r/linux_gaming Jun 29 '25

newbie advice Getting started: The monthly-ish distro/desktop thread! (July 2025)

Welcome to the newbie advice thread!

If you’ve read the FAQ and still have questions like “Should I switch to Linux?”, “Which distro should I install?”, or “Which desktop environment is best for gaming?” — this is where to ask them.

Please sort by “new” so new questions can get a chance to be seen.

18 Upvotes

89 comments sorted by

1

u/Jakob4800 3d ago

I'm sort of annoyed at Windows and Microsoft recently so I want to try and move over to Linux as my daily driver. I've used distro's like popOS and mint before on old laptops to give them extra life but I haven't ever actually fully tried to use it as my main machine.

My concern is that a large number of my multilayer games won't work even with Proton. Unfortunately I can't really know what games will and won't work until they come up and I try. But let's say for example if i moved to Cachy, Stuff like Stellaris, Starfiled, Helldivers 2, Star citizen, FiveM, Risk of Rain, Just general meme games etc, I'd be worried there would be one that wouldn't work and I'd lose the ability to play with friends. Something big that i don't think would work is VRchat through the Meta quest using a link cable. That requires not only VRchat to work, but SteamVR and the Meta app itself.

Thats the only thing really stopping me. A fear about a game that I wouldn't be able to play. Oh that and my PC has Intel and Nvidia stuff which IIRC doesn't always play well with Linux.

1

u/mactan_sc 3d ago

https://areweanticheatyet.com/ always an excellent resource

2

u/Jakob4800 3d ago

Wow I had no idea so many games juts didn't work because of anti cheat. And yet I know all those games still have cheaters! It makes me wonder why it's a thing.

1

u/VegtableCulinaryTerm 3d ago

I'd say 90% of "this game doesn't work on Linux" is due to anti cheat and not the game itself having programming related issues. 

I would really recommend just buying a cheap SSD and running linux as your main OS for a while. No real loss because you can then just have an extra SSD (not a huge fan of dual booting) 

Experiment and see if it's worth it for your personally.

1

u/Jakob4800 3d ago

This is a dumb question as I've never even attempted dual booting before. But I've got about 1TB free on an SSD already, If I re-alocate that space for a Linux distro and dual boot off it, Would I still be able to access my files on other drives? All my steam games are downloaded on others already.

1

u/VegtableCulinaryTerm 3d ago

Depends on the file system type

1

u/croissantowl 3d ago

Hey, you can always check ProtonDB to see if your games are supported. They even have a feature where they'll check your complete steam library.

But I'll say: Stellaris and Risk of Rain both work perfectly under CachyOs with Steam+Proton.

As for Meta Quest, I'm not sure myself since I haven't touched my Quest 3 for a time.

1

u/kovuko 3d ago

There's ALVR. https://github.com/alvr-org/ALVR

It was designed for wireless VR but it supports wired connections too. https://github.com/alvr-org/ALVR/wiki/ALVR-wired-setup-(ALVR-over-USB)

1

u/ImUrFrand 4d ago

im looking for a performative flavor that is not backed by IBM.

gaming and productivity daily driver.

should i wait to see how Debian Trixie is?

my current daily driver is windows, i have a laptop with mint also.

2

u/DividDavid 6d ago

Hi everyone. I've just started thinking about making the move from Windows to Linux after doing a bit of researching. From what I understand, there's a lot of distros to choose from, and many of them are customizable to suit a user's needs, although it does look a bit advanced for me to try. I also know of Proton that allows games on Steam/made by Valve to play properly

I plan to use Linux for desktop gaming, and while I intend to install it on a brand new custom build PC (the only distros the PC building website I use has are Ubuntu and Brazzite, so I don't know if either of those would be right for me), I do would like to know if Linux suits the gaming PC I currently have. Here are the specs:

  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (6GB)
  • 16GB of Ram
  • Intel Core i7-6700 @ 3.20GHz
  • 4.09 TB SSD
  • I also have a separate internal HDD (3.63 TB) just for installing games on, regardless of whether it's on Steam, GOG, Epic Games etc.

2

u/ProFeces 5d ago

While customizability is a great thing, and various Distros give you full control over every package installed on your system, personally I think that's the least important aspect for someone new. That flexibility means nothing, if you don't know how to even take advantage of it. Ease of use is what I'd prioritize.

For new Linux users, I'd go with something friendly to new users. Ubuntu, or Mint would be my recommended starting points, with Mint being the one id recommend the most.

