Linux gamers, what distro are you currently on?

I'm currently on Win11 but I'm getting that familiar Linux itch and want to dual boot a while again. I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it's so big and well supported by most things.

I've run Arch in the past but I've gotten too old and lazy for that if I'd be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though.. and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.

Not sure what I'd try out first this time so I figured I'd get some inspiration from you guys!

Mr_Vortex,

I’m currently running Nobara and I really vibe with the Gnome desktop and Fedora in general. However, I recently installed Linux Mint for my girlfriend’s gaming rig and I was surprised by how lightweight and responsive it felt. It was also dead simple to use during the entire setup process and I can absolutely see how you’d never need to enter a terminal if you didn’t want to. If I ever have a reason to leave Nobara, I’m definitely going to go with Mint!

russjr08,

Arch Linux at the moment, though I distro hop quite a bit!

When it comes to gaming, I can’t really say I’ve found a distro that “felt” better for gaming, and I’ve been on a fair amount of them - Fedora (and Nobara), Arch, NixOS, Endeavour, pop!_OS - I haven’t noticed a difference. I didn’t measure benchmarks because at the end of the day its about what I can perceive, not what I can read from a spreadsheet.

Realistically I think the only difference I ever noticed was with pop there’s a Nvidia ISO that has the drivers already included in the live environment, so I get to skip a step post-install.

I find myself just using Flatpaks for gaming stuff (Steam, Bottles, Heroic, etc) these days since I know that I can take those on just about any distro. I’ve heard that there is some FPS loss from running games through Flatpak, but again I haven’t done any benchmarks so I can’t confirm nor deny this.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

These days Ubuntu can install the nvidia drivers for you during the install as well if you just click the "install proprietary blabla" so you get a pretty game ready system there as well tbh so I'm starting to feel like a more gaming tweaked version of Ubuntu is a bit redundant?

That's a surprisingly pleasing font by the way!

russjr08,

Grr Lemmy just ate my comment, I guess I have a chance to refine my response a bit now!

Ah, thank you - it’s been a while since I used Ubuntu on my main system (Ubuntu was my foray into Linux back in the Hardy Heron days!) but now that you mention it, I do remember seeing that option when I briefly had Ubuntu installed on my old MacBook (which I then moved to Fedora to play around with before using it on my main PC). Having that option was quite nice for the broadcom wireless drivers that those Macs need for WiFi.

That’s a surprisingly pleasing font by the way!

Thanks! I came across it a couple of years ago, and I joked about it at first but it grew on me over time so I purchased (it is a paid font but there is a very similar one called Comic Mono) the font and have been using it in my IDEs and terminals since then! I wouldn’t use it everywhere of course, but for a monospace environment its really good and I can’t quite put my finger on the “why”.

Funnily enough, I’ve tried to use Comic Code on both Windows and macOS as well and there is something about the FreeType system on Linux that makes the font really excel for me. On Windows the font feels too “thin” and on macOS the font feels too “thick”. 10 years ago if you had tried to tell me that I’d enjoy the way fonts look on Linux better than the other two major platforms I would’ve fell to the floor laughing for a few minutes - I imagine its due to a combination of improvements over FreeType and displays over the years, along with me actually branching out and not just sticking with the default font that happens to be picked for me by whatever I’m using 😅

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

I stumbled upon Comic Mono myself a while ago and have been meaning to set it up in my IDE's but haven't gotten around to it yet. Might just have to though. It looks strangely easy on the eyes. Almoat relaxing somehow? Cant really putn my finger on why however.

I can agree with the fact that fonts feel different depending on your OS. I usually use Source Code Pro and I never got the feeling that it looked quite as good when I went from Linux to Windows after getting a new job.

rufus,
@rufus@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I was using Gentoo for a while, but I kept having issues with the proprietary Nvidia drivers, so I set up a Win10 VM with GPU passthrough.

I actually just switched to NixOS, haven’t had a chance to get my games set up just yet but I am excited for the number of people I have seen have success with it. Setting up gaming is next on my list.

jakepi,

I would take a look at pop_os. It's Ubuntu, but without Snap and a closer to mainline kernel version. They have a lot of great usability tweaks too.

I run Arch BTW. I just like to make things difficult :)

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

I installed Kubuntu.. I couldn't be assed to resize my efi partition to a gig and disrupt windows.. Done that in the past with varying results. Wish they didn't require it to be that big tbh.

I do miss Arch.. wouldn't surprise me if I'll install it again soon.

Kubuntu works. But where's the fun in that? :)

It's like.. I installed it, messed with lutris a bit (needed a newer version) and installed Diablo 4, everything works.. and now I feel like I'm missing out somehow. :)

jakepi,

You're missing out on chasing the dragon for the latest and greatest. :)

Arch is fine once you get it setup, but I feel like the nerd in us can never just leave it be. I'll probably go back to pop_os next major release they have.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Sometimes I wish I had a machine dedicated to nothing but reinstalling different distros. :)

It can get a bit disrupting to do it on your main rig too often.

trash,

Use a VM?

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

I know, I do that too but it's just not quite the same for some reason.

Bene7rddso,

VMs are great for that

milo,

As a former Arch user, Fedora has been so amazing for me. It's so rock solid and simple to use. It also has great software compatibility because lots of software is distributed as rpm due to businesses using CentOS and RHEL.

ladydascalie,

A very simple, almost stock setup of Arch + KDE.

