having both windows and linux, need advice.

[A literal rat]

I have decided that when I install windows 11 I'm also going to try linux out, this meaning I want windows only as a backup for games that won't run on linux. this brings me to the question of which linux distro to use as my main pc. is there any specific one that has most features a student would need, I don't mind if it runs differently along as most Microsoft things can be installed. also not sure how one duel boots or has backup operating systems so if anyone knows a good tutorial that explains that id appreciate the link. im not even sure where to look all this kind of stuff up without being hit will tons of linux jargon that I won't understand

[RONOTHAN##]

The preferred way of doing this would be to have 2 different drives installed in your computer, one dedicated to Windows, the other dedicated to Linux. There are ways of doing it on one drive, but since Windows wants to use its bootloader instead of the one Linux uses, there can be conflicts between them and one of them can break on occasion. 

 

As for what distro to use, the main difference between distros is the package manager, the default settings, and what's installed by default. Most of the "Noob friendly" distros like Pop_OS!, Ubuntu, Mint, etc. will have most of what you need preinstalled (web browser, office suite, video player, etc.), with everything else you need to get up and running available in their software center (an app store). All of this stuff can be changed if you know what you're doing, and if you're good enough you can make one Linux distro into another with varying degrees of difficulty. To pick a distro, look for the one that comes with the desktop environment (the GUI, kinda like how MacOS and Windows look different than each other, different Linux Desktop environments look vastly different from each other) you like (KDE is a very customizable one that looks like Windows 10 out of the box, but can look like Windows 11 or even MacOS without too much effort), and make sure it has a bigger user base so you can get help if/when you need it. Ubuntu-based distros like Pop_OS! and Mint are probably your best bet for this due to their extensive documentation and large user base to help you on their forums. Arch-based distros are also very well documented (the Arch Wiki is extremely useful, even if you don't run Arch), but the community isn't as big and the people using it are more of the "RTFM" types before they try to help you. 

 

As for how to do it, the specifics are different for every distro, but they're mostly the same for everything that isn't a command line install. If you do the separate drives, method, Install Windows on one drive, then make sure to not select that drive when installing Linux. If you are doing the same drive method, install Windows first like normal, then when you go to install Linux, when it asks you to select the drive, select something like advanced formatting, shrink down the Windows partition, and install it in its own partition. Either way, it's not that difficult

[A literal rat]

4 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The preferred way of doing this would be to have 2 different drives installed in your computer, one dedicated to Windows, the other dedicated to Linux. There are ways of doing it on one drive, but since Windows wants to use its bootloader instead of the one Linux uses, there can be conflicts between them and one of them can break on occasion. 

 

As for what distro to use, the main difference between distros is the package manager, the default settings, and what's installed by default. Most of the "Noob friendly" distros like Pop_OS!, Ubuntu, Mint, etc. will have most of what you need preinstalled (web browser, office suite, video player, etc.), with everything else you need to get up and running available in their software center (an app store). All of this stuff can be changed if you know what you're doing, and if you're good enough you can make one Linux distro into another with varying degrees of difficulty. To pick a distro, look for the one that comes with the desktop environment (the GUI, kinda like how MacOS and Windows look different than each other, different Linux Desktop environments look vastly different from each other) you like (KDE is a very customizable one that looks like Windows 10 out of the box, but can look like Windows 11 or even MacOS without too much effort), and make sure it has a bigger user base so you can get help if/when you need it. Ubuntu-based distros like Pop_OS! and Mint are probably your best bet for this due to their extensive documentation and large user base to help you on their forums. Arch-based distros are also very well documented (the Arch Wiki is extremely useful, even if you don't run Arch), but the community isn't as big and the people using it are more of the "RTFM" types before they try to help you. 

 

As for how to do it, the specifics are different for every distro, but they're mostly the same for everything that isn't a command line install. If you do the separate drives, method, Install Windows on one drive, then make sure to not select that drive when installing Linux. If you are doing the same drive method, install Windows first like normal, then when you go to install Linux, when it asks you to select the drive, select something like advanced formatting, shrink down the Windows partition, and install it in its own partition. Either way, it's not that difficult

is there a good place to see each of their main guis, I know they are supposed to be customizable, but as a windows user mainly my idea of customization means having my taskbar on the side not the bottom lol. so I don't really know what kind of stuff that implies. also probs a dumb question but would something like wallpaper engine work on linux?

