r/linux4noobs

I am thinking about switching to Linux, because windows 11 just makes problems.

I have a mid to high range pc with an AMD CPU and an AMD GPU.

I mostly use my PC for gaming and sometimes for Work/University.

I already looked up stuff for myself, but some opinions made it hard for me to choose.

I heard Mint and Nobara are great for gaming.

What do the experts from this community recommend? Is there anything to be aware off? I am not a Techwiz, but I am not completly helpless in regard to computers.

It would be nice of you if you could recommend something for me

TLDR; I need to know if, LibreOffice, Discord, HyTale, and FireFox can be installed/ran without much issue or barrier on Steam OS.

I am used to Linux Mint. I am thinking of distro-hopping, but I haven't heard basically anything about SteamOS' ability to run software not on Steam.

I love Linux Mint because it can, for the most part, serve as my day-to-day OS without too much issue, while Windows picks up the slack for the few apps I encounter that don't support Linux.

Is SteamOS a viable day-to-day OS? Is there a desktop, or is the UI literally just the Steam Big Picture mode?

I wanna be able to play games and make music (I use FL studio) without having to deal with a lot of errors, it's my first time full on switching to Linux but I have tested it before in the past (I tried Ubuntu) I want to make sure that nothing goes wrong as I will be running it on main PC.

I'm always was using TLP before but I got a Thinkpad T14 gen 5 with a Ryzen 5 CPU and I don't know which one to use, as a lot say PPD has better support for modern and CPUs, and some says TLP can be as efficient and more with right settings, here is my TLP config btw

        CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_AC = "powersave";
        CPU_SCALING_GOVERNOR_ON_BAT = "powersave";

        CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_AC = "performance";
        CPU_ENERGY_PERF_POLICY_ON_BAT = "power";

        # Hardware-level thermal and fan profiles via thinkpad_acpi
        PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_AC = "performance";
        PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_BAT = "low-power";

        # Squeeze extra battery life out of the NVMe drive and PCIe bus
        PCIE_ASPM_ON_AC = "performance";
        PCIE_ASPM_ON_BAT = "powersupersave";

        # Optional: Disable CPU turbo boost on battery to keep it dead silent and cool
        CPU_BOOST_ON_AC = 1;
        CPU_BOOST_ON_BAT = 0;

        # Charge thresholds to protect the battery chemistry
        STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0 = 80;
        START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0 = 75;

I've gotten tired of windows for a variety of reasons and I just got a new computer. I have an AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT gpu and an AMD Ryzen 7 9800x3d cpu with 32 gigs of ddr5. I kinda went all out on it lmao. I had tried cachy os for a while on it and a lot of things kept crashing randomly. Not entirely sure why so is there another os I should try or should I just try and fix the problem (whatever that may be)

hi,

my mother (70+) has an old Toshiba laptop which was not supporting windows anymore, so I set her up with Lubuntu 1 year ago

It works most of the time fine, but still some things are too complicated and hard to manage in Lubuntu for her.

What is another easy distro that will a) work well on an old laptop, and b) gives a simple windows-like experience. 90% of the time it's about going in the internet to check mails or do online banking

thanks!

2 weeks ago, I finally tried Linux and I chose Mint as my first distro. Not even 1 month in, I want to try another distro, and that is... FEDORA OS WORKSTATION EDITION

now, for those who have been using Fedora for the past months, years, weeks, please share your experience.

and for those people who tried Fedora, and went back to Mint, why?

damn.. this is just too exciting and I want to try and jump between different distros but I want to be smart about it that's why as a noob, I'm here to ask for your opinions.

Trying to install xubuntu on laptop (lenovo yoga 310), keep getting the above error. Still happens after redoing the USB, redownloading the ISO file, used etcher and rufus, used different USB drives.

Edit: have tried different distro, same issue. Still no idea how do do anything with kernels despite a lot of googling

Hi I am college student and programmer, I know linux has lot of types(arch, ubuntu, and more). Which one is the best for programmers? Obviously I have given up on Microsoft and want to switch to linux

Hi !

I’m pretty new to linux but I recently installed Omarchy BUT it’s « only » a script so I don’t know if I could my like endeavour or other distro look like Omarchy. I really like the styles, the neovim already installed but I don’t want to be stuck in Omarchy

Can I make something like that ?

Thanks

Inspired by this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1uinv1m/logging_was_wearing_out_my_ssd/

What ways exist to reduce say SSD, RAM and CPU wear? Underclock CPU? But what about RAM? As for SSD i use ZSTD:1 to reduce wear a bit. Given how expensive computer parts are, would it not be reasonable to reduce wear whenever possible?

Would zram be good for this?

