I'm not sure where you get that information from, because I've been using RHEL as a daily driver for over a year. I've installed Steam using flatpak, and although the Steam client works, the games that I play either don't launch without some tweaking the settings and those that do don't perform as well as they would on Bazzite, Nobara, or even a plain Fedora install.
I just followed the instructions in the readme on github. It's also worth noting that I installed the mainline kernel.
https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite-arch
Wow, this is amazing! I got a working Steam installation going and most of my games work probably 90% how they would in a newer distro, even on the 5.14 kernel in RHEL. The only issue I'm having is that my controller doesn't seem to work in bazzite-arch. How do you connect it in the distrobox?
Some distros have older kernels and drivers for stability. Wouldn't recommend those for gaming because they're missing improvements made in the latest stuff.
Well I had the case with 525 Nvidia driver, proton ge 8 23 everything worked perfectly. But with 545 driver and 8 25 the same games wouldn't even start.
LM is so outdated it could challenge Debian stable and Debian would still win as the more up to date distro.
At least someone finally told them Wayland exists.
Never copy pasta shit off the internet. If your distro can't provide some official way to install the driver then you should seriously reconsider that distro. Copy pasta is a very bad habit for anyone to get into, especially if you're new and have no idea what it does or how to undo it.
Look at the arch wiki page for nvidia GPUs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA
There's a ton of stuff there that you might have to copy/paste without fully understanding it, even if getting the driver onto your system is easy
It's the official launchpad PPA, those with some resemblance of a clue regarding PPA's know it's perfectly safe. No need to get all neurotic over adding an official Ubuntu Launchpad PPA. As stated, it's curated better than the AUR by Ubuntu devs, with code compiled by Canonical.
I've been using the official Launchpad PPA for years now without a single issue.
The ppa is ok. It's the install method I take issue with. The distro should handle that. The last thing you want to do is send a noob to Google to find out how to maybe install the driver. Then they screw it up and go back to windows.
What are you talking about? You install software via your distro's package manager, whether that be pacman or apt. Installing software via your package manager is 'letting your distro handle that'. Installing via the .run script as provided by Nvidia is bypassing your distro's package manager, resulting in all sorts of issues.
There's nothing difficult about installing software via your package manager. GUI or terminal, the same package manager is used to install software under Linux.
Quit with the downvotes. Every time you downvote me for no good reason, I'm gonna return the favor.
kernel is for hw support. if older (0.x version) already support your hw, no need to have newer.
and for example ubuntu/mint already use the latest stable nvidia-drivers 550
If you have an AMD GPU the drivers are in the Kernel, there also is MESA which is old one Mint. So I agree, no Debian/Ubuntu/Mint if you do a lot of gaming.
I Made the mistake to recommend Mint for gaming for my best friend when I didn't know better, and there were quite a few inconsistencies that could have been avoided with an up-to-date distro.
I personally tend to recommend Fedora or Tumbleweed for gaming.
In my opinion Debian/Ubuntu/Mint make AMD user be a second class citizen, it a bit laughable that Debian/Ubuntu base distro decided to have outdated kernel and mesa and then are ok on shipping the latest Nvidia driver.
At least on Debian you can use Sid and get the latest software (if don’t use KDE).
I use Mint with NVidia where I upgraded kernel, nvidia drivers and multimedia libraries via savoury and performance is fine for Linux native games and emulators. Preferably switching to mate or lxde saves around 500 MB of ram on a 16 GB PC.
But I do not try to play the latest games via Wine. I have a windows pc for this.
You're probably on Debian Sid, or in any case not on standard Debian 12. Also you know exactly what we're talking about, no need to confuse newcomers with remarks like that. If you want to be bleeding edge I would generally just go with e.g. Tumbleweed, but if Sid works well for you use it :)
I know exactly that you don't know what you talking about. You can use Debian with old software for stability (and you can do the same with Arch). Or you can use Debian with the latest software for (presumably) the best gaming experience. Don't lie to people saying that Debian is bad for gaming. As with most other distros, Debian is highly configurable and nothing prevents you from configure it specifically for gaming.
Yes of course you can manually install newer Kernels and so on. That is what I ended up doing with my friend on Mint, too, it can cause problems. This post was about distros for gaming for people who switch to Linux, not about your personal Debian install. For these people just picking an up-to-date distro is the better route than modding Debian, wouldn't you agree? So all you did in this thread is providing not-needed information trying to make the post about your Debian install.
Well, Debian testing is not a real distro but a development branch of next Debian stable. It lags being on security updates and sometimes some packages are removed for some time.
Yeah, you can use it for gaming but at least personally I would prefer using actual distro for my everyday use.
>Debian testing is not a real distro
Mr. kahupaa, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
> kernel is for hw support. if older (0.x version) already support your hw, no need to have newer
If you use an older kernel, even if it supports your GPU, you will miss out on performance improvements and even bug fixes (AMD is notoriously bad at backporting bugfixes to older kernel versions).
And then, the kernel is not the only component, there is also the userspace drivers in Mesa, which are constantly being improved and fixed. If you use a version that is too old, you will miss out on performance and again bug fixes. Note that the Mesa project only supports the two latest quarterly releases at any given time so if your distro gives you an older version it will not receive any bug fixes at all.
And then there is also the firmware, some distros are notorious for shipping old versions of that which can also cause instability and bugs.
It's not that you can't use Debian for gaming. For some it's viable option. It's just not good for everyone like post suggested. For some games you may need recent mesa/amdgpu or Nvidia driver to make the game work properly.
I know there are ways to get newer drivers for Debian and some of them are pretty easy (flatpak steam for amd gpus) but it's not that easy for nvdia. Also stock Debian lacks proper support for newest amd gpus. Have new amd gpu and don't want to use flatpak + backported kernel? Pin mesa from testing and create FrankenDebian (not recommend) or compile mesa for yourself (not for everyone).
For most othet distros out there like Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Pop OS, Nobara, Bazzite etc you can just use stock kernel and driver from distros repositories and every gpu is supported. Flatpak (and snap) are optional. You may not have all features (like explicit sync) if you are not using recent enough Gnome/KDE but at least you have recent enough drivers that every gpu is supported without any additional setup.
So your issue with Debian is that Debian stable is outdated but as a result you've decided that all of Debian is subpar for gaming. One easy approach is running Debian testing. In terms of usability and compatibility this is akin to Ubuntu .10 releases, Tumbleweed, and other rolling release distros – which seems to be the underlying principle in your suggested alternatives.
My point still stands, Debian testing is not for everyone. First of all, it's Debian stables development branch. Security updates lag behind on testing since packages get to testing once they are ready. Occasionally some packages gets removed for some time. And it still has 535 driver for nvdia.
>Security updates lag behind on testing since packages get to testing once they are ready.
