So the NVIDIA graphics card is not as big of an issue as it would have been even five years ago. Just use the proprietary drivers. And for my money, Linux Mint is the best distro for beginners, hands-down. You never have to touch the command line and everything just works.
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2026
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As a side note to the general "try a bunch and see what you like" recommendations: you could also try using a virtual machine (something like Virtualbox) that lets you run a PC inside your existing PC first. That way you can try a bunch of distros without worrying about wiping your existing setup, and it'll get you used to the install process. If you mess it up, just delete the VM and start a new one, no harm done. Then when you find one you like and feel comfortable with the install process, you can back all your stuff up and do it for real, knowing pretty much what to expect.
No one can tell you the answer to the first part of the question you asked but it doesn’t matter because the solution is to just try different shit till you stop.
The installation process is 1. Back up all the stuff you don’t want to lose 2. Download an iso and write it to a usb 3. Boot the usb and play a dating sim with a computer to see what ending you get.
When you switch computer operating systems you’ll have a bunch of problems and questions which are all related directly to how you use the computer. Only you can realize to what extent and in what way you’ve abstracted or personified your experience of using the computer. Only you can decide if you want to stand astride the tracks of history and say “no further”, retvrn to your people’s traditional ways of knowing or eliminate all your cerebral folds and embrace one giant electron native touchscreen button simply marked “dopamine”.
I don't need to worry about a backup, this is a new computer and I can factory reset if I need to.
Hell yeah, just try some shit.
What’s the best computer experience you remember having? Mine is writing BASIC programs on an old tandy as a little kid.
NVIDIA is fine if you're ok with non-FOSS drivers.
KDE feels reasonably familiar to Windows users.
I don't know why anyone would use Gnome but people do.
KDE Plasma is one of the easiest desktops to use for a user coming from Windows, that's for sure.
Gnome also has its place. I've used it for a few years (up to the Plasma 6 release, where I fully switched to Plasma on Wayland) and I like Gnome in general, its UI is a "modern" mix of the MacOS desktop and a mobile phone UI, whereas Plasma goes the traditional (one might also say boring) Windows desktop look&feel route (although you can also reconfigure Plasma heavily to look and feel however you want, but by default it's very Windows-like).
Main difference, if you set aside the UI, is that KDE Plasma offers a ton of settings and features (available easily via the GUI), while Gnome intentionally doesn't - that means to change some things you need to put in more effort in Gnome (use extensions or change settings via dconf editor, or custom CSS files. and so on).
Then there's the factor of stability - Gnome has always been rock-solid stable for me, while KDE Plasma since 6.x release has been very good but still not rock-solid. I've had maybe around 5-7 plasmashell crashes so far during the whole time of using Plasma. Plasma has a recovery feature for this integrated now, so it isn't as bad, but it's still not rock-solid. The small price you pay for all the great and many features Plasma has is that it's (still) slightly less stable, but due to it being able to self-recover most users probably don't need to worry about it. I've had it on Windows as well - whenever the explorer shell crashes, it instantly restarts. You might have noticed this when suddenly the taskbar and everything is shortly gone but then re-appears. It's kind of the same in Plasma, just that you also get a notification that plasmashell has crashed. I've never had any of this happen in several years of Gnome usage.
However, the Gnome devs are doing some weird decisions... they have very strong opinions about things and tend to not agree to things which they should agree to in order to make interoperability with other software easier. There have been a lot of unnecessary discussions about how to handle client-side window decorations, desktop portals, how to implement cerrtain Wayland extensions and things like that and often there are 2 factions at the end: the way Gnome wants to handle it vs. the way everyone else wants to handle it. I don't like this attitude or selfishness at all from the Gnome project.
But in terms of software and UI quality, I think Gnome definitely has its place. Whether you like its UI or not, is something that every user will see differently. I'd assume that users coming straight from Windows and who maybe also want to continue to use the Windows UI paradigm on Linux will tend to find Gnome a bit alien. That's understandable. Gnome has its own UI paradigm that doesn't try to cater to Windows users. So you need to adapt to it, not the other way around. I also never really care that much about what desktop environment I'm using, because I'm doing so much with Emacs, the terminal and the browser, it almost doesn't matter much what's "around" that. So take my opinion with a grain of salt - I can probably use any UI paradigm and be fine with it. So maybe I'm not the best person to judge how well a UI is done. But I still wanted to give credit and criticisms where they're due.
Check the pinned post
This redirects to the joinlemmy page
Try this: https://lemmy.ml/post/18268622
That's giving a server error lmao
@Florn@hexbear.net, you should be able to find it pinned at the top of the linux community page
Thanks
Download some live boot images, use Rufus to write them to flash drives, boot them up and try them out. I would suggest starting with something like Mint or Fedora. When you find one you like, back up your data, run the installer and follow the prompts.
I second this, with the addition that you can also use DistroSea to test-drive distros in your browser. Also, DistroWatch has a search that you can filter by "Beginners" to find some that might be easier.
You need to buy a key from LinuxKeysRUs.com
oh, I thought this was a circlejerk post. Sorry haha.
Assuming it's serious, I'd use perhaps ubuntu or linux mint or something. Just to dip your toes in. An "easy" linux distro. Before you know it, you'll be doing LFS.
If you have enough space on your drive (or, preferably, a second drive), you can dual boot with windows. I'd probably do that first, then when you reach a point that you hardly ever use windows, blow that shit away. there are some guides online how to install it dualbooted, and there will be (and are) some good instructions here
I posted it in a jokey way don't worry lol
ah, I thought so. you fooled us all :)
If you already have a separate backup of your data (keyword: separate), you can try to follow along with this video guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEgO9PdFhsM
I learned linux mostly from pain, but there are plenty of resources available on how to do most things on linux these days.