As the title say’s, my Windows 10 install broke, but I’m still unsure whether or not to reinstall Windows 10 or install Linux.

Context:

A few months back, Windows 10 updates started to fail on my desktop. I had considered just reinstalling the OS but as my machine was working just fine I simply tolerated it.

Today, when my machine auto-updated it broke something. At first I thought the update worked. But soon I realized that the taskbar was acting odd. All the shortcuts I had placed on my taskbar were working as usual, but when I right clicked them nothing would happen. I clicked on the start menu and the search bar but nothing happened. Most of the widgets on the right side of the taskbar weren’t working such as Volume, Wi-Fi, Date & Time, and Notifications. I assumed it was just the taskbar that was broken but when I tried to use the windows key to open the settings menu, it didn’t work either, nor did it’s keyboard shortcut.

It seems the update had broken some apps that, though didn’t prevent Windows from starting, made navigating it a lot more difficult.

I’ve used Linux before. I had a Linux Mint, and EndeavourOS virtual machine installed on my computer. More recently, I installed EndeavourOS on an old laptop I had lying around, and have been using it daily for about a month now. Although I’ve had my difficulties, I’ve been loving my experience.

Though I’m still a Linux newbie I’ve been meaning to give Linux a real shot on my desktop for a couple weeks now, but as my machine was working just fine I didn’t really feel any necessity to make the switch.

But with my Windows install breaking, I feel like its time to give Linux a real shot.

My Questions:

I want to install Fedora on my desktop but I still have a few questions pertaining to Linux and my desktop specs.

I’m running a GTX 1660. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about running Linux with an NVIDIA GPU so I’d like a few things clarified.

  • How would I install NVIDIA drivers?
  • Does Wayland work with NVIDIA?
  • A lot of distros are moving to Wayland. How would I ensure I stay on an Xorg session?
  • I enjoy modding Bethesda games. Does Mod Organizer work fully on Linux?
  • I’ve had difficulties running my steam games through proton on my laptop. Does proton work with Fedora?
  • With said difficulties with proton, would installing Steam as a flatpak work or will it cause issues?
  • Can you really not play any games with anti-cheat?

If you believe Fedora wouldn’t be the best distro for me I’m welcome to hear any suggestions, though I’m not enthusiastic about running anything Debian based nor installing vanilla Arch.

I’m sorry if I’m coming off as lazy for not doing my research. I’ve tried to research many of these questions before but found no concrete answers.

To all those who took the time to respond to my post.

Thank You!

Edit: I’ve made a new post

  • Communist@lemmy.ml
    English
    111·
    9 months ago

    I highly recommend, as a beginner and a windows user, using fedora kinoite

    It’s immutable, which means you can’t break the system unless you try very hard, and even then, it’ll give you a list of previous setups to boot from, and updates can’t break it.

    It also keeps the system separate from your apps by using flatpak, the intricacies aren’t really important as a beginner but basically this means you’ll have an absolutely stable rock solid system that you never have to do weird maintenance for

    I would highly recommend trying it out, and i’m absolutely willing to help with any issues you run into, feel free to message me on matrix @communist:mozilla.org or here.

    as for your questions:

    ^ guide is here, a few terminal commands, then you’re done

    • Does Wayland work with NVIDIA?

    https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Wayland/Nvidia ^Yes, here’s the known issues page for kde

    • A lot of distros are moving to Wayland. How would I ensure I stay on an Xorg session?

    You choose X11 or wayland on the login screen.

    • I enjoy modding Bethesda games. Does Mod Organizer work fully on Linux?

    https://github.com/Nexus-Mods/NexusMods.App

    ^this is actually the successor, and it works natively on linux.

    I used to use mod organizer and it also works although is a bit more annoying to setup.

    • I’ve had difficulties running my steam games through proton on my laptop. Does promton work with Fedora?

    Yes, but I recommend installing proton ge through flatpak and setting it as the default with this command:

     flatpak install com.valvesoftware.Steam.CompatibilityTool.Proton-GE

    Then go to steams settings > compatibility > enable steam play for all other titles, and run other titles with proton-ge

    • With said difficulties with proton, would installing Steam as a flatpak work or will it cause issues?

    That’s the only way to do it on kinoite, and will not cause issues.

    • Can you really not play any games with anti-cheat?

    Right now as far as i’m aware only easy-anticheat works. With others you’re SOL.

    edit: use this apparently https://areweanticheatyet.com/

    • MentalEdge
      11·
      9 months ago

      There are some games with BattleEye that work, same as EAC, the Devs have to enable it.

      One game like this is The Cycle: Frontier.

      Helldivers 2 which comes with nProtect apparently also works, at least for some people.

      areweanticheatyet.com is a great resource similar to ProtonDB, but for AC compatibility on Linux.

    • Krafty KactusEnglish
      5·
      9 months ago

      I second the Kinoite recommendation. As long as you’re not trying to fiddle with the core os too much, the atomic distros pretty much just work.