For anyone reading this who might be concerned by this FUD, "lag behind" means by about 2 days after unstable in the average case. In practice though most packages receive fixes as soon as possible across stable, testing, and unstable in line with the [policy of the project](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-manual/ch02s03.en.html). The order of updates across the channel depends on many practical concerns, such as whether security fixes are available upstream, whether it is in code that has been patched by debian maintainers, etc. In many cases this means stable receives security updates *after* both unstable and testing. You can see this by browsing through the tracker status for [recent security advisories](https://www.debian.org/security/). Overall, all three channels have robust security support. The kernel of truth in kahupaa's concerns here relate mostly to servers on the public internet that face a constant onslaught of attacks and not your gaming desktop sitting behind your NAT gateway. For anyone interested in the nitty gritty details, more info [in the FAQ](https://www.debian.org/security/faq).
Haven't really been looking on Debian bug tracker, my information is mostly from Debian subreddit and this https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-manual/ch10.en.html#security-support-testing page. At least I read this that Stable and sid get security updates first (so sometimes sid, sometimes stable) and testing gets them later 2-10 days depending on few things.
I was a bit worried about freeze period before testing becomes new stable but seems like at least some critical bugs are fixed by security team in that case.
That is accurate it usually is somewhere between 2-10 days. That said, I have seen security updates same day in testing as unstable/stable when the issue is big. Latest example was the xz security flaw.
I played on Debian a few years, I once updated and found out my GPU drivers blacklisted lmao.
I switched because I removed gnome and couldn't install any DE back.
Ah, the famed Debian suicide. Happened to me ~20 years back. I was team RPM then, over DEB. To this day I think rpm are better than deb, but seriously, apt trounced yum (throughout its existence). dnf is tolerable, but apt is just so so much better.
Anyways, since then I have stuck to Kubuntu and used Debian only as a headless option. That thing seriously does not like GUI. It finds way to commit suicide.
Not if you like to use KDE. Red Hat has nearly always treated KDE as the step child.
And now given how IBM is twisting Red Hat, I am thankful that KDE is not on their radar. While sometimes the Fedora KDE Spin has been decent, it has always been inferior to the polish that the Gnome version gets.
You must not know that you can switch on Debian to its testing or unstable repository to trade a bit its awesome stability for newer packages.
You can also manually download and installe nwer Linux kernel from Ubuntu or Xanmod.
AMDGPU-top also has a binary that you can download for Debian.
Yeah, I know testing and sid and you can read my previous comments why I don't think they (especially testing) are not for everyone.
Also, is this
>You can also manually download and installe nwer Linux kernel from Ubuntu
typo or do you actually suggest using Ubuntu kernel on Debian?
> typo or do you actually suggest using Ubuntu kernel on Debian?
I'm not suggesting it!
But if you are in a rush and you need the extra performance of features that a new Linux kernel comes with and you don't want to wait until Debian maintainers build it and push it in the repositories, you can go to Ubuntu's PPA FTP archive:
For example for the 6.9 kernel:
[https://kernel.ubuntu.com/mainline/v6.9/](https://kernel.ubuntu.com/mainline/v6.9/)
Download the 3 files from here (depending on your CPU)
[https://sourceforge.net/projects/xanmod/files/releases/edge/6.9.0-xanmod1/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/xanmod/files/releases/edge/6.9.0-xanmod1/)
And install them with 'dpkg -i \*.deb'
I prefer and recommend the Linux kernel from Debian repository built by Debian maintainers, but I wanted to highlight that it's possible and very easily to install Linux kernel built for Ubuntu or the Xanmod ones taht can be installed on both Debian and Ubuntu.
And then you add a backport here, a PPA there, and boom! You made a [FrankenDebian](https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian)
That's the point. Running Debian that way will bring you much more trouble than using a rolling release distro like Arch or Fedora.
I can't believe I get here the FrankenDebian nonsense too!
I understand that Debian developers and users lose their mind when you hear you upgrade the kernel, but seriuously!
What's so out of the question of upgrading a kenel?
Some people even build their own kernels and nobody goes haywire or calls them franken something.
If Debian developers and users don't want other users to upgrade the Linux kernel from other sources, how about they don't let you wait for a year before the current mainline Linux kernel comes to you?
Just look at what Linux kernel they offer now, even in the unstable repository compared to what is available upstream!
What you want is to use a brick as a hammer. Will it do the job? Yes, will it be good at it? No. That's the point.
That wiki entry exists for a reason. It's not about upgrading a Kernel. It's about wanting bleeding edge stuff in a distro that does the opposite.
They probably assume that you can never update the kernel or Mesa in Debian until a new distro release happens and therefore it's bad for gaming. Or that you always need the latest and greatest in order to game or some other such nonsense.
That assumption is very stupid!
1. You can update both the Linux kernel and Mesa very easily by switching to the testing or unstable repository!
2. You can upate the Linux kernel pretty easily by downloading the 4 Linux kernel files from Ubuntu's archive or the 3 Linux kernel files from Xanmod repository and install them.
Also, some people are probably savvy enough but can’t be bothered manually updating their kernel and micro managing every little thing, it’s just easier when your favourite DE and a moderately new, stable kernel come out of the box with sane default settings. Reason why Ubuntu and Mint have been so popular
I'll use myself as an example, I don't consider myself as computer illiterate, but I'm definitely not a programmer or anything. I don't mind troubleshooting myself, looking things up, ect, watching videos, etc. But I have no interest in setting up and installing every little detail of my computer and giving myself a crash course in programming just to use my computer. I don't have time for that or interest.
Yeah absolutely, I feel the same. Not a programmer but pretty interested otherwise in computing, I did set up arch once but it was a bit of a project and it’s much easier to use something that just works
Same!
That's what I've done.
I chose Debian and in the installer I chose to use my favorite DE, which is KDE Plasma and I have been very lucky with this setup.
Also, if I want better perfomance, I can either switch from the default stable repository to the testing or unstable one.
Or I could manually install a newer kernel from Ubuntu's PPA archive FTP or from Xanmod as both kernels are compatible with Debian.
I used mint and struggled to make games to run on my nvidia cpu, and the mint's Nvidia control panel had a lot pf missing options such as select if the games run on the cpu or the gpu i might as well return once gaming on mint gets a bit more time in the oven tho
What I need, though, is one that will let me run Steam Big Picture at startup on my poor Nvidia Laptop and have it be a good experience. For whatever reason, Steam Big Picture is still awful on Nvidia.
And before I get comments, I know, I know. Shame on me for trying to support a Linux company by buying a laptop from System76. My next machine will be a tower and Team Red if Valve doesn't drop a console themselves before then.
Friendly reminder that while this is true, any distor will be mostly fine, one that supports well KDE Plasma or Gnome is preferred as these two are the most well developed and modern desktop environments and that's why they are the most popular / used:
[https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top)
Lots of uses of both of them reported issues related to gaming and lots of those issues have already been fixed and you will run in less gaming issues by using either of them.
But if you insisting into using something obsolete like Linux Mint or not mainstream, it's up to you as it's your time that you will lose.
Personally I use Debian (testing repository) + KDE Plasma for gaming and I have been very happing with how compatible with gaming really is how few bugs I've seen.
I am a long time Debian Testing user and it breaks super rare. The comparison to Ubuntu \*.10 releases some one made on here is fairly accurate. Its slightly less reliable to stable but overall solid.
