For context:

I’ve been using Linux since 2000. Started with Mandrake Linux (Helios?), then I moved to Ubuntu in 2004 and alternated between Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Ubuntu MATE for a time until I settled with Kubuntu for the last few years.

Ubuntu has been rock solid for me for the past 20 years and I’m used to the APT package management and Ubuntu/Debian environment overall with all the various services and configs, setups and release cycles, etc. The stability allows me to enjoy my spare time playing games and doing other important tasks instead of troubleshooting my system and figuring out how to make something work. Ubuntu has been awesome in that regard.

I’ve also been dual-booting this whole time with Windows. Gaming on Linux simply wasn’t up to snuff up until very recently with Steam working on Wine and Proton for the Steam Deck and Bottles, which makes running Windows games on Linux almost comparable to Windows.

Windows 10 was a great OS, except for a few flaws and privacy issues with the introduction of mandatory Microsoft accounts and One Drive integration. But you could work around those things. It was supposed to be the last Windows we would have to install with perpetual rolling releases, but apparently they changed their minds about that. Windows 11 was released and reading about it gives me nightmares. Using it for work also has been an incredibly buggy and frustrating experience. The invasion of privacy, data collection, screen monitoring and AI integration plus the additional advertisement are all reasons for which I will never install this OS on my personal computer. And some of these features have started to leak into Windows 10.

So I’ve made up my mind. I’m wiping Windows from my PC and will be running Linux only. I believe it’s become good enough to use as a daily driver for a home gaming desktop and for productivity. But… Which distribution should I choose?

The dilemma:

There’s been a whole slew of new Linux distributions that have come out lately. Some have been early in the Linux gaming aspect such as POP! OS. Others have tried to become a solid replacement for the default immutable Steam OS such as Bazzite. And there are now some pretty awesome sounding gaming-focused distros such as Nobara. And that’s on top of the various existing Ubuntu flavors, Fedora’s spins, OpenSuse and the many Arch variants that almost seem to pop up monthly.

I’ve been shopping around for a distribution to become my daily driver from now until who knows when. I’m expecting to stick to that distro as long as possible. Here’s some of the things that I am looking for:

• Not immutable : I find this to be adapted for devices like tablets, IoT devices and handhelds instead of an actual PC. I’ll need to be able to change my system configs as I please and an Immutable distro seems like a pain in the butt to deal with that.
• Rock solid : This is the most important aspect and is why a lot of the Arch or other bleeding edge distros won’t do. (With some exceptions)
• Hardware support : The second most important aspect. I think that’s pretty much covered by most popular distros, but some have better support than others. Especially for ease of getting the right drivers. (Especially for NVidia GPUs, or gaming controllers and devices.)
• Performance : Most popular distros offer ok performance, but some have been enhanced to provide improved performance according to the hardware. This is a very big nice to have, especially for gaming.
• Desktop choice : I’m really not a big fan of Gnome 3. It seems nobody really is. Many Gnome based distros come with quality of life extensions out of the box to fix that. Not a big fan of GTK apps’ UI ergonomics either. That’s why I prefer KDE over Gnome or Cinnamon. Budgie seems like a great alternative as well. Also having a PowerToys-style FancyZones tiling system is a big big plus (KDE has that OOTB)
• Applications : The thing I love about Ubuntu is the amount of available applications in their repos. I’m hoping to have the same availability in my next distribution.
• Online community/support : Having a great online support community is very important. The more users, the larger the knowledge base and the easier you can find answers to questions to troubleshoot problems.
• Online services integration : Optional but a very nice to have would be to have integration with Google apps like GMail, Calendar, Keep and Google Drive to name a few.
• Customization : As funny as this sounds, I want to use the desktop in its most vanilla form as possible with as few customisations as possible. Over time I found that having extra customisations like extensions, applets, etc tends to break things because of lack of support over time. It’s also more difficult to troubleshoot when very few people are using them.

The distributions that ended up meeting my requirements are the following in order of preferences :

• Kubuntu : So far its been working great for gaming but I think there could be some performance improvements. It’s my first choice because I’m just so comfortable with it already. Zero effort, but with some compromises in performance.
• Nobara with KDE Plasma : This looks solid and ticks all the requirements. I think there’s some amount of learning to do for using YUM/RPM packages and to understand some of the customisations, but I think this effort will be minimal. I am concerned about long term support however since this is a fairly new distro supported by individuals.
• Ubuntu Budgie : I really like this DE, very simple but elegant. But, like Kubuntu, I don’t know how it’s going to fare performance wise. And I don’t know what kind of tools there are to configure gaming controllers, etc.
• Ubuntu (I’m willing to deal with Gnome 3 for simplicity’s sake)
• Fedora KDE Plasma spin : Everybody is raving about Fedora so maybe I’ll give it a shot as an Ubuntu replacement.
• Manjaro with KDE desktop :Possibly the only Arch distro I’m willing to install because they focus on stability, however learning about the packaging system and configs/environment feels like a drag. But with the great community and documentation I’m willing to make an effort for this one.

What are your thoughts on this? What are your recommendations based on my requirements?