[RONOTHAN##]

5 minutes ago, Tnourie666 said:

is there a good place to see each of their main guis

Every major distro I know of has a live environment available, if not given by default. Usually there are screenshots available on the distro's website, and if you download the ISO and load it on a USB, you can boot into it and try it out, running everything off the USB. If you don't like it, you can wipe the USB and install a different distro on it until you find the one you like. 

 

5 minutes ago, Tnourie666 said:

I know they are supposed to be customizable, but as a windows user mainly my idea of customization means having my taskbar on the side not the bottom lol

For reference as to how customizable they can be, all of these screenshots are from the same desktop environment.

 

It's pretty crazy how far you can go with customization for these.

6 minutes ago, Tnourie666 said:

also probs a dumb question but would something like wallpaper engine work on linux?

There are ways of getting it to work, but they do require a bit of work, and you might be better off going for some alternative for it. 

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, Tnourie666 said:

is there a good place to see each of their main guis, I know they are supposed to be customizable, but as a windows user mainly my idea of customization means having my taskbar on the side not the bottom lol. so I don't really know what kind of stuff that implies. also probs a dumb question but would something like wallpaper engine work on linux?

One way to test out the GUI's is thru a Live USB. Bought that involves downloading several distros. I know Ubuntu and popOS are the two favorites when gaming is the goal. However Steam OS is built on ARCH if I remember correctly. 

 

I checked both Proton and Wine and neither has Wallpaper Engine listed in support. So NO its not going to work. You will have to find an alternative that will work. 

 

[A literal rat]

24 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Every major distro I know of has a live environment available, if not given by default. Usually there are screenshots available on the distro's website, and if you download the ISO and load it on a USB, you can boot into it and try it out, running everything off the USB. If you don't like it, you can wipe the USB and install a different distro on it until you find the one you like. 

 

For reference as to how customizable they can be, all of these screenshots are from the same desktop environment.

 

It's pretty crazy how far you can go with customization for these.

There are ways of getting it to work, but they do require a bit of work, and you might be better off going for some alternative for it. 

thanks for the screenshots that's pretty nuts, ill be sure to use the live environments to try a couple out. hopefully I end up liking my experiences. 

[A literal rat]

37 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

One way to test out the GUI's is thru a Live USB. Bought that involves downloading several distros. I know Ubuntu and popOS are the two favorites when gaming is the goal. However Steam OS is built on ARCH if I remember correctly. 

 

I checked both Proton and Wine and neither has Wallpaper Engine listed in support. So NO its not going to work. You will have to find an alternative that will work. 

 

im hopeful that there is some sort of alternative

[A literal rat]

44 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Every major distro I know of has a live environment available, if not given by default. Usually there are screenshots available on the distro's website, and if you download the ISO and load it on a USB, you can boot into it and try it out, running everything off the USB. If you don't like it, you can wipe the USB and install a different distro on it until you find the one you like. 

 

For reference as to how customizable they can be, all of these screenshots are from the same desktop environment.

 

It's pretty crazy how far you can go with customization for these.

There are ways of getting it to work, but they do require a bit of work, and you might be better off going for some alternative for it. 

I really like the look of that fourth one, but im sure there will be other looks to enjoy aswell 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

10 minutes ago, A literal rat said:

I really like the look of that fourth one, but im sure there will be other looks to enjoy aswell 

 

Here's the theme and website I got the screenshot from: https://fostips.com/orchis-kde-materia-design-theme-plasma-desktop/

 

The way you get the things to look like that is to install KDE and Latte dock.

[A literal rat]

1 hour ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Here's the theme and website I got the screenshot from: https://fostips.com/orchis-kde-materia-design-theme-plasma-desktop/

 

The way you get the things to look like that is to install KDE and Latte dock.

i have a nvidia gtx 1080 ti and a ryzen 7 1800x hopefully that wont complicate things, but i figure ill ask you since you seem to know what you are talking about 

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, A literal rat said:

i have a nvidia gtx 1080 ti and a ryzen 7 1800x hopefully that wont complicate things, but i figure ill ask you since you seem to know what you are talking about 

The 1080 Ti might complicate it a little, but not too much. Nvidia drivers on Linux are iffy, and they can be a bit complicated to install depending on the distro. Pop_OS! and most Arch-based distros are among the easiest to get Nvidia drivers working since they're available right in the ISO or install with one command. That said, you can get it working on any distro with the right amount of effort. Nvidia drivers also aren't as fully featured and stable as AMD's, but they're still usable. Just be warned that if you go to upgrade and want to stick with Linux, you probably will want to go to team red for the GPU. 

