Linux distro for gaming
Linux distro for gaming
I know this has probably been asked before but I am currently using Arch and wondering if my choice is the best for gaming. What are the thoughts from the community? I have an AMD Ryzen 7 processor with 64 gigs of RAM and a decent AMD GPU. Gaming seems to be okay on Arch but I am wondering if I've overlooked something better. Thank you in advance.
I'm in the "if it ain't broke" camp.
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.
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.
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 is the same on all the major distros, so choose one that makes you happy, not one that some evangelist claims is best for gaming. Even Debian Stable, contrary to the undeserved bashing it often gets by a certain kind of gamer, is excellent for gaming in most cases.
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.
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.
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.
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’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 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
I am currently using Arch
Stick to it.
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