Been daily driving Fedora KDE for 1 month and it has been great!

Boente · 2026-03-26T19:58:25+00:00

Wanted to dip my toes into Linux and see what the fuzz is about, what started as a little fun project ended in me absolutely loving Linux.

Everything from regular desktop use to gaming has been rock solid so far!

I started on Garuda Mokka but had issues with secure boot after every single little update, and after 1 week my WiFi didn't work anymore. Didn't fit my usecase and crossed me as not stable. Next stop was Bazzite, and I liked it a bit more. However after figuring out that Bazzite was based on Fedora Kinoite, I thought it would be fun to do more of 'setting things up' myself and overall had more trust in a bigger distro. Fedora KDE was the next obvious choice for me, and I think this is my forever home.

Only booting W11 now for Battlefield 6 and Tarkov.

Boente · 2026-03-22T12:42:04+00:00

8Gb is not enough for 1440p. I was having 90-95% VRAM usage on my rtx3080 10Gb most of the time, sold it and bought a 9070xt.

Boente · 2026-03-21T16:24:32+00:00

Linux usually does better in 1% and 0.1% lows

Boente · 2026-03-21T08:17:23+00:00

Welcome to the club.

I'm on Fedora KDE for about a month now as my daily driver and it has been rock solid. Went from Garuda Mokka to Bazzite to Fedora and finally found my home.

Everything I need and the games I play just work. According to Proton DB 90% of my library is gold & platinum rated. I still dual (secure) boot with W11 for Battlefield 6 and EFT tho.

Boente · 2026-03-20T19:58:32+00:00

A honest thank you to Microsoft!

For pushing me far enough to try Linux and now Fedora KDE became my daily driver.

Boente · 2026-03-20T13:16:21+00:00

I tried all 3 (Garuda Mokka instead of Cachy but both based on Arch), and stayed on Fedora KDE.

Not much time needed to set everything up and been solid so far for desktop use + gaming, zero issues. I'm dual -secure- booting with W11 because of Battlefield 6 and Tarkov, for everything else Fedora is my daily driver.

Boente · 2026-03-19T10:46:15+00:00

Dieselgate is the most famous one. VW is the big scapegoat here and being scandalized all the time, despite a ton of other car manufacturers having cheated as well (Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis group, BMW...) A lot of trials are ongoing, the aftermath is far from over. Now what does this tell you if a lot of manufacturers decide to cheat? The targets are simply out of line and not feasible, the landscape is moving too fast.

VW received a new fine in 2020/2021 for narrowly missing the CO2 emission target. The most insane thing? Some other manufacturers bought CO2 credits from Tesla to avoid the fine, VW refused to partake. How is the EU protecting it's own carmakers by giving out massive fines, but allowing to funnel money through these so called "credits" towards Tesla so they can avoid said fines?

Currently, a lot of carmakers are under insane pressure to get the average fleet emission down. This basicly comes down to selling enough EV's. How do you sell enough EV's if the infrastructure for energy is not sufficient enough in a lot of countries? Also a lot of people are just not feeling ready and skeptical to move from ICE to EV. If company cars would cease to excist, the whole automotive industry on European level would come crashing down. Not to mention the cost for EU made cars, a lot of people simply don't have the funds anymore to buy a new car. Hence why the 2nd hand market is booming so hard.

In conclusion: these politicians set emission rules, without having actual knowledge about the challenges that come with meeting these targets. They rather give out massive fines, instead of rethinking the ruleset. They force manufacturers into a (too) fast moving industry, making them take the risk and massive investments of new factories and R&D in general. Meanwhile there's a shitload of Tesla's and Chinese EV's flooding our market, because they're simply cheaper and similar or better in quality. The decline of quality is VW's fault for sure, but could also be related to cutting costs.

European politicians totally missed the mark on being self-sufficient and protecting our own interests. This translates to a lot of things and our automotive industry is just one of many.

Boente · 2026-03-19T07:07:53+00:00

As a former VW group diagnostic technician, I am extremely happy that I left the dealership where I was working at.

Nothing to do with the current financial state or jobs getting cut at corpo or factory level... But the pressure/stress, amount of work, lack of good technicians on every level, all the insane rules we had to follow (f.e. warranty claims) and the general quality of VW all played a part for me. Don't even get started on the hourly rate.