 

As for the 1800X, the CPU itself will be fine. The Linux kernel has a ton of development time, and since the 1800x is a fairly popular CPU and AMD is pretty supportive of the open-source community, it's pretty well supported in Linux. The main thing that might be a problem is your motherboard if it doesn't have Linux drivers for things like the wireless card, but I've yet to encounter a board I couldn't install Linux on and get working well. 

[beace]

I say go for Linux Mint. It's what I started with and I don't want to say much outside my personal experience.

 

The main reason I suggest this particular distro is the stability it got met personally. I ran it on an old laptop with an AMD dedicated GPU, so I didn't have to mess with drivers at all because it did everything it had out of the box - web browsing, audio and video playback and streaming to do in-browser calls and work, played games through Steam no problem. More importantly, Mint, being based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian in turn, has a multitude of software you could need for general use or your student-specific needs, I believe.

 

It's also a nice and smooth introduction into the Linux world because you will definitely be able to comfortably install anything you like via terminal OR use the built-in frontend for the package manager. Doing things via terminal may seem a bit complicated or slower than on Windows, but you learn really quick, at least with some simple stuff such as installing and upgrading and uninstalling things; I think there's also a nice benefit of using a reliable trusted source to this, you just tell the OS what to get, and it gets it, you don't have to look for the right piece of software in some search engine, possibly getting the wrong link with some kind of malware trying to sneak its way into your PC. It's not always the case, of course, as there are ways to install stuff outside your package manager, but I think you won't be touching those right off the bat, so it's nothing to worry about right now.

 

Last, but not least in my personal reasons to recommend Linux Mint to beginners are the three main edition they provide - Cinnamon, MATE and XFCE. I suggest you do your own research and see what fits you best, but they all resemble Windows look and experience in a good way, which makes the transition from full-time Windows to dual-booting Linux and Windows (and possibly moving to Linux only later) a very simple and streamlined experience. The coolest part here is the fact that you can very easily try the editions out - you just use the "live" environment (that is also used to install the OS itself, so you'll get there anyway!) and click around, use it for, I dunno, maybe a couple of hours and see how it sits with you.

[A literal rat]

6 hours ago, parasite_avi said:

Doing things via terminal may seem a bit complicated or slower than on Windows

this is just a scary proposition because im worried about mistyping a package and it apt getting a virus or worse right into my comp without me knowing what I just did. I mistype all the time.

[finest feck fips]

10 minutes ago, A literal rat said:

this is just a scary proposition because im worried about mistyping a package and it apt getting a virus or worse right into my comp without me knowing what I just did. I mistype all the time.

One of the nice things about Linux package management, pretty much no matter what distro you're on, is that installing or uninstalling the wrong things is generally very easy to correct. The consequences of a typo in an apt command are pretty soft.

If you try to uninstall something extremely important to your system's functioning with apt, it literally makes you type out the sentence

 

Quote

I understand that this is a very bad idea

If you're nervous about fucking it up, first try it on a secondary computer that you aren't afraid to fuck up. Feel free to break it once or twice.

 

16 minutes ago, A literal rat said:

without me knowing what I just did

There's a way to avoid this, but you're not gonna like it. Just make sure you understand each command before you run it. If someone tells you to run something, open up the manual for that command and make sure you understand each part. If there's a part you don't understand after reading its section in the manual, ask about it.

The first few times you use a manual will be awkward. But after that, it'll gradually become so fast you hardly even notice yourself doing it.

