Like, why Valve? I was so close to clearing out all the games I was partway through, now I need to add some demos to my backlog (not many, this Next Fest is kinda weak).
Probably could’ve made it but I haven’t picked a distro. I’m planning on turning my desktop into a dedicated gaming computer and not daily driver, because of the malware risk. I wanted something not finicky, something devs would test on as a known quantity, and preferably something Arch-based like SteamOS.
- Garuda (Arch-based)
- Bazzite (Known quantity, immutable, Fedora-based, I don’t trust it for some reason)
- Nobara (Proton-adjacent distro, Fedora-based)
- CachyOS (Super fast, Arch-based, presumably finicky?)
- Windows 7 (Based, unsupported by steam, insecure)
I’ve tried bazzite, nobara and cachyos
Bazzite is fantastic if all you care about is gaming. I have three devices that will do little more than just gaming that have it and it’s fantastic for HTPC gaming if you like controllers. (My partner uses it on desktop and finds it fine and never gets in the way of what she wants to do)
I tried nobara on a laptop that i planned to do a little bit of everything on but for some reason i had a difficult time with it. I landed on cachyos because I’ve had some experience with arch and felt much more comfortable with it.
Bazzite for the past two days has not been as easy as everyone makes of sound, and I say this as a software engineer that works with Linux 5 days a week. Some of the UI choices are just weird and VR support with Nvidia is so horrible I may end up having to dual boot.
Really interesting to hear a different story. I’m running Kubuntu, but have been trying to find an excuse to use Bazzite. Maybe I’ll keep searching for that excuse for a bit longer.
Running the version that boots into big picture with a Radeon card has been fantastic, however the Nvidia desktop version has left a sour taste in my mouth.
Made the switch a few days ago. A couple growing pains but I’m playing beat saber with mods again. Which is all I was doing on windows lately anyway lol.
I use ChimeraOS on my stepson’s computer. A few more thing integrated into it for other gaming and I rarely have to touch it. (Thankfully cause that place always needs cleaning)
It’s not arch based but it’s of the immutable variety.
I daily drive ubuntu cinnamon 24.04LTS. I rarely buy cutting edge hardware and I edit video as well. 4K 60 fps scuba diving footage for those wondering and gaming had been fine for the most part. Mainly standard fixes similar to those on steamos outside of that is been hardware related and minimal.
Windows 10 EOL is a problem for future me, having just signed up for free extended support.
And I’ve got CachyOS in my back pocket. Initial experiments have been somewhat positive.
I didn’t. Made the switch a year ago. Only reason why I boot windows is to update a couple crypto wallets i need to transfer over.
Try Bazzite first. It really is the best beginner Linux distro, especially for gaming.
If you decide you want more control, switch to Fedora KDE.
Bazzite and Fedora, in my experience, are the two distros that “just work” best for new users on the widest variety of hardware.
Cachy is fantastic, but I wouldn’t recommend switching to it unless you need even more control and have become very comfortable on the command line. It’s not a distro I would recommend anyone start with.
You will also see Mint recommended often, but I’ve had problems with hardware support — usually on newer builds — and I absolutely hate Cinnamon, its default desktop environment. I would honestly only look at distros that include KDE Plasma out of the box, and Mint does not.
Why Arch? I used it for a few years, but ended up getting tired of it due to random breakage.
I’ve been on Tumbleweed since, and the breakage is pretty much nonexistent.
Not finicky and Arch-based don’t really go together well.
Just go with Bazzite or something, the exact distribution doesn’t matter (as long as it’s not Arch). The more important choice is the desktop environment, which is the user experience and looks of the distro. If you’re moving from Windows, I assume you’ll like KDE Plasma. It’s basically Windows 10 but modernized, with a more aesthetic and clean look. (It’s also paralyzingly hypercustomizable, so I would recommend using the default settings initially and slowly learning the settings, rather than diving into the settings headfirst the moment you install)
I personally use Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE Plasma), but it’s slightly more annoying to set up than something like Bazzite
You don’t want finicky but want an Arch based distro? Okie dokie.
Arch is finicky?
It is inherently more unstable than the others due to it being rolling release, but it hasn’t had very many hiccups in the last couple of years, so if something breaks, it is likely to be fixable by just waiting for a patch.
I’ve had almost no problems in Arch so far. I can’t say the same for Ubuntu, though my problem with Ubuntu was often having to wait for ages to get things to be updated.
I’ve been in a similar boat, but I had one system breaking issue when I started, I sorted it by chrooting, but anyone with average to low tech expertise would have no other option other than reinstalling
My only issue is that I use OBS, and the best OBS package is one in AUR and it causes some headaches when ffmpeg updates, still not nearly as bad as some of the dependency hells I’ve ended up in back in my Ubuntu and Debian days lol
Have you been having issues with the flatpak, I don’t use obs all too often, but I don’t have any complaints
I can double check it. I tend to avoid flatpaks and appimages at all cost if I can.
Does the flatpak have browser sources and custom docks, because none of the other packages I could find did.
Just stick with Fedora for your desktop if you want a traditional desktop workflow without having to jump through hoops. Any of the immutable distros have hoops you don’t want to mess with as a beginner, and the decades of forum and docs history generally won’t have information specific to your immutable distro and how to manage, so stick with the basics and Fedora.
All distros perform the same in general as far as gaming goes. There is negligible if any difference even tuned straight to the kernel, hands down.
The only thing you’ll need to figure out is what Desktop Environment you fit better with to start: KDE or Gnome.
Gnome is more like MacOS, and KDE is more like Windows. Both can be used at the same if you really wish, and there is nothing stopping you from altering whatever you install to behave like some other distro trivially.
Fedora is a good starter to figure out what you do and don’t like about which bits, and then make more informed decisions after using it for awhile.
I’m a fedora user, so I would recommend Bazzite/Nobara, but all of these are good (Except Windows 7, it’s not officially supported anymore and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t even get security updates). I think you can try them before installing thanks to live USB, so you can just see which one you like more.
A word of warning: Garuda is kinda cool and allows you to try lots of stuff you would normally have to set up yourself. It is great if you want to experience what Arch is like. That said, it has not exactly been a stable experience for me. You are probably better off just running EndeavourOS or plain Arch (via archinstall) in the long run.
I went with Fedora 43 KDE Spin on the computer that doesn’t support Windows 11 and Workstation on the one that does. Next weekend I will be converting that one (my main rig) to Fedora KDE Spin as well.
I hope you like Indy games cuz that’s all that’s on there. Not a single thing looks good to me really.
Indie games rock! Just browsing, here are a few I found interesting:
- astro protocol - looks kind of like Masters of Orion or, if you really squint, Stellaris
- Aerial_Knight’s DropShot - ridiculous looking skydiving racing game using finger bullets
- Stellar Freight: Echoes of the Void - reminds me of ∆V: Rings of Saturn, but more approachable by casuals
That’s just a couple pages of games, there are more gems to find.
I’ve gone with CachyOS, frankly it just works. Can recommend. You can tinker more if you want to, but there’s no need.
I’d second Mint suggested below. I mentioned this on another thread today, but if you’re really concerned about being able to play whatever games you want then just dual boot (use a secondary drive for Linux, not a partition) and upgrade to Windows 11 then install O&O shut up as it will allow you to disable all the telemetry and AI bullshit then just search your installed apps/programs for one drive and delete the app.
I use Mint for everything except gaming. It still runs a lot of what I tried with Lutris and a little tweaking, even got a game working where I just dragged the fully installed folder from Windows over to the Linux drive, but I have some things that work better on windows so I just neutered windows and only run that when I want to play something.
