Recently, I switched from Windows to Linux, tried many distros, and ended up with the Ubuntu rolling-release. Things went well for some days, but I started facing some issues like printer issues, gaming performance issues, and overall Ubuntu performance issues. So, I switched to where it all started, which is Windows 10. Now I’m on Windows, but the likeness and pleasure of using Linux are still with me.
So, what I wanted was a faster, rolling-release, easy-to-use distro with easy installation of Nvidia proprietary drivers.
What I have now planned is Fedora, because I like it. The issue with Fedora is that I can easily install the Nvidia driver, unlike Ubuntu. Can I search for the driver in the store or something else?
Or anything better than a fedora.
Graphics card: GT 730. I quit gaming, so gaming was not an issue anymore.
So, what I wanted was a faster, rolling-release, easy-to-use with easy installation of Nvidia proprietary drivers
EndeavourOS. It’s Arch-based, so it’s a rolling release, the install Nvidea driver option is right on the boot menu when you first install, it’s easy to use (and easy to install) and has a Wecome tool to help you navigate if you’re not used to Arch. And, at least in my experience, it’s fast
There’s some drawbacks tho. It’s on the lighter side: good if you wanna pick and choose what you wanna have on your system, not so good if you want something that’s ready to go OOTB. Another thing is most of the action takes place in the Terminal, hence the “terminal-centric distro” thing. That’s easily fixable tho, since you can either re-enable your Discover shop (KDE), the Gnome software center’s already good to go, or just install Octopi or Pamac if you really don’t wanna use the terminal for stuff.
Give it a go if you. It cured my distrohopping and basically ensured I’ll never go back to Windows (long term anyways. Temporarily, well, sometimes you gotta).
I’ve been running endeavour on a little tablet PC with kde. It’s been pretty great overall, but I’ve also gotten interested in Manjaro. Thoughts on how they compare? I read one article that was like, whatever you like better!
Manjaro is…tricky.
I’ve called it an Arch based distro that kinda sucks at being an Arch based distro before, and I stand by that. You can’t treat Manjaro like you would EndeavourOS or Vanilla Arch Linux because of how Manjaro decides to do things: essentially, updates are held back by a couple of weeks for better and worse instead of being released as they’re made avaliable. While that means it can catch disastrous things like the GRUB issue another user pointed out (Manjaro was unaffected by it IIRC), it also means the system is prone to breaking itself more often. You can forget about using the AUR if you’re using Manjaro–or well, you can, but the AUR and Manjaro are nortorious for not playing nice with one another because of the latter’s tendencies to hold back packages.
Personally, I wouldn’t recomended. I had more trouble with Pop_Os!, yeah (even tho i can admit that’s my favorite spin of Gnome 3), but Manjaro just tested my patience more than anything else. However, If you don’t mind being extra careful with what you install (really that’s standard practice for any distro, but hey, I’ve never found a WIP package that messed up my system anywhere other than when using Manjaro, so make of that what you will), are willing to tolerate constant mild to severe breakage, and just using Flatpaks and appimages over the AUR, then give Manjaro a try.
That’s all great info, thanks for taking the time. This is my first go with Arch based. I work with Windows for a living and have used Debian based for years.
Endeavor has had a little bit of a learning curve, but sounds like I’ll be sticking with it.
I know they say they are a terminal based os, but any tips on some equivalent to a software center, or at least where I can find compatable apps?
Thanks for what you’ve already taken the time to write!
Pamac (either pamac-all or pamac-all-no-snap). You can go with Octopi if you want, but pamac should more than meet your needs–and personally, I like it better.
He’s looking for a distro with an easier install method when it comes to the nvidia drivers. EndeavorOS is arch based, and is the antithesis of easy. It’s just a graphical arch installer.
I use arch myself, but it takes alot of manual interventions to keep working. Look at the grub issue causing black screens, the repo swap, or the linux kernal that caused laptops with intel chips to flash full brightness on their screens backlight, that could have broken the screen, requiring a downgrade until it was fixed. Arch is fantastic, but it’s like a toddler you have to continuously keep from running head first into traffic at times. If they’re ok with that I’d say go full send. Endeavor is a fantastic distro
I’d argue fedora, or nobara, are great options. Same with opensuse tumbleweed. No idea what the issue is on those systems with nvidia drivers though sadly, so I couldn’t help
I wouldn’t go as far as calling Arch the antithesis of easy (tho you are right that it’s like a toddler you have to constantly babysit. Don’t like that part, but I wanna say that’s most rolling releases, no? Plus I haven’t found a stable release that i jive with either, so nothing left but to tolerate it), but then again, that varies from person to person. After all, I struggled much more with Pop_Os! (in general) and Fedora (more growing pains than anything) than I ever did with Arch, and I’m an idiot when it comes to computers–pretty good at looking up answers to problems tho lol
Issues are pretty mixed IMO. There are ones beyond our control like the GRUB one and the backlight one, can’t really do much about them (but I’m not gonna pretend it’s only an Arch thing. Every distro messes up once in a while) except sit tight until there’s a fix…or well, you could try and fix it yourself, but then we lead to the other thing, in my expierence, anyways: 90% of issues happen because the user messed with something. Not even something obvious, i mean mucking about within the systems guts for one reason or another without knowing what you’re doing. I’ve since adopted a golden rule: you don’t bother the PC, it doesn’t bother you. Personally, haven’t had problems besides the backlight one, and even that was fixed quickly.
