I'm in the "if it ain't broke" camp.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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That much said. Would performance improve if I switched to KDE Plasma and Wayland?
That I can't help with. I've used Plasma since i started with Arch, and I haven't made the jump to Wayland yet.
Hey that's cool. I am still thinking of making the change to KDE. I really like the look of Plasma.
There is a certain group of people who insist that only the distros with the latest packages are good for gaming. In most cases, they're wrong.
Unless you have a very new GPU (released less than a year ago), your games are not likely to get any benefit from the latest kernel.
Unless your games require the very latest Vulkan features and you run them without Steam, Flatpak, or any other platform that provides its own Mesa, you're not likely to get any benefit from a distro providing the latest version of it.
Practically everything else that games need is comparable across all the major distros, so choose one that makes you happy, not one that some shill claims is best for gaming. Even Debian Stable, contrary to the undeserved bashing it often gets by a certain kind of gamer, is generally excellent for gaming.
It's been a while since I used Arch, but it was smooth sailing while I did. In general, gaming means Steam, and Steam ships with its own runtime so it is not really impacted by whatever library versions are packaged by the distro. Gaming is a very common use case. You'd have to pick a pretty obscure one to find something where it isn't tested and somewhat streamlined.
Thank you your answer. I mean there is something to be said for, "If it ain't broke don't fix it." My setup is not broken. I can play my favorite Steam/Proton games without issue. So maybe I am just over-thinking it.
If you're bored, then check out some custom kernels, like Xanmod or Liquorix.
There's also this Linux gaming guide which has some good hints and tweaks you might've missed - do be warned though that it is a rabbit hole - and always verify whether the tweak you're applying is relevant to you and still current/needed!
Yeah, Steam is pretty much the reason why Linux is more viable for gaming now.
Nobara. It's Fedora modified and tweaked for gaming.
Hopped around when starting out, and finally landed on Nobara about a year ago.
I use the KDE version, and I love it. Ticks all my personal boxes.
All distros are capable of providing a decent gaming experience -- no distro has a feature that makes it "stand out" compared to other distros. But if all you want is to "boot and game", then Nobara, Garuda, ZorinOS or Linux Mint are your best bet.
Does it run the games you want to play? Don't fix what isn't broken.
Your setup sounds exactly like mine and I couldn't be happier with AMD and Endeavor.
If you can live with the debian side of things - pop_os is simple, clean, and works out of the box for gaming. If not, I had a good time on Nobara. I've never journeyed further into Arch than Manjaro which I didn't like much - so I can't make direct comparisons for you
I could live with the Debian side of things but I would probably prefer Linux Mint Debian Edition to pop_is. Would this be okay?
Not for gaming. The problem with Mint, and most Ubuntu/Debian based distros, is they run ancient packages - especially the kernel, the graphics stack (mesa) etc. Sure, you could install a custom kernel, sure you could install a PPA with updated drivers etc, but then you'd make a mess out of your system, which will cause your updates and upgrades to break.
For gaming, you always want to be on the latest stack (there are exceptions ofc in case of regressions), since the Linux world is pretty fast moving, and especially these days, lots of fixes have been coming in fast for Wine/Proton/AMD, thanks to Valve and the Steam Deck, and all the users and devs invested in it who now see Linux as a viable platform for gaming. Never before in the Linux world have we seen so much development and advancements, and it's all fueled by the Steam Deck (and AMD's opensource efforts).
Pop, is also based on Ubuntu, so it suffers from much of the same issues that other Ubuntu based distros face, so it's not the best choice for gaming.
So you'd be better off sticking with Arch (if you like to DIY and optimize stuff on your own), but Nobara is a pretty solid choice when it comes to gaming, because it's optimized for gaming out of the box - has a custom kernel with patches gamers would appreciate, patched Discord for stuff like screensharing, has Proton-GE, Steam, drivers, codecs etc all ready to go. In fact, Nobara is made by the same person who makes Proton-GE (ie GloriousEggroll), so you know that this is a legit distro for gaming that's actually made by someone who knows their stuff, and is a gamer themselves.
Just looked up Nobara. I was happy to see it's a flavor or spin of Fedora. I've used Fedora more than any other distro.
LMDE5 is pretty old at this point. LMDE6 is planned fairly soon though and that would be much better given easier access to drivers.
I’ve heard Nobara is pretty good, it’s basically fedora but with a bunch of gaming centered tweaks put in it. also to add some credibility to it, its made by the guy behind Proton and Wine GE.
I'm actually going to try Nobara one day when I'm bored and don't have any place to be. This is mainly because it seems to promise that Xbox One wireless controllers work with it out of the box. On Fedora 38 I'm having a hard time and I actually prefer this controller. I have had to use a different one because I still haven't figured out what I'm missing. *edit: just read the web site for Nobara and saw it includes driver support for Lenovo Legion computers! I'm totally doing this tomorrow on a lazy Sunday!
i’d like to know how it goes! i’ve never used it personally, but i’ve heard good things. best of luck!
Well, I actually got going on installing it last night and I've been using it for several hours now. Xpadneo comes with the distro, but for me it's been a bust, even after troubleshooting, just like what happened to me on Fedora, so no xbox controller over bluetooth. However, the other driver that comes with the kernel (xow) allows me to use it with a USB cable, which I couldn't do on Fedora. So, I'm sticking with Nobara and I will just figure out the bluetooth problem or buy a dongle and see if that works. As for the rest, it is the best and easiest linux installation I have ever used and I have been using linux since 1999. The installer connects to wifi and updates the system as it's installing. On first startup you get a welcome screen telling you what to do next (this, for me, included installing the NVIDIA drivers). Installing NVIDIA drivers for me was basically just clicking "OK" and letting it do its thing, something I've never seen before. All the games I've tried work great and the installer installs Steam and Lutris automatically. All the features of my laptop work out of the box, including battery conservation mode (specific to Lenovo). Only caveat: read the website carefully and make sure your system can handle Nobara because, contrary to other Linux distros, this one does not support older NVIDIA cards. If your card can handle the newest NVIDIA driver, then that's good. If not, you won't get much out of installing it. Another thing: you can use flatpak on Nobara, but the web site specifically tells you that you should not use flatpak for key packages: steam, lutris, gamescope, mangohud, obs-studio, blender. The Nobara repositories are fully integrated in the software store so for the rest you can pick and choose where you want your other software to come from. I'm impressed and I'm sticking with this distro. I love it.
Pop os if you want stability, due to its ubuntu base.
For Arch based ones, common examples would be ChimeraOS (full console like experience), or Garuda OS (arch with a skin and preinstalled apps that function like GFE/AMD Software have, like instant replay and such)
I enjoy garuda. It’s absolutely better than ubuntu 6 years ago (my previous linux experience)
I am currently using Arch
Stick to it.
I think the desktop is the question more so than the distro.
I like GNOME desktop for gaming so I would use Ubuntu or Manjaro for distros for example