Back again haha, I asked a little while ago about making the switch from Windows to Linux and general consensus was maybe don't, as I use my PC for work doing voice acting, music production, and digital art.
Anyway, my PC has been crashing lately so I may be at the point soon of re-installing my OS, so I may as well bite the bullet if/when that happens. Right now I'm making some backups, making a list of Linux programs I'll need, and just trying to get my ducks in a row so I'm not scrambling if I wake up one morning and have to do the thing. Which brings me to Distros.
I've done some research into it but already but there are a bunch of options (thinking maybe Bazzite or Fedora?), and I'd rather know what I'm going with if my PC dies so I don't have to waste time trying to figure it out then. My PC specs are:
Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-11400F @ 2.60GHz 2.59 GHz
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
Obviously the priority is to get up and running but I'd really like to use a distro that I can learn some as well. I've installed Mint on an old laptop (recommended for being similar to Windows) but ideally I'd like a distro that's a bit more Linux-y. I'm ok taking some extra time getting up and running, though I'm not at a point for something like Arch yet haha.
EDIT: Wow, lots of comments, thanks! I think I've been overthinking it overall based on these responses. I have Mint on my old laptop and it works well, but had issues on my main laptop (Samsung Book3 Ultra) which I've read has to do with Samsung in general. I also had some issues with Nvidia on it but that may have been a Samsung issue more than anything else. My main PC uses Nvidia so I was under the impression that some distros just don't play well with it and wanted to make sure I used one that worked well with that graphics card.
Bottom line, I've been looking into Linux over the past few weeks and there's still distros mentioned here that I've never heard of haha. It seems really intimidating (hence why I asked) but I'm getting the impression that, at least for now, I'll just go Fedora to start when I bite the bullet. Arch looks really interesting but again, seems intimidating coming from Windows.
Im not sure how you'd even quantify that? I mean.. there's a lot of variation in linux, so there's not a "standard" linux experience.. DEs like KDE or cinnamon are more Windows-y, and ones like GNOME or Pantheon are more MacOS-y. There's TWMs which to me is what makes the linux experience, but those aren't for beginners and I wouldn't recommend you start with that
Really it doesn't matter what enviroment you use, so honestly im gonna agree with the other comment and just say use one of the big begginer distros like mint cinnamon lol
I wouldn't say that Mint is a 'beginner' distro. Sure, it's beginner friendly, but it's equally friendly for everyone. I've been a linux user for "a while" and currently I prefer Mint on my workstations. It offers me everything I need from a distro in a neat package and as I've been a Debian user since Potato it's a familiar environment.
But if OP want's somehting "more linux-y" then good old Debian should do the trick. Basically anything with decently long history besides Ubuntu (in it's current state) will do just fine.
Ye, that :3. I didn't mean mint is for beginners only, but it's one that's beginner friendly and popular for people starting linux
Gnome has an extension called PaperWM, and it's a fantastic middle ground between common stacking WMs and tiling WMs. It's probably most similar to River WM. I use it, and it's been a game changer.
FYI, if you want to help get people on the tiling bandwagon!
I started with pop!_os and their pop_shell on GNOME which also has tiling, and that's been fun :3..
At the moment pop is on the bench for me in terms of distro recommendations tho, cause of their work on COSMIC making it a bit behind, and possibly a bit unstable in the future
(Though COSMIC will be replacing TWMs for me, as it's imo a nice fresh spin on tiling with the window groups, which to me makes it the smoothest tiling experience even in the current alpha)
Same. I have my eye on Cosmic and will likely be hopping over, since I've essentially set up Gnome to work a lot like Cosmic