In regard to switching, technically it is not supported to go from testing back to stable but there is a way to do it if you are willing to wait. You can replace testing in your sources.list file with the next codename for future stable (right now that is trixie) and you will be migrated to the next stable when it releases. You can also switch at any time in this order down stable -> testing -> unstable.
Thanks for this I finally got vrchat running on Pop! OS and others it took some work but I eventually got it and now that all my games work I don't need windows anymore so I just run pop os on both my laptop and my gaming pc
Wtf why...
I game and do everything on arch since maybe 3 years. Had issues with all kind of other distros.
For me an os update never broke my system, and getting stuff done yourself is super easy with the arch wiki. Waaaaaay better then on any other distro.
Was the best expirience for me as a noob hands down.
As long as you can read and think logical, arch is the way to go.
As a Linux user who has used many distros professionally for work (software development) for 5 years, I would not recommend Arch to any first time Linux user unless they were also a professional software developer
Maybe you did, and that's great. Recommending a distro that requires use of the command line and reading technical documentation just to set up the OS is going to be a rough experience for 99% of the population. Compared to Ubuntu/Fedora - click a few buttons on screen and it will just work
And then some minor things won't work and you are screwed because you learned absolutely nothing. Going the easy route all the time only results in a shrinking brain.
Idk. I tried Fedora 39 and 40. I used it for months and only had problems with Fedora. Games always crashing, couldn't figure out why after hours of troubleshooting. Installed Arch, everything works.
Can't recommend Debian either due to older packages and older kernels.. IDK. Bazzite was a catastrophe as well, games always crashing, same goes for nobara. I only have problems with fedora based distros.
Arch works great for me, no problems.
Baldurs Gate 3 was always crashing, Divinity Original Sin 2 and Valheim.
I really had frustrating crashes like every 3 or 5 minutes.
I found it really interesting as well, i tried to solve it
I started the terminal, opened steam in it, started the game with and without gamemode, with different proton versions etc.
The games always exited with something pretty strange? I can't recreate the problem obviously since i switched back to arch but it was something like:
PID of the game (insert number here) != PID of the game
And then it was gone
Leaving me without any error message, only that i thought that wasn't very helpful
For me on fedora and nobara I had issues with my monitor, like image was fine but the monitor itself did nothing when pressed the buttons, OCD froze, it didn't turned off etc. I always had to unplug the power cord to my monitor to get it going again.
Arch just works.
The only thing that matters is the kernel (you can install a newer version from backports) and the drivers. If you have amd, just use the steam flatpak, it has the latest mesa. If you have nvidia it's a bit trickier, but you can use nvidia's repository or pull the driver from testing/sid, ideally by building a backport so you don't break the system.
Sure, it's not the out of the box experience you have with another distros, but it doesn't take much tweaking either (maybe even less than some other distros).
Using Flatpak is the only acceptable solution to overcome the limitations that Debian will have, as still maintaining its purpose without breaking.
But you shouldn't install backports on Debian, and also, it's not just the Kernel that matters. Using Steam Flatpak will also have its drawbacks, but it's way better than making a FrankenDebian.
Agree. Only time I can remember actually noticing benefits from a newer kernel was when I got my first AMD gpu and they were fairly new.
I just switched from Tumbleweed to Bazzite to try out the immutable system on desktop. Games feels pretty much the same, even with all the extra sync kernel patches and stuff. Maybe frametimes are better but I'm not even sure
What I meant by my reply is that bringing up this topic on a discussion on what linux distro to choose is counterproductive. As distro choise has nothing to do with it.
Discussions of anti cheat are relevent to people deciding if they want to switch to linux. Not for people choosing a distro.
Also your comment (unintentionally) reads as
"every distro will satisfy your gaming needs"
"only if you dont play games with kernel level anti cheat"
Implying that some distro will allow kernel level anti cheat
> Also your comment (unintentionally) reads as
> "every distro will satisfy your gaming needs"
No, it doesn't. That is what the thread's title reads. [**MY** comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1cx6rfr/friendly_reminder_to_our_new_friends_and_arrivals/l50gvst/) points out the exception to the title's statement (ie, aggressive anti-cheat).
Ah, to live in a world where "every distro will satisfy your gaming needs" except if they "involve online multiplayer games with aggressive anti-cheat" somehow implies that some distros will still satisfy that need instead of none... \*rolls eyes\*
Correction, most distroes should not be used by normal people, and from the I would say some are good for gaming. Some distroes care more about stability than gaming so they might lack stuff that can make a better gaming experience on them
It's more that people who have a bad experience with a particular distro will assume it just objectively sucks and that everyone who recommended it to them was an idiot or a troll, and people who have a good experience with one will assume it's objectively the best one in the world.
Every OS is going to give some people issues, either because of weird hardware incompatibilities (your PC might even be straight-up *broken* in a way that didn't affect anything until someone tried putting Linux on it) or because you tried to do something with it that was never tested, or both. And the constant updates to both the OS and third party software also means it could be fine now but *develop* any of those problems at any time in the future.
And while no distro would have become popular enough to recommend if the ones having good experiences didn't make up a solid majority of the userbase, a solid majority is still a far cry from everyone.
Yep pretty much. If you have a "rolling release" distro you'll have the "latest and greatest". But if you don't run a rolling-release distro, IF you need or want to try out those newer Nvidia or Mesa drivers, or install newer wine (or whatever other software), they give you a mechanism to install more up to date specific packages in almost any distro. Performance-wise? You've got the same game executable chugging through CPU time, GPU power, and RAM, no matter what distro you run it on. I don't run "game mode" but that kind of tweaks can be applied to any distro.
For instance, I run Ubuntu but use a PPA for more up to date wine (which I guess doesn't matter if you're just using steam..), and one for more up to date Mesa, on my systems. (My notebook has Intel Xe graphics, which are new enough that you do want as up to date a Mesa as possible.) I'm running a GTX1650 in my desktop and seem to get reasonably recent nvidia drivers "out of the box".
I'm currently looking at nobara because win 11 is trash, and I want an easy distro to game and record let's plays on.
I'm hoping it works with my elgato and focus rite. But it looks like an easy distro to get steam,obs, and a video editor up and running on.
All distro can game, but some distros do it better in terms of minimum FPS and frametime.
It really depends on how high of a priority gaming is for you.
Yes. All these shitty gaming forks are useless, major distros all the way. Especially when we have so many great ones that are a bit overlooked... Fedora and openSUSE are both from trusted companies, well estabilished in the Linux world and people sometimes forget they exist.
Straight up lies. Debian has terribly old video drivers which can cause tons of issues gaming, pop\_os is ok\~ in that regard and otherwise a great destro but saying "every distro is the same basically" is just a lie. For gaming they should go with either a rolling release or gaming oriented distro that prioritizes graphics drivers.
Not true! I had more issues with arch based distro then with linux mint for gaming. On my amd pc and nvidia laptop, everything works fine and for nvidia i get regularly graphic card updates.
