1y ago

Recommended linux variant for gaming.

I've been using Ubuntu as my daily driver for a good few years now. Unfortunately I don't like the direction they seem to be heading.

I've also just ordered a new computer, so it seems like the best time to change over. While I'm sure it will start a heated debate, what variant would people recommend?

I'm not after a bleeding edge, do it all yourself OS it will be my daily driver, so don't want to have to get elbow deep in configs every 5 minutes. My default would be to go back to Debian. However, I know the steam deck is arch based. With steam developing proton so hard, is it worth the additional learning curve to change to arch, or something else?

113 comments

If you like Ubuntu but don't like the direction it's going, you can try Mint. It's Ubuntu, but with the bad decisions reversed. Or use LMDE, which is Mint but Debian based.
- I’ll +1 for LMDE here as well.
  
  Yep. LMDE, add the kisak-mesa PPA and use Steam Flatpak and you're off to the races
- I just run Ubuntu on an old Mac for email and browsing.
  Just curious, what are these bad directions?
  
  Some people like to rag onto Canonicals bad decisions. These include:
  Putting ads in the terminal
  Use of Affiliate links in the DE
  The forceful use of Snap
  The proprietary Snap infrastructure
  The feeling of being abandoned, in favour of the server market (lack of desktop innovation)
  Lens search, that allows company (eg: Amazon) tracking.
  Anti-privacy settings enabled, by default.

It doesn't really matter what distro you go with, just don't go with something like Debian Stable because of how old their packages are. You don't need a rolling release system, but you also don't want something too old because of performance reasons.
- If you are using flatpacks it would reduce the dependency on out of date system packages.
  
  That's fair.
- Please stop spreading falsehoods.
  
  Have you ever tested Debian stable vs Debian sid? You'll notice a clear performance difference. Why? Because Debian Stable has older packages that don't include performance related patches found in the newer ones. This is basic knowledge.
  \ Newer = more feature & performance related patches at the cost of stability.
  \ Older = Stability & downstreamed security patches. This is how releases cycles work.
  \ Just look at it in terms of kernel version.
  \ Debian Stable by default is at what? Kernel 6.1.0 now?
  \ Arch is at kernel 6.6.3.
  \ If you follow the Linux Kernel news you'd know that there's pretty huge optimizations between these, some of which directly impact gaming on wine & proton.
  \ Then there's Mesa :
  \ Debian Stable, Mesa 22.3.6
  \ Arch Linux, Mesa 23.2.1
  \ Huge performance patches between these.

I game on Arch, works great. Flatpak Steam, X11. 👍
- Why Flatpak over the multilib one? Would it be easy to switch to Flatpak Steam?
  
  I dunno, just felt better not enabling a whole repo just for one app, so I went with the flatpak version.
  Super easy, just install it and go. Just remember to also install the Proton flatpak package in order to enable running Windows games on Linux. And to enable it in the Steam settings. I don't think there's much else to it other than standard flatpak stuff, like things don't work too great if the system GPU driver version is out of sync with the flatpak one. So if you upgrade one make sure to upgrade the other, etc.
  Give it a whirl if you like, and if you bump into issues I might be able to help. We'll see. 😅

Pop OS works great for me. It's Ubuntu minus snaps and imo some of the rough edges
- Plus it can support Nvidia out of the box.
  
  Good point. I had a lot of trouble with my Nvidia card before switching to pop os. I ended up switching to AMD anyhow, but the reason I even landed on pop os was this fact.

I've been using Nobara for some time now, and I've been successfully able to play on Nvidia & Wayland, so that's quite a feat in itself. Also, everything is setup at install time, so you don't have to setup many things yourself.
- Are you not playing Windows games via wine/proton?
  This issue is what stops me from switching to Wayland on my GTX 1080. It basically makes games unplayable because the frames get displayed out of order
  
  This bug was the nail in the coffin on Nvidia for me and I finally picked up a 6700 XT to replace my 2080 this month...
  But, when I was on my 2080 trying out Wayland, I of course always noticed this bug on actual apps themselves (such as my IDE...) but it didn't always manifest in games, at least not till 545 came out.
  Not sure why, since of course most games are run through XWayland. Perhaps they're in a similar situation and I'd be curious if they opened something like Discord, if they saw it there.
  
