So sitrep:
Newish desktop
- i7-13700K
- 64Gb DDR5 6000Mhz
- RTX 3070Ti
- MSI PRO Z790-P (WiFi is not a factor, permanent ethernet connection.)
Needs:
- Gaming
- Music composing
- Coding (Mostly python)
- Video editing
I’ve been using Linux on and off throughout the years, but lately I’ve fallen out of the loop somewhat. Started with Slackware around 1998, Kubuntu in the 2000’s, Ubuntu 2010’s, Kali and Mandrake 2020’s -> on my laptop, Ubuntu server on my RasPi. At work, we have a few Fedora servers I have to maintain. So not a complete novice, but somewhat obsolete info.
I have been looking at the immutable distros, like Bazzite and Pop!_OS as I’ve done the whole song and dance of constantly repairing my distro because of various issues, and I’d like my main recreational machine & distro to be low maintenance, I get to fix linux servers at work enough already, I don’t want to bring that home.
With gaming, I’ve understood that linux has come a loooooong way since I last tried sometime around TBC Launch for WoW when Wine barely worked with it.
Music composing is a little annoying, since apparently both Ableton and FL studio are not an option. I’ve heard good things about Reaper, but I’ll have to do some more research. Feel free to educate me on this topic if you have some insider info. I don’t play live sets, just compose and mix.
Video editing, currently I use Davinci Resolve, and apparently it works fine on Linux, just some limitations and shenanigans with codecs. Alternatives are welcome, I don’t need 90% of what resolve offers, I can make do with a simpler software as well.
Thank you kindly in advance for departing thine wisdom.
Nowadays Mint is practically the default newbie distro.
I would also recommend against immutables, since you seem to be a knowledgeable user. Immutable distros are severely limiting, some programs may not work at all, and in other places you’ll have to go through a lot of unnecessary hoops.
What I’ve learned with immutables is that you can do all that on a regular system, with added flexibility of installing packages the normal way if you need it. Just go with Flatpaks whenever possible, use Distrobox when not, and you’ll be golden. Should some need arise for a regular install of something or some tweak in system files - you would still be able to do so.
Honestly, what I went for after my experiments is OpenSUSE Tumbleweed - it’s bleeding edge, but also very stable and predictable, and if you set up volume as btrfs, it features well-preconfigured snapper to revert any mistakes you may make along the way.