I’ve ordered myself some parts to build a PC for Linux gaming. In the meantime, i’m deciding on which linux distro to use.
For the desktop environment I typically use KDE.
I have used Ubuntu in the past but i’m ruling it out because of snaps and other such annoyances. This also applies to Ubuntu based distros that use the same repos (KDE Neon etc).
I see the wikis recommend Nobara, but I’m reluctant to use a Fedora based distro because I’m so used to Debian/apt (both as a desktop and server distros). I’m not ruling it out completely though.
Any reason why I shouldn’t just go with Debian + KDE and install Steam? Will I be missing out on lots of performance improvements or is this easily addressed by using an additional repo for a tweaked kernel and proton version or whatever?
Any reason why I shouldn’t just go with Debian + KDE and install Steam?
No reason to avoid Debian unless you have hardware so very new that it requires the very latest kernel to operate.
If you go with Debian Stable, you can enable Backports for a fairly recent kernel, currently 6.5.10. You could go with Testing or even Unstable if you’re addicted to upgrading as often as possible, but chances are you won’t need to.
I’m gaming on Debian Stable with Steam in a flatpak. It works great, and is blissfully low maintenance.
At some point, you’ll probably run into people claiming that Debian is bad for gaming performance because of “outdated” packages. In most cases, those people don’t know what they’re talking about. I suggest ignoring them unless they identify a specific performance issue that actually affects you.
Technically it is possible that outdated packages can decrease your performance. Some games may not work because of outdated libraries, but in most cases you should be fine.
Oh man, you’re in for a treat there.
PopOS is what you’re looking for friend. Debian is a bit too bare and general use-case. Ubuntu is wrong for the exact reasons you laid out.
Pop is built for the end users, with native integrations for flatpak/deb/whathaveyou. It’s built on top of Ubuntu with all the ubuntu annoyances removed.
They even have a distro with pre-baked nvidia drivers should you need it.
I tried it and swapped all of mine over
Fwiw I switched off of Pop onto Debian cause I was annoyed with some of Pop’s bloat and I’ve been loving it. I game pretty heavily on Debian and it works just fine. I do mostly play the same older games rather than buying new releases, however, so mileage may vary if you’re looking at cutting edge games, as driver updates can significantly boost performance in that case.
Make no mistake though, when I say ‘bloat’ I’m mostly nitpicking. Pop is a perfectly valid choice and a good option for gaming.
mileage may vary if you’re looking at cutting edge games, as driver updates can significantly boost performance in that case.
If you’re playing games in Steam, Flatpak, or any other tool that provides its own runtime, the graphics driver updates that tend to affect performance (e.g. Mesa) don’t come from your base distro.
(Unless maybe you have an Nvidia GPU and a distro that packages its proprietary drivers? I’m not sure in that case, since I quit Nvidia years ago.)
+1 for Pop!_OS
Using it (as my first real use of Linux) a few months now, and I have yet to find a game that doesn’t work.
Turned away from mint/Ubuntu because they definitely pre installed more. There are almost no included installs that I don’t use on Pop, very clean.
It’s also a frequently updated “stable” release- it gets kernel/driver/more updates every 2 weeks or so. They should really add the update# to the iso, because “22.04” alone makes it sound old.
I have 3 running Pop, soon to be 4. ( Try to switch kids over)
debian is good as is, without flat/snap/fart things. If you are used to it then stick with it and you’ll be happy and productive in everything you do, backed by a solid maintained os release process.
debians probably fine, but +1 for Nobara. been using it for a few months, not a single complaint. they’re even switching to KDE by default in nobara 39, which just released a few days ago
Nobara is at the top of Linux gaming. I used it for half a year or so. But I want to use the aur and hyprland so I will stay on arch
What AUR packages do you use?
So heres a list of all aur packages I currently have installed. But there are also may packages in the arch repos that arent at all awaylible in fedora ex. spotifyd. Tbh I was supprised how many packages are avalible for fedora nowdays
- appimagelauncher | disturebuted rpm from github
- cava | O
- eww-wayland | O
- freetube-bin | disturebuted rpm from github
- hyprshot | O
- librewolf-bin | third party repo
- mangohud-git | Ø
- networkmanager-dmenu-git | O
- nwg-look-bin | O
- opentabletdriver | disturebuted rpm from github
- powerstat | third party repo
- prismlauncher-git | third party repo
- rofi-bluetooth-git | O
- rofi-lbonn-wayland-git | Ø
- spotify-tui | third party repo
- spotifywm-git | O
- sway-audio-idle-inhibit-git | O
- swaylock-effects-git | O
- swaync | O
- swayosd-git | Ø
- swww | O
- ungoogled-chromium-bin | O
- vkbasalt | Ø
- vscodium-bin | third party repo
- wlsunset Ø
- wttr | O
- xpadneo-dkms | O
- xwaylandvideobridge-bin | Ø
Oh shit im still running GNOME 2 on Nobara 38, do I need to do a fresh reinstall?
