietary Nvidia drivers. The open source ones work but don’t give the best gaming performance (not for a lack of community effort, from what I understand).
Accessibility is the predecessor to universal involvement in potentially complicated topics. I like computers. I enjoy tinkering with them, etc. However, I’ve thought for some time that Linux is complicated.
A “Linux Guide for the Average Person” that is linked in these threads would be helpful, I think, for a lot of people. Getting started is often the most daunting task.
The main thing is to make a USB that you can boot from, so you can test things out before committing.
Linux hasn’t really been complicated for a number of years, as long as you use something like Pop! or Linux Mint, running games through steam is painless.
…and as long as you are not doing VR, the games you play don’t run weird anti-cheat software that’ll ban you, you don’t need windows/mac-only software for work or a hobby, you’re not operating niche hardware.
Thanks! I meant that my perception was that Linux was complicated. My concern was that if me, an advanced user and interested in the space, still thought this that surely others did too. Definitely been on my radar though!
It is my understanding that Linux Mint will install the bootloader on the internal drive regardless of whether you tell it to install the remainder of the OS onto the external drive. You can change the boot partition wherever you want, but I suspect that does not affect its end behavior. I would like the external drive to contain the bootloader such that my internal drive isn’t touched at all by my fiddling with Linux. I currently have a Samsung 990 Pro 2TB SSD in an external USB case, Mint installed, but with no compatible bootloader. Is there a way to sort the bootloader problem?
This will depend on the Linux distro, some of the installers make it very clear which drive the bootloader will go to, and others won’t - more so in the case of BIOS/MBR based systems.
Systems that use UEFI should only have a bootloader where the /boot partition (which should have the partition type “ESP”, generally labeled in the installer) - however during the installation of this it may modify your PC’s boot order to try to boot from this first. Both legacy BIOS and UEFI systems should have a way to change the boot priority however, so that this won’t be a problem.
Sadly it’s a bit hard to be specific since every distro’s installer is different, and I haven’t used Linux Mint in 8+ years to know what their installer’s behavior is.
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