In the past, I had been using Ubuntu LTS releases for my main HTPC. That original install had been upgraded many times, but actually started out as an Ubuntu spin-off called Mythbuntu. Of course since Steam on Linux was first released, Ubuntu was the most well-supported distro at the time, and still technically is (Look in Steam's .local install directory and you'll still find ubuntu12_32, ubuntu12_64 folders which are pre-packaged dependencies & libraries for steam-runtime built against Ubuntu's core libs for each architecture). It ran many games fine, and the added bonus of a distro focused on being an HTPC meant that I could use mythgame as a frontend for emulators, steam, or whatever else needed a launcher. Meanwhile, the main focus of MythTV was being an OSS DVR that supported TV capture cards, commercial skip, and transcoding.
It ran all those things well, except trancoding (no VAAPI, only VDPAU & not many codecs), up to a point when my original Nvidia GT240 card became deprecated by Nvidia's binary blob drivers. Thanks to the version-pinned 340 proprietary drivers not being well supported on newer kernels, I have been forced into a hardware upgrade cycle. Decided to go with AMD this time around, but the first card has some kind of hardware issue (9 times out of 10 after a reboot, the amdgpu driver says the SMU won't init properly... same on windows but no helpful error messages, just doesn't work at all). The card arrived without an OEM box, and seemed suspiciously in used condition although it wasn't sold to me as a used model. Thanks to testing in a rolling-release distro based on Arch, I was able to prove that it wasn't due to software, but instead was a hardware issue. I'm going to send that GPU back and get another one to replace it once prices get less insane.
I tested out various Manjaro LiveCDs to check if it was a software or driver problem, and did get the GPU working about once every 10 reboots. I decided to go with a full install of Manjaro Sway edition to try and test out wayland & a more minimal window manager. I didn't think I'd like it at first, as I'd always avoided using i3wm in the past... but actually it's starting to grow on me and I think I'll try this out as a daily driver for a while. After following some instructions on the Arch wiki to identify missing steam-runtime dependencies and installing them via pacman, everything works, including Proton-based games. Technically Steam is still running under Xwayland, as evidenced by xlsclients output, but it works and seems much snappier than running on Ubuntu with X11.
I’m running Gentoo on my gaming PC, and would not want anything else.
It’s very customizable, as it allows to tweak packages’ optional dependencies at compile time. It’s also rolling release, so no stress with distribution upgrades. Despite that, it’s also very stable (most of the time…).
So far the only downside I’ve seen is that updates can take a while, as almost all packages get compiled from source.
The compile times are quite OK on relatively modern hardware. I’ve been using a Ryzen 1700X up to last week, and except for WebKit I had no reason to complain. On my slightly dated Haswell laptop (from 2016) they are now starting to get on my nerves, but it’s still tolerable.
The only exception is WebKit, which takes forever to compile and which also tends to get installed multiple times, in slightly different versions (one version for Evolution, one for Liferea, one for Epiphany - and yes, those 3 programs all belong to the Gnome desktop). I’ve now set up ccache just for WebKit, but haven’t had to install a WebKit update since, so I have no idea how much the ccache helps…
Sorry for going on a tangent here. Back on topic: The setup for Gentoo takes as long as you are willing to invest time into it… The more time you invest, the more customized the system gets.
I’m currently running Sway window manager, with a ton of other not-so-usual tools (some of which I wrote myself, like my status bar application), and I’m really happy with how my PC currently feels. My desktop looks like it just escaped the early 1990s, but it’s so fast and just doesn’t get in the way ever…
I like the idea of Gentoo, it’s a pretty cool concept. Just a time consuming one as well. :) I remember my problem with it was that I couldn’t really decide how I wanted my system to end up while I was setting it up… which kind of defeats the purpose a bit I felt.
Yeah, and most of the customization you can do on any other distribution too. The main advantage of Gentoo is that it’s Rolling Release, so there won’t be any distribution upgrades breaking the cusotmizations.
The same is true for Debian Testing or Arch too, though.
Yeah, it’s not fully “rolling”, as new (non-critical) updates can get delayed for quite some time while packages are getting stabilized for a Stable release.
