Fedora flavors are a good mix of quicker updates and also very stable. KDE Plasma is a very well thought out desktop environment and familiar to Windows users. I’ve been using Mint and it feels dated. Also I recommend not using anything from Ubuntu as they keep enshittifing.

Fedora Aurora might suit you. It’s immutable but you can still install Mullvad via ostree or a community Flatpak.

Ubuntu based distros are going to have a very easy Nvidia driver experience (just open the driver tool from the start menu and select the version you want, and bam, done). However, one downside of Ubuntu itself is their pushing of snap packaged apps, which are considered a bit crap, and can cause weirdness (I think Valve officially don’t recommend the Snap version of Steam).

You can avoid the snap stuff with Linux Mint, as they totally strip that out. Only downside of Mint is that it’s still on an older LTS version of Ubuntu, 24.04 (the latest is now 26.04, two years newer). You will need to add an additional PPA (a third party repository) to access the latest 610 Nvidia drivers on it, which some of the very latest games like the James bond require to launch in Proton. That may or may not be an issue for you. Mint also has the best built in app store, IMO.

Fedora is nice, but the Nvidia driver isn’t quite as easy to install, and it doesn’t come with some needed video codecs out of the box, though this script maker can make those pretty easy to get. I’d recommend it if you want more up to date apps in the repos and don’t want to encounter Ubuntu’s snaps.

Nobara is a spin of Fedora with all that stuff included (and has an installer with the Nvidia driver pre-installed, I think), made by the Glorious Eggroll who makes improved versions of Proton.

I personally would suggest choosing between those options, since both Ubuntu and Fedora based distros have a lot of 3rd party support, such as Mullvad, which only supports those two officially, and they have large communities with lots of help.

On other comments and what you’ve said in your other comment, I think you’d be just interested in Nobara or CachyOS. At least, if you want an out of box working experience but still have the ability to tinker and develop relatively easy.

You might prefer Nobara because it’s Fedora based rather than Arch, and your hardware specs aren’t bleeding edge anyway. If you want a bit more stability than that though, and don’t mind doing the set up yourself, plan vanilla Fedora could also work and you just add what you want / need.

I’d avoid any recommendations for immutable distros like Bazzite because they’re best for beginners that aren’t too tech savvy, or people very familiar with Linux and have no issues mucking about with OS-tree or running a distrobox. Really no in-between.

I also have 8 bitdo controllers and I do recommend updating them on Windows before you get rid of it, depending which you have - some can be updated via a Chrome based browser but others only through Windows really.

I think most distros would work for that usecase. I would recommend Linux Mint, Fedora (although Nvidia drivers are more annoying there), or (K)Ubuntu. Have a look at desktop environments too, as they are very important for your experience. Some of the major ones are Cinnamon, KDE Plasma, and Gnome. Mint works best with Cinnamon, Fedora and Ubuntu let you choose which ISO you want to download.

I can recommend my experience - EndeavourOS. Based on Arch, it was built to come prepackaged with everything you need for gaming. Once install is complete it offers great choices for gaming and privacy programs. Almost everything on Steam is a Windows .exe so they are all run in a mini Windows filesystem through a top notch compatibility layer (called Proton, based on Wine) and to answer your question - yes, Steam Link is perfect on Linux. Lower latency than Sunshine/Moonlight.

One thing I owned that you’ll have to sacrifice, unless you use the Gnome DE iirc - Wallpaper Engine. I exported every .mp4 from the files and run with Hidamari instead, but it’s not the same.

And one caveat if you choose EndeavourOS - Budgie DE is borked a little bit so I switched to Cinnamon

Fun story about why I’m such a curmudgeon about this:

Long before Proton even existed, I once researched how to run a Windows VM for gaming on a Linux host machine, with GPU passthrough. At the time I had an Intel iGPU and an Nvidia discrete GPU, so I figured the iGPU could run the host, while the discrete GPU could run the guest.

I asked around reddit and some of my tech savvy friends on what the best distro would be to accomplish this. A few people steered me toward Debian, because I expressed concern that the system wouldn’t be stable or would be difficult to work with.

