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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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Side question: his job is asking him to run work programs on his personal machine? If they are not willing to provide a work laptop or if it is something that does not require powerful hardware to run, I feel like in that situation I would buy a burner laptop off ebay to run the work thing on.
That's just my personal preference, but I do not mix work and personal things on the same computer.
So I can address this from my experience, their mileage may vary: sometimes it's about saving yourself time. Say if your normal daily driver is a desktop for some reason, but you're on call to do a task. You can (in theory) do that task from your home PC or you can drive in to the office for (arbitrary round trip time) to do it 'properly'. Even when I used windows at home /and/ had a work laptop I still maintained a VM (an ersatz air gap) for work shit on my personal PC for convince sake.
There's also the security concern. A workplace should not have an employee run work software on a machine that isn't bound by group policy.
Just install Mint. Honestly, “gamer” Linux is a pretty silly concept. You can install Steam and Lutris on any distro which gets you access to basically all modern PC gaming. Even something as slow to embrace change as Debian has recent enough drivers and kernels available.
I would recommend installing Heroic Launcher too. It works good for GoG, Epic & Amazon games.
I have a mini PC for gaming and originally installed Mint, but switched to Bazzite to see if it would fix an issue with my XBox controllers cutting out. It didn’t, and I also didn’t notice any better performance in games. After coming to the conclusion I’d have to rebase to uninstall Steam (I only use Lutris), I decided immutable is cool, but I’ll stick with Mint.
Fact. I game on Debian (mostly through Steam flatpak) and it works great. I tried the so-called “gaming” distros and eeked out 0-5% fps gains while also experiencing paper cuts or bugs in other areas of my daily driving that weren’t present on Debian. I’m not into e-sports so so long as I’m not hitting a 30 fps floor I’m fine. The time I save not having to navigate paper cuts I get to put toward fun things, like actually playing games.
(Edit: typos)
I don’t have a recommendation other than don’t recommend something to your friend for which you’re not willing to provide tech support.
CachyOS
Trust me it’s super easy and nice.
^This is the answer.
Mint still does not work well with Wayland from what I can tell, and if you need features like HDR, you're gonna have to stick to something that runs Wayland well.
While Bazzite seems fine, it is an atomic distro. If you were to try installing certain software natively, like another Firewall for instance, it might not work. And if you continue to layer such software, the update times can take longer.
Cachy(with KDE) seems very stable to me. You'll pretty much find every software through the repo. If not, you'll have to manually install flatpak yourself. Never had to do it myself though. But it shouldn't be a hassle, I think.
It has its own proton variant and they recommend that you disable Steam preshader caching and increase maximum shader cache size when you're using Proton-Cachy or GE.
My choice also. Specifically with KDE Plasma
Mint (LMDE). It might actually be easier to use than windows. My dead dad could use it and he was a moron. I held out for quite a while to try out 'cooler' distros but yeah, Mint is what I'm telling anyone moving from windows to use now.
My dead dad could use it and he was a moron.
I really was not prepared for that sentence 😅
Fedora or Ubuntu. No need to overthink it. They are the two biggest distros in popularity by far (except Arch, which probably beats Fedora), so you have access to maximum mindshare and previous troubleshooting.
Including Arch, these three distros are among the most polished, stable, and well-documented. Arch takes quite a bit more effort, so a beginner without much time on their hands should start with Ubuntu or Fedora.
Avoid Ubuntu like a plague it's one of the least googleable distros there are. It suffers massively from poor documentation and out of date fourm posts. Not to mention gnome at this point has endless weird problems for new users.
Iv helped over 200 people over the last year change to Linux. Gnome has been the cause of almost every major problem with them.
Stick to kde, stick to fedora or arch, stay away from lts releases or anything with an older kernel.
There's a really good reason steam went with arch.
I have felt this way about ubuntu since the beginning. It's always a mess.
I was surprised two years ago about how good Fedora got, while also being really up to date.
And Debian? I don't understand how you can list Arch as one of the most stable distributions when, based on its update model, it doesn't seek stability but rather constant updating. If you're referring to operational stability, in my opinion it's not on the same level as Debian, Leap, Ubuntu, or Fedora. Stability is not synonymous with number of users.
Stability in the sense of: my computer does the thing i expect with the hardware i happen to have, every time, over many years.
I agree Debian is up there. I only mentioned Arch because of the massive userbase. I think Debian is a little more technical (for a new user with limited time and attention) than Ubuntu or Fedora, but much less so than Arch
Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Arch are undoubtedly the big 4 Linux distros in terms of long term community, stability, and documentation
The Bazzite KDE version is a great option, as long as you install apps from the built-in Bazaar store, it’s hard to mess anything up, and it already includes most of the software you’ll need so it usually works well out of the box.
If your friend has to troubleshoot issues on bazzite, it’s better not to install extra system packages on top of the core OS (“layering”), because that can sometimes cause problems and make things harder to fix.
You can also set up a tool called Winboat, which lets you run Windows inside Bazzite; it integrates nicely and isn’t too difficult to configure.
Bazzite is the first recommendation if the apps your friend needs are available on Flathub. If they need more complex software that only comes as Debian (.deb) packages, Linux Mint is probably a better choice because installing non‑Flatpak apps there is much easier, although the trade‑off is that installing a lot of extra packages can potentially break the system if you are not careful. If they mostly stick to the Mint software store, it should stay stable and they are unlikely to run into problems.
+1 for Winboat. As long as you've got the RAM and CPU cores to spare, it's a really nice solution to the Windows software that you really can't replace. My PC has an 8core CPU and 16Gb RAM. Much less than that and it gets pretty taxing.
