Good morning everyone. I've got the age old question of what distro should I use. I got started with Ubuntu and eventually moved to Linux Mint Cinnamon. I'm pretty happy with using it as a daily driver, and it's worked reasonably well with my NVIDIA graphics card. I enjoy a bit of the "it just works" I've experienced here, though there's been a few things I've had to address with light usage of the terminal; using the right audio out by default, and disabling HDMI video sources I'll never use. I'd say I'm probably somewhere in the beginner-moderate capability for use of terminal.
I've got Fedora, Debian, Majaro, Gentoo, Ubuntu, and Kali (not a daily driver) installed in virtualbox as VMs. Linux will be used as my daily driver and must accommodate occasional steam gaming. I don't want dual boot windows on my machine, it living in a VM is adequate for any one-off needs.
I think I'm going between Debian and Fedora, though I think Debian might be the way I'm leaning, as I want to get further upstream in the communities. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel a bit "bored" with mint. I think I'm eyeballing some of the fun stuff that exists in KDE.
This machine is my daily driver and used for work, so as long as I can get the basics in place to connect to my work VM through Horizion I'm OK. I do have a backup device to use for work in a pinch.
Laptop/setup overview:
- 9th gen intel I7 processor
- 64GB RAM
- NVIDIA GForce RTX-2060
- Generic style USB3.0 DisplayLink docking station
- Secondary display link device
- I'm running two 34" 4k monitors (3440x1440) side by side, another output on an HDMI duplicator running a 27" and a 55" 4k tv (,1920x1080) and the laptop display (1920x1080) is the 5th screen) so far working as intended, but I can't get only the built in display to run at 125% scale without affecting the others.
Should I be looking at ways to better customize Mint, or am I on the right path looking at Debian and Fedora? Are there other disros I should be evaluating?
EDIT: I think what I'm wanting is something that gets new features more frequently, yet doesn't become unstable. I feel drawn to the desktop eye-candy that I see getting featured with KDE desktops. I seem to believe I'm missing out on something, but can't directly state what.
Ultimately, I think I simply want to move to a more core/upstream version of Linux so that I get new functionality faster. I'm trying to find what I desperately need but never knew it existed.
EDIT2: Thanks everyone I really appreciate all the info and it's given me a better perspective on what to do next on my learning journey. It's fun, because there's so much to choose from and each has its own sprit.
EndeavorOS has been installed as a VM, and Fedora's KDE Spin in progress!
Thank you OP for clarifying! Distros that are closer to upstream, but still accomplish 'stability' (often through hand-holding) and on which KDE has great support would be (in alphabetical order):
A lot more can be said concerning the differences between these three distros. However, working with them either from inside a VM or through a Live USB is probably a lot more valuable. All three are great picks, so you should be fine regardless.
Please feel free to inquire if you so desire!
Thank you for this. I'll definately check out Fedora's KDE spin. I have used Kubuntu in the past, but it was back a bit and I got attached to Linux Mint.
A lot of negatives seem to come up around Oracle and Canonical being involved with SUSE and Ubuntu, but probably isn't a huge deal in the greater picture.
Fedora also has connections to Red Hat, so yeah 😅. I didn't even know Oracle had anything going with SUSE before the recent 'alliance' of sorts in reaction to what Red Hat has done recently. Was that what you meant or has SUSE being working with Oracle for a longer time?