Windows is hell, i need to do something

First of all Linux isn't a company, but the name some dude named Linus gave his code he put for free on the internet.

Most modern Linux distros are still not run by companies, that's why they don't force the data collection, ads, ai etc down your throat.

That said: Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time. So with a lot of stuff you need to fit it to your needs, as granular customization is to troublesome to have working out of the box for every different usecase there could be. So with most stuff you should not be afraid to learn the basics of terminal commands (packet manager, editor, foldermanagment)

Some OS like Ubuntu and manjaro do a lot for you, but if you have weird double monitors, you may need to manually do some stuff.

If you want as much as possible easy install options I would go with manjaro - then you can install everything where users made an AUR (arch user repository) package. Check if they have all programs you want, if not look for alternatives.

If you want a more stable system but with a bit less possibilities, go for Ubuntu, debian, popOS or something like that.

Some things may never run, for example for my music daw(ableton) with low latency and not native support on Linux or the htc vive wireless (where there isn't a driver for the PCI card for Linux) I keep a win machine around. Day to day use is on debian on my side

No sorry man, it’s my british humor coming out. I needed to bait some linux users :) I’m one of those evil people who works in marketing. But thank you for the tips, I do appreciate it!
- Don't be sorry, the joke was funny, it's just that you're talking to this kind of crowd
- I knew it was a troll post.
  
  Company called Linux
  
  Only mentioned programs that work in Linux
  
  The general way of writing
- Hello, Sir! I'm from Linux company! Please give me your password so I can do remote maintenance on your computer. Don't worry, it's absolutely free!
- How much of the question was sincere and how many of my time was wasted? XD
- I wasn't sure myself honestly, thought I'd check if someone else brought it up first
  
  I think people get super excited to share the good news that it's not a company behind it and all the benefits that come with that
I would swap out Manjaro for Endeavour.

I started off with Manjaro, and updates kept breaking shit. Only reason it was usable for me, was that I kept timeshift going so I could recover from an unbootable state if updates borked something.

Especially if OPs system is unusual, I wouldn't trust Manjaro. I've yet to need timeshift on my Endeavour install, while setting it up to do the same things was no more difficult.
- Dude is just starting out, no matter what arch derivative you're suggesting, it's a bad idea. Flatpak is perfectly fine for installing fresher versions of those packages AFAIK.
- Fedora or opensuse are better options, stable and reliable
- Updates break shit on EndeavourOS too. You've just been lucky.
  
  Ask me how I know.
Linux is made from thousands of interlocking programs, scripts, services and libraries, made mostly by some guys or gurls in their free time.

That's not entirely true: Most work is paid for in some way, eg. by foundations, employees of companies which need a feature or freelancers commissioned to do some work.
- OK, point given What I meant was, that most distros and programs depend on some level on code written by individuals or at least without profit incentive --> therefore for those bits of code the developer isn't liable in the same way. Sure, the core of libre office is written by programmers payed by the document foundation, but it nevertheless uses libs which are not, and therefore have not the same level of customer support or liability as Microsoft word would have, where they build most stuff in house and get played handsomely
if you have weird double monitors

Is having more than one monitor "weird" to most Linux distros? I guess I'm a huge weirdo for having 3 then...
- Nah, but it sounded like its integrated in his notebook somehow AND having double touchscreens, which could have proprietary drivers or some dumb caviot. Normally having multiple monitors is not a problem (if you don't mind windows spawning with their top bar out of frame and stuff in wayland kde)
I really miss ableton too
- Not going to push Ardour if your brains are wired for Live, but have you tried Bitwig?
  
  (Tho Ardour has Clip Launchers now, wink wink)

If you want to test several Linux distributions Ventoy can be useful. You can have 10 or more different Linux distributions on one USB stick depending on the size of the stick. This will also save you time "flashing" an image iso to the stick each time because with Ventoy you'd simply copy the image iso files to the stick, quick and easy.

https://www.ventoy.net

Ventoy has changed my life. No more having to find a unused usb key to format then flash.

Just drop the ISO, boot on the key and choose whatever you want to try/install.
- I just discovered it last week and feel frustrated with the time I wasted sleeping on it
Huh I always thought ventoy was just another iso to usb writer. I've been totally sleeping on the fact it can hold a bunch of isos and installs them directly. That's so handy
Or try them for a while in a VM, VirtualBox may not provide the best performance out there but it's very easy to set up. This way you don't have to commit and install the OS over your main machine or anything like that.

In all honesty, you should decide between Debian and Fedora. If you're new to this, stay away from Arch Linux, Gentoo, or Manjaro. Simplicity is key. The two systems I mentioned are known for their reliability, so you should be fine with either one.

Affinity Designer can be run under Linux with Bottles translation (forum post how to set it up)
Canva does not support Linux
GIMP is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
Adobe is not supported on Linux at all
Blender is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
DaVinci Resolve is natively supported on Linux (offical website)
VSCode is natively supported on Linux (official website / flatpak)
almost every DE has a file explorer
no ads included 😀 👍

If you are made out of matter stay away from manjaro. Other than that I agree, and would recommend debian slightly over fedora but that is just personal preference. Also I feel like opensuse deserves an honorable mention. Maybe not tumbleweed, but leap could be suitable for a new user and yast rocks.

Edit: Also vscodium can be good alternative to vscode. It is vscode without Microsoft's tracking, but an exact copy otherwise.
- Indeed, I use VSCodium on my Fedora system every day, but since the question was about VSCode, I provided information specifically related to VSCode.
  
  Debian rigorously tests its packages over an extended period before they are released in the official version, ensuring a very stable system. This approach means the software is generally older, but it's been thoroughly vetted. Fedora, on the other hand, provides newer software while still maintaining a good level of stability.
  
  On the other hand, Arch Linux — and its sub-distributions like Manjaro and Gentoo — releases software much more quickly, sometimes almost immediately which can kill your system during updates. ~~I'd go so far as to say that Arch Linux is less stable than Windows~~.
  
  TL;DR: If you don't want to find out five minutes before an online meeting that your system won't boot — avoid Arch Linux.
I use Canva in the browser, but I gotta say that it works better in Microsoft Edge than in Firefox. I think it may be a Chromium thing, but I haven't tested other browsers.
- Microsoft Edge works great on Linux. It is my second browser after Firefox.

Just grab yourself some Linux Mint, and try to ignore Arch and Gentoo crowd here.

Half of the apps you mentioned have Linux version right in the system package manager. Davinci has Linux version on their website.

