76
submitted 11 months ago by cynar@lemmy.world to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world

I've been using Ubuntu as my daily driver for a good few years now. Unfortunately I don't like the direction they seem to be heading.

I've also just ordered a new computer, so it seems like the best time to change over. While I'm sure it will start a heated debate, what variant would people recommend?

I'm not after a bleeding edge, do it all yourself OS it will be my daily driver, so don't want to have to get elbow deep in configs every 5 minutes. My default would be to go back to Debian. However, I know the steam deck is arch based. With steam developing proton so hard, is it worth the additional learning curve to change to arch, or something else?

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago

I think PopOS is the best option if u have Nvidia graphics card

[-] WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

Go with nobara.

[-] GustavoM@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

There is no such thing as a "gaming distro" -- all GNU/Linux distros are equally good for gaming and any other task.

[-] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[-] simple@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

I second Nobara, but IMO get the KDE edition of it if you're used to Windows. You'll feel much more at home.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] Nyfure@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

I have EndeavourOS, but with the nature of Bleeding Edge packages, things can break, so setup automatic snapshots with btrfs (you want this for your data anyways).

Bleeding Edge packages have the advantage of you getting the latest features, patches and improvements, which is required for some gaming cases.

[-] heleos@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago

I use tumbleweed, but I had a strange issue with the flatpak version of heroic launcher. I ran a benchmark of cyberpunk 2077 with the flatpak heroic, and was averaging 100 fps. I had nixos installed on a separate hard drive and that benchmark was 160 fps. I thought there was an issue with opensuse, but I installed the flatpak version of heroic on nixos and also got 100 fps. So I installed the regular version on tumbleweed and have 160 fps. I would keep that in mind when looking at programs to launch games, whether it's wine, bottles, heroic, lutris, etc

[-] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

Not much a of a definitive answer here imo. There's a lot of distros that fit this criteria, but I would definitely stay away from Debian due to the age of the packages. As said, you don't have to go with a rolling distro but at least look for those who keep at least their gaming related packages fairly updated.

The tough part about Arch & similar rolling distros is that they can and will break when you update something, and then you have to know how to fix it. I used Manjaro & EndeavourOS for quite a while. Manjaro was actually stable for me, but when I wanted to reinstall after a couple years to switch to btrfs I thought I try EndeavourOS, due to the criticism towards Manjaro. Unfortunately it didn't even took a year for it to break and now I'm on Nobara, which is okay but also has many issues that annoy me. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is another often mentioned one, which is rolling but with a delay too, but when I tried it out (before installing Nobara) it was extremely hard to install as the installer was buggy and when it finally was installed it was extremely broken to the point where I couldn't even change my resolution properly.

[-] BananaTrifleViolin@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

That valve uses Arch is irrelevant in all honesty. Proton is not a Valve product, Valve is merely one of its users and contributors, and it is not wedded to one distro..Similarly Valves own Steam packages are not distro specifi, and there are other gaming platforms to consider which also benefit from Proton (for example you can get Gog windows games working in Linux too quite easily), as well as all the Retro gaming options.

Pick a distro you personally like. I use Mint as I like the cinnamon desktop interface and the distro is pretty much good to go from fresh install. I use Mint both as a dual install with Windows on my PC and also within VMs in Windows. I still spend a lot of time using Windows because of specific games compatibility and work related apps.

EndeavourOS seems a good choice if you do want to go the Arch route but it's only something I've played with in a VM.

If you want something gaming specific then Draugar seems like a good choice - it apparently uses Ubuntu LTS but with the mainline Kernel updates optimised for gaming. But I have no personal experience with the distro.

I also see a lot of people seem to like Pop!_OS, but again no personal experience.

I've had no issues with Mint on my setup.

load more comments (3 replies)
[-] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I use Debian with steam installed via flatpak

[-] josefo@leminal.space 1 points 11 months ago

Debian with KDE Plasma desktop, it's unbeatable.

[-] mlg@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Fedora. Cutting edge but works out of box. Very little change in use compared to Ubuntu.

Debian is good but very stable so no guarantee for some package updates which is useful for gaming and maybe proton.

On a related note, this is pretty useful: https://davidotek.github.io/protonup-qt/

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2023
76 points (94.2% liked)

Linux Gaming

15289 readers
36 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS