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.

  • boiledfrog [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    6·
    9 days ago

    How much more computer stuff do you want to learn? If you want to commit some time, I always recommend debian , it’s stable, well supported but not really the easiest, what I mean is: it is easy enough to get going with it, but not so easy that everything will just work out of the box. Otherwise, Mint is great.

    Don’t do steamos as mentioned already, not worth the hassle. To know whether a game runs well on linux, check out protondb.com.

    Also, as a small tip, don’t try to avoid the commandline, you don’t need to become a shell expert, but basic knowledge will help you a lot with everything.

    • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      1·
      8 days ago

      I have a brief familiarity with the command line, it’s just regedit I won’t fuck with - would Debian just be a matter of finding the things I want to make it work how I want, and then leaving it to it, or would it require more ongoing maintenance?

      • boiledfrog [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        7 days ago

        Nice thing about debian is that it’s really stable, so once Itoh got it set up it won’t change or break. The downside is that some of the software might feel outdated at the end of the +2 year release cycle.

        But other then doing updates every once in a while and a version upgrade every 2-3 years, you hardly need to do anything onceyou got it set up.