CorelDraw might be a problem, WineHQ lists it's compatibility for the latest version as garbage, so you will probably need to switch to Inkscape.

Anyway, I heard about this new company called Linux

Pedantic explanation about GNU/Linux is coming in 3... 2... 1...

Here you go ;-)

What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux" distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

Source

I second your advice against Arch, EndeavourOS, or Manjaro as I would not call them 'beginner-friendly'.
- Wooo yeah! Now waiting for the explanation how half of mobile phones on the planet and every smart TV in existence runs some variant of Linux kernel.
- What you guys are referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
  
  That's not necessarily true any more. There are distros built without the GNU tools.
- I mean, it’s always nice to know more. I’m not here pretending to know linux or kernels in details.

Linux is not a company lol I hope that was a joke. Also Linux is not new.

Now to the software: it will likely run everywhere. Davinci resolve is a bit picky but also fine.

You have quite some Windows-only software. Check https://alternative-to.net or try running it through WINE with Bottles

To the Distro: this is complex. Many people will recommend Linux Mint and it is easy to use but very restricted. I dont think it is great really.

There are many many parallel efforts, so on Linux Distributions (Linux + packages + desktop + ...) you can get very different software.

For a painfree experience running Windows software and Davinci Resolve I recommend to try Bazzite

It is very different from others:

it updates automatically in the background. But completely different from Windows. Updates always work and are efficient and stable. No 10 times rebooting
updates finish and you can reboot any time to apply it. Literally a week later, nobody cares
the reboot takes just as long as any other reboot, no downtime

The system is way better and more stable than "traditional" ones. This is quite complex but lets say while on Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora etc. you will have an indivudual system, with individual packages and in the end some strange errors only happening on your setup, with Bazzite you will have exactly 1:1 the system that the developers create.

It is based on Fedora Atomic Desktops which are pretty great. But for your use case I dont recommend them.

I recommend the Bazzite Desktop version with the KDE Plasma desktop. This will be Windows-like in a very good way, but incredibly more efficient, faster and also more powerful. Like a Filemanager with tabs and extensions, that is not written in whatever bloat Microsoft uses (their Win11 stuff is so slow...).

To sum it up, on Linux you have to decide:

What Desktop environment?

I recommend KDE Plasma a lot
GNOME is also good but veery opinionated and minimalist
I dont recommend others like Linux Mint's Cinnamon yet, as they dont support modern standards (Wayland)

What Distribution family?

Debian, Fedora, Arch, OpenSUSE
they are all a bit different but basically doing the same
Ubuntu stems from Debian and became popular as "the beginner Linux" but they do very controversial stuff nobody else does (like the Snap store) and have tons of bugs. I used it a lot with bad experiences and dont recommend.
Linux Mint and others also use Ubuntu or Debian under the hood
Arch is very manual and difficult for new users, dont use it
OpenSUSE does whatever they do, not recommended
Fedora is pretty modern in their software, has a nice community and a big variety of options. They are not allowed to ship restricted media codecs for stuff like h264 video though
uBlue (Bazzite, Bluefin, Aurora) is a project using Fedoras versions and adding nice stuff to it, making them usable out of the box. This is their goal, and they do it really well.

Wow, thank you for all the info in details! I need to start testing some of distros I guess and see how it goes (sounds fun too). UBlue project looks very very interesting.
- Ublue also has Asus-specific variants which I assume probably has some compatibility fixes added in that would have to be installed manually in most other distros.
  
  Since you use VS Code I'd strongly recommend the developer variants of ublue, which are only available for Aurora and Bluefin, as it gives you a preinstalled VS Code which will be a better experience than trying to install it after the fact. (if you go to the download page for them, answer "yes" to "are you a developer?")
  
  For minimum learning curve, use Aurora over Bluefin as the UI is more familiar. Also, make sure you pick the Nvidia option for the GPU question.
- I started using Linux 2 years ago or something. Linux Mint, Kubuntu, MX Linux (wtf Distrowatch), Manjaro, KDE Neon, Fedora KDE...
  
  broke all. On Fedora Kinoite since then, switched to uBlue Kinoite, no complaints.
  
  Currently using secureblue but many things I disagree with, planning a fork.
- The good thing is that most distributions have live images that you can basically put on a USB stick and run without installing anything. It won't give you quite the same experience as an installed instance but will at least let you play around with things (especially Gnome or KDE etc.)
I would stay away from Fedora based anything if you want stability. Linux Mint is is as flexible as you make it.
- Fedora has 2 versions supported, the current release and the old release. It is pretty modern in packages, but this is normally not a problem at all.
  
  I never used the old release but that would give more stability. On the atomic variants this means though that you dont get automatic updates, as using latest will auto update when upstream sets the new version as latest.

Try Kubuntu as a Distro. Any KDE Plasma Distro would be good as well. -Sincerely The Linux Company

For people coming from windows i think linux mint is the best choice.

Gimp, blender and vscode works well on linux

U can code dart/flutter with no problems on vscode on linux, android studio also works fine if you need to export to android.

For file manager i use nemo (default on mint cinnamon).

Other software mentioned i have no idea.

Fedora will always be my go-to, and the KDE spin should be pretty familiar layout wise for former windows users.

Since you have an nvidia gpu, Pop OS will probably be your best bet if you need it working immediately.

I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu anymore, as it's been pushing snaps (package manager) MS-style, and it's gotten some shit from the community for various reasons over the years.

Linux Mint is also good, too. It's very easy to just get up and going, perfect for people who aren't familiar with Linux, too.

The worst part about snaps isn't the fact that their packaged like Windows files, it's that it makes updating everything on your computer confusing as fuck when you don't really want to ever think about it.
- Me updating my system then updating Flatpak because the gpu driver difference breaks everything

I generally have 2 recommendations for beginners who don't want something specific, one of which is a community favorite, the other is my own favorite.

The community generally recommends Linux Mint for new users. It's based an Ubuntu, so it had a lot of great support, but it has the enshittification of Ubuntu (snaps, tracking, pro subscription ads, etc.) removed. It's a great, simple distro for beginners that generally works all around without tweaking. It's basically the #1 recommendation for new users, and I gladly support that recommendation.

