I’d say Bazzite but I would warn him (and since he’s a developer already it might not be a big deal) if he’s looking to do any sort of dev work or whatever with Bazzite then prepare to utilize stuff like distrobox, flatpaks, etc to accomplish stuff like that.

That being said as a dev and gamer myself if my first linux experience was Bazzite I might get annoyed. Mint is a great first experience. when I originally tried it well over a year ago though I did have issues with my Nvidia GPU on it and gaming wasn’t super great BUT it’s been awhile since I’ve used mint so that may have changed.

Honestly I would suggest start with Mint and just drive it for a couple weeks. If he likes it but feel it’s limited for some things then that’s when he can expand out to different distros. And like I said maybe gaming on Mint has improved since I last used it. But if he’s comfortable with running distrobox and containers then Bazzite is fine.

I mean at this point you’ve pretty much hit most things with the exception of a WM but you’ve stated that i3 was too much for you so…there isn’t really anything else. you’ve done xfce, cinnamon, gnome, and kde. that’s it. Other than say LabWC but if i3 was too much than that’s not going to be much better. And I’m assuming when you say “too much” you mean editing the configuration?

you could do something like Niri or Hyprland with Quickshell/DankMaterialShell where the config is all done essentially via the DMS/GUI setup for it.

Honestly the last one would be COSMIC DE. but if you’ve used GNOME already you might not like it. COSMIC does give you the option to toggle between stacking and tiling so that’ll be different than what you’ve already used but if you liked the customization of the previous DE’s you’ve used you’re going to be disappointed with COSMIC as the customization for it right now is very limited.

As a NixOS user…yeah don’t recommend it. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely adore NixOS but suggesting people switch to it when their current distro works perfectly fine for them is a disservice.

NixOS makes the hard things easy, and the easy things hard. It’s incredibly frustrating trying to get something that should be insanely easy to work on NixOS. A good example of which is Neovim with Lazyvim. on every other distro it’s not a big deal, it should be easy to install right? on NixOS you’ll be pulling your hair out trying to get the meson tree-sitter crap to work correctly. Or you’ll find stuff that has been specifically re-packaged or put into a flake to work for NixOS. ok that’s fine, that’ll work on SOME peoples configurations but if yours is ever so slightly more unique it won’t. And then you start to wonder and question if your configuration is wrong but the thing is with NixOS there’s no right or wrong with the configuration. Some people will suggest you use flakes, some people will say don’t bother. Some will say you should put every single thing in modules, some will say don’t bother.

So the problem is with NixOS is that when you start using it and understanding it going to another distro feels like you’re somehow reverting. BUT there’s the potential issue of getting stuck in the rabbit hole that is constant NixOS configuration adjustments to try and get that most perfect and smooth config out of your system. Currently I’m on Arch because I’m taking a “vacation” from NixOS. I have some important projects that are due soon and I just needed to get into a distro that will allow me to focus on them. In a couple weeks time however I know I’ll be back on NixOS.

Still to this day I switch DEs/WMs every so often to try and find that right “fit”. I think that’s the biggest minor issue with Linux right now. IMHO there’s not a single perfect DE. I like KDE, everything just works, BUT how workspaces/virtual desktops work with multiple monitors is an absolute pain. Yes I’m aware with the update coming this month it’ll improve slightly but all I want from it is to have each monitor have it’s own set of dedicated workspaces like every other WM has. KDE just won’t do that regardless of the fact it’s been asked for for like 20 years now.

So I constantly end up switching. Niri, Hyprland, Plasma, whatever. None of them feel perfect and they all have their deal breaker quirks that I tolerate for awhile until I just can’t and end up switching. Like for example on Niri with some games when scrolling through windows and going back to the game it doesn’t pick up the mouse immediately so you have to do a quick switch to either another window and back or another workspace and back. similar issue with Hyprland except it’s with the keyboard instead of the mouse. Sway has similar issues. Hyprland I don’t like how workspaces work with multiple monitors either.

This is just the nature of Linux overall. sometimes you just have to tolerate the minor issues for the overall better performance/features. and it doesn’t just apply to DEs/WMs. there’s rarely anything on Linux that is the total package and 100% everything you want. Take terminals for example. Alacritty is great, fast, responsive…doesn’t do images. Kitty is awesome with images, gpu stuff, fast, smooth…doesn’t work great with tmux/multiplexers cause the dev hates them. or how about editors? DOOM Emacs has all the features I could ever want…slow as shit on startup. Lazyvim is fantastic with all the plugins available…absolute pain in the ass to get working 100% on my distro NixOS. I could go on and on. none of these are absolute dealbreakers just minor annoyances that make me constantly switch things.

So I completely 100% hear you. you like GNOME, it’s your preferred DE, BUT the potential issues with Steam Frame and VR are a deal breaker. And those things work on KDE BUT you’re just not happy with how KDE works overall. I get it man. I’m not a fan of GNOME but I get it. I mean give hyprland a shot but try it out with the defaults first before you invest too much time into configuring it and then finding there’s like one or two things that just won’t work. I’ve done that before. spent hours configuring like Sway or something to my liking and then finding out one particular application just doesn’t play well with it. It’s frustrating. Good luck.

I mean pretty much any distro can achieve that even Arch based ones. For example with CachyOS you could essentially run it with say KDE and never need to open a terminal at all. Cachy includes Octopi as its GUI package manager and it works well. KDE can also potentially handle the updating for you.

you could also run say something like Bazzite or Nobara which is essentially the same. Nobara does have it’s own updater but i’ll be honest it’s kinda wonky sometimes and generally only starts off with access to its own repos.

