IoT is 80% Linux. Linux owns every space except Game Console and Desktop, at least that I can think of.

Yeah that extra Microsoft tax is a killer. Plus, you’ll notice your systems seems new and snappy for the life of the hardware, unlike Windows. Where your system gets slower and slower every year. I used a Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro with Ubuntu until a couple years ago. It was great until I just needed a ton more ram and tons of cores for my dev project. I basically out grew the system, it still works great, fast and snappy. Gave it to my cousin who uses it as a daily driver.

I’ve heard good thing about Tumbleweed. I’m that will keep your system feeling fast and new for life of the hardware.

That’s actually the same reason I switched to Linux. I thought it was stupid that I would have to upgrade my hardware just to use the latest WindowsME. Switching to Linux back then. Let me enable all the new textures for Everquest. With Windows my system wasn’t performant enough. I though it stupid and I had perfectly good hardware that still ran for several more years just fine. The TPM thing is absolute B.S. and worse then why I switched.

Honestly I think SteamOS is the crowbar forcing open the Desktop space. Microsoft’s dominance in the desktop space has been with Normies where they can use the power of their purse to maintain their position. Normies don’t care what OS they run. Normies just want the computer to “do the thing” that they need done. Console gaming is a great example of that. None of those gamers care what OS they run and they know nothing about it. If you look at IoT, Windows is free in that space, yet Linux dominates the market by about 80%.

Historically if a big volume OEM sells a PC they are required to sell a Windows license if they want to take advantage of Microsoft’s volume licensing discount. If you are selling 400 dollar and even 800 dollar laptops, a 100 dollar license is a huge chunk of the cost. You have no choice but to take the volume licensing discount as manufacturer. Especially if you also compete for government contracts. The knock-on effect, these OEMs will have to spend money on Windows engineering efforts for each of their devices. That’s drivers, software, and testing. And when you are competing on volume, that doesn’t leave much left over profit to have engineering efforts for a second or third operating system.

The kicker for Microsoft, Microsoft waved the license for Windows on devices with screens smaller than 9" in 2014. Which means, the new Lenovo Steam version should come with SteamOS. The Steam version will likely be the more popular version of the Legion Go S. Other OEMs will see that and begin to offer a Steam version of their device. That all means engineering efforts for Linux on all the handhelds. The same thing for Steam consoles, although I wonder how the 9" rule will apply. Game devs are supporting SteamOS more and more. The knock on effects will eventually lead to OEMs no longer taking the volume licensing discounts. You will see Linux machines in the big box stores, especially when these OEMs are spending money to support Linux for the console.

Microsoft doesn’t dominate any space other then the Desktop where they’ve had vendor lock’in for 30 years. The writing is on the wall. They are losing the handheld space and soon they will be #4 in the console space. Microsoft better have something big soon or pandora’s box will be opened.

I watch a few SteamDeck you tubers and they all have switched to Linux. One is waiting for SteamOS to finally drop. Which I can understand, I mean, he is a normie gamer and isn’t really looking to get into computers, just wants to play games. He sees SteamOS as a silver bullet, since he is problem free on his Steam Deck. Which just reiterates, normies don’t care what OS they run, they just want to do the thing they care about.

I wouldn’t say it’s a pipe dream either. 20 years ago, if I switched someone to Linux, they would eventually have a problem and switch back. Not because Linux was bad or anything like that. Now, if I switch someone, they just keep going with Linux. The year of Linux Desktop already came. It doesn’t dominate yet, but there are few niches that Linux doesn’t support, mostly the audio/art niche.

The only markets Linux doesn’t Dominate is the Desktop and console space. The only thing holding back Desktop domination is Microsoft and it’s vendor lock-in strategy. It says a lot when Microsoft has to use the power of their purse in order to maintain their position. Even Linux dominates in the IoT space with ~80% of the market, despite Microsoft having to make Windows IoT free.

I’m old enough to remember when people thought OSX Server was a competitive option because it was technically “unix”. Needless to say, once people figured out Apple was using Linux for their own servers, despite numerous attempts to switch over to OSX Server. OSX Server went tits up. Apparently OSX Server hung around as an addon to OSX for casual use.

Nice. Sounds like you are getting your feet wet pretty good. When the next Gnome version drops, I might have to check out HDR. I saw there were mixed opinions on HDR for work and productivity.

I hear you on that. My TV and SteamDeck support HDR and I can’t believe what a difference it makes. I’m not even one to care about such things, but I definitely noticed. Apparently HDR is experimental with the right vulkan extensions in Gnome 47. We are almost there. The devs at Gnome spend so much time debating everything and over analyzing things.

edit: I’ve not tried Nobara, and I’m not sure what you use your machine for, but if it’s the normal, boot computer to login screen, login to account, load Gnome, play games, desktop experience. Then you could add a Gamescope desktop session to your login screen. Instead of choosing gnome at login you would choose Gamescope. Just have your Gamescope session launch Steam BigPicture like the Steam deck does. Of course, if you don’t play your games through Steam then it’s kind of pointless. Also pointless if you are using your machine for productivity and work, haha.

It hardly matters which distro you choose. I’ve been using Linux for almost 3 decades. I’d say there are a few categories you might consider.

If you like the older Windows looking UI, look for distros with DE’s that have that look. If you don’t care about stability, then you might be okay with a distro that has a rolling release model.

Most distros have several DE’s that you can install and switch to, though the options are limited for some distros. That doesn’t mean you can’t do the work to get the DE built and installed yourself. Hardly anybody does that, but the point is it’s possible.

I go with a point release and then switch my kernel to update with the mainline and I do that with Mesa drivers as well for gaming. I think it’s better than going with a rolling release who’s stability is unknown at any given time.

For my work machine I go with the LTS Ubuntu. Then I enable live kernel updates. I’m a software developer and it seems like anything developer related is almost guaranteed to be packaging for Ubuntu. I can just add, for example, postgresql’s apt source to my apt source list. This gives me the latest postgresql tools even though I’m on the LTS version that is a couple years old. So, I’m stable with the latest tools and my kernel is updating live so I never have to reboot.

Anyways, all that to say, don’t worry too much about the distro you pick. You can generally just make them your own. You probably just want to pick a distro that gets you near what you want. That should save you from having to distro hop.