Linux

Linux mint is a common recommendation but I think a bad one (for beginners anyway), I highly recommend bazzite with kde, I have 15 years of linux experience and am willing to do infinite troubleshooting if you add me on matrix (which is on my profile) I've onboarded many people and this is my experience with beginners

in short, linux mint is bad vs bazzite with kde for 3 reasons

kde is much more well supported and developed than cinnamon, it's not even close especially if you care about security

immutable distros are much more forgiving for new people, immutable means that the core OS can't be modified.

and finally bazzite has more up to date software, linux mint is a "stable" distro, stable in the linux context means unchanging, not unbuggy

if you don't know what any of that means, go bazzite over mint, you'll have an easier time.

I recently got a steam deck and that kinda demystified the (unrealistic) expectation I had of Linux was all command line stuff and techno babble.

Outside of gaming, browsing and flatpaks it still very much is. People here will lie and tell you it's not. It is. But as long it's just Steam gaming, it's very simple.

so is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards

Not really sure what you're asking here but I think it's a "package manager". Basically an app store for Linux. Discover store in KDE or "software" in GNOME. Open it, search for your software, click the "install" button and be done.

Outside of the package manager, installations become complex quickly.

is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux

Yes, generally new hardware won't work as well. Linux drivers are a second class citizen. Also you'll likely experience lower performance and extra difficulties with Nvidia vs. Windows.

I personally started out with Debian given that a vast majority of distributions are Debian based, typically paired with KDE Plasma 5 for my desktop environment, and learned from there.

Now Debian is really stable but does require command-line configuration quite often so it may feel complicated but if you’re capable of reading & following documentation then you should be all good.

Generally, Linuxmint is the go to distro if you want something that holds your hand, but due to your limited needs outside of gaming and already having a Steam deck you should take a look at Bazzite, which is basically the desktop mode of the Steam deck for PCs.

As for hardware, one thing that can be annoying is NVIDIA (drivers), but that shouldn’t be a major problem with these distros as mint has a built in manager that does everything for you and with Bazzite you just need to specify your GPU when downloading and don’t have to do anything.

My recommendation is download the distros you want to try, get Rufus put them on a USB and then play around with them in demo mode, make sure everything works (graphic card, printers) and if you like the distro then start the installer. If you don’t like it you can just unplug the USB and reboot without anything persisting.

is there a Linux… idk what to call it, type? OS? Thing??? that runs out of the box without me having to install additional software manually or at least automatic setup wizards

The word you are looking for is called a distribution, or distro for short.

I'm surprised no one else has mentioned Bazzite, which should be exactly what you're looking for.

is there any specific hardware that works easier with Linux

An AMD GPU for sure. Nvidia drivers have come a long way, but they don't generally behave as well out of the box like AMD.

You can just buy a system with Linux preinstalled. My laptop is from System76. I usually build desktops/towers from scratch but they sell those too.

Installing apps has always been easier on Linux then on Windows as Linux has had large free app stores back 30 years. The question is more are the apps you want in the app store. If not things get harder. I like Debian based distros like Ubuntu or Linux Mint as they have large app stores.

You might want to look at distrowatch.com. Mint is currently at the top.

I also recommend Linux Mint. It's been hands down the best experience of all the Linux distros I've tried.

The installation is done with a USB stick. In short, you download the Linux iso image and create a bootable USB stick with a software. In Windows I have always used Rufus for that.

The Linux installer gives you a choise to wipe everything and install Linux. Installing Mint has always been very straight forward.

I can't comment on hardware since I've only used Linux on +5 year old laptops. They seem to work fine.

There most likely will be many new things that can feel confusing in the beginning, but I'm sure you'll get the hang of it. There also are tons of good tutorials of everything.

Best of luck to your Linux project!

Pro tip is to install a virtual machine like virtualbox or something on your Windows system. They're super easy to set up with loads of tutorials on youtube.

From there you can install any number of linux distros (I recommend Mint or Pop!) and try them out without having to commit to real hardware. I would put the VM in fullscreen and pretend it was a real system, and use it as my dedicated machine for as long as possible. You can even install steam to get a feel of the setup process (bear in mind you'll need to set up stuff for graphics acceleration to play most games but the basic setup should be fine!)

As for setup. Most Linux distros are as easy to set up as Windows or MacOS: USB in, boot, select a few basic options and stick to defaults. Reboot. Install stuff. You don't even need to deal with drivers (even Nvidia is cared for by most installers) which was nicer than burrowing through NV/AMD's websites to get their driver installers set up.

At that point you won't be wondering if youve made the right choice when it comes to your next build, and you can get right down to actually using your PC instead of googling things. Good luck!

if you liked the design of older style windows (think like windows XP), you could look into Q4OS. I use it for my laptop and it's Debian based so you will have pretty decent support applications wise and it has a pretty simple UI. I had never heard of it prior to a few months ago but I have had no issues with it.

Being said, I can't remember if it has UnattendedUpgrades by default, but that program can be configured on any debian based system to allow for automatic updates. It does take a little bit of configuration if it isn't pre-installed though.

Try Bazzite:

https://bazzite.gg/

It will give you an experience that's familiar compared to the Steam Deck, and everything will "just work" out of the box.

It already has Steam installed and is a great desktop for general use.