Windows has been a thorn in my side for years. But ever since I started moved to Linux on my Laptop and swapping my professional software to a cross platform alternative, I’ve been dreaming on removing it from my SSD.
And as soon as I finish my last few projects, I can transition. (I want to do it now).
Trouble is which I danced my way across multiple amazing distros, I can’t decide which one to land on since the one software I want to test, Davinci Resolve doesn’t work on my Intel Powered Laptop. (curse you intel implementation of OpenCL).
So the opinions of those of you who’ve used Davinci Resolve, Unity/Godot, and/or FreeCAD. I want it to be stable with minimal down time on hardware with a AMD Ryzen 5 1600x and a RTX 3050. Here’s the OS’s I am looking at.
CentOS (alt Fedora)
- Pro: Recommended by Davinci Resolve for the OS, has good package manager GUI that separates Applications and System Software (DNF Dragon), Good support for multiple Desktop Environments I like. Game Support is excellent and about a few months behind arch.
- Con: When I last installed Fedora my OS Drives BTFS file system died a horrific and brutal death, losing all of my data. Can’t have that. And I personally do not like DNF and how slow it makes updating and browsing packages.
Debain (alt Linux Mint DE)
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Pro: The most stable OS I’ve used, with a wide range of software support both officially in the distros package manager, or from developers own website. I am most familiar with this OS and APT
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Cons: Ancient packages which may cause issues with Davinci Resolve and Video Games. An over reliance on the terminal to fix simple problems (though this can be said for most linux distros). I personally don’t like APT and how it manages the software.
EndevourOS (alt Manjaro)
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Pro: The most up to date OS, great for games with the AUR giving support for a lot of software which isn’t available on other distros.
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Cons: Manjaro has died on me once, and is a hassle to setup right and keep up. EndevourOS has no Package Manager GUI, and is over reliant on the Terminal. Can’t use pacman in a terminal the commands are confusing.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
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Pro: Like Fedora but doesn’t use DNF, good game support
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Cons: Software isn’t as well supported.
Edit: from the sounds of thing, and the advice from everyone. I think what I’ll do is an install order while testing distros (either in distro box or on a spare ssd) in the following order.
Debain/Mint DE -> OpenSUSE -> EndevourOS -> CentOS
This list is mostly due to stability and support for nvidia drivers.
Use the AppImage for FreeCAD, it will probably have the best performance. You can try Flatpak if you want and compare but definitely not the snap.
Davinci Resolve will depend on the graphics drivers. If you have Nvidia you should be good to go, just pick a distro that has excellent integration with Nvidia drivers with zero fuss and tinkering.
Godot is Linux native software so I imagine it will work great on any distro, but keep in mind having recent enough packages for it.
Oh I just added the FreeCAD repos to my OS. Still working out AppImages and how to “install” them to my OS like an application rather then a portable exe.
AppImages are meant to just be a portable, self-contained app, they don’t install like normal packages. But if you can get native packages for your distro that’s just as well, probably better since they’ll probably get automatic updates and possibly be optimized for your distro too.
I though that was the case. But honestly I’ll take a flatpak over appimage since I can get those auto updates. I like appimages for those one off programs like Etcher where I need it for 30 seconds and never again for several months. But it would be so nice to have them as a part of an installable process.