I’ve used Debian Stable some years ago at University on “my” office PC. For a work PC it was the perfect distribution. The “stable” in the name is well deserved. It’s so stable, it’s a bit boring, to be honest. However, that’s just what one needs at work. The PC has to run (a crash equals lost work), and maintenance burden needs to be low.
NixOS. If you played around with Arch you'll be fine. My only gripe (although it's kind of important) is NVIDIA doesn't work. Call me lazy but I haven't felt like switching to an other distro, plus I'm not much of a hardcore gamer.
Unfortunately it's pretty much impossible to support Nvidia on Linux unless you have a large enough team to test each of their GPUs individually and find workarounds for all of the bugs. Their Linux drivers are really bad.
The bigger projects have been able do that, but if it's a relatively new project with only a handful of people working on it, and it's not used on the steam deck, there's basically no chance it'll support Nvidia.
I’ve been evaluating NixOS to make sure I can run games on it. I’ve only tried a machine with Intel graphics so far, but I see that AMD and Nvidia drivers are packaged. It seems convenient now that I’ve figured out the setup.
Vulkan is set up out of the box.
It’s necessary to enable 32-bit DRI support by adding this line to /etc/nix/configuration.nix:
To use Lutris install the package and use its UI to install runners. I didn’t have to configure any extra libraries to get Battle.net running. You can configure the “system wine” that Lutris sees, and extra libraries your games might need like this:
Those lines go in a Home Manager config file, like ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix. That installs Lutris, and any listed dependencies at the same time.
NixOS does not put dependencies in the file paths where programs usually look for them. That traditional directory structure is called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, or FHS. But Nix packages can create a virtual FHS where needed, and that is what the Lutris package does. That lets software that isn’t built for Nix work, like Lutris’ Wine runners. That means that for games to access libraries those libraries must be listed in that extraLibraries option so that they are included in the FHS.
32-bit libraries are in pkgs.pkgsi686Linux.* if you need them.
I haven’t tried Steam yet, but I think it has an option similar to the extraLibraries one for Lutris.
A nice feature of NixOS is that if you add a bunch of libraries to your config trying to get a game to work, those libraries are automatically unlinked when you remove them from your config so your system stays nice and tidy.
I’ve been having a great time with games on NixOS. Steam just works when you enable it. I believe you can specify extra libraries for the filesystem hierarchy hackery, but I haven’t needed to yet. One thing you should know about (if you don’t already) is steam-run which is a simple command line tool that automatically wraps things in a normal FHS. Super convenient for the occasional binary :).
Yeah, exactly! For steam itself on NixOS you don’t have to manually use steam-run, but steam-run is a handy little tool to wrap / run other commands with the FHS that NixOS sets up for steam. I’ve mostly used it to run a few Linux games that I have binaries for, but don’t have on steam… I’m pretty sure I used it for another Linux program too, but I can’t remember what right now.
It depends on what your games need. I haven’t added any libraries yet, but I haven’t tested many games yet either. If something isn’t working you might be able to determine a missing library from the log output. In Lutris the Play button has an arrow on it that you can click on to find the “Show log output” button.
I’ve been on Manjaro for 3 years, honestly love it, it’s treated me great for gaming and given me so little to have to fix that my wife has also been running it for 2 years.
I've been running Pop for a bit over a year now and am (mostly) satisfied with it. The only issues I had were due to kernel updates, it would cause flickering on my screen and (like someone else mentioned) had to revert to an older kernel until the situation was resolved.
Pop here also. I tried several different distro's, pop worked out of the box. Only issue was my cheap little Bluetooth USB wart, but five minutes of searching showed me how to get it working. That's it. I like it. Familiar enough for a windows refugee, plays enough steam games without issues to keep me happy. No crashes, no freezes, unlike windows 10/11.
A little background for context. I’m gamer and professional software developer. I’ve been dual booting windows 11 and pop os for awhile. Windows for games and pop os for everything else… Over the weekend I switched to NixOS. This came with a learning curve which I spent a day or so learning. I’ve been getting the hang of it now and I love it so much. I definitely recommend it. I managed to get steam working without much fiddling and my emulators. It’s been great! The benefits for programming are obvious. Allowing me to basically stop using docker dev containers.
