I played games on Windows for over two decades. Then I ditched it for Linux and never looked back. This is basically a how-to for getting started with that.
Nobara
I highly recommend Nobara Linux. It comes with everything you need for gaming and content creation already set up or super easy to install. Yes, that includes drivers, OBS, Discord, and so on.
Like most Linux distributions, you can boot it from a USB flash drive to give it a try before installing it, and if you install it to a second hard drive (recommended), you can switch back and forth between it and the Windows drive until you’re comfortable using Linux most or all of the time.
Let’s do this
Once you have the above ready, it’s not that different from setting up Windows:
- Boot your computer from the USB flash drive which should load the Nobara live environment.
- The welcome app should have popped open as soon as you logged in, and it’ll take you through the steps via a user-friendly interface. If you close it, you can reopen it from the icon on the desktop.
Post-install improvements
A culture of sharing
One thing you might notice after a bit of time is how much more of a culture of helping each other and sharing is present in the Linux world. It certainly occurs in the Windows world, but not quite like this. It’s a more human approach to software. In that spirit, if you get stuck on some part of this journey, please don’t give up - ask for help.