hey there, im looking for the best distro for swapping entirely from windows 10 to linux, while keeping my steam library useable. i have over 300+ games and would like to use the distro thats most likely to support most of them now, and into the future.
thats basically it. just looking for recommendations, warnings, do’s and dont’s, etc. and maybe a guide on removing windows entirely once its all said and done. i dont want microsoft having access once i make the move to linux.
they disgust me.
edit: thanks for the advice, super helpful everyone!
There is no such thing as a “gaming distro” in implementation. Some are tweaked in specific ways to make some things a tad easier sometimes, but there is no appreciable performance diff between any distro in reality. See Phoronix benchmarks.
“Gaming Distro” just means some various gaming softwares are preinstalled, like Steam and Heroic (for GOG, Amazon, and Epic games). I mention this just to keep you from overly worrying about picking the “wrong” distro.
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Bazzite is basically SteamOS.
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Mint Cinnamon was my choice as it feels very familiar to a Windows user, and comes with a bunch of desktop productivity stuff pre-installed. It tends to remain on more time-tested, stable versions of software.
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Fedora Plasma is also very popular, and will feel familiar coming from Windows. It tends to have the latest and greatest version of softwares.
and maybe a guide on removing windows entirely once its all said and done
If you plan to switch over all at once, during the install, tell Linux to use the entire drive (ie, do a full format). That will completely remove Windows during the install.
If you are going to dual boot, you can format the Windows drive at some later time.
do’s and dont’s
If you are going to dual boot, don’t dual boot on a single drive. Windows likes to fuck with other things on the same drive as it, including other Windows installs.
If you get a prompt about codecs during the Linux install, install them.
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It doesn’t matter much if you choose a “all purpose” or “gaming” distro. They are mostly the same.
I’m personally a huge fan of Bazzite. It just works and you get a very robust and user friendly piece of software.
if this is your first time, then please buy a new SSD for Linux. You can replace the windows drive with the new drive, and have no worries of deleting data you might have forgotten. Your data is worth a lot more than the cost of an SSD.
Just a reminder that Linux was never intended for gaming and shouldn’t be used solely for gaming. However, you can find distros that claim to be optimized for gaming. If you want a Linux-based console, check out the Steam Deck. You will not be able to play most of the main popular games.
