I don’t spend much time on my desktop computer but if I do I tend to game a bit. OW II, CS, Helldivers, Tabletop Simulator mostly. And of course need Discord.

I am considering a minor upgrade to the hardware and would need a fresh install (currently Win 10). I’ve been out of the distro game for a while and currently only have one old thinkpad running Debian and an X1 Carbon gen7 I want to use for experimentating/ distro hopping.

I want a daily driver OS that can play games. I also edit photos and might to the odd “flash a CFW to an old phone” or similar light tasks. Where do I start?

I hear PopOS because “it just works” but also CachyOS because “performance, muh”.

I have experience with Ubuntu (first was 6.06) and Fedora mostly but have played around with a lot that came with at least a barebones UI (crunchbang anyone?). My life has changed so I have less time to nerd out with this than I used to. But I feel the itch to experiment now and maybe use Linux on my main desktop again after some years with that mentioned upgrade soon.