Fell

I can’t speak about Bazzite, but I installed Mint for a friend about two months ago and he was totally able to web search himself through a few problems. I didn’t have to intervene at all.

Distro:

• First choice: Mint Cinnamon
• If the GPU is very shitty: Elementary OS (Mint Cinnamon expects a basic level of GPU performance)
• If Mint/Elementary are too simple: Fedora KDE

Process:

• For fully switching: Obtain an external hard drive, copy the contents of the Windows partition(s) to it and install your preferred distro so that it takes over the entire computer. This is the most stable way.
• For dual booting: Buy an SSD for Linux, disconnect the Windows drive and install your distro of choice so that it takes up the entire space. Reconnect the Windows drive afterwards and set boot priorities in UEFI.

One More Tip: Don’t frontload them with information, but teach them one thing: How search for and install packages through the GUI (Mint Software Manager/Elementary Store/KDE Discover). Tell them that it’s more like a smartphone apps and downloading software from websites should be a last resort.

Unfortunately, SteamVR on Linux has a flickering bug that hasn’t been fixed in years, making games unplayable if the game is running at anything less than full FPS. It’s fine if you play less demanding games, though. (I use Valve Index and AMD RX 7900 XT)

If you use Envision instead of SteamVR, it works perfectly smooth. However, Envision isn’t fully compatible with all games. I got a particular issue where the wrist positions are slightly misplaced in VRChat, but there are already WIP changes to fix that.

So, all in all, not great, but it works. I hope SteamVR improves when Valve’s new headset comes out.