this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
285 points (98.0% liked)
Linux
11043 readers
375 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Every time I try to switch to Linux it's a complete disaster, and I don't know why. Latest is that I installed Ubuntu, and all was working for 30 mins until I realised that Firefox was "stuck" and unclickable. Could not close it or interact with it. Last year I tried Kubuntu and it had problems with audio wavering in speed and Steam making the whole system borderline unusable when downloading. I read with envy feedback from all those who seem to have no issue. I'm kind of fed up about it actually.
I would honestly recommend against Ubuntu. I had the same issue: tried Ubuntu because it's "the beginner distro", and it turns out it wasn't that at all. Ubuntu for me was a cobbled-together piece of shit with a terrible UI, corporate enshittification, and a major breakage around every corner. After a while dual-booting on my laptop, it started taking ~4 minutes to boot into it. Windows, meanwhile, was taking about 30 seconds. It also nuked my config twice, so everything I'd set up to mitigate Ubuntu's default "person who designed this just had their eyes dilated" trash was undone. I quit Linux for years before giving it another try, because if this broken trainwreck was the "beginner" experience, why would I want to go further?
If you want KDE (which I think is the best DE and it's not even a little close), I think you'll find a nicer experience in something like Fedora. Fuck, I think you'd experience less maintenance burden with something like CachyOS, although please don't treat that as a recommendation. I use EndeavourOS now, and I would genuinely go out and buy a macOS device if my only Linux distro option were Ubuntu (that's not high praise of macOS) on the grounds that it's such a poorly designed hunk of dogshit.
Thanks, I will try a different distro soon!
Good first distros for beginners:
Not Good first distros but still getting picked up by people who don't know:
Everyone: If you've only used one of the latter, try another distro before you believe "Desktop Linux is not ready" or "Linux is not for me".
Specifically on Steam: Which hardware you run on can affect on which distro it runs out of the box on and if you need to fiddle with drivers and firmware or not to get things running smoothly. There is also some difference between installation methods (some people swear by the flatpak version and others swear off it).
Maybe also check the health of your SSD and that your firmware/BIOS are up to date.
Bump for Garuda