My personal favorite recommendation is Fedora, through I understand why there may be frustrations for those with Nvidia graphics cards who need to install their drivers. The process to do it on Fedora isn't very complex, and can be looked up easily, but new users tend to feel intimidated by the command line, and I must admit that the installation of Nvidia drivers and media codec are more difficult than something like Linux Mint (for Fedora, this is a copyright issue, since their main sponsor is Red Hat, a private company). In every other area, I'd say Fedora is great for beginners, and provides a great way for users to get new features quickly without having to worry about any of the instabilities or quirks of something like Arch.

You couldn't go wrong with either, but you're certainly going to see more recommendations for Linux Mint in general (especially on Nvidia hardware).

Just stay away from Manjaro, Gentoo, and Void (there's a long list of complex distros, but it really isn't going to help to list them all). Gentoo and Void have their place, but are not a great place for a beginner to start. Manjaro simply has no place, just avoid it like the plague.

You could also recommend the Linux Mint Debian Edition!
My personal pick that is gonna get downvoted into oblivion: Manjaro.

Manjaro is an actual "Arch for your grandmother". Combining rolling release with two-week checking period, taking the speed and customizability of Arch and wrapping it in a noob-friendly, everyday system - it's Arch that just works, is sleek, welcoming and easy.

What else to ask for?
- Arch already just works, Majaro breaks more (at least for the one month I tried it while getting into Linux).
- If you want easy Arch, recommend EndeavourOS. Manjaro is a pile of steaming garbage just waiting to break itself. EndeavourOS is easy for beginners, doesn't break itself constantly, and gets all the features of Arch from mainline Arch, not the Manjaro repos. I strongly suggest you revise your recommendation to EndeavourOS; there's very good reason behind why this community dislikes Manjaro.

I ran Linux on a Zenbook Pro Duo. Fedora's KDE distribution was the only release I ever found that worked out of the box with both touchscreens as I'd expect. You'd think a big release like Ubuntu would work, but whatever they have set up for touchscreens is slightly out of whack. For example, touch and drag would select text instead of scrolling the page.

By default, your laptop might try to stay awake all the time. The second screen is treated as an external monitor, and there's a setting you can find in the configuration menu that forces the laptop to stay awake when an external device is connected.

Some other things to note. If you've got an older model, you might be able to find a third-party software suite such as this one that will allow you to use your laptop almost normally.

However, if your laptop is new enough, you might be unable to find any software (third party or otherwise) that supports the built-in features such as quick screen swapping, numpad, or turning off the lower screen. The lower screen is LCD anyways, so you won't get burn in. If you're worried about power, I've found that despite the lower screen being on full-time, Linux still doubled or tripled my battery life compared to when I ran Windows. I think the biggest immediate drawback is that you may not have any on-board audio due to a lack of drivers, though that might have been fixed in Fedora 40. I know they were working on that in the newer version of upstream Linux (which may not have arrived yet), but I haven't been following it. And finally, you won't be able to adjust the brightness of the lower screen without some configuration. Again, some of that might be mitigated if you can find some compatible and reliable 3rd-party software for your laptop.

I will say that despite all the limitations mentioned above, I still vastly preferred Linux to Windows. The battery life alone was enough to warrant the switch.

Thanks, I was hoping to find someone who did this before. And apparently not the first time I read that fedora is my best/only option for the type of laptop. Great tips!
- Hey OP, I just installed Fedora KDE as dual boot on my desktop (slowly transitioning from Windows) and I can vouch for what the person above you is saying. Good luck, and feel free to ask anything. I’m no expert, but I can at least listen.

Visual Studio is not available on Linux and not really working in Wine, sadly. You can use IntelliJ IDEA as a good alternative, it supports Linux officially and has a Flutter plugin.

For a beginner, Linux Mint is perfect. It is based on Ubuntu which is based on Debian, so you can follow most tutorials written for either distribution (like the installation instructions for IntelliJ IDEA or other software that is not available from the APT package manager).

Sorry, I honestly didn’t know it was that different Visual studio from visual studio code. I use the VS CODE and it seems available on linux, but I’ll check also Intellij IDEA.
- Visual Studio is meant for C/C++/C#, IntelliJ is made for Java (as the name might suggest). JetBrains has IDEs for C (CLion) and C# (Rider) though. All JetBrains IDEs are available for Linux. Visual Studio isn't, Visual Studio Code is. I recommend using an optimized version of Visual Studio Code called VSCodium.
For a beginner, Linux Mint is perfect

Mint for Mint then maybe the Debian Edition (LMDE) instead the the common one based on Ubuntu, which again is Debian just LTS. Also, if OP is tired of Microsoft enshittification imagine him finding out Ubuntu's company Canonical decided that apt command should sometimes install snap packages instead of deb binaries, because "reasons" (NVM lucky us at Mint there are sane people). Or that it tried to put ads in their OS even before Windows even tried.
What? VS Code is available on Linux and that's what they're using
- The post was edited
I have a native Linux version of Visual Studio Code on my Tumbleweed system and everything works fine so far for me
- VS, not VS Code
  
  Why anyone outside the Microsoft ecosystem would want to use Visual Studio though, idk
- Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code is not the same thing at all 😂

Isn't Google dismantling the flutter team?

It was supposed to be the react-native killer!
Doesn't mean your company didn't bet on the wrong horse. Luckily we stay far away from anything Google touches, but I have friends in other companies who weren't as lucky.
- So far we've been lucky. But, we are concerned with some of our stack. We help where we can, but it's a bit of an unknown. The google graveyard basically screams to keep away from any of their tech.
I’m still recovering from the news.

I'm at the point whe recommending distros fir new comers its Debian, Arch, Fedora and Linux Mint.

Debian is my go to. Stable, I love the apt package manager. Desktop environment is a bit irrelevant with recommendations because you can easily install any desktop environment or window manager. You will figure out what environment you like along the way. Installation is simple, you can do minimal installs as well and it's what many big name distros are based on.

I really like Arch. Minimal, great package manager, AUR extends application availability even when you have flatpaks, snaps and app images and the repo. You can use the archinstall script these days so you don't have to worry about installing the old-fashioned Arch way. It will also teach you what to do when updates fail because it's a rolling release.

If none of those are appealing then I would advise Fedora. Great package manager, get newer packages if package versions are important for you and a solid distribution that is the upstream for Red Hat. It's the best of both worlds of Debian and Arch in my opinion.

The last one is Linux Mint. I've found myself avoid recommening forks. This is my exception. I can't say a lot because I haven't used it much. But I've installed it 2x to different family members who never used Linux before and use it and love it. I did it because they are forks and I can give support because I'm familiar with what it's based on and the high recommendation from the online community. It's great for beginners and veterans alike from what I can tell from the online community. Great team of developers.

