Had a slow day yesterday so thought, why not wipe the gaming PC and put Linux on it.
I work with Linux every day for work so I wanted a debian-based distro as that’s what I’m most familiar with. After a short impulsive-driven search, I picked pika-os. Never heard of it but thought I’d give it a go.
Picked KDE, installed the OS, booted first time and immediately regretted it. No network. I have a 2.5G Realtek 8125 nic and whilst it was detected, it was showing RX packets as “dropped”. Couldn’t install firmware-realtek as it conflicted with linux-firmware. Tried the Realtek website, what a mess that is, compiled a driver, couldn’t get it to load. Ended up finding a git repo that created .deb packages for all realtek drivers.
Got network up and running and its all been great from there. Last time I tried this in 2021 I had loads of issues but so far, other than having to download a later version of Proton and select it in a game, or add some command-line arguments in Steam, its been great!
I’m so surprised that every app I normally use on Windows is either available as a Linux native app, works with emulation (bottles) or there is a decent alternative.
Definitely, 100%, the Linux desktop is ready.
Man, you had it harder than me with the realtek drivers. PikaOS is pretty cool overall, as it does streamline some things that Debian makes annoying (graphics drivers, for example). I do hope you enjoy PikaOS, after troubleshooting that annoying issue! The good thing about anything Debian based is that .debs are probably the most prevalent installer out there (cries in Arch).
Do you by any chance mean Nvidia drivers?
Yeah, but ultimately, it was even easier with Garuda Linux which was built to be used. As my drivers were correctly selected when the installation began. It was a good surprise.
There is a command line workflow for installing NVIDIA drivers, but, the provided drivers (which Trixie was built against) were pretty moldy at that point. For just a simple productivity machine, Debian would’ve been my go to.
For one that is a gaming/entertainment/productivity machine…It wasn’t for me, personally. As Debian is pretty stable and mostly easy to use.
Really enjoying it so far. Been playing D4 and The Alters today. I’m still surprised at how smooth the experience is!
Glad you’ve had a good time post install, I’ve experienced a similar thing on Garuda Linux…It’s pretty smooth with the latest graphics drivers!