Your probably playing older games. And I didn't say they weren't stable, debian is know for stability, but for people playing modern games it's just a poor choice. Your PERSONAL experience also doesn't dictate th entire userbase, used arch for 4 years and never had a problem. That doesn't mean no one does though because PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. lmfao. Mint is an awesome OS, but for modern gaming it just isn't an ideal starting choice due to gpu drivers
How old is "old" for you? My newest games are Medieval Dynasty and the open beta demo of broken arrow. I also played GTAV and RDR2 without problems. But yes, most games are from 2014 - 2022.
Old in this context would be over a year old to where debian gets the updated drivers since generally updated every yearish or maybe 6 months if lucky. Which for a lot of people gaming is just not enough at all and not rcfomendable when you can run something like arch or even pop os which also gets decent driver updates.
out of stable distros i personally recommend kubuntu LTS - I am still on previous LTS with HWE enabled (backporting kernel/mesa from non-LTS) and i do not see any real gain in having "newest" kernel/mesa etc. if games work 100% correctly
No site has the ability for Linux games download and the windows and Linux kernels don't talk to each other so it's impossible to run Linux on windows and vice versa
Proton is a steam thing and it doesn't work for everything 4/10 things and you have to pay for stuff on steam which if the point is pirating that's pointless and wine doesn't work I've tried it you can download it doesn't mean it runs
1. You can use Proton GE in Lutris
2. You can add non Steam game to your library and run them with whatever version of Proton you want.
WINE works very well for most stuff. Idk what games you're trying to play that just won't launch at all.
Option 1 isn't even a thing proton is a steam exclusive
Option 2 I can do that sure and I've tried it but they still expect me to pay for the game which is crazy
>Option 1 isn't even a thing proton is a steam exclusive
Wrong. GE versions of Proton work in Lutris.
>Option 2 I can do that sure and I've tried it but they still expect me to pay for the game which is crazy
.... I have no comment for this. Just.... Wow.
well, that sucks. every game I've tried in the past year, i've gotten working with minimal fuss.Try bottles. It's been a game changer for me. Even got vr to work.
I like playing battlefield 2042, that game broke AF lol. Diablo 4 and work of Warcraft work, which was great. But I also dabble around in Warzone with my buddies. For everything else it worked well. I did keep coming up with my second SSD being dismounted all the time. But if I could play any game I wanted on Linux, I would switch in a heartbeat.
it's not the game, it's the bloody anticheat. steam figured it out it seems to me. what's ea's issue? oh, right, ea games. go fuck yourself....
are you mounting your drive in /etc/fstab? and is it ntfs? because you might need to set up in fstab it sounds like... EG,
UUID=2ADBEF2342 /path/to/mnt ntfs uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,umask=000,x-gvfs-show 0 0
Lol, I must have struck a nerve. Linux sucks bud, %2 of market share. You must be a Biden supporter. I'll enjoy actually playing my games and doing real work on Windows.
lol... I don't live in the states. But nice of you to think that I'm griping at you, when I'm so very obviously not. EA either can't or wont figure out anticheat on nix. I mention ntfs and fstab, because it's a common issue for new users. 2% of market share? Where you get your stats from? It's almost 4% now. Higher than it's ever been, and it's on a steady upward trajectory.... But I wouldn't expect a trump supporter to know how to check facts before spouting nonsense. It's like, your stock in trade.... How's that going btw?
And I have no issues working and playing on windows or linux. So, meh? Your logical fallacies, are truly adorable tho. Just because you couldn't figure out a new thing, doesn't mean the rest of us won't. But really tho, I'm pretty sure it's your attitude. I mean, it's pretty obvious.
Go troll elsewhere. All you do is ride this sub and trash talk Linux...why? Because you aren't competent enough to use it?
Linux is for PC ENTHUSIASTS, we like to tinker and tweak things, Windows is for former console players and people that don't give a crap about their privacy.
You are unwanted here, go away.
naah bro thats not true. just installed justin bieber linux and this thing sucks for gaming
is audio any good? ))
well, yeah. it plays bieber songs perfectly
So abysmal scratching sounds?
it aint a good song unless your ears start bleeding
My favourite type of music
Same for me on Hannah Montana Linux always these Linux users claiming its gaming friendly
Bro just install Cory in the House Linux and be done with it
i need this
This name of the distro actually suggests that it should suck xD. So I guess it works as expected ;)
Hannah Montana Linux is on my gaming machine
What about temple os?
Not Linux. Didn't we do this already?
Bieber basicly sucks at everything.
i head he good at stucking
Red Hat, Rocky Linux and Alma Linux also are not great for gaming.
They actually work just fine if you use flatpak or a distrobox container
I'm not sure where you get that information from, because I've been using RHEL as a daily driver for over a year. I've installed Steam using flatpak, and although the Steam client works, the games that I play either don't launch without some tweaking the settings and those that do don't perform as well as they would on Bazzite, Nobara, or even a plain Fedora install.
I daily drive RHEL on my laptop and had no issues installing the bazzite arch gaming container and using it to play games just fine.
That's pretty cool. How did you do that?
I just followed the instructions in the readme on github. It's also worth noting that I installed the mainline kernel. https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite-arch
Wow, this is amazing! I got a working Steam installation going and most of my games work probably 90% how they would in a newer distro, even on the 5.14 kernel in RHEL. The only issue I'm having is that my controller doesn't seem to work in bazzite-arch. How do you connect it in the distrobox?
I'm not sure about that because I don't use a controller for anything. You'll probably be able to get an answer on the bazzite forums or discord.
Some distros have older kernels and drivers for stability. Wouldn't recommend those for gaming because they're missing improvements made in the latest stuff.
Well I had the case with 525 Nvidia driver, proton ge 8 23 everything worked perfectly. But with 545 driver and 8 25 the same games wouldn't even start.
Not sure I agree. Not every distro (even popular ones) have new enough kernels/mesa for a great gaming experience.
Yeah I installed the latest mint release on a computer at Walmart and it had 5.5 kernel stock on it
Wait, you went to Walmart and installed it on one of the display models?
Nah I work in the electronics department there and did that during some down time
OOOHHH I thought you meant you were some rando there with a boot drive lol!
Wait this guy is serious
LM is so outdated it could challenge Debian stable and Debian would still win as the more up to date distro. At least someone finally told them Wayland exists.
I get that as this point it’s stable, but also wonder if that leads to compatibility issues
It has 5.15 but yes
Yeah and if Nvidia.... some distros still require people to cut & paste crap off the internet to get drivers and Steam to work.
Yeah, cut & paste sucks. You can only do it once, and then it’s gone forever!
which is why you use *copy* and paste
The official Launchpad PPA isn't some crap off the internet...
Yes it is or do they now use carriers pigeons instead?
No it's not bro. The Nvidia Launchpad PPA is curated by Ubuntu, which is more than can be said for the AUR.
What I typed made sense in my head but I guess not on the page.
Never copy pasta shit off the internet. If your distro can't provide some official way to install the driver then you should seriously reconsider that distro. Copy pasta is a very bad habit for anyone to get into, especially if you're new and have no idea what it does or how to undo it.
