1). It matters a little bit, but not a ton. A big difference will come down to what package manager comes with a distro, and whether it is a “rolling” distro that gets updates as soon as they come out, or one which withholds updates until after they have some time for bug testing, etc. Given that gaming is one of your primary use cases, I would recommend a rolling distro. If your distro does not come prepackaged with something you can usually install it. Minimalist distros like Arch come with almost nothing pre-installed, not even a desktop environment, so you can be very granular about what gets installed and keep you system lean.

2). Most distros will not have as much in the way of corporate control/privacy concerns. A few like Ubuntu or Fedora are more closely linked with a single company, but most are more community driven and this is not a concern.

3). The advice I always give to people first trying Linux is to go into it with the mindset that you are learning a new skill, as many things are simply done differently to Windows. Most things work fine, but every once in a while, especially when setting something up for the first time, it may require additional configuration steps. Very popular distros like Mint will usually have the most community resources, and you can often find posts or guides of people who have already solved some issue you run into. I would also throw one of the Arch-based distros onto your list: Endeavour OS, which is essentially a pre-configured Arch installation. The Arch wiki is one of the most highly regarded resources in the entire linux community, and even if you are not using an Arch distro, many of the guides on it can be helpful.

4). Generally speaking, my multi-monitor usage with KDE has been seamless. No issues that I can think of. HDR support has only very recently been added, so I am not sure how well it works, but it is improving rapidly.

5). I think Plasma would be a good fit for what you are trying to do. Honestly, it is very customizable, but perfectly usable right out of the box even if you do not want to do anything to it. The layout is very familiar for a Windows user.

1. Not really unless you’re hyper-focused on a very specific type of performance. Even then, you can always enable/disable whatever bits and pieces because it’s all software, and it’s all open. There are guides or threads for absolutely everything out there. A distro only organizes it simpler on base install to make it easier ootb.

2. Linux itself does not do any data collection. Never heard of any distro enabling anything by default, and you can rip it right out anyway if you want, though it’s more work. If you’re concerned about this though, stay away from Ubuntu, as that is the one corporate backed distro that is more likely to lean into this.

3. Fedora is probably what you want. It’s taken over the helm Ubuntu used to have as the default to try. Clean, simple, no bullshit, huge community.

4. Linux, no, but you’re conflating a few things. Linux is the kernel. The desktop you choose to run is what does the graphical session management. Both KDE and Gnome are fine with this, though there is an argument that KDE is a tad ahead in this realm with their VRR implementation.

5. Gnome is more akin to MacOS. KDE is more Windows-like (but still not at all). Try both on a liveUSB for a bit and see which you like.

At the end of the day you can run practically anything on a liveUSB for as long as you want before installing, even games (within reason). Be comfortable in the knowledge that if there is something you don’t like about a particular thing, you can change it to act however you want. Like I said above, it’s all just software. It’s going to be a little tough coming from a Windows-centric world to realize this at first, but I assure you, installing and running one distro absolutely does not lock you into anything at all because you can just install and remove absolutely everything.

Now, hardware compatibility is a different story. The Linux kernel itself is what does all the hardware management, so if your hardware is too new, there may not be full support for a particular thing. It sounds like you’re on an older machine though, so unless it’s got some really obscure hardware in it, everything should be detected and load straight out of the box. Again, try a few liveUSB runs and make sure, it’s that simple.

If you had asked me Q1 a month ago, I would have said yes (and in general, it is a yes, with enough effort). But i run endeavour (arch) and my partner runs mint (which ships with the Cinnamon WM), and a few weeks ago I recommended that she try out KDE Plasma for its wayland support. Turns out, this is not something the mint community supports, you can’t just install it through their software manager, and the mint forums will all tell you to switch to another distro that supports KDE. Meanwhile, on arch, I expect to be able to install it through pacman, choose it from SDDM, and I’m done. Maybe tweak something in my .config, but it’s all downhill from there.

Just a datapoint. Some distros (and their communities) seem to be more receptive to experimentation than others, which can make trying new things easier/harder.

I would recommend fedora, debian, or endeavour + KDE/gnome. Good luck!

I don’t have anything to say that everyone else hasn’t so I’ll just wish you good luck and hope you have an enjoyable experience

#1. The distro matters, but not much tbh. The main difference is usually the package manager being used, the default DE/WM, init system (sysvinit/systemd/openrc), and the variant of packages they ship. #2. Avoid Ubuntu if so. #3. I recommend Debian stable. #4. Can’t say much about HDR, multiple monitors are probably fine. (different refresh rate and such can be a hassle to configure tho) #5. Yes KDE is a good choice.

+Photoshop/VS probably runs in WINE but I’m not sure. You might need VM.

Distros packaging software means that it is available to install with the package manager from their repositories. No distro provides every piece of software out there. This can be mitigated with Flatpak, Snap, GUIX, AppImage or, in a pinch, by compiling the required program yourself.

Sounds like you’ve already done most of the work. From what you’ve said, Fedora with Plasma sounds great for your use case. Good luck on your journey and glad to have you aboard!

