Do you use Linux?

[Jarmer]

Maybe I've asked this already, I'm not sure, but here we go...

Which distro is the best for gaming, with the least amount of fiddling required? My knowledge and willingness to use the terminal are severely limited, but with W10's official support coming to an end, I think I may be willing to give Linux another go after some long years (decades?) of break.

I would recommend Nobara. It's a more user friendly gaming optimized fedora distro. From their description:

"This project aims to fix most of those issues and offer a better gaming, streaming, and content creation experience out of the box. More importantly, we want to be more point and click friendly, and avoid the basic user from having to open the terminal. It’s not that the terminal and/or terminal usage are a bad thing by any means, power users are more than welcome to continue with using the terminal, but for new users, point and click ease of use is usually expected."

Nobara Linux | The Nobara Project

nobaraproject.org

 

[AusWolf]

I would recommend Nobara. It's a more user friendly gaming optimized fedora distro. From their description:

"This project aims to fix most of those issues and offer a better gaming, streaming, and content creation experience out of the box. More importantly, we want to be more point and click friendly, and avoid the basic user from having to open the terminal. It’s not that the terminal and/or terminal usage are a bad thing by any means, power users are more than welcome to continue with using the terminal, but for new users, point and click ease of use is usually expected."

Nobara Linux | The Nobara Project

nobaraproject.org

That sounds cool, I think I'll give it a go.

What about Arch-based distros, like Manjaro? I've heard the Steam Deck uses some heavily modified version of Arch, and so, these distros seem to be the best for gaming. Any thoughts?

 

[Jarmer]

I think you'll like it And their discord is pretty active too, so that's great for support/advice.

Arch distros are very popular, but are different in that they are rolling releases. So you need to be comfortable with that mindset, and arch is a little more technical. From a strictly gaming perspective, shouldn't be much of a difference at all in performance. But Nobara will be easier with setup because it'll guide you through 3rd party codecs, get obs running, mangohud, etc... On Arch you would need to do all that yourself manually.

 

[AusWolf]

I think you'll like it And their discord is pretty active too, so that's great for support/advice.

Arch distros are very popular, but are different in that they are rolling releases. So you need to be comfortable with that mindset, and arch is a little more technical. From a strictly gaming perspective, shouldn't be much of a difference at all in performance. But Nobara will be easier with setup because it'll guide you through 3rd party codecs, get obs running, mangohud, etc... On Arch you would need to do all that yourself manually.

I see. So why do people recommend Arch?

To be fair, all I need of it is to work flawlessly with AMD hardware, and to work flawlessly with my Steam/Epic/GOG/EA games through whatever launchers are supported (Heroic?).

What I don't want is having to manually tweak Proton and fiddle in the Terminal trying to get my games and/or hardware running properly.

 

[P4-630]

Using Chrome OS.

 

[Jarmer]

I see. So why do people recommend Arch?

To be fair, all I need of it is to work flawlessly with AMD hardware, and to work flawlessly with my Steam/Epic/GOG/EA games through whatever launchers are supported (Heroic?).

What I don't want is having to manually tweak Proton and fiddle in the Terminal trying to get my games and/or hardware running properly.

Arch is very popular because it is a rolling release and therefore has the most bleeding edge updates. But that comes with negatives as well, so it's a balance. I also use a rolling release distro, but a different one: openSUSE Tumbleweed. It is really nice having the latest and greatest, but that does come with problems occasionally that require manual fixing. It's kind of just understood.

Any distro should work well with amd hardware because the gpu drivers are baked into the kernel and very well supported. Steam works wonderfully with its own built in proton. And for other launchers you can use whatever version of proton they come with or even use the protonupqt tool to install and use the Glorious Eggroll versions of proton which are all amazing.

Heroic is a great launcher, as well as Lutris. Personally I just use steam for everything so it's as simple as possible and use proton experimental.

 

[AusWolf]

Arch is very popular because it is a rolling release and therefore has the most bleeding edge updates. But that comes with negatives as well, so it's a balance. I also use a rolling release distro, but a different one: openSUSE Tumbleweed. It is really nice having the latest and greatest, but that does come with problems occasionally that require manual fixing. It's kind of just understood.

