EndeavourOS is the closest to vanilla arch, so i’d recommend that. There’s no good distro for gaming, as long as the packages are up to date (so no debian) it’s perfectly fine.
Debian has all the packages one needs for gaming, sufficiently updated to run games just as well as the other distros. It also has a better track record of not breaking, compared to rolling distros like Arch. Please stop spreading misconceptions.
Debian has all the updated packages one needs for gaming just as well as the other distros.
Yes and no, but I agree with the overall sentiment. Debian is entirely fine for gaming.
Bazzite
Haven’t used it myself, but I wanted to recommend it too. I’ve heard it’s basically SteamOS for anything that isn’t a Steam Deck.
Not only that. It can either be an almost 1:1 replacement for SteamOS (if you choose the
-deckvariant), or just a normal desktop distro with a lot of gaming optimizations, like the fsync-kernel, gamescope, hardware enablement, and quite a lot of QoL improvements.It’s basically a “Download the iso and begin gaming in 30 minutes”-distro.
It also ships some additional software that is optional, but quite neat. For example, I discovered
LACTthrough it, which made over a year of GPU humming gone by allowing me to set fan curves.For some diehard Arch users, it might be “bloated”, but I find it just right. I never had the feeling that the included tools are useless, and those that might be (e.g. Discord, OBS, etc.) are only installed when you tick the checkbox in the installer.
Not if you play rocket league lol. Bazzite has an inexplicable bug where rocket league specifically only uses 40% of your GPU and 25% CPU regardless of any graphics settings or launch options. With occasional drops to 7-10fps.
Bazzite. I’ll now accept my ban from the moderators.
Hannah Montana Linux
Ah, a connoisseur.
EndeavourOS is what got me to daily drive Linux finally.
The installation is easy, it’s got sane defaults and pre-installs most common dependencies.
I’d give Nobara a try. I’ve been using it for about 2 years and it’s been pretty seamless. Already comes with a bunch of Linux gaming related software, like Steam, Lutris, Proton-up, etc.
It also has a bunch of gaming performance patches automatically installed.
If you’re not technically inclined at all and want a console style experience, Bazzite is probably your best bet.
All that said, most mainstream distros will give you a fine gaming experience, you just might have to do some manual fiddling and installing yourself depending on the distro and the games you’re playing.
A distro that comes with the latest video drivers.
Whatever works best for you. No distro is fundamentally better suited for gaming than others.
Imo. You shouldn’t worry about “which distro is best for gaming” since they are all the same under the hood (mostly). There are no real performance benefits with different distros, so just pick one that feels and looks the best for you. I’ve heard that PopOS seems to be quite friendly for newcomers so it should be a good place to start exploring.
Pop_OS?
Edit: Apprently the anwer is “no”.
So far so good for me. I switched last week after dual booting Pop OS and Windows 10 for a few months. I used to use Mac OS X back in college and missed the interface, so Pop OS’s implementation of GNOME felt good.
As for OP’s question, someone else with more knowledge can answer if a specific distro has the best drivers/compatibility with games. Pop OS comes with NVIDIA drivers which works for me.
I also wanted a full desktop OS. Some of the distros will focus on being a controller-friendly frontend for gaming rather than a desktop OS.
It might be helpful to try something like Ventoy for any distros that support a live CD. You won’t be able to fully test gaming performance, but Ventoy lets you try multiple distros on one disk.
Other questions for OP: What type of GPU are you using? What is your current OS?
Isn’t Pop OS super outdated right now, tho?
Yes, unfortunately.
:V
I had no idea, what’s the deal there?
I think they’re working on their new Cosmic desktop. It looks promising but it’s delaying the update of the OS.
I guess I’ll hold on then…
Archlinux
I use Nobara and I recoomend it to all my friends (the ones who like linux anyway).
while its true that really no linux distro will have any significant better game performance than another, Nobara stands out to me because its made by GloriousEggroll (the same guy who makes the protonGE patches for steam) for his dad so that his dad can have a simple no-fuss gaming computer they can use to game together.
the specific things I like about it are how it helps you get the correct graphics drivers and game/controller fixups at installation, and comes with steam preinstalled. I also like how the Nobara software updater also handles flatpaks as well as regular packages, its my one stop graphical (or CLI) shop for downloading or updating any new programs.
I also like its themes and that its based on Fedora.
Another vote for Nobara.
Everything is packed in and ready to go. No having to install extra shit, no having to download and compile shit. Its just all there, and it works.
And has been not only the smoothest, easiest experience with linux gaming that I’ve had… but just in general the everyday usability is smooth, easy and great too.
My only significant complaint is that all the tech help is on a discord. Which means its not indexable, archivable, or searchable via your search engine of choice… so if you don’t have discord, or if the discord goes away… So does all the knowledge base and help. but thats a complaint I have about discord in general.
I have good experiences with both bazzite and nobara.
Bazzite is an immutable OS though. So installing additional packages requires you layering them on top. It works differently than the traditional OS. Though if you just use it for gaming and browsing you’ll likely never notice the difference.
Garuda also markets itself as a mainly gaming distro. I don’t have any real experience with that. I tried it, but it didn’t feel like it was for me.
I’ve happily used the former two though.
if I get off my lazy but I want to mess around with appimage and bazzite.
Bazzite if you want ezpz. CachyOS if you like tinkering, learning, and want to squeeze out that last bit of a peformance boost.
