I'm looking for a Linux distribution that will work well with my Nvidia graphics card, not only now but also in the future. I've heard good things about Pop!_OS and its COSMIC desktop environment. Is this distro a good choice for someone transitioning from Windows, and will I be able to run Wine on it?
6 Answers
I highly recommend trying Fedora. I've had a lot of issues with my Nvidia card, and the only distribution that got it working without a hitch was Fedora. It's user-friendly, especially for beginners, and I suggest using the Gnome workstation interface if you're coming from Windows. It's pretty seamless!
Nvidia can make things tricky with their drivers, so keep that in mind. But once you get it set up, it can work well!
Any desktop distro should support your Nvidia card. If you want to avoid the hassle, look for a gaming distro like PikaOS that comes with Nvidia drivers pre-installed. Alternatively, you can go with Linux Mint or Pop!_OS and just use the Driver Manager to pick the latest driver that fits your card.
If you want a hassle-free experience, Pop!_OS is a solid choice. COSMIC is interesting, but you might want to give it a little more time to mature before making it your daily driver.
It's really about how well it'll perform. I installed Mint and tested various proprietary drivers, and while the performance was decent on my 4K monitor, I found that Kubuntu looked sharper right out of the box and had fractional scaling that worked better for my setup.
If you have an older Nvidia card, the results might differ. For my RTX 4060, distribution like Nobara (based on Fedora), CachyOS, and even Ubuntu worked really well without any major issues. But if your card is from the Pascal generation, you might have a tougher time due to recent changes.
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