this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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Linux
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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Every Linux distro will work with your hardware, aside from edge case components in certain situations. There is no difference in distros for hardware compatibility, unless you're thinking of running a very old versions of something. Anything will work.
There is also no major difference between distros for gaming performance. The only difference in "gaming" distros is that they have certain software preselected and installed. You can just do this yourself anyway.
I currently suggest Fedora for beginners because it's dead simple. The big difference between any distro is going to be the default Desktop Environment, and you can choose whatever you want after you install anyway.
If you like Windows' UI, give KDE a shot. If you want something more like MacOS, go for Gnome. Either work great.
If you want to try multiple, download some LiveUSB images, start em up and poke around a bit. If you change your mind after install, you can just install a different DE and switch over without needing to reinstall the entire OS.
I really like Fedora, but please correct me if I'm wrong, isn't it a bit difficult for a beginner to install nvidia drivers on it? Like, in Linux Mint you can simply open the Driver Manager app and install them
Fedora is a great distro. IMO it and Mint are the “it just works” distros. Mint just works, unless it doesn’t - usually a result of bleeding edge hardware. That’s where fedora comes in - newer stuff but without the downsides of something like arch.
The thing with fedora is that it’s “pure”. You have to install codecs and whatnot. Once you realize that there’s a team (rpmfusion.org) that is dedicated to making these things easy - fedora becomes much more tolerable for a newcomer. While it’s a bad idea to copy commands and jam them into the terminal - in this one particular case, I tell people to just copy and paste the commands and just do what they say. Boom nvidia and codecs installed and everything just works.
Hard agree:
That's why Ultramarine exists. It's just Fedora with RPM-Fusion (the non-free repo) preconfigured and the Nvidia drivers preinstalled.
https://ultramarine-linux.org/
Push button just like anything else. Same issues exist on Fedora that exist elsewhere, which is really an Nvidia problem, and has nothing to do with the distro.
There are a couple distros that install Nvidia drivers as part of their package selection, but they also have the same issues, because, Nvidia.