  I am a nobara user aswell, never encountered or heard about this issue

Nobara is specifically customized for gaming, created by Glorious Eggroll (from Proton-GE) himself, with specific packages which he tells you not to install as flatpak so you don't lose the optimizations he made.
- What kind of optimizations?
  
  Here it lists a bunch.

Debian is exactly pike Ubuntu, with all bullshit ~~removed~~ never added

Endevour os for me. No issues on kde nvidia and wayland, pretty straightforward installation. If I were you I'd do some distro hopping in the new PC. I'd try one of those ublue images, then nobara then endevour and see what you prefer.
- Big second for EndeavourOS. I loved Linux mint early in my distro adventures, but I had issues, sometimes steam wouldn’t launch. Sometimes my secondary monitor would lag out every minute or so. So I tried nobara, which was okay, but never fell in love with it.
  Enter EndeavourOS. In over six months I’ve had one instance of a broken package hampering my experience. I keep a backup of important files on an external drive, so I just nuked it and reinstalled. I also use BTRFS and timeshift-autosnap, so if a package does create issues, now I can just boot to an older snapshot from grub and wait to update that package until the issue has cleared up.
  
  In the same vein of an "easier" Arch install, maybe also look @ CachyOS.
- Gaming on Wayland with Nvidia is straight up not enjoyable for games running through XWayland due to this bug. This affects all games running with Proton/Wine, Steam, Discord, Firefox without MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 environment variable and many more
  
  Personally I haven't had that issue. I had lots of issues with latest 545 but downgraded to 535 and it's all good so far.
- Endeavor is fine. But when it came to performance I had a number of issues. By default it put my i7 into power save. One could use core control to put it back into on demand or something more reasonable after every boot. Or go in and change the configs manually which I did. But that's still beyond people in general. Also for whatever reason if I had more than one app actively using the GPU. Say blender open using GPU, accelerated cycles etc. And another window open doing something with OpenGL and Vulcan. I would get the whole system hanging under x11. I'd have to drop to the terminal. And kill all of it off and restart it again. And not just isolated. It was heavily repeatable.
  I ended up giving Garuda a try. CPU scheduler is much more same out of the box. Graphics card support under x11 and Wayland has been rock solid as well.
  They're both arch. And it is all personal anecdotes on isolated systems. So make of it what you will. I like both systems though and actually have computers running both
  
  Yeah, I also gave garuda a try but it was too messy for my taste, like I had to spend time un-costumizing kde because I just wanted vanilla plasma.

Fedora Atomic, especially Bazzite.
Bazzite is a project of uBlue, which is Fedora Silverblue with a lot of gaming stuff on top, similar to Nobara or the tweaks on the Steam Deck.
It has the same big advantage of every other immutable distro, that you don't have to manage your system yourself. It updates without you noticing, will never break, you can easily roll back if something doesn't work as intended, and so on.
The cool thing is, that you can just rebase to another atomic variant if you don't like it, or when you realize, that every gaming distro is just as capable for gaming as every other conventional distro too.

I'm currently struggling with Nobara and the growing amount of bugs with each new kernel update.
Otherwise I would have recommended that one, since it offers some great convenient features, like a graphical management tool for all sorts of Wine versions, which can be installed in parallel. The kernel supports fsync and is tuned for low latency. Game performance is decent and I also got all my games and launchers (native Linux and also Wine) working.
For the audio part, there is pipewire, which works like a charm. There is also a compatible flatpack for DSP/equalizer which I couldn't find it on Ubuntu's snap store: JamesDSP. Now, after some tuning, my rather flat-sounding headphones sound do super boomy.
- What are the bugs thta you have been experiencing on nobara
  
  It started with conflicts between the preinstalled gnome extensions - namely the desktop icons broke other extensions, like Pop!_shell for window tiling. So I had to disable desktop icons.
  My latest installed kernel (6.5.11) breaks screen detection - The resolution is stuck at 1024x768.
  My PC gets stuck (probably on self test) after reboot or switching it on, after Nobara has shut down. Solution: Pull the power plug, wait 10 seconds, reconnect and turn it on.
  I expect more to break with the next updates.