Well, turns out Debian was a fucking terrible choice. First I had graphics driver problems, naturally. Secondly, I couldn’t even install qemu if I wanted to because it wasn’t in the apt repositories that shipped with Debian. So I had to learn to add those. Then I had to learn how to stop Debian from recognizing the nvidia GPU during boot, so that the PCI device could be reserved for the passthrough. That was a monumental headache to figure out. And finally, once everything was set up, I learned that nvidia had more or less disabled their consumer-grade cards from being used in a virtual machine. I spent over a month trying to get that working, and eventually just said fuck it and stayed on Windows. And I caught a ton of flak for that, because obviously I should have known that nvidia was a bad choice of GPU, and I should have just purchased an AMD GPU instead… in the middle of GPU mining bubble, when cards were going for $500 a pop.

I’m really hoping to not have a repeat of that experience.

Try Nobara, MX linux.

Almost any distro will work for pretty much all of that. Only potentially limiting thing I see there I don’t think that the Mullvad VPN client is generally available within distro repositories. Their site says it has clients available for Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora. So perhaps pick from one of those?

For the steam link question, I know if I have a game running on my desktop it presents me the option to stream to my desktop (both Linux machines). I assume this is the same functionality. I don’t use it so can’t speak to how well it works.

Edit: It occurs to me this comment lacks a recommendation. Within the three listed supported distros for Mullvad, I think I’d recommend Fedora for you. Been some years since I used it last but I remember the installer being fairly robust while still easy to use, and a pretty rock solid system once it’s up and running.

I have an original Steam Link in my living room, and I use it to play games from my PC on the couch. Does Steam on Linux even support this?

Answer: Yes.

Is your PC going to be a gaming-centric PC? Or are you planning on doing other things like work or other stuff?

There’s plenty of gaming-focused distros out there. Some easier and some harder to understand.

From your hardware You’d probably be good with something like Linux Mint or Zorin OS. They’re Ubuntu based and are pretty solid and easy to use. They support your hardware out of the box. Kubuntu might be a good choice too if you want a more windows-y experience with more customization options. I personally have Kubuntu and my 8bitdo controllers work without a hitch via bluetooth. I play mostly indie games and a few AAA titles from Steam, GOG and Epic via the Heroic launcher as well and have had zero issues.

If you REALLY want a gaming-focused distro, you’ll have to go with a Fedora based distro then. Something like Nobara.

But you want to avoid less stable distros like Arch-based ones. Like Cachy OS. Those might end up being more of a headache than anything with problems occurring after updates and a malware-infested 3rd party software repo.

I heard CachyOS is quite popular these days. Other dedicated gaming distros are Bazzite, Nobara, Garuda Linux …

https://distrofighter.com/

My go-to advise for people new to linux or just wanting something that works is Linux Mint (Or Ubuntu if you don’t mind the commercial aftertaste). End of discussion.

It is based on Ubuntu packages which are well maintained (things just work), it has been around and popular for a very long time, has a big and active community, and it prioritises ease of use.

The only downsides are support for brand new hardware (<6-12 months) which takes a while to be supported. But that doesn’t seem to apply to you.

If you want bleeding edge, extensive customizations, or a cool unconventional desktop you can check out any kind of desktop.

I like discussing distros as much as the next person. But in my long distrohopping career I realised that with new or novice linux users it’s best to stick to the easiest, most out of the box experience. I would argue this is linux mint.

I’ve seen too many times that people send new linux users to the most wild distro’s and then be suprised that the user gives up on linux completely after a week.

If you want to get some terminal/technical experience or like to make your hands dirty feel free to experiment.
But make your feet wet in the shallow well known puddles.

Love Linux Mint for the easy transition away from Windows.

Zorin OS. They do an amazing job at creating a very smooth UI and give you the ability to tailor it to your liking. It’s Ubuntu-based, but very lightweight. I use it in all my VMs for this reason as well.

CachyOS. Hands down the best for you.

• Gets updates as soon as they come out which is important for gaming and software development

• Really good performance, has access to a huge amount of software

• Beginner friendly, automatically creates snapshots (backups) in case you mess up

• Has a simple to follow wiki with lots of useful info. Also it lets you install all the gaming packages you need with one button click.

No offense to people on this site but every time this thread pops up there are a lot of terrible recommendations being thrown around. Don’t bother using base Arch linux if you’re new to Linux. Don’t use random niche distros like MX Linux. Debian is very barebones and requires you to manually set up a lot of things that come by default in other modern distros. And finally IMO don’t use an immutable OS unless you know what you’re getting into, as many people get burned by how hard it is to install applications on them.