Just deleted my windows parition and grew my cachyos one, im never going back after a week with it, I like cachyos/arch since I can use gnome and plasma at the same time easily (i like swapping looks a lot), idk if its as easy with others since they reccomend you rebase for different des like bazzite, aurora, bluefin. cachyos is straightforward with a gui installer, easier and much faster than windows to install and use, I used ventoy so I can keep using my usb for data.

Frameworks cool if you can afford it, but if you want the best perfomance/deals, then laptops go on sale for half off or 70% off often, you just gotta check daily since they sell out within the day for those deals

Give yourself a month to look at deals, its around week 3 for me where I usually purchasep

I recentlly swapped to cachyos, works way better than windows, had hella driver issues on windows, I forgot and reinstalled my windows os (shrunken partition, just in case I need it) had the same issues.

All I’ve had to download is like two extensions in the package manager for the amd gpu to work in blender, everywhere else it workd well instantly (because of cachyos and all it installs)

I have an all amd alienware m17 r5 I got $2000 off at around 1200$ pretty fire, 6850mxt = 3080 laptop, ive had no issues running most things, msfs needs hella tweaking on windows but past that even vr stuff mostly works fine

Now ppl are gonna think I switched because of this start indian hate mf

Hyprland is technically more customizable, id check out the preconfigs, its more annoying to customize but some of those preconfigs have a lot of different options to start off

No added extensions, just default, id go with plasma, with extensions right now daily use Gnome (but without extensions its bland af, it really needs them and I wish it had more)

Gnome by default isn’t customizable, you have to install and turn extensions on, but its as simple as toggling on chrome addons, you goto the extension store and grab what you want, the store could be better usability wise, hate the ui, flathub is like the only usable ui for a store on linux, insane how its all stuck 20 years backwards. (tho I kinda like it lol)

I think gnome just feels good and is the most usable, but thats because I feel the constant need to tinker with plasma, while with gnome I just set my extensions on, tweak them a little maybe once if they have settings and don’t think about it again. It only takes a few to get gnome feeling personalized and it just works well. Plasma feels better swapping from windows, but gnome feels more like a different modern os on par with windows/mac but more minimalist.

I wish plasma was slightly less buggy, anytime I mess with a panel I have to clone a backup just in case it tweaks out and I need to delete it.

Thats prettt much all of what I needed to know, I see why they’re reccomended.

I overcomplicated mine before going back to the simple look, even abusively adding stuff it feels less crowded than windows

Yeah I dont think hyprland will become a mainstay for me, but I will be copying that super plus shortcut way of working over to the other DEs, im just not productive 24/7 (nor do I want to be) so fully commiting to a tiling manager doesnt make sense

Universal BlueAurora KDE, or bluefin gnome are what id prob reccomend to any non gamers trying to use Linux after looking around, bazzite for gamers who dont want to tinker, cachyos for those who do. Seems like a straightforward way to get up and running, cachyos was hella easy to dualboot tho, universal blue doesnt seem to let me load a live os from my usb with a graphical installer, that was super helpful with cachy.

I think if I reccomend linux kde to anyone new itll be gnome with a few extensions, since plasma is easy to break imo. A lot of default plasma configs are basically cleaner/customizable windows clones tho so it might be an easier transition, it immediatelt felt familiar when I was setting up cachyos. Feed like gnome couldve scared me off, especially since I didnt know about the extensions and how easy it was to get proper menu. Once I had like 3 extensions, it felt good, was using the computer like normal and forgot I had swapped to gnome to temporarily test it.

I really like gnomes look with a few extensions tho, with plasma I feel the constant need to tinker just because I can and its two clicks away, with gnome I just use my computer and the extensions just work, not as much customization, even for placement, but definitely a lot more useful extensions that just work.

After trying cinnamon, i think gnome reaches that middleground better with extensions than cinnamon, it feels more off to the side with older windows. Definitely was missing some of the settings tho, im liking cinnamon a bit more after messing with applets, not sure why it feels so corporate in comparison.

Trying cinnamon and it might be the superior parent rec, its basically older windows, very straightforward ui, not flashy, Gnome (at least the default i had) didn’t have a start bar and required clicking the windows button to see clickable stuff that weren’t icons. With extensions it can be basically windows or mac tho. (so if you directly setitup for them or guide them its more modern feeling/superior)

Trying cinnamon right now, Its definitely functional, closer to windows back when I liked it. Feels boring, but in a good for productivity way.

Plasma does seem to have a lot of small annoying bugs, like rnow I have to click a widget so it loads on my desktop before dragging, if I just drag plasma closes out of the editor and my screen goes black for a second.

I keep hearing good things, ill try it out, when I first looked it up it didnt seem as customizable based off screenshots but im seeing posts about how its more customizable than gnome

I keep forgetting tiling managers arent des