Which Linux Distro qualifies my needs?

[Mr.Muffins]

Hey guys!

 

Full-time windows user here, want to make the change to Linux after watching the "Noob's Guide to Linux Gaming" video. I just really want to take a breath of fresh air. Don't hate Windows, just want to try something new.

 

Things that I NEED:

• Compatible with the MSI GS65 ST, ASUS Zephyrus M GM501, Dell XPS 15 or the Gigabyte Aero 15. (Are laptops compatible with Linux? Does it have updated drivers for these laptops?).
• Compatible with an external drawing screen tablet (Like the Wacom/Huion/Artisul tablets).
• Compatible with Affinity Designer/Photo and Davinci Resolve. (Paint Tool Sai/Krita is a plus!).
• Compatible with games like League of Legends, Divison 2, Apex Legends and Warframe.

Things I would LIKE:

• Minimalistic design, easy os interface customizability.
• Widgets if possible (something close/similar to Rainmeter).
• Would be able to convert/open .exe files. (I do alpha/beta testing programs from time to time, will this be an issue if the files are for Windows only?
• Custom boot animation will be nice. (Not really important).

The last question will be, how safe is Linux compare to Windows 10? (Viruses, Hacks, Privacy, Anonymity, etc.)

 

Thanks for reading.

[Chunchunmaru_]

Hi, Dell usually tends to have supported ACPI because of their XPS developer version which comes out with Ubuntu pre-installed, so you won't have any problems with the backlight, sleep, etc...

As for external drawing screen tablet, usually depends from the availability of the drivers, I got a simple Huion for playing osu, and it works. Wacom should have native support too, its something you can check with Google.

Davinci resolve has a native linux version and is easy to install, has a windows-like setup, but unlike windows, it doesn't support H264 video playback for some reason, so you will need to encode in HEVC or something else, I don't know the details

Any DX11 game is likely to run, except the one with EAC which are something currently unsupported with wine atm which are currently in development with Valve for a solution

As for customization, every linux distro lets you do that

Speaking of safety, viruses are less prone to attack you due to linux being less used in desktops and also because of the package manager, as for hacks/vulnerabilities, as long you update your system regularly, there are no issues compared with WIndows 10 automatic updates, as for privacy, some distros like ubuntu tend to send a minimal quantity of data compared to Windows.

Wine should be capable of running Windows programs, but has to be compatible. C# ones tend to be the most supported

As for the distro, you may choose the one you like, that should have all you need, but if you are unsure choose the most updated one just to be sure to have more drivers for your peripherals you want to run, like Ubuntu 19.04 or PopOS, or Manjaro Linux (Which has a slighly harder learning curve as it's based in arch and is a bit less stable)

You can try a desktop environment like KDE, since has widgets, so Kubuntu would be a choice, or Manjaro KDE, or PopOS with KDE. But GNOME offers customization like Windows too with something like DashToPanel
 

[Mr.Muffins]

@Chunchunmaru_

 

Thanks! Appreciate the informative reply.

 

Do you know the best step-by-step guide or video that teaches you how to learn all the Linux basics and advance commands?

[Ithanul]

About Krita and Paint Tool Sai:

 

Krita has an installer for Linux.  Here the link on their site: https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/

Actually, I just looked on their site.  Nice, they are using appimage now.

 

On Paint Tool Sai, there seems to be several Youtube videos and guides on how to get that application running in Linux.  One link with a guide: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1013903/can-you-run-paint-tool-sai-on-linux/1013915 

An individual there did a nice little visual step by step guide of how to get that application to work in WINE.

 

 

6 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

 

Do you know the best step-by-step guide or video that teaches you how to learn all the Linux basics and advance commands?

Look up Joe Collins on Youtube.  He got some nice videos on the Bash Shell of Linux.

[Sauron]

19 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

Compatible with the MSI GS65 ST, ASUS Zephyrus M GM501, Dell XPS 15 or the Gigabyte Aero 15. (Are laptops compatible with Linux? Does it have updated drivers for these laptops?).

Of course Linux is compatible with laptops, though it may have problems with specific models. The XPS line can come with Ubuntu preinstalled, so you can be fairly sure Linux will work fine on those. The same goes for the rest of your equipment; depending on the specific model and manufacturer support may be better or worse. You can search for "thing Linux" and you'll probably find a thread on some forum or on reddit where people discuss how well it works under Linux.

22 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

Things I would LIKE:

• Minimalistic design, easy os interface customizability.

Define "minimalistic" - there are distros that upon first installation look like this:

 

and let you install whatever UI you prefer manually.

27 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

Would be able to convert/open .exe files. (I do alpha/beta testing programs from time to time, will this be an issue if the files are for Windows only?

Yes, it will be an issue. You can get many windows programs to run with wine, but you can never be sure if bugs are due to the program itself or to wine - and some programs simply won't run.

