I know gaming has gotten a lot better on Linux and I’m working on a new PC and I’m wondering which distro to try.
Nobara is a great suggestion by @[email protected], but I’d also throw out a suggestion for Bazzite if you want the “SteamOS”/Steam Deck experience.
It does have the KDE desktop environment underneath to do all the non-gaming stuff as well, but if gaming is your number one focus, it’s a pretty cool setup.
It just boots to desktop unless you have AMD GPU and install the deck edition to a regular PC. Seconding the rec though. It has become my main.
IMO, the best distro is going to be whatever you’re most comfortable with (given it’s still getting updates blah blah blah). Some might be easier in the get go but if they do wonky things (compared to what you’re used to) an update might really screw you up and leave you in a situation where you’re doing a lot of research.
For the most part, you can make any distro do whatever you want, but if you understand one much better than the rest, use that.
There is no* such thing as “best” – all distros are Linux/GNU at heart.
Well having personally dealt with the Redhat and Ubuntu fiascos there are some that are clearly better than others 🤣
I would say that some are better dealing with certain hardware better than others. But you are right, it’s all Linux so any distro could be made to work.
Probably Manjaro KDE.
Even Valve recommends it.
Do you have an source ?
Its surprising because steamsos is build on Debian/Ubuntu so.
SteamOS has been built on Arch since version 3.
Thanks :)
SteamOS 3+ is built on Arch.
One that is relatively up to date with their graphics drivers. Then just install steam/lutris flatpaks and go crazy. Performance difference is pretty much negligible once it’s set up.
Unpopular opinion but ubuntu.
You will eventually run into an error you have never seen before and and someone using ubuntu has already solved it and posted it online somewhere.
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And they solved it by reading the ArchWiki 99% sure.
Counter point, Ubuntu specifically has so many old posts and answers that aren’t necessary in modern systems, deprecated, or straight up no longer correct. Also a lot of recommendations that can screw up a system in strange ways. I feel like many issues (ie. Bluetooth, USB, Wifi) are due to people stumbling on old posts with configs and tools that have changed and blindly applying them
Really unpopular opinion: Windows.
It’s not yet a Linux distro :3
Linux wasn’t /techically/ specified…
Personally if it were me and gaming was my primary focus, I’d go to the place that’s doing the most with gaming and Linux, SteamOS.
There are lots of sites that go through the process of building a Linux gaming machine using SteamOS.
Here’s just one random video I found (not affiliated with this at all) about using an old optiplex from eBay, some ram upgrades, and a RX580 GPU. Apparently they did this for $150 but take that with a grain of salt. Hope this helps.
Having tried many, I found that the desktop environments matter more than the actual OS, especially on older machines.
Going for something really light, like openbox, lxde, or xfce, caused less frame rate drop and stuttering. At least on my lower powered mini pc.
Any distro that ships relatively recent libraries and kernels.
With the exception of Debian, RHEL, SLES and the like, pretty much everything.
Just plain ol Fedora. Lots of recommends for Nobara but I doubt the performance increase from the tweaks will make much of a difference with modern hardware. I went down the “gaming distro” path years ago and it’s just not worth it imo. You do you though because whatever distro you’ll still be in go ol’ Linux.
I have an NVIDIA and I dont understand why everyone says its buggy. What kind of problems are people having? I use Nobara for AV work + gaming, it installs the propritary drivers automatically. The few games I’ve tried worked flawless, better then on Windows on the same machine. There’s one game I’ve tried were I had to switch to X11 but all the others works on Wayland.
It depends on your card & if you’re using Nouveau or the proprietary driver. NVIDIA has always been far behind in terms of Wayland compatibility when compared to AMD or Intel. Recently they seem to be putting in a lot more effort and now after Fedora officially announced that they will be dropping X11 by default in the KDE Plasma 6 Fedora Spin 18 months from now, they’re likely going to be trying much harder as Fedora sets the precedent. Even if it works on your hardware rn, that doesn’t mean it’s yet feature complete or bug-less.
Nowerdays Nvidia starts to care about Linux an Nobara is doing a great job to care too. There was a long, rocky road to get to this point 😎
Linux Mint
Probably steamOS but I’ve never used it
Arch has been perfect for me but I wanna try void
Skip void, try NixOS :P (my colleague switched from void too)
If you care about VRR or HDR, you need a distro with KDE Plasma and use a Wayland session. Plus, you’ll need the latest drivers, so… a rolling release.
Arch based like Manjaro, or OpenSUSE.
If you don’t like that, or you have an NVIDIA GPU then I suggest you try Nobara, made by Glorious Eggroll, big contributor to Proton (Valve’s fork of Wine, what makes Windows games run on Linux).
