My current rig is featuring an I7 10th gen and a nvidia 4070ti. Is there a distro that you recommend me to use as a linux beginner that is also good for gaming and streaming, that will work with my pc parts? Because I heard that intel and nvidia are famous for causing issues on Linux.
The desktop environment you choose is really down to what you prefer:
Like trackpads? Gnome
Like the Windows desktop (and/or like customization)? KDE
Like windows XP flat UI or brutally simple UI? Cinnamon/XFCE
Want to dive into the unknown cutting edge? Cosmic
For us dummies that are just getting started, and most of us are only doing it now because gaming has kept us on Windows, it would be nice if there were a Linux distribution that was singlularly focused on gaming.
bazzite
I use open suse. It’s fine https://news.opensuse.org/2025/01/16/gaming-on-linux-how-os-stacks-up/
any modern distro should work so if you want þe go to beginner distro try mint!
I started with a Steam Deck. Now I’m running PopOS on my Framework 13 and Bazzite on a home theatre PC. I’ve had far fewer issues with them than any flavor of Windows.
I can’t go back. I won’t.
Try a live boot of nobara to see if it works for you
I have similar specs and use pop!_os with no problems. I’ve found it to be great for gaming.
Just use Fedora.
Fedora Atomic! Kinoite rocks
I went straight to uBlue Aurora and I’m very happy with this distro.
Debian, it’s 30+ years old for a reason.
Check https://bazzite.gg/
My oldish Nvidia 4xxx GPU worked immediately and automatically on Linux Mint.
Your mileage may vary.
Edit: To be clear, I didn’t do any command line, or even change a setting. Mint just automatically detected my Nvidia GPU and got it working during the install while I looked at pretty pictures and new user tips.
(Disclaimer: Folks here have warned me this may have been some combination of luck and my Nvidia GPU being a few years old.)
When my Mint install finished, I searched for “Steam” in the Mint software center and clicked “Install”.
A few minutes later I was playing a game from my Steam library without any issues, without any config changes, and without any command line use.
Edit 2: On Linux, there’s a little Penguin icon in the Steam library filters. Click that, and it’ll only show your games that Valve is pretty confident will run without any issue.
It took me a few clicks to realize it did anything, at all. Very few of my games were filtered out. None of my games that were filtered out happened to fit in the first page of search results.
So at first it looked like penguin filter button did nothing.
That’s pretty awesome, I bought an old used laptop, not a gaming laptop to practice and I’m new in the Cybersecurity field so I’m a little behind layman stage of using Linux. I installed Ubuntu on that laptop and it’s been a pleasure to use. I was gonna partition my gaming PC’s main drive and try Linux Mint on it. Even if my Nvidia card might not work out of the box, there’s a whole open source community who make compatible drivers independently. I love the open source community. Bunch of people who do what they love without demanding anything for it, just wow.
I was gonna partition my gaming PC’s main drive and try Linux Mint on it.
Nice!
If you can afford it, I lately recommend getting a separate harddrive, and physically taking the Windows drive out, and putting a blank drive in, to run Linux on.
Windows has never liked to share, and has gotten worse (more aggressive preventing other operating systems from booting) with various integrations into BIOS for secure boot.
Also, either way, be sure to back everything up while Windows is still installed. It is much easier to lose data today, due to secure boot and full disk encryption being the default.
(Putting the Windows drive back in and resetting any BIOS settings should be enough, but it is possible that Windows will decide it wants the full disk encryption (FDE) password. I believe I have found my FDE password on the web through Microsoft account, but there’s just more that can go wrong, today. So I prefer to just have my files backed up so I can relax.)
(And be aware that it may not be possible to backup files directly from a removed Windows drive, if full disk encryption was enabled. There’s probably a utility for it, as long as you have the FDE password. But again, it’s much less effort to just make backups before pulling the Windows drive out.)
I’ve had the best experience booting to a fresh blank harddrive and installing Linux Mint on it, and throwing the Windows drive into a drawer until I find I want the extra drive space more than I want a retreat path to Windows.
+1 for LM, no issues so far with my gaming laptop
All you need for games can be grabbed from flathub, like what you need to grab ge proton, that and steam you are mostly set. I also use faugus launcher every once in a while. All distros support flathub, id worry more about what de you want since thats the real commitment. Marginal differences in actual usage if any, like being on bazzite, cachyos, or mint, I use the same exact apps, installed different ways sometimes.
My only 2 issues with bazzite has been that it names the computer bazzite, so my handheld with bazzite can’t use an app to share its mouse across monitors since they have the same usernames and it causes issues and my amazon handbrake doesnt work, seems to be a bazzite issue and not all of linux since their are workarounds that work for others not using bazzite.
Ik its bazzite because someone else mentioned on the discord their handbrake wasn’t working either after following the same guide
I had very few issues with a GTX 970 and i7-4790k. The only issues I hear about with either any more is the linux kernel not supporting some of the features of newer GPUs (e.g. I know ray-tracing was a pain-point at one point).
I don’t like recommending distros based on such a general use case, mainly because every distro can be tweaked and configured to exactly what you want. Instead, you should research the different mainline distros that have been around for decades—Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Guix, NixOS, OpenSuse, Slackware—and see what they’re about, what sets them apart from others, what the maintainers’ philosophies are, and what kind of package management system they work with. Once one sounds better than the others, look into it and try it out.
#Dos and Don’ts:
Don’t try a niche distro. They are harder to troubleshoot and less likely to be actively maintained.
Don’t use Ubuntu. It’s just a suckier version of Debian. It used to be user-friendly Debian, but now Debian is more user-friendly than it.
Don’t dual-boot with windows. This just solidifies your reliance on windows, especially if you’re the type to give up on problem-solving issues that you didn’t have in Windows. It also can cause issues with making Linux unbootable.
