Linux is still for nerds but I hate windows 11 more than I hate being uncool so I’m just going to have to step down my rizz and learn more computer stuff.

  1. My 3 concerns are, in order, gaming (mostly through steam or fitgirl), playing TTRPGs through Foundry Virtual Tabletop and Discord, and image editing (but really simple image editing. more paint.net than GIMP). What distro would be best for this? What are the actual differences in distros beyond appearances? Is it worth installing the Steam OS, or is that still really only useable with handhelds?

  2. Can I just shove all the data I want to save on an external drive, install my chosen distro, and transfer stuff back on? Will the external drive need to be formatted in a specific way first? can I just slot stuff like program settings back in the new system or will I have to convert them to a different file format?

  3. Do I have to buy the thigh highs or do they just appear? Will it still work if I don’t wear them? I don’t like wearing socks so I’d prefer a distro without them if possible.

If it helps I’m running a Ryzen 5 2600 and RX 7600, and my favourite colour is purple.

Edit: Thanks for the answers everyone, I’m going to do a bit more reading on distros before choosing one, but I have a better idea what I’m looking at now.

  • ∞ 🏳️‍⚧️Edie [it/its, she/her, fae/faer, love/loves, ze/hir, des/pair, none/use name, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish
    4·
    9 days ago

    1:

    • Games through steam kinda just work. ProtonDB as mentioned can help you check for if specific games work, or if there are workarounds that can make them work. Some games might not be “verified” by Steam/Valve, so you need to go into steam settings and turn on “Enable Steam Play for all other titles” to play these, but they will probably still work, valve just haven’t looked at them.
    • I’ve played a few games from fitgirl, Vic3 and F:NV as examples, I just put them into lutris and it works great.
    • Discord is an electron app, so it will work.
    • Image editing is slightly harder, paint.net doesn’t work natively, and I don’t know through wine. Nor do I know of an equivalent program, as you say GIMP just isn’t quite it.

    As for distro, I don’t have much experience with those that might fit you, so I can’t recommend any specifically. But there are differences, is it rolling or does it have releases, is it mutable or imutable, what package manager does it use, which packages are available for it, which packages are installed by default, does it have a diy or more hand-holding mindset. All of these are important and will have an impact on your experience.

    2:

    • Yes you can just shove data onto an external hard drive. It doesn’t have to be formatted in any specific way, Linux has drivers that can read NTFS and FAT.
    • If you use the same programs, and they use the same settings format, yes. If not, no… of course.

    3:
    bridget-smug

    It does help… you, since AMD is easier, whereas nvidia might need some work (fuck you nvidia torvalds-nvidia)