I’m putting together a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input. Obviously I’m committing myself to providing a certain amount of tech support no matter what, but I’m wondering if any of these modern Linux distros can provide a user experience at least on par with Windows in terms of ease of use and reliability for someone who doesn’t know how to do much more than check their email and log in to Steam.
So far, I’ve looked at Bazzite, Cachy, Nobara, and PopOS based on what I commonly see recommended here. I’m leaning toward Bazzite based on its stated goal of being friendly to Linux newcomers, and the quality and amount of available documentation. Are there any other distros I’ve missed, or other considerations that might sway my preference?
I’d also like to hear about your subjective experiences with Linux gaming:
- What distro are you using for gaming?
- How long have you used it?
- How often have you had issues that require Linux knowledge and/or searching the web to solve?
- Have you had any other minor/annoying complaints?
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Arch
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For gaming, ~7 years. For everything else, ~20 years. I’ve used Windows for gaming in the past, but I’ve been a long-time Arch user in general, who switched to Linux full-time (also for gaming) once it got so compatible with running Windows-based games. Which was approx. 7 years ago. Since then, I don’t have any Windows partitions anymore.
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For gaming, really minor things only sometimes, and that amount also decreased over time as the compatibility layers and tools got better and better. I think Linux is in general very newcomer/mainstream-friendly for gaming and general use right now, just pick the right distro for you. Since I’m on Arch, I obviously have to put in slightly more time, and I wouldn’t recommend Arch to new users, unless that new user is also willing to enjoy the benefits of having a technically simple and lean OS while not caring about the disadvantages (having to invest slightly more time into it). That said, I also usually game on Steam and don’t play games with invasive anti-cheat-systems in them. Which makes it even easier.
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No.
For newcomers, best picks for a gaming-optimized Linux distro right now would be Bazzite, Nobara or simply any general-use but up to date distro like Fedora, Pop!OS, Kubuntu, OpenSuSE, CachyOS, EndeavourOS, Arch (the last three only if you can deal with the Arch-based distros, it’s not for everyone). If you have a designated gaming machine, I’d probably use a gaming-centric distro. If you also use the machine for other tasks, I’d pick a general-use distro which can do gaming just fine as well. There’s really no difference in capability between the two types other than what’s already preconfigured OOTB and how fast you can go from zero to gaming.
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Arch
2 years
Proton-GE has run everything I’ve thrown at it. Only thing I really needed the internet for was to figure out which Nvidia driver I needed during the Arch install.
Nope, I left Ubuntu for Arch to get away from those problems (Snaps, and how long it sometimes took for updates to get to the repos)
I’m using Endeavour OS, my OS age is 252 days. Usually the only time I have issues is when it’s Nvidia related or update related. Thankfully I’m not the only one having issues and those smarter than me have already solved the problem. Just a simple fix 9/10 times. Usually there is already news about it in the arch news, so I can hold off my update until it’s resolved or whatever.
I love Linux and everything about it. If you want to you can learn something new everyday.
Edit: take a look at bazzite if you want it no fuss, the best part is there’s plenty out there to try and choose from. You can always install something, not like it and move onto something else. That’s what I did, I distro hopped, then desktop environment hopped until I found Endeavour with Hyprland.
How possible is that they will be needing some bleeding edge update of WINE or kernel?
If you think you can expect that they won’t need to do bleeding edge updates, pick something that is easy to use for you and just choose a WM that will be easy for them
My grandma and mom use Manjaro with XFCE. Or rather they use XFCE, I use Manjaro on their PCs ;D. They don’t need to update to, for example, NTSync enabled version ASAP, so it’s fine with me just doing an update during some holidays for grandma and over the phone for mom.