I use Arch + Gnome with VRR patches on my main PC.
It find it actually easier to use than e.g. fedora or ubuntu due to better documentation and way more available packages in the repos... With many, many more packages being in AUR!
By installing all the stuff commonly found on other distros (and which many consider bloat), you'll get basically the same thing as, well, any other distro. I have all the "bloat" like NetworkManager, Gnome, etc. which is known to work together very well and which tries to be smart and auto-configure a lot of stuff. Bloat it may be, but I am lazy
Personally, I think it's better to stick to upstream distros whenever possible. For example Nobra, which is being recommended in this thread quite a lot, is maintained by a single person. In reality, it's not much more than regular Fedora with a couple of tweaks and optimizations. Vast majority of those one could do themselves on the upstream distro and avoid being dependent that one person. It is a single point of failure. after all.
- Honestly Arch (and the more pure Arch derivatives like Endeavour) is fantastic as long as things don't break, and I've never had anything break that wasn't more complicated than updating my mirror list or forcibly uninstalling a conflicting package. There's always the potential for something more serious to go wrong, but having the Arch wiki is such a fantastic resource.

Get the Garuda gaming edition and the only real learning curve is apt vs pacman.
- +1 for that. It's a very friendly distro from what I've experienced
- I'm currently experimenting with Garuda gnome. Pacman is frustrating for me. Games run incredibly smooth using proton I'm constantly amazed it's this good now. I keep waiting for something to break though.
  
  Using Garuda for 6 months now. No issues.

Fedora or Nobara if you're lazy are a good option. If an immutable variant appeals, I have a good time on Kinoite. There is a gaming centric ublue version now too IIRC

Mint is based on Ubuntu, removing corporate shinanigans.

Realistically just use what you prefer. The differences between distros, even when it comes to performance, are very small when it comes to gaming. The most important things IMO are good Wayland support, stability, and consistent updates.

Personally, I really like Garuda Linux and CachyOS for Gaming. You can also check out ChimeraOS or uBlue Bazzite if you want something closer to the Steam Deck.
Linux Mint Debian Edition and Fedora are some general recommendations of mine. Nobara is a fork of Fedora optimized for Gaming.

I moved from Kubuntu to Endeavor (Arch-based) and was also afraid of bleeding edge stuff breaking all the time. I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised by how stable it is. The only couple issues I had was 1 bad kernel version and vmware update. I learned how to roll back and avoid upgrading these 2 packages for a couple weeks until the new versions of both fixed everything. I was also reluctant to learn a new package manager since I already know apt, but yay is arguably easier to use than apt. My gaming has been great, no issues.

I always recommend Linux Mint Debian edition. I don't use it, but I've had friends who've had good luck with it. Straight Debian is a great choice as well. If packages aren't new enough, you can always use testing and keep a really stable experience.
It honestly doesn't matter much which you pick unless you're using the absolute latest hardware or something. I personally use OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, which has worked really well for me. I don't recommend it because there just isn't as much help available online specific to the OS, so I tend to recommend more mainstream distros. I used Arch for a few years before I switched, and Tumbleweed feels pretty much the same, but with less fiddling.
Anyway, regardless of what you pick, feel free to come back and ask questions. Most problems have similar solutions regardless of distro because Linux is Linux, so please don't hesitate to ask.

I think PopOS is the best option if u have Nvidia graphics card

Garuda or Chimera, depending on what you want, exactly.

I second Nobara, but IMO get the KDE edition of it if you're used to Windows. You'll feel much more at home.
- You could've at least read his post first?
  
  What about it? OP is asking for a distro recommendation.

There is no such thing as a "gaming distro" -- all GNU/Linux distros are equally good for gaming and any other task.
- I kinda hate this take flying around constantly. There is such a thing as a gaming distro: one that has sane defaults for gaming, has the important things pre-installed like Feral GameMode, ProtonUp and the Nvidia drivers, etc. Also having an up-to-date package manager for these essentials is vital.
  Yeah, technically all distros are very similar, but most people asking for recommendations specifically want something that just works for their task, not everyone can fiddle with packages and DEs to get what they want.
  
  Distro with preinstalled packages =/= distro with exclusive features. The same packages available on "gaming distros" are available on any other "non-gaming" distro as well.
- There absolutely is.
  https://www.techradar.com/news/best-linux-distro-gaming
  You can game on any distro but some come with gaming focussed presets and software.
  