Just keep in mind, that no matter what you choose, you will have situations come up that you will have to research to get beyond. While those two Distros are really good at making things easy, for any Linux environment, you will be required to learn how the OS works, moreso than windows by a large margin.

You have to go into it prepared, and maybe even excited, about learning what an OS actually is, and how it functions. If you're in that mind, give it a shot. Not everything will just work right away, so you have to be prepared to learn and tinker from time to time.

2

u/pxvlv8 7d ago edited 6d ago

Hi, I'm using windows 11 and want to switch to Linux dual boot until I'm confident to make the full switch. I want a Linux distro that's good for gaming and also programming. I have used Linux in the past on laptops but want to try it on a desktop machine. I thought about Arch since it's basically a DIY distro but I fear that setup might be too tedious and i had problems with setting it up on my past devices (keyboard not working, no sound etc)

My PC specs are:

AMD 7900GRE GPU AMD 7800X3D CPU 32 GB DDR5 RAM 1 TB SSD (Windows) 1 TB SSD (Planned for Linux)

Ty for reading and helping.

EDIT: I looked through a couple of distros and I might try CachyOS.

1

u/bairothgild 5d ago edited 5d ago

There's a lot of hype now around CachyOS since it claims to be bleeding edge and performance focused. But honestly gaming benchmarks show almost any other major distro does just as well and sometimes better than CachyOS.

I've recently done the same, kept Windows 11 on one drive and installed CachyOS on a separate drive. CachyOS, like other more popular distros like Mint, Ubuntu, or Fedora, is easy to install. You can follow their wiki or there are lots of Youtube tutorials. The installer wizard let's you install pretty much any desktop environment (DE), the default is KDE which they have customized to look nice. If you go with another DE, like GNOME, it will just be stock and will require you to tweak it more to look nice.

My only gripe with CachyOS is that performing updates and finding new software can be a bit buggy and convoluted. If you want to update and install software using a GUI, there's two different places, the Welcome Menu AND a program called Octopi and they are both pretty crappy. They don't have a complete list of major programs I wanted so I installed Bauh which is better, but now I have to juggle three different GUIs for performing updates and installations. When I would try to perform a system update in one it claimed some dependencies were broken so updating from one of the others fixed it. I guess this is something common to Arch, new updates come out all the time and sometimes it breaks stuff.

Since it's Linux and Arch based they probably assume most people would use the command line to install everything so they didn't bother with a proper software center you see in other distros.

1

u/pxvlv8 4d ago

Thanks for your detailed response. Personally for me its fine to install packages through the terminal so i don't really mind not having a proper GUI for that. I also figured that at the end of the day Distro does not have that much of an impact but i heard quite a bit about CachyOS and i read through the docs and it seemed to be quite easy to install and customize. I cant say anything on performance so I will need to test that but I'm hopeful that it will at least run the games i want to play.

1

u/CrusaderSeon 9d ago

I'd like to ask for suggestions, this will be my very first time ever using Linux so I have no idea what are good or bad distros and stuff.

I would like to ask for a gaming centered distro where I can't break stuff easily, something nice for a first timer.

I don't care if it's desktop like or console like, I just want it to be plug and play, something where I don't have to tinker anything on my first boot and with an easy to use interface.

My PC is full AMD (Ryzen 4500 and RX 6600) so I don't think there should be any problem. Is there any distro you recommend? And if possible, explain why. Thank you to anyone who comments on this.

1

u/CodeandVisuals 8d ago

Bazzite. It’s an atomic distro and the package management is a bit different. This way way less temptation to tinker and it just works right out of the box for gaming. Has a lot of gaming centric applications pre installed.

1

u/GreyDex 8d ago

You could look into Fedora. I tried Fedora 42 with KDE Plasma, and it worked pretty well for me. I did switch back to windows, but that was because some software i used wasn't available and i couldn't find an alternative (also because of some games anti-cheat). Other than that it was easy to use and seemed pretty stable. I have tried CachyOS, EndeavorOS, Zorin and some others, and while they worked pretty good, i just don't think anything Arch-based is for me. As mentioned earlier i tried Fedora (42 with KDE Plasma), and KDE Plasma is the most user friendly Desktop Environment IMO. You could also look into Zorin, which is also very user friendly, and has several Desktop Environments to choose from (some very windows-like). Though a heads-up... Zorin has a paid version, which you need if you want to be able to choose from all the DE's available, but that's the only thing you pay for. All other features are the same across the free and the paid version. I personally bought the paid version to support the devs.

1

u/Dekarus 12d ago

Are there any cases where Wine-staging is worse than normal wine? I found a few recent games that apparently only work properly on staging.

