This is a quick little blog about my Linux journey and how you could start yours.

I started my Linux journey when I realized how much easier it was to install packages, but the real game-changer came from the significant performance boost. Using VMware Workstation, I could run 3 separate Windows VMs simultaneously on Linux, while Windows struggled with just two, often crashing.

Even games(one’s without anti-cheat anyways) ran smoother, and the Gnome desktop environment felt far more responsive compared to Windows.

And hey it even looks cooler:

So let’s get it started. How should you start your Linux journey?

Choosing a Desktop Environment

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A Desktop Environment (DE) is a collection of software that provides the graphical user interface (GUI) for interacting with the operating system. This will basically determine how you will interact with your OS. Choosing a Desktop Environment first is also very important as sometimes people who are new to Linux can get scared away by the strange looking UI.

1. Gnome: In my opinion, Gnome is the best-looking and most fluid desktop environment. It’s known for its clean, minimalist design and modern look, offering a unique feel that’s quite different from Windows. Once you get used to it, there’s no going back. I also appreciate the consistency in its UI elements, which I found lacking in other desktop environments.

2. KDE Plasma: This is also a very popular desktop environment and offers more customizability than Gnome. However, in my opinion, it lacks the visual consistency and fluidity that Gnome provides. Its workflow is quite similar to Windows, so if you’re transitioning from there, you’ll feel right at home(Windows itself is inconsistent visually imo).

3. Cinnamon: This is also very similar to windows with lots of customizability, choose this if you want something similar to Windows but do not want to be overwhelmed by customizability.

4. Cosmic: Cosmic DE is a very new and still in Alpha but I feel it is worth mentioning. It offers a very similar workflow to Gnome while also offering the customizability Gnome lacks. Try it out with Pop OS alpha
   

   

5. XFCE: It is lightweight, fast, and minimalist DE designed for low resource usage while providing a clean and functional interface. It’s highly customizable but focuses on simplicity, which makes it easy to use for beginners and appealing to those who prefer a no-frills experience. Choose this if you want lightning fast experience on aging hardware. The UI can look a bit dated but the performance more than makes up for it.

   

I have not mentioned tiling window managers(they organize windows in a grid, avoiding overlaps, and are controlled mainly by the keyboard for efficient screen space use) as it can a bit complex for a beginner, if you are interested I would recommend Hyprland which is my favourite Tiling WM check out this video to learn more.

Once you have chosen a Desktop Environment we can check out Distros now.

Choosing a Linux Distribution

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Choosing a linux distribution can be quite challenging as there are just way too many options.
I will briefly introduce few Linux Distros I have tried and liked.

1. Arch Linux: I began my Linux journey with Arch and it taught me a lot but I would DEFINITELY not recommend it to a beginner. Choose Arch Linux if you want to tinker a lot with your OS , want the latest packages ASAP, and don’t like peace in your life. It offers packages in the AUR which provides vast collection of user-contributed packages, allowing for greater customization and access to the latest software beyond the official repositories. I prefer this compared to Flatpaks as flatpaks tend to take up too much space

   If you want to go ahead with Arch anyways and skip the hassle of installing it yourself I would recommend EndeavorOS. My experience with it has been quite stable (atleast for an Arch-based distro). You can choose your DE in the setup

2. Pop OS: This is an Ubuntu-based disto and offers compatibility with Nvidia GPUs out of the box. Choose this distro if you want to game on Linux and want compatibility with Nvidia. I had a very good experience with this Disto but the ancient Gnome version prevented me from sticking with it. Now they have developed their own DE called Cosmic which I talked about in the previous section and it is currently in alpha.

3. Fedora: This is an upstream for RHEL and offers bleeding-edge without the sacrificing stability. This is my favorite Linux distro, and offered the most stable experience with a good package manager (DNF). Fedora Workstation ships with Gnome but they offer other spins which offer KDE and other DEs as well. I run fedora with the Cachy kernel which gives a little bit more performance, find the instructions to install it here . It also solved the issue of compiling vmware host modules everytime.

4. Linux Mint: Try this if you want a stable Distro with windows-like feel. I’m personally not a fan but some might like it.

Gaming

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For gaming on Linux I use Steam for steam games and Bottles for other games. It is very easy as long as you don’t play a game with anticheat like Valorant. Check if your game is supported here

Make sure to enable the compatibility layer in Steam settings.

If you play games on gnome I would also recommend installing this patch for triple buffering, this is for fedora but you can find it for your distro by searching for mutter triple buffering patch <distroname>

Installing Packages

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I would recommend sticking with the packages offered by your disto’s package manager rather than flatpaks as much as possible. Don’t get me wrong flatpaks are amazing and let you run applications in a container but I have observed that they tend to take up a lot more space.

Fedora comes with flatpaks enabled and the app store bundled with it displays an option to choose between flatpak and the RPM version if it is available as both.

Wayland or Xorg

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Xorg is deprecated and wayland is the future of Linux but how ready is it?

Most of the issues with wayland used to be that it does not play well with Nvidia. Fear not! The 560 driver for Nvidia fixed it by introducing Explicit Sync.

The only issue I have with wayland now is that all my shortcuts get interpreted by my host OS instead of the VM in VMware Workstation.

Have Fun

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Once you get familiar with Linux as an OS I would recommend distro hopping to find your perfect home.