Noooooob here: As title said - I don't know what distro I should choose. My needs are student stuff like Libreoffice & Videoconferences but also creative things, photo-management and cutting videos. Does it matter at all? Do I have to check for every single program I use or is there a distro that is recommended?
I was planning on getting a Tuxedo with Tuxedo OS, but my neighbour recommended another "no os"-seller and now I'm not sure. I was opting for Tuxedo mainly because of the support since I'm leaving windows after many years^^
(Picture shows the lilac and blueish ports that we had for mouse and keyboard back "in my days" with the words "How old are you" - "Me:" on top - just because this community semmingly requires a picture added)
use Bazzite, or any other distro that calls itself "immutable". That's Linux speak for "it just works, and you won't be able to break it even if you try". There are other immutable distros, but Bazzite is the one most likely to have everything you need out of the box.
Also, look at flathub.org and check if the software you need is on there. If it is, then congrats, you're on the easy path. If not, you might need to use the command line to install what you need from another source.
I theoretically support the sentiment behind this advice, but I - a fairly experienced Linux user both at home and at work - tried Bazzite. I installed it, configured my accounts, ran a system update and rebooted. After a reboot, it was broken.
I'm sure I did something wrong there and likely the situation would have been recoverable, but I didn't do anything complex, so I challenge the claim "you won't be able to break it if you try."
Otherwise it seemed like it would have been a positive experience.
I said you won't be able to break it, but an update can. Bazzite is an open source project with limited resources, and shit happens from time to time.
However, in cases like that you can always fix it by either doing a rollback (one liner:
sudo rpm-ostree rollback), or by simply choosing the previous working version in grub while the machine is booting using the arrow keys.I can second the recommendation.
Irun Bazzite on an HP Victus laptop and SteamOS on the SteamDeck.
Both are immutable, although based on different distros.
Sadly an update a few days ago broke the desktop mode on the SteamDeck: the whole desktop was unusable and it wasn't even possible to properly shut the OS down. Gaming mode was working flawlessly at the same time - huzzah!
Gladly the last update fixed it again.
In all fairness I need to admit that I don't run the most stable release channel, because I want to have encryption on my SteamDeck.
Bazzite has been running like a charm ever since I installed it.
Seperating the OS from the apps by putting the apps in containers instead of having them install files resolves the issue of dependencies for good amongst introducing security benefits. And the OS won't get borked by apps doing strange things or introducing dependencies that can't be resolved easily.
Haven't heard of immutable Distros yet, that's a good advice! I've got a Steam Deck - but has it Steam Os by nature or did you tweak smt?
SteamOS versions 3.x are immutable and based on Arch. Here's a lot of info about SteamOS: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS
The only thing I did tweak was enabling encryption (https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/holo/dirlock/-/wikis/Enabling-disk-encryption-on-the-Steam-Deck), because I use the desktop mode heavily and didn't want my personal data unprotected in case of loss or theft.