Regarding Tumbleweed and Fedora, they’re good options, but installing nvidea drivers isn’t super straightforward. Would have still recommended Fedora, or even better, Mint if they hadn’t said they were looking for a Rolling Release, actually. Nobora should be easier, or so I’ve heard. Never actually tried it myself.
I can understand your point of view, and I’ll admit "the antithesis of easy is an over-exaggeration. I’d like to argue against the isldea of arch being too similar to other rolling releases, or semi-rolling like fedora. Though you’re right, they can all be road wanderers at times
As for the things out of our control like grub and the kernal screen bug, they didn’t hit fedora, tumbleweed, or many other semi-rolling or rolling releases. This is, of course, due to the fact that arch is here to find these problems first. Also, the others don’t have as many manual interventions like the repo migration, or the package migrations that happen a few times yearly. This is entirely within the control of arch, though I do like how it’s handled
That last one is a philosophical idea which I agree with, don’t mess with what could be configured for a reason, but if you don’t follow the mailing list you may find your system breaking more often than the others.
Though arch is fantastic, and no matter what I try out I seem to always find my way back to it, It is a uniquely challanging toddler to babysit
That Arch basically tanks a lot of those problems so that other rolling distros don’t deal with them is something that i hadn’t considered till now, tho you are right there.
Yeah, I’ve tried going to Tumbleweed or other distros, and I just keep coming back to my XFCE + Arch combo. Dunno, it just speaks to me ig.
Check out Nobara, it’s basically Fedora with tweaks and automatically installs the Nvidia drivers for you.
I don’t know what is Ubuntu rolling-release and I’ve been using Linux for twenty years.
If you’re a beginner, just stick to Linux Mint. If you really need a rolling-release distro, use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and learn how to install, whatever your choice, the Nvidia drivers from your distro wiki/forums.
Pop!os and mint are the usual go-tos for easy windows-like experiences
I am however physically incapable of not recommending NixOS at any chance I get, it is by far the best experience I’ve had on Linux so far having tried a good number of distros (provided you have some knowledge of how config files work and don’t mind installing software through one)
Yes, you can easily install the Nvidia driver on fedora, if you check the “enable third party repos” checkmark in the 1st time setup.
Honestly, if you don’t wanna screw around at all, or use the terminal, then fedora is pretty hard to beat. Now 1 issue you might have is that older Nvidia cards tend to not work well with something called Wayland, that fedora uses out of the box for it’s desktop, though you can change it easily at the login prompt, just click on the gear icon and select “gnome on Xorg”… if you’re having issues that is
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You never really said what you like about linux or why you even want to use it. You want an ‘easy-to-use’ distro, but I’ve never really run into a ‘difficult-to-use’ distro, and that’s going back to the Slackware/RedHat 4.2 days. PopOS!, Ubuntu, EndeavourOS, Slack, Debian, they’re all ‘easy-to-use’ when you don’t specify a use case.
Personally I love the challenge, and that nothing is forced on me. It took me a good 30 minutes yesterday researching and trying to figure out how to get spell checking working in qutebrowser, and I got a little dopamine hit when I was finished.
Windows doesn’t make me excited to use a computer. Linux does, because it’s challenging.
Some people don’t want their computer to be a challenge. They don’t want to be able to notice the operating system at all. For most people, the operating system is a means to an end.
I completely agree, though in that case I can’t see what the advantage would be if you already have Windows, to switch to Linux. It’s a challenge, you’re going to be constantly looking for alternatives to software you’ve used for years. Let’s face it, the software world is still primarily focused on Windows, and while there are a lot of developer and server packages that Just Work Better™ on Linux, but if you’re an end user who’s only interested in gaming, why bother?
That’s the reason why the people who switch from the default operating system are a small minority.
Dual boot at least until you settle on a distro and get comfy with it.
The Nvidia drivers aren’t in the official repos do to legal issues, however they’re in the rpmfusion repo.
For Nvidia popos is best
i have a manjaro install that has been going for 2+ years. with a Nvidia card.
just read the wiki on every update, and follow instructions.
on install select btrfs as the filesystem and than use timeshift to do backups.
Pretty big fan of manjaro
Yah, Manjaro’s monkey scripts seem to keep nVidia cards happy on upgrades.
You don’t have to switch, you can dualboot if you have some disk space to spare.
Unfortunately the only rolling-release distro I’ve ever used for more than 10 minutes is Arch Linux, which is not “easy to use”; it’s not hard, but you have to tinker with it every now and then (especially in the beginning, since you have to set everything up) - if you run
pacmanupdates without looking at the archlinux.org frontpage beforehand you might find yourself with a malfunctioning bootloader or something on that nature.AL updates are known for breaking things a few times, but in my opinion it offers a good compromise between DIY and … y’know, Ubuntu.
Block the bootloader from updating, use LTS kernel for stability. Checking Arch’s page didn’t work for me, btw. I ended up switching to Fedora because I was hit by every breakage (4 in a row), LTS kernel didn’t work with my ethernet, and ethernet broke after an update. -Some people have great luck and some don’t.
I’m personally not too scared of random things breaking, I’ve always managed to fix them. At some point I will consider replacing GRUB with something else.
Anyway Arch’s stability being a matter of luck checks out - I haven’t been able to install the damn thing on my ancient laptop for some BIOS related reason.
No.
using nvidia with any distro is a headache you don’t need when making your first linux steps. sort that out first and then you’re free to distro hop. it makes sense to endure said pain when you’ve invested truckloads of money into some RTX monstrosity, for the one you got it’s just not worth it.