Any distro should work well with amd hardware because the gpu drivers are baked into the kernel and very well supported. Steam works wonderfully with its own built in proton. And for other launchers you can use whatever version of proton they come with or even use the protonupqt tool to install and use the Glorious Eggroll versions of proton which are all amazing.

Heroic is a great launcher, as well as Lutris. Personally I just use steam for everything so it's as simple as possible and use proton experimental.

So basically any distro should work well as long as I stick to Proton (whichever version is supported by Steam/Heroic/Lutris), right? If so, that's awesome news!

 

[Jarmer]

yep! that's right!

For Steam, just use their built in proton tool (I use experimental, but you can use whichever version you want in steam settings). I personally don't use Lutris or Heroic, so I'm not sure if they come with their own versions of proton installed, but if not you can use this tool to install and use proton in those launchers:

GitHub - DavidoTek/ProtonUp-Qt: Install and manage GE-Proton, Luxtorpeda & more for Steam and Wine-GE & more for Lutris with this graphical user interface.

Install and manage GE-Proton, Luxtorpeda & more for Steam and Wine-GE & more for Lutris with this graphical user interface. - DavidoTek/ProtonUp-Qt

github.com

easiest way to get that is via flatpak on your system.

 

[Ferrum Master]

I do not like Nobara, as it breaks some stuff due to replacing selinux in a hacky manner.

You can tweak stock Fedora to be as bleeding edge, just by adding kernel and mesa repos, you do not need moore really. There are things to tweak thou.

There are few lines of tweaks. Those change with time and some are uneeded, like enabling amd p state driver anymore, it became default.

The main goal is, with any distro, make automated install script. Write down evey step you do, and then you can experiment, basically install a clean OS, run rour script and you are ready. Terminal is your friend.

Arch? Meh... it is pretty trimmed down, thus good for mods, but is prone to stability issues, not enough dogfooding, thus why I am using Fedora... most RHEL people use as Fedora daily driver, thus it has very robust fixes in certain areas others suck at, especially VM side. I do not like Ubuntu, too bloated, I use plain Debian server gladly over any of those. Especially for weak machines. The diferences are not that big performance wise, unless something is completely broken.

 

[igormp]

Arch? Meh... it is pretty trimmed down, thus good for mods, but is prone to stability issues, not enough dogfooding

I'm pretty sure most of the arch core maintainers do use Arch as their main OS. I personally don't face stability issues, but it does require you to keep track of their new pages and be aware about breaking changes in your packages. After all, that's the whole "bleeding edge" idea, even though arch is not that much on the edge (debian unstable and rawhide both are way more up-to-date than arch lol).

 

[Shihab]

but they're Debian-based, which is said to require some tinkering to get all games working.

Someone lied to you, my friend.

No distro can run all games, with or without tinkering. Other than that, Steam and other launchers make gaming experience mostly distro-agnostic.

 

[AusWolf]

Someone lied to you, my friend.

No distro can run all games, with or without tinkering. Other than that, Steam and other launchers make gaming experience mostly distro-agnostic.

So there's no difference between distros in their ability to run games as it all relies on Steam/Proton, and other launchers? That's good to know.

I might go with Mint, then. At least it's something I know relatively well, and something I can navigate without relying on the terminal too much.

 

[unwind-protect]

So there's no difference between distros in their ability to run games as it all relies on Steam/Proton, and other launchers? That's good to know.

That is not entirely true. While they would have the same variant and version of Wine, they would still have different graphics drivers.

Mint should be fine.

 

[Catzilla]

My computer dual boots Windows and Linux, but lately most often booted to Linux. I use windows when I am photo editing or playing video games. Other than that, Linux is booted. I play around with software development as a learning exercise, including computer graphics/ray tracing and AI stuff. I've been running Linux since 1992 or so when the first versions came out.
Configuring X-Windows in the early days could be entertaining since you could blow out the flyback transformer circuits in your CRT monitor or literally set your monitor on fire if you badly configured your X-Windows. Eventually, CRT manufacturers put out of range detection logic in their monitors and put an end to that.
I started working with Linux at work in early 2000's, for HPC systems, so never got that involved with software development for Windows.
Considered Windows to be Bill Gates stupid toy up to Windows 7 or so when it grew up a bit.

