Switching to linux and need recommendations

[u/Asleep-Airline-8900]

Hi. I have a laptop that I used sometimes just for 3 things:

1. playing heroes 3 on the couch

2. plugging it to the tv to watch stuff on stremio

3. ASL homework (I record myself signing sentences/a story and upload the file to the college blackboard)

Unfortunately, it updated to windows 11 automatically and now it's unusable. It freezes doing any of those things. The camera freezes and skips signs, the movies lag behind the audio, even heroes 3 with graphics from 1999 is now running slower.

So I'm really thinking about taking the plunge and switching it to Linux, it's become useless anyway.

My question is: I know theres a bunch of different types of linux you can install, I'm just looking for one thats easier to learn and "programs" (Distros?I dont know the right terms) that let me do those 3 things, do you guys have any recommendations? Thank you

[u/Sveet_Pickle]

Check protondb for heroes compatibility but if it’s almost certainly going to work.

HDMI out should work out of the box.

If you’re not tied to any particular recording software for school then that’ll be trivial to accomplish.

I’d recommend something like fedora or Ubuntu

[u/stiggg]

If you mean Heroes of Might & Magic III, the HD edition is listed with platinum status on protondb, so it should work fine.

The usual recommendations for beginners regarding which distro to use are Linux Mint, Fedora and Ubuntu.

[u/Intelligent_Sun_987]

I'm using linux mint with XFCE at all my PCs (from 2009 netbook to 2020 PC - one distro for them all).

Just try to feel switching to linux as text-based game. Puzzle one. You'll get the transition easier.

Basically, you need to install the actual "wine" software and learn how to google the issues or ask the LLMs - this is simple.

You can choose from any mainstream distro (say, Arch, Mint), but I'll recommend the Mint as very simple in installation yet it have a variety of cactus needles especially for old linux games (who will need the obsolete libraries from 2022 in the repo? Wipe'em off!) and windows games ("we no need less then 10 years old wine on the repo, get off"), but this is very good option to make very first installations and move on.

I recommend you to remove the storage in your laptop and install from and on the USB sticks/SD Card: data safety is first. Once you will learn how not to wipe your main storage during installation, what sda2/hdb1 means - you can play with your main disk.

Note: in some cases Linux programs will argue when you attempt to use NTFS partition. Make them a link (like the shortcut) to it from the linux one and for simple read-write it will be 100% fine.

[u/TheGoldenFox64]

Fedora KDE is a good distro, bundled with a good desktop environment. easy to use a good for beginners.

[u/skyfishgoo]

you can look up your game on protondb.com

streaming from an online browser connection is fine as long as you have the bandwidth.

the only way to know if your camera and other laptop hardware work is to try a live session from the USB installer to check everything out before you install.

in order to have the best chance that you hardware will be recognized right way, i would suggest lubuntu as a distro choice

kubuntu as well but it is a bit more demanding so lubuntu is better for laptops and lower spec machines.

[u/Free_Fix7819]

I suggest Linux Mint. I like that it is Debian-based and easy to learn. It should feel "Windows" like.

[u/thunderborg]

Honestly I’d start with a fresh install of Windows that could fix some problems, there’s a bunch of advice on “debating” windows 11.

Though I’d say check out Linux Mint, Ubuntu or Fedora. The important thing is to check your camera works. I’m be had hit and miss webcam experience under Linux.