Hey everyone! I'm considering making the switch from Windows 11 to Linux, but I have a few specific requirements. I'm looking for a beginner-friendly Linux distribution that fully supports Wayland. I've tried a few distros already - specifically, ones that either have full Wayland support or only experimental support alongside full X11. I tend to play more modern games, and I've noticed that they run better on Wayland. In testing, Mint's experimental Wayland session was a bit choppy for me, and while Pop OS (alpha version) seems promising, I ran into some issues with gaming—likely due to my NVIDIA GPU.
Another important factor is that I want something that isn't KDE. I actually enjoyed KDE, but for game development with Unreal Engine, it didn't play nicely; I experienced issues with the Epic Asset Manager Flatpak not keeping me logged in on KDE. If not having KDE limits my options too much, I might just stick with Windows for Unreal since I don't use it all the time. My PC specs are an R9 5900x CPU, RTX 3080Ti GPU, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM.
5 Answers
Have you considered openSUSE? You can pick your desktop environment during installation, and afterward, you can easily manage your DEs using YaST. I'm also a game dev, and I look forward to hearing what you end up choosing!
For a solid Wayland experience, I’d recommend giving Ultramarine (Fedora-based) a shot. It comes pre-configured for gaming and has better defaults, making it user-friendly.
What about Arch with Hyprland? It might take a bit of setup initially, but you’ll have full control and endless customization options.
If you're open to it, you can install any distro you like and just remove KDE. It’s pretty straightforward with the package manager, so you don’t have to stick with it if it’s not working for you.
You might want to try Zorin OS as well. It has a user-friendly interface and supports Wayland. It could be a good option for gaming!
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