Gentlemen, just for context, I usually use Linux. I have been a user of Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora for a few years.
Recently, I acquired a decent graphics card (GeForce RTX 4070) and decided to uninstall my Windows and install Linux.
I saw that Pop!_OS already has an image with everything pre-configured for Nvidia. Is this pre-configuration worth it, are the games more stable on this distribution, or is it the same as manually installing Nvidia’s proprietary drivers on Manjaro?
I would recommend staying away from Manjaro regardless of your distribution preferences, for a whole range of reasons, some of which are documented here.
When it comes to Nvidia, don’t let people make it look like it’s some kind of an adventure quest with no map markers. Practically any reasonably maintained popular distribution will either have everything installed already, or will give you an Nvidia option during installation. There are still some long-standing issues, but the vast majority of them are either actively being worked on, or just got upstreamed, and it’s up to your distribution to deliver the update.
If you like Debian/Ubuntu based choices, Pop is not my preference, but it is a good distribution. Otherwise, Endeavour has been absolutely excellent. Fedora isn’t necessarily a bad option, but their package management policies will make setting up gaming workflows a pain. Nobara comes with all of that pre-configured, but is otherwise just regular Fedora
Hi,
I’m going to say that at a high level it doesn’t make much of a difference. Some distros will make claims they have tweaks for gaming but for most players I doubt you’ll notice the difference. Almost all distributions make it easy to get Nvidia drivers working these days so I wouldn’t worry about that.
I’d say to pick the distribution based on other factors, such as update policy (rolling vs stable) or desktop environment you prefer.
I wanted to wait to the end to mention Manjaro has some controversial aspects to it. In terms of how the project handles money and leadership. I’d personally not recommend it but that has nothing to do with gaming.
Friends don’t let friends run Manjaro. EndeavourOS is the better choice for a prepackaged Arch installation.
New hardware from the last 1-2 years or you want to take advantage of new software features quickly? Use a rolling release distro like Arch or Fedora or one of their derivatives. EndeavourOS is a great place to start with Arch if you don’t want to manually install things. On the Fedora side I’ve heard good things about Nobara and Bazzite.
Hardware older than 2y? Use literally anything.
I have tried both and a bunch of others with a laptop with nVidia and Intel and have had a range of experiences.
Anything Ubuntu based worked out of the box but any significant deviation from the exact current standard made things less stable. Changing WM/DE was not really possible and troubleshooting was opaque. Snap was also a nightmare of broken packages and bad update processes.
Manjaro looked really nice and had that lovely Arch flavour, but it is not really Arch, more Arch adjacent. Lots of things work similarly but lots of things break in bad ways. They have had numerous issues with security, bad updates, and general poor practice.
Pop is cool, I like it, but just not a good fit for me. Cosmic is a great environment but I like to tinker too much and while the team is great and do good work it is just not the same kind of defaults I like.
EndeavourOS is my current pick. It is Arch with sane defaults. It comes prebuilt with a DE configured, backups using BTRFS snapshots, a handy updater and package management config, some cool apps built in, and it is very performant. The guides for hardware video acceleration worked first time for me which has never happened before, normally that is a major pain and takes a few days to get sorted on a fresh install. Graphics performance is awesome, same with built in OOM protection. That said, make sure you have enough RAM. I had 8gb in my laptop and ended upgrading to 32gb after a number of failed builds and messing around with swap to get things to finish. If you have less than 16gb RAM I would recommend upgrading.
Whatever you choose, I would recommend trying a few things before settling down. The right fit is right for today and may change, so try things again in the future if you feel uncomfortable. Also do what works for you, not for anyone else. If you don’t like Arch you are not obligated to use it, same with Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, etc. Keep the fun of it and play around, maybe just boot up a few live environments and see if something tickles you. I hear good things about Hannah Montana Linux.
Get Nobara or Endavour