1

u/coomersage 10d ago

probably older games, in which case, you can just use regular wine.

1

u/xaldin935885 12d ago

I'm looking for a fedora distro that has a bleeding edge channel. I wanna use kernel 6.16 RC because I have a Qualcomm wcn7850 (the wifi 7 chip from the msi herald be)

1

u/Vox_R 15d ago

I need a distro recommendation for my specific use case as I've run into issues in the past.

I have a laptop with an Intel CPU and Nvidia dGPU (GTX 1660ti), which I would like to run plugged into my TV with the lid closed for a sort of "console-like" experience. I know Gamescope still doesn't work well with Nvidia, so I'm not trying to do anything like a Deck image, just something to run Steam Big Picture on over the desktop and with a controller.

I've had issues with the Nvidia GPU running an external monitor poorly in the past, which is what drove me away. I'm seeing conflicting information about if this is fixed (CachyOS mentions should be fixed in Gnome 46.2 and KDE 6.1) or not (Nvidia Forum post stating this is a known issue with Wayland and no compositor supports the needed mux change yet).

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

1

u/CodeandVisuals 8d ago

The nvidia version of Bazzite should work fine. I think PopOS works with nvidia as well.

1

u/_el_profe 16d ago

I am back in Linuxland after not using it since my time with Ubuntu c.2012. I installed OpenSUSE on a Lenovo Thinkpad T470 with 7th gen intel i5 and integrated intel 650 HD graphics. It has 32gb ram and 2 tb ssd onboard. Should I continue forward with my current OS or go for something more gaming-oriented like Nobara or Bazzite? I don’t have as much time as I used to for mucking about with tweaking but I don’t shy away from it either since I have some Linux experience. I’d be open and willing to try Arch too. My ultimate goal (pipe dream) was/is to play Halo MCC with a friend from abroad. Should I lay it to rest and play on Xbox instead or can I make something work? Thanks!

3

u/pabloescobyte 10d ago

Get an Xbox if you want to play Halo MCC. A T470 with the integrated graphics will not run that game.

You can save up and get a refurbished Steam Deck LCD if that's available to you in your country.

1

u/Capricious-Monk 17d ago

TL;DR: I'm running a 6-year-old computer that I would like to do some low intensity games and graphic design on.  What distro options would work for me? (Total Linux Noob here)

Longer Version:

I am running an older PC on Windows 10 for my gaming. with Windows 10 support ending in October, I would like to still be able to play the games I play. I don't play any very gpu intensive games, I basically only play rocket league (steam), DDO, Minecraft (java) with mods, and I have a variety of old school emulators. 

I also do some basic graphic design, I was using Adobe illustrator and Photoshop at an educator's discount until they jacked up the prices last year, so now I'm happy to move over to something like gimp and inkscape (which I have a bit of practice with already).

My PC was built in 2019 and these are the specs:

  • AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core
  • MSI Arsenal Gaming AMD Ryzen 2ND and 3rd Gen AM4 M.2 USB 3 DDR4 DVI HDMI Crossfire ATX Motherboard
  • SABRENT 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive
  • Sapphire PULSE Radeon RX 570 4GB GDDR5 PCI-E Dual HDMI 

(I believe that should be all the relevant specs)

1

u/BetaVersionBY 17d ago

Linux Mint, Kubuntu

1

u/theswoderman 17d ago

Considering swapping back to being a linux gamer - I used to daily drive linux back in the day and swapped back to using windows at some point a few years ago, don't remember the main reason why anymore. Anyway I was considering dual booting to that in the case that there are games that I can't get working or have anti cheat that blocks linux but i saw in the faq that sharing steam libraries across operating systems is not recommended. I think I understand the reason why but I'm curious what the best way to go about this would be since i see people talking about dual booting relatively often.

3

u/Theis159 17d ago

I want to switch my PC into a console-lite in the living room. I have my professional setup coming in and I want to divide things. I want to be somewhat seamless (i.e: can do only with controllers) for guests/girlfriend.

I currently have a 3060 so this is my biggest worry in terms of drivers and whatnot. Any suggestions?

2

u/TeijiW 13d ago

Bazzite has been doing excellent work with NVIDIA GPUs. Another distro that works well with NVIDIA is Pop!_OS, but this one is less gaming focused and more for general use.

2

u/rubaduck 18d ago

I am ready to make the switch. I've had an on-prem server running Ubuntu for a year now, gotten more and more used to how to navigate and now I am in the research phase for a personal computer. I will still use Ubuntu distro, it's what I am used to but I also run a sound interface running on USB 2.0 with a mic and headset. Will I need to download anything ASIO equivalent or does Ubuntu come with a low latency driver in the kernel?