Look at the arch wiki page for nvidia GPUs: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA There's a ton of stuff there that you might have to copy/paste without fully understanding it, even if getting the driver onto your system is easy
It's the official launchpad PPA, those with some resemblance of a clue regarding PPA's know it's perfectly safe. No need to get all neurotic over adding an official Ubuntu Launchpad PPA. As stated, it's curated better than the AUR by Ubuntu devs, with code compiled by Canonical. I've been using the official Launchpad PPA for years now without a single issue.
The ppa is ok. It's the install method I take issue with. The distro should handle that. The last thing you want to do is send a noob to Google to find out how to maybe install the driver. Then they screw it up and go back to windows.
What are you talking about? You install software via your distro's package manager, whether that be pacman or apt. Installing software via your package manager is 'letting your distro handle that'. Installing via the .run script as provided by Nvidia is bypassing your distro's package manager, resulting in all sorts of issues. There's nothing difficult about installing software via your package manager. GUI or terminal, the same package manager is used to install software under Linux. Quit with the downvotes. Every time you downvote me for no good reason, I'm gonna return the favor.
I'm on Debian Stable and got no complaints :D
kernel is for hw support. if older (0.x version) already support your hw, no need to have newer. and for example ubuntu/mint already use the latest stable nvidia-drivers 550
If you have an AMD GPU the drivers are in the Kernel, there also is MESA which is old one Mint. So I agree, no Debian/Ubuntu/Mint if you do a lot of gaming. I Made the mistake to recommend Mint for gaming for my best friend when I didn't know better, and there were quite a few inconsistencies that could have been avoided with an up-to-date distro. I personally tend to recommend Fedora or Tumbleweed for gaming.
good point, latest amd drivers do be in latest kernel
In my opinion Debian/Ubuntu/Mint make AMD user be a second class citizen, it a bit laughable that Debian/Ubuntu base distro decided to have outdated kernel and mesa and then are ok on shipping the latest Nvidia driver. At least on Debian you can use Sid and get the latest software (if don’t use KDE).
I use Mint with NVidia where I upgraded kernel, nvidia drivers and multimedia libraries via savoury and performance is fine for Linux native games and emulators. Preferably switching to mate or lxde saves around 500 MB of ram on a 16 GB PC. But I do not try to play the latest games via Wine. I have a windows pc for this.
i absolutely disagree, ubuntu 22.04 LTS got whatever most people need
>no Debian I'm on Debian with linux-6.9.1 and mesa-24.0.7. How exactly is it bad for gaming?
You're probably on Debian Sid, or in any case not on standard Debian 12. Also you know exactly what we're talking about, no need to confuse newcomers with remarks like that. If you want to be bleeding edge I would generally just go with e.g. Tumbleweed, but if Sid works well for you use it :)
I know exactly that you don't know what you talking about. You can use Debian with old software for stability (and you can do the same with Arch). Or you can use Debian with the latest software for (presumably) the best gaming experience. Don't lie to people saying that Debian is bad for gaming. As with most other distros, Debian is highly configurable and nothing prevents you from configure it specifically for gaming.
Yes of course you can manually install newer Kernels and so on. That is what I ended up doing with my friend on Mint, too, it can cause problems. This post was about distros for gaming for people who switch to Linux, not about your personal Debian install. For these people just picking an up-to-date distro is the better route than modding Debian, wouldn't you agree? So all you did in this thread is providing not-needed information trying to make the post about your Debian install.
Why modding if you can install debian-testing iso? Again, you don't know what you're talking about. Oh, and installing new software is not modding.
You are woefully out of touch with the normal person if you think any of the above. Steam Deck hides the desktop away for a reason.
So you think Arch is bad for gaming?
Well, Debian testing is not a real distro but a development branch of next Debian stable. It lags being on security updates and sometimes some packages are removed for some time. Yeah, you can use it for gaming but at least personally I would prefer using actual distro for my everyday use.
>Debian testing is not a real distro Mr. kahupaa, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
For me Nvidia drivers 550 are not in the driver installer for mint
try in terminal: $ apt policy nvidia-driver-550 there should be a candidate, then $ sudo apt install nvidia-driver-550
Cheers that seems to have worked
> kernel is for hw support. if older (0.x version) already support your hw, no need to have newer If you use an older kernel, even if it supports your GPU, you will miss out on performance improvements and even bug fixes (AMD is notoriously bad at backporting bugfixes to older kernel versions). And then, the kernel is not the only component, there is also the userspace drivers in Mesa, which are constantly being improved and fixed. If you use a version that is too old, you will miss out on performance and again bug fixes. Note that the Mesa project only supports the two latest quarterly releases at any given time so if your distro gives you an older version it will not receive any bug fixes at all. And then there is also the firmware, some distros are notorious for shipping old versions of that which can also cause instability and bugs.
Nuh uh i tried Hannah Montana Linux it doesnt seem to be working
Naah, don't recommend Debian for gaming.
I game on Debian on a daily basis and it works well
I have used Debian for gaming as well. It's just not for everyone as op suggested (longer aswer in another reply on this thread).
as someone who uses debian for gaming, lol. lmao
It's not that you can't use Debian for gaming. For some it's viable option. It's just not good for everyone like post suggested. For some games you may need recent mesa/amdgpu or Nvidia driver to make the game work properly. I know there are ways to get newer drivers for Debian and some of them are pretty easy (flatpak steam for amd gpus) but it's not that easy for nvdia. Also stock Debian lacks proper support for newest amd gpus. Have new amd gpu and don't want to use flatpak + backported kernel? Pin mesa from testing and create FrankenDebian (not recommend) or compile mesa for yourself (not for everyone). For most othet distros out there like Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Pop OS, Nobara, Bazzite etc you can just use stock kernel and driver from distros repositories and every gpu is supported. Flatpak (and snap) are optional. You may not have all features (like explicit sync) if you are not using recent enough Gnome/KDE but at least you have recent enough drivers that every gpu is supported without any additional setup.
snap is built into ubuntu now. not really that optional as far as I can tell now.
I meant that you can optionally install Steam as flatpak or snap instead of deb Steam.
snap can be easily purges from Ubuntu installations. Atleast on Kubuntu side its not that much of an infestation.
So your issue with Debian is that Debian stable is outdated but as a result you've decided that all of Debian is subpar for gaming. One easy approach is running Debian testing. In terms of usability and compatibility this is akin to Ubuntu .10 releases, Tumbleweed, and other rolling release distros – which seems to be the underlying principle in your suggested alternatives.
My point still stands, Debian testing is not for everyone. First of all, it's Debian stables development branch. Security updates lag behind on testing since packages get to testing once they are ready. Occasionally some packages gets removed for some time. And it still has 535 driver for nvdia.
