As all the cool kids keep saying, now is a great time to try out Linux.
No, I’m not recommending a distro for you, that is what DuckDuckGo is for.
Ubuntu is actually falling down the ad hole lately. It’s not great, even if you leave out the technical issues that the distribution leans into these day (snaps, amongst other things)
does kubuntu have the same issues? kinda want to go for a debian or ubuntu based kde distro and kubuntu is always highly recommended.
Can you run windows games on linux without it being resource intensive like using a vm or something?
Gaming in Linux on a windows VM isn’t viable for most systems. Most games run really well through proton with little to no effort. Some even run better on Linux than on windows. You just can’t play a lot of the most popular competitive online games because it flags their anti cheat.
Running software designed and compiled only for XYZ system is always going to incur overhead when translating or emulating to ABC system.
Game authors and publishers who only build for Windows are giving users a big middle finger and essentially saying “You must suffer through Windows in order to enjoy our product hassle-free lol”.
What worked for me (which may or may not work for others) was to wean myself away, at first with only playing games that were built natively for linux.
Then moving the line in the sand to only DRM-free native linux builds.
Then advancing to only open source games.
These days, I just don’t even play games and I find that it really frees up what kinds of things I want to do on my computers, such as daily driving exotic CPU architectures (and also I have so much more free time for actual meaningful pursuits like learning new skills).
Many distros nowadays have decent support forngaming accessories and a mix of Lutris and Steam/Proton have given me a near seemless experience on Linux. Smooth enough for my partner to hop ship to Bazzite for their ROG Ally.
Sometimes there are small quirks, like controllers on Bazzite just work™ but on Vanilla OS 2 my xbox controller wouldn’t be recognized by Steam or games wirelessly (wired worked) but my DS5 controller worked flawlessly (including the trackpad that I never got to work on Windows).
Most of the Steam library will work well and ProtonDB is a great resource for compatibility. Furthermore there are Decky plugins for setups like Bazzite and Chimera that embed the ProtonDB rating into the Steam game page.
Actually to find a good distro and instructions on how to install them i recommend using an ai chatbot.
Majority of people have never created a bootable media but its easy enough ai can guide them step by step.
Or just use one of the hundreds of guides the AI was trained on.
Eh, just look up a reputable YouTube channel and guide. Chatbots can randomly make dumb mistakes that a total newbie won’t recognize, potentially causing them a lot of headache.
And no, I’m not one of those diehard anti-AI people. My work has its own custom GPT model and I utilize it almost daily for menial tasks. But even having it generate script boilerplate and whatnot, I sometimes notice it writing stuff that won’t work and/or does it in a really verbose/weird way.
You cant ask a youtube channel what distro best suit your specific usecase.
Also realistically no one wants to sit trough a video to check out a strangers recommendation for linux.
I do get that people are worried about the incompetence of AI but this topic and procedure is so bog standard i have more faith in chatgpt doing it then a human.
If you dont believe me, try it.
Ask chatgpt/claude/gemini “How to make a bootable linux media from windows” you will have to spend a long time trying before you find it fails on something this boilerplate.
I dislike AI but I think you’re unfairly downvoted. I find it helpful for ensuring I’m taking care of necessary steps in a common, low-stakes procedure. It’s useful to generate sequences of terminal commands as well, though it’s important to check and understand what you’re doing.
People are right to be worried and skeptical about AI
I honestly have gotten to hate how incompetent it often is because i do regularly try to squeeze something actual intelligent from it.
But other then that its like you said. Its very good for Low stake, common, boilerplate procedures and providing clear personalized instructions for non-techies. (and forgetful nerds).
Credit where credit is due & can’t argue with results.