So, you've finally had enough of
Windows. The pop-up ads, the buggy updates, the constant OneDrive sign-in
prompts, the Copilot button in Notepad, Copilot in Paint, Copilot in the
taskbar, Copilot as a dedicated app, Copilot inside Edge, the Office app
being renamed to Microsoft 365 Copilot.
>> [gasps] [sighs] >> Now, you decide to install Linux and
you're greeted with over 600 different versions to choose from. Ubuntu, Fedora,
Arch, Mint, Zorin, Gentoo,
and Puppy. And then you go to Reddit where everyone's telling you to use
something different and that picking the wrong version could mean hours of
troubleshooting, broken drivers, AND INDECIPHERABLE CONFIG FILES. WHAT'S A
Windows refugee to do? Hey, don't worry.
We're here to help you decide which version is right for you. Let's break it
down. It's going to be okay. Now, first, all of these versions are
called Linux distributions or distros for short. So-called because they
distribute the various components of the operating system as a self-contained
bundle. You see, Linux by itself is what's called a kernel, the code in the
middle of the distro that talks to your hardware. You can think of a full distro
like some kind of glorious egg roll.
Linux is just the filling. A distro takes that kernel and wraps everything
else around it into one delicious package you can actually eat. I
I mean, use. Specifically, that wrapper includes a desktop environment, the
graphical interface you can see and click things on, a package manager, how
you install new software and keep everything updated, and in a way, it
also includes the philosophy about how all of those things should work
together. Now, as we said, there are over 600 of these tasty little egg
rolls, I mean, I mean, distros. We shouldn't have shot this before lunch.
But we've picked nine of the most widely used ones to help you figure out which
is right for you. Here's how we're breaking it down. We got five for people
fleeing Windows who just want their computer to work. Got three for people
who want to game on Linux, including one distro you might already be running, and
another for the tinkerers out there. Again, there are hundreds more you can
go explore, but these are the ones that'll cover almost everyone watching
this. So, let's start simple here. Linux
is the single most recommended distro for people leaving Windows. It looks
like Windows. It feels like Windows. It comes with media codecs and drivers
already configured out of the box, and its entire philosophy is stop bothering
the user. They've had a very hard day. If your reaction to this video so far
is, "Please, just tell me what to install and get me out of here." It's
Mint. But if you're still watching, then good because it gets a lot more
interesting. Zorin OS is like Mint's cooler sibling. It has a feature called
Zorin Appearance that lets you make the desktop look like Windows or macOS,
depending on which operating system you're fleeing. It's arguably the most
polished switching experience out there. There's a paid Pro tier with extra
layouts and software, but the free version has everything most people will
ever need. Now, Ubuntu is the most
popular Linux distro, period. It has the biggest community. It's available
pre-installed on some Dell and Lenovo hardware. And if you Google literally
any Linux problem, the first result is almost certainly a solution written for
Ubuntu. That community alone makes it the safe pick, especially for beginners.
And then there's Pop!_OS, made by System76, a company that actually builds
Linux laptops and desktops in Denver, Colorado. It's for the person who wants
more control than Mint, but doesn't want to go anywhere near a config file.
Everything lives in a nice, neat settings panel, perfectly designed for
your dumb brain. It also has the best NVIDIA graphics card support of any
distro, which matters a lot because Linux and NVIDIA have historically
gotten along about as well as a cat and a bathtub. We talked to System76
co-founder Carl Richell about what people end up loving about Pop!_OS. If
you're into personalization, if you're into um kind of refining your workflow,
a really good, especially if you're keyboard driven, it's a fantastic uh
experience. There's the keyboard shortcuts are amazing. You know, tile
one workspace and not the others, you can have mixed floating and tiling
experience, but all without it feeling overwhelming. Our philosophy was that
with with very careful and thoughtful design,
we could build a desktop experience um
that didn't have to compromise on what the user how the user wanted to use
their computer. That's kind of the whole pitch of Pop!_OS. It gives you the depth
and flexibility that makes Linux worth switching to in the first place, but
that depth is surfaced through menus and toggles that feel familiar if you're
coming from Windows or Mac. You're not unlocking new power by learning a new
language, you're clicking around in a settings panel that was made for a
normal human being. Which brings us to Fedora. It's backed by Red Hat, one of
the biggest names in Linux, which means it's usually one of the first distros to
ship new Linux technology. Most distros make you choose between stable and
current releases. You either get software that's been tested for a year
or software that just shipped this morning and might break your system.
