this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Planning to switch to Linux for my next PC (lemm.ee)
submitted 14 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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So all I know that the Linux mascot is a penguin and Arch users meme about using Arch. Jokes aside I’m planning on making to the jump to Linux as I’m planning on getting a tower PC. I recently got a steam deck and that kinda demystified the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble. This all very future oriented questions* as I haven’t even picked out hardware (probably gonna go prebuilt since I do not trust me) and there’s also the matter of saving up the money for a new PC.

As for my use case (cus I know some software is wonky on Linux compared to windows) it’s mostly between games running on steam, which most of my games play fine on the steam deck, and essays and note taking for my college classes, which I use libre office and obsidian (with excalidraw to hand write my notes) saved to my proton drive and also sync those documents between my surface laptop and home laptop

My ideal OS would be plug it in, let it do… things… and it’s ready to be a PC to install steam and stuff

But first question, as someone who isn’t tech inclined and tinkering is pretty much just a few VERY basic settings in the settings app on windows, so is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards because like hardware, I do not trust me with setting it up. As for installing it after I wipe whatever computer I choose I assume I’m gonna have some OS installer on a USB and let it work its magic.

Second question, is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux, I can’t really think of any examples cus with installers and updaters I just the computer handle it, like updating Nvidia stuff in the GeForce app for all I know it’s genuinely performing dark magic during the automated updates

Anyways I probably have way more questions that I have no idea I had, but to wrap up I’m not super tech inclined since I let automated stuff do its thang on windows (if the computer can manage and install it I’m gonna let it do that) and my pc mostly just plays games and do documents on libre office and obsidian

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 26 minutes ago

I recently made the switch back to Linux, to Pop! OS, and I've never had such a smooth experience before. It's currently using GNOME as its desktop environment, which I find a bit shit in general, but they've modified it enough so that it's user friendly and intuitive. It has an "app store" as well that you can use to check for and run updates, search software etc. If you have a big screen, the window tiling function is awesome. Highly recommend you have a look at it!

[–] JustFudgnWork 2 points 3 hours ago

Seems like you've got a lot of distro recommendations haha which is good - go for one of those and you should be ok (I'm on mint for the record). My suggestion if you have a bit if extra money and less time is to buy a prebuilt system with linux already installed, tuxedo and system76 are two big names but I can't comment on what to go with there.

However the advantage with buying an integrated system like that is that the hardware is all guaranteed and you can ring them for support if needed.

My other suggestion is to BACKUP your files!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Imo you should get a System76 computer, it comes with a gaming focused Distro and its the most well respected Linux brand (in the US, for EU I would reccomend Tuxedo). Their mini PCs cost $799 and for a decent full sized PC (with a GPU) prepare to pay over $1.5k.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

So kinda standard PC prices

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I run Linux Mint for years and years, I think you will be happy with it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah mint and bazzite are gonna be the ones I check out and I was leaning towards bazzite at first but now I just need to do a bit more research and figure out what the heck it what but at least I have a starting point now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Practice in a VM. Go from the base install to setting up all the apps to customizing the look of everything (commonly called "ricing"). That should give you a sense of what to expect.

When you think you're ready, maybe give a few Live ISO's a demo to see if there's any immediate glaring issues when it's running on bare metal. If not, then proceed to install when you've picked the one you like the most!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah once I got a bit more research I was gonna get some vms and play around a bit but that’s a thing for future me

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I know people have recommended Bazzite already, and I would too, but be sure to give PikaOS a look as well.

It's a gaming distro, but it's not immutable/atomic, though it uses a similar build process. Definitely one to consider if gaming is your goal.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

I’m probably gonna go with bazzite first then mint if that doesn’t shake out but hey the more names I can look at the better

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Go with Bazzite (if you end up liking it, you can install it on your steam deck, which will be the same process you use to install it in your laptop… but that's for the future.)

Mint is okay, but it's a bit behind and you have a greater chance of something going wrong than with one of the atomic distros (Bazzite). With atomic distros all the important stuff you can't really touch and the only things you can change are your personal files that are important to you but don't affect the system at all.

As long as you reboot your computer from time to time, it'll always be the latest everything. And if something goes wrong with an update, you just choose to boot into the previous version you were just using and everything is back to how it was. Non-atomics you can affect files that are important and you have to stay on top of updating.

Between that and being built for gamers it'll have everything already installed for you, though if something is missing, just click to install from the "app store".

When you go to bazzite.gg to download it, you answer a few questions about your hardware, and pick a desktop environment. Some others have touched on Gnome and KDE for desktop environments, the choice is yours. Do you want a desktop that looks more like windows (or desktop mode on your steamdeck) or do you want it to look more like a Mac? Windows and highly customizable is KDE, Mac and just use it as is but still able to customize through extensions, is Gnome.

Really the hardest part is going to be installing it, but it's really not too bad. There are plenty of guides, but it's use a software to get the downloaded Bazzite file onto a flash drive, boot your laptop from that flash drive, follow the prompts and wait. Don't try to dual boot (keep part for windows part for Linux). It's possible, but from how you described yourself, not worth the headache.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for the write up, based on the information from all the comments and this I might go with bazzite then but I still have to do some research

I might make a follow up post eventually with a little more specifics now that I have some vague ideas

As for the survey thing is that something I do on my current windows laptop or is it during the install process?