We used to try Mint for their boxes. I was banging my head against it as always with Debian based distros and the effect was that for them the downtimes were longer. Despite our mutual hopes, mom never really got self-sufficient with managing the OS. Even with GUI based package manager. So I just migrated them to Manjaro and now we are all happier. For me the updating is less painful and is faster, for them it just worksBut if you would need to educate such user on how to use some package manager to update something, then maybe there might be some differences between GUI package managers that might help you
althoughfor someone who doesn’t know how to do much more than check their email and log in to Steam
I think it will be you doing the updating in the end
- CachyOS
- More than a year
- I had to setup snapshots and timeshift
- A bug between kdrive app and key wallet from KDE (I can still not auto log in the app on Wayland at start.)
I decided to set the snapshots in order to recover in case of bad update. Then I decided to update the system at least once a week brainlessly, just to see how much time it takes to break. so far, I’ve never used the snapshots.
I’ll second Linux Mint Cinnamon. My understanding is it is designed to look/function as close to Windows as possible to help people transition away from Windows.
It was my first Linux distro migrating from Windows, and overall it’s been a fairly decent transition.
- Linux Mint Cinnamon
- About 2, maybe 3 years. Time’s a bit fuzzy.
- There was some, I’ll leave some tips below.
- Nothing specific.
-Check out Protondb.com. It’s a website where you can search for games to see their compatibility rating with Linux OSes, along with any tinkering/troubleshooting tips other users have done.
-Once you install Steam, go to the Settings menu, select Compatibility, and select an option for “Default compatibility tool”. This global setting means you would not have specifically select a Proton version for each game you play.
-I found that sometimes Steam would not launch from the toolbar. I have no issues launching it from the terminal window (literally launch Terminal, type the word ‘steam’, and hit Enter)
I totally understand why, but I dislike this trend of recommending Mint to newcomers. Cinnamon is very limited.
Just… don’t. Non-technical people should consider consoles, not PCs. Not even with Windows (which is actually harder to use than some Linux distros). If you want to game together with them, just get them an Xbox. It has much more games with cross play than a PlayStation
How do you think non-technical people become technical? They experiment and learn. You’re gatekeeping for no reason and treating OP like a child.
They experiment and learn
Not everyone. Some just don’t connect the dots and will rather call you and wait for you to come than experiment
Linux Mint, Wine Bottles/Steam, 3 years, never had any issues, but I mostly run older games. I cant speak for newer games or competitive multi player games
This is my first time hearing of Bottles. It looks like it serves a similar purpose to Lutris? Have you used both, and if so, how do they compare?
I am very non-technical and I have ended up with Linux Mint Cinnamon which was the first thing I tried, with Steam dealing with the few games I have played the past four years or so. It has been mostly Non-Steam Fallout 4, No Man’s Sky, Baldur’s Gate 3, Guild Wars 2, and Steam version of Lord of the Rings Online. Stability varies but I think it is mostly my hardware being old.
Overall I have used Mint for maybe eight years, at first only for internet browsing. I still played LOTRO and Guild Wars 2 with my trusty (well okay, the games started to be rather crashy) WinXP around 2020. Hm… a year or two, here or there. I don’t actually remember when they started to drop support for XP. I originally tried Steam on Linux for LOTRO.
Just as a background info I’m going to be a little bit dramatic and claim that I don’t like Linux, I use it out of necessity. Even if I am generally fine with it, as far as I can manage it.
I just don’t like the command line at all. I also don’t like the program “shop” like system. I think I can see it on my current Mint as Software Manager, now that I check but I don’t want to start it. It is that I don’t like them “calling homes” or managing things which is how I see the command line and the manager being like.
I can download a Steam installer from the website and then it sets itself up, with command line type window, downloading what ever it likes from somewhere, managing things… fine, I have to deal, I want to play games. For general computer use I can download Firefox and some other Linux software from websites, they start when I click the executable and that’s the way I would like things to work way more. I do let the driver manager set graphics drivers when I make a new Mint installation as I can’t even begin to understand other options.My favorite thing would be the possibility to easily set up a Linux computer for offline games without ever connecting it to internet.
Once, maybe 4 years ago I did somehow install wine on Debian which I think I didn’t connect to internet in the process. The one game I tested did launch but didn’t really display well because no graphics driver.
