Good Linux distro for newbie and gaming

almoststew1990

almoststew1990

almoststew1990

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Joined
12 May 2011
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Southampton
I probably won’t be moving onto W11 when I am forced from Windows 10 so I am beginning to think about Linux. What is a good distro that has minimal ai /co pilot/ bloat /features, with good x86 gaming performance? So ideally Steam and all the other launchers.

I don’t mind basic looking, I still comfortably use w98 and XP on my retro PCs and if anything prefer that basic look and immediate responsiveness, as well as Control Panel being the only control panel.

Thanks
 
I’ve very recently moved my gaming PC from Win 11 to Bazzite and im very happy so far. It’s very much a gaming orientated Linux but you can download all the usual productivity software if you wish. Bazzite installs Steam as standard. Couple this with the Heroic Launcher for everything else (Epic, GoG, etc) and you’ll be sorted.
 
I have been running Garuda for the last few weeks as a test. So far so good. I'm a bit of a Linux noob but didn't have any issues getting it up and running.
I'm still dual booting though so haven't moved 100% away from Windows... Yet!
 
This sounds like a perfect case for Mint Cinnamon.

It looks like Windows. It's based on Ubuntu (good for games and for finding help if you need it). It's often used by beginners.
 
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If gaming is your key use case the I just took a look at the steam hardware survey to see what gamers are using. Arch was the most popular but that’s not a newbie-friendly one. Then Ubuntu and Mint. So probably either of those would be fine, then if you have issues you have a shot of finding a solution through protondb for example. Ubuntu LTS would be a safe bet even if it’s not as popular as it once was, it’s still so widely used many problems will have been encountered before.

Personally I use NixOS, which is good for stability and seems to be rising in popularity recently, but like Arch it’s not newbie-friendly at all.
 
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If you have an Nvidia GPU then Pop OS sorts a lot of the config out for you and is friendly. It's based on Ubuntu like Mint so it's easy to find info if things go wrong. You can install stuff using .deb files which a lot of Linux software is packaged as outside of the software repository (like a distro specific app store).

BubbySoup said:
I have been running Garuda for the last few weeks as a test. So far so good. I'm a bit of a Linux noob but didn't have any issues getting it up and running.
I'm still dual booting though so haven't moved 100% away from Windows... Yet!
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I use Garuda for my big screen gaming pc. It sets up everything like drivers/kernels etc. for gaming and it has some good native tools for easy installation of popular gaming stuff (Steam, Heroic, Retroarch etc.) My main issues are the gamer aesthetic which can be easy got around by setting a new theme and for a newbie it's built around Arch which is not noob friendly if things go wrong. It's a rolling release which is a double edged sword (you get the latest updates/drivers but it's more likely to break).

If you're having issues finding programs then Flatpak is getting better all the time but in my experience it's a last option.
 
I would love to go full Linux and I was for many years, but CounterStrike 2 ruined it for me. I like to play 4:3 stretched but it just does not work at all on Linux so I had to install a Windows partition
 
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