I am still a relatively new Linux user, had tried Garuda and Bazzite on my Acer Gaming laptop 2021 (Intel integrated + Nvidia 3070 dgpu- muxless) back in July but neither worked, i kept getting weird freezes and nothing would open. Had no clue what the issue was and had zero Linux knowledge. So after a frustrating few days and many, many, many reboots I gave up. Reinstalled shitty Windows 10 again and that was that. Felt defeated lol.
Fast forward to November, the itch to go back to Linux was growing something fierce. Decided to follow some good advice from a friend, installed Pop OS and fuck, it worked like a charm. Fell in love and haven't looked back at Windows since.
Kept learning new things and picking up more knowledge about the terminal and was beginning to use quite a few commands without any fear. The terminal is class, feel like hackerman meme lol. I soon realised though that I was actually only using my Nvida gpu for everything, rendering and games etc. So decided to try hybrid. However i soon realised Steam wouldn't open, anything that i asked to run the discrete card would not actually run the Nvidia card. Tried removing the open drivers and replacing with the closed. Some things worked temporarily but I simply couldnt figure it out and decided to settle for manually switching between integrated and nvidia for different tasks. Handy feature on Pop OS 22.04.
Anyway, got the stupid distro hopping itch and started jumping about lol. Tried Cachy. Same issue with Nvidia card so bounced. Tried Nobara. Same again but stayed longer and tried few kernel PCI tricks using grubby (advice from somebody much more knowledgeable). That worked for a day or so but always kept going back to crashing the nvidia card (and was only able to use my Intel integrated card). So went back to Pop OS (my Linux safe space lol). Was almost ready to settle for my lot in life (in regards to this stupid Acer Nvidia laptop lol).
Throughout all this, I had been reading the Arch wiki off and on, and at first it may as well be gobbledegook. But after couple months of using Linux you just start picking things up a lot more, words that had no meaning before, soon made sense and you begin to have the basics down. I had been reading about this GSP firmware thing really late one night and then forgot next day and only remembered few days later. Apparently this GSP firmware that comes with the Nvidua driver can screw some of the older Nvidia cards and so disabling it, while using the closed driver can help some older machines. So earlier tonight, tried it on Pop just messing about and it worked. So I thought, fuck it, Nobara was brilliant, lets try that again and try and find out how this is done on Nobara.
Switched to Nobara, followed some stuff from the wiki and forums, did the commands, then rebuilt the akmods and regenerated the Drakut program. And hybrid graphics works fucking perfectly now!!! Fuck me, it feels amazing to have finally sorted a solution to an issue I was ready to give up on after trying to sort it for a couple weeks! And I also have to say, if I had simply gotten that answer the first night I went searching, I would be absolutely none the wiser about all the things I learnt through trial and error, through learning on the wiki and on forums etc.
Sorry for the long rant lol, just wanted to share a minor but personal triumph. After all that, I can really see how awesome Linux is. I honestly feel that I've learnt more about computers within the last few months on Linux, than I did in the last 15 years using Windows!
If anybody out there is thinking of trying Linux, you should absolutely give it a go! Jump in and have some fun! Make sure you back up any important data. But don't be afraid to make mistakes. Honestly that can be fun, figuring that out! There really are some great distros out there!
Linux4life motherfuckers!
Peace!
I moved a couple months back fully and have tried quite a few distros (before I figured out the hardware issue I was having on my Acer laptop). I have mostly used Pop OS (pre-Cosmic) and now Nobara is my daily driver.
Nobara is fantastic, it suits my use case perfectly and has everything ready to go essentially. The set up was very smooth and maintenance is a breeze. I did try Cachy too (when i still had my annoying hardware fault) and would love to try it again at some stage but I'm settled on Nobara and feel like the Fedora base is the perfect platform for learning more Linux in depth.
I was initially in love with Gnome and hated KDE for how it tried to copy Windows with the bottom left menu - I wanted something fresher. But i have used it more and customised it so its less like Windows and I adore KDE now as well.
I still use Windows on a separate laptop for work and its hilarious how shit Windows 11 is now, especially in comparison to using such a beautiful desktop environment on my personal laptop. So many things are broken and I just hate the fact that its almost entirely spyware, being filled with vibe coded ai shite and they still try and serve you ads when searching for stuff.
Fuck Microslop! Will never buy another Windows machine.