Another experiment, on Mint last year, was to install wine with command line (the horror!), I could launch the non-Steam games I installed but didn’t try playing them. I can’t remember for sure but it may be that the games just didn’t run as well as they did on Steam’s Proton on that same Mint installation. Based on when I sometimes read about Linux, wine does seem to need plenty of config which I really don’t want to do.Thanks for sharing your experience! It sounds like Mint is mostly pretty manageable for a casual user, which is good news for me.
I think a lot of Linux programs have moved to a distribution format called “flatpak” which I am not super familiar with, but I believe behaves the way you prefer (just download the app file and run it). Though fwiw, the command-line script installers are generally not actually doing much different from installers on Windows or Mac - they’re just not hidden behind a progress bar.
The distribution format based on single app files is actually called AppImage. Flatpaks still need to download several libraries.
If you’ve used a Steam Deck, you’ve used Bazzite (for all intents and purposes). If you can use a game console, you can use Bazzite. That’s pretty much the entire purpose of SteamOS; making PC gaming stupid easy.
Caveats:
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if you want to use anything other than Steam, it quickly becomes more complicated.
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If you want to play competitive multiplayer games, many of them block Linux users.
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If you want to use any peripherals besides KBM or controller, such as flight sticks or steering wheels, that also can be complicated.
The person in question loves their Steam Deck, but occasionally wants to play a game that requires a little more processing power. My first thought when I started researching was to check whether SteamOS was generally available for PCs (sadly, it’s not).
Have you used Bazzite for long?
If they like how SteamOS worked, then go with Bazzite. I’ve used Linux for nearly 3 decades now. At the end of the day, we could nickle and dime the differences and the pros and cons. I don’t think it’s worth it. Bazzite will be familiar enough, and you can add Bottles to handle other game launchers. That will give you the most kitchen appliance like device.
I’ve been using Bazzite for about a year and ChimeraOS for a couple of years before that (very similar but Arch-based). It’s great.
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@grueling_spool@sh.itjust.works
OP! Please don’t do this! Someone who doesn’t even know how to change their TV input will definitely not survive on Linux for a long time! Also they only use their PC for very basic stuff like checking their emails. Gaming on Linux will need to work compability programs like Proton and Wine. You’ll get calls from them everytime! Please just install debloated Windows 10 21H2 LSTC IOT version for them!
What distro are you using for gaming?
Gentoo
How long have you used it?
Nearly 2 years now
How often have you had issues that require Linux knowledge and/or searching the web to solve?
Pretty often. I often newd to go to Gentoo forums for help.
Have you had any other minor/annoying complaints?
Gaming drivers are the biggest issue in Gentoo
I appreciate the concern, friend. They are absolutely getting a debloated Windows install if Linux doesn’t work out for any reason. And I’ll probably be avoiding Gentoo for this particular use case, which should hopefully minimise the issues with drivers and compatibility software. ;)
Gentoo is IIRC one of the harder distros to use. Or at the very least one that requires a lot of Linux knowledge.
At least that’s how I remember it.
Personally there’s plenty of good distros to work from. Things like proton and wine are pretty well hidden.
I’m running on bazzite for a while now and have run into zero issues. ( Full AMD pc ). My previous rig had an Nvidia card and that one worked pretty flawless too. Only issue I’ve had is Edge of screen flickering in ff16. But only in ff16.
Bazzite came preinstalled with everything i needed. Wifi drivers, controller support, …
It’s what I’d recommend to friends if they’d want to give linux a go for gaming. I’d benchmark protondb for them as well to see if the game actually runs on Linux :)
My only issues with Linux gaming are mainly the custom launchers ( ubisoft, ea app, battle.net ). Heroic app works great for gog/epic.
Stuff can work, but it also cannot work. It really comes down to the exact hardware combination and the games you are running and often even plain luck.
And if you are in the “It doesn’t work” camp, then you are screwed without serious skill.
Gaming on Linux is kind of like relationships. If you are one of the lucky ones where it works without effort, be grateful and don’t go around telling everyone who has problems that it’s super easy. Because it’s more luck than skill and your experience might not fit the experience that others have.