[thedarthtux]

On 10/31/2021 at 5:13 PM, A literal rat said:

I have decided that when I install windows 11 I'm also going to try linux out, this meaning I want windows only as a backup for games that won't run on linux. this brings me to the question of which linux distro to use as my main pc. is there any specific one that has most features a student would need, I don't mind if it runs differently along as most Microsoft things can be installed. also not sure how one duel boots or has backup operating systems so if anyone knows a good tutorial that explains that id appreciate the link. im not even sure where to look all this kind of stuff up without being hit will tons of linux jargon that I won't understand

Probably late in the day but if you haven't jumped in and installed Linux yet, you may want to look at Garuda Linux KDE Dragonized (https://garudalinux.org/downloads.html). It is Arch based so it is a rolling update version of Linux meaning you don't have to reinstall every time a new version comes out, like you do going from Windows 10 to Windows 11 or Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 21.04 etc. Since it is based on Arch, it also have the AURs built-in so you don't need to worry about adding PPAs or repositories since most applications will have a AUR. 

 

Another good thing with Garuda is the initial setup post install is very easy to use for newbies to Linux. Basically follow the prompts and select the all applications you want to install. Will say when installing make sure to have it install the Nvidia proprietary drivers as well. 

[Donut417]

1 minute ago, thedarthtux said:

like you do going from Windows 10 to Windows 11

Im fairly certain that you can do an in place upgrade. Is it wise? Probably not, but its an option and has been an option on Windows for as long as I remember. 

 

 

[thedarthtux]

9 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Im fairly certain that you can do an in place upgrade. Is it wise? Probably not, but its an option and has been an option on Windows for as long as I remember. 

 

 

How I remember that working in Windows is, it renames the old Windows to windows.old or something and will not necessarily keep all you installed applications. So it ends up being a pain in the long run and a clean install may end up being better to save disk space. At least that's been my experience using the in place update. Saying that, I've not used Windows on any of my systems since Windows 8. The installed software thing may have been fixed.

 

How Arch works is everything gets updated with no wasting of disk space and no reinstalling of applications after the updates. But like I say, haven't used Windows since Windows 8 and that was why I always just did clean installs of Windows.

[beace]

14 hours ago, A literal rat said:

this is just a scary proposition because im worried about mistyping a package and it apt getting a virus or worse right into my comp without me knowing what I just did. I mistype all the time.

Wish I could tell you what happens in that case on Mint (or, specifically, with aptitude - the package manager Mint uses), but with Pacman (package manager you'll find in Arch and Arch-based distros), mistyping something will simply tell you that a package with that name was not found and will not do anything.

 

I don't suspect much difference in that behavior between package manager, and if I'm right, the worst case scenario is going to be your minor annoyance. Just hit the up-arrow key on your keyboard while in the terminal and it'll bring the last command you entered, then you simply edit the name and try again.

 

These days, Linux is lot more reliable and predictable and the very opposite of intimidating than Windows ever was in my opinion, and it's the stability Linux distros boast at large that makes me say that. Now, with Windows... I was in a rush some time ago and had to reboot the machine to not wait for the update to finish, which was a stupid idea, of course, but not as stupid as Windows not aborting and rolling back the update (as it should have, as is the way to go with any piece of software that has been developed with at least some logic applied to it) and messing itself up and another HDD as well; damn idiot still hasn't recovered and keep corrupting data on another HDD after clean install because it confused that HDD for its system drive and made some changes to it so it could treat it accordingly or something... A mess, as you can see.

 

Now, Linux? Well, since it put YOU, the user, in control, you can achieve the same and worse screw-up as I did above, but the coolest thing is, Linus is fixable without reinstalling the entire system. I have never encountered an issue that I couldn't fix or mitigate, even when I ruined permissions to every single file on my system. It wasn't a quick fix or anything, of course, but all the errors I got were informative enough for me to troubleshoot everything back to the point of having a properly functioning system again.

 

So, yeah, lemme say you shouldn't be afraid. After all, reinstalling Linux Mint will be a quick effort if you absolutely have to, and being a popular Linux distribution, it is very well possible to fix the thing, which is also a much easier and well-communicated labor than it could ever be on Windows, even with Microsoft's support team.

[A literal rat]

On 11/1/2021 at 10:36 PM, thedarthtux said:

you may want to look at Garuda Linux KDE Dragonized

ive been looking at some of unix port and think that id love my system to look kind of like that

or at least have those UI as an option, something along the lines of this 

im not quite sure how some or most of this works but I really like the look and am willing to learn

 

ive been looking at some of unix port

[thedarthtux]

22 hours ago, A literal rat said:

ive been looking at some of unix port and think that id love my system to look kind of like that

or at least have those UI as an option, something along the lines of this 

Hhhmm, that looks like one of those tiled desktop environments a lot of the cool kids seemed to be into in the past while.

