this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Linux Gaming
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Most of it is relating to getting the stability benefits of Debian Stable while keeping your system modern like Sid (not necessarily just for gaming). Keep in mind that Sid is inherently volatile/unstable and a lot more prone to breakage, so I wouldn't recommend going that route unless you feel you have a real usecase, as you might find yourself needing to manually fix problems every so often on a Sid install. For a typical gaming workload I don't feel like Sid is required, and with just a couple tweaks (Flatpak Steam/Lutris + newer kernel version mainly) you can get Stable to perform the same role cleanly. You can always upgrade into Sid later if you feel like you really can't handle Stable's older native packages.
Also, idk if it was explicit enough but the point of the original post is that yes, Debian is great for gaming, even with Stable. I would base your distro decision on literally any factor besides gaming, because if Debian Stable can do it then every distro can do it. You mentioned annoyance with Red Hat in your original post, so a strong selling point of Debian is that it's a community distro. Arch Linux is also a great community distro that's bleeding edge like Debian Sid.
Debian is generally easy to use but it's still a tiny bit more DIY than most popular distros - if you find Debian too annoying to set up you can always try Linux Mint/Linux Mint Debian Edition, which is a very reputable Debian-based distro.
Very valid points. Since the RedHat announcement, I’ve migrated all my home servers to Debian so I thought “why not switch over my gaming rig as well”. As I thought about which district to use I came to the realization that I don’t want another situation where I’m using a distro based on another distro and that other distro decides to do something that affects the distro I’m using and blah blah. So then that leaves me with using the base (Debian, Arch, etc.) to avoid what I just mentioned.
I’ve been using Linux for quite some time so I can usually handle some break/fix. I haven’t tried Linux Mint yet but again, I rather just go straight to the base and go from there.
Still want to read your post tho. I’ve got Sid setup and ready to go and I do want to see how much breakage it introduces as I continue to use it. If it’s a bit too much, I’ll give stable a try.
Yeah this is generally where I'm at as well. There's no point tying yourself indefinitely to a downstream distro/maintainer because they configured some stuff that takes 1-3 hours to do yourself. Downstream distros may also break some stuff or configure things poorly, so it's just better to get it from upstream and follow their guidance.
Linux Mint gets a special mention even though it's derivative, just because it's a solid and reputable distro with a long history of being sane and easy to use. If I'm recommending Linux to a new person they always get Linux Mint as an answer.
Also a very valid point!