Best linux distro for gaming ?

Would Valve actually ever make SteamOS available though, given it’s one of the key benefits of the deck? They’d be handing it to competition who can probably undercut on hardware. It would be nice of course but I think most of the underlying tools are available across popular distros.

I moved my main PC to Ubuntu and whilst game compatibility was surprisingly good, for older windows titles that I play a lot, there was always an amount of ‘work’ involved and some had unpredictable issues. Others performed better on Linux. Also not sure about things like VRR, I need to test that.

We need eventually some gaming focussed distro to break through and get a critical mass of a user base so it’s updated and easy to use. Not sure I’m aware of a clear choice yet.
 
alex24 said:
Would Valve actually ever make SteamOS available though, given it’s one of the key benefits of the deck? They’d be handing it to competition who can probably undercut on hardware. It would be nice of course but I think most of the underlying tools are available across popular distros.

I moved my main PC to Ubuntu and whilst game compatibility was surprisingly good, for older windows titles that I play a lot, there was always an amount of ‘work’ involved and some had unpredictable issues. Others performed better on Linux. Also not sure about things like VRR, I need to test that.

We need eventually some gaming focussed distro to break through and get a critical mass of a user base so it’s updated and easy to use. Not sure I’m aware of a clear choice yet.
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Valve make their money from selling games, I bet the margins on the Steam Deck are tight - for them its just another way of selling games.
 
Fair point. However I’m not sure still whether they would give up their OS for nothing. Would be good for the overall community though.

Back on topic, I’ve now gone with NixOS instead of Ubuntu and I was up and running in no time. Just a bit of learning a new syntax and the appeal of an essentially immutable OS and easy controlled changes, roll-back seemed irresistible given typical teething problems with Linux config and dependencies. I don’t think I’d bother changing distros again until something really different comes or NixOS stops being supported. It’s really good and a great idea. Steam, proton etc all working for me with an AMD card.
 
When the deck was initially announced I was completely unaware of the improvements to gaming on Linux. I had to try. I ended up going arch since that's what I read the new steamos is based on.
It was certainly an experience. Lots to learn. I believe the install process is more streamlined now with a simple installer if you don't want to read the docs (you should!).
Works really well for gaming, but really no experience with other distros.
 
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That’s good, last missing piece for me although I get such good performance on my mostly older games on my 1080p 144hz screen that I almost don’t miss it. Still, getting free sync back would be good. I assume that’s with GNOME 46 coming, which hopefully means we’ll get this on other distros too soon.
 
I was using Nobara before without issue until it came to updating to the new release which borked the install..

Been on EndeavourOS for a few months now without any hassle.

There is also not a single game I have downloaded and installed and experienced any problems with.

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alex24 said:
That’s good, last missing piece for me although I get such good performance on my mostly older games on my 1080p 144hz screen that I almost don’t miss it. Still, getting free sync back would be good. I assume that’s with GNOME 46 coming, which hopefully means we’ll get this on other distros too soon.
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Well I installed 24.04 and tried to enable experimental VRR and it doesn't appear at all. Disappointing. Maybe they still need to push it to the final build over the next month?
 
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Oh Ed not again. said:
It's been a while since I looked into this, but any progress in the Punkbuster, Easy Anticheat problem yet? i.e lack thereof.
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There's an EAC runtime in Steam. I've played a few games of Hell Let Loose with no problems.

I've just (a few days ago) switched to Debian stable after I got sick of Windows giving me issues. I've had zero issues getting any games to work. I've tried Helldivers 2, Hell Let Loose, Teardown (Windows kept dragging me out of the game every few minutes prompting the switch,) and Fallout: New Vegas which refused to run on Windows 11 but works perfectly on Linux.

Even setting up my triple monitors for my sim racing rig has been a breeze. I have a 4K monitor and then 3 1440p monitors for the sim rig and I never did get it to play ball on Windows thanks to the different resolutions and refresh rates. On Linux it remembers the position of them when I turn them off and back on and it doesn't keep throwing its toys out of the pram.

So far I'm very impressed with my Linux experience and can't see myself going back to Windows. I am considering updating to the newest version of KDE as that has VRR support. I tried Nobara before Debian and was getting a weird flickering where the screen would darken with any form of input.
 
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