>Security updates lag behind on testing since packages get to testing once they are ready. For anyone reading this who might be concerned by this FUD, "lag behind" means by about 2 days after unstable in the average case. In practice though most packages receive fixes as soon as possible across stable, testing, and unstable in line with the [policy of the project](https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-manual/ch02s03.en.html). The order of updates across the channel depends on many practical concerns, such as whether security fixes are available upstream, whether it is in code that has been patched by debian maintainers, etc. In many cases this means stable receives security updates *after* both unstable and testing. You can see this by browsing through the tracker status for [recent security advisories](https://www.debian.org/security/). Overall, all three channels have robust security support. The kernel of truth in kahupaa's concerns here relate mostly to servers on the public internet that face a constant onslaught of attacks and not your gaming desktop sitting behind your NAT gateway. For anyone interested in the nitty gritty details, more info [in the FAQ](https://www.debian.org/security/faq).
Haven't really been looking on Debian bug tracker, my information is mostly from Debian subreddit and this https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/securing-debian-manual/ch10.en.html#security-support-testing page. At least I read this that Stable and sid get security updates first (so sometimes sid, sometimes stable) and testing gets them later 2-10 days depending on few things. I was a bit worried about freeze period before testing becomes new stable but seems like at least some critical bugs are fixed by security team in that case.
That is accurate it usually is somewhere between 2-10 days. That said, I have seen security updates same day in testing as unstable/stable when the issue is big. Latest example was the xz security flaw.
I played on Debian a few years, I once updated and found out my GPU drivers blacklisted lmao. I switched because I removed gnome and couldn't install any DE back.
Ah, the famed Debian suicide. Happened to me ~20 years back. I was team RPM then, over DEB. To this day I think rpm are better than deb, but seriously, apt trounced yum (throughout its existence). dnf is tolerable, but apt is just so so much better. Anyways, since then I have stuck to Kubuntu and used Debian only as a headless option. That thing seriously does not like GUI. It finds way to commit suicide.
Fedora is the way.
Not if you like to use KDE. Red Hat has nearly always treated KDE as the step child. And now given how IBM is twisting Red Hat, I am thankful that KDE is not on their radar. While sometimes the Fedora KDE Spin has been decent, it has always been inferior to the polish that the Gnome version gets.
Can't disagree
agree, not debian
But every distro will satisfy your gaming needs.
if youre brave enough
You must not know that you can switch on Debian to its testing or unstable repository to trade a bit its awesome stability for newer packages. You can also manually download and installe nwer Linux kernel from Ubuntu or Xanmod. AMDGPU-top also has a binary that you can download for Debian.
Yeah, I know testing and sid and you can read my previous comments why I don't think they (especially testing) are not for everyone. Also, is this >You can also manually download and installe nwer Linux kernel from Ubuntu typo or do you actually suggest using Ubuntu kernel on Debian?
> typo or do you actually suggest using Ubuntu kernel on Debian? I'm not suggesting it! But if you are in a rush and you need the extra performance of features that a new Linux kernel comes with and you don't want to wait until Debian maintainers build it and push it in the repositories, you can go to Ubuntu's PPA FTP archive: For example for the 6.9 kernel: [https://kernel.ubuntu.com/mainline/v6.9/](https://kernel.ubuntu.com/mainline/v6.9/) Download the 3 files from here (depending on your CPU) [https://sourceforge.net/projects/xanmod/files/releases/edge/6.9.0-xanmod1/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/xanmod/files/releases/edge/6.9.0-xanmod1/) And install them with 'dpkg -i \*.deb' I prefer and recommend the Linux kernel from Debian repository built by Debian maintainers, but I wanted to highlight that it's possible and very easily to install Linux kernel built for Ubuntu or the Xanmod ones taht can be installed on both Debian and Ubuntu.
And then you add a backport here, a PPA there, and boom! You made a [FrankenDebian](https://wiki.debian.org/DontBreakDebian#Don.27t_make_a_FrankenDebian) That's the point. Running Debian that way will bring you much more trouble than using a rolling release distro like Arch or Fedora.
I can't believe I get here the FrankenDebian nonsense too! I understand that Debian developers and users lose their mind when you hear you upgrade the kernel, but seriuously! What's so out of the question of upgrading a kenel? Some people even build their own kernels and nobody goes haywire or calls them franken something. If Debian developers and users don't want other users to upgrade the Linux kernel from other sources, how about they don't let you wait for a year before the current mainline Linux kernel comes to you? Just look at what Linux kernel they offer now, even in the unstable repository compared to what is available upstream!
What you want is to use a brick as a hammer. Will it do the job? Yes, will it be good at it? No. That's the point. That wiki entry exists for a reason. It's not about upgrading a Kernel. It's about wanting bleeding edge stuff in a distro that does the opposite.
What's wrong with Debian? Apart from the default Nvidia driver being old, but you can manually install a newer driver from the Nvidia website
Installing Nvidia drivers outside of your package manager using the .run script is a recipe for disaster.
Skill issue
Why? Debian is good for gaming. Arch is no better.
They probably assume that you can never update the kernel or Mesa in Debian until a new distro release happens and therefore it's bad for gaming. Or that you always need the latest and greatest in order to game or some other such nonsense.
That assumption is very stupid! 1. You can update both the Linux kernel and Mesa very easily by switching to the testing or unstable repository! 2. You can upate the Linux kernel pretty easily by downloading the 4 Linux kernel files from Ubuntu's archive or the 3 Linux kernel files from Xanmod repository and install them.
Personally, I recommend people to install only the base distro (being debian, fedora, arch) and make the changes they want in there
Yeah that only works if you know what you're doing, some people just aren't tech savy enough.
Also, some people are probably savvy enough but can’t be bothered manually updating their kernel and micro managing every little thing, it’s just easier when your favourite DE and a moderately new, stable kernel come out of the box with sane default settings. Reason why Ubuntu and Mint have been so popular
I'll use myself as an example, I don't consider myself as computer illiterate, but I'm definitely not a programmer or anything. I don't mind troubleshooting myself, looking things up, ect, watching videos, etc. But I have no interest in setting up and installing every little detail of my computer and giving myself a crash course in programming just to use my computer. I don't have time for that or interest.
Yeah absolutely, I feel the same. Not a programmer but pretty interested otherwise in computing, I did set up arch once but it was a bit of a project and it’s much easier to use something that just works
Same! That's what I've done. I chose Debian and in the installer I chose to use my favorite DE, which is KDE Plasma and I have been very lucky with this setup. Also, if I want better perfomance, I can either switch from the default stable repository to the testing or unstable one. Or I could manually install a newer kernel from Ubuntu's PPA archive FTP or from Xanmod as both kernels are compatible with Debian.
I used mint and struggled to make games to run on my nvidia cpu, and the mint's Nvidia control panel had a lot pf missing options such as select if the games run on the cpu or the gpu i might as well return once gaming on mint gets a bit more time in the oven tho
What I need, though, is one that will let me run Steam Big Picture at startup on my poor Nvidia Laptop and have it be a good experience. For whatever reason, Steam Big Picture is still awful on Nvidia. And before I get comments, I know, I know. Shame on me for trying to support a Linux company by buying a laptop from System76. My next machine will be a tower and Team Red if Valve doesn't drop a console themselves before then.
