Linux gamers, what distro are you currently on?

I’m currently on Win11 but I’m getting that familiar Linux itch and want to dual boot a while again. I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it’s so big and well supported by most things.

I’ve run Arch in the past but I’ve gotten too old and lazy for that if I’d be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though… and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.

Not sure what I’d try out first this time so I figured I’d get some inspiration from you guys!

t3rmit3,

I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it’s so big and well supported by most things. I’ve run Arch in the past but I’ve gotten too old and lazy for that if I’d be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though… and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.

Are you me? Did you also use BlackArch for a while, and still use Rainmeter? :P

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Ubuntu does make things easier.

I had everything set up the way I wanted it in Ubuntu the other day… but something still itched a bit so now I’m on Tumbleweed and feeling better. :D

Though Diablo 4 tends to crash after playing it for a while… not sure if I’d have the same issue in Ubuntu or not, might have to triple boot for a bit just to try it out. I really do want to stay here in chameleon land though so it would probably be better to just try to find the cause of the crashing.

I do think this is a pretty common thing among us linux geeks though, never really feeling content and just wanting to try everything. :)

Never did try BlackArch or Rainmeter though!

I’ve played around with plenty of distros though… Slackware, Redhat, Gentoo, Arch, *buntu, SuSE (before they split into openSUSE), openSUSE, Manjaro, Endeavour OS and probably a bunch more that I can’t even remember but those are probably the ones I’ve played around with the most.

ctrl,

gentoo!

i love the versatility it offers, but it’s very much so DIY. it has great documentation. anyone who considers themselves a “linux enthusiast” should try an install in a VM at some point or another, if nothing else it’s a great learning experience.

for gaming in particular: flatpak steam / lutris / bottles. it’s great because it’s completely distro agnostic. i can take the $USER/.var directory and put it on any distro with flatpak installed and it’ll just work.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

I am starting to realize how handy flatpaks can be!

I’ve been distro hopping like a madman these last couple of days and it’s gotten so much easier to get going with my games now!

danct12,

Arch Linux. Been using it since long ago and play most of my games on it.

dewritoninja,

Im running good old Ubuntu with gnome. I mostly play terraria, minecraft I and Bethesda rpgs these days so it does everything I need.

noyesster,

On my gaming desktop, I am using Fedora currently with the Awesome WM. That might change though with all the RH stuff going on. On my gaming laptop I switch between Arch and Void with Qtile on both.

1993_toyota_camry,
@1993_toyota_camry@beehaw.org avatar

I’m using Gentoo.

If I wanted a smooth no-tinkering experience, I’d use Ubuntu. Or hell, steamos.

Sneptaur,
@Sneptaur@pawb.social avatar

I use Arch with KDE. I don’t recommend Manjaro because it has historically had some serious problems, so for people who want Arch without as much hassle, I’m recommending EndeavourOS. It’s what Manjaro should be like.

nezach,

Endeavour OS (PC and Laptop) and Steam OS. Very happy with both.

GadgeteerZA,
@GadgeteerZA@beehaw.org avatar

I’m using Manjaro KDE - working well with Steam Games with Proton for must games.

nadiaraven,

I use Arch with XFCE. Yes, it took a while to get running properly, and just the other day I went to print something and realized cups hadn’t even been installed yet, so I spent 15 minutes getting my printer up and running, so I totally get that it’s not for everyone. I like it because of the detailed wiki with great tutorials and instructions on getting things working, like the one I used to get a nextcloud installation working on my computer. And I like it because of the extensive Arch User Repository, so I know I can install whatever I like. I mostly just play Stardew Valley and trackmania on it. I’ve used Manjaro before and enjoyed that too, and it comes with all the benefits of arch.

I installed Mint on my friends computer, which works totally fine, but I don’t know how it is for gaming; she definitely doesn’t game.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Arch really is a documentation project rather than a distro, their wiki tops most everything out there :)

Mummelpuffin,
@Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org avatar

Seriously, ArchWiki has taught me most of what I know about Linux.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah, that’s basically where you go if you ever have some obscure problem, it’s incredibly useful really.

bdonvr,

Fedora, KDE spin. Been working great, and I’m kinda liking DNF

Nicbudd,

Pop!_OS. It just works, it’s easy, and it makes me enjoy using my computer.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

I’m starting to want to try Pop… they seem to have quite a few fans around here!

bilboswaggings,

It is one of the simplest ones to play games on

Xenanthropy,

SourceMage! It’s a source based distro like Gentoo. I’ve been using it as my main distro for a solid 10 months now, I’m very happy with it! We have flatpak so steam works great, as well as lutris and everything else. Definitely wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking for simplicity though!

Malgas,

Definitely wouldn’t recommend it to someone looking for simplicity though!

Or short install times. Compiling KDE takes forever. Or at least it did back when I used SourceMage, years and years ago.

Xenanthropy,

Honestly, the times aren’t too bad as long as you have a recent CPU! It definitely varies though - on my main PC, compiling glibc takes about 15 minutes, on my netbook that I had a smgl install on, it took about 20 hours lol

ivereadalltheory,
@ivereadalltheory@beehaw.org avatar

Fedora but I’m about to move to NixOS Unstable or VanillaOS if it gets better NVIDIA integration.

kirstierthanthou,

I am on Vanilla OS with a NVIDIA gpu and its running pretty well.

ivereadalltheory,
@ivereadalltheory@beehaw.org avatar

Awesome. I’ve heard there are some problems with hardware acceleration.

russjr08,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

Arch Linux at the moment, though I distro hop quite a bit!

When it comes to gaming, I can’t really say I’ve found a distro that “felt” better for gaming, and I’ve been on a fair amount of them - Fedora (and Nobara), Arch, NixOS, Endeavour, pop!_OS - I haven’t noticed a difference. I didn’t measure benchmarks because at the end of the day its about what I can perceive, not what I can read from a spreadsheet.

Realistically I think the only difference I ever noticed was with pop there’s a Nvidia ISO that has the drivers already included in the live environment, so I get to skip a step post-install.

I find myself just using Flatpaks for gaming stuff (Steam, Bottles, Heroic, etc) these days since I know that I can take those on just about any distro. I’ve heard that there is some FPS loss from running games through Flatpak, but again I haven’t done any benchmarks so I can’t confirm nor deny this.

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

These days Ubuntu can install the nvidia drivers for you during the install as well if you just click the “install proprietary blabla” so you get a pretty game ready system there as well tbh so I’m starting to feel like a more gaming tweaked version of Ubuntu is a bit redundant?

That’s a surprisingly pleasing font by the way!

russjr08,
@russjr08@outpost.zeuslink.net avatar

Grr Lemmy just ate my comment, I guess I have a chance to refine my response a bit now!

Ah, thank you - it’s been a while since I used Ubuntu on my main system (Ubuntu was my foray into Linux back in the Hardy Heron days!) but now that you mention it, I do remember seeing that option when I briefly had Ubuntu installed on my old MacBook (which I then moved to Fedora to play around with before using it on my main PC). Having that option was quite nice for the broadcom wireless drivers that those Macs need for WiFi.

That’s a surprisingly pleasing font by the way!

Thanks! I came across it a couple of years ago, and I joked about it at first but it grew on me over time so I purchased (it is a paid font but there is a very similar one called Comic Mono) the font and have been using it in my IDEs and terminals since then! I wouldn’t use it everywhere of course, but for a monospace environment its really good and I can’t quite put my finger on the “why”.

Funnily enough, I’ve tried to use Comic Code on both Windows and macOS as well and there is something about the FreeType system on Linux that makes the font really excel for me. On Windows the font feels too “thin” and on macOS the font feels too “thick”. 10 years ago if you had tried to tell me that I’d enjoy the way fonts look on Linux better than the other two major platforms I would’ve fell to the floor laughing for a few minutes - I imagine its due to a combination of improvements over FreeType and displays over the years, along with me actually branching out and not just sticking with the default font that happens to be picked for me by whatever I’m using 😅

nlm,
@nlm@beehaw.org avatar

I stumbled upon Comic Mono myself a while ago and have been meaning to set it up in my IDE’s but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Might just have to though. It looks strangely easy on the eyes. Almoat relaxing somehow? Cant really putn my finger on why however.

I can agree with the fact that fonts feel different depending on your OS. I usually use Source Code Pro and I never got the feeling that it looked quite as good when I went from Linux to Windows after getting a new job.

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