So I’ve mainly used windows all my life, because I am a gamer. I have dabbled with Linux and can use the Debian command line fine however due to games windows was always my primary.
After I found out about Proton for Steam (allowing me to play most my steam games on Linux) I switched over right away. I still have windows for the games that aren’t steam etc but I mainly use Linux. When I went to pick my distro, I stumbled on Manjaro and that loads of gamers where using it, they had great driver support etc. It was all great, I didn’t realise it was Arch though and while I like the OS, it’s good, I want something Debian based.
Now I can’t use PureOS because of the driver situation, I tried installing PureOS on my PC and the PC just did not like it one bit, if someone could recommend me some Distros to look at it’d be appreciated .
Even though you have implicitly rejected Ubuntu, I would still recommend Ubuntu. Unclear on what you are saying about wishing for Gnome, since Gnome is the default desktop on Ubuntu.
Although the GNOME spin of Ubuntu is now no longer being worked on, you can still install GNOME on a regular Ubuntu installation from the standard software repositories. I’m not sure whether this would work with Linux Mint - IIUC Mint is heavily tied to its supported desktop environments which don’t include GNOME.
I used Ubuntu a number of years ago and I just wasn’t a fan, IIRC it was full of bloated software and felt too commercialised.
I have also been debating MINT, I wish MINT had a GNOME Desktop though. However I’ve since found out that Cinnamon is basically GNOME with some tweaks xD.
Debian it’s self is also something I was just looking into and I might actually go with. IDK why I didn’t consider it before, I guess I’ve just never known anyone to run it haha.
Apologies if I was unclear, I hope this makes more sense.
Yes, you are not the only person to feel this way about it…
I know people who do… Basically, it is a much more conservative distro than Ubuntu: the emphasis is on being rock solid rather than running the latest versions of everything, and it does that job very well. Application updates that are not security-related may take a long time to be adopted in vanilla Debian.
It uses the same underlying technology as GNOME, but the UI and desktop look more like a traditional desktop, like MATE (or GNOME 2 if you were using that back in the day). You don’t get the GNOME 3 trademark features, like the Activities view.
Ah,it was many moons ago when I was around 12 years old so I couldn’t quite remember but clearly that was the case then.
Yeah I’ve heard this before as well, I’ve got a laptop at home which isn’t important, I might throw MINT and Debian on them and just see which one I get along with better. The update the PC when I decide.
If you want the cutting edge GNOME experience, the lead distro is of course Fedora Core. I have never used it in anger, and I don’t know how well your hardware is supported. I use mostly GNOME on openSUSE Leap: the version of GNOME isn’t the latest though. openSUSE Tumbleweed is probably better (Tumbleweed is a rolling distro, like Arch, while Leap needs periodic point upgrades). There is no big issue with the proprietary NVIDIA drivers on openSUSE: NVIDIA provide software repositories so updates are sutomatic.
Both have their own package management systems (dnf for Fedora, zypper/YaST for openSUSE): it depends how much time and effort you want to spend exploring the strengths and weaknesses of each . Having said that, my personal view is that the package management system of openSUSE is one of its strengths.
Apart of the Graphics Card I use the exact same HW (GTX 970). I had arch and ubuntu running on my system flawlessly. While I use debian on my servers I did want to have recent sw for my gaming on my pc that’s why I first moved to arch. Problem with that were problems launching games on steam every now and then (civ 5,6 mostly) due to the old drivers which steam expected while arch had the newest stuff. That’s why I switched to the latest (k)ubuntu LTS. I use propietary graphics driver and everything works fine, also running windows games with proton.
I also have no impression of a bloated OS, but that may be because I installed Kubuntu instead of the original ubuntu.
Be also aware to subscribe to the arch newsletter if you stay with arch, so that you know about breaking changes which happen maybe once or twice a year where you may have to do things foremost if you like me create a cronjob to update your system which you should definitely not do in arch.
You should also not have anything important on your arch system as it is no stable system. So do your backups well!
I’ve not had any real issues tbh, it’s just the package manager I don’t like tbh xD.
I am aware of the rolling release issues and breaking updates though. I just don’t have anything valuble on the OS anyway atm. All my game saves are backed up to steam and all my important files (family photos, work etc )are still on windows and my external HDD.
This was also another concern of mine with Arch though, that sometimes the OS is known to just break.
Thanks for the suggestions, I still think I’m going to put Debian and Mint on my laptop though, possibly going with Debian.
I’ve done much distro hopping in a similar situation to yours, and the distro that has treated me the best ended up being solus. I used their budgie desktop for a long time, but as they’ve recently started supporting plasma that’s what in running now, though they do have straight gnome. If you don’t care to use the command line it’s a good distro to go with, they have a very simple to use software center. It’s not debian based, though, but again its treated me better than any other OS as far as just working.
Basically, it is a much more conservative distro than Ubuntu: the emphasis is on being rock solid rather than running the latest versions of everything, and it does that job very well. Application updates that are not security-related may take a long time to be adopted in vanilla Debian.