A friend is due for a gaming PC build. But he’s super pissed it needs to run windows 11. I told him just run something else. He said his job needs something that runs windows-only and on the odd occasions where he needs a desktop to do something he’s not buying a second computer just to run windows.
Dual booting exists but Microsoft likes to clobber boot loaders. So I reminded him he could just run windows 11 in a VM when he needs to, everything else in bare metal Linux.
He’s now sold on moving to Linux.
The question is where should he start? It used to be as simple as “if you aren’t sure, use Ubuntu.” But his use case kinda seems like what everyone has been crowing about using bazzite for.
I have zero experience with bazzite but the page does describe something built for his use case. There are 3 concerns I have though.
- Is it common enough that he can Google an answer?
- it’s an atomic distro, so classic Linux answers he might find online won’t always be applicable here.
- selinux, ugh.
What’s a good gamer Linux distro? He’s not super into tinkering. He just wants it to do the thing without Microsoft’s invasive bullshit.
So, I’m an all-around Bazzite fan, but it does have a bit of an odd learning curve. It’s easy to use for a beginner, child, or grandma. However, if you’re used to fiddling with your system, it might be a little harder to get into because you have to navigate the immutable nature of the OS, which can complicate some online tutorials and potentially lead to frustration for an intermediate/experienced user migrating from Windows.
So my suggestion would be:
Child - Bazzite
Grandma - Bazzite
Gamer - Bazzite
Experienced Windows user - Fedora or Mint, then once you’re used to Linux, Bazzite
Developer - Bazzite
I personally use the Gnome version. It’s really polished and pretty.