Essentially at the end of the day the Distro doesn’t really matter in most cases. As long as it can utilize a GUI package manager or some sort of “app store” and allows easy installation of something like KDE then you’re good to go. The exceptions to this I would say would be like Gentoo or NixOS but as someone who uses NixOS…technically…it could potentially fit the bill. But that would require a bit of work to get it to that point.

Actually now that I think about it getting something like working on NixOS would be an interesting side hobby project to work on.

as others have said KDE is going to work the same on Fedora as it does on your current Kubuntu system. You may be thinking “oh Fedora KDE, it must be really good on that” no that’s just how Fedora does things. I mean they have Fedora Sway and it doesn’t mean that Sway is superior on THAT version of Fedora. it just how they roll with their distro. Like say you install CachyOS as an example and during installation it presents you the option to install pretty much EVERY DE and WM in existence. Feodra simply doesn’t give you that option during install, you need to figure out which one you want to use before downloading the specific ISO for it.

So is it a better experince? it’s the same experience honestly.

I use freerdp. it’s simple, works well, just use it via the terminal. I have it alias’d so I don’t even have to think about it.

I love NixOS but it really does make the hard things easy and the easy things hard. I even take “vacations” from it. Like right now for example. I switched back to Arch for a bit as I found myself spending too much time playing around with my various nix configurations/modules and also getting frustrated in trying to get some random application to work. So went back to Arch so I don’t have to think about stuff.

the beauty of NixOS is I can go back to it and be exactly where I left off in like 15minutes. I just need a break from it.

as someone who is a dev by trade I update/backup on fridays because I think it’s funny.

Photo editing: darktable
Digital Art: Krita
Illustrator type stuff: Inkscape

Pain: Gimp. although the PhotoGIMP plugin makes it bearable.

OR wait for the recent wine patch to mature a bit more and then you can literally just use Photoshop.

I recently tried out Ironbar because waybar just really annoys me and I was impressed with Ironbars config which was essentially “yeah…use whatever the hell you want.”

tried it on arch, nixos, fedora both native pkgs and flatpaks. no dice. push to talk only works when either in a game or when discord is focused. all via various wayland des/wms be it KDE, Niri, Sway, Hyprland, etc

I use the Discord Nix pkg, not armcord or vesktop. I’ve always had this issue be it on arch, nixos, or fedora. I’m starting to lean towards “user error” as I just must not have something set up right. but yeah I’ve never used armcord, vencord, or vesktop.

Feishin, SuperSonic, cmus, and kew are the only ones I really like with kew being my personal favourite.

I don’t need much from my music player as I just like to hit shuffle on all my songs (6000+) and kew just does that.

I’ve also started thinking about doing streaming music again as I currently have a month trial with Qobuz and I really like it. Thankfully lastnight I was FINALLY able to find a linux Qobuz player, QBZ, that works very well as I’m not a fan of the Qobuz webplayer.

I like Audacious but for the life of me either because I’m too stupid or too lazy but on NixOS I can’t get winamp skins to work.

It’s fine. There’s still some quirks with Wayland I don’t like. Either having to be in a game or have Discord focused in order for push to talk to work for example. Some mouse constraint issues with certain games that for whatever reason KDE has been able to figure out but every other wayland compositor hasn’t.

Hell you can use Arch without the terminal if you really wanted to. CachyOS for example uses Octopi which is one of the few Arch Package Manager GUI’s that support both Pacman and AUR. so in that case you may never really need to touch the terminal and Octopi is preinstalled with CachyOS.

Other than that Fedora KDE or Bazzite are good options. But yeah there are few Distros where you really don’t need to use the Terminal if you don’t want to.

I don’t even use a login manager on my nixos plasma 6 build. I just don’t see a point/need for them when I can just login and start plasma via the tty just fine. And in many cases if you have multiple DE’s and WM’s installed like I do it’s actually better/easier to NOT have a login manager/display manager.

For me it’s the fact that there’s no “perfect setup” for anything. This likely only applies to my specific machine (kids, don’t buy an asus rog strix, trust me) but I can never get the “ok this setup is perfect, everything works exactly how I like it, I can’t complain”

What I mean by this is for example KDE Plasma 6. All my apps and everything work on it. games work flawlessly, all my dev tools, great. so I should be happy right? no. workspaces suck on multi-monitor setups, no native auto tiling and the third party script that does it is kinda wonky. Ok fair enough lets use something else like say Niri or Sway or Hyprland whatever. cool I got my tiling, I have my vim nav, awesome right? no certain games don’t work with these WMs as they all have issues with mouse constraints on certain xwayland stuff that KDE has managed to solve.

OK fair enough lets try an x11 WM. nope can’t do it on my laptop as I have both an integrated AMD gpu and and discrete Nivida gpu therefore x11 can’t handle it as far as gaming goes.

There’s a few other things like that. Like I want to use something that isn’t packaged for whatever distro so you go with the app image of it but it’s pretty much useless since it won’t integrate with your system. i.e. the appimage of Tabby. Or waiting on a package to get approved but the maintainer drops out at the last minute so either you have to pick it up or wait on someone else to which essentially resets the process (yay nix pkgs).

Essentially with linux in most cases the focus always seems to be on fixing the complicated things while ignoring the easy user experience things. Like workspaces shouldn’t suck as much as they do on Plasma and the “fix” coming next month isn’t going to improve things that much. oh boy I can pin a single app on my second monitor…that doesn’t fix the dreadful workspace experience on Plasma. ALL they have to do is allow independant sets of workspaces per monitor. that’s it. that’s all I want. but the devs at KDE, just like their opinions on tiling, will say “well we don’t use workspaces like that so you won’t either”.

I use doom emacs. has everything I need, even use it as my regular terminal now. check it out, it’s pretty damn good what you can do with it.