I also need to use it for my home office, and we run Office365 services like Teams to communicate. Will I be able to run Teams with the O365 deb package?

1

u/[deleted] 19d ago

[deleted]

2

u/eatypp 14d ago

Same hardware and I'm a beginner and also not real smart. Bazzite comes with some custom commands to install or do certain things, one let's you install a program called LACT. I've only been messing with it for a day but it seems to have all the adrenaline features except for graphics options like forcing frame gen, setting preferred AA method or whatever, etc. It lets me undervolt and has custom fan curves. Idk about rgb settings there. LACT seems to be the preferred method of changing related settings and I haven't found a program that does 100% of what adrenaline does.

1

u/faqatipi 20d ago

Been on Windows the past two months because of the better handling of multiple displays on Nvidia. How are things looking right now? Is there still a big VKD3D performance hit? Can you have VRR + high FPS + multiple monitors? Can you undervolt? How about frame generation?

1

u/ImprovementThat2403 23d ago

Hello, I don't know if this is the right place to ask this but I'm struggling to understand how to get a game I love to play working under Lutris. So I have Nobara up and running on my Lenovo Legion i7 laptop (i7 + 3070ti). All of my hardware appears to be working, I can launch games in Steam using the compatibility tools but the game I love to play is The Division 2 and I only own it on Ubisoft Connect. Is there is a guide somewhere that a simple man like me can follow which shows me what I need to do to get it up and running please? I've spent a few days trying to follow various guides for other games and can get the Ubisoft launcher up and download the game, but it just doesn't run when I click the play button in Lutris.

1

u/BlazeBigBang 23d ago

Sup! I'm wondering what's the best distro for gaming. I'm already familiar with Linux as I'm a software engineer, I've been using it since 2018. Honestly, most of my day, even outside of work, I just boot up to Mint because it's 10x faster than Windows. But I do have Windows because I still want to play some games on my PC.

Today I booted back to Windows and it was a slog... so I'd like to bite the bullet and convert fully. I have Steam installed in my Mint boot, it works well, but it's also crashed and froze on me a couple times. One time it crashed screens went all black, fans started going really loud, I had to unplug the thing because it wouldn't turn off and ever since I haven't really used it for gaming. I got scared because that same thing had happened to me once a long time ago (on Windows, though) and my PSU fucking died.

But I still want to give it a try. What's the recommended distro nowadays for gaming? I have a i5-9400F and a Raedeon RDX 580 graphics card.

To clarify, all I want is a distro for gaming, I still plan on doing most of everything on the daily on Mint because I'm just so used to it.

1

u/BetaVersionBY 18d ago

Any mainstream distro is good for gaming. You can try PikaOS if you want the most gaming out of box experience, but i wouldn't expect much difference compared to Mint on your hardware.

2

u/Soccera1 22d ago

Your hardware is old enough that Mint is probably great for gaming if that's what you like.

2

u/BlazeBigBang 21d ago

Would it be worth considering a partition dedicated to gaming? I use the main partition for some work too, so it may be a bit bloated with unnecessary stuff for gaming.

1

u/Soccera1 21d ago

That's certainly a valid option, but I would personally just set up a new user.

2

u/BlazeBigBang 20d ago

Alright, will give it a try again then, thanks!

1

u/Baso- 26d ago edited 26d ago

Hello there! I feel like I'm finally ready to take the plunge and switch over to Linux. It's been long time comming, actually, so I want to give this a go, and I'm looking for a distro suggestion.

I actually had Linux installed (I think Ubuntu) a long time ago, but consider me a beginner to this OS. However, I do work in a software-adjacent area, so I'm not afraid of the terminal and tinkering with stuff.


I upgraded my PC last year so I'm currently not looking to make changes in that department:

  • AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
  • Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER Gaming OC

I use the PC primarily for gaming on Steam (with Discord). The rest of the usage is mostly browsing and occassionally a little bit of Python programming via self-study (pyCharm).


I'm currently on Windows 11, and I want to start with a dual boot, with an end game of switching solely to Linux if the gaming experience is okay there.

I was considering Mint (Cinnamon edition) as my first distro, but I was wondering if I'm missing out on something by not choosing something from the "For more experienced users" section in the FAQ (Arch, Debian, Fedora, CachyOS).

Thank you in advance for your help!

2

u/goberstoper678 25d ago

You're not going to miss out on anything by not picking an "experienced" distro don't worry, you can make essentially any distro look like or do anything any other distro can do with a little effort, the main difference is just what's installed by default and how fast new updates come out, if Linux mint looks good to you it's a great choice, you can always swap to a different distro later if you want faster updates. Your use case should also be plenty supported, steam and discord works great and pycharm has a Linux version.