I completely removed windows from my computer and I’m very happy.
Yeah my job recently started letting developers choose between windows and Mac now which is a step in the right direction… their excuse is that all their security software doesn’t run in Linux… Ill accept using a Mac over WSL though, that was a huge pain
Im really surprised that I don't see zorin os on these types of threads. Its main stick is to be chock full of out of the box software especially around windows compatibility. wine and play on linux are ready right away and I can run most windows programs right after install.
I use Arch, but I have two graphics cards in my system and I run a stripped windows VM for any game that I want ray tracing or 4k in.
My arch setup has an older Nvidia Quadro card and can run everything on like medium settings, but my virtual machines have a 3080ti. I didn’t want the wear and tear on my 3080ti just to watch YouTube or play indie games that don’t need the horsepower, but I still want to try stuff like portalRTX or stable diffusion and the like that needs an enthusiast graphics card.
This to me is the best of both worlds. I can run the VM in the background so I can use my desktop(connected to the TV) as a media center and have cyberpunk playing totally hidden and streaming to my steam deck for ray tracing maxxed settings.
Hell I even play Half life:Alex VR in a virtual machine and stream it over wifi to my Oculus quest.
I can help you set yours up like mine if you want!
But you’d need to make sure you have two graphics cards. I have the 3080 disabled from Linux until a VM starts, so it won’t load the Linux desktop or anything. Even a CPU with integrated graphics works, but a physical GPU is obviously better.
I really like the Quadro series for this as its physically thinner, lower power, and has the performance around a 1060. They’re on ebay for like $60
Depends on my needs, my desktop itself has a 8core @ 5GHz, around 50Gb ram, a Quadro and a 3080ti.
For gaming I’ll usually pass through 6cores, 30Gb ram and the 3080ti to a windows VM, leaving 2cores 20Gb and the Quadro for my linux host.
sometimes I’ll do more of a 50/50 split or if I’m just updating windows or downloading a game I’ll only pass 2 cores like 10Gb ram and no gpu.
But if you mean how did I do the initial setup, any arch based disro will be the easiest (but you can do it on others if youre more technically inclined) by following this guide:
Ive done this process on so many systems I can do it off a fresh install in probably 30 minutes now.
Once the Linux host is finished, I install windows in the VM, strip as much bloat from it as I can, install my universal programs(Firefox, 7zip, VPN stuff remote desktop stuff, GPU drivers, etc)
For gaming, the best programs I’ve found are Looking glass to pass the VM GPU’s video to a window on the client with no latency, and SCREAM audio for the same with sound.
Once that’s all set up and windows is fully updated, I make a backup of that VM, and basically never open the original again. If I need a new VM, just clone that setup and everything’s ready to go. I can rn clone the original setup, and use my private collection of interesting viruses on that windows VM without fear of it damaging anything.
Was running the same setup pretty much, I really miss it. Was running arch with an 8c/16t cpu, with 32GB ram, a 2070 Super (for passthrough), and a cheap GT710 (for i3wm on host). I've heard of Looking Glass and SCREAM but never tried it, instead I would switch inputs on my primary monitor and keep i3 on my secondary. Just used an Elgato Stream deck with Streamdeck_ui and would set attach and detach commands for peripherals, and others like power/pause.
Ended up helping someone troubleshoot their PC, which turned out to be a dead GPU, and I gave them the 710 as a better then nothing card. Was still able to play a lot of my games native or via proton on the 2070, but some new games had performance/compatibilty issues and I couldn't use RTX. Ended up installing Windows over my Arch to play them, you know just till I could get a new host GPU.
Now I have a GPU for the host again, but I'm using Microsoft Storage Spaces for my RAID 10; and, being lazy as I am, I just keep putting off copying all of that to spare drives and rebuilding with mdadm. Plus the fear of losing terabytes of data during migration is intimidating.
With some of the news going around about the new windows versions and what-not, this sounds really interesting. I have a couple questions if you could answer them, that would be awesome!