I would not recommend Arch for beginners. I like it, but it's best for someone a bit familiar with Linux already. Yeah, the install is pretty simple now that Archinstall is a thing, but it's not the method recommended in the Arch Wiki and if there's something wrong with your install and you complain on the Arch Forum they might not be super helpful.

More generally, the mood on the Arch forum and Arch communities at large isn't super beginner friendly, and thay's understandable: In a distro meant to be user friendly and aimed at general user, if the user does what seems natural to them and the system break, the community will feel a responsibility towards them, because the system wasn't stable and user-friendly enough. In a distro primarily aimed at power users and devs, if the user does what seems natural to them and the system breaks, then the user is a fool and should've read the wiki.

Because it is a very fast rolling release, some updates can break stuff. It doesn't happen often, but it can happen at a bad time and be a big problem for someone who doesn't know how to deal with it.

Debian is more stable, and easier if you go with a D.E, but you still have to make several choices during the install, which might be a bit complicated for a beginner who doesn't know what any of these options mean... Tho of course, it's possible to go with all the defaults and it'll be alright.

But my prime recommendation would be Linux Mint.
- I will not debate your thoughts on Arch though I personally have more problems on other distros. What I will say is that the EndeavourOS forums are pretty friendly. EOS is Arch for non-elitists.
- Generally speaking, I have nothing to really argue against that..but I can only recommend based on how I have learned Linux. I have found myself only enjoying the base distros and not forks because no matter all the time I wasted distro hopping, I felt like I was using the same thing over and over again beyond the package manager or installer.
  
  One thing I would add is, when I used Arch, I avoided the Arch forums...specifically because of what you mentioned. In one way, one should expect that of the Arch forums. If you choose to use a distro that forces you to build the system yourself, you should expect to fix your problems yourself. So the forums I found useless and never posted there. The fact there is even an Arch forum that offers supports, beyond the wiki, I find funny. I would just use the wiki and search engines.
What about popos?
- I've never used PopOS. I'm not into forks and it is based on Ubuntu. This isn't to say I think it's bad. I just don't recommend forks. If you want to try PopOS, go for it.

I heard about this new company called Linux

I thought it was funny at least, so you gave me a good laugh.

I'd say Linux Mint or Ubuntu (you're familiar with this one) would be good "Out of the Box" options. They run an environment known as "Debian" so they're super similar and are pretty similar to what Windows offers in all honesty. You just burn them to a USB, run them from your desired computer's BIOS, and the rest is through a GUI interface you can follow along with. I have no experience with a touchscreen as I'm running Linux Mint XFCE (lightest weight version) on a laptop from the early 2010's with an Intel N2820 in it, but I'm assuming some workaround can exist to implement that. You also seem somewhat familiar with the alternative programs for different purposes, but rest assured both Ubuntu and Mint come with file explorers (Mint XFCE uses one called Thunar which is pretty effective) and you can easily swap out/install a different file manager to get jobs done as needed.

Plus - any programs you used with Windows which may not have Linux alternatives or versions - can be run through Wine. I've encountered a few hiccups when doing this (like a program I needed for school which was unable to pass the initial installation and actually run the program).

I've run Linux Mint XFCE as my daily driver for work and school tasks on my laptop for about 2-3 years at this point and it's been pretty great. Full disclosure: I still run Windows 11 on my main PC at home and have Windows 10 on a HTPC/Server with docker on it (though I've been debating switching to Ubuntu for this as well) so I still know there are benefits to a Windows system (while working to remove any and all advertising and AI garbage) but if I were to recommend someone a distro it would be as I've said above.

Good luck! Hope you find one that works for you!

Thanks, I feel like Mint could be already a valid one but maybe Fedora kde could be more useful. I'll check both for sure asap. It's crazy how bad windows is honesty and still so necessary for some jobs.
Can Mint read files from a Windows partition or is it a different filesystem?

I'm waiting until there's a good sale on Hard drives to set up a dual-boot.
- Reading filesystem is not about which distribution you have but drivers on disc. If you have FAT the defaults should work, for NTFS you might have to install the ntfs driver. I don't use mint but it's the linux way so either it's already there or you can install it. Once you have driver just mount it like a normal drive and it's done.

As a Dart developer myself you won't have any problem with VS code and Dart. Actually, it's a bit better than on Windows because it was originally not much of a windows centric system anyways

Try Linux Mint.

Is Linux Mint well adapted for touch screens?

I think I would go for GNOME if I were to use Linux with a touch screen. Then again, I'm using it anyway, so I'm probably biased.
- I got a laptop with a touch screen for a young kid in my family, installed Fedora Workstation with its native Gnome desktop, and touch worked great without any tinkering.
  
  Gnomes workflow is a big departure from windows, but with its gesture navigation on a trackpad, I think it’s a highly superior way to use a laptop. My desktop gets KDE Plasma, but if I had a laptop it would use gnome
- Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.2 touch support works perfectly with my Asus T100 "tablet" (I lost the keyboard dock). Also, I specified the version because LM v21.2+ removed the traditional panel option (taskbar with labels), like what MS did to Win11 :(
Honestly anything shipping a MATE desktop edition would be good too. MATE is similar enough to windows that most people get it pretty quickly.
- It doesn't have as great of support as cinnamon

Edit: the linux-company thing is just for triggering people, sorry I didn’t know it was this effective.

Errrr... why would you try to trigger people, especially while asking for their help? Don't you think it's plain rude?

I thought it was pretty funny.
- Making people laugh and triggering people are quite different motives
- Same here, until I read OP's intentions.
  
  Writing stuff to trigger people is the definition of being a troll (well, one of the possible definitions).
  
  It's worth nothing that a mediocre troll can sometime pass for a comedian.
You guys have a penguin up your butt or something? It was a good joke
- Fuck off with your kink shaming dude.
I think it's hilarious. If somebody gets triggered by something so simple, their advice will probably amount to "use Arch/NixOS/Gentoo" and probably isn't worth listening to.

Anti Commercial-AI license
Rude? That's a bit much
Fair enough… but :D would you say I’m triggering ppl for attention or am I training users for a dystopian ai future?

One day when we can’t distinguish humans from bots, you will think about that rude guy on lemmy that baited you with love :)
Yeah, I've seen better strategic thinking...

