My suggestions:

1. start with whatever distro you think looks cool. It doesn’t matter. Obv don’t start with one that has a reputation for being challenging, like Arch or Gentoo. Personally I started on Ubuntu, but that was 15 years ago. If I were to start today, I’d probably start on Mint? Maybe Endeavouros? Idk. Check distrowatch if you want to know what’s out there.

2. No matter what you choose, you, like everyone else, will end up trying all the big ones at some point. It’s fun. You’re not getting married, it’s just a place to start.

3. take it slow. You don’t need to switch all at once, and it’s probably bad if you do. Linux takes work sometimes, and there’s not always warning when trusts going to happen. So have a fallback, something stable you can use when you just don’t have time to fix things. I still use Windows for video games (mainly because Bill Gates is a piece of shit who did and still does everything he can to destroy knowledge sharing and open source).

4. To exit Vim, hit escape a few times and then type :q enter.

5. alternatively, don’t exit Vim. You shouldn’t need to. It’s all you need, not just in computing, but in life.

I would encourage you to do some experimenting in virtual machines before making a move on your hardware. I’m not familiar with Windows tools in this regard, but something like VirtualBox allows you to go through the installation process and test out configuration options without risking breaking your bootloader, etc.

I don’t have a certain answer to your first question, but I’ve had great gaming experiences on both Arch and Debian. One of the biggest advantages to Arch is the wiki, which you will probably find yourself using no matter which distro you end up on, as it has good documentation for a lot of different applications.

Ubuntu is a fine choice if a distro, but I wouldn’t assume that there is greater application compatibility with Windows. Portability has way more to with the application than with the OS, so if there are certain applications you cannot do without, you need to start researching their Linux compatibility. There is also a compatibility layer you may have heard about already called Wine, so look into that, too.

AMD has better open source driver support with it’s hardware than Nvidia. I don’t know so the details on this, but if you have an AMD GPU, that is generally more desirable at this time.

I would encourage you to try out all the most popular distros in VirtualBox, and go from there.

Dual booting is a headache you don’t need. If you really want to keep windows around, install it as a virtual machine inside whatever distro you choose. Ubuntu is easy, well documented, and widely supported. Since you probably already have windows installed, you can also try a few different distros out by running them in virtual machine inside windows first to figure out what you like.

My biggest recommendation would be to stay away from Manjaro - they are trying to split the difference between a “long term stable” and a “rolling release” and it just doesn’t seem to work out well long term. Your mileage may vary on that, but I found it to work well and liked it for a few months and then it would just become fubar after an update and I’d end up trying a re-install - rinse and repeat. It steered me away from Linux for a while.

Really, you can be happy on any distribution. Best advice I can give is try several of them. Look into “Ventoy”, which lets you setup a single USB stick (probably want a big one) that you can drag and drop the iso files onto at will and then boot to live environments to try out several different distributions without constantly re-doing the USB stick. Then from there, pick the one you like the look and feel of the most.

I personally have had great luck on Garuda Linux, lots of gaming oriented stuff installed out of the box, and you have access to AUR (which is one of the best parts of Arch based linux), and there are GUI interfaces to manage most of the settings that work well. It has a comfortable level of “hand holding” without trying to restrict you a lot, imo.

which one is better suited for gaming?

All linux distros use the same set of tools for gaming: proton + wine. Any distro that has graphics drivers for your gpu will be fine.

… Microsoft is using ubuntu, does this mean it is more compatible with their other applications?

Unfortunately, microsoft does not make linux versions of their apps. Online versions work fine.

AMD is better suited for linux

AMD is better suited for linux because of open source drivers, but nvidia still works. I run a 4080, and it works perfectly. The only area where AMD works where Nvidia fails is Wayland support, which works perfectly on AMD, and is hit or miss with nvidia.

where should I get started?