And if you are in the “It doesn’t work” camp, then you are screwed without serious skill.
This the same for windows. Or Mac. Or your plumbing. Missing something.dll errors and whatnot. Running things in win98 compatibility mode. What’s your point?
If you are one of the lucky ones where it works without effort, be grateful and don’t go around telling everyone who has problems that it’s super easy. Because it’s more luck than skill and your experience might not fit the experience that others have.
- Op asks for experience.
- I shared my experience
- You’re here criticizing me for sharing experience and that it might not work for him
What exactly is the angle here?
That I’m lucky it all works? Sure. There’s no skill involved in pressing the install and play button.
Can I guarentee it works for him? No. Did I claim it would? No.
He asked for experience and I shared mine. I’m not adding a disclaimer to day it’s all just luck. Because frankly in my opinion it isn’t. There’s been stellar work done by devs to get it this smooth. It might not be perfect. But it’s far from just “luck”.
I started with Bazzite but didn’t like that it was immutable. I broke the permissions on my drive and had to reinstall trying to force it to let me change the login screen background.
After that I switched to Garuda and have had it about a year.
The most painful part was figuring out what Linux uses as app stores and how they work. Bazzite just released Bazaar and I haven’t tried it yet but I hear it works on other distros too. Software installation and management is the biggest hurdle to easy use and that gap is closing fast.
The most common problem I have had is that a Windows app stops working and I try a different version of proton and the problem goes away.
I have only ever had to use the command like when doing weird stuff. Most people won’t need to.
Garuda also has a great helper app that lets you choose common starting software with check boxes, has buttons for updates, firmware, and other common settings, tweaks, and troubleshooting tools. It makes it pretty painless to get started.
Garuda also comes with KDE, Gnome, or Xfce (your choice) so you can get the desktop experience you like.
a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input.
Definitely Bazzite. It’s almost impossible to break, it’s effortless to roll back if something does theoretically go wrong, and KDE Plasma is like the most user friendly version of Windows you’ve never seen.
I distrohopped for a long time, usually because I got fed up with something not being available for that distro and having to compile from source, and usually failing that despite following the instructions to the letter…
Until I ended up on Nobara.
I’ve used it for a couple years now, been relatively painless for gaming. Everythings compiled/installed/ready for show time from the start. Honestly the gaming experience on linux in general, thanks to proton advancements, has been so smooth that the rare time I have an issue its usually because of a game bug and nothing to do with linux… I do make a point of avoiding games that have excessive anti-cheat though.
I’ve had two issues in as many years of using it that required hitting the Nobara discord, which had the solutions already pinned, and the solutions were little more than a command to copy into the terminal. Folks in the discord are wonderful, helpful people to the not-technical, too.
I don’t have any real minor/annoyances with Nobara the OS, or really even Linux as a whole. my only real ongoing complaint (and this isnt a linux specific issue at all) is a combination of discord being used as a support medium/knowledge base for everything anymore, and the enshittification of search engine results from SEO… So now you cant ever find the solution for any problem, no matter what its about, because half the answers are locked away on discord where search engines cant index, and the other half a buried and unfindable due to a billion AI generated Search Engine Optimized websites/pages that bury any relevant, valuable information so deeply as to be impossible to find without a pith helmet, torches, and long expedition.
On it since Beta ~2+ years. It’s “Dad Linux”. It’s “Chromebook-easy Linux.” Like a smartphone it keeps 2 OS images at all times. If an update ever goes bad, just rollback to the previous image.
Also let’s you roll with
bazzite-testingmore confidently, without worrying about your system breaking.You can even install Kinoite and Rebase to Bazzite alternatively!
“I FINALLY listened to you and tried Linux… Why did I wait so long?” GardinerBryant: “Bazzite just had a HUGE UPGRADE! (And more Linux Gaming News)”
Checkout the new Bazaar Flatpak Store app! Super easy to manage applications.
No more messing with Gnome Software or KDE Discover.
