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Installing Linux on friend's new PC, which distro should he use? (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by sbeak@sopuli.xyz to c/linux@programming.dev

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edit: Fedora it is then!

He will be running the AMD 9800 X3D w/ RX 9070 XT, B850 motherboard.

I am deciding between either Fedora (probably KDE) and Bazzite (also KDE), but I'm not sure whether an atomic distro would be better/worse for a newbie.

As far as I understand, atomic distros can be easily rolled back after an update, but you are unable to use apt/dnf/etx, you need to use Flatpak, I think. Would that be limiting for the average user? Also, does Bazzite have better driver support for newer AMD hardware compared to Fedora?

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[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 13 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Fedora if he's not gaming.

Bazzite if he's gaming. Or CachyOS.

I'll give you the secret to easy linux: stick with defaults! Stick with distros aimed at whatever you're tying to do, and you get a whole army of very experienced developers preconfiguring it all for you, for free. Instead of having to maintain breakage youself.

For example, do you want to learn all about debugging AMD drivers? Do you want to get into the intricacies of performant Proton setups, and environment variables, and kernels stuff?

You could just not, and get all that prepackaged!

Here's just a sampling of some pre-configured stuff in my distro:

cachyos/protonplus 0.5.14-1
    A simple Wine and Proton-based compatiblity tools manager for GNOME
cachyos/protontricks 1.13.1-1
    Run Winetricks commands for Steam Play/Proton games among other common Wine features
cachyos/protonup-qt 2.14.0-1
    Install and manage Proton-GE and Luxtorpeda for Steam and Wine-GE for Lutris
cachyos/umu-launcher 1.3.0-2
    This is the Unified Launcher for Windows Games on Linux, to run Proton with fixes outside of Steam
cachyos/vkd3d-proton-mingw-git 3.0.r0.g6d97b022-1
    Fork of VKD3D. Development branches for Protons Direct3D 12 implementation

cachyos-znver4/mesa-git 26.0.0_devel.216300.02cfc61cc93-1
    an open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification, git version

Do I know a thing about how Proton works? Nope. Do I know anything about maintaining an upstream AMD driver for some kind of bug fix? Absolutely not. And I don't have to! It's just there, in sync with the rest of my system through some maintainer's magic.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 10 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (1 children)

Fedora if he's not gaming.

Bazzite if he's gaming. Or CachyOS.

Specs are a 9800X3D and a 9070XT. He's definitely gaming.

Or if he isn't, he bought the wrong computer.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 5 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

I'd do CachyOS. It's a very new GPU. They even have packages specifically optimized for that CPU, and fixing stuff (other than simply rolling back) isn't such a pain.

But I'm biased, as I like CachyOS.