I dunno if it's already been mentioned, but there's VSCodium, it's vscode without Microsoft

As a fellow Windows user tipping ever further towards finally making the switch, this resonates on a lot of levels. Also I saw what you did with the "company called Linux" thing and thought it was funny 🙌

Gimp and Blender are Linux software

DaVinci Resolve has a Linux version

Code OSS (or VSCode is you want Windows telemetry included) works

a working file explorer

Not an issue, you can use Dolphin on Windows if you wanted

NO FUCKIN ADS

That’s easy

Now unfortunately, ready or not, I need to switch.

Try Mint

The things I missed are ones I know nothing about

Edit: the linux-company thing is just for triggering people, sorry I didn’t know it was this effective.

Heh it really was wasn't it? Been on Linux for near to twenty years now and I'm still surprised to see it. :D

Linux is not a company! Its a community driven open source project made by people like you who don't want to be under a corporations thumb!

There are many such open source programs, and they should be your first choice when looking for alternatives.

I suggest trying the Fedora OS, and using the site alternativeto.net to find open source alternatives to any programs you need.

Don't forget to always use the packge manager to install sotfware!

Hi. So, not all of the software you use will work on Linux (which btw isn’t a company but to put it simply a family of open source operating systems sharing a common core):

Affinity don’t offer a Linux version so you will need to try something like WINE to run the Windows versions.
Blender will defo work, not sure about the others
Davinci will work, has a Linux version
VSCode has a Linux version
File explorers work.

Ubuntu sadly is not what it was.

I’d suggest Pop_OS or Fedora- I think Fedora used to have a media oriented “Fedora Design Suite” version.

That’s one thing I find particularly neat about Fedora, it has all of these software package groups that can be either added on at install, or installed at any time, including:

   3D Printing
   Administration Tools
   Audio Production
   Authoring and Publishing
   Books and Guides
   C Development Tools and Libraries
   Cloud Infrastructure
   Cloud Management Tools
   Container Management
   D Development Tools and Libraries
   Design Suite
   Development Tools
   Domain Membership
   Fedora Eclipse
   Editors
   Educational Software
   Electronic Lab
   Engineering and Scientific
   FreeIPA Server
   Games and Entertainment
   Headless Management
   LibreOffice
   MATE Applications
   MATE Compiz
   Medical Applications
   Milkymist
   Network Servers
   Office/Productivity
   Robotics
   RPM Development Tools
   Security Lab
   Sound and Video
   System Tools
   Text-based Internet
   Window Managers

Davinci doesnt just work. They are proprietary so packaging as a flatpak is near impossible, which makes bundling drivers difficult.

They require proprietary NVIDIA drivers afaik, but people also run it on AMD GPUs. No idea of Intel GPUs.

Linux is the kerbal, the company would be GNU.

/s

Maybe the kernel? :)
- Ah damn. Didn't proof-read myself. It's a fun typo though, maybe Linux is related to Jebediah?

Why is no-one recommending pop-os? Works fine for me in all aspects. They even provide hardware, but that's not needed, you can just use the OS.

If I'm honest, it's because Pop!_OS isn't really that good. What does Pop!_OS do particularly well other than "download this one for Nvidia drivers"?
- I'm sure I'll return to Pop eventually, maybe on the next release, but right now I'm struggling to get everything I want out of it with my hardware.
- Pop Shop is good, their updates are great and don't break the system like a lot of other distros, and their version of Gnome is polished and sleek.
- My biggest point is that it works out of the box and that it feels more premium compared to Ubuntu. It also auto updates nowadays and they build special mechanisms to preserve your battery if used on a laptop. Soon they will come out with their own desktop. They specifically focus on people who develop. Just sounds like a good option for OP. Compared to more difficult installations.
I just recommended it before I saw your comment

I'm not sure which distro would work with your laptop. I would suggest experimenting with live USB images. Maybe using something like Ventoy which enables you to try out multiple live images from one USB stick. But as far as applications go:

GIMP is native to Linux and should work fine. You might also want to give Krita and Inkscape a whirl. Also, massive props for ditching Adobe. I hate that company as much as it hates their customers.
Blender works on linux.
So does Davinci. Allegedly. Haven't used it, but their website says Linux support is available.
I don't code so, um, no idea. Sorry. Hopefully someone else will weigh in.
Good news, Linux has working file explorers!
No ads, at least for the most part. Ubuntu had Amazon's search integrated into their search bar a while back, which caused quite a kerfuffle. Later, they added a toggle to turn this off, but this was years ago. Might want to check just in case.

Thanks! I’ll check Ventoy. Yea, i just don’t want to change everything to end up with amazon search bar instead or bing.
No ads, at least for the most part.

Don't forget terminal ads for Ubuntu pro
- From what I'm reading, Ubuntu is slowly turning into Windows.
  
  Ubundows? Winbuntu? I'll see myself out...

KDE Neon is a fantastic choice for those coming from Windows. https://neon.kde.org/

For graphics stuff you will be using Gimp, Inkscape, and Krita. No adjustment layers, or cmyk, sorry. If that is enough for you, good, if not, you're out of luck.

For 3D modelling, only Blender.

For video, DaVinci only works sometimes, depending on distro, version of the app, drivers installed etc. It's a bit of a crapshoot. A good alternative is kdenlive if you don't need hardware acceleration, proper color grading and film emulation, or compositing.

Google laid off most Dart/Flutter developers just a week ago or so.

Thunar for file manager, not Nautilus. Nautilus crashes in folders that has hundreds of svg files in it (e.g. a theme folder), or when you're trying to copy a 30 gb folder to a new folder on the same secondary drive (it only copied 9 GB out of the 30, all files were owned by me). Both bugs bit me just the other day.

I say KDE Plasmas Dolphin is the best File manager :D
- 1000% correct.
The google layoff really destroyed me. I really like flutter, what a shitshow. Thanks for the tips!

https://zorin.com/os/ its an out of the box distro that specifically tries to emulate the windows feel. In particular it has play on linux installed by default making running windows programs when needed as easy as it can be. the out of the box is office type stuff really though so you will have to install blender and such.

I really like Zorin as a beginner's distro. It's based on Ubuntu so most everything is designed to work with it without learning a whole new command line tool, but it doesn't try to hide the Linuxey stuff and mimic windows. On top of that it's just very polished.
- im not really a beginner myself but Im lazy and this point and just want a system up and running asap. if I was not using it I would likely use puppy because I like the read only core.