Fedora doesn't really make you choose. It ships tools like Wayland, PipeWire,
and BTRFS first, but still goes through a proper release cycle before they reach
you. You get to be ahead of the curve without being the person who finds out
something is broken. Now, those five cover probably 80% of people watching
this video. But what if you're not just trying to escape Windows? What if you're
trying to game on Linux? We'll get into
the distros that are making Linux gaming arguably better than Windows right after
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description. Okay, so Linux gaming, a phrase that only a few years ago was
basically a punchline in itself. Now, it's genuinely competitive, largely
thanks to Valve and CodeWeavers building a compatibility layer called Proton that
lets you run most Windows games on Linux without doing anything weird. And a
handful of distros have built their entire identity around making that
experience as painless as possible. Bazzite is one of the most talked about
gaming distros in recent years. It was built specifically to bring the Steam
OS-style gaming experience to hardware Valve never officially supported. Your
ROG Ally, your Legion Go, your gaming PC, running on Fedora under the hood
rather than Steam OS itself, but looking and feeling almost identical. Bazzite is
a distro that's classified as immutable, meaning the base system is read-only and
nearly impossible to break. Think of it like a gaming console. It updates
itself, it supports HDR, it works on handheld gaming devices like the Steam
Deck and the ROG Ally, and if you somehow mess something up, you can just
roll back to the previous version. It also comes with everything a gaming PC
actually needs already configured. GPU drivers, Proton, controller support,
codecs, none of which you have to hunt down yourself. On a general-purpose
distro, getting all of that working is an afternoon project at least. On
Bazzite, it's just done. Next, Nobara.
It's built by a Red Hat engineer who goes by Glorious Eggroll online.
Oh, that explains it. I'm not hungry, I
just love gaming. And I'm hungry.
Anyway, Mr. Eggroll got tired of Fedora not being gaming ready out of the box,
so he took Fedora, stripped out everything that wasn't pulling its weight, and preloaded it with everything
a gamer actually needs. Steam, open-source game manager Lutris, NVIDIA
drivers, multimedia codecs, all configured and ready to go. There are
five editions of this distro, including one built specifically for handheld
devices. And speaking of handhelds, if you own a Steam Deck, congratulations.
You're already running Linux. Steam OS is itself a fully functional Linux
distro. The Steam Deck has two modes, the gaming interface you actually use,
which looks and feels like a console, and a full Linux desktop running
underneath it you can switch into anytime. But most Steam Deck owners
never touch the desktop mode, and they have a perfectly fine time.
Now, for the power users, the tinkerers,
the people who decided that installing an operating system should be a journey
of self-discovery. Arch Linux is the legendary do-it-yourself distro. If you
spend any time in Linux circles, you've heard the joke.
I use Arch, by the way. It's a meme about insufferable people
who won't shut up about their operating system. They're the vegans of the tech
world. But the reason Arch users are like that is actually kind of earned.
Arch Linux is also a rolling release distro, which means there's no Arch
version 2024 or whatever. You just keep updating continuously, and you're always
running the latest version of everything. Then, there's the AUR, the
Arch User Repository, a massive community-maintained library of software
available to all Arch users, including stuff that would never make it in to
Ubuntu's official repositories, those prudes. The tradeoff? A lot of this
software hasn't been formally vetted, so it could be broken or worse. Ubuntu
wouldn't even know what to do with any of this. But for Arch users, that's kind
of the point. Arch also has a wiki, and it is genuinely the single best
technical resource on the internet. The trade-off for that, you better enjoy
reading documentation. But, on the other side of that learning curve is a machine
that does exactly what you want, nothing you don't, running exactly how you
configured it. And that's what they're also smug about. At the end of the day
though, here's the thing that nobody tells you about picking a Linux distro.
For most people, it barely matters. Seriously, every
major distro can browse the web, run LibreOffice, play games through Steam,
and handle 95% of what you do on your computer every day. The real differences
are in update philosophy, how much hand-holding you get, and how much you
want to tinker under the hood. And the people actually building these things,
they'll tell you the same thing. I think you can come to Linux and just be a
user. And that is absolutely awesome. You can also know that coming to Linux
and being a user means that you're helping support the ability for everyone else to go as
far as they want to with an operating system.
>> you're paralyzed by choice, install Linux Mint. Use it for a week, if you
love it, you're done. If you want more control, try Fedora. If you want all the
control, try Arch. If you want a polished desktop with tiling built-in,
and the company that makes your laptop also makes your OS, try Pop!_OS. If
you're a gamer, try Bazzite. The beautiful thing about Linux is you can
always reinstall, and it takes about 10 minutes, not the 45 that Windows needs,
plus three Copilot installations you did not ask for. And if you're still on
Windows 10, and you don't want to move to the never-ending revolving door of
buggy updates and malware masquerading as AI, your clock is ticking.
Microsoft's extended security updates for Windows 10 end October 13th, 2026,
which means no more patches after that. So, I don't know, maybe don't overthink
this one. If you want to learn how to actually install Linux step-by-step,
we've got a video about that over on LTT. As for me, I'm going to go mass
downvote everyone on r/Linux who doesn't use my distro, RileyOS. The whole thing
is just cat memes from 2003 and Homestar Runner videos. Somehow, it works.