I don’t know what all these doomsayers are doing. I installed Bazzite and it just worked. I decided I didn’t want an immutable system so I switched to Garuda, and it just worked. I have Nvidia and didn’t have to do anything extra.

My first Linux was Bazzite. It was great but I didn’t like immutability so I switched to Garuda, which was also very easy.

As you are deciding, consider the differences between the main branches, Arch, Fedora, Ubuntu, etc., and their operating philosophy. Next look at the distro, specifically the helper apps and tools. Many distros now have “at startup” apps now that will help you with updates and installing common software. This help, or lack of it, will make a big difference to you as a beginner.

Garuda does will with Nvidia too.

I assume you mean raw? Because I’m a noob and I installed Garuda, which is Arch, and it’s been dead easy.

Everyone could use Arch! Let’s all flex together!

I started with Bazzite but didn’t like that it was immutable. I broke the permissions on my drive and had to reinstall trying to force it to let me change the login screen background.

After that I switched to Garuda and have had it about a year.

The most painful part was figuring out what Linux uses as app stores and how they work. Bazzite just released Bazaar and I haven’t tried it yet but I hear it works on other distros too. Software installation and management is the biggest hurdle to easy use and that gap is closing fast.

The most common problem I have had is that a Windows app stops working and I try a different version of proton and the problem goes away.

I have only ever had to use the command like when doing weird stuff. Most people won’t need to.

Garuda also has a great helper app that lets you choose common starting software with check boxes, has buttons for updates, firmware, and other common settings, tweaks, and troubleshooting tools. It makes it pretty painless to get started.

Garuda also comes with KDE, Gnome, or Xfce (your choice) so you can get the desktop experience you like.

Garuda is also very user friendly and gaming focused if you want something that isn’t immutable.

Garuda absolutely nails it with their helper app that sets you up with a choice of popular software, handles updates, and gives you easy access to common settings.

It makes it very approachable for people new to Linux.

That’s fair, but as a Linux beginner, I was happy to have more software than I needed at the start rather than not enough. If you know what you are doing, I could see how you could have a different opinion.

I assume you are taking about desktop environment stuff? I installed the xfce version and it’s been pretty streamlined.

Oh? I’m still a Linux noob, educate me.

After Bazzite I went to Garuda, is also gaming focused and has a handy helper app that helps you install common software, run updates, and more.

If you need a new distro it’s worth a look.

Garuda had the same gaming focus as Bazzite without the immutability.

Maybe they aren’t very comfortable with English but know more people speak it? It’s kind of amazing how technology can let you communicate with people you otherwise couldn’t talk to otherwise.

I love Garuda, I’ll have to give it a watch. Thanks!

If you get to the point where you decide you want a distro that is not immutable, try Garuda, it’s where I went after Bazzite. It is also gaming focused and has a great helper app to install most of the things most people need and do updates.

I use Garuda, you just install the Nvidia version and the updater handles updates automatically whenever you run it.

Easy peasy.

Xfce user, here to represent!

I love it and haven’t had any trouble. Try it out!

Non immutable just means that your system isn’t locked down to make sure you don’t accidentally break something. Some people have a strong preference for it one way or another.

As to why it might help, every distro comes with a custom mix of software and tweaks. Bazzite is fedora based while Garuda is Arch based. Some things may work better or worse with less tweaking.

So if you are frustrated enough to consider something else and aren’t committed to an immutable distro, it might be worth experimenting with.

If you want a non immutable distro, I switched to Garuda after Bazzite and it has been great for gaming.

I dunno, I use Garuda and it’s an Arch distro. It’s been super user friendly and I’ve only had to learn console stuff when I wanted to mess with stuff most casual users wouldn’t be bothered with.

And maybe you would say, “well that’s not really representative of a normal Arch install” but isn’t that the point of different distros? That anyone can build on functionality to do something like make Arch more user friendly?