So like the title I am building my own pc, but I don’t want Windows.
I had Windows for school and I was using a laptop, but now that I am building my own pc I don’t want Windows and will not touch Apple. So I am looking for a Linux that has all Issues online as I was a programming student and won’t be scared off by a terminal or troubleshooting somewhat.
This PC is a home PC and will be using it mainly for gaming the type of games are lol not Valorant, Steam, SteamVR, and Minecraft.
In the PC there will be AMD GPU and CPU.
And while I don’t know if this is relevant I live in Europe.
Small Edit :
Video card is like 220 days old
Processor is 305 ish
RAM is 64GB DDR5-6000
I saw so questions about sound card i don’t have one in my build? is that bad tho.
Welcome to “It’s Foss Community” @Nathan_V. Being a programming student, I am sure you will not have any problem reading reviews and selecting a Linux version (Distro) or two to try. My only word of caution is Linux is sometimes a little behind in supporting the latest & greatest hardware, like GPU’s & CPU’s.
I hope you meant Europe. Europa is kind of far away.
fixed the Europa.
Always fun when you’re native language screws you over.
As for reading reviews, I just don’t really know were to start, thats also why I asked for help.
Hi @Nathan_V,
I was a new to Linux 4 years ago. I came from using Windows and I thought I knew Windows pretty good. I also knew programming and was not afraid to try things. I learn in Win that if you had a good backup / restore procedure then you could not mess (screw) yourself up. If something went badly wrong, all you had to do was restore your system.
This is how I started not knowing anything about Linux. Others may disagree on this approach, but this is how I started. I google for; 1) Coming from Windows to Linux. 2) Top 10 Linux Distros. 3) Easy to install / use. 4) Look at “Distrowatch.com” to see which Linux was at the top 10 to see what other people were installing.
I selected Linux Mint Cinnamon. I like the menus, it was easy to install (less then 15 minutes), worked ‘out of the box’ (right away), and had a short learning curve for me. I really like the short time it took to install because in the beginning I made a lot of mistakes and it only took a short time to start over. After 4 years and doing some Distro hopping (try other Linux OS’s), I am still on Linux Mint.
In the beginning, I had a lot of questions. I used It’s Foss a lot to ask questions and to read and learn from other people.
I did not mean to be rude about Europa. What country are you from?
I guess I should be extra careful when installing and double-checking.
And thank you for the 4 helping tips I’ll look at that.
Also, it’s not rude that you corrected me you also have been very helpful, as for where I live I’ll narrow it down to Benelux.
I assume you have a current computer to use, and build a new for Linux.
If so, you don’t need to be very cuatios when installing anything: there’s simply nothing to loose.
Regarding of hardware choice: my experience is that usually some old and very exotic soundcards may lack proper support, and the very-very new videocards.
If you choose system components which are on the market since a while (a year or so), still not obsolete of course, it will most probably work with any distro.
A graphics card which entered the market say, 2 months ago, 99% will lack proper kernel support.
In case you want to install Linux (as a newbie) beside Windows on your current computer, there can be some dangerous steps, when partitioning, choosing system drive, so I can just recommend you to backup your precious data on an EXTERNAL drive, which is disconnected, while you try to install Linux.
So if you accidentally delete/format your Windows partition, or make it unbootable in any other way, you can still reinstall Windows, and restore your data.
I whish you happy Linuxing, and of course WELCOME.
As for distro first I recommend Linux Mint (with whichever desktop), this is a derivative of Ubuntu. Mint will not have snaps forcefully installed by default, and it will have an appearance that looks almost familiar for ex-windows users. Of course this can be changed later.
Almost all of the “recypes” (such as how to install, how to modify, how to …) written for Ubuntu will work on Linux Mint too.
If you want to look for a bleeding edge distro, which has the newest available pieces of everything, I think you should pick a rolling-release distro, such as Arch Linux.
If you would like to use a “conservative” distro, which doesn’t really change, during times, I recommend Debian Stable.
It doesn’t have the newest of anything, but it’s rock-solid, performant workhorse.
I myself like Debian the best.
Hi @Nathan_V , and welcome.
I like the choice of AMD. That will go a long way toward ensuring Linux compatability.
