I don’t spend much time on my desktop computer but if I do I tend to game a bit. OW II, CS, Helldivers, Tabletop Simulator mostly. And of course need Discord.

I am considering a minor upgrade to the hardware and would need a fresh install (currently Win 10). I’ve been out of the distro game for a while and currently only have one old thinkpad running Debian and an X1 Carbon gen7 I want to use for experimentating/ distro hopping.

I want a daily driver OS that can play games. I also edit photos and might to the odd “flash a CFW to an old phone” or similar light tasks. Where do I start?

I hear PopOS because “it just works” but also CachyOS because “performance, muh”.

I have experience with Ubuntu (first was 6.06) and Fedora mostly but have played around with a lot that came with at least a barebones UI (crunchbang anyone?). My life has changed so I have less time to nerd out with this than I used to. But I feel the itch to experiment now and maybe use Linux on my main desktop again after some years with that mentioned upgrade soon.

  • 4shtonButcherOP
    1·
    37 minutes ago

    No one picked up in the photo editing part. I guess I’ll look around a bit how the state of OSS tools is today. And what’s available as a flatpak maybe.

  • ScrambledLogic@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    5·
    3 hours ago

    I will second Bazzite, with the additional note that I’ve needed to use Feral Gamemode to get rid of microstuttering and other minor performance issues. But, that’s not really different from any other distro I’ve tried gaming on (Void, OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, Funtoo).

  • FergleFFergleson@infosec.pub
    2·
    2 hours ago

    I’ve been using Mint as my daily driver and gaming PC for years. Very happy with it.

    If you’re really on the fence, and you’re building a new system, you might just want to “distro hop” for the first week or so. It’s a little work and a bit disruptive, as you’ll be re-installing the OS every few days. But just like a car, there’s nothing like actually driving it to get a feel for how much you’ll like it.

    • 4shtonButcherOP
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Interesting, I’ll have a look! Any ad-hoc comments why it’s better than Cachy OS?

      • BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org
        2·
        1 hour ago

        Generally; CachyOS is Arch Linux, which means all the good sides and down sides of Arch.

        Bazzite is universal-blue. Which is immutable Fedora. You can’t really mess around with the system. You install software via flatpak, everything is a very controlled environment.

        • 4shtonButcherOP
          1·
          39 minutes ago

          Thanks, that’s a great explanation! So in my terms, Bazzite is what I should consider for my daily driver, CachyOS might be worth fiddling around with on my “just for fun” thinkpad :)