Do try a live usb with persistence before you commit entirely. It’s not exactly the same as a complete install, but it’s close enough to let you know how the OS feels and what hardware will or won’t work with it. Some people say try a VM first, but that won’t have direct hardware access.
Do problem solve the little things. Anything that irks you or bothers you or just slows down your workflow. It doesn’t have to be an actual bug or glitch, just anything that could be better. This not only solidifies the feeling of ownership over your OS—you no longer have to settle for anyone else’s lousy design choices—it teaches you the resources for troubleshooting larger issues.
Do plan around things not being plug and play at first. Want to test if a game runs on Linux? Great, set aside a couple of hours beforehand: first to install steam and set it up, then to figure out Proton, then to troubleshoot the game not even booting up, then to fix any glitches or whatnot, then to get your controller working. This won’t always be the case, but it will irk you a lot less when it is if you expect it. The more you make time for solving these issues now, the less time they’ll take up in the future (either they’ll be gone, or you’ll immediately know how to fix them, or your troubleshooting will be more streamlined).
Do set aside time to learn about Linux “under the hood.” You don’t have to become a computer scientist, but it will save you a lot of headaches, show you cool things you can do, and make your computer a smoother experience. It especially helps if you take the time to learn as they come up: e.g. installer asks you what “bootloader” you want, but you’re not sure what that is, what it does, or why it’s necessary? Now’s the best time to take a little learning detour.
Do ask questions on forums.
Don’t listen to the people who shame you for asking.
Do listen to the people who try to show you a better way of doing things, even if it’s not your way.
Don’t use Ubuntu. It’s just a suckier version of Debian. It used to be user-friendly Debian, but now Debian is more user-friendly than it.
As a reasonably new Linux user, who’s merrily used Kubuntu for the past year, what makes Ubuntu sucky? Aside from dabbling in Asahi and a little bit of Arch, just to see why everyone loves it (I don’t think my use-case is advanced enough to really tell the difference), my only real experience with Linux has been Mint and Kubuntu, both of which have been fine for me.
This isn’t a bad-faith query, btw, I’m genuinely interested in what the actual differences are between Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora.
People don’t like Ubuntu because they’re(Ubuntu) trying to make money with it. For end users, it’s can be a non issue because “pro” is free for 5 computers. But seeing the paywall for some is really off putting to some (myself included).
Snap really sucks and is Ubuntu’s attempt at a private garden. I hate it so much.
But yet I still use Ubuntu because it works, and if it doesn’t work there’s a post somewhere with details on how to fix it.
I’ve been using Linux off and on since Red Hat 5.2 ish era. I can handle the tech geek stuff. I just don’t want to.
+1
Hate pro, but more than that - hate Snap! Switched to Mint and couldn’t be happier, it was seamless. I already only use none of Ubuntu defaults, so switching to mint and copying my dotfiles was almost as if I didn’t even do anything. On my other machine, I just uninstalled Snap, which is close, but I feel like switching to Mint entirely would be even better. I just can’t bring myself to backup everything to do a fresh install.
Want to test if a game runs on Linux? Great, set aside a couple of hours beforehand: first to install steam and set it up, then to figure out Proton, then to troubleshoot the game not even booting up, then to fix any glitches or whatnot, then to get your controller working.
Alternately, install Linux Mint. Search the software store for Steam. Click Install. Let Steam do it’s first run install stuff. Sign into Steam. Click the little Penguin icon to see which games should run fine on Linux. Install some by clicking on them. Enjoy games.
Stay away from the “bandwagon” distros for your first time. Bazzite, Pop_OS, Cachy, etc. There’s nothing wrong with them, but a lot more people use and have been using the more established distros such as Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, etc. So if you run into any weird edge case issues it’s much more likely that someone else has already been there and discovered solutions. Once you’re comfortable with Linux you can start exploring the more niche distros that are better tailored to you. Have fun!
if you run into any weird edge case issues it’s much more likely that someone else has already been there and discovered solutions
While that is true, the amount of those weird edge cases that you’ll get varies wildly between distros. In my experience so far on a somewhat comparable rig to OP, Bazzite has been the only one that actually just worked out of the box and had not a single hickup, while any other distro I’ve tried (Pop, Fedora and Arch) all had several issues that required troubleshooting.
So, I guess, for someone willing to actually understand Linux, learn, and troubleshoot issues themselves, your advice is the way to go, but for the relative who wants their system to just work and would call me anyway at any sign of trouble, I’m recommending Bazzite (or Aurora, I guess) all the way
I’m not sure about this. I’m my experience, 90-99% of the solutions originally for Ubuntu worked for me in Pop.
90-99% of the solutions originally for Ubuntu worked for me in Pop.
Yes. When I’m running Debian, Mint, or various other Debian variants, the vast majority of “Ubuntu” recipes just work.
Sometimes on Debian, itself, an Ubuntu recipe doesn’t work because some feature hasn’t made it into “Debian stable” yet. But usually it’s fine if the Ubuntu article is at least a year old.
The 4070 was released almost 3 years ago, so the driver should be decently stable and not cause that much issues, no matter the distro.
Just know that whatever distro you are choosing, it is a different workflow than Windows and it will take time to get used to it, and there will be some friction. And that’s fine. The first month is the hardest and it gets a lot easier fast.
Take a popular distro because it has a bigger user base and the chances that someone else has already fixed your issue and detailed the steps is a lot bigger than a niche distro.
If you want to easily test a few distro, take a usb key and install Ventoy on it. It will allow you to plug the usb key and drop ISO directly on it and boot from it. It will allow you to easily test distros without having to reformat the usb key each time.
