Fedora with activated selinux is a good choice. Good balance between security and actuality. Very comfortable and always latest gnome experience. Debian very solid and stable systtem. For up to date packages consider about testing channel.
Or get deeper into it with higher learning curve but always worth it, arch linux. In the end depends on your needs what fits best to
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As a long-term user of openSUSE with KDE I can recommend this for everyday work and for development SFOS apps. openSUSE runs well on different PC and laptops for me. You can install openSUSE easily parallel (=dual boot) on an existing Windows installation if there is enough disk space.The windows partition will be resized and can mount on the linux side.
Disclaimer: I am not a gamer
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I donât see the point to discuss LTS in this thread in general, and in terms of âbetterâ or âworseâ, in particular: all depends on onea actual usage, not on random internet opinions ( be them educated).
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On my laptop i m using Linux Mint distribution. I find it very stable and easy to use. however there are very few games for it but i do not care actually.
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Gaming on Linux works okay with older stuff from GOG and also ith tings from Steam. You can also add external apps to the linux Steam launcher so that the run using that steam layer for windows games eve if there arenât bought from steam (didnât try it myself so far, but was hinted to that option by a friend not long ago).
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I just switched to Ubuntu on my Windows work laptop a few months ago. What are the main differences between GNOME and KDE? Superficially, the dock looks a bit too similar to Windows for my taste, but what other differences are worth noting? Who knows, I may consider switching.
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Gaming on linux works great with stuff from Gog and Epic via Heroic.
Heck, gaming from .exeâs installed via lutris works great. I have The Dark Mod installed that way.
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Even newer stuff is no problem anymore, at least for the biggest part. The only real limitations Iâve encountered were because of intrusive Anticheat or XBOX Live Integration requiring the XBOX Gamebar to run. Iâm playing freshly released games on my Debian 13 on Ultra settings with basically always at least on-par performance compared to my partner gaming on a Windows PC with similar hardware. The big gamechanger was when I switched from NVIDIA to AMD Graphics. That caused a big improvement in general performance and blood pressure problems due to NVIDIA Driver weirdness.
I can recommend the Heroic Launcher. It sets up and manages Proton for basically any game, no matter if its from GOG, an .exe Installer, or from somewhere else.
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+1 for elementary OS, it helped me make the jump from Macbooks back in the day, and not unlike Sailfish OS it puts an emphasis on a beautiful UI experience and a certain simplicity.
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But in the end itâs also related to the graphics hardware. Onboard GPUs limit the gaming capabilities of a machine.
And for actual games: Star Wars Zero Company doesnât work and gives me a black screen with background music where I guess the main screen/menu should be visibleâŚ
KDEâs default layout is like a traditional desktop interface, with loads and loads of things you can change from the settings menu. GNOMEâs default layout is a bit different (the application launcher is hidden), and Ubuntu modifies GNOMEâs default layout to have a vertical dock. GNOME has very little customisation by default, although plenty of âextensionsâ exist, which are like âpatchesâ in Sailfish. With just one of those extensions, you can make GNOME look and function like a traditional desktop interface if you so wish. Both GNOME and KDE have software thatâs designed to integrate better into their ecosystem (visually and otherwise), but of course you can still run anything on any desktop. GNOME software, like the GNOME desktop, tends to be simple but do what most people would want it to do. KDE software, like the KDE desktop, tends to do everything you didnât even know was possible and offer options to suit everyoneâs tastes, at the expense of having (relatively) more complex interfaces.
In the end it doesnât really matter what you pick, though.
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Itâs Platin rated on ProtonDB, so no general Issue as it seems. Maybe one of the workarounds there could help you get it running?
Yes, but that has nothing to do with the OS. 
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Thanks for the link, didnât know that before.
But I think itâs mainly related to my hardware (11. Gen Intel i7-11390H with Intel Iris Xe Graphics) - so not the best Hardware for actual gamesâŚ
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This whole thread is off-topic for the forum.
I have zero interest in OSes that are âactively privateâ ion any way shape or form, and donât want to see the forum swamped by it - whether it is mobile or desktop. They are not SFOS, so they donât belong here.
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In short, KDE offers a Win 7-style UI/UX out of the box, whereas GNOME behaves much more like macOS.
Beyond defaults, KDE excels at user-driven customization. Conversely GNOME strictly enforces its design visionâŚmost notably through its push against third-party GTK theming (as seen in their infamous Stop Theming My App initiative). This philosophical stance led both Valve and System76 to step away from GNOME.
While Ubuntu still applies patches to soften GNOMEâs default experiences, reliance on third-party extensions remains a systemic issue. Every major GNOME release risks breaking those extensions, leaving users with a fragmented experience. (I wouldnât be surprised if Canonical tries to give us a Flutter-based DE soon ;D)
Back in the Plasma 4 era a decade ago, KDE earned a reputation for being bloated and buggy. Today however KDE has managed to turn things around: (phoronix) benchmarks regularly show modern Plasma using fewer resources than GNOME, even rivaling Xfce. This is thanks in large part to Valveâs financial backing and upstream engineering contributions.
P.S. If youâre looking for a more macOS-like UX and just in general more âflexible Gnomeâ, I recommend checking out System76âs new Rust-based desktop environment, COSMIC.
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I should add that while some might argue GNOME shares macOSâs clean aesthetic, its actual workspace-centric interaction model is much closer to a mobile/tablet or virtual-desktop workflow.
I thinks this is more of a nuanced distinction, but I wanted to mention it before someone else brings it up.
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I belong to the crazy people who prefers KDE but in a layout that looks a lot like Gnome in Ubuntu. Thatâs on my larger system with Tumbleweed.
On my main driver, a smaller Ryzen 7650U Mini PC, I do have Pop-OS with Cosmic as Desktop environment. I just stuck with it, when it switched from Gnome. I probably wouldnât recommend it to others in its current state, unless they are interested in a new Desktop Environment that Cosmic is but it is really not very mature yet, even if it is working mostly just fine already.
The funny thing is, that my Cosmic and KDE Desktops do look quite similar. Largely thanks to KDEâs customiseability.
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you are aware that AMD gpuâs exist?
For people who like to play around with graphics and editing/making videos then Ubuntu Studio is a good option, it comes complete with all the most popular graphic/video/sound editing programs plus codecs packs.
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Donât really understand what you want to say with that comment. But I was mainly referencing my setup that just has an Intel Iris, so thatâs my limiting factor for gaming.
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