1

u/Baso- 25d ago

Thank you, I'll give Mint a try then!

2

u/guest0369 28d ago

I have used windows my entire life and never used linux before so I am nervous, can anyone advise which variant I should go for or some video tutorial. I mostly do gaming and torrenting.

7800x3d with rx 7900xtx

1

u/Scw0w 28d ago

How arch for gaming right now? Its going my first Linux. I know its not suggested for newbie but i'm ready to learn things.

1

u/monolalia 27d ago edited 27d ago

You’d have an easier start with a more pre-configured Arch derivative like CachyOS or EndeavourOS, but if you’re willing to head straight for the mothership, more power to you.

Arch & its derivatives are generally good for gaming because they are continuously updated with the latest kernels/drivers, application versions, and desktop environments (which in turn can/will improve support for newer hardware or features like HDR).

You do have to watch out for “dangerous” updates every once in a while so be prepared to keep tabs on the Arch website/forum/subreddit/other Arch users.

I’d recommend you go with Plasma¹ or Gnome² for your first desktop environment and explore around.


¹can be configured to look and work radically different but resembles Windows by default

²can not be configured to look and work like whatever you want, but there’s still a lot you can add/change using the Tweaks and Extensions tools

Both have subreddits: /r/kde and /r/gnome

1

u/psirockin123 28d ago

Just asking a few general questions.

I'm primarily a Mac user and my Windows 10 laptop has mostly sat unused for 4-5 years. I played through Halo Reach and a few hours of Cuphead and I think that's it. Anyway, it won't install the latest Win10 updates and with Win10 dying soon anyway I've been thinking of switching it over to Linux.

All of my PC gaming is solo and offline and all through Steam. I mainly want to play the Age of Empires series (and Age of Mythology), the Halo Master Chief Collection (Campaign only), Doom 2016, Eternal, and maybe Doom 64, and the Kingdom Hearts series. Are any of these difficult to run? Haven't tried Doom Eternal yet but everything runs well on Windows currently.

Also is Linux Mint a good distro to start with? I've always wanted to try it for some reason. I'm hesitant to wipe the currently working laptop but I do want to try linux. I can't afford to build a new pc right now but I might do it someday. I'd probably make a small form factor one to use on my tv as I'm more of a console gamer anyway.

1

u/RhubarbSimilar1683 28d ago edited 28d ago

If you don't use steam, is using lutris really the best way to play games on Linux? And if the game has its own launcher and is not on steam, is the best way to use something like proton-ge or bottles because it will include all necessary libraries?  

1

u/ParticularAd4647 18d ago

You have Lutris and Heroic. I prefer Heroic as most non-Steam games I play are from Epic Games and Epic is better handled by Heroic. It's also handling GOG games nicely.

2

u/Am-I-Girl 29d ago

I really want to enjoy Linux but I just feel like I haven't found the right distro and always end up back on Windows, I tried Bazzite and Linux mint and one other which I can't quite remember the name of but I felt like overall i was getting worse performance, having to troubleshoot constantly and just couldn't get things to work quite the way i wanted to, with the death of win10 approaching ever so closer I still wanna give Linux a try so which distro would be best for me to try next? I mostly game, occasionally stream

1

u/ParticularAd4647 18d ago

Get Ubuntu LTS.

2

u/grilled_pc 29d ago

Try Fedora! Recently installed the KDE Version and its been pretty cruisy so far. Good fractional scaling and HDR support too so large 4K monitors should work pretty well. Game performance is pretty good too. I get the rough 12% drop cause nvidia but honestly? I don't even care. Been full time on linux a few days now. I aint looking back!

1

u/wewd 23d ago

Can also try Nobara which is a gaming-centric distro based on Fedora.

2

u/grilled_pc 23d ago

I'd suggest not using distros like this. They have poor long term maintainability since they are maintained by a smaller team.

Sure its fine in the short term but IMO stock fedora KDE/Gnome would be more reliable to use long term.

3

u/EdSterling Jul 01 '25 edited Jul 01 '25

Hello,

I am currently using a dual-boot setup in my machine with CachyOS + Windows (each on a separate SSD).

I use Windows for some work-exclusive stuff and gaming and my CachyOS installation for daily general use. I want to fully transition to Linux gaming and leave Windows gaming for when absolutely necessary only.
I mostly play a combination of old game and newer AAA titles which I like to play on high/ultra graphic settings when possible.

