CachyOS with kde. Nvidia + wayland + wifi + proton and lutris with umu all work out of the box
this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
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Ubuntu is the starter distro. Start there. Figure out how this shit works and learn what you love and what you hate about it. Then you’ll be in a better position to find what you actually want.
Do not start with arch. That is not what it is for.
You don’t want kali. It solves a specific problem you do not have.
Avoid all immutable distros at first. They are great but add a layer of complexity that will fuck you if you don’t have the basics down first.
mint
I started on Bazzite when I switched, and it was ok but never felt quite right. After that I switched to Garuda, which is also designed to be a ready right out of the box experience that is gaming and performance focused.
It is based on Arch, so it is currently being kept up to date and has been extremely reliable. Pretty much every issue has been solved with an update and reboot.
As an aside, everyone always pushes KDE, but I personally love xfce, it's worth a look.
Strange to see no one recommending plain old Fedora yet 😢 it's stable, performant, up to date, and compatible with just about any hardware. I'm daily-driving it on my notebook, playing tons of games without issues. As for desktop environments, I'd highly recommend KDE plasma since you won't have to relearn everything at once (compared to GNOME), and also the KDE apps are a lot more configurable than GNOME's. Keep away from Cinnamon (default for Linux Mint!) or Xfce unless you really know what you're doing 😄
I was thinking the same thing about Fedora since I have installed it on two purpose built gaming PCs using new or last gen hardware and a very old Dell Inspiron laptop and the experience has been very good outside of a couple minor issues like installing the WiFi driver on the Dell.
One of the best things I have found with Linux is the live-disk distro testing option since you can test how much you like the interface and execution of each OS+DE and how well they behave with your hardware situation without having to reformat anything first. Personally, since my goal was to move as far from the windows experience as possible, I opted for Fedora Workstation since I also tested the KDE version and I just didn't like it at all. GNOME seems to have its detractors (and for valid reasons) but after using Apple computers and Ubuntu a long time ago, I just preferred the intuitive layout and clean desktop experience. Using Windows11 at work is horrendous and I look forward to being back on my own machine every evening.
Another thing to consider is X11 vs Wayland since that ended up being what made me give up on Mint when my new hardware refused to run without persistent and horrendous screen tearing in 3D games. X11 just didn't work for me and everything I tried to tweak was either not helpful or would leave me in an un-bootable condition that required recovery via rollbacks or terminal commands using the live-USB.
Did I mention that I also got my kid on the Linux train? He is using Fedora Workstation and loves it compared to his old Win10 laptop and the POS Chromebook the school district gave him. In any case, as a Microsoft refugee I think Linux is a wonderful and viable alternative and while there may be some bumps along the way, the community is very helpful and you can often find solutions or you can just ask.
You should recommend Nobara then.
not really, that's just Fedora with a fake Moustache glued on :) OP didn't say they were incapable of installing a few packages, which in my opinion is the only selling point for Nobara.
They also said they play a lot of games so might as well have everything included. Especially when "onboarding" a former Windows user...
Can't argue with that, I think that's true. On the other hand, it creates dependencies on a one-man project which in the long run might not be a sustainable and secure choice. Also, does it still have Brave as the default browser? Because that is honestly a huge dealbreaker for me, Brave as a project is disgusting.
Edit: forgot to add a source in order to be a credible internet stranger. https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave
Since you posted a kitty, I will help. I adopted Mint with Cinnamon, and it works. It's not perfect, but it's good enough for me not to spend ages playing with distros.
They're all pretty much the same except for a couple, like nix, Gentoo, slackware, etc. maybe stay away from those. fuck around and find out is the best way.
actually genuinely this. The recommendations here are if you just want to install linux once and not think about it again but distro-hopping is really the best thing to do if you're ok with re-installing everything once in a while.
CachyOS for performance, Bazzite for stability. None of key features I've mentioned about these two OSes are overwhelmingly better on each side. Barely makes any difference imo.
My perspective: I fly Bazzite on my main rig (HX99g) and it's been epic. Gaming mode unfortunately doesn't detect 165Hz but desktop mode does. Upsides: seems to run games slightly better than windows, and does most daily computer tasks with ease. Downsides: doesn't run windows native apps. Can be ran though winboat, but say Whatsapp wont have mic unless you add device in settings, but then you'd lose sound of Bazzite.
Other than that, it has been an epic ride. In fact, so good that I have nuked internal SSD windows and clonezilla'd my external Bazzite ssd to internal SSD. Windows hasn't been installed yet. It is in the plans.
Should be fine for the most part on any distribution. Just install lutris, heroic, steam. Wine and wine tricks and proton as your emulator.(glorious egg roll or latest is pretty stable)
The only games I’ve had issues with so far have been an old game from bungee and maybe a few old ones from Ubisoft
Okay, but that's not what you found. What you have there is a cat, which is also very good! In fact, the excellent news is that you can keep the cat and continue searching for a Linux distro.
For me, my recommendation is:
- slightly older hardware, go with Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu, so will have slower updates than something based on Fedora so will not support the latest hardware)
- if you have newer hardware, I would go for something based on Fedora.
Fedora Workstation (GNOME) and KDE are both great well-rounded options.
If you want a gaming-centric distro, Bazzite is a nice option (if you have nvidia GPU, pick the option that has those drivers!). Bazzite is atomic, meaning it's slightly harder to break the OS and it's easy to roll back (there are a few limitations though, like most apps will be installed via flatpak rather than with dnf). If you have a living room PC, Bazzite also offers a console-like experience with Steam Big Picture Mode.