I doubt you’ll miss out on anything from using Debian Linux is Linux but I will shill fedora. Love that distro
Nobara personally is just right for me it’s kernel and drivers are alway up to date configured asnd patched for gaming. Even if there is bugs with some package for example they ship with patches applied it is just so convenient. I think learning dnf is well worth it and even if there is some debian only app that you want to install there is alwayd distrobox
DNF as a package manager isn’t that hard either, and it’s never given me any troubles.
yep with fedora 39/Nobara 39’s dnf 5 it is pretty fast too
I would recommend fedora. It has more recent packages than debian and it’s also quite stable and easy to maintain
Nothing wrong with Debian but if this is a gaming PC, why not use a gaming OS?
I use Chimera
It’s a gaming PC but I will use it for other things as well. I don’t want to complicate other tasks because I’ve chosen a really specific OS for gaming, if that makes sense.
It shouldn’t. A gaming focused OS will just come with all the necessary software and configurations for gaming, and not much else.
Chimera also adds a lot of the cool functionality from SteamOS like the in-game configuration options, Gamescope, and launching directly into the Steam Big Picture mode on boot so you don’t need a keyboard or mouse.
This makes it sound like Big Picture is preferred.
Surely I’m not alone in my dislike for it, right?
Right???
It depends on what you want to do. In my case, my PC lives in the living room and runs on the TV like a console.
Unfortunately, unlike a console, I have to walk over and hit the power button and then switch the input (because for some reason GPUs still don’t support HDMI-CEC) but after that, at no time do I need a keyboard or mouse for anything. Just power it up, sit down, and start gaming.
Right.
If you’re interested in using Debian directly, @c10l@lemmy.world put out a great post on this! It worked absolutely flawlessly for me, it goes over getting things like a newer version of Mesa, newer (or alternative) kernels if that is your thing, along with some extra firmware for AMD cards that aren’t present in Debian’s packaging yet.
Even just regular Debian is fine, and you can easily install the Flatpak version of Steam if all you want is a newer version of Mesa.
Honestly, I don’t think you are going to take that much time to get used to fedora based distros since in my experience the only thing that ended up changing was the name of the package manager and the faster updates.
I would recommend that you use more up to date distros since gaming in Linux has been having fast-paced performance updates and with the new proton stuff which is relatively new and is only to get more patches because valve is investing on it. So picking up fedora might be a good choice since its more up to date and it isn’t that different to debian compared to more minimal/advanced distros such as arch and void (but being more advanced as a lot of percs that simpler distros don’t have).
I would second up to date distros for the same reasons. I think the WINE guys suggested as much. I’d personally go OpenSuse as it’s rolling, up to date, solid and great for KDE.
I’ve been happiest with arch, then later manjaro since I didn’t have to build it but it’s still arch.
There’s a lot more software for it with access to AUR. Personally I find it works well for me and I’ve been using arch and arch-based since 2015.
In case it wasn’t clear, I use arch btw.
Manjaro is trash just use Arch
Hard to take the comment seriously when there’s no reasoning behind it lol. Working fine for me for a few years now.
Eh nothing too alarming. At the time I installed it arch was still requiring a full build from scratch without a Gui installer. I’d definitely go back when I reinstall next time.
If you’re going to be gaming a lot, I can vouch that Nobara is indeed really good. Debian is a solid option but it like the other commenter says, it gets packages a bit later than other distros. This can be annoying since you’ll have to go out of your way to install the newest drivers or app that you need.
The bigger reason to use Nobara though is that it comes pre-installed with many patches (some kernel patches too) that would be a total pain to do yourself on Debian. You can see a list of patches on the official site and scroll down.
Here’s the thing: some distros are aimed at gamers and have some useful gaming stuff in their default setup. But at the end of the day, if you’re comfortable installing stuff on your own, you can game on any Linux distro. It frankly doesn’t matter.
So, yes, if you want to game on Debian because you can avoid bloat, by all means do it.
The thing with Linux is you shouldn’t be afraid of distro hopping. Just try any distro you want for a few days, and if you don’t like it, move on to another one. Repeat until you find the distro you like the most. You can grab a new SSD and swap your system partition to try the new distro of you don’t want to format your current system partition.
Put your home directory on its own partition, and you can usually even preserve files between distros.
It’ll probably be fine, although I’d personally pick some rolling-release distro for better performance.
In any case, besides the release model I’m pretty sure a distribution you use doesn’t matter that much. Usually every somewhat popular distro has the same few packages you need for games to work (32-bit libs, wine, steam, whatever).
