Best Distro for steam ?

FatRakoon · 6 Oct 2016 at 12:03

I really didnt think that I would have to ask this, but I am doing so...well?

Anyway as the title, what is the best distro for steam?

The reason I ask this, is because I see that Dawn of war 2 is finally available on Linux now, and so thats gone on and today, I gave it a play for the first time, and I came up with a few things.

1 - The speed that it loaded up, was simply disgusting. Ok, now admittedly, I have just put Linux onto a new Laptop and the second HD that steam is plonked onto, is an unknown speed ( seagate 1.5TB ) and my main / drive is a 120GB SSD.

2 - When the game was starting up, I got a dialog box open up, stating that this version of Linux is not optimial for running the game???

3 - I also got a moan about the GFX, but I have installed the latest nVidia graphics, so Im not sure about that!

I am running Mint Linux 18 KDE so the very latest distro

Any thoughts?

MookJong · 6 Oct 2016 at 15:50

SteamOS would be the most obvious choice

Also look at Play-Linux

Steveocee · 6 Oct 2016 at 21:35

SteamOS I would have thought or alternatively I don't find many problems with Ubuntu.

joeyjojo · 7 Oct 2016 at 09:45

I though SteamOS was based on Ubuntu (like Mint) but turns out they've changed to Debian, so there may be some benefit to changing to something Debian based.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648814395741989999/

stopper · 7 Oct 2016 at 10:24

Warnings usualy just mean the distro isn't supported by the games devs, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.
I wouldn't worry about it unless it really doesn't work at all.

Steveocee · 7 Oct 2016 at 15:36

joeyjojo said:
I though SteamOS was based on Ubuntu (like Mint) but turns out they've changed to Debian, so there may be some benefit to changing to something Debian based.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648814395741989999/

So Ubuntu then?

Tute · 7 Oct 2016 at 22:44

I use Ubuntu for mine, everything seems to run fine from Steam.

The only real thing I don't like is that Ubuntu seems to get updates slower than some distros but that was only a problem when the AMDGPU drivers were immature. It's much better now, thankfully.

joeyjojo · 10 Oct 2016 at 08:16

Steveocee said:
So Ubuntu then?

D'oh.

FatRakoon · 10 Oct 2016 at 11:54

I already use PlayOnLinux. Very nice front end for Wine. I have had some good and some bad results with it.

SteamOS - This is mainly a purely front end to steam and not really a full on OS though is it? - I want to use Linux every day and have the ability toi play my games as best as I can, and yes, I have my Windows setups and laptops, with Steam in, but I prefer Linux.

No, admittedly, the game does seem to work just fine, the game itself seems to play as well as I can expect it to, however the loading times are nothing but utterly disgusting.
The trials Laptop specs are more than good enough and there should be no excuses for such horrific speeds, but its an Asus G73SW, 8GB RAM, 120GB SSD for root, a 1TB WD Black for the data. There should be no reason for it to be slow. Admittedly, the game I am talking about is Dawn Of War 2 and its not a small game.

Ubuntu etc.
Im a KDE user and so its Kubuntu for me, however, the latest versions have not been very nice to me.

My main choices for a distro right now, are realyl only Mint KDE17.3 as this is the only distro that has installed and updated with 100% success... Every other has had at least some issue, even my most favoured distro Sabayon.

Bantu · 10 Oct 2016 at 16:45

do other games load better? might need a few patches to make it all good.

to pick up on someone else's post.. has amd started releasing good drivers for linux now?? this was something that was keeping me off using it for my main PC, but i may now reconsider if the AMD GPU drivers are sorted.

Edward78 · 10 Oct 2016 at 17:04

I know this is a bit off topic, but I remember reading somewhere, that VMs can use GPU drives now... So could you install Windows in a VM & play games normaly/or close to normal???

Steveocee · 10 Oct 2016 at 20:00

Edward78 said:
I know this is a bit off topic, but I remember reading somewhere, that VMs can use GPU drives now... So could you install Windows in a VM & play games normaly/or close to normal???

Would be hideous if it worked at all.

Chaos · 10 Oct 2016 at 20:34

Edward78 said:
I know this is a bit off topic, but I remember reading somewhere, that VMs can use GPU drives now... So could you install Windows in a VM & play games normaly/or close to normal???