If you like tinkering and want to squeeze out performance, CachyOS is a great option, it's essentially Arch Linux that is easier to install and has a bunch of performance tweaks.
TLDR: Mint for older hardware, Fedora/Bazzite for newer hardware, CachyOS if you know what you're doing
If you can't decide between distros, I would test them out with live boot (you could use VenToy for this) and mess around in them, see what works and what doesn't. That's how I did it, I hopped from Mint to Fedora Workstation then landed on Fedora KDE. I am currently thinking of switching to EndeavourOS later (nothing wrong with Fedora, I just want to try out something Arch-based for a change!)
Also, one thing, if you're installing Fedora, make sure to enable third-party repos when setting up in the little guide! This will allow you to install Steam and, if applicable, Nvidia drivers. It's pretty stupid that they make it sound all scary, it really would be better if they just asked whether you want Steam and Nvidia drivers, but it is what it is.
I have been using Nobara OS for a few years, it is based on Fedora, comes with Nvidia and other proprietary drivers if you want. Plus, it also has an HTPC (home theatre PC) mode, where you boot directly into steam's big picture mode, like steam deck.
It is fedora. Just a fedora install with some preticked boxes. That said there’s some differences to note such as nobara doesnt come with selinux like fedora workstation does. It uses apparmor. Which you won’t bump into an issue with until you install certain softwares. I think if you’re just gaming it won’t matter
~~gentoo!!~~
no but actually, linux mint is very good for newcomers, especially as its desktop has resemblance to windows. Pop!_os is also really good and better for gaming maybe? I would avoid ubuntu (slower and a lot more bloated) and especially manjaro (breaks a LOT without you even doing anything).
I might also cautiously suggest arch? It's kind of a meme in the community because of its own community being seen as a bit toxic, but once you've got past the install and customization process (which does admittedly take a lot of time and reading), you have a system that is entirely your own in almost every way. For example, in the case of desktop environments, you can use cinammon from mint or gnome from pop!_os or even a more lightweight one like xfce. You also tend to have a more stable system, as you won't have unknowingly have some unstable packages hidden in the bowels of your system that get relied on by 73 other packages and could break at any moment.
This question is useless, especially here where you're going to get a million different answers from some of the most opinionated experts on the Internet.
They are all effectively the same with very minor (and shrinking) differences. The actual biggest difference is the type of release cycle (atomic, rolling, etc) and you can find multiple of those in the same distro. Again.... It's all effectively the same.
I'm gonna recommend what works for me, but it might not work for you. I like these because (again, in my specific use case) they "just worked" with little to no problems: Fedora for a desktop/laptop and bazzite for a handheld. Again.... YMMV.
Go check distrowatch and try a few different distros until you find one you like. The more popular, the more likely you can find a community to support your questions.
Zorin OS
Fedora’s solid for me. I left Ubuntu distros because they’re always out of date with the latest desktop environment updates.
I use nobara as a gamer and it works well for me
I also game a lot and made the switch a little over a year ago. I use a 3090 so i chose Pop!_OS and it has been treating me super well! Highly recommended, especially their new Cosmic version.
A lot of these new distros people mention and threads like this look really sleek and fancy. I'm still using Arch Linux with i3 instead of a desktop environment, and can play whatever games. It's all the same shit under the hood once you've installed what you need.
Honestly, if you're mostly using Steam for gaming, pretty much any major distro will work. Linux Mint is my personal choice for newbies but if something else strikes your fancy, go for it. I second the recommendation for checking on ProtonDB to see if your games are supported. I would also recommend ProtonUp-Qt as a program once you've installed Linux; it's really good for managing different Proton installs on Steam quickly and easily. Also also, I have personally had better luck with the Flatpak version of Steam, rather than the native distro versions, because it has less weird dependency issues, but YMMV. Good luck!
One thing to note is that Linux can read your Windows partitions. If you have data on drives you'll still need, you can leave them and Linux can access them fine. (Windows can't read most file systems though, so the other direction of this mostly doesn't work. Windows can't read most Linux partitions).
If you're reasonably technologically competent, I'd recommend CachyOS or Garuda. These are Arch based, so the Arch wiki and Arch User Repository are available, and great resources. They come with everything you need for gaming though, unlike base Arch. You don't need to fiddle with things or set things up. They just work out-of-the-box.
If you're not really technologically competent, but want to learn, the Mint recommendations are fine. It's one of the most used distros, so there's still plenty of help available. Alternatively, and I think better, there's Fedora. For either of these, choose KDE versions, not Gnome or anything else. KDE is more customizable and closer to Windows too. (Though it can be customized to be more like anything else, or whatever you want too.)
If you really don't want to learn, Bazzite or maybe Zorin are there.
I run Mint myself and it's fairly idiot proof. While I don't have as much free time as I used to, running most of the games I enjoy on steam is possible there. I've heard good things about Bazzite, as it seems to specifically cater to the gaming crowd. I haven't tried it out myself though, since gaming isn't my biggest priority.
CachyOS
I don't recommend anything Ubuntu related for newcommers, it's full of weird stuff that is hard to debug when it breaks. But other than that anything will do really. And even Ubuntu is passable to be honest
You'll probably want to switch off it one day, but when I first got into Linux I used Ubuntu and everything just worked. Even when I had a laptop with a touchscreen, the touchscreen worked no problem. Its a great place to start imo, but not a great place to stay as when you become more proficient with Linux you'll start to see the distro's limitations.