Ready to make the move to Linux

N

ng4ever

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 18, 2016
Messages
3,555
What version and distributions do you recommend ? I am not 100% sure if I will but sense I don't game that much anymore I think it is the right time! Would I be correct if your not a gamer or very little bit of a gamer linux is perfect ?


Also will my second screen, technically, my projector screen for my projector work under linux fine?

How will it handle HDR though ?


Also should I try Linux on VMWare Workstation first before moving over officially?
 
> What version and distributions do you recommend ? I am not 100% sure if I will but sense I don't game that much anymore I think it is the right time! Would I be correct if your not a gamer or very little bit of a gamer linux is perfect ?

I'd recommend starting with something like Ubuntu 20.04, it includes an installer and plenty of help online.
Personally I run Void Linux, but I wouldn't recommend that for someone completely new to Linux.
Professionally most of my work is done in some flavor of Ubuntu (hence the recommendation).

You can grab the Desktop image from here:
https://releases.ubuntu.com/20.04/

Plenty of Steam games (especially recent games) work using Proton (compatibility layer of sorts developed by Valve) now btw:
https://www.protondb.com/

> Also will my second screen, technically, my projector screen for my projector work under linux fine?

Probably, although I am not sure on the current state of proper support for multiple displays w/ different resolutions.

> How will it handle HDR though ?

No idea, sorry.

> Also should I try Linux on VMWare Workstation first before moving over officially?

If that's possible then yes - if anything this gives you a chance to play w/ Linux without committing to a full install.
 
I'm partial to Manjaro, a stable rolling release based on Arch, for my main system. I run openSUSE Leap on my server and have for probably 13 years now.

Keep in mind that many distros have live boot images you can try to get an idea of how it's going to run on bare hardware without needing to install. This should allow you to test how multi-monitor support is and probably HDR as well. I'm not a fan of running Linux distros in a virtualized environment for testing, at least not for exclusive testing. You can run into a lot of problems that do not occur when running a live image or installed on bare hardware.

I also recommend distrowatch.com to look at and check some reviews/opinions on a lot of different distros.
 
schoolslave pretty much hit everything right.

Ubuntu (or Debian in general) is my preferred distro, but there are other options. Fedora is probably the most obvious. If your interest is at all related to getting into business-related Linux systems administration in a Red Hat shop, it may be a better option for you.

Independent of the distro, there's also the desktop environment. Gnome is probably the most common (and default on Ubuntu and Fedora). KDE/Plasma is also very popular (and maybe the most Windows-like), along with Cinnamon and Mate. It's possible to install multiple DEs on a single system and switch between them until you find one you like.

Using a projector with a different resolution should generally be no issue. Only possible problem I'm aware of is if one display is HiDPI (e.g., 4k) and the other isn't. I'm also not sure on HDR, but I don't think it's really an issue outside of games and some video formats?

No need to play for VMware workstation if you don't already have it. VMware Player will work just fine. Either is a great way to experiment before committing.
 
Just keep in mind that a virtualized OS may not work the same way or work at all even if a clean install will. Some quirks can be expected. SSDs are so cheap nowadays that I would just slap in a dedicated SSD for testing and install on it.
 
I went with Debian stable and then used backports to get the latest kernel and Nvidia driver there. I paired it with the KDE desktop -- not sure why somebody would pick something differently now. Other desktops used to have performance advantages but I don't really think that's the case now.
Debian stable doesn't have all of the latest app versions but it's stable and that's what you want in a production system. Security updates are just a click here to install similar to Windows but aren't forced.
 
Even Debian is not as 'stable' as it used to be since Debian9... But I use Ubuntu Mate or Kubuntu personally for a desktop.
 
Anything Ubuntu is a pretty safe bet. Ubuntu based is also a safe bet. Pop_OS! for example is a wonderful Ubuntu based distro that is quite nice for gaming. HDR typically depends on the hardware you're using and driver support. For example Nvidia's proprietary driver doesn't support it yet IIRC. AMDGPU does on some hardware as does Intel gen 9 and above I think. Here's more info about the Intel stuff: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-HDR-Display-Gen9-Display

Personally I use Ubuntu LTS on my servers and Arch for my laptops but I give my wife and kids Ubuntu MATE and those generally follow Ubuntu releases so they'll go to 20.10 next month once available.

I've also enjoyed Manjaro which is Arch for lazy people. 😜

OK I'm kidding. It's a very good Arch based distro. I simply prefer vanilla Arch but Manjaro is a great secondary option to Arch itself if you want latest greatest stuff all the time and don't want to piece it together yourself.

You may also want to take a peak at Elementary OS which is a very beautiful Ubuntu based distro. Linux Mint is also a common favorite but anecdotally I've never had luck running it well.
 
My preference is openSUSE. They do KDE pretty well which IMHO, is the closet to a full featured desktop env.
 
cjcox said:
My preference is openSUSE. They do KDE pretty well which IMHO, is the closet to a full featured desktop env.
Click to expand...
I also like suse, but it's very much an enterprise focused distro. The config tools are nice, but be careful not to break them.
 
The problem with Ubuntu is that it's becoming Windows lite. Canonical acts like Microsoft with their tracking and have way too cozy of a relationship with Microsoft and their WSL2. I like that Debian embraces FOSS.
B00nie said:
Even Debian is not as 'stable' as it used to be since Debian9... But I use Ubuntu Mate or Kubuntu personally for a desktop.
Click to expand...
 
If you want to test your hardware compatibility I'd recommend trying the Live USB installers over trying on VMware; you won't be going through a compatibility layer. I would recommend using a VM or Live installer to see how it looks, try out the various desktop flavors Gnome/KDE/MATE/Cinnamon/Etc, and what kind of apps are there.

Personally I'd recommend something like Manjaro from what you describe since you'll probably want to keep up with the latest and greatest support for graphics. Mind you, you can do that with ANY distro, but Manjaro and others like it make it a little easier being rolling release and easy to use driver manager.
 
Gonna put a vote in for MX Linux. Stable and plenty of tweaking tools out of the box

As for multi monitor support, Ive been through Ubuntu, pop is, elementary and now MX and none of them handle multiple monitors "properly", especially with monitors at different resolutions. Just doesn't work well and needs plenty of hacking to get right. Example, if I turn off one of the three monitors, the disposition of my workspace changes and one monitor is duplicated onto the other partially until a reboot. Nvidia settings needs to be run as root to be able to merge display settings into config for persistence after a reboot but I oft had problems with that too.

Long story short multi monitor is a bit of a pain with different resolutions when compared to how windows just manages to deal with whatever config
 
KDE Neon and remember...

Linux is not Windows, Windows is by no means the benchmark all other operating systems should aspire to. Go into this with absolutely no preconceptions and don't expect Linux to be a drop in Windows replacement.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top