The NVIDIA proprietary driver recently got decent update, but not all necessary changes might be in distros just yet. It should be pretty complete ootb experience in a month or two. My advice is to use something recent, like Fedora or Arch{,-based} for the easiest time with NVIDIA.

Affinity and Corel don’t have Linux ports (like most big commercial productive apps sadly), and running them with Wine might be possible but can bring mixed results, see https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=18332 https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=5321 Canva seem to be available and they distribute it via AppImage. Gimp is native and trivial to install on most distros, or even bundled by default. If you want to try Windows software with Wine, use Bottles.

Blender is native and available in any Linux repo as it’s FOSS app. Rhino 3D looks like possible to run with Wine…

Linux version of Davinci Resolve is available, but it’s famous for being a bit of a pain to install and being slightly limited with some codecs/functionality missing.

You should be fine with coding unless you wanted something like .NET and full blown VisualStudio. VS Code is ok.

There’s wide range of file explorers on Linux, and since it’s rather good idea to stick to whatever is default for your desktop (For instance Dolphin on KDE) you can even change the default to something else if you don’t like it.

It would be actually hard to get something with embedded ads on Linux desktop. Canonical tried with their Amazon „integrations” in Ubuntu like 12 years ago, and boy did they regret…

Most .NET development is arguably superior on Linux than on Windows. I would certainly say this for console, web or cloud, especially if you are using containers. Mobile dev is a bit more of a mixed bag. Obviously if you are building desktop Windows apps explicitly then that is better on Windows. However, if you are building cross-platform .NET apps ( eg. Avalonia or Uno ), you are back to Linux being better.

If you like a full IDE like Visual Studio then you want Rider on Linux ( which is better than VS even on Windows IMHO ). If you are a Visual Studio Code person, you can use that on Linux natively. Of course, if you are a neovim or Emacs user, we are back to Linux being better.

Many distros ship .NET in their repos these days. One issue with that is that you may want to update .NET more often than your distro does. While you can do that, I think it is best not to do that. For this reason, I think choosing a distro that stays up-to-date is best for .NET dev. My recommendation would be an Arch derivative like EndeavourOS. EOS includes .NET in the repos and provides very timely updates.
Even .NET isn't terrible on Linux. I mostly write in C# using .net stuff myself and I've yet to have any compatibility or performance issues running on Ubuntu. I can't speak to graphical side though as I'm mostly backend or command line tools.
You can use JetBrains Rider for C# (.NET), it's available natively for Linux, you can download it as a flatpak: https://flathub.org/apps/com.jetbrains.Rider

Linux Mint if you're unsure

Fedora if you're brave and want the full Toolbox

Please not Ubuntu. It has enough of its own issues that it originally turned me away from Linux.

Oh and KDE for the desktop environment if you want great out of box windows like UI if you go with Fedora. Mint comes with cinnamon which is also pretty good. xfce if you want to run linux on a potato.

Take something user-friendly, like Linux Mint, or Fedora.

I'd recommend against it, but if you'd *really* want to try something Arch-based, you can try EndeavourOS.
Linux mint is pretty outdated and restricting. They using GTK while fighting GNOME is not a nice place to be.

Also their extension store looks like "nobody uses Linux" unlike the KDE Plasma extensions.

Fedora is not user friendly out of the box due to their legal issues and their strange Fedora Flatpaks. I recommend uBlue instead, even though somehow they removed instructions to install the main variants and only advertize Bluefin/Aurora and Bazzite.
- uhh on fedora just enable third party repos during initial setup and you’re good. its insanely easy

The most obvious difference for the end-user compared to Windows is that you can choose different desktop environments, such as KDE, GNOME, XFCE, LXQt, Mate or Cinnamon to name the most prominent among others. As you are used to the look-and-feel of Windows, I'd suggest giving KDE a try.

For a beginner, I'd recommend using a 'beginner friendly' distribution such as Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE) or Linux Mint (based on Ubuntu using Mate/Cinnamon DE). Fedora, Linux Mint Debian Edition or plain Debian are also suitable, but for a more experienced user.

I'm going to toss in another recommendation for Linux Mint. The interface is very similar to classic Windows and it has a large user base so it shouldn't be hard to find instructions online if you get stuck. Software-wise, Linux Mint 21.3 is entirely compatible with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Use the default Cinnamon version.

Coming from Windows, the only other very important non-obvious thing is that you should look for software on the app store application first instead of downloading packages from the Internet. Unlike the Microsoft Store, Linux app stores are often connected to a variety of software sources, and they will also update your software to the latest versions automatically whenever you download system updates. Almost all of the software you mentioned can be found in the app store. It's very convenient!

No-one has commented on your mentioning VS and Flutter... I haven't used it but I think VS is available for Linux?

I contribute to the Thunder client for Lemmy from my system running EndeavourOS with KDE.

I personally use android studio for this. I hit a pitfall on installing the android, flutter and dart SDKs from the AUR, but that turned out to be the lesser method. It was much easier to just let android studio install them to a folder, and thereby have it manage their versions.

The one downside was having to add their folders to PATH, so terminal commands like adb, dart, emulator, flutter, etc. work, but that's not a big deal.

There is a Flatpak for Android Studio and I had it installed. It likely works very well.
- Good!
  
  My main concern would be running terminal commands to control an emulator and dart and flutter commands, but as long as all that can interact correctly, it should serve.

You want Pop!_OS. It's based on Ubuntu, but run by an actual company that has removed the analytics and created a really seamless experience for users. It is a perfect distros for new Linux users. Some people recommend Mint, but it didn't feel polished enough to me.

I would say to just try it out and see how it is! The live USB works nicely and you can decide you don't like a distro and move on rapidly. There are also tools out there that let you load up multiple distros on the USB at once, and then pick which one to use when you boot up.

I went through my own struggles with dual booting Linux some time ago. If you search on Lemmy, you can find those embarrassing posts. It was my fault, I got confident and messed with 'grub' in all the wrong ways, before cutting my losses early and reverting everything because I had other commitments to deal with.

The good thing though is that it's totally possible to put Windows back 100% the way it was before, even after messing up as badly as I did (I couldn't boot into either operating system because the machine couldn't find the boot entry). Once you're ready to replace windows with Linux (or dual boot etc.), make a good backup with something like Macrium Reflect and you should be safe to go for it. I highly doubt you'll make the mistakes I did, the story is to say that you can mess up and be just fine!

