Thoughts from someone who just got into Linux.

TLDR: Pick your desktop environment first. Distros do not matter until you know what UI you like.
Currently running base Arch with CachyOS kernel and GNOME.

Day 9 on Linux. After all the distro hopping and agonizing over which one to choose, I came to a pretty surprising conclusion, the distro doesn’t matter at all until you know what DE you want.

Linux users are always quick to recommend a distro, but they rarely suggest a DE, terminal, or daily driver software, at least, that was my experience as a beginner.

The more I learned, the more I realized you can make almost every distro function identically at a surface level. Distros and kernels really only come into play after you figure out your interface and workflow preferences first. Linux is taught completely backwards.

Just some random midnight thoughts from a new user. Anyway this is what I ended up with for a primarily gaming rig.

My Current Setup.

I eventually landed on base Arch, running the CachyOS repositories and kernel, with GNOME as my DE. I originally tried CachyOS directly, but swapped to base Arch to cut down on package bloat, my current install sits at around \~950 packages, whereas a fresh CachyOS GNOME install was sitting at around \~1,800 on first boot.

https://redd.it/1viqo0g
@r_linux