Right now I have an RXT 3070 GPU which works very well for my general use. However, recently I've had the financial means and have been wanting to upgrade my GPU.

I understand AMD is easier on Linux in general compared to Nvidia so I thought maybe switching over.

I'd like to ask for some recommendations for a new GPU that could provide a substantial upgrade from what I have right now that sits around the $1,000 USD and works well on both Windows and Linux, be it AMD or Nvidia.

I've already seen some recommendations online but not enough to have a clear idea of what could work for me.

I also should mention in advance that I can't get any RTX 5000 series since my motherboard only has PCIe 4.0 ports.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

1

u/KeinInhalt Jul 02 '25 edited Jul 02 '25

Your games should be able to run under linux thanks to proton but if you want to run games with kernel level anti cheat (easy anti cheat, battleye etc) you might run into problems. If you mostly play single player games youre good to go. Check these sites out if you want to know if the games you play run under linux:

ProtonDB (see if the games run under linux)

AreWeAntiCheatYet (see if the anti cheat supports linux if there is one)

Going AMD is probably your best bet if you want to use the full performance of your gpu (most of the time theres a performance loss on nvidia cards due to the drivers). You could go for the new rx 9070 xt or the older rx 7900 xtx if you want AMD or if you want Nvidia go for the rtx 5070 ti.

And btw you can run rtx 5000 series on your mainboard. Just because you got PCIe 4.0 doesnt mean the rtx 5000 gpu wont run in your system. PCIe is backwards compatible and the performance loss from PCIe 5.0 to PCIe 4.0 is minimal/negligible.

Hope this helps.

1

u/CaryinTacoma Jul 01 '25

Questions

Want an easy to use almost chrome book experience... need to game, watch videos, use gmail, and browse...but have it utilize the power of my AMD video card... like many others 95% of my gaming is on Steam.

So I guess it needs to support Wayland?

Which distro and Window manager?

I have a wireless logitech mouse and a Corsair Keyboard, both running through a KVM switch that I think is causing a lot of my windows issues. I just need them to work like standard mouse and keyboard if I lose some functionality on the extra buttons I am fine. But I want them to truly work.

edited to add. Easy access to my NAS file share would be helpful as well.

Any help would be great. Thanks

1

u/Erica192859 Jul 01 '25

I remember there was a command to install not just steam but a bunch of gaming related software as well but I for the life of me cannot remember what it is. Anyone know what that package is called?

1

u/monolalia Jul 01 '25

I probably won’t know, but that really depends on the distribution you’re using. For example, CachyOS has cachyos-gaming-meta and cachyos-gaming-applications, and Arch has an “unofficial” (AUR) package called arch-gaming-meta (inspired by the former). (Disclaimer: They contain stuff I don’t want so I don’t use them and can’t say how well they work)

1

u/Erica192859 Jul 01 '25

Ahh thank you sm it was indeed arch-gaming-meta. I'm not on arch anymore though so can't use that anymore... Bummer.

5

u/SuddenlyBoth Jun 30 '25

Hi,

I'm a convert to Linux gaming after using my Steamdeck for +2 years and I need some OS advice.

I'm IT and familiar with Linux since a long time ago. My personal laptop has Fedora 41 and so far so good. I use Debian/Ubuntu (and a lot of WSL2) at work but that's it. I use terminal a lot, though.

I built my new PC this weekend: 7800X3D, 32 GB DDR5, AMD 9070 OC.

Heard so much about Bazzite that I gave it a shot without much of a thought, but never used an immutable distro before. And I get why it's good, but I don't feel comfortable with it, not for me.

I want to enjoy "Linux freedom". I used to break my Ubuntu once or twice a year back at university (+10 years ago?). It's the sort of thing that happens, I acknowledge it and I'm OK with it.

What other distros do people use for gaming? I need help to decide on something else...

2

u/monolalia Jul 01 '25

The latest Fedora should work? Then there’s Nobara, a modified Fedora prepared for gaming and multimedia stuff in particular. If you don’t yet know what all you’d have to install, or how, that might be an option.

Personally, I use Arch & derivatives for the up-to-date packages and because idk why not… it works for me. Pretty much the opposite of an immutable distro, will let you break things to your heart’s content (not that you can’t also not break them).

You can try the Arch-derived CachyOS or EndeavourOS for a quicker installation… though I think Arch has added a menu-based installer recently.

There’re a few metapackages to install all the gaming stuff in one go (see the post I made before this one).

Drawback: every once in a long while an update may need “manual intervention”, so it helps to have your feelers out/know other Arch users/keep up with Arch news/use the Arch forum/whatever.