WinApps is more complete, in that you can right click on a file to open it in an installed Windows app, which isn't something you can (currently) do with Winboat, but WinApps is more of a bastard to set up.
Anyone in these comments claiming there is a big difference between "gaming distros" and any other is flat wrong.
Any distro works. It's about the initial experience they want without having to fuss about changes. You can switch Desktop Environment on any distro easily, none of them offer massive gaming performance differences over the others. It's subjective. For a beginner, don't recommend immutable. That's pretty much it.
Any distro works.
Any non-LTS distro works*
Using a distro release based on a 2 year old kernel with brand new hardware is asking for a horrible experience. For gaming especially, you're also losing out on months/years of improvements to Mesa.
LMDE 7 and send it. Regular mint has Ubuntu nonsense baked in, lmde is basically the same end user experience and smooth Debian jazz underneath.
Like someone else said, steam, heroic.
I’d avoid any of the gamer distros.
Nobara is alright if you just want games to work without tinkering etc
Garuda, Bazzite, Zorin, Pop OS...and get a seperate machine for work. Hell no, I'm not letting my employer on to my personal machine.
The employer should have a way for you to remote in. There is no reason for you to have a work machine at all anymore.
And I am not talking a VPN.
Don’t even get me started
Honestly, my recommendation for new users who are into gaming is Bazzite. Just install everything through the software store and it just works. Well, everything that's available as a flatpak at least. Steam comes preinstalled, as do all the drivers (among some other various gaming-oriented things like kernel optimizations and Lutris), so it's basically just install and done. The software store, Bazaar, will find basically anything a normal user needs. The nice thing about atonic distros is that you generally don't need to do anything through the command line,as installs are perfectly consistent across all computers (so no random things breaking in the background without someone else noticing and either filing a bug report for you in the beta, or fixing the issue outright). After over a decade of Linux use, I've never found an easier distro. I honestly have switched to it as my main distro because I love Fedora, and the atomic features are nice (and Bazzite is just a little nicer for my use case than Kinoite).
When I set someone up with Bazzite, I just tell them to install everything through the software store, and I rarely get questions other than "how do I install this software that isn't available on Linux", which I usually meet with a recommendation for an alternative, or if it's really critical, I'll have them install through Bottles or something. I always mention the "no Adobe or Autodesk" caveot before they install, so I never really get questions about that except for "well, what would you recommend I use instead?"
As to answer your questions directly:
I'm throwing in my vote for CachyOS. Not because it's the easiest to use (though it isnt difficult imo) but because it works out of the box, then they have nice wiki to guide you through simple things (like using Lutris and Proton). It's also Arch based so there's the arch wiki to fall back on. I ran Windows for 35 years and just switched to Linux in like October, fwiw.
I have a specific use case for CachyOS but I see two categories:
Both use flatpaks which will keep apps sandboxed. A lot of users don't seem to like snaps being pushed by Ubuntu so flatpak is the big choice.
Cachy at least doesn't do flatpaks out of the box.
Ah my mistake, I must've installed it shortly after installing CachyOS.
Dual booting is fine. Microsoft destroying bootloaders is mostly a meme off a few bugs. Any distro that ships an up to date kernel and drivers is good. Fedora/Ubuntu. Bazzite is kinda weird for gamers because it just makes every problem harder to solve. If you never tinker then its fine but Bazzite feels more restrictive than windows without knowing how it works.
I have bazzite, it also includes graphics drivers ready to go which is nice. If you're going to use steam for gaming i find it great. But this distro is not needed for gaming, one can install and game on any of the popular distros. You're friend needs to try a few and see what feel best for them.
Ask him which software it is that requires him to run windows. If it can not be used with wine their is also winboat. Which is technically a windows VM where programs seemingly integrate on the Linux DE
Bazzite
Echoing what others have said, a "gaming distro" really isn't necessary. I have used Ubuntu for years on and off. When I switched my gaming PC to Linux earlier this year I went with Kubuntu, because it's just Ubuntu and I like KDE Plasma better than Gnome. I do feel like Ubuntu is one of the easiest to find support for when you're looking online.
Bazzite is great out of the box. My favourite part is that the menu automatically suggests flatpak apps you might want to install without getting in the way of your existing apps.
No matter the distro (since there's plenty of good ones out there), help your friend set up Winboat and you'll be all good.
Arch or Debian. Depends on their personality and use case. I prefer Arch, but have no problems with recommending Debian and use it on one machine myself.
Edit: after re reading I'd say Debian. Little more stability but it is more annoying if they ever do wana tinker more. OpenSuse is an honorable mention as well!
He’s not going to want to tinker. This is a pc he wants to work like a console
I wouldn't put my work system running inside my first Linux distro. This is a recipe for disaster.
If not Bazzite, Nobara is an option. It is based on Fedora, but is not an atomic distro, and iirc, it replaces selinux with apparmor, but unless you're getting into development, docker/podman etc, selinux will never be an issue.
Nobara is maintained by Glorious Eggroll, who also maintains proton-ge. Is also comes with an iso with built-in nvidia drivers, and also comes with an HTPC iso.
I have been using it for a few years, now. The documentation is also well detailed. And anything that works on Fedora will work on Nobara.
maybe the distro you use? so that you could directly offer help.
if not, maybe just plain old debian?
I am not too clued up to say this or that, but Mental Outlaw on YouTube has been doing very good breakdown on loads of Linux stuff to noobs.
So I will link to this, https://youtu.be/3MwJbRq3-rM
I saw no one mention ZorinOS.
I personally love Mint, tried different distros but I keep crawling back to green Ubuntu