You could try out Garuda BSPWM, Garuda i3WM or Garuda Sway to get that look out of the box. All three are on the Garuda download page https://garudalinux.org/downloads.html.

 

You could also install any of the three DEs BSPWM, i3WM or Sway on any other Linux distro and select them at login, but I would recommend playing with the Garuda versions as liveCDs before committing to an install. Tiled desktops are very different from what we are generally used to on Linux, mac or Windows

 

If I remember correctly, I tried i3WM or Sway as a LiveCD or LiveUSB however, it was such a stark change from what I was used to that I couldn't use it as my daily driver. I'm sure it could become natural feeling over time, but my brain just couldn't deal with it in the 20mins I spent trying to make sense of how the UI worked. One of the biggest confusions for my poor brain was how games would load, though I never tried to find out.

[thedarthtux]

On 11/1/2021 at 3:40 PM, A literal rat said:

this is just a scary proposition because im worried about mistyping a package and it apt getting a virus or worse right into my comp without me knowing what I just did. I mistype all the time.

Basically echoing everything @parasite_avi said. Mint and other Ubuntu-based distros will do the exact same thing Arch-based distros will. To install any package with

sudo apt install abcd123

the package must exist as in your software repositories i.e. the PPAs, if you type abcd321 apt will not find it and just return package not found. Exactly the same thing 

sudo pacman -S abcd123

in Arch will do.

 

Worst case scenario, I would say install TimeShift (https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/) as your back up manager. It is a very useful tool to have installed because even if you do everything right, Nvidia may decide to release a GPU driver that was not properly tested and your games break. Not attacking Nvidia, but I literally had that issue and had to roll back a full system update yesterday or the day before because there was an issue with Nvidia's 495.44 driver. Rolling back using TimeShift allowed me to get back to the system state where I had the Nvidia 470.xx driver installed. It has also happened with other applications too. The pre-installation of Timeshift is another reason I like Garuda and recommend it now for newbies to Linux

 

It will take a lot for a newbie to break a working Linux install these days. You would literally have to change file or folder permissions and screw around with the system files or be manually compiling applications or drivers from source. When Linus was complaining about not being able to drag and drop, that was something he didn't understand. Permissions are very strict in Linux unlike Windows where your basic user account is given admin privileges by default. The way Linux does things is really just one of the layers of protection against accidentally breaking or corrupting the system files.

[beace]

On 11/4/2021 at 10:25 AM, A literal rat said:

ive been looking at some of unix port and think that id love my system to look kind of like that

or at least have those UI as an option, something along the lines of this 

 

4 hours ago, thedarthtux said:

Hhhmm, that looks like one of those tiled desktop environments a lot of the cool kids seemed to be into in the past while.

You could try out Garuda BSPWM, Garuda i3WM or Garuda Sway to get that look out of the box. All three are on the Garuda download page https://garudalinux.org/downloads.html.

Finally, a moment to brag about my Tiling Window Manager setup!

 

@A literal ratso, just like @thedarthtuxpoints out, the vast majority of r/unixporn is filled with various Linux distros that people put a 3rd-party Tiling Window Manager on. Some distros come with these things already configured to be used out of the box, but as far as I'm aware, most of these are community editions; which is not bad at all, mind you! However, in most cases you will have to do some configuring and tinkering yourself.

 

I use Arch Linux (obligatory btw) with i3-gaps (a fork of i3wm with some extra configuration options to allow using those fancy gaps between your windows), with polybar as my taskbar/statusbar, and will tell you about my particular setup because I can speak from my own experience and be more helpful that way.

 

First of all, you have to understand the fundamental difference between Tiling Window Managers and so-called Desktop Environment.

 

A Desktop Environment (DE for short) is a set of applications an daemons that revolves around, well, a desktop, where you can put your shortcuts, files, folders and such. It also comes with a lot of stuff pre-configured for you, and some applications that allow you to further edit your configuration: things like fonts and icons and color scheme and lots of other wonderful things Linux-based distros let you customize. To a degree, you can customize it to your needs and select which applications will run at startup, which will be default for certain files and all that.