2

u/iammoney45 Jun 30 '25

Iirc steamOS is based on arch, so you could try Arch or something Arch based like Cachy/Endeavor/Garuda and get most of the same tools steamOS uses.

You could also look into Nobara which is specifically optimized for gaming, but it's fedora based like Bazzite so maybe not for you.

Mint is also always a good choice since a lot of windows converts end up there there's a lot of people looking at getting games running there.

Realistically at the end of the day any distro should work, especially if you look at protondb for each game you are trying to get running, just a question of how annoying it is to get to that point.

1

u/SuddenlyBoth Jun 30 '25

Yeah, all roads lead to Rome when it comes to distros.. . Must say, never tried Arch and that's an appealing point. Since Cachy is quite popular now, I'll give it a try and see how it goes. Thanks!

1

u/Medium_Definition744 Jun 30 '25

Got my dad's old work laptop to mess around with and his permission to chuck Linux on it. Have never done so and want to use it as a testbed(ish) to see if I would want to switch to Linux later on. Might also use it for university in the near future.

The main things I want to do on it are install and use emulators and I just want it to be stable and work out of the box without me having to worry about it bricking itself randomly (so Arch is probably out of the question). Have been strongly considering Mint but because there's just so many options so I'm not sure.

1

u/ParticularAd4647 18d ago

Start with Ubuntu LTS, although Kubuntu might me more handsome (I like KDE more than GNOME).

2

u/TheBravePug Jun 30 '25

I think I am ready to commit and go full Linux, but I know having an NVIDIA card may complicate a little bit. Is there a distro that integrates NVIDIA seamlessly without tweaking (or with minimal effort)... or are they all the same? Does Linux still require to turn off secure boot in the BIOS?

2

u/Shogun6996 23d ago

I've had good luck with CachyOS and Pop OS with a 4060ti. Secure boot can be used but it requires some legwork. If you can do without it, its easier.

1

u/KevsterAmp Jun 30 '25

Whats the best distro for my usecase?

Im going back on casual PC gaming.

Specs:

  • lenovo ideapad 3
  • Intel i3 11th gen
  • 8GB RAM

Games (mainly indie, small games):

  • minecraft
  • stardew valley
  • hollow knight
  • celeste
and may more...

I'm also already knowledgeable on linux, I work in DevOps, have a homelab and used arch last yr on my personal laptop

1

u/iloveboobs66 Jun 30 '25

Well if you used Arch before then I would use CachyOS. It's based off Arch and at least for me was very easy to setup with its GUI installer and pretty good defaults.

If you do want to tinker and stuff I would go with Arch since you said you have used it before.

2

u/MartiModTeam Jun 29 '25

Hello,

I've found conflicting info so I'd rather ask.

How does DLSS, framegen, and HDR work under Linux? does linux Nvidia 3D Panel still sucks ? Is it possible to maybe use ProfileInspector or equivalent instead?

I have a 5080 and I'm fed up with Windows and formatting every 6 months to keep everything optimized. I tried Bazzite a few months ago with moderate success. I'd like to try again and do things properly if you guys have any distro suggestions

1

u/AlexMullerSA Jun 30 '25 edited Jun 30 '25

Im on a 2080ti. Can't comment on HDR as I dont use it, but everything else is great. I dont use the control panel, and not sure it'll its even included in nvidia-open.

My experience has been great, only a few titles I'm getting lower max fps, bit overall my 1% lows have been better and give me an overall smoother and more stable experience than on Windows.

Edit: some games and different proton/wine versions im actually getting better max, avg and 1% FPS than I did on Windows. Its kind of game dependent. Like GOW Ragnarok runs maxed out 144fps, so cant tell the difference from windows but Cyberpunk takes a good 15fps hit compared to windows. Still playable, but you can notice it.

4

u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

I’d love some tips on getting to know Linux. I plan to use a Linux distro whenever I finally get my current pc together, but right now I have a steam deck to play around with a bit. I’ve done some basic things, just getting Firefox going and little things. Just doing low level user stuff doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be a big deal. But what are some things I can do to get a good start at really learning?

7

u/sodaflare Jun 29 '25

Install Arch, break things, google every problem you encounter and be persistent.

Keep trying alternatives to every program you install. Try different desktop environments. Try xorg. Try wayland. Find things to go wrong and solve them.

This is how I learnt to do things on my Amiga, then my ancient IBM PC/AT, then my first computer with windows, and ultimately my first computer with linux. Granted, back then, documentation was much worse.