How does a new release of Windows affect the compatibility of this set up? I know programs with for a while on older releases, but after a time, that version will be phased out. That might be more about the VM than your setup, but I don’t have a lot of experience with those either lol.
Does this introduce some system lag for input in any way? If I ever do get the confidence to abandon my system to go to Linux, it would suck if this really cool sounding method added response time to inputs.
So the only problem is you’d have to update every VM over time to get security patches, this is mainly a problem if you’re on limited internet(like me). Im capped at 100gb a month and my download speed is almost always less than 1mb/sec.
Windows has a feature that if one system on your network is updated, other systems on the network can download locally from that one and save your data, which is wonderful. But you still need to update Nvidia drivers for each VM, and update games, etc. You can connect a hard drive(virtual or physical) to multiple VMs, but only run VMs with a common hard drive one at a time.
And mind you this isn’t to save compatibly, for me once it works it works. I just like to keep security patches updated because I download a lot of sketchy programs lol.
Latency is non-existent. I use a program called lookingglass, which allocates like 32mb of GPU memory to be dedicated to passing frames between the VM and the host. Or non-existent for my level of perception. If you’re Spidey senses tingle more easily you can pass through a secondary keyboard and mouse and just literally have two screens two keyboards two mice one box. It would have the same latency as bare metal. And even have two people play multiplayer games together off of one box if you have the horsepower.
So, there are a couple of things that have happened recently. I have an old laptop that I’ve messed around with different distros of Linux on. I installed Arch on it and am trying to do some different things. It’s not a good laptop, so the VM set up I’m really interested in won’t happen until I get a few more drives for my main PC and set up a dual boot abd some other things. I am really interested in this set up because it just sounds neat.
Are there some things I should try to do to help me get better at working with this OS? I’m currently seeking up a server with a reverse proxy using nginx and its… Going. The server works I think, but the proxy doesnt yet.
My last two laptops have been System76 models. The first time I didn’t really love Pop!_OS but the most recent laptop I gave it another shot and it’s come a long way. Really enjoying it overall (still prefer KDE over gnomey stuff tho, lol)
I’ve been on pop os for at least 2 years now, been loving it. Most of my gaming is through steam so compatibility issues are the exception, not the rule. It’s a bit of a dream come true to play God of War on Linux, it feels like all the stars aligned.
Even when I bork the install by fucking around in the kernel I wind up getting back on pop rather than finally taking the dive into arch.
Not at all an expert, but I’m doing fine with most games on Manjaro. Most things worked out of the box with Proton on Steam. I also liked Arch before I got old and lazy, and Manjaro seems to be a good way to get most of the benefits of Arch with lazier upkeep.
I use Void Linux. I like how much more up to date the libraries and apllications tend to be, it’s quite similar to Arch in that regard, as it’s a true rolling release just like Arch.
It also tends to be very stable as well, with couple minor issues I had ever experienced got fixes within 48-ish hours. One was hugin not launching, and the other a transition issue between pipewire-media-session and wireplumber being the default.
Void uses runit for service management, and is still multithreaded despite taking a more similar approach to just plain shell scripts, and constantly monitors services. What I like about this is more much simpler services are to write compared to SystemD, and then you just put a simlink to them from /etc/sv/<name> to /etc/runit/runsvdir/default/ to enable or disable.
Void also uses their own XBPS package system, which operates similar to pacman, and is equally fast. Void is basically a rolling release like Arch, with the latest updates, but instead has a more “classic” system management style, which I for one greatly appreciate.
After nearly a decade of distro hopping, Void is where I landed for at least the past several years, and I see no reason to leave. Just sharing incase someone else out there thinks this sounds like the system for them, and if so, Take a Step Into the Void, it might be what you’re looking for. That’s what I like about there being so many distros, there’s choice to match each one’s needs.
Yup! That’s my kind of approach too. And Void boots just as fast. Up to date, boots very quickly AND is a install what YOU need, without tons of preloaded choices, distro. Arch and Void are at the top of my list for that reason. My personal file server runs Arch, my “client” computers run Void. I was surprised the touchscreen on my laptop (Ideapad 5 Pro, Ryzen 5600U version) worked without any configuration honestly, so hardware support is quite good on Void too.
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