YerbaYerba,

X11 or Wayland? I find games like csgo stutter on Wayland.

communist,
@communist@beehaw.org avatar

Make sure you’re running the sdl environment variable that makes them native on Wayland, in my experience when that’s on it makes my games that are native significantly more performant.

DaveedMee,
@DaveedMee@beehaw.org avatar

I use Arch with KDE Plasma for that comfy desktop environment feel but switch to BSPWM ever so often for productivity or to use my pc as just a media center

DaveedMee,
@DaveedMee@beehaw.org avatar

I use Arch with KDE Plasma for that comfy desktop environment feel but switch to BSPWM ever so often for productivity or to use my pc as just a media center

Bright5park,

I have been quite happy with Arch Linux, up until I got my Steam Deck, at which point I stopped playing on my non-Deck PCs, so... SteamOS, I suppose.

communist,
@communist@beehaw.org avatar

... which is an immutable variant of arch.

Bright5park,

It is, but I still count it as it's own thing, in the same way most people count Debian and Ubuntu as two seperate distributions.

communist,
@communist@beehaw.org avatar

Yes, you're correct, just a little funny that you moved from arch to basically steamarch, or as I've recently taken to calling it, arch plus steam

jimp,

Came here to say SteamOS as well. I am surprised more people aren't saying it. But the thing is, the Steam Deck works so well I have to wonder how many people don't know/care the OS it runs, or maybe they have forgotten it's running Linux, or maybe they know but don't consider themselves "Linux Gamers" just because they are using it.

Sort of like how people playing on a Switch or PS3/4/Vita are technically FreeBSD gamers deep down.

Peeko,

Save yourself a lot of trouble and get a secondary SSD to put Linux on instead of doing a traditional dual boot. Normal dual boots with windows suck ass and lead to problems.

As for a distro, I keep going back to endeavourOS. It's just so minimal out of the box, and I still can't find anything to match the convinience of the AUR + Pacman for package management.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

It's on a laptop. I do have an external usb that I have linux installed on but it feels like a hassle to connect/disconnect every time I need to switch OS. Maybe it could've been worth staying on it though?

boonhet,

Been gaming on Gentoo for over a year, even if I haven’t found much time for gaming in the last few months.

Don’t do it if you’ve gotten too lazy for Arch though. Try Pop!_OS or Linux Mint or something. Enjoy an easy distro for a bit, till you get the itch for Arch back.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Oh I’ve tinkered with Gentoo plenty in the past (I still miss OTW if that rings any bells) and no, I really don’t have the patience for it these days. :)

And yeah, I’ll probably end up installing something a bit more fancy soon-ish… for now I plopped Kubuntu 20.04 on there and Diablo IV is downloading as we speak!

Kaldo,
@Kaldo@beehaw.org avatar

I really should have known better than to expect a consensus in a topic like this 😁 Ask 10 linuxheads which disto is the best and you'll get 12 different answers

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Well that's what's fun though isn't it? :D

I ended up installing Kubuntu 20.04 for now.. I was going to install Pop but they require a 1GB EFI partition and I didn't have the patience to move my Windows partition around to resize it so.. Kubuntu it is.

Knowing myself I'll probably distro hop in a few days again.

Trying out different distros are almost as much fun as actually using them (probably more fun at times!)

Kaldo,
@Kaldo@beehaw.org avatar

If I were doing it on some spare PC maybe I'd find it fun too but I rely too much on my main workstation to just constantly reinstall stuff on it, and dual booting looks like a risk/hassle too. I am prepared for the inevitable day I take the plunge into linux for good, hopefully the number of distros doesn't triple by then ^^

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Don't worry!

They'll quadruple..:)

Kaldo,
@Kaldo@beehaw.org avatar

It definitely feels like they have in the past decade. When I last used Linux everyone would just dump Ubuntu on you, give you a nice pat on the head and wish you good luck. PopOS got big at one point but I think there were some issues when LTT tried it that gave it a bad rep. I haven't even heard of 90% of distros in this thread.

CylustheVirus,

I think your next task is to start modding Skyrim so you can have the ultimate experience of spending more time setting something up only to spend a fraction of that time actually using it. XD

TemporalSoup,

I spent a few days trying to get modded skyrim working on linux, but just couldn't get the nexus mod manager working :(

I gave up, so I'll probably end up trying again in a few months when someone I know IRL brings it up again

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

That or setting up a retro gaming sysgem.. gathering and scraping roms, setting up a nice frontend with cover art and everything just to never touch it again when it's done. :)

CylustheVirus,

How dare you call me out like this.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Been there, done that eh? :D

20gramsWrench,

garuda, it’s just a fancy arch install with the ugliest, bloatiest, default theming you can imagine, but once you get rid of it it’s pretty solid.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

You’re really selling it :D

…I looked it up. You’re correct. That… was flashy.

TrontheTechie,

I’ve been using Garuda as well. It’s solid, and I like the fact they have a gaming variant that takes a lot of the nitpick presetup out of the picture.

gamma,
@gamma@programming.dev avatar

I’m on EndeavourOS, but my laptop will be moving to Fedora Sericea (Silverblue, but Sway) to try that out.

s0phia,

I'm on Arch right now, migrated to it after almost 2 years on Fedora. I'll probably still go back and forth between the two.

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