Switching from Linux Mint to Ultramarine: What do you think of the idea?

I’ve been using Linux for 18 years—first Ubuntu, then Mint—and I’m a fan of the “keep it simple and make it work” philosophy. I’ve tried several distributions over the years, but I always come back to Mint (and you could even say I’m a fan of simplicity and reliability, even if it’s a bit boring). But it’s time to try something different—something radical enough compared to what I’m used to.

I also asked Deepseek this question before, and he replied: Comparing Ultramarine to Linux Mint is like comparing a sporty driving experience to a reliable family car. Both are excellent, but they have different approaches and are designed for different audiences.

I told DS that the only reason my car is a Honda Civic Type S is that I can’t afford a Honda Type R. I should clarify that Honda is my favorite car brand because of its reliability; otherwise, I’d prefer an Alfa Romeo.

What do you think of DS’s response? I think that, if you compare them to cars that way, then I should give Ultramarine a try.

What do you think?

Hi,
I was thinking about switching to Linux for ethical reasons for quite some time now but allways got held back by the amount of possibilitys out there. But after seeing a realy beautiful Linux theme I am hookt. Sadly that doesn´t make my "no clue which distro" go away.
Last time I realy used Linux was before 2010 and I can´t realy remember it, so treat me as a first time user that switches from Windows. I mostly do designe stuff in canva and uni stuff at my laptop with the ocasional use of crita for drawing and stuff.
The Laptop I want to switch over is a Lenovo Ideapad aka it has Touchscreen and I realy want to be able to use it as such for drawing and in general + it´s foldable and can switch desktop directions for reeding on it or something like that.
So which Linux distro should I choos?

As someone once said: my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

I was genuinely excited to give my old PC a 2nd life and banish my old Win10 from my 4790k GTX1080 and 16GB DDR3 ram.

The PC has 2x Sata SSD's and 3x WD Sata HDD's

I memtested the ram and it passed.

I tried to install Linux on my small SSD 256GB

I got the distro and checked Integrity and Authenticity. All checked out.

I created a bootable USB with Etcher, all seemingly worked.

I booted Linux Live.

Thats when the trouble started.

I got an endless Mint Logo loading screen.

Quick google search later I found the "quiet splash" and replaced it with "nomodeset"

Then it finally booted the USB Mint. I installed it by following the instructions first on my small older Crucial Blue SSD from 2014, nuked windows from it and replaced it with Linux.

After installing and booting into Mint I was greeted with a big White Empty Box and the Black Mint Background + Taskbar at the bottom.

Right clicking opened another epty glitchy white box which I assume was supposed to be a context menu.

Another quick google search I did the same with the "quiet splash" and replaced it with "nomodeset"

The Welcome screen worked albeit in low res.

I installed Nvidia Driver with the integrated manager, restarted, everything worked with resolution, boxes and all.

Then I Downloaded the "Automatic Updates"... and this is where it got worse...

After the update Linux wanted to restart, I said ok and so it happened. After the boot I was in the low res Desktop again...

Unknown Device, checked the update Manager to check Nividia install, according to mint it was there I switched to performance mode Nvidia.

Tried some reebooting and I ended up in easybox v1.36.1... turns out the bootloader or something got corrupted after a long painful search.

So I did everything over again! Nuked the whole mint and reinstalled it all again.

And ended up with the same problem as before only that this time after the Auto Update I wanted to update Nvidia, but it failed spectacularly with an error.

Afterwards I wanted to search from within Linux Mint with Internet and Firefox, but Firefox Profile did not exist, Firefox did not work...

Again I ended up with easybox v1.36.1 or similar menu.

With the Live Boot I smartchecked the SSD's with no noticeable errors and"repaired" the faulty bootsektor apparently, but after booting it immediately broke system again.

This time I used my younger not as old SSD and did EVERYTHING AGAIN!!!

Nuked the old broken Linux Mint and tried installing it again on the other Samsung Evo 800 SSD since I suspected the Crucial SSD maybe just being faulty despite my old Windows 10 running on it without issues on the same day for Years.

But the same happened again, the system collapsed in on itself after doing the Update, I didn't even get to install Nvidia this time and got a completely different failed error.

I tested if Firefox opened, it did, I accidentally closed it, tried to open it again, but Firefox is already running, Log out or reboot if this issue persists. So I did and the last things that happened was...

"despite vacuuming read only" with a bunch of numbers over and over

At this point over 10 Hours have passed trying to get Linux to run on my old PC.

If this is the onboarding experience of the "easiest" Linux Distro... I am not surprised that Linux is only is still on 5% Globally...

I really tried, but I reached my breaking point I built 4 PC's and never had so much issues with Hard or Software like this in a single day...