You can use KVM and do gpu passthrough.

Tute · 11 Oct 2016 at 13:05

Bantu said:
do other games load better? might need a few patches to make it all good.

to pick up on someone else's post.. has amd started releasing good drivers for linux now?? this was something that was keeping me off using it for my main PC, but i may now reconsider if the AMD GPU drivers are sorted.

As good as nVidia ones - no. For example, there's still no Freesync yet, although it really is imminent, whereas GSync has been around on Linux for a bit.

But it's certainly catching up very quickly.

pete910 · 11 Oct 2016 at 15:31

Tute said:
As good as nVidia ones - no. For example, there's still no Freesync yet, although it really is imminent, whereas GSync has been around on Linux for a bit.

But it's certainly catching up very quickly.

To add to that, speaking as someone who has jumped to a GTX1080(from a 290x), Nvidia drivers aint any better tbh, 2d the oss drivers win hands down! also less texture bugs than NV driver.
Compared to fglrx though(AMD's old prop driver), Nvidias are miles ahead

The oss drivers are certainly maturing/improving rather well, Freesync should be in the 4.9 release(crosses fingers) ogl 4.5 landed in radeonSi a few days ago.

Tute · 14 Oct 2016 at 15:36

Fglrx stank though towards the end, it's almost like AMD gave up on it a long time before it was obsoleted.

And my GTX970 was really good on Ubuntu, performance was decent and bug free. No need to touch the OSS drivers.

I just don't want to pay an extra £200 on my next monitor for variable refresh rate support.

PooKer · 15 Oct 2016 at 21:38

I put SteamOS on my gaming laptop (you can enable it so you can access the full Debian) however I found out that you cannot swap between the Intel and Nvidia with optimus. So I was stuck with Intel only.

Swapped over to Ubuntu and everything worked out the box. Updated to Nvidia 370 and could selected if I wanted Nvidia or Intel.

So another +1 for Ubuntu.

FatRakoon · 18 Oct 2016 at 10:58

Hmmm... Been toying wit h fair number of distros and so on.

Its not the quickest thing in the world to do, it takes a fair bit of time to gethings setup and sorted, so appologies for the delay. I have life to contend with and things get in the way of that, so...

Anyway, I have plopped a new HD into an I5 setup here, and I am using that for the test installs.

The setup is an I5-2550K - AsRock H77M-ITX - 8GB RAM - GTX470

STEAMOS
I have tried a few versions of SteamOS and they all seem to do the same thing...
It goes through I thick is the entire install process, or if not, very near the end, but then the screen goes blank, and nothing I do can bring the display back.

It is NOT at a booting stage there as I have tried, but that is where it ends up, whether I do it Automated or Expert.

Sabayon
V15.02 seems to be the latest stable version of this, but in typical sabayon style, it upgrades to the latest versions and then the stability goes away. It does this also on my Laptop, and my main Linux Desktop PC and for it to also do it on this,. makes me wonder if its not some issue with the files themselves?
But Sabayon has Steam in its own repos and it is well supported.

MiNT
17.3 is the latest stable on this too and I have it kind of trying to run, but otherwise it does it badly, and sometimes double clicks simply dont play ball?

Kubuntu 16.04
I would go with Ubuntu but I despise how Gnome / unity works, but they are basically the same, so why would this be any different?
I have the same results as I do with mint... Half dont want to know.

I am still trying to play with the idea of SteamOS but I really want a proer Linux distro that just does Steam games as good as I can and for that, maybe *buntu is the only option, but for a Media System, maybe Steam will be an idea?

Tute · 19 Oct 2016 at 12:45

Having played with SteamOS, I can't see the point of it for a gaming PC that you sit at a desk for.

I can imagine it shines when installed on say, a living room PC under the TV where you can enable big screen and sit back with the Steam controller.

It seems to be the "Windows 10" of Linux - good for a certain usage scenario, but in most other cases you're just better off with some flavour of Ubuntu.

pete910 · 19 Oct 2016 at 17:40

TBf Tute, It's aimed at the console people. So yes under the TV is where its for.
Like you, for Desktop use a full blown distro like Mageia/fadora/*buntu flavour with steam installed.