 

[igormp]

they would still have different graphics drivers.

I guess that mostly a matter of driver version, which (for AMD and Intel), actually depend on your kernel version.
Since nvidia is out of tree, it's easier to have the most up to date version even in a somewhat older kernel.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Almost any modern distro will play nice with steam / proton. I wouldn't put that as a consideration at all on which distro to use. Both Mint and vanilla Arch do very well. But the bragging rights would be right yep!

I can say from experience: this is incorrect. If you use AMD or Intel GPUs, mint will provide a subpar experience, both due to outdated kernels and outdates MESA which results in poor performance or, in my case, halo MCC wouldnt even load on mint. Using Obliaf I was able to get a newer MESA installed but it was never stable. Factorio would throw random crashes and occasionally freeze upon watching videos in browser.

Moved to Manjaro, 0 issues. If you use Nvidia, this doesnt apply, as nvidia's implementation is handled by the driver.

Doesn't really matter for the topic at hand (see signature, haven't tried Linux on that one).

I remember the laptop I had two years ago, it had a realtek, BUT it was on some janky usb to pcie interface that linux did NOT like.

That's what I get for buying a chinese OEM design.

I see. So why do people recommend Arch?

To be fair, all I need of it is to work flawlessly with AMD hardware, and to work flawlessly with my Steam/Epic/GOG/EA games through whatever launchers are supported (Heroic?).

What I don't want is having to manually tweak Proton and fiddle in the Terminal trying to get my games and/or hardware running properly.

Because if you use AMD/Intel GPUs, the outdated MESA on stable distros can cause performance loss and othe rissues. You also need the latest linux kernel to get the most performance out of those GPUs and some newer CPUs.

ARCH includes this out of the box, and with modern arch distros like manjaro setup is about as hard as Mint is, EG can be done while half asleep. Times have changed now, ubuntu is moving to the newer kernels and MESA because of complaints, we will see how those turn out.

Most games, on arch now, will be simple plug and play once proton is enabled. Some games may require 1 minute of tinkering but I've not had to use terminal to get anything running.

 

[Jarmer]

I can say from experience: this is incorrect. If you use AMD or Intel GPUs, mint will provide a subpar experience, both due to outdated kernels and outdates MESA which results in poor performance or, in my case, halo MCC wouldnt even load on mint. Using Obliaf I was able to get a newer MESA installed but it was never stable. Factorio would throw random crashes and occasionally freeze upon watching videos in browser.

Moved to Manjaro, 0 issues. If you use Nvidia, this doesnt apply, as nvidia's implementation is handled by the driver.

I remember the laptop I had two years ago, it had a realtek, BUT it was on some janky usb to pcie interface that linux did NOT like.

That's what I get for buying a chinese OEM design.


Because if you use AMD/Intel GPUs, the outdated MESA on stable distros can cause performance loss and othe rissues. You also need the latest linux kernel to get the most performance out of those GPUs and some newer CPUs.

ARCH includes this out of the box, and with modern arch distros like manjaro setup is about as hard as Mint is, EG can be done while half asleep. Times have changed now, ubuntu is moving to the newer kernels and MESA because of complaints, we will see how those turn out.

Most games, on arch now, will be simple plug and play once proton is enabled. Some games may require 1 minute of tinkering but I've not had to use terminal to get anything running.

The question from the original comment was what distro to use with the least amount of fiddling and no terminal experience. Absolutely no rolling release distros fit this description and ESPECIALLY not arch. That's probably the opposite of what the person was asking for.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

The question from the original comment was what distro to use with the least amount of fiddling and no terminal experience. Absolutely no rolling release distros fit this description and ESPECIALLY not arch. That's probably the opposite of what the person was asking for.

Have you tried it recently? Manjaro requires the same amount of terminal (one command) to finish setting up that Mint required for me. The comment also references Steam and Proton, and I commented that Mint's outdated MESA setup is going to cause issues. Because it does. You have to use the terminal to try to fix it, and it doesnt always go well.

