You can replicate the nobara distro by installing some software and switching some things, but there are some hurdles.

For example installing the codecs to be able to play proprietary or manage proprietary codecs for softwares which rely on the system to do so is a bit of a mess currently (vlc can read without the system) :

The tutorial on how to do so is, well outdated. It works until it doesn’t because it’s missing a command to switch from the fedora open source only ffmpeg to the one containing the proprietary software one.

After a bit of research I got to it, but it was a bit of a head scratching moment.

For the rest, well there are some modifications to the kernel too it seems, but the performance boost is still low.

For the rest well it’s software that can be easily installed (steam, wine and other related, …).

Tho I made the mistake to use an outdated tutorial on how to install nvidia drivers for fedora. In fact it’s very easy. I just had to install it from the store, the nvidia package… Tho it runs in hybrid mode by default, I think I installed an extension on gnome to easilly switch between these modes.

Ubuntu is a bit of a between good and meh distro nowadays : It is well maintained and up to date enough, with the gnome desktop. So good enough.

However they push their own “proprietary” (at least for the servers), packaging format : snap. Currently it’s OK, but also a security nightmare.

Anyone can put software on there, it is not checked for malware, and there is very little official support from devs, so often it’s community packages, which obviously aren’t to be always trusted.

There are a bit similar issues with flatpak. But at least it’s open source. Tho not sure on how the official flatpak repo is checked for malware, if it even is.

For native packages (apt-get for Ubuntu as example) (not in their snap or flatpak containers), it is often maintained by trusted people in the community or companies. So the software is checked and more trustworthy.

Linux mint and pop os are based on Ubuntu, and so also use apt. But they don’t force snap packages if you like to stay on something you experimented with.

Other distros like fedora (or nobara) can use other packaging formats. Dnf for them. It works about the same, however as they don’t use the same packaging, they are not directly compatible with .deb files (often proposed by companies which software wasn’t put in a repo).

However, the flatpak community is also often here to get all these things working smoother. So for example discord isn’t available natively on fedora, but it is available from in flatpak.

For less work and nice interface on a laptop, I can suggest Pop OS. Tho you would still need to install software and tools.

It is using gnome, but you can install extensions to change how the desktop appears.

Gnome is pretty good for laptops and supports gestures pretty well.

Pop os has already installed extensions allowing switching for optimus and they have an ISO with nvidia drivers already installed.

How optimus switching works on Linux is : There are 3 modes :

• integrated (nvidia disabled)
• hybrid (intel used, Nvidia available at very low power constantly. Nvidia gpus cannot be disabled in this mode. It uses more power than integrated becauset the nvidia gpu is running at low power)
• dedicated (nvidia gpu, highest power consumption)

In hybrid mode, When you want to use the nvidia gpu in games or something which cannot auto detect the gpus in it’s configuration, you need to launch it with an argument to get it to run on the nvidia gpu.

For games, i suggest to use proton-ge on steam, by enabling the compatibility in the settings. Proton-ge has enhancements compared to default proton with automatic launch of gamemode (additional software to be installed), already integrated fsr 1… It is also available for other software (heroic launcher (gui for legendary)/legendary (epic games & gog) with Wine-GE, and specific versions for Lutris…

For garuda Linux, when i tried it, it was a trash experience. I wasn’t even able to install wine because it wanted to remove the audio driver (pipewire if I remember), and obviously not tested by the devs. Wine was installing perfectly fine on other distros.

And as said in another comment, no idea for nobara, I couldn’t boot into it.

As other comments suggested too, Linux mint is a good one too. The switch between gpu config isn’t made through the power menu, but through the nvidia panel for that distro.

However I don’t like it very much for dual booting, because even if I make another efi partition, it still writes to the windows partition. So when I delete the linux mint partitions, I still have a Linux mint entry lingering in the bios. I uses cinnamon as a desktop. It works great too. Tho not sure how well it got updated to gestures compared to gnome.

Well Wayland support and performance may vary. For Wayland to work well on nvidia the most recent software is needed.

Wayland support would get better with a bit more time. Wine has pushed updates in the latest versions for better Wayland support.

For gaming, X11 would work maybe a bit better for performance, however it could also have evolved fast and performance of Xwayland be better rn.

I wouldn’t say you need to avoid Wayland, but rather test how it works. On distros shipping Wayland and X11, you can often switch between them at the login screen.

For nobara, well it would be interesting and an “easy” start to fedora. Tho I tried to install it, and I never got to boot into it, while I installed fedora without any issues. Not sure if I made a mistake or an incompatibility with my laptop.

The issue with fedora, is that software without gui aren’t available in the gnome store. And only installable though command line with dnf or flatpak. Also the fedora forum help online is a bit of a desert, or soo old that it doesn’t apply anymore. Tho it could have evolved since I tried it. However the fedora support page is pretty good, tho it is missing some things on first install for some things. However Nobara would have already got all those issues dealt with.

If you have no experience with Linux, I’ll suggest to first discover with a distro, then when you feel a bit more comfortable to try other compositors. Using non “common” compositors may create bugs which may not be very much discussed online. So it can be a bit discouraging for a new user.

I can partially confirm this.

The hdd is too slow for recent games. Tho older games do work fine on it.

Recent games, mostly AAA ones have a lof of texture streaming with hevy textures. So they wouldn’t be able to load them in time and either generate lag or missing textures.

Older games, even AAA, designed for ps4/xbox one generation don’t seem to need as much drive speed.

For file verification, maybe, tho it wouldn’t bother me much if I didn’t have space on an nvme drive.