  Opinions =/= facts. And the fact that every GNU/Linux distro is equally good for gaming and everything else stands true.
  Why? Because all GNU/Linux distros are GNU/Linux at heart -- and can be (equally) customized and improved.
  Or, in other words -- "Because it's not Windows lmao".
- Wrong... Check nobara.
  
  Resorting to (pure) denials won't change facts neither prove me wrong -- all GNU/Linux distros are equally good and can be tweaked/improved equally -- there are nothing that makes em stand out.

Go with nobara.

I have EndeavourOS, but with the nature of Bleeding Edge packages, things can break, so setup automatic snapshots with btrfs (you want this for your data anyways).
Bleeding Edge packages have the advantage of you getting the latest features, patches and improvements, which is required for some gaming cases.

I use tumbleweed, but I had a strange issue with the flatpak version of heroic launcher. I ran a benchmark of cyberpunk 2077 with the flatpak heroic, and was averaging 100 fps. I had nixos installed on a separate hard drive and that benchmark was 160 fps. I thought there was an issue with opensuse, but I installed the flatpak version of heroic on nixos and also got 100 fps. So I installed the regular version on tumbleweed and have 160 fps. I would keep that in mind when looking at programs to launch games, whether it's wine, bottles, heroic, lutris, etc

That valve uses Arch is irrelevant in all honesty. Proton is not a Valve product, Valve is merely one of its users and contributors, and it is not wedded to one distro..Similarly Valves own Steam packages are not distro specifi, and there are other gaming platforms to consider which also benefit from Proton (for example you can get Gog windows games working in Linux too quite easily), as well as all the Retro gaming options.
Pick a distro you personally like. I use Mint as I like the cinnamon desktop interface and the distro is pretty much good to go from fresh install. I use Mint both as a dual install with Windows on my PC and also within VMs in Windows. I still spend a lot of time using Windows because of specific games compatibility and work related apps.
EndeavourOS seems a good choice if you do want to go the Arch route but it's only something I've played with in a VM.
If you want something gaming specific then Draugar seems like a good choice - it apparently uses Ubuntu LTS but with the mainline Kernel updates optimised for gaming. But I have no personal experience with the distro.
I also see a lot of people seem to like Pop!OS, but again no personal experience.
I've had no issues with Mint on my setup.
- Proton is most certainly a mission critical Valve product. But, yeah, use whatever. I swear by Fedora.
  
  Exactly. Proton is Valve's name for their WINE-based product. It's basically WINE with some patches to work with the Valve ecosystem.
  It's also largely community driven, but that didn't make it not a Valve product, Valve still controls what goes in and what doesn't after all (which is why projects like Glorious Eggroll's proton builds are so prevalent, sometimes you want to try stuff Valve hasn't approved yet).
- Proton is developed by valve, with help from the company behind wine.

Anyone that has video drivers and flatpak should work in your case. If you dislike Ubuntu and don't like the direction, usually poops and mint are the ones recommended.

Garuda is amazing

Fedora. Cutting edge but works out of box. Very little change in use compared to Ubuntu.
Debian is good but very stable so no guarantee for some package updates which is useful for gaming and maybe proton.
On a related note, this is pretty useful: https://davidotek.github.io/protonup-qt/

Debian with KDE Plasma desktop, it's unbeatable.

I use Debian with steam installed via flatpak

Not much a of a definitive answer here imo. There's a lot of distros that fit this criteria, but I would definitely stay away from Debian due to the age of the packages. As said, you don't have to go with a rolling distro but at least look for those who keep at least their gaming related packages fairly updated.
The tough part about Arch & similar rolling distros is that they can and will break when you update something, and then you have to know how to fix it. I used Manjaro & EndeavourOS for quite a while. Manjaro was actually stable for me, but when I wanted to reinstall after a couple years to switch to btrfs I thought I try EndeavourOS, due to the criticism towards Manjaro. Unfortunately it didn't even took a year for it to break and now I'm on Nobara, which is okay but also has many issues that annoy me. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is another often mentioned one, which is rolling but with a delay too, but when I tried it out (before installing Nobara) it was extremely hard to install as the installer was buggy and when it finally was installed it was extremely broken to the point where I couldn't even change my resolution properly.

Ymmv but since I dabble a bit with audio, I went with Ubuntu Studio. It has a real time kernel, and has been fantastic for gaming.

113 comments