As for your use case:

affinity programs aren't on Linux from what I remember, you might want to experiment and see if you can run it with Wine or if you have an alternative (ex. Dual boot, different programs)
Not sure about Davinci, comments suggest that it runs ok on Linux. I like KdenLive

As for what people recommended, and what I'm planning to try soon

Kubuntu (if you want Ubuntu that looks similar to windows)
Fedora (what I tried last time)
Linux Mint

OK, let me fill you with my experience. Now I am on Desktop Linux, and I can't say how your Double Touch screens will work. But I can tell you about some of your points.

Affinity, canva, corel, and cinema4d are not Linux compatible and you'll need to run them in Wine/Wine GE via software like Bottles or Lutris. Most will not work, while others like affinity might work, but requires a lot of working around. If these software's are required, you may want to look at a Mac.

keyshot, gimp, vscode(ium) are all native and have either scripts or can be installed via Flatpak or from the distros app repos.

Davinci Resolve is interesting, You've lucked out since you have an rtx2060, but Resolve is quite finicky to get working Linux. You'll need nvidia drivers and the open source free drivers will not work. All good Linux distros should have easy access, but I found Fedora to be trickier to install. Once you can get Resolve working, you'll either need to buy Studio if you want H.264 support, and if your videos aren't using PCM audio then you'll need to convert it using FFMPEG. I have a script which I use at the end of my injest. Afterwords, it runs and works fine, with no issues (assuming you have the RAM to run it 32GB recommended). If you don't want to deal with any of this (understandable) Mac OS has no issues out of the box.

Working file explorer: up to taste, and personal preference. Every distro will have one and it'll be good enough, but some distros tailor theirs to their OS's tastes. If you are running with a popular Desktop Environment, i.e. KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, then it'll work.

Now if you want my two cents on all of this. First you should aim for a Ubuntu based distro. While Ubuntu itself isn't bad, I personally prefer a different Desktop Environment as Gnome is too different for me from what Windows offers. Linux Mint with Cinnamon and POP_OS are good alternative with a more Windows/Mac flavoring, and since they are running Gnome underneath it'll have the same compatibility as Ubuntu proper with hardware.

Another option is Kubuntu which used KDE's Plasma. Plasma is OK, but I find it to be a little less refined than it's appearance lead me to believe.

Now for testing, I'd advise you to get a second SSD and an enclosure and plug it into a USB-C port. It'll do wonders to quickly go an run everything, without sacrificing you existing install of Winblows. Linux is so efficent I ran my main PC for a week off of it, and only noticed while running games.

Finally, depending on how often you are using your Windows only software. You might get away with running them in a Windows 10 VM, and using a shared folder to the Host machine to move files back and forth.

This is definatly a project you should look into, but I feel you should probably look at more cross platform alternatives to your software first. Since another alternative, if you aren't playing games, is a Mac.

Quick correction: Canva is web based so you can use it on Linux no problem.

For me, the Windows software I use are:

Musicbee

Davinci Resolve

That's pretty much it. I could definitely switch to Linux full time, but Musicbee is soooo good that it feels like a sacrifice.
Thank you! DaVinci feels like the bigger problem, but between changing os or changing application, i will change davinci in a second. No more compromises for me, enough.

If i ever buy apple again i hope someone will find me and beat me up until I'm unconscious.
- Well your only alternative is Kdenlive, which is a very unstable experience. There are some alternative video editing software on Linux, but they follow the adobe model of, give me your money forever to use it. Resolve works, just need to tune your injest to get the video to work. I have a bash script I can send you that batch fixes videos which I can send you.
  
  As for apple machines. I get the distain as I too don’t like Apple, and feel their locked in software, hardware, and ecosystem is overpriced and unreliable. But the way I see it, if the computer is for work, which this appears to be, I need the best machine for the job, and Apple unlike Microsoft and Google, has very clean software and hardware that I can trust for professional work. No ads, very fast hardware, stable, with no compromises.
  
  That said I will not use them for personal use. Hence the switch over to Linux. I would’ve got a Mac Mini for work if I had the budget for one.

Btw for running Davinci resolve try this project

It is not exactly tested but allows to pack the software into a container, making sure it works forever if it works.

Linux Mint although X may not work with touch screens.

The other option is Fedora Workstation but you will need to update to the latest release every 6 months as it ships brand new packages.

Debian probably

I wouldn't recommend it for a noob, but the setup process isn't too complicated either. Its benefit is definitely its stability and long update period, the downside is that some software might be a bit outdated, but today, however, one can get fresh versions, of e.g. Inkscape or GIMP, as flatpak.

Gimp and Blender are both available on Linux. VS Code is on Linux (most coding stuff is on Linux). Linux file explorers work pretty well (Dolphin, for example). I’d recommend Kubuntu, KDE neon or Linux Mint for the distro, all are pretty similar in appearance to Windows. It won’t take much learning with them.

pretty done with Bill’s fetishes about bing and ai.

I agree with all your points, but Bill Gates has no agency on the company's decisions these days. Blame Satya.

"What you read is not what's happening in reality. Satya and the entire senior leadership team lean on Gates very significantly. His opinion is sought every time we make a major change."

Business Insider article

No agency you say?
- Well, shit!

as for video editing, i've been using flowblade recently, it's been pretty good for putting together more basic edits.

You should install it using flatpak and only update when you have no more active projects (for the moment it seems updates partially break older saves)

pcmanfm has been pretty solid, i really recommend learning CLI file management though, it's universal and super convenient for the basic things.

What do you think of flowblade vs something like kdenlive?
- personally i haven't done much with kdenlive, i've only ever used flowblade in significant capacity. But i've found flowblade to be a lot more consistently laid out, and considerably easier to pick up than flowblade. Though i haven't had any significant technical limitations in editing abilities. One thing about it that's a little weird is that everything is very modular, it has a titling tool, but it saves it to a png, which is automatically added to the media bin, so you can just drag it to the timeline, which is nice from the sense that it easily lets you migrate them between projects, or even edit them externally to add some more shit.
  
  It does the same thing with video clips if you reverse them using the integrated tool, though last i tried using it i recall it being broken, though i only used that on my wizards with guns video so i haven't tried since then, and it worked for that video though.
  
  here's my youtube channel where i've used primarily flowblade for the past year or so. It should be fairly obvious which ones are edited
  
  I'm sure you could do the same thing in kdenlive, and it probably has a couple different and maybe a few more features than flowblade, but like i said, i haven't found a significant reason to dislike flowblade other than the project save bug, which is pretty easy to avoid tbh.
  