When you mention Visual Studio, do you mean VSCode or Visual Studio. Cus VSCode is supported on Linux but Visual Studio is not. Confusing right?

You already have great answers, so I’ll just drop my recommendations. LMDE if you want something more stable, and Endeavour OS if you want to go a bit more in the weeds with a rolling release.

In the end, don’t be afraid to try some for a few weeks and find one you like. One of the strength of Linux is that if you mess up, you can always reinstall,and it’s not scary since you did it once already.

So you like tinkering? Just install Arch and go wild /s

So I don’t really have experience with the gaming aspect as I pretty much get what I want from a steamdeck. I think its likely you would want to go with one of those (a gaming setup someone else suggests) or dual boot to have your gaming system and your doing other things setup. Just in case I will mention the one I use called zorin. It is based on ubuntu with gnome and its main claim to fame is its an out of the box distro that tries to emulate windows (other systems to but the paid for version unlocks that. its default is a general windows type experience). Out of the box means it has foss office, video file viewing, audio file listening, image file viewer, browser of course, rdp client, mail client, calendar, contacts, also image,video,audio file creation and editing, optical disk copier/image creator, wine with play on linux so that you can right click a windows executable and run it and such. It does non free software things like nvidia drivers right off the bat. Its great for an install and get going right away type of thing. Its always a bit out of date because its emphasis is stable, just works, get going type of thing. I have a few complaints. Mainly it does not have the windows key, right arrow thing to half screen by default. It could be a stability thing that they don’t want to mess with the compiz or whatnot. Then the other thing is I find the software gui interface it have an aweful search for getting more software so either just use apt at the command line or download the .deb installation file which things like various browsers have as a linux option for download and then its really just like adding one to windows or mac. download and run the installation.

use fedora, arch, or ubuntu. dont use any of the pointless ones (mint, endeavour, manjaro,…). they are not worth your time. only use wayland (plasma, river, qtile). xorg is not worth your time or sanity.

simplest pick is fedora kde spin. just use that. hdr should work too.

There is no right answer. There are many distros to choose from and each has its pros and cons. My suggestion would be to try a few things in VMs before fully making the jump. Personally I use Mint. It just works and takes a minimal amount of hassle to install and run. If that’s a priority to you, I’d suggest checking it out.

I like plasma kde but I dont think most vnc clients support it so remote desktop with a viewer seems out, rustdesk works but you have to manually accept the connection at the computer. Which works for me since I only remote desktop when moving to another room or going to the bathroom and I need to monitor something.

I’ll answer point by point, but the short answer is pick one and use it, if you have issues with it or want to try something different, switch, otherwise stick with it.

1. Your understanding is mostly correct. There’s the difference that each distro has a family tree which determines which package manager they use, Red hat based distros like Fedora use rpm, Debian based distros like Mint, Pop or Kubuntu use apt, etc. So it would be easier to switch from Mint to Kubuntu than from Fedora to Pop although not by much. The main difference between distros is philosophy, which honestly you shouldn’t care too much currently as long as you aim at something beginner friendly.
2. Probably not something to worry about, and if it comes to that you can just jump to another distro, trust me once you’re familiar with Linux the distro matters less and less.
3. Any of them (except for tuxedo which might be a good option but I don’t know it) would be a good option. Personally I would recommend Mint, or at least a Debian based one since 3 of the ones you suggested are Debian based it would give you more options to switch easily if needed.
4. It should, but your mileage might vary
5. Any of them should be good for that, KDE/Plasma is a bit similar to Windows while also being very eye candy, so it’s a good choice. Also it’s the one used on the Steam Deck so you might be somewhat familiar with it already.

Extra: Nvidia should be fine as long as you use the official proprietary drivers (named nvidia, NOT nouveau). Photoshop doesn’t work on Linux, so you might need to jump through hoops there, if it’s not a hard requirement I suggest looking at Gimp for photo manipulation or Krista for drawing, good luck either way since it’s uphill battle either way, one against Adobe anti-piracy measures and the other against an unfamiliar software.

Okay, people have said many good things so far, so I won’t add much. Simply one thing: take one problem at a time.

By this I rather mean, make your life easier, and only progressively deal with more complicated things. When it comes to distro choice, this would mean picking something with plenty of default installed packages (since you won’t necessarily know what to install yourself) — this rules out my beloved openSUSE Tumbleweed as well as the popular Fedora and Debian — something that will play nice with NVidia (Desktop Environments use display managers/servers, the two most common being Wayland and X11; Wayland is better, but unfortunately will really mess up NVidia gaming, so try to stick to X11 for now — you can always switch later!), and, lastly, something with a large community (and by extension a large help forum and wiki).

I never thought I’d hear myself (see myself?) saying this (typing this!?), but Mint checks all those boxes.

I wouldn’t recommend staying with Mint for long (though some people claim to enjoy it…), but as a first distro to introduce you to Linux, it really may be the easiest. Using a different DE is already difficult, don’t overwhelm yourself from the get-go!

Alright, that ended up being longer than expected. I wish you the best of luck, and a lot of fun on your approaching Journey!