As for constantly restarting I always press shutdown every night before I go to bed

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

You can do it right now and see what happens. Go to Bazzite.gg and go to the download section. It just wants to know where you're installing it so it knows what version to give you to download. Installing to a laptop will be a different file than installing to your steamdeck.

And since you shut down nightly you'd always have the most current version when you boot up the next day. But that only applies to atomic (formerly called immutable) distros like Bazzite. If you go Mint, which isn't atomic/immutable, that won't be the case and you'll have to stay on top of updating.

It's early still, so you have plenty of time to do some research and when you're ready ask the questions you still don't understand and generally we're pretty helpful around here. 😁

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Yeah I definitely have a lot of info here, feeling a little overwhelmed but I just need time to sift through the nitty gritty and digest this

But I’m super early in the process haven’t even thought about what hardware I’m gonna get get (at least from this post I know need something AMD probably so that’s a start lol)

Also if I swap out to bazzite on my steam deck will I have to reinstall stuff like emudeck (only thing I’ve installed in desktop mode)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (9 children)

Linux mint is a common recommendation but I think a bad one (for beginners anyway), I highly recommend bazzite with kde, I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to do infinite troubleshooting if you add me on matrix (which is on my profile) I've onboarded many people and this is my experience with beginners

in short, linux mint is bad vs bazzite with kde for 3 reasons

kde is much more well supported and developed than cinnamon, it's not even close especially if you care about security

immutable distros are much more forgiving for new people, immutable means that the core OS can't be modified.

and finally bazzite has more up to date software, linux mint is a "stable" distro, stable in the linux context means unchanging, not unbuggy

if you don't know what any of that means, go bazzite over mint, you'll have an easier time.

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[–] captain_aggravated 4 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

  1. The various versions or flavors of Linux are called "distributions" or "distros." There are several that are intended to be ready to go out of the box. Linux Mint is a pretty good one for general desktop use though they're kinda behind the times with Wayland and such. I see a lot of folks recommend Bazzite but I personally know nothing about it. I'm using Fedora KDE, Fedora is meh, KDE is pretty good.

  2. If you're building a gaming desktop specifically for Linux, I recommend going with AMD GPU and an Intel wi-fi adapter. There are some Wi-Fi adapters that don't play nice with Linux but Intel's drivers are pretty good. AMD releases their drivers right into the kernel, there's nothing you need to do at all to get AMD GPUs working on Linux, Nvidia is a bit more of a pain. Also, with desktop peripherals, avoid anything that needs one of those configuration utilities, they tend not to be available for Linux. I use a Coolermaster MasterKeys Pro M keyboard which all configuration happens on the board, they don't offer any software for it. Highly recommended.

Oh also: Asrock's RGB lighting weird and non-standard. If you want to use open source stuff to control your RGB lighting and that's important to you, I recommend against Asrock. Just so happens my build's RGB is controlled via a controller built into my case.

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[–] RmDebArc_5 20 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

Generally, Linuxmint is the go to distro if you want something that holds your hand, but due to your limited needs outside of gaming and already having a Steam deck you should take a look at Bazzite, which is basically the desktop mode of the Steam deck for PCs.

As for hardware, one thing that can be annoying is NVIDIA (drivers), but that shouldn’t be a major problem with these distros as mint has a built in manager that does everything for you and with Bazzite you just need to specify your GPU when downloading and don’t have to do anything.

My recommendation is download the distros you want to try, get Rufus put them on a USB and then play around with them in demo mode, make sure everything works (graphic card, printers) and if you like the distro then start the installer. If you don’t like it you can just unplug the USB and reboot without anything persisting.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah I was gonna check out bazzite first then Linux mint

Another comment said that mint will wipe the windows install if I “run” it from an external usb so would I just boot windows like normal

Also does bazzite do the same thing cus I’m probably gonna use that first

As for that Rufus tool is the demo mode something I would use on the new pc

[–] RmDebArc_5 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

If you start the demo mode there will be no changes to disk until you open the installer for both distros. Most distros will boot into the demo mode directly from the USB and then have a shortcut to start installing. Once you have created a bootable USB it will work with any device so you can test the distros out now with your current machined and when you get the new one you can just plug it in there and see if there are any hardware specific issues

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Oh nice, I think that makes some sense to me lol

[–] [email protected] 8 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Super happy with Bazzite as a gaming PC. I think only a power user might find the "immutableness" of it annoying. You can still install OS packages, it's just highly discouraged. 90% of the time you'd just be running Flatpaks (a mostly self-contained app that is easy to install and remove). I'm using it with an old-ish NVIDIA card and at first it was troublesome but I think it worked itself out after a few updates. AMD has better compatibility from what I understand.

[–] RmDebArc_5 7 points 12 hours ago

The difference between NVIDIA and AMD/Intel is that Linux has a different way of handling drivers compared to windows (all drivers are part of the Kernel). AMD/Intel respect this. NVIDIA develop there drivers like on windows even though Linux is not designed this way. Also sometimes a new standard is made (eg Wayland) but NVIDIA has little to no support for a long time. Additionally there drivers are proprietary which limits how distros can/want to ship them.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 13 hours ago (14 children)

Try Bazzite:

https://bazzite.gg/

It will give you an experience that's familiar compared to the Steam Deck, and everything will "just work" out of the box.

It already has Steam installed and is a great desktop for general use.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards

The word you are looking for is called a distribution, or distro for short.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned Bazzite, which should be exactly what you're looking for.

is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux

An AMD GPU for sure. Nvidia drivers have come a long way, but they don't generally behave as well out of the box like AMD.

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