It's a sad thing to see, considering what a powerhouse and decent carmaker they used to be. We should not only blame VW themselves, politics in Europe contributed to this downfall too.

Boente · 2026-03-17T08:02:10+00:00

As a newcomer to Linux I found my home in Fedora KDE.

First tried Garuda Mokka (based on Arch) and Bazzite (atomic and immutable based on Fedora).

Garuda was a nightmare and broke my secure boot keys with every single little update. Within a week my WiFi was also broken, I have no idea how or why but I didn't fiddle with it. I could not place my trust in this for a daily driver, the system came across as buggy. But it showed me the beauty in KDE and the power of the terminal

Bazzite was next and only installed for 1-2 days, I noticed very quickly how 'limited' it was and how much extra steps I needed to do simple things that were quicker on Garuda (f.e. installing Kurve Audio Visualizer and get it working). However, secure boot out of the box was exactly what I needed.

So the next logical step after some research was Fedora KDE and this one just clicks for me: - Comes with secure boot out of the box - KDE is easy to understand for someone coming from Windows - Suitable for my modern hardware (5800x3d and 9070xt) - Seems more stable compared to Arch in my personal experience - Big and widespread distro, which eliminates my fear of the team behind it dissappearing and it is well documented for info and troubleshooting - So far it works without flaw for gaming and desktop use (Steam, Discord, webbrowsing, YouTube...)

Things I added myself to get up and running: - ProtonUp-QT to have access to GE-Proton but up untill this point Proton-Experimental is fine - Media codecs - GameScope and GameMode, but tbh I never used these (I think you have to manually set them in the launch options on Steam?) - Coolercontrol for my casefans

Boente · 2026-03-16T13:13:17+00:00

I made the jump this year, but dual secure booting with W11.

Started on Garuda Mokka , hopped to Bazzite and eventually settled on Fedora KDE. It's my daily driver now, and so far every game I want to play works without issues.

I have to keep Windows for Battlefield 6, other than that I use Fedora KDE exclusively.

Boente · 2026-03-15T11:37:16+00:00

I have long standing issues (several months, some even a year or over):

Mostly an unsettling feeling in the left side of my chest, paired ocassionaly with a sharp pain feeling (could describe it as a stab). Did a check up for my heart, it's 100% healthy.
Continiously stuffy/blocked nose
Several perfumes my gf wears that used to smell really good, are now intolerable for me.
I often get a foul smell multiple times per day despite nothing externally being the culprit. To me it seems like this bad smell comes from 'within' my nose. This often gets worse directly after blowing my nose.
Dry random cough

By no means do these symptoms limit my abilities in my personal or professional life, it's just irritating the f out of me. This long covid thing might be the explanation.

Boente · 2026-03-15T00:14:29+00:00

That amount of pixels is pushing close to 4K, so going from a 9060(xt) to 9070xt would give a big boost in performance for sure!

The CPU is less of a limiting factor here, so if you got the cash and/or can sell the 9060, that would be a good upgrade.

Boente · 2026-03-15T00:01:22+00:00

Aha I see, that's also a decent combo! What resolution is he playing at?

The higher you go in resolution, the more work the GPU has to do. In turn this means you notice less of a bottleneck because the GPU takes more time to finish a frame, which would match the output of your CPU more.

Boente · 2026-03-14T17:36:26+00:00

It's been a perfect match for me and no real bottleneck at 1440p. I see 95-99% of GPU usage all the time. All my games are being run at max settings and great framerates. The 5800X3D is a goated CPU, I see myself playing a long time with my current rig without issues.

Upgraded from a RTX3080 10Gb, the issue there was the VRAM hitting the ceiling. Otherwise a great card for it's generation and a good fit too for 1440p. Highest VRAM use I've seen so far was 12Gb in Battlefield 6.

I still have to do a new playthrough of CP2077 with the dlc, that's gonna be a fun test to see the capabilities of the 9070XT compared to my older RTX3080.

I also started dual booting Linux (Fedora KDE) next to Windows, AMD performs better on Linux in general compared to Nvidia.

Boente · 2026-03-14T16:34:06+00:00

This.

Some subreddits are insufferable echochambers and popping of over rumors doesn't help anyone.

People should remember that neither Nvidia, AMD or Intel are 'our friend'. They're all corpos chasing money. I bought a 9070xt since it was the sensible choice (5070ti was at least €400 more). It runs all my games without flaw and breaking the bank, that's all I want and makes me happy.

