I use gentoo btw

You should try NixOS, it’s pretty cool.

Q1: Pretty good! Use ProtonDB to check what games work, and if you need to apply any fixes.

Q2: Linux Mint is the most popular choice for beginners, and it’s extremely easy to use. Other people choose Pop!_OS because it’s apparently better for gaming (I haven’t tried it). However, I think the best distro for gaming, while still being extremely stable, is Nobara (a distro based on Fedora Linux).

Also, practically all Linux distros are customizable, don’t worry about which one’s the best.

P.S: You can browse through the most popular distros here: DistroWatch

(Background: I’ve been obsessively using Linux for four years.)

Fellow Linux noob, just started using it earlier this year so if someone with more experience wants to weigh in, please do.

That said, gaming on Linux is pretty good. Steam’s proton makes most games playable out of the box, although it’s still a good idea to check Proton DB to see if any particular game you want to play is playable.

As for your other question, I’m not totally sure what you mean by accessible and customizable, but I don’t think any of your peripherals are going to be distro locked. The Arch Wiki is a pretty good resource for, well, everything, but most relevant to you for your peripherals (it also usually gives good information for any distro, not just arch)

For the #4, the file extension can be seen just as a note, a little tag that’ll help you (or anyone else that will receive your file) remember which program you should use to successfully open the file.

From the viewpoint of your computer, in fact, a file is just a sequence of bits and every program can open every file, only it will not be able to find what it expects and actually do something useful with it, just as you can open a book written in any possible language: in most cases you will unable to undestand it, in some others you will be able to read it without any problem.

The “concept” of extensions was than introduced to allow your file manager (Explorer for Windows, Finder for macOS, Dolphin for KDE or Nautilus for GNOME) to know which program to launch when you double click on a certain file through a simple association table (that you can edit in your system preferences).

In regards to Linux you can sometimes read that file extensions are not a thing, but this is just because in the commandline you launch a specific program that you personally point to a certain file, so there is no file manager that needs to guess which app should be launched to open the document you just double clicked on.

That said, I think that should be pretty clear that in a Desktop context (like in a Personal Computer) that double click on a file situation pretty much applies to Linux too, so extensions will be useful and respected by the file manager you’ll find installed in your distro of choice, even if it can use other means when that is missing.

1. I don’t distrohop. Instead I just use what works for me and what I find comfortable.

2. You will eventually need to use the terminal. And it will be overwhelming at first. But eventually the learning curve flattens a little when you get more comfortable not breaking your system ;þ

3. Can’t comment

4. File extensions are, in essence, nothing but a convention. You don’t even need them in Windows, really (You can open a file with any program, for example, you will just not get anything useful from it). So it’s far from a big deal.

If you can boot back into windows, turn off quick startup/shutdown, run chkdsk or whatever on the drives, reboot back into windows then boot back into Linux and you’ll be okay.

Quick startup is a kind of weird sleep/hibernate mutant that leaves drives in an unclean state when it turns off, so the Linux drivers for ntfs say “I’m not gonna touch that possibly damaged drive”.

Never be afraid to try different distros you can always wipe and try again. You won’t break your computer. I’m a big fan of immutable distros but I’ve never tried fedora blue. Either will make a rock solid system

After 26 years of using Linux, I did my first baremetal “immutable” distro install last week.

My youngest son is starting school and instead of the Chromebooks that they recommend, I took a chance and installed Fedora Silverblue on a $200 Lenovo “student-rugged” class laptop. Everything works and he hasn’t had any issues so far. He gets access to the same student platform as the other students through Chrome, but then I can install Minetest and Tux Paint and GCompris as well.

The older kids run Debian stable for years now, but if this works out, I might transition them over next semester.

I learned how a kernel actually loads a program and switches between them by using timer interrupts and interrupt vectors that point to specific locations in memory to resume execution from. Not specifically Linux related, but I’m trying to learn more computer science, and it just clicked for me two weeks ago. I’ve been programming microcontrollers for ten years, but those are monolithic programs, and while I knew what interrupts were and have used them, I never understood how an OS actually runs multiple things while staying in control. Now I do. About time I understood a core concept of these machines that have been here all 42 years of my life.

It’s one of those “aha!” moments like when I realized classes and structs are just data types like any other in C++ when I was starting off programming and can be used like them. OOP became fun after that.

Fun fact: The “Windows key” (or “Command key” for Mac users) has its own generic name: the Super key!

Not trying to be a smartass here; I genuinely find it fascinating! :D

Can you try "pactl load-module module-switch-on-connect"?

This is what I did. If you generally know what you’re doing around computers it just requires patience and a willingness to “Read the (Friendly) Manual.”

If you’re running intel, nVidia, dual GPU setup, and some other things, your installation will be more involved.

But the great part is that once you’ve set all that up, things just generally work and the Arch wiki is an amazing resource.

I’m using Arch, I love it. What’s absolutely bonkers is that the system belongs to you.

However, if you have never used Linux, it’s insane to try to install Arch. The online wiki is tailored for people with at least a decent amount of Linux knowledge.

As a noob, it will result in data loss, except if you’re already very familiar with terminals or are very fluent in IT.

You might want to try something more user friendly, as Zorin then come back to Arch when you want more power.

The arch wiki is difficult to use for beginners. Each page is single topic. It is not a guide. Using it daily, it takes at least a month to understand it well enough to “build your own guides”. If you want to do that kind of deep dive, jump on in. If not, you’ll have a better time using just about any distro other than arch.

BTW. If you do decide to take that route. Don’t become one of those miscreants who “uses arch btw” It’s a red flag for someone who doesn’t know wtf they are talking about.

The first thing I’ll say is the reason you’re more comfortable with Windows is because you’ve been using it for however long and learning to deal with the issues it has. The same needs to be done on Linux. You’ll have to learn how it works just like you forgot you did for Windows.

Second, along with logs like other users said, you have to know how to use a search engine well. Most issues will be easy to solve, but some may take some searching. The Arch wiki is a good resource even if you aren’t using Arch.

Just come ask here when you have trouble, and we’ll try to help.

When troubleshooting, the biggest thing is searching the web honestly. But some more things to help you out: look for logs. Linux has loads of logs and sometimes can tell you how to fix the problem.

Logs may not be immediately apparent. Some programs have their own log files that you can look into. Sometimes, if you run the program from the terminal, it’ll print out logs there. Otherwise, you read look through journalctl, although this has logs for everything so might be harder to search.

Another useful tip, particularly for system tools and terminal tools, is manual pages. Just run man ls and replace ls with any command, you’ll get the documentation on how to use that tool.

Ubuntu Wiki Ask Ubuntu Ubuntu Forums

The wiki has some information and should correspond to how Ubuntu specifically is configured. You can ask for ubuntu specific help in those communities. You can also ask here and on several Linux communities on Lemmy.

The Arch Wiki I find to be more in depth than the ubuntu wiki. Of course some things may differ from Ubuntu’s defaults but I found it a useful resource when using Ubuntu.

Finally I suggest you learn a bit about how Linux works in general, what is in what directory, what is wayland and xorg, understand how drives are named etc and some understanding of the terminal (moving around in directories, how to use sudo etc, no need to learn to make bash scripts).

Good question! Someone let me know when there’s an answer.

Depends on the hardware, but generally, yeah.

(It’s a joke)