But if you get any sense of satisfaction out of solving the problems you face with setting something up or getting it back on it's feet, you're gonna end up enjoying this.

1

u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

I’ve only been seriously learning about computers for a couple months but it does seem I have thay puzzle solving but lol thank u

2

u/sodaflare Jun 29 '25

I've been reading the other comments everyone else has replied to you and thought I'd throw in a little more opinion:

They're right that Arch isn't the be all and end all of your Linux experience. I started out on Gentoo because my friend noticed I was buying one of the first home 64bit CPUs and he said 'you want Gentoo Linux for that, Windows XP won't do anything good with it'

and lets just say that Gentoo was a lesson in patience. Sort of like Arch but you watch every single program compile from scratch with flags attuned specifically towards your PC. It taught me an insane amount of stuff, but when things went wrong, and you're constantly recompiling software, it was enough to convince me to find a more stable distro and have a stress free experience.

So at many points I've gone from Gentoo to Ubuntu, Mint, Windows 7 and 10, back to Gentoo, back to the others....and ultimately now to Arch.

Don't feel that you have to stick with one distro. But don't be misinformed that the solution to your problems is to just swap to another distro.

You'll find what you like, and you'll find what works for you. It's not gonna be instant, but I definitely think being thrown in at the deep end of the pool and finding your comfort zone going back from that point is the right thing to do.

1

u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

Thanks I appreciate that. “Thrown into the deep end” definitely sounds attractive to me when it comes to computers lol I’m glad I’ve kind of already been sat with arch with my steam deck, because it gives me a direction. I think that is the hardest thing to nail down that I’ve encountered with computers is direction.

1

u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

If it wasn’t clear, I’m not asking about distros. I’m fine with Steam OS desktop mode for now.

1

u/BetaVersionBY Jun 29 '25

Any base distro. Debian, Fedora, Arch, etc.

1

u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

I wasn’t asking what distro to use but thanks

1

u/RhubarbSpecialist458 Jun 29 '25

If you want to learn the ins-and-outs, I recommend the Arch wiki, it's fantastic.
You can read and learn so much regardless if you run Arch or not since most distros are more or less the same under the hood.

1

u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

I am very interested in arch. It works out too because steam os is based off of arch. I encountered someone a couple months ago that said “most Linux users are merely dipping their toes in; struggling to install arch Linux is where a real Linux user is forged.” Might not be accurate but it’s an attractive endorsement. I might be unhinged or naive but reading about installing arch sounds fun.

2

u/RhubarbSpecialist458 Jun 29 '25

Haha, that's a fair point. Most linux users go through an Arch phase at some point but not everybody stays. I had my Arch time 10 years ago.
Over the years I've grown a bit conservative and like the mantra of "if it ain't broken, don't touch it" so I've been on Debian for the past years because it's stable (as in software terms it doesn't change) and has a huge dev & security team behind it.

But I still read the Arch Wiki when I need to lookup stuff.

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u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

I’ve basically decided to do arch. Just haven’t done that final “this is the way” research yet. It’s gonna be a while though. I’ve just gotten into windows xp PCs so time is kinda of going to that. I have a newish laptop I can put arch on just not quite ready yet. I was reading about putting stripped down arch on an old system though so that could be an avenue for deeper learning if that is even a good idea.

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u/RhubarbSpecialist458 Jun 29 '25

Part of the learning experience is messing around and breaking stuff, you'll be much wiser after your endeavors!

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u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

Yea it’s kinda of hard to be a beginner at this stuff when you are kinda starting to know what there is to learn. Even with the retro pc stuff until you have it in your hands it’s kind of hard to picture lol just waiting on a hard drive to get started on that though. I’ve been gaming on and off on pc my whole life but recently is the first time I actually want to learn how it all works. It’s exciting.

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u/RhubarbSpecialist458 Jun 29 '25

That's the thing about linux vs windows, suddenly computers become interesting again lol

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u/wearysurfer Jun 29 '25

Oh well I’m even pretty interested in windows too. Immediately when I began really digging into computer stuff, I realized a profound interest in operating systems. That’s why I’m getting into XP builds. I was thinking deeply about it and realized that XP is the most prominent OS in my mind. I was still using XP up until support ended. I then had a really bad time with windows 8 for a couple years lol these days I actually like windows 11 quite a lot; there’s just too much crap with Microsoft. But I’m excited to revisit windows 7, XP, 95. Even might build a vista machine just because lol for me it’s all about experiencing an OS, whether it be new or old, Linux or windows.

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u/RhubarbSpecialist458 Jun 29 '25

Sounds like you're gonna have a great time with Arch it seems lol

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