Linux Distro to replace Windows

[jhogan93]

Hey guys! I'm starting to look into making Linux my daily driver. Windows has been great for most things but honestly im tired of its short comings and its ever growing need to spy/ track me. 

im going to use an older PC to get my footing and then try to upgrade my main rig to Linux. What distros should i look out for?

 

TEST PC:

R7 2700

32gbs DDR4 3000mhz

2060 super 8gb

120gb sata ssd

 

MAIN PC:

R9 7950X

64gbs DDR5 5600mhz

7900xt

1tb NVME ssd

 

So im looking for a Linux Distro that will allow my to use 

1. Adobe Suite

2. Nord VPN

 

most other software is already available or has something to replace it. I game. I edit. I work. I need something robust. I have experaince with linux. Nobara, SteamOS, LinuxMint, etc. but i havent tried to replace windows out the gate. any and all help would be great. I do understand most distros will have similar "performance", im looking for best for my needs.

 

 

thanks!

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, jhogan93 said:

1. Adobe Suite

 

If this is a hard requirement I'd forget linux. Wine and other emulation isn't great for this use case, and your probably much better off dual booting or sticking with a officially supported OS for these programs. Especially if you need current versions to work on a team with. 

 

I'd argue distro probably won't matter thant much, go with a big one. I'd probably go debian, but thats me. Put a DE on it you like. Get mint if you want debian like but with a gui installer.

[jhogan93]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If this is a hard requirement I'd forget linux. Wine and other emulation isn't great for this use case, and your probably much better off dual booting or sticking with a officially supported OS for these programs. Especially if you need current versions to work on a team with. 

 

I'd argue distro probably won't matter thant much, go with a big one. I'd probably go debian, but thats me. Put a DE on it you like. Get mint if you want debian like but with a gui installer.

im gonna try Ubuntu and see where that takes me

thanks

[BoomerDutch]

Try bazzite and if you want kde desktop on ubuntu look for kubuntu.

 

As for adobe, you could use VM with windows and install adobe on it and work there or dual boot.

 

Good luck!

[UnawareBlaire]

18 hours ago, BoomerDutch said:

Try bazzite

I would also recommend Bazzite, but definitely join the Bazzite Discord for help with atomic desktop quirks.

 

For example, Nord VPN's install script does not work. Instead you have to create a file called nordvpn.repo inside of /etc/yum.repos.d and paste these contents inside:

[nordvpn]
name=NordVPN
baseurl=https://repo.nordvpn.com/yum/nordvpn/centos/x86_64/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repo.nordvpn.com/gpg/nordvpn_public.asc

Then you can layer the package as usual:

rpm-ostree install nordvpn

 

If the Adobe suite is critical I would have a separate Windows installation for that. I recommend installing it on a separate drive so you don't have to deal with dual boot nonsense and just launch Windows from BIOS when you need it.

 

Otherwise alternatives like Davinci Resolve exist for video editing and in Bazzite you can install it using the "ujust install-resolve" command which takes care of installation headaches for you.

[Flavius Heraclius]

On 7/27/2024 at 9:14 PM, jhogan93 said:

most other software is already available or has something to replace it. I game. I edit. I work. I need something robust. I have experaince with linux. Nobara, SteamOS, LinuxMint, etc. but i havent tried to replace windows out the gate. any and all help would be great. I do understand most distros will have similar "performance", im looking for best for my needs.

 

The bottom line is that the "distro" you use really doesn't matter all that much. As a general user, the main differences basically just boil down to,

1. The pre-installed software (most notably, the desktop environment, as this can be a pain to change)
2. The newness of available software in the repositories and/or the package format of software

Beyond these two things, all distributions are basically the same from an end-user perspective. But some of them, because of their choices on these two areas, can be more of a pain to use than others.

 

On 7/27/2024 at 9:23 PM, jhogan93 said:

im gonna try Ubuntu and see where that takes me

thanks

A lot of people seem to suggest Ubuntu as a good beginner distro, but I honestly don't see it. I have to use Ubuntu on my workstation at my job for IT/compliance reasons, and it is the most annoying Linux system I've worked with in recent memory. The awkward mix of snaps and traditional packages (two different ways of installing software) is super annoying, and it looks like they're starting to move towards a fully immutable filesystem in coming releases. Their point-release model also means that installing reasonably up-to-date software is not at all straight forward. It can be done, but is difficult for a new user and can potentially break things. 

 

I've always found the system to be unnecessarily complicated. And I don't mean in an "I want my system to have as few features as possible" way, but rather in a "this is really a pain to use" way. Ubuntu is really a server-first system these days, and desktop seems to be a second-class citizen.

 

I lean towards Pop!_OS as a good distribution for beginners. It smooths over installing Nvidia drivers (which can be a minor irritation), has a fairly useful suite of default applications, tends to have much more up-to-date versions of programs than Ubuntu, doesn't use snaps, and, at least when I last used it, makes it very easy to get Steam/Proton working. Every time I use it, I'm impressed by the default configuration and how much stuff "just works" (tm), compared to almost any other Linux system that I use. I don't personally use it anymore (I'm a Debian guy), but it's the one I usually recommend for beginners.

 

EDIT: Also, real quick, I see you're using a 7000-series Radeon card. Don't use Debian--at least as of when I last looked into it, Debian hasn't shipped the latest AMD firmware that is needed to support those cards. So, "AMD is great for Linux" notwithstanding, you'll have a hell of a time getting that working. I spent a while tinkering with my getting my new AMD card working on my Debian computer (manually installing the firmware files, etc.), and it still isn't flawless.

[DPAcomp]

The adobe suite is web so any browser will do.  Unless you have to download it now.  Haven't used in in years.  I have some of it on my Android tablet so it works there.  Guess you could mirror it if it is apps.

 

As for NordVPN and any other just add the extension into the browser.  Or you can set it up thru a process.  Which Linux distros?  The solid ones.  Linux Mint, OpenSUSE, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.  Linux has come a long way.  It's good.  Windows makes me feel uncomfortable so I used layered security and protection.  

[Dat Guy]

On 7/28/2024 at 3:14 AM, jhogan93 said:

So im looking for a Linux Distro that will allow my to use 

1. Adobe Suite

Forget it.

 

There is not one single good replacement for the Adobe suite that runs on systems that are neither Windows nor macOS.