I’m quite new to linux gaming, and so far I’ve only used CachyOS and EndeavourOS.
I have a dedicated gaming computer with an AMD GPU, only one hard drive and no critical data. Both were easy to install but I just used the default options, didn’t try to do anything complicated.
Performance-wise, I didn’t see any difference (but I don’t care enough to run benchmarks so maybe one gives me 3% more FPS than the other). I play in 1440p.
I’ve had a few mishaps on CachyOS regarding updates (2 years ago) so I tried EndeavourOS and it’s all been smooth since then.I guess the answer to your questions depends a lot on your gaming style and on what is important to you.
If you’re like me, you just want it to work and you do nothing else than gaming, then all the distros mentioned in this thread are about as good.
If you want to squeeze that extra 2 FPS, or if you want to game on older hardware, or if you also use that computer as part of your homelab… then there are going to be differences.
You might want to consider giving us more information on your needs/projects so that we can adjust our answers.Welcome to linux gaming :)
I’d give Nobara a try. I’ve been using it for about 2 years and it’s been pretty seamless. Already comes with a bunch of Linux gaming related software, like Steam, Lutris, Proton-up, etc.
It also has a bunch of gaming performance patches automatically installed.
If you’re not technically inclined at all and want a console style experience, Bazzite is probably your best bet.
All that said, most mainstream distros will give you a fine gaming experience, you just might have to do some manual fiddling and installing yourself depending on the distro and the games you’re playing.
Personally gaming on Fedora without trouble. I’ve heard good things about Nobara - https://nobaraproject.org/author/gloriouseggroll/
Bazzite. I’ll now accept my ban from the moderators.
Manjaro, hands down.
i genuinely can’t get my head around this, why recommend that distro, it is probably actually the worst one of all of them for every usecase
Probably because you’re incapable of forming your own opinions and you suffer discomfort whenever you see someone who can.
It’s okay, I see it all the time.
I did form my own opinion on the distro, I recommended it to people for years and did their it work for free… that’s how I know it’s horrible for every possible usecase, why do you like it?
It’s basically a pre-configured Arch. I’ve used it exclusively for years without issues unique to Manjaro.
I’ve heard of endeavoros. I haven’t tried it and seeing their website used to describe it as a “command-line centric” distro made me avoid it.
I don’t see any reason to switch from Manjaro if I want another distro to function the same. The problems the community has with it are irrelevant to me, and frankly, seem like a bunch of crybabies jumping at the opportunity to shit on a popular distro that focuses on making things easy for users.
Ease of use is EXACTLY my issue with manjaro, as someone who has serviced 5 separate people, they have all managed to break it with their limited experience, without doing anything strange at all, in ways that have been increasingly difficult to fix, i eventually had them all switch.
You’ve been lucky, if you use something like bazzite, you’ll literally never have any issues even if you try, let me give you an example of something that might happen if you use nvidia
each linux package is version numbered, instead of just having a “linux” like arch does, manjaro insists you have linux49 installed, and that you use their gui kernel replacer to change them out.
If you have the nvidia package installed, and don’t update for a very long time, eventually, this linux package will be one that’s out of date, and will conflict with the nvidia one, meaning now your machine can’t update, without some lengthy maintenance, this was something i had to do literally dozens of times. There is no chance an inexperienced user could figure this out for themselves. I essentially had to rdd the nvidia package, update, reinstall it, and it took hours.
There are many other examples of this, manjaro is a pre-configured arch, sure, but it’s an extremely poorly pre-configured arch, endeavoros is command-line centric, sure, but you can just use the gui in the same way you can with manjaro, arch is just a cli-centric OS. If you don’t like the CLI, I highly recommend bazzite, you’ll never have any of these issues, updates will be automatic and easy to rollback, the system will be entirely unbreakable unless you try very very hard.
“It just works” is precisely the problem with manjaro, it doesn’t just work, ease of use is not a valid usecase for manjaro for so many reasons.
https://github.com/arindas/manjarno read this document for all their insane security failings.