Arch distros are not some scary necromancer voodoo, they're no harder then anything base don ubuntu, or openSUSE. Rolling arch yourself is a totally different ballpark to using one of the distros, and nobody here has been recommending full blown custom arch.

Recommending a distro well known for outdated MESA to someone who wants to use steam proton is the actual opposite of what the person was asking for. That's the kind of thing that creates bad experiences for newbies and makes them think linux is some half baked tinkerer OS.

 

[Jarmer]

You're just wrong, but it's okay to be wrong. We can drop it here. None of this is of any help to the person who asked the question.

 

[leonavis]

actually... he ain't. At least if Manjaro is as easy as Garuda, which is also based on Arch. Just plain old out-of-the-box. And a great community if you run into any problems anyway.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

You're just wrong, but it's okay to be wrong. We can drop it here. None of this is of any help to the person who asked the question.

You should explain why someone is wrong, if you're going to say they're wrong. Helps everybody learn. You could also just admit you were wrong or havent tried a recent arch based distro, there's nothing wrong with that. Learning why MESA versions matter to Proton use is very helpful for someone who wants to get into using Proton.

What I will never understand is why users of debian based linux, like ubuntu, treat arch linux like your normal windows user treats linux. Some nebulous black box that nobody can understand. For most people, it doesnt matter if you use mint, openSUSE, or manjaro, its going to go the same way, you run the installer GUI, choose your options, and customize the desktop how you like. You're gonna google "how to install steam/brave/chrome on X", follow the instructions, and copy/paste a terminal line if needed. That's about it. Outside of the different syntax depending on package manager, you'll not see any difference if you stick to the main distros, regardless of which base it uses.

 

[Ferrum Master]

What I will never understand is why users of debian based linux, like ubuntu, treat arch linux like your normal windows user treats linux.

Fanboys? That's the worst thing about Arch... same debacle as with Rust now... they sometimes are on religious levels and that puts off.

 

[Timbaloo]

Fanboys? That's the worst thing about Arch... same debacle as with Rust now... they sometimes are on religious levels and that puts off.

Hmmm, I'm using Arch (btw) for around 8 months now, and tbh I never really had the impression of elitism/fanboyism in the community. Besides the occasional "installing Arch the Arch way" (I used archinstall and refuse any manual/copypasteshitforhourstofeelelite installation).

 

[lexluthermiester]

You should explain why someone is wrong, if you're going to say they're wrong. Helps everybody learn.

You could do the same, especially since there are now two people saying they think that info is not right.

Learning why MESA versions matter to Proton use is very helpful for someone who wants to get into using Proton.

I haven't had any problems with Mint, at all. I'm running the second to latest version, Mint 21. I've only been lazy not updating to 22. To be fair the last time I ran Steam on Linux was with Mint 20, so it's been a hot minute, but I had no issues. Everything in my game library that was listed as playable in the SteamDeck compatibility list ran fine on my install of Mint.

So what problem are we talking about with the MESA drivers? Granted, I was using an NVidia card so the MESA drivers weren't a factor I don't think. Found the following discussion over in the Steam forums from Dec of last year;

Linux Mint Mesa Updates :: Steam for Linux General Discussions

Hey. When do the Mesa drivers update on Linux Mint? I'm on Linux Mint 21.2 Kernel 5.15.0-89, Ubuntu 22.04.1 and Mesa 23.0.4. Searching the Mesa website the latest is 23.3.0. So is it as Linux Mint updates it's Kernel, sooner or later it'll reach 23.3.0 for Mesa driver updates? I've read you can...

steamcommunity.com

The general consensus seems to be that the latest versions of Mint and thus MESA are fine for Steam gaming on Linux Mint.

 

[AusWolf]

Don't worry guys, I'm not gone - I've just been reading your posts without having anything to add.

It's fascinating that we have two sides: one group saying that Arch (Manjaro) is the gaming Linux, Debian-based versions (Mint & Ubuntu) are trash, and the other group swearing by the polar opposite.

If this discussion continues the same way, I might have to try both systems and see for myself, as there seems to be no chance for consensus here (yet).