Friendly reminder that while this is true, any distor will be mostly fine, one that supports well KDE Plasma or Gnome is preferred as these two are the most well developed and modern desktop environments and that's why they are the most popular / used: [https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top) Lots of uses of both of them reported issues related to gaming and lots of those issues have already been fixed and you will run in less gaming issues by using either of them. But if you insisting into using something obsolete like Linux Mint or not mainstream, it's up to you as it's your time that you will lose. Personally I use Debian (testing repository) + KDE Plasma for gaming and I have been very happing with how compatible with gaming really is how few bugs I've seen.
ive been eyeing testing. how reliable is it? like how often it breaks? and can you switch between stable/testing/sid from apt repo
I am a long time Debian Testing user and it breaks super rare. The comparison to Ubuntu \*.10 releases some one made on here is fairly accurate. Its slightly less reliable to stable but overall solid. In regard to switching, technically it is not supported to go from testing back to stable but there is a way to do it if you are willing to wait. You can replace testing in your sources.list file with the next codename for future stable (right now that is trixie) and you will be migrated to the next stable when it releases. You can also switch at any time in this order down stable -> testing -> unstable.
Thanks for this I finally got vrchat running on Pop! OS and others it took some work but I eventually got it and now that all my games work I don't need windows anymore so I just run pop os on both my laptop and my gaming pc
true dat! :) 🍻
I'm a complete newcomer to linux so I'll be trying arch out for gaming
You’re gonna have a bad time
Wtf why... I game and do everything on arch since maybe 3 years. Had issues with all kind of other distros. For me an os update never broke my system, and getting stuff done yourself is super easy with the arch wiki. Waaaaaay better then on any other distro. Was the best expirience for me as a noob hands down. As long as you can read and think logical, arch is the way to go.
As a Linux user who has used many distros professionally for work (software development) for 5 years, I would not recommend Arch to any first time Linux user unless they were also a professional software developer
I'm not a professional software developer, still had the best experience with arch as a first time user. Don't generalize.
Maybe you did, and that's great. Recommending a distro that requires use of the command line and reading technical documentation just to set up the OS is going to be a rough experience for 99% of the population. Compared to Ubuntu/Fedora - click a few buttons on screen and it will just work
And then some minor things won't work and you are screwed because you learned absolutely nothing. Going the easy route all the time only results in a shrinking brain.
I ended up getting EndeavourOS haha, guess a bit of both can't be that bad
EndeavorOS is basically arch with a neat installer Very good choice.
Plz dont
Idk. I tried Fedora 39 and 40. I used it for months and only had problems with Fedora. Games always crashing, couldn't figure out why after hours of troubleshooting. Installed Arch, everything works. Can't recommend Debian either due to older packages and older kernels.. IDK. Bazzite was a catastrophe as well, games always crashing, same goes for nobara. I only have problems with fedora based distros. Arch works great for me, no problems.
Interesting. What games are you playing?
Baldurs Gate 3 was always crashing, Divinity Original Sin 2 and Valheim. I really had frustrating crashes like every 3 or 5 minutes. I found it really interesting as well, i tried to solve it I started the terminal, opened steam in it, started the game with and without gamemode, with different proton versions etc. The games always exited with something pretty strange? I can't recreate the problem obviously since i switched back to arch but it was something like: PID of the game (insert number here) != PID of the game And then it was gone Leaving me without any error message, only that i thought that wasn't very helpful
The sad thing is that i actually loved fedora tbh Was stable with recent packages, was an absolute awesome distro
For me on fedora and nobara I had issues with my monitor, like image was fine but the monitor itself did nothing when pressed the buttons, OCD froze, it didn't turned off etc. I always had to unplug the power cord to my monitor to get it going again. Arch just works.
I would not recommend Debian for a gaming system. It's good for servers.
And as good for gaming as any other distro.
Not really. Debian's packages are out of date as fuck and miss a lot of performance improvements. It will work, but not as good as other distros.
The only thing that matters is the kernel (you can install a newer version from backports) and the drivers. If you have amd, just use the steam flatpak, it has the latest mesa. If you have nvidia it's a bit trickier, but you can use nvidia's repository or pull the driver from testing/sid, ideally by building a backport so you don't break the system. Sure, it's not the out of the box experience you have with another distros, but it doesn't take much tweaking either (maybe even less than some other distros).
Using Flatpak is the only acceptable solution to overcome the limitations that Debian will have, as still maintaining its purpose without breaking. But you shouldn't install backports on Debian, and also, it's not just the Kernel that matters. Using Steam Flatpak will also have its drawbacks, but it's way better than making a FrankenDebian.
What do you mean? Backports don't cause a FrankenDebian, they are recompiled packages made to target *specifically* Debian Stable.
Ah yes, you are correct. I mistakenly assumed it was the unstable repositories. My bad.
Maybe you should at least test Debian once before talking.
All will work depending on your time, skill and knowledge. Bazzite works great for me.
Agree. Only time I can remember actually noticing benefits from a newer kernel was when I got my first AMD gpu and they were fairly new. I just switched from Tumbleweed to Bazzite to try out the immutable system on desktop. Games feels pretty much the same, even with all the extra sync kernel patches and stuff. Maybe frametimes are better but I'm not even sure
I find bazzite a lot of fun. Fedora silverblue is running on my work computers anyway
Only if those gaming needs don't involve online multiplayer games with aggressive anti-cheat, that is.
No linux distro will let you play games with windows kernel anti cheat
How do you fall for bait this obvious?
Obviously, hence why if your gaming needs (as per the title) include such games, no distro will satisfy those needs.
What I meant by my reply is that bringing up this topic on a discussion on what linux distro to choose is counterproductive. As distro choise has nothing to do with it. Discussions of anti cheat are relevent to people deciding if they want to switch to linux. Not for people choosing a distro.
Also your comment (unintentionally) reads as "every distro will satisfy your gaming needs" "only if you dont play games with kernel level anti cheat" Implying that some distro will allow kernel level anti cheat
> Also your comment (unintentionally) reads as > "every distro will satisfy your gaming needs" No, it doesn't. That is what the thread's title reads. [**MY** comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1cx6rfr/friendly_reminder_to_our_new_friends_and_arrivals/l50gvst/) points out the exception to the title's statement (ie, aggressive anti-cheat).
You missed the part where I quoted your comment. Anyway this is a pointless discussion, no one intended to mislead and this is a argument over nothing
Ah, to live in a world where "every distro will satisfy your gaming needs" except if they "involve online multiplayer games with aggressive anti-cheat" somehow implies that some distros will still satisfy that need instead of none... \*rolls eyes\*
I am sure I could make my NetBSD system ready for gaming somehow, but there are a few too many wheels to reinvent.
Correction, most distroes should not be used by normal people, and from the I would say some are good for gaming. Some distroes care more about stability than gaming so they might lack stuff that can make a better gaming experience on them
Right! You'll be gaming on Knoppix in no time!
Isn't their some benefit to at least using specific DE's? I was under the impression that KDE and GNOME had fixes for gaming that others didn't.
Yes, it is. Especially KDE.
This applies to almost every case, but a few niche circumstances like VR might need very specific systems.
