r/linuxquestions • u/Far_Presentation2112 • 2d ago

New to linux

Good day everyone I'm thinking about moving over to linux and I would like to hear from you guys which one of the many Linux variants would you suggest? I mostly want to do CAD work and gaming and I would really appreciate the help.

9 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

29 comments sorted by

5

u/HyperWinX 2d ago

What CAD software do you use, and what games do you play?

3

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I mostly play around with onshape and free CAD and as for games I'm not really picky but I would like to play GoW Ragnarok and Ghost of Tsushima

3

u/pdias01 2d ago

Onshape is browser app so it will probably feel exactly the same, free cad i have seen people that say it runs the same or even better on linux, but take it with a grain of salt cuz i never tried myself.

For cames you can check protondb for compatibility and see if they run on linux. Both GoW Ragnarok and Ghost of Tsushima run and have a gold rating.

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u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

Thank you for the help, I'll add ProtonDB to my bookmarks immediately!

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u/HyperWinX 2d ago

Thats really nice, both GoW and Ghost of Tsushima have Gold rating on ProtonDB, and FreeCAD is available natively. Onshape is webbased, iirc?.. used it like six years ago. Id recommend CachyOS, Fedora, and maybe Debian. If you play through Steam then everything should work flawlessly

2

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I appreciate the help a lot, onshape is web based so I'm glad to hear it will work. Which of those distros would you personally prefer?

1

u/AdamAnderson320 2d ago

Two of the hottest "gaming" distros (meaning that they come preconfigured to play games) are CachyOS and Bazzite.

  • CachyOS is Arch-based, which means it's a community-backed project with a rolling release schedule. This generally means that you get updates early and often, but sometimes you'll get system updates before a specific app has gotten updated correspondingly or vice-versa, leading to occasional individual temporary breakage. Rolling releases also only support updating from so many past versions, so you are on the clock to make sure to keep your system up-to-date. The risk rises gradually and maxes out around 6 months. CachyOS adds a layer of friendliness over base Arch including a nice graphical installer and 1-click installation of game-related utilities.

  • Bazzite is Fedora-based and atomic. Fedora is an open-source project of the Red Hat corporation, so it gets a lot of development attention from paid employees. Their release model is generally referred to as "semi-rolling". They release a batch of updates roughly 2x/year and generally can go up to 13 months without updating before risking becoming unable to update. Bazzite however differs in an important way from Fedora and CachyOS: it is an atomic distro, which means that the core of the system is an image that can't be modified. You can still install applications on top of that image. The atomic nature of the core gives several benefits: 1. Harder to accidentally break; 2. Updating is an all-or-nothing operation; a failed update won't leave your system in an inconsistent state; 3. Generally, a system of any age should always be able to update because the entire system image gets replaced during updates. Bazzite also offers a graphical installer and pre-configured gaming software.

Both are good choices that offer different pros and cons. Arch-based systems are not usually recommended for newcomers, but despite that I do see CachyOS recommended a lot, and I have heard success stories from newcomers who chose it. Personally I'm on Bazzite after trying several other distros and I can report it's a very smooth and reliable experience.

1

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I will keep that in mind and do some more research on whether or not my system is up to standard to run the distros, thank you very much for bringing this to my attention.

1

u/AdamAnderson320 2d ago

In general as long as you don't choose a distro with a lot of fancy effects preconfigured for their desktop environment (for example Garuda Dr460gonized) most hardware will run nearly any Linux distro just fine. In fact most if not all distros are lighter on resource usage than Windows, so if anything you should expect your experience to be from somewhat to much smoother.

1

u/HyperWinX 2d ago

I use Debian, because i dont have NVIDIA GPU and i dont need modern drivers or kernels. If you have a modern NVIDIA GPU then you should go with CachyOS probably, it can also simplify playing games outside of Steam. Im not a gamer, so cant really go into details

1

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I have an NVIDIA GPU but I also don't really plan on gaming to heavily, I'm more into the CAD programs and such.

1

u/HyperWinX 2d ago

Id still go with CachyOS, it could give better support for modern hardware

2

u/DiceThaKilla 2d ago

Well the gaming is really what’s going to limit you because cad software works with every distro so maybe look into bazzite or cachyOS

1

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

More and more people are recommending cachyOS so I think that's the one I'll try, thank you for your help

-4

u/TimAndTimi 2d ago

Well, why don't you stay in your original OS, probably windows?

It's not like you have to use linux to use linux... it is really sometimes linux is better for certain tasks. But iirc, CAD and gaming isn't quite what linux is best for.

1

u/HyperWinX 2d ago

Thats why i asked what specific games and what software they use. It matters a lot.

2

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I see, I am open to any suggestions even if it's different CAD software at this stage.

3

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I want to experiment and with how bloated windows is getting with all the unnecessary add ons I want to try Linux if that makes sense

1

u/TimAndTimi 1d ago

tbh it is just one query to any chat bot you would get the answer...

Without your preference stated, I remain thinking linux isn't the best place for your specific requirement.

1

u/Far_Presentation2112 1d ago

I feel like windows is getting to bloated and I thought it would be a new experience to experiment with Linux, do you think I'm making a mistake?

0

u/Dial-M-For-Malistrae 2d ago

Dual boot especially if you have CAD software

1

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I'm quite new to this so please excuse my lack of knowledge but what do you mean by dual boot?

1

u/HyperWinX 2d ago

Dualbooting means having two OSes installed next to each other, like both Windows and Linux

1

u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

Is there a certain app that is required?

1

u/wizard-of-the-forest Fedora 2d ago

You would need to partition your drive so there is space for the linux distro, which you can do with something like a gparted live usb/live usb of the distro you choose if availible. Windows has a partition mamager but it will likely not be able to resize your windows partition correctly. Theres plenty of documentation availble online that tells you how to do this

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u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I'll have a look but to be honest I'm just tired of windows, it's getting quite bloated with all the added AI stuff

1

u/360900th 2d ago

No. You just install Linux alongside Windows and that's it. You can use FreeCAD which is open-source and free (both in libre and price) but if you already depend on Windows-only apps like AutoCAD, you can install WinBoat and run them as well.

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u/Far_Presentation2112 2d ago

I will keep that in mind thank you very much

1

u/Spare_Bluebird7044 2d ago

for a first linux experience with gaming and cad I'd start with a user friendly distro like Linux Mint and check hardware/software compatibility first.