I want something that’s stupid easy to install, requires no setup, and has recording and gaming functionality from the beginning. I constantly see people shitting on ubuntu for semi-valid reasons, and I’m open to stable alterantives.
I’m installing it on this laptop :
NB : This is for mission critical etc laptop. This will be my only daily driver computer, stability is the topmost priority.
BONUS POINTS : If it’s debian based so I can run solarus : https://solarus-games.org/
If you want something like that, Ububtu Studio might not have recording and gaming OOTB from what I’ve read on it. Maybe do something like Nobara or CachyOS (My current daily driver), and set it up. I know Nobara has gaming OOTB, and maybe recording too. CachyOS is Arch-based, and you might want to stay away from Arch if you’re a noob. I made that mistake using Manjaro as my first OS once I built my PC during the pandemic.
I don’t know of an “out-of-the-box” distro for multimedia outside of Ubuntu Studio, but I do know of a utility that will turn any distro into a low-latency, pro audio setup: rtcqs - it runs 10-12 tests on your system and tells you how to set it up for realtime audio, if it isn’t already - this is very much NOT what you asked for, but if you get your system going but it’s not performing like you expect, this could be the thing that fixes all your issues.
Ubuntu Studio is only configured by default for creators and the open source programs a creator would use OOTB like OBS for recording and Kdenlive for video editing; gaming support is easy enough to gain by using Heroic Launcher and Steam’s Proton Compatibility. If you want other tweaks, you’d have to research it and implement it yourself. Stay far away from CachyOS unless you are prepared to become very familiar with the Arch way of doing things (it’s not noob friendly like Ubuntu generally is). Ubuntu, while it does have that corporate stench, it’s still one of the better distros out there for being fairly easy to use.
OBS uses more system resources in Windows than Nvidia Capture, bcause Nvidia Capture uses something lower level than NVENC, is the same true of Linux?
I’ve only used OBS a tiny bit on Linux as I wanted to play around with it for a while, but the system impact wasn’t significant in my opinion. Didn’t stress my CPU or GPU while playing a game and using a browser at the same time.
Linux Mint is usually touted as being the most beginner-friendly Linux. Its UI is very Windows-like, it has a large enough userbase to have enough programmers to be able to have good configuration tools.
And of course, because it’s anyways based on Ubuntu, 95 % the support documentation for Ubuntu works for it as well.
Ubuntu-based of course means, it’s also Debian-based.- Ubuntu studio is already stupid easy to install and has recording and gaming support out of the box?
- You’re right that a lot of people around here don’t like Ubuntu. But it IS stable. And I’m not sure as a Linux noob you’re even going to notice the things that they don’t like. You could always try out multiple distros before choosing which one you’ll stick with. I’m not aware of any other distros like Ubuntu Studio. I use it on one of my laptops because it has great midi keyboard software pre installed for free. It’s just about the only way to get similar software for free without compiling it from source code yourself.
- If you have no other computer, please make a backup Linux install USB and put it in a safe place. You will have absolutely no way to save your system if it fails. Even Windows fails sometimes. Maybe look into Linux system rescue specific distros.
- Ubuntu is already Debian based (in case you didn’t know).
Edit: by gaming support out of the box I mean: just install one of the following apps through the Discover app: Steam, Lutris (supports multiple game launchers including Steam and EA), and/or Heroic Games (for GOG and Epic). There’s even a few more launchers like Bottles, but I never had much luck with it. There’s several options for Minecraft launchers. And, there’s even many open source games you can install directly through Discover. I recommend Super Tux Kart. It’s solid.
This advice is true for pretty much any distro, although the name of the app manager changes.
I moved to Bazzite and really liked it. You lose a little bit of control (encouraged to do things the bazzite way because it’s based off fedora atomic) but the ease of use more than makes up for it.
I personally find using an immutable distro fairly annoying (as there’s a lot of packages that you can’t easily install), and would recommend either the KDE or Gnome versions of Fedora, depending on which you like best. It could be a little easier to break but I think you’re very unlikely to run into any problems with it that wouldn’t happen on an immutable distro. Unless you intentionally mess with system packages or something
I recently switched to Ubuntu Cinnamon. I like it a lot, but I’ve had some headaches making some things work. It’s worth it me, as I will never return to Windows. I relied heavily on chatgpt to get me through tweaking it. Any errors I would receive in the bash terminal, I would paste into chatgpt and it would give me step by step instructions on what to do. I would have thrown the laptop in a pond without that, though. The technical barrier to entry isn’t too high, so long as you exercise a little patience.
You can game and record on Ubuntu studio and everyone who says you need a different distro is wrong. Install steam and OBS and you’re good to go. If youve got an nvidia card check youve got the latest proprietary driver and thats really it.
If you really do want a different distro you can try nobara fedora based, bazzite fedora based but immutable, pika Debian based, popOS Ubuntu based.
