@sproing @PurpleJillybeans

I'm down too!

@Thebratdragon @PurpleJillybeans I always suggest doing some experimentation and dry install runs in VirtualBox first for this reason.

A lot of Linux installation disks have a nice GUI that guides you through installation, and things like formatting are the same as they always were. You just get a graphical UI to do the partitioning, instead of going through a program like fdisk. Gnome partition manager is better than any commercial partitioning package ever in my opinion, and I'd do the partitioning there and just point the installer to the partitions you like.

The big considerations are things like:
* Do you want the latest versions of software (Arch and Fedora branches), or the most stable and tested versions (Debian branches)?
* How do you want your desktop environment to function? Mac-like or Windows-like or something else? I recently found out that the Silicon Graphics Irix desktop in in the repo (It doesn't work well...) you have too many choices!
* Do you have Nvidia Graphics? Nvidia and their driver blobs are what Linus Torvalds was talking about when the famous picture of him flipping dual-birds was taken. Nvidia can be made to work, but it's an unnecessarily painful experience compared to Intel/AMD graphics. You'll find similar issues with other devices made by companies with similar mindsets.
* Do you want things like the OS being immutable or any other special features?

It's a lot, but it's part of why it is so loved. An Arch user can download a tiny netboot file and download the most minimal system to ram, and go from a text-mode shell to a fully featured and completely customized system with everything just how they want it in an hour or two. I'm not suggesting starting with Arch,  just how far this can go.

Linux Mint non-rolling would be my suggestion for something to start with. It's Debian branch, which is pretty kind to new users. It's a grandchild of Debian and child of Ubuntu, which means you get some of the newer stuff from Ubuntu and Ubuntu/Debian .deb software packages will work with it. On the other hand, it has the proprietary Nvidia drivers (although, possiblity a version of two behind) on the install disk and has a couple of spins with the most commonly used and popular desktop environments.

Hopefully I've been helpful in giving you a little bit of useful knowledge. Some of this is my opinion, but hopefully useful opinions 

@necromantrix Steam Just Works™ for the most part. You'll install it from your distro's package collection, or from #Flathub if they don't have it. A lot of games support Linux natively; for the rest you can go to Manage > Properties > Compatibility > Force Steam Play compatibility to make it use Proton.

Try Heroic Games Launcher (available from Flathub) for GOG and Epic games. It will handle Wine automatically as needed.

@necromantrix @PurpleJillybeans It's a little tossup... Maybe I should write a simple beginners guide to gaming on Linux. However, here's a short of what you need to know.

If the game is on Steam (or you add it to steam) and is steamdeck verified, it will run. Just enable compatibility tools in steam settings and done. If it's not verified, then check ProtonDB[1]. Most games work out of the box unless developers deliberately borked Proton.

Avoid Linux native ports unless the developer is committed. Otherwise they'll work worse than the windows version under Proton.

You've got games on Epic? Well, there's no official solution so you have to use either Heroic Launcher[2] (simpler but more limited) or Lutris[3] (more complex but very versatile). These work just fine.

If the game is on CD/DVD/other platform like Itch, I'd recommend using Lutris support for game installers. It is far easier than it looks.

Regarding news sources, there is fantastic @gamingonlinux

Generally gaming is far less deal breaker than professional software these days. Write down a list of your dealbreakers for yourself and if there's no red flags, try Linux and keep these pinguins sliding!

P. S. I'd recommend going for a big, well maintained distro. Fedora, SUSE, Ubuntu. Debian might be annoying... Arch and Gentoo are far too much of a commitment or ducktaping, at least for my taste.

[1] https://www.protondb.com/
[2] https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
[3] https://lutris.net/

@necromantrix @PurpleJillybeans

Steam has a setting that let's you use a beta version of steam on Linux that creates a translation layer for running Windows games. They call it proton.

You can see all the games rated by compatability, and what tweaks needed to happen if rocky at protondb.com

@PurpleJillybeans Corporate abuse of users by Microsoft is so bad at this point. Anyone in the Linux community who keeps on with the attitude of gatekeeping, or being hostile to noobs, or being smug about "normies" getting discouraged and going back to Windows, is acting on Microsoft's side. Not a good look.

It's more important than ever to help anyone you can to get to a computing situation where they're not being robbed and exploited. That's an honorable use of all the knowledge you've collected.

I've been using Linux every day since late 2018, and I've never compiled anything myself. There's no rules that say a user has to treat the OS like an arcane priesthood, to be deserving of using it. That might have been cool a decade ago but now it's holding things back.