That’s not even going into the fact that they use the AUR and don’t push it back two weeks while also pushing back the arch packages two weeks, which accomplishes literally nothing, and also causes aur packages to break things regularly.
These kinds of issues are not something I would ever recommend for someone who wants something easy to use. If you want something pre-configured, I assure you, you do not want arch, that defeats the very purpose and the very usecase of that distro.
My entire focus is finding distros that are exceptionally easy to use for people, because I give linux to the elderly and i’m trying to increase the usernumbers, recommending manjaro is an absolute no for that. I actually had less maintenance when I was giving people arch setup with just archinstall kde and discover.
Furthermore, if people hated “easy for user” distros, why are they not shitting on linux mint? Or bazzite? It’s quite possible that you’ve just chosen a bad distro and been lucky with your maintenance needs.
why are they not shitting on linux mint?
Great question. There are more reasons, such as the bandwagon mentality among these forums. I’m not going to list them all, and I’m going to block you but I’ll leave you with this.
Linux Mint was literally hacked and served malware on their website. Manjaro has had nothing near an issue like that, yet we constantly hear people shit on it. You don’t see people mention Linux Mint being hacked every chance they get.
You can’t think for yourself. It bothers you when people make decisions for themselves. I don’t believe most of what you say and you’re just here to shill your own, niche distro.
Goodbye. Easy block. I hope everyone reading this can realize how asinine this community has become and make pragmatic decisions for themselves!
You don’t see people mention Linux Mint being hacked every chance they get.
Because it happened once and they dealt with the issue, manjaro… has never dealt with any of their problems with any seriousness.
It bothers you when people make decisions for themselves.
No, I just think that people shouldn’t be recommending obviously bad things for new users. New users should be presented with evidence of why something might be good or bad, as long as that evidence is verifiably true… most importantly, they should be given things that will actually be easy. Which is why I recommended bazzite.
I don’t believe most of what you say and you’re just here to shill your own, niche distro.
Literally everything I said is a verifiable fact except that i service 5 people.
I hope everyone reading this can realize how asinine this community has become and make pragmatic decisions for themselves!
Dude this only makes you look asinine. Did you really post to a public forum with a poorly thought out bad opinion and no evidence and expect everyone to rally behind you as a pragmatist?
Why is that an easy block? The user you responded to was cordial, laid out his reasons and even provided some sources to corroborate. What exactly did he do wrong in your mind?
I’ve quite enjoyed Tuxedo OS on my gaming rig. Worked right out of the box with every game I’ve thrown at it with my Nvidia GPU.
I’ve been pretty happy with Garuda Linux, Arch based. You’d be fine with near any of them though. Fedora base is amazing and stable and as well as the Arch based systems I use.
In the end it comes down to your hardware and what kind of gaming you want to do.
AMD gpus seem to work the best next with Intel GPUs. Nvidia can certainly work and be stable but has some drawbacks with Wayland from what I remember. (Maybe have been fixed?)Anticheat is a crap shoot sometimes
EndeavourOS is what got me to daily drive Linux finally.
The installation is easy, it’s got sane defaults and pre-installs most common dependencies.
I made the mistake of installing Kubuntu 24.04 when I wiped Windows off my gaming machine. I regret it. It’s not SO bad, but I don’t like having Snaps shoved down my throat. Otherwise it’s OK. And you still have great support online and tons of documentation.
The best alternative in my opinion would be Arch via the Endeavor OS distro. It’s easier to install than standard Arch, it has an increasingly large community, awesome documentation (Arch Wiki), and is packages are up to date. And I think it’s a rolling release? (Correct me if I’m getting)
Otherwise if you want stability, I’d suggest Debian stable. They just released a new stable version not too long ago so it’s not too outdated. It’s incredibly stable. However, over time the software isn’t updated to the latest releases for stability’s sake. It takes two years before they release a new version kinda like Ubuntu LTS.
