Different distros for different uses:
- Debian with KDE for my casual servers and Docker boxes.
- Nobara for my main gaming PC.
- Linux Mint with Cinnamon for my general purpose PCs and my #JustWorks uses.
- Arch for my pimp mobile test machines.
Different distros for different uses:
Lol I am so happy about this.
They have an experimental Wayland session, but it is still in early beta and not ready for regular use.
I don't use any special touchpad gestures on my laptops, so unfortunately I don't know that one.
Mint is my goto for newer Linux users, and users that want something that #justworks.
I use Mint on all my personal laptops with the default Cinnamon desktop environment and it's always incredibly stable.
Mint just announced a few weeks ago that they are partnering officially with the Framework team to make sure compatibility is top notch, so the already good compatibility will become even better over the coming months and years.
The only real downside with Mint, and specifically Cinnamon, is that it looks a little dated. You can get it looking pretty modern and clean, but it doesn't look nearly as modern and sleek as KDE Plasma or Cosmic. It doesn't look bad though, and honestly, when I need to just get work done, I don't need it looking ultra sexy-sleek.
Noob friendly? Linux Mint. It's not the prettiest, but it looks nice enough, especially if you tweak the themes a little, which is super easy.
It's a fantastic all-around distro, and if you use the default Cinnamon desktop environment, it's rock stable and super easy to navigate.
It's what I use on all my personal laptops and also what I set my parents up with when I switched them from Windows to Linux.
I worked for a classic MSP a while back, barely lasted 3 months. Such a toxic environment, tons of pressure to spread yourself thinner and thinner.
It was one of those places where you were expected to be there an hour early, stay an hour late, and work through your lunch.
Even though that's illegal, it was never explicit, just one of those, wink wink type things. But the workload was always so heavy, you couldn't stay on top of everything unless you were working 50+ hours a week.
And of course, all salary, no overtime or double time for weekend work.
I do internal IT now, much better. Trying to get my own one-person shop going to eventually be fully self-employed. Actually, it would be really cool to become a worker-owned co-op, but that's still a faint dream.
5800X3D is my CPU for the next 3-5 years probs. Maybe even longer, it's so damn good.
My gaming rig has been running Nobara for years now, it's built off of Fedora by the developer who does the glorious eggroll version of Proton.
It's got multiple desktop environment versions and is optimized for Linux gaming. It has a bunch of gaming-specific kernel patches and optimizations. Extra drivers pre-installed for controllers and Nvidia GPUs, etc.
It has a very easy update wizard, I run it once every few weeks, works awesome.
It is if you get your ass spanked hard while it happens, which fairly accurately describes what's been happening to Intel in the last year or so lol.
My advice: Don't wait until you have to switch to start learning, it will frustrate you if you're under pressure to figure it out all at once.
Buy a cheapo SSD online, 500GB ones are out there for $35 and install Mint on it.
Use that to dual boot and play around with Linux. Start slow, if you get frustrated, take a break. It will be a much smoother experience than you probably expect these days.
Mint is very easy to get started with, very Windows-like in its UI. And it has easy options to install Nvidia drivers if you need to, and the app store is very easy to use.
It's really solid.
Ple*se stop.