 

Tiling Window Managers (TWMs for short) essentially allow you to do all the same, but I don't think they typically come with a lot of applications pre-installed, let alone daemons, and are not that much pre-configured. Some of them do come with a default configuration file that you may edit to suit you better, like i3wm/i3-gaps, and some of them are supposed to be used by very seasoned users that like to take as much control over their setup as possible, and are pretty difficult to start with as a beginner. Nonetheless, the shtick is that you don't interact with your desktop; you may even not have desktop at all - you are supposed to see all of your open windows at once, arranged (or tiled) automatically for you. For example, if you open your web browser, it typically will take your entire screen; when you open another window, it will most likely split it in half so that both of those windows take an equal amount of space on your screen. Things like that are, of course, customizable, with some TWMs letting you choose master-slave stacks or whatever, where one half of the screen is the master with the window you put there taking up that half all of the time, and the other half gets further divided into smaller regions to not get in the way of your master window. Again, keep in mind that those things vary greatly from one TWM to another, and more importantly, those are not set constants that you won't be able to change - you can turn a very simple to use TWM into something more sophisticated or boil down a complex and difficult one into something extremely basic.

 

i3-gaps is, I believe, the easiest entry to the TWMs because of how simple it is to configure and use. When you first install the thing and boot into it, it will prompt you to generate a configuration file and fill it with most stuff you will need to get started. There is also a nice FAQ you can find on the internet and it has a lot of helpful info to get started painlessly.

 

What I mean here is this: i3's configuration file is, well, a text file that is easy to tinker. For example, to set a certain hotkey combination to execute a particular program or action, you just put it there, in the file, and that's it. You can change those keybindings to whatever works best for you, you can introduce new ones, you can remove whatever exists there - it is yours to play with.

 

What also makes it easy to use is the lack of pre-configured stacks that automatically arrange your windows for you (like the master-stack example I described above), meaning you basically learn how to manipulate your windows mostly manually. Basically, i3 splits your screen into containers that you can further split into sub-containers, and they can be either vertically- or horizonallty-aligned, and moreover, you can resize them all you want, manually creating a layout that suits your needs at hand.

 

I may have missed something about i3 in particular or TWM in general, though, because the key point here is, it's all very subjective and you don't need to be a master guru to use any Linux distro you want or whatever thing you can put on it. You just run it for some time and see it if sticks, learn some ropes and see what's possible.

 

So to conclude, don't be afraid - there's plenty of people that have already provided a lot of info either in form of some documentation, or on forums and in communities as answers to other people's questions. Myself included! Feel free to drop a DM or post another question here, I'll try to assist you where I can. All this learning is part of the fun!

 

[Normand_Nadon]

Hi, happy to see a new user trying Linux!
I did dual boot for many years and here is the real, hard truth: IT SUCKS! Every time Windows updates, it kills GRUB (a utility that lets you chose your OS before it boots) 
The most consistent way of doing it is installing on separate disks, and pressing F12 at boot to chose what disk to boot on... And that is not an issue with Linux by the way... It is really a Windows issue.... Microsoft always destroys GRUB when it updates.

If I can suggest something, before looking at nice flashy DE and mods... try a bone stock, well supported desktop environment until you know your way Around Linux. This way, you will have a smother experience. Then, go full thunderdome and customize your distro until you break it... then fix it, and learn from it!
Also, I suggest using a sepera partition for the /home folder, this way, if you break your OS beyond repair.. you can reinstall it in 15 minutes and be back and running in no time (without file lost and keeping your precious configurations)!

For your wallpaper thing, there is a linux alternative: https://peterlevi.com/variety/ and many more...
A good suggestion for newcomers to Linux is "Don't try to install Windows software at first" Try it the Linux way! Find alternative programs (ITSFOSS is a good source for that)

[Normand_Nadon]

If you want a suggestion for a Distro, I would go with the Nvidia version of Pop!OS since you have an Nvidia card.. no messing-up with drivers from the get go will give you a much more positive experience

[A literal rat]

over the past two weeks I went with pop os, and was dealing with too many issues to count, unreliable fps drops ,toxic people in the help communities, discord causing my games to slow down to a halt????, and a couple more so I have dropped linux for the foreseeable future, shame since a lot of the features where really nice, including the updates while still working on the pc (until I added something that broke pop shop and kept it from updating). was a adventure from the start tho. but if you are a heavy gamer linux just isn't ready yet