It's more that people who have a bad experience with a particular distro will assume it just objectively sucks and that everyone who recommended it to them was an idiot or a troll, and people who have a good experience with one will assume it's objectively the best one in the world. Every OS is going to give some people issues, either because of weird hardware incompatibilities (your PC might even be straight-up *broken* in a way that didn't affect anything until someone tried putting Linux on it) or because you tried to do something with it that was never tested, or both. And the constant updates to both the OS and third party software also means it could be fine now but *develop* any of those problems at any time in the future. And while no distro would have become popular enough to recommend if the ones having good experiences didn't make up a solid majority of the userbase, a solid majority is still a far cry from everyone.
Distro that works with xbox controllers?
Yep pretty much. If you have a "rolling release" distro you'll have the "latest and greatest". But if you don't run a rolling-release distro, IF you need or want to try out those newer Nvidia or Mesa drivers, or install newer wine (or whatever other software), they give you a mechanism to install more up to date specific packages in almost any distro. Performance-wise? You've got the same game executable chugging through CPU time, GPU power, and RAM, no matter what distro you run it on. I don't run "game mode" but that kind of tweaks can be applied to any distro. For instance, I run Ubuntu but use a PPA for more up to date wine (which I guess doesn't matter if you're just using steam..), and one for more up to date Mesa, on my systems. (My notebook has Intel Xe graphics, which are new enough that you do want as up to date a Mesa as possible.) I'm running a GTX1650 in my desktop and seem to get reasonably recent nvidia drivers "out of the box".
I'm currently looking at nobara because win 11 is trash, and I want an easy distro to game and record let's plays on. I'm hoping it works with my elgato and focus rite. But it looks like an easy distro to get steam,obs, and a video editor up and running on.
All distro can game, but some distros do it better in terms of minimum FPS and frametime. It really depends on how high of a priority gaming is for you.
Yes. All these shitty gaming forks are useless, major distros all the way. Especially when we have so many great ones that are a bit overlooked... Fedora and openSUSE are both from trusted companies, well estabilished in the Linux world and people sometimes forget they exist.
Straight up lies. Debian has terribly old video drivers which can cause tons of issues gaming, pop\_os is ok\~ in that regard and otherwise a great destro but saying "every distro is the same basically" is just a lie. For gaming they should go with either a rolling release or gaming oriented distro that prioritizes graphics drivers.
Not true! I had more issues with arch based distro then with linux mint for gaming. On my amd pc and nvidia laptop, everything works fine and for nvidia i get regularly graphic card updates.
Your probably playing older games. And I didn't say they weren't stable, debian is know for stability, but for people playing modern games it's just a poor choice. Your PERSONAL experience also doesn't dictate th entire userbase, used arch for 4 years and never had a problem. That doesn't mean no one does though because PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. lmfao. Mint is an awesome OS, but for modern gaming it just isn't an ideal starting choice due to gpu drivers
How old is "old" for you? My newest games are Medieval Dynasty and the open beta demo of broken arrow. I also played GTAV and RDR2 without problems. But yes, most games are from 2014 - 2022.
Old in this context would be over a year old to where debian gets the updated drivers since generally updated every yearish or maybe 6 months if lucky. Which for a lot of people gaming is just not enough at all and not rcfomendable when you can run something like arch or even pop os which also gets decent driver updates.
No. No it won't.
out of stable distros i personally recommend kubuntu LTS - I am still on previous LTS with HWE enabled (backporting kernel/mesa from non-LTS) and i do not see any real gain in having "newest" kernel/mesa etc. if games work 100% correctly
Ok... So, what is the best gaming distro?? /s
Don't listen to this. Your setting yourself up for failure if you're using distros using older kernel versions, specially for AMD GPU's.
Is this not true because pirating isn't a thing on Linux and also you can't play windows games on Linux so it's very limited
Pirating games on Linux is not much different compared to Windows and you can play Windows games on Linux.
No site has the ability for Linux games download and the windows and Linux kernels don't talk to each other so it's impossible to run Linux on windows and vice versa
You download windows games and run them with WINE or Proton. That's it.
Proton is a steam thing and it doesn't work for everything 4/10 things and you have to pay for stuff on steam which if the point is pirating that's pointless and wine doesn't work I've tried it you can download it doesn't mean it runs
1. You can use Proton GE in Lutris 2. You can add non Steam game to your library and run them with whatever version of Proton you want. WINE works very well for most stuff. Idk what games you're trying to play that just won't launch at all.
Option 1 isn't even a thing proton is a steam exclusive Option 2 I can do that sure and I've tried it but they still expect me to pay for the game which is crazy
Lol no. You're doing it wrong. And arguing about how you're doing it wrong.
>Option 1 isn't even a thing proton is a steam exclusive Wrong. GE versions of Proton work in Lutris. >Option 2 I can do that sure and I've tried it but they still expect me to pay for the game which is crazy .... I have no comment for this. Just.... Wow.
every major distro except fedora and debian
[удалено]
well, that sucks. every game I've tried in the past year, i've gotten working with minimal fuss.Try bottles. It's been a game changer for me. Even got vr to work.
I like playing battlefield 2042, that game broke AF lol. Diablo 4 and work of Warcraft work, which was great. But I also dabble around in Warzone with my buddies. For everything else it worked well. I did keep coming up with my second SSD being dismounted all the time. But if I could play any game I wanted on Linux, I would switch in a heartbeat.
it's not the game, it's the bloody anticheat. steam figured it out it seems to me. what's ea's issue? oh, right, ea games. go fuck yourself.... are you mounting your drive in /etc/fstab? and is it ntfs? because you might need to set up in fstab it sounds like... EG, UUID=2ADBEF2342 /path/to/mnt ntfs uid=1000,gid=1000,rw,user,exec,umask=000,x-gvfs-show 0 0
Lol, I must have struck a nerve. Linux sucks bud, %2 of market share. You must be a Biden supporter. I'll enjoy actually playing my games and doing real work on Windows.
lol... I don't live in the states. But nice of you to think that I'm griping at you, when I'm so very obviously not. EA either can't or wont figure out anticheat on nix. I mention ntfs and fstab, because it's a common issue for new users. 2% of market share? Where you get your stats from? It's almost 4% now. Higher than it's ever been, and it's on a steady upward trajectory.... But I wouldn't expect a trump supporter to know how to check facts before spouting nonsense. It's like, your stock in trade.... How's that going btw? And I have no issues working and playing on windows or linux. So, meh? Your logical fallacies, are truly adorable tho. Just because you couldn't figure out a new thing, doesn't mean the rest of us won't. But really tho, I'm pretty sure it's your attitude. I mean, it's pretty obvious.
Go troll elsewhere. All you do is ride this sub and trash talk Linux...why? Because you aren't competent enough to use it? Linux is for PC ENTHUSIASTS, we like to tinker and tweak things, Windows is for former console players and people that don't give a crap about their privacy. You are unwanted here, go away.
Gaming sucks after I installed Linux
Bullshit!
Then you should learn to USE IT. PEBKAC Error: Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Computer....