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
On fedora it's simple, you enable 3rd party repositories during install and then you install it from the software center.
Your experience will vary, it works fine for some and not so fine for others afaik.
Distros that are moving to Wayland still provide an Xorg session and probably will do so for the foreseeable future.
Yes. Proton is distro independent, it's a tool, provided by steam and it doesn't really care what distro you are running. Remember to enable steamplay for all games from the steam settings before you do anything else.
Yes. I've heard that some people have had issues with the steam flatpak, but I personally haven't, it should work fine.
Entirely depends on the game you wanna play. Some anticheat games work, others don't. Check the game you wanna play on protondb to see if it works. That being said, afaik anticheat support outside steam is basically a non existent, so if you like playing valorant (you poor, poor soul) or Fortnite for example, you're kinda out of luck, unless you wanna dual boot.
Note: Try the distro before installing, live ISOs exist for a reason.
Note 2: Take a look at ventoy