  Flowblade also natively integrates GMIC as well, so it allows pretty substantial visual alteration of clips if you fuck with that. You can also use ffmpeg externally for some additional stuff, maybe through gmic, idk never tried.
  
  Overall i'm pretty happy with flowblade, works fine. Doing timelapses with it might be eh, but iirc it does have a tool for that so idk. I haven't tried that yet.

I'm not a graphics designer and idk any of the graphics related apps you listed except gimp but everything should work fine as long as it have a native Linux version. You may need to replace Davinci with something else though because it can be a pain to get working on Linux.

For distros, I'd recommend Mint because it's just pretty much the most beginner-friendly one you can get and it's quite conservative but it has very old drivers so performance may not be the best, EndeavourOS (based on Arch btw but quite stable) if you have very very recent hardware or if you want newest performance optimizations (driver versions) and Pop!_OS if you have an NVidia GPU. I wouldn't recommend Fedora or Ubuntu because the first one rushes major bleeding edge changes (including AI) and the second one is known for some questionable choices (including ads and pushing proprietary app stores with poor moderation).

P. S. We do not like clickbait or any other kinds of bait here. Please follow the rules of ethical posting

Thanks, I’m slowing distancing myself from software that are not supported in linux or treat customers as milking cows for ai. At least in graphic design space, I feel I’m getting cornered more and more from people like adobe, microsoft or apple. I’ll check endeavourOs and def Mint!

Sorry for the bait, I thought it was more obvious
- You can try the GIMP beta Flatpak.
  
  See instructions how to do this in my repo
  
  After adding the repo, do flatpak install --user gimp and use the gimp-beta version.
  
  They add tons of stuff to it like color profiles and nondestructive filters.
"We do not like clickbait"

Who gave you the authority to speak in the name of the community exactly?
- Nobody. I just analysed the behavior of the community and came to the conclusion that the majority doesn't like it.

Intro:

Linux is open source, anyone can grab the code and distribute their own Linux distro, some of them are community Maintained, some are backed by big companies. Some of them are based on another distro and they change stuff, a spin off of sorts. Think of Linux as a big waterfall which then is forked into several rivers, and then forked into more rivers. Each river has it's own characteristics, which some come from upstream and some others are their own.

There are four big players: Debian, Ubuntu (which is based on Debian), Fedora and Arch. Then you have POP OS and Linux Mint which are based on Ubuntu, but they change stuff to make it even easier to use, specially for Nvidia users.

In Linux, everything works out of the box because every driver is part of the core of Linux called the Linux Kernel. Except for Nvidia, for which you need their own non-open source, proprietary driver. Installing that driver manually is much harder than on Windows, so that's why everyone recommends a distro that ships with Nvidia drivers out of the box.

I don't know how they will behave with double touchscreens. Try some distros and report back please.

OS

All major Linux distros have no ads For a PC with Nvidia GPU, pick a distro that ships with Nvidia drivers. Like POP OS & Linux Mint.

Software

GFX:

Vector: Inkscape Raster: GIMP, Krita, Photopea, Canva

VFX:

Editing: Davinci Resolve, KDEnlive Post: Davinci Resolve, Natron

3D Modeling: Blender

Just beware that Affinity won't work well (there's been an attempt with a custom version of Wine that I haven’t tried: https://github.com/daniel080400/AffinityLinuxTut)

Resolve works on on linix but make sure you check that your codecs are supported.

Your dual screen thingy might be a problem, but it can't hurt to give it a shot. Just make a live system and see if everything works. I would suggest trying Mint or Pop. Those are both known for good hardware compatibility out of the box.

Re edit: That combined with double touch screens made me think this was all a shit post lol

Thanks for sharing this information! I appreciate the detailed explanation and the effort you put into making it clear. It’s really helpful and will definitely guide me in making an informed decision. If you have more tips qr コード読み取り pc or insights, feel free to share them. Thanks again!

I Will spit out what i think cause this threads are full of words and empty of content... Almost any Linux distro is good for starting out ... Make sure it has a nice manual and community Ubuntu, mint debian or something similar... Vs code Is a Microsoft fork of vs codium an open source app, to avoid telemetry just use vs codium... Remove adds can be done in different ways in my opinion add bloock on Firefox is a good start... File explorer are good on any Linux distro just learn how to use one ... If u have a document u should probably save it in the document folder... in your user home ...

Sadly, still dual boot for rhino, in a VM I’m just not getting enough performance out of my aging pc.

A Linux version would be a dream come true.

If you have NVidia, I'd recommend Pop_OS!. The Nvidia controls in there for Optimus are the best that System76 has written.

Nobara has a lot of fixes in it that are made for video editing and graphics, particularly davinci and blender. It's quite cutting edge on it's packages (despite being based on Fedora 39 it has Plasma 6 for last few weeks). but otherwise quite stable to use. All non-free package repos are enabled. Overall, it's been a low-maintenance, high productivity environment for me.

I'm only a Linux command-line guy (Mac for GUI), but you're making the right decision. You can have a computer that doesn't suck and this is one of the ways. Good luck!

Mac for GUI

I'm sorry
- Say what you will, but once you adapt I'd take the Mac OS ui/ux over just about any other.

You sound like a dick, and “Bill” is not involved anymore. That’s like yelling at Steve Jobs.

Regardless, I just switched a dozen people in my company to KDE Neon with no issues. Full hardware support. They’re all using Thinkpad, mostly the T16

video editing: davinci

Btw, there's olive editor 0.2. It's kinda unstable, but much better interface than davinci. Plus, it's open source.

I don't think Olive is a good alternative to davinci resolve. First, nothing is good if it crashes a lot. Second, Davinci Resolve is feature rich and super powerful, while Olive is not. The closest FOSS alternative is Kdenlive, but I'd recommend finding a distro that can run Davinci itself, as Davinci does have a native Linux client for some distros.
- Well, can't argue much with that. It's a shame it crashes often.. I might check kdenlive some time though.

Using VS code is definitely bad. Round these here parts, you choose either the Church of Emacs or the Cult of vi… no exceptions.

Or you can just use vscodium.
- Does it work in a terminal as a TUI? If no, gates shall be kept. 😠
- BLASPHEMER!!!
  
  insert The life of Brian pic

I'd recommend installing kde neon. KDE is a user interface that looks a bit more like windows, it should be an easy transition. KDE Neon runs most of the latest versions, should have the best support whilst being easy to install.

Most of the software you manage should work, for those that might be problematic, you might be able to find alternatives, see alternativeto.net