And preinstalled nvidea drivers (if you get that version)

The LTS releases should not have that DE just yet, right?

To have EAC work on Linux you need to set a toggle during build, some developers just refuse to do that so EAC won’t work. There are also companies that are just plain hostile to Linux, because that’s where the hackers live or some bullshit.

Fingerprint reader does not work as it does on other OS. You can log in, but the key ring stays locked causing programs in user space to break, so I always need to log in with my password before it works. The fingerprint prompt blocks input access so you can’t type in the password and you have to wait for it to time out, also the prompt does not always appear. And the developers actively refuse to fix the not unlocking the keyring because it’s “not secure”.

Fingerprint scanners for both Windows and macOS, you can log in and it just works.

Second thing is the still broken bluetooth drivers on Debian based distro’s where it randomly just fails. No such issues on Fedora (KDE) as of yet, but I use both.

KDE or stay away :P

You cannot charge those, please do not try unless you like the smell of burnt chemicals or a house fire (or both), alkaline batteries are not rechargeable. There are lithium rechargeable batteries with the same form factor (AA, AAA, etc.) or if you use older ones there are also NI-MH or NI-CD (really old).

With more people adapting Linux you’re bound to have more non tech savvy people that will allow anything to happen on their system. Prompt for password appears and they just put it in without any regards for what will happen next.

Because using docker can sometimes cause ownership issues if not properly configured in your docker-compose.yml, I just added an alias to ~/.zshrc to rectify that.

-edit- Only run this script in your user owned directories, e.g. anything from ~/ (or /home/<your_username>) you might otherwise cause ownership issues for your system.

## Set ownership of files/folders recursively to current user
alias iownyou="sudo chown -R $USER:$GROUP"

Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?

That will depend on the games you play, and what platform you use. If you are using Steam, you can enable the proton layer have more access to games, but if the game in question uses any type of kernel level anti cheat chances are it’s not going to work.

Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?

Depends on what you are used to, if you are using mod managers and which ones.

If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?

A lot of work has been done with WINE, games on Linux, and Proton. You’ll need to do a little bit of reading to see if it can work on Linux, but the community can often be awesome and already have found a solution. There are also a lot of great alternatives to Windows/Mac only software you can try.

Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?

Depends on your distro but most can install .net, you’ll need to do a bit of reading.

How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?

Yes, there are package managers that you can use to install and update software, some distro’s even have a shop like interface.

How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?

I’ve only ever had to use a virus scanner twice in my Linux journey and both of those times it was on a server. Because Linux is open source everybody can see what is going on in the code and this way bugs or security issues can be found and patched quicker.

Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?

Depends, if you are using AMD you should be fine, Nvidia has functioning drivers as well, I can’t speak for Intel ARC support because I’ve never used it…

Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?

I’ve never broken my hardware, but I’ve broken my system a few times by ignoring the warnings the system gave me, always got it to work again.

And also, what distro might be best for me?

Linux Mint might be a good one, the Cinnamon is great for beginners, but there are many flavors you can choose from. Start with a live system which will not require you to install anything just yet, but you’ll get a feeling for how everything works. After trying it out live you can decide if you would like to install it. But remember that when trying it live you are limited in what you can do.

Red Hat 8.0, the Linux Starter 2003 double cd edition. From there I tried my first Ubuntu when they where still sending out free cd’s which was version 6.06 LTS. After that I dabbled a bit jumping from distro to distro to try out different flavors, tinkering a bit for fun and even tried to build my own with Arch. All the while keeping my Windows (XP, 7, 10) daily driver as my main rig. Finally switched over to Pop_OS! a few years ago as my daily for work. I’ve been thinking about switching over my gaming rig to a Linux distro but haven’t figured out which one is the best one and requires the least amount of tinkering.