Linux Gaming 4 Noobs - Choosing a Distro in 2024

If you’re currently a Windows user and are thinking about making the switch to Linux but aren’t sure where to start, then this video is for you. I give an in depth explanation of the differences between the popular Linux distros and give my suggestions on which one to choose. In my next video I'll be doing a step by step guide showing how to install Steam and run games, along with other helpful tips for Linux gaming.

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Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:34 Compatibility
03:02 Differences between distros
08:32 Distro recommendations
11:54 Outro

[PhazerTech]

So how has your experience with Linux Gaming been? Which distro did you end up choosing? Let me know here in the comments!


Also one thing I wanted clarify. Since Arch and Fedora based distros have newer kernels/drivers, they're usually a better choice for PCs that contain brand new hardware.

[Tacommander]

At this point microsoft is begging us to switch to linux so thanks for this vid

[unfrogettable]

if you don't play competitive shooters you're basically good to go. Hardly have any issues at all playing most of the games i enjoy and have finished about 83 or so games on linux so far and regularly play multiplayer games like gunfire reborn or risk of rain 2 with friends.

[Baksa]

I just installed Mint and am Happy that you are making videos about Linux Gaming! Thank you.🎉

[KyroDragon]

Great video; it is nice to see more people targetting and helping newcomers to Linux getting started rather than lording over them with knowledge as sometimes has been the way in the past, so kudos to you for this! After all, the more people who run Linux, the better gaming under it will become.

Personally I choose Gentoo, but I have run it on and off for a long time, so I'm not really the target audience. Either way, it is nice to see how accessible gaming under Linux has become - I remember only barely being able to play World of Warcraft with wine quite a number of years back. Those were not the days. :')

[ZZZeph]

Minecraft On Windows 11 : Average 50 FPS

Minecraft on Linux Mint : Average 90 FPS

[edim]

Valve has done a lot to push Linux Gaming to be actually viable since they're one of the few companies out there that has the muscle and vested interest in it being as smooth as Windows.
Honestly at this point the only reason I was not running Linux on my Gaming PC was bc it came pre-installed with Windows 10 and I didn't want the hastle, but last year it shat the bed after a storm and it's a heap of trash- the power brick, the motherboard and the CPU are dead- so Im building a new rig and I'll be dead before I pay Microsoft a cent after all the bullshit they do...

[TheRosswise]

I settled on Fedora after trying many different distros. It is stable like Debian while still having newer packages like Arch. I briefly considered Nobara, but GE takes too long to update. I did all the gaming optimizations to Fedora in under 15 minutes and its been smooth sailing ever since.

[MalLambung]

This video explain very well and also helps narrow down distro choice for linux beginner and/or gamer, unlike some people that says "any distro can game", and I doubt if they even game. I used to believe that causing me to distro hop a lot, but finally I found my home, EndeavourOS, due to it's minimal, yet user friendly also support for Nvidia GPU.

[ShadowManceri]

I would also add that if using something like Debian, you can take benefit of flatpaks to get the latest software, but not everything. But it's really good if there is few software that you absolutely want to have the bleeding edge version of. Backporting is a thing too, but that can cause problems. Basically you don't want to backport anything that has a lot dependencies as it can whack the system unless you know what you are doing. And it's not that officially supported either, even if the official tools do allow you to do that.

[oligarchytheatre]

Great video, I'm a old school guy 54...
Love Linux, I like to use them all with VM's...
I appreciate you and others for keeping the knowledge going strong, keep doing your thing king... 😉😉👍🤔🤔🤩🤩👏👏👏✌✌

[Maske]

The amazing thing about Linux is that i dont have to pay 10$ to just remove an annoying "activate windows" and change my background

[ordinaryhuman]

Fedora ended up being the sweet spot for me. I didn't need much extra configuration for some niche games (e.g. additional packages for Ren'Py games) and it just kinda works without much fuss. Newer kernel version for GPU perf improvements is also nice.

Mint is where I started, but I ended up having issues due to the Cinnamon desktop not performing well in games I was playing, which was not a problem with vanilla Gnome (which I discovered after testing with Debian).

I had bad luck with Debian, between the KDE version being crashtastic and the 12.0 live ISO having a bug preventing package updates that led to me breaking the OS entirely when I tried to fix it.

I haven't tried Nobara, but I'd probably do that that if I was into recording or streaming, or if I had an Nvidia GPU. But for just standard gaming with an AMD GPU, Fedora seems just as good with the benefit of being more vanilla.

[earthoid]

I'm a Windows 10 holdout who refuses to "upgrade" to Win11. Your linux explainer is the best I found so far. I've used linux in the past but never full time like I'm about to do now. I just ordered a 2TB NVMe M.2 for linux so I can set aside my Windows install for possible (but unlikely) future use. I'm leaning toward the Mint distro and will do mostly gaming.
I just subscribed and will be checking out you other videos. Thanks!

[MyouKyuubi]

installed mint yesterday, lol, i grow increasingly impressed with it, every day.

[SouthFacedWindows]

Nobara comes with KDE ( although you can get Fedora KDE spin) by default and set for gamers. I dont like Gnome. Endevour if you prefer Arch based distro.

[johnnyveng]

CachyOS is great. It's an ArchLinux based distro that has SMOOTH integration for gaming. I just installed it and immediately started playing Last Epoch with zero issues.

[lebigmac]

Excellent video, finally someone who explains the fundamentals in a clearly structured, easy to follow video. Great job, need to check out your other videos!

[thoughtguardian]

Thanks for the update! Your input is appreciated

[Miresgaldir]

Yeah I'm making the switch at the moment. Windows told me too. It's a shame, the AI stuff is epic, but I'm just sick of the ads and the telemetry crap