this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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tldr:
What reliable, up-to-date, linux distro would you recommend a gaming softwareengineer and privacy enthusiast?

Full text:
Hey all, I know this is the age old question, but I would like to ask it anyway. I am currently switching from windows to linux on my main pc and am on the hunt for a fitting distro. I am a software developer and used to working with wsl, debian servers, etc. I selfhost a bunch of things and know my way around the linux commandline and would call me privacy enthusiast that uses a lot of FLOSS software. I also do occasional gaming but I guess that should work on any distro with enough work.

My thought regarding a few distros:

  • I like to live on the edge of time and therefore have the feeling that debian based distros (although being very stable) are too "old" for my liking.
  • Ubuntu - Canonical is out for me.
  • I also looked at fedora, and liked it, but after reading more and knowing it is backed by IBM and that is US based I am not too sure anymore. I ideally would want to have something independent. Although being backed by a company promises continuous work in the future (with the risk of becoming bad).
  • OpenSUSE tumbleweed seems promising (german origin!) but also quite intimidating as it is apparently mostly targeted towards power users and I am not sure if it fits an all purpose desktop pc.
  • Arch based distros seem great as it contains all the newest packages and is infinitifly customizable. But the KISS nature of arch and the (as far as I understood) high effort to get everything running is a bit intimidating when switching from windows. But I also do like the fact that it ships with only the bare minimum and not anything bloated.

Further more I somehow think that using a base distro (in comparison to a fork of a fork...) is more ideal as they receive updates, etc faster. But that is just a feeling and I couldn't argue more precisely about it.

Regarding a DE I am definitely going KDE.

I would be very happy for some tips, opinions or pointers in the right direction to continue and finally get rid of windows... Well at least mostly. I guess i will keep it in dual boot as I do play a few games that unfortunately won't run on linux.

Thanks in advance already!

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[–] Horse@lemmygrad.ml 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

didn't manjaro break the aur twice?

[–] Rodneyck@lemm.ee 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

LOL, did they? It wouldn't surprise me. I remember there was some internal in-fighting going down, someone got accused of stealing funds, buying a personal laptop. Drama aside, it is a dangerous Arch derivative that is highly promoted, especially for newbies. Sad.