this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Hey guys, I'm an entry-level IT professional and tech enthusiast.

I'm getting a bit sick of windows for a multitude of reasons and want to try out some Linux distros.

I use my pc for web browsing, university (which uses office 365) where I study software design, software development (vs code, visual studio, jetbrains stuff) and gaming (99% of the time via steam).

My main concerns for switching are that I'll have a hard time with university work because we mostly use teams for video conferences and work together with word, and other office stuff. We also are required to do some virtual machine stuff where we use virtualbox.

Also I'm a bit worried that some games on uplay, epic and other platforms aren't available anymore.

For distros I've been mainly looking at Manjaro, Linux Mint or plain old Ubuntu. Can you recommend anything that might fit for me or will I maybe run into any issues with my chosen three?

Edit: Thanks a lot for all the replies. I've read through all of them even if I didn't reply and it was very helpful. I will test most of your suggestions in a VM before I jump into completely changing my OS. And I'll probably try booting from a USB Drive first. What I didn't mention is that I've already worked with Ubuntu, Debian and CentOS, so I'm not scared about having to use a CLI.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (8 children)

If you're decent at programming try NixOS. 90% of your system is described by one config file and because of how it builds if a fix works for one person it'll work for pretty much everyone

(With exceptions sometimes for hardware specific stuff like Nvidia drivers which is obviously dependant on your GPU)

It's the one distro I've not really encountered any problems with out of the box

[–] rusty 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How's nix for gaming?

I'll be switching from manjaro soon, kind of at the crossroads between arch and nix

[–] thedeadwalking4242 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Its worked great for me, I switched a couple months ago. Getting nvidia working was a breeze.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Prettt good actually as long as you install steam via programs.steam.enable = true rather than just adding it to packages

Also programs.steam.openFirewall = true if you want game streaming

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