The best place to start is just using linux. I started my linux journey by just installing debian on my desktop, and sticking through all the mistakes I made along the way. I highly recommend installing fedora, since I’ve found it to be easy for new users, up to date, and extremely stable. Ubuntu is another good choice, but I found it to be less stable long term (my installs always broke 8-12 months in). I would avoid using arch based distros since they are more prone for breaking updates. The most recent Debian sounds really nice, but I haven’t used it yet.

I’ve taught a few people cybersecurity, and I always start with linux because the tools are linux exclusive. With that in mind, I’ve had success having people just use OverTheWire Bandit, which teaches you how to use linux using ssh. It is somewhat difficult to jump in blind, and it is fully self taught as it requires googling how to use commands to do things to solve the challenges, which is a useful skill in itself.

which one is best suited for gaming? I do a couple other things as well but I would expect that any OS could deal with those. I know vaguely about proton / the steam deck improvements that trickled down, but don’t know if and how that affects different Linux versions.

Recommendation answer: I’d probably start with Pop! OS. It’s a good starter distro with a lot of very useful things configured nicely for new users out of the box.

Useful knowledge answer: Most distros are identical for gaming. Steam can be installed on basically any of them. As long as your graphics drivers are correctly setup on whatever you choose, you’re fine.

I read some days ago that ubuntu is being used by Microsoft, does that mean it is more compatible with their other applications?

Nope. Microsoft apps aren’t purposefully written to be compatible with Linux at all - If WINE (windows compatibility layer, also used by proton) can run it, it’ll run on any Linux distro. Microsoft is just using Ubuntu for WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux, a developer tool) and their cloud servers.

I also read that amd is better suited to linux because nvidia refuses to support it, which would be a happy coincidence for me because I just recently built a fully amd computer, is that actually true?

Nvidia works fine on Linux - I run an RTX 3080 with no problems. The main reason AMD is considered better is that AMD’s graphics drivers are open sourced, meaning they are generally better-maintained and yes, better-supported by the company specifically. In other words: You’re less likely to have problems on AMD, but Nvidia works fine if you have it.

And lastly, provided there is even a definitive answer to my first question, where should I look to get started? I have never dealt with Linux before but would consider myself reasonably tech / computer savvy.

Linux can do something that Windows cannot: “Live boot” environments. That’s a fancy name for “the installer runs within a functional, read-only installation of the OS”. You can download things, install applications, poke at stuff, etc. but your changes are only stored temporarily in RAM, and don’t actually change the boot media.

As such, the easiest thing to do to get started would be these steps:

1. Get Ventoy. This will let you boot to Linux installation+live media by just copying ISO files to a USB drive.
2. Install Ventoy on a USB drive of your choice (bigger is better)
3. Download a few distribution ISOs - I recommend downloading the ISO for each of these distros: Pop! OS, Linux Mint, Manjaro, and Nobara.
4. Copy the ISOs to your Ventoy drive
5. Boot your computer from the Ventoy drive (many will do so automatically), and choose one of the ISOs you downloaded.

Bam! You’re in a Linux environment. If you wind up wanting to install it, there’s an icon on the desktop of each of those distros for doing exactly that. Most will even walk you through the process of dual-booting.

Caveat: if you dual-boot, the bootloader installed by Linux will become responsible for the boot process - So your Windows installation can/could still be broken by it if something goes wrong during installation. Make sure to create a known-good backup first =]

I’d recommend Kubuntu. It’s a version of Ubuntu (very easy to use) that uses a different desktop, namely KDE. In my experience KDE feels a bit more comfortable for windows users and it is NICE. Highly configurable, and very pretty. I recommend Ubuntu variants because support is very good, loads of software providers will have a version of their software for Ubuntu though deb packages or repositories. Software repositories are awesome 😎

Hardware is mostly supported out of the box, but for video you will want to stick to AMD cards as Nvidia driver quality is so-so… it’s not that Nvidia doesn’t support it, it’s that AMD actively helps with open source driver development in a positive way where nvidia does not, and the drivers they supply themselves are iffy at best. It sometimes works, sometimes. AMD is much better there

Ubuntu has little to do with Microsoft software.you can run Microsoft apps using “wine” though most but not all apps will work this way. Alternatively, you will find a huge amount of open source alternatives exist for apps. I’ve been Linux only for over 20 years now and I haven’t touched any Microsoft software in years.

