What's the best Linux alternative to Windows for gaming
What's the best Linux alternative to Windows for gaming
I use Windows for my desktop PC but I'm also a fan of Linux for work and programming.
I'm not really liking the direction windows is taking so it would be nice to explore some other alternatives. I mostly use my desktop for gaming, so I'm interested in how people are gaming on Linux
It kind of doesn’t matter which distro you use. They should all work similarly with gaming, there’s no distro with some magic formula that makes it more compatible or with better performance than the alternatives. So pick one that strikes your fancy.
If you’re new, it’s probably better to stick with well known distros. I recommend Mint and Pop OS. Both are based on Ubuntu, so every time you run into an issue or have a questions, you can google solutions for Ubuntu which will also work on Mint/Pop OS. But both also have big communities, so you’ll always have help.
Word of advice that Nvidia and Linux don’t really work that well together. Some games will have issues. AMD GPUs work just fine though.
I've heard good things about Nobara Linux for gaming. It's basically Fedora but with some patches to make it work better out of the box for gaming. Stuff like proprietary Nvidia drivers can be preinstalled. I have Fedora on my machine personally, but installing Nvidia drivers can be a pain if the open source drivers don't give you a working system with your card.
Try lutris, and use Fedora. It does help
Another recommendation for Linux Mint here. I've bounced between Manjaro, Ubuntu, Fedora, and I've found Linux Mint to just be fantastic for beginners, in that everything just works, and it does a great job of guiding the user through installation, updating drivers, updating packages (including choosing an appropriate package mirror), and setting up backups.
It's just really nice all around; the only thing I could complain about is lack of touchpad gesture support, but that's probably not an issue for desktop PC usage.
Another big benefit to Mint is its huge userbase means an equally big community and lots of user support.
I'd say for a first time user its a very easy transition.
I haven't used it, but https://nobaraproject.org/ aims to be a great gaming distro. I personally use EndeavourOS (Arch based) and have found being an up to date rolling release to be pretty useful and I've seen games run better over months of updates. For example Cyberpunk 2077 ran terribly when other titles ran well. But there's been updates recently and now it's doubled the frame rate to a playable level.
Isn't this Pop-OS's thing? Being literally for the gamers on Linux?
I dont know that its how they brand themselves, but Pop!_OS is a fantastic linux gaming distro.
Its based on Ubuntu, but they do several very important things: they update/patch the kernel with the latest drivers and goodness and provide the latest nvidia proprietary drivers. So you get the stability and durability of ubuntu + newer kernel support which means things like much more current mesa drivers (for radeon cards).
I've been using it full-time for 3 (or 4?) years now. I technically have my PC dual booting with Windows for gaming reasons, but since the steamdeck took off all of the big games I want to play are available on linux. I've logged into windows exactly 2 times and that was to run updates.
Pop has been rock solid and turned out to be a great gaming OS.
ATM I use PopOS on my rtx3050m laptop. Once you understand how to setup all the command for using the discrete graphics it runs flawless.