I recently switched and have distro hopped a bit, landing on CachyOS which I feel I’ll stick with for a while (though I’m very indecisive and a small part of me wants to change over to Arch). CachyOS is based on Arch but with more ease of use stuff on top, especially for gaming (they have a gaming bundle which is just one command and you’re good to go), plus I’ve heard it’s the fastest or one of the fastest out there. Bazzite is also great (Fedora-based), which I used for a bit, but I started to get into using the command line more and found immutability to be annoying. It does mean it’s harder to fuck up though, but I don’t really care if I break my machine (you probably won’t break your machine regardless, that’s mostly sarcastic). Pop_OS! (Ubuntu-based) is also supposed to be good for gaming but I haven’t tried it. Keep in mind, if you plan on doing more than gaming and decide to use the command line for downloading, most download guides out there assume you’re using something based on Ubuntu or Debian (you’ll see a lot of “sudo apt install _____”), for better or worse. If you scroll down a bit you’ll probably find stuff for Fedora and/or Arch but not always. That doesn’t mean you can’t get the program on those distros, just that you’ll have to either know where to look or download a different way, such as from a digital storefront or manually from the website of the program you’re getting. I’m still a beginner actively trying to get better, but these are all things I would’ve liked to know when I made the switch a little while ago. Another thing to keep in mind is Linux and Nvidia don’t quite get along as well as AMD or Intel. I have an Nvidia card and both CachyOS and Bazzite had no issues, but for whatever reason Mint didn’t like to run steam games, no matter what I did. I made sure to have all the drivers downloaded and looked up a bunch of guides but I never got it running properly. Bazzite just worked straight out of the box, and CachyOS works even better for me after a little tinkering. If you have any questions, I just recently was where you are now so I might have more relevant advice, though I’m certainly no expert. But I’d be happy to help.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that if someone doesn’t care to learn, it might be more straightforward for them to chose something that uses apt. I’m a beginner and I use pacman no problem, but I’m willing to learn. Lots of folks aren’t.
For anyone reading this: immutable does not mean you cannot use the command line, and you cannot tinker. It’s just different, and you will need to learn a few new commands, etc.
Additionally, Bazzite comes with Distrobox where you can literally install any software on any distro (including AUR if you want). There’s almost no limits.
I should’ve clarified that in my comment, you’re correct. I wasn’t trying to imply it wasn’t possible, just that a lot of people don’t care to learn new things and just want things to work like they’re used to, and the odd time they need to use the command line, it might be more straightforward if they aren’t using something immutable, for better or worse. Immutable has the upside of being harder to fuck up for newbies though.
I didn’t know about Distrobox, that’s really cool actually. I’m content with Cachy but if I went back to Bazzite I’d be looking into using that for sure.
honestly i see pacman/yay just as much as I see other stuff when looking at instructions, (paru is pacman/yay in cachyos for that stuff, pacman in cachyos is their own repos)
Cachyos is great if you want access to everything,
debtap for the rare ocassion you need to install a deb,
can install snaps and flatpak support easily,
but you don’t really need to mess with all that, mostly everything is available with aur + flathub (have to do one terminal line since cachyos doesn’t have it by default)
Bazzite does have bazaar by default, which i like as the best flathub appstore, aur version stopped working for me.
exactly what I ended up on with exactly the same issues with Mint (and Zorin as well). Cachy and Bazzite just worked (bazzite didn’t work on live image though), but yeah Mint just didn’t work.
I recently switched and have distro hopped a bit, landing on CachyOS which I feel I’ll stick with for a while (though I’m very indecisive and a small part of me wants to change over to Arch). CachyOS is based on Arch but with more ease of use stuff on top, especially for gaming (they have a gaming bundle which is just one command and you’re good to go), plus I’ve heard it’s the fastest or one of the fastest out there. Bazzite is also great (Fedora-based), which I used for a bit, but I started to get into using the command line more and found immutability to be annoying. It does mean it’s harder to fuck up though, but I don’t really care if I break my machine (you probably won’t break your machine regardless, that’s mostly sarcastic). Pop_OS! (Ubuntu-based) is also supposed to be good for gaming but I haven’t tried it. Keep in mind, if you plan on doing more than gaming and decide to use the command line for downloading, most download guides out there assume you’re using something based on Ubuntu or Debian (you’ll see a lot of “sudo apt install _____”), for better or worse. If you scroll down a bit you’ll probably find stuff for Fedora and/or Arch but not always. That doesn’t mean you can’t get the program on those distros, just that you’ll have to either know where to look or download a different way, such as from a digital storefront or manually from the website of the program you’re getting. I’m still a beginner actively trying to get better, but these are all things I would’ve liked to know when I made the switch a little while ago. Another thing to keep in mind is Linux and Nvidia don’t quite get along as well as AMD or Intel. I have an Nvidia card and both CachyOS and Bazzite had no issues, but for whatever reason Mint didn’t like to run steam games, no matter what I did. I made sure to have all the drivers downloaded and looked up a bunch of guides but I never got it running properly. Bazzite just worked straight out of the box, and CachyOS works even better for me after a little tinkering. If you have any questions, I just recently was where you are now so I might have more relevant advice, though I’m certainly no expert. But I’d be happy to help.
Once you know the equivalent commands to search, install, remove, … packages in your distro, problem solved.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s impossible, just that if someone doesn’t care to learn, it might be more straightforward for them to chose something that uses apt. I’m a beginner and I use pacman no problem, but I’m willing to learn. Lots of folks aren’t.
For anyone reading this: immutable does not mean you cannot use the command line, and you cannot tinker. It’s just different, and you will need to learn a few new commands, etc.
Additionally, Bazzite comes with Distrobox where you can literally install any software on any distro (including AUR if you want). There’s almost no limits.
I should’ve clarified that in my comment, you’re correct. I wasn’t trying to imply it wasn’t possible, just that a lot of people don’t care to learn new things and just want things to work like they’re used to, and the odd time they need to use the command line, it might be more straightforward if they aren’t using something immutable, for better or worse. Immutable has the upside of being harder to fuck up for newbies though.
I didn’t know about Distrobox, that’s really cool actually. I’m content with Cachy but if I went back to Bazzite I’d be looking into using that for sure.
honestly i see pacman/yay just as much as I see other stuff when looking at instructions, (paru is pacman/yay in cachyos for that stuff, pacman in cachyos is their own repos)
Cachyos is great if you want access to everything, debtap for the rare ocassion you need to install a deb, can install snaps and flatpak support easily, but you don’t really need to mess with all that, mostly everything is available with aur + flathub (have to do one terminal line since cachyos doesn’t have it by default)
Bazzite does have bazaar by default, which i like as the best flathub appstore, aur version stopped working for me.
You can access the AUR in Bazzite very simply by creating an Arch distrobox and installing yay
oh and gearlever to update appimages and make desktop files so it shows up in menus, i only use this for shutter encoder right now
exactly what I ended up on with exactly the same issues with Mint (and Zorin as well). Cachy and Bazzite just worked (bazzite didn’t work on live image though), but yeah Mint just didn’t work.