For gaming, something like Ubuntu (or Kubuntu if you want it to look like Windows than Mac), Mint, or Pop!OS is probably your best bet. They are quite easy to use and setup. Definitely can recommend them. Steam works on those 3 for sure. In case you want to use a guide for selecting a distro see DistroChooser

To check which games work on linux, use ProtonDB. To check which windows programs work on linux, use Wine’s database. I would however recommend finding a linux alternative using AlternativeTo. If you use Adobe, I can already say that you’ll have to dualboot (have windows and linux installed) and use windows for Adobe related work.

AMD support is indeed quite good on linux and NVIDIA is a very mixed bag. Some people have normal experiences with it and others won’t touch it ever again. Personally, I’d advise against NVIDIA. If you’re planning on using your existing hardware, I’d recommend checking out the Linux Hardware Database for compatibility reports. Should you be on the market for hardware officially supported or sold by linux shops, see Linux Preloaded to find such a shop. From personal experience, I can recommend Tuxedo Computers.

Good luck!

The beauty of Linux is that you can use pretty much any distribution to game and they’re all equally suited for it since you can install pretty much anything you want.

You don’t have to use SteamOS although you can. Different distributions have a different philosophy and are different levels of beginner friendly. If you want something that just works, Mint is a good option. Mint is basically Ubuntu but with a lot of configuration out of the box. Ubuntu is a good option as well. But you don’t really need to worry about which is best for gaming.

Microsoft includes Ubuntu in the Linux subsystem for Windows. I don’t think they are involved beyond that. Doesn’t really mean anything except you can use Ubuntu (and some other distros) inside Windows. This is only really meaningful if you’re trying to do Linux work but your employer forces you to have Windows.

Nvidia supports Linux but they refuse to open source their drivers. I don’t have any nvidia hardware so maybe someone else can speak to this better. But I believe the proprietary nvidia drivers are notoriously buggy and out of date. AMD support is much better. There are open source drivers that work great. I’ve never even had to think much about my graphics card. People I know who use nvidia have more trouble. So this is good for you.

A good jumping off point would be to first choose a distribution and make a bootable USB drive with it. Most will have a “Live” version of the iso (the install file) that lets you boot in to it without installing anything. So you can boot in to it before installing abs poke around, see if you have any hardware issues before committing. If you want to proceed, Google dual boot Linux/Windows and follow guides. Make sure you backup any data on your computer case things go wrong. It’s possible to accidentally bork your Windows partition.

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• Any mainstream distro
• Nope. Compatibility is going to be about the sane regardless of what distro you use.
• NVIDIA likes to keep their drivers proprietary, which causes friction with linux users and often means getting new features later. Both cards will worse, but AMD plays much nicer.
• Any maninstream distro. Ubuntu (and its flavors,) Mint, Pop!_OS, Fedora, etc. are all solid choices. Youtube tours can help you narrow down your selection, and from there you test a couple out in a virtual machine or via a Live USB and see what you like!

I actually hadn’t heard about that nvidia problem until now. I’m not too worried at the moment because I bought a used one from a friend of mine that was using it in his Linux machine until just a couple weeks ago. So I should be fine for now. It was just way cheaper than a new current gen (this is 3000 series), and I’ve just bought pieces for a new machine, so maybe after my budget recovers I’ll look into possible upgrades if I need one. 3000 series still goes hard.

I’ll probably get AMD next if it turns out to be a big deal.

Oh wow thats a lot of replies! I’ll make sure to read them all, many thanks to everyone who took the time to write something

I’ve tried all of these for significant spans of time: Ubuntu, Mint, Debian, Manjaro, Vanilla Arch, Endeavour.

IMO Endeavour is the best balance of control and simplicity. I’d recommend installing KDE first.

I’m at work and I don’t have time to give you a proper reply, but you can start from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9tb1gTTbJE