A player who already plays Eve Online won’t need to download ( or even reinstall EVE ) switching out Windows for Linux ( any flavor ). However it is my opinion, at this point in time, Manjaro would be the simple way.
- Download the Manjaro ISO desired; out of those UI options Gnome, KDE Plasma, and Xfce (Whiskers). Light weight whiskers is my option, but others like the groovy UI options in KDE. Gnome ( middle of the road ) has been the Linux standard for a long time.
- Burn the ISO to a disk or bootable USB and reboot to that media.
- Note: While I never lost data doing a ‘side by side’ you might want to back up files before you continue.
- When you boot the disk/USB choose ‘boot with proprietary drivers’ option. The system will then use the Nvidia driver from Nvidia Corp. and not the open source one made by a third party. Not all corporations offer Linux drivers, but the system will fall back to the open source when not available.
- This is the OS running from RAM and not installing to your HD at all. From here you can see an installer icon on your desktop. You should also see media on your drive. Get the feel before you decide to install from here.
Using the home button you will see all your media drives here and look at your Windows drive.
Without Wine installed you will not be able to attempt to run those programs. When ready launch the installer. It is very user friendly.
This step is the important part - the one where you can do the most harm - deciding how to install.
Choosing alongside ( side by side ) will keep your drive data by shrinking it in size ( you will lose about 50 GB at best ) and make a new partition for the OS. Any disruption such as power loss could spell doom for the drive, back it up or forever hold your peace.
When done and you reboot you should have options to boot Windows or Manjaro. Once you are booted into Manjaro, open the menu → system → Add/Remove Software.
Add Wine and you are ready to play. Start up a Windows program from the file manager. You might find you need to update drivers, install more software, or have more to do to tweak the system. The vast majority of my installs seldom gave me issue beyond this point.