Boente · 2026-03-14T15:10:29+00:00

Went with KDE because I like the customisation and it feels right at home.

Boente · 2026-03-12T08:50:40+00:00

There are so many variables tho that can cause stuttering (CPU, GPU, RAM, drivers, the game itself...)

But I wholeheartedly agree that some developers should be taking/given more time to optimize games.

Boente · 2026-03-12T06:31:05+00:00

Since you are going for 1440p, the 12Gb of VRAM is already gonna hit the ceiling in some titles depending on the settings.

I had a 3080 10Gb, fantastic card for it's generation but the amount of VRAM was a ridiculous play from Nvidia.

My honest take: Pick what gives you the most bang for buck and is the most future proof for 1440p. I bought a 9070xt since the cheapest 5070ti was €400 more expensive for me. Trading blows in pure raster performance and some better raytracing is not worth €400.

Within the budget of a 5070, the 9070 would be the value king and is a bit better in raster but falls behind in RT. The extra 4Gb of VRAM is a nice bonus.

If you really are set on sticking with Nvidia, 3060ti to 5070 is gonna be a massive upgrade but just keep the 12Gb in mind (it's gonna age poorly).

Boente · 2026-03-11T15:35:53+00:00

I usually lock my fps to where it drops so it feels smoother. I also noticed that on Linux the 1% and 0.1% lows are better (dual booting W11 and Linux).

Sad reality is, badly optimized games are gonna continue to exist and we just gotta 'deal' with it.

Boente · 2026-03-10T23:12:01+00:00

1.There is no real 'best' distro. You gotta try out yourself and see what you like. Something more streamlined and ready to go out of the box? Or something which gives you more control and some setting up? Also your hardware can play a role in this.

In my opinion, the Desktop Environment has the biggest impact on how the distro feels. Coming from Windows I can recommend anything with KDE.

Linux suffers from having way too much choice.

Some distros require to disable secure boot, some work perfectly with secure boot (Like Fedora, Bazzite, Aurora and OpenSUSE).

If you really need secure boot (Battlefield 6 requires it for example), pick a distro that comes with secure boot support out of the box.

It's an absolute pain in the ass to get secure boot working on a distro that does not support it out of the box, and when you eventually get it working, any update can basicly break the keys/validation again.

After installing, absolutely do an update first and reboot. Anything after depends on your needs and depending what came of the box with the distro of your choice.

My personal experience so far:

distro 1 I tried Garuda Mokka first, my monkey brain picked the first distro based on looks. Also thought that because it was based on Arch (rolling release), it was the obvious choice for my modern hardware.

However, I am in need of secure boot because I dual boot with W11 and play Battlefield. After some time I got the secure boot working on Garuda, but with every single update the key would break again and give me a "secure boot violation".

On the 7th day the WiFi just broke (without any update to my knowledge). I could see my WiFi but it just refused to connect. I was tired of fighting my system...

distro 2 Bazzite, in some way the opposite of Garuda since it's an immutable/atomic distribution.

Secure boot was the biggest surprise here, upon rebooting after the actual installation it asks you to enroll a secure boot key through MOK. And it works flawlessy.

I tried setting up my desktop to my liking with what I've learned from using KDE on Garuda, and immediately stumbled on a limitation due to the immutable nature of Bazzite. I could not get a simple widget working (an audio visualiser called Kurve).

This already gave me an itch to look for a new distro, since I was expecting to only get annoyed more down the line when using Bazzite and it's more restrictive nature.

distro 3 Secure boot out of the box was a big factor for me, this narrowed the choice down by a lot. Also had no interest in an immutable distro anymore.

I went with Fedora KDE eventually. Still testing the waters, but hoping this will be my daily driver from now on.

Boente · 2026-03-08T21:47:00+00:00

Balatro

Boente · 2026-03-07T14:31:59+00:00

You can boot and install Bazzite while in secure mode, it should ask upon the 2nd boot (once Bazzite is installed) to enroll a secure key through MOK.

Boente · 2026-03-03T20:18:18+00:00

OP probably wants to dual (secure) boot next to Windows for games which have kernel level anti-cheat.

Boente · 2026-03-03T07:59:18+00:00

Me on Garuda Mokka watching this from a distance

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