Edit:
I should add that with flatpaks you don’t really need the latest and greatest packages in your distro anymore. It’s not really a big deal if you’re not on the latest GNOME or KDE Plasma. It still works fine. Application wise you can get all the latest apps on Flathub anyway, regardless of distro or how outdated your Linux is.
If I need to reinstall, I’ll be using Debian (stable). I don’t want any hassle.
I use Nobara and I recoomend it to all my friends (the ones who like linux anyway).
while its true that really no linux distro will have any significant better game performance than another, Nobara stands out to me because its made by GloriousEggroll (the same guy who makes the protonGE patches for steam) for his dad so that his dad can have a simple no-fuss gaming computer they can use to game together.
the specific things I like about it are how it helps you get the correct graphics drivers and game/controller fixups at installation, and comes with steam preinstalled. I also like how the Nobara software updater also handles flatpaks as well as regular packages, its my one stop graphical (or CLI) shop for downloading or updating any new programs.
I also like its themes and that its based on Fedora.
Another vote for Nobara.
Everything is packed in and ready to go. No having to install extra shit, no having to download and compile shit. Its just all there, and it works.
And has been not only the smoothest, easiest experience with linux gaming that I’ve had… but just in general the everyday usability is smooth, easy and great too.
My only significant complaint is that all the tech help is on a discord. Which means its not indexable, archivable, or searchable via your search engine of choice… so if you don’t have discord, or if the discord goes away… So does all the knowledge base and help. but thats a complaint I have about discord in general.
Pop_OS?
Edit: Apprently the anwer is “no”.
So far so good for me. I switched last week after dual booting Pop OS and Windows 10 for a few months. I used to use Mac OS X back in college and missed the interface, so Pop OS’s implementation of GNOME felt good.
As for OP’s question, someone else with more knowledge can answer if a specific distro has the best drivers/compatibility with games. Pop OS comes with NVIDIA drivers which works for me.
I also wanted a full desktop OS. Some of the distros will focus on being a controller-friendly frontend for gaming rather than a desktop OS.
It might be helpful to try something like Ventoy for any distros that support a live CD. You won’t be able to fully test gaming performance, but Ventoy lets you try multiple distros on one disk.
Other questions for OP: What type of GPU are you using? What is your current OS?
Isn’t Pop OS super outdated right now, tho?
Yes, unfortunately.
:V
I had no idea, what’s the deal there?
I think they’re working on their new Cosmic desktop. It looks promising but it’s delaying the update of the OS.
I guess I’ll hold on then…
The packages are stinky as they are so old, in addition to program versions on offer are frozen several versions behind program versions on modern distros. System76 even started to offer Ubuntu 24.04 on their prebuilds for this reason. It’s too old and while they managed to bring more recent drivers to Pop!_OS, it’s going to be phased out when COSMIC DE is ready for stable launch with an Ubuntu 24.04 base. Pop!_OS is not a good recommend going forward; System76 let it get too old before taking appropriate action, but to be fair to them, building a DE from scratch is hard work.
There isn’t “a best” exactly.
There are some things to consider though.
- What hardware are you using?
- Are the latest Video Drivers available for the distro you are considering?
- How much configuration do you want to do?
Its a nuanced question. There isn’t a 1 size fits all approach to this.
For me, going Arch was the move. It fit my usage habits.
Intel Core i5-7300HQ, GeForce 1050 Ti. I know the proprietary Nvidia drivers work on Ubuntu-based and Fedora-based distros, and I think arch-based.
Just my opinions as I am still a Linux noob (been using it on and off for the last 15 years, but only on old hardware, and I made A LOT of mistakes):
Handheld? --> Bazzite
Desktop? --> openSUSE Tumbleweed
Bazzite if you want ezpz. CachyOS if you like tinkering, learning, and want to squeeze out that last bit of a peformance boost.