But note comments form @kovacslt regarding hardware that is too new.
Make sure you get enough memory ( ie RAM) . That is the most important thing to make sure your computer performs into the future.
Regards
Neville
First, welcome to the family.
Second, I commend you on your avoidance of Apple and Windows.
All the tips here are great, especially AMD and memory.
I’d suggest you look at the distrowatch site and look over all the ones that interest you.
You can setup usb jump drives for any distros you like and test drive to your hearts content.
I should warn you that Riot Games does not provide any support for Linux at all - I have read people have gotten it running and it works pretty well. Except, you will eventually be banned because the anti-cheat on those games does not work on Linux. Once Riot finds out you are avoiding the anti-cheat they will ban you. It might be a while before they ban you, though, so its up to you if you want to take that risk.
As for Linux distros, if you truly don’t know and just want to get started, anything Debian based is a good place to start. For example: Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Pop! OS. These are some of the most popular Linux distros, and all of them are intentionally friendly to newcomers. Also, their popularity guarantees that you will easily be able to find help for your problems.
One last option I want to present to you: you can pick a distro that is focused on a friendly community. You might not need this one since you’re already here, but I thought I would bring it up. Both Solus Linux and EndeavourOS are known for their helpful and friendly communities.
Personally, I would say don’t agonize over the decision to much. Just pick a distro and give it a few months. It isn’t that hard to switch if you are willing to put in the work, so if you really don’t like it, you can always change. Additionally, once you have Linux up and running you can install a type 2 hypervisor like Virtual Box and run different Linux distros as a VM - giving you an option to try them out without installing them directly onto your computer.
It’s a laptop, and I guess if there is nothing on the pc there is nothing to lose.
the video card ill get is like 0,75 year old.
The three you recommend all seem to have their good points, I do think that I don’t need training wheels like Mint, my question would be Arch vs Debian in game performance. As I don’t really care if it gets updated that wasn’t the issue with windows for me.
Regarding the Riot anti-cheat I thought that issue was for Valorant and that lol was fine, I guess I’ll have to look into it, at worst I just drop lol isn’t that much of a loss anyway.
Bienvenue, welcome
Like fellow members have recommended I would go with Linux mint, personal preference is the mate version but I also run lmde version as it’s a rolling distribution and is still available in 32bit although that is not what you need with a new machine it’s for older technology.
If you are building for gaming then the following guidance is available on the site
You may also want to add wine to your distribution to run further windows based games as well.
With Lutris, which provided a specially patched version of WINE, we could run LOL fine on Debian 11 with integrated intel graphics (i3-8100) on my kids computers.
I can’t really tell. I used Mint, then moved to Debian. I felt Debian a little-little bit faster than Mint before, and also noticed less glitches running Davinci Resolve.
I never really used Arch, just looked up its documentation, as Arch’s documantation seems to be the most exhaustive, I found (about settings in config files and such…).
I don’t do any gaming, except some reckless driving with SuperTuxKart
So It’s up to you to test, how these systems perform in gaming situation
I also recommend Lutris, it sometimes does an excellent job with specially tuned WINE versions. Maybe the system provided WINE doesn’t run a game, but the Lutris provided one does it well…
I use Lutris a lot… it’s not just for Windows only games either…
e.g. I used it to run Quake II, III and 4, and some other game I don’t remember (I think one of the Wolfensteins or Doom titles - yeah - Doom III BFG) - anyway - I bought those games on Steam - but on Steam they’re Windows only - but Lutris will let you run the content (e.g. WAD and PAK files) on a native Linux engine… there’s an engine that makes Quake II look like it’s 2010, not 1995!
And recently - I had no end of trouble getting Alderon Game Launcher running in Ubuntu 23.04 and Pop!_OS 22.04 : they only ship as AppImage or SNAP - and neither of them was working for me - but - Lutris has a “wizard” (you launch the wizard from their website - after you’ve installed Lutris) to install Alteron Game Launcher from AppImage - this was for Path of Titans (dinosaur MMO)…
It’s got a solid Ubuntu core (this mean very good driver support) and provides an extremely high quality desktop experience, which you might appreciate.