28 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

The last question will be, how safe is Linux compare to Windows 10? (Viruses, Hacks, Privacy, Anonymity, etc.)

It's hard to quantify and it partly depends on what distro you're using - generally it's safer because:

• programs are installed directly from trusted repositories, so you don't need to download suspicious executables from the web (with some exceptions)
• viruses and malware are less common to begin with because the user base is smaller and precompiled binaries don't always work on every distribution

Privacy is obviously much better - most distros don't "call home" at all and the ones that do only send anonimized diagnostics (which can be disabled).

 

For a new user just looking to try it out I'd recommend an ubuntu variant (namely Xubuntu, Kubuntu or Ubuntu MATE).

[Brennan Price]

Everything there seems to be alright, League of Legends has worked for agessss on most distros anyway. Most drawing tablets are supported (yes Wacom, Huion) but the issue I see here is Affinity Designer/Photo. That does not have any Linux support whatsoever. Might have to switch to something else there I'm afraid. Davincii Resolve however is supported natively. 

[Mr.Muffins]

@Ithanul

Thanks for the info on Krita, Paint Tool Sai and for the Joe Collins recommendation.

 

@Sauron

So I may have to do some research on whichever laptop I end up getting. Minimalistic as in design; solid colors, simple figures, nice contrast.

Here's an example: https://iredd.it/5ug0uhp5o85y.png

 

Thanks for the recommendations.

 

@Brennan_Price

Ouch, my dreams have been tainted. No Affinity Designer is probably going to be my downfall, it's my main go-to web/logo/template/illustrations program. Any other Designer alternatives that you may know? (No Adobe, had enough of their subscription & hidden fees).

[Brennan Price]

4 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

@Brennan_Price

Ouch, my dreams have been tainted. No Affinity Designer is probably going to be my downfall, it's my main go-to web/logo/template/illustrations program. Any other alternatives that you may know? (No Adobe, had enough of their subscription & hidden fees).

 

I hate to say it but this is why I tend not to use Linux for image editing, there are very limited options see here. 

 

It is also part of the reason I tend to move back to Windows, I miss my beloved Paint.NET image editor too much. Every other image editor I use/have used in Linux feels annatural to me. 

[Sauron]

4 minutes ago, Mr.Muffins said:

@Sauron

 

So I may have to do some research on whichever laptop I end up getting. Minimalistic as in design; solid colors, simple figures, nice contrast.

Here's an example: https://iredd.it/5ug0uhp5o85y.png

 

Thanks for the recommendations.

If you're not afraid of doing some configuration yourself you might want to take a look at r/unixporn for inspiration.

Here's one of my submissions from a few months ago:

Spoiler

 

 

[Ithanul]

1 minute ago, Mr.Muffins said:

Ouch, my dreams have been tainted. No Affinity Designer is probably going to be my downfall, it's my main go-to web/logo/template/illustrations program. Any other alternatives that you may know people use on Linux? (No Adobe, had enough of their subscription & hidden fees).

Hmmm, web/logo/template.

 

This may help:  https://alternativeto.net/software/davinci-resolve/

[Chunchunmaru_]

1 hour ago, Mr.Muffins said:

@Chunchunmaru_

 

Thanks! Appreciate the informative reply.

 

Do you know the best step-by-step guide or video that teaches you how to learn all the Linux basics and advance commands?

Mhh honestly no but it depends, you can use Linux without the need of a terminal if you want, or you can learn how to use it by just following bash tutorials which can be done also on macos for example

[Mr.Muffins]

@Brennan_Price

Same. One of the reasons why I'm locked into Windows. Though it just may be me that feels this way, I feel counterproductive with windows when it comes to things, it's not an enjoyable OS as it used to be before.

 

@Ithanul

I think you meant https://alternativeto.net/software/affinity-designer/

But thanks for the site, found some similar programs like Gravit Designer & Akira that are compatible with Linux.

 

@Chunchunmaru

Gotcha, I did some bash coding a long time ago. Probably may have to learn again Thanks!

[wasab]

Ubuntu

[Steven123123]

I have used all the most popular distros. Ubuntu has the most polished desktop experience.

[Mr.Muffins]

Thank you all for your insight on this topic, appreciate this forum and the community behind it.

 

Gravit Designer looks similar to Affinity. The only catch is that there is a "Pro" version where it's a subscription and it's $100/year (cheaper than Adobe of course, but still a subscription).

 

I'll probably be focusing on using Pop!_Os & Ubuntu. Once I learn how to use it, and hopefully, in the near future I may probably come up with an idea of making my own designer program for Linux.

[FFY00]

On 4/11/2019 at 2:04 PM, Ithanul said:

Krita has an installer for Linux.  Here the link on their site: https://krita.org/en/download/krita-desktop/ 

Actually, I just looked on their site.  Nice, they are using appimage now. 

No, just don't. You don't manually install thing on linux. You'll likely just break your distribution if you don't understand what the installer is doing and where it is installing to. Use the repos instead.