The Best Gaming Linux Distro

What is the best Linux distro for gaming? .

[lumeronswift]

I think the fact that Steam OS and the development of that OS is bringing more and more games close to running natively on Linux... thereby allowing us to run our games on nearly any other Linux distro... is enough to at least give them some applause.

[OldManTomJulio]

Recommendation: Use the default Gnome/KDE Nobara ISO's. The Official spin has too many weird personal choices added. It's a lot easier to install default then add personal touches than it it is to take away from someone else's idea of what a desktop should do.

[KuittheGeek]

I love ProtonUp, and I appreciate that it has a flatpak for the Steam Deck. I have been using it for a little bit now, and only today did I learn that there is an easy button to upgrade the version of proton that several games are using if several are spread across different versions. You just click on the version of proton that is being used, proton versions that aren't in use have a note next to them, click "Show info", and then "Batch update". "Show info" will tell you what games are using that version of proton, and "Batch update" will allow you to select which version you want to move all of those games to. Very handy, and I just learned that one today as I was manually updating proton over a few games...

[pronstorestiffi]

The thing about SteamOS is the fact that it's designed to just work out of the box with a large selection of games (more being added constantly) on supported hardware. Which right now officially is the Steam Deck. Sure you can run whatever you want, and do tweaks in desktop or terminal. But for people who are not in the Linux eco system and don't care even one bit about what's running their games, SteamOS will be the best option for those people.

[TheUnhistoricalKing]

I was really waiting for you to do this video (or something similar). I've stopped distro-hopping when I found nobara like 6 months ago. No dual-booting, no gpu passthrough. ALL my windows games work flawlessly with proton-GE and I haven't had any problems with the system, on the contrary, it really made my life easier.

[YannMetalhead]

Nobara user here: every thing works out of the box. It's an amazing Distro.

[sebastjansslavitis]

so Steam OS is no good for games because Firefox is 5months old... nice arguments... I really doubt that OS that is made exclusively for gaming is bad for gaming

[murfdaddydolla]

Thanks for letting us know about this awesome distribution! I'll definitely be spinning it up in a VM real soon. I love the direction in which Fedora desktop is headed in right now PLUS I happy to see the strides that Linux gaming has made just in the last year or two. Now we just need Fedora to adopt some of the features that the Nobara Project provide.

[JL_Batman]

It is hands-down my favorite Distro. I've been using it as a daily work and play driver for months now.

[angelplayz]

I get what you're saying, Chris really I do and I look at Valve as I would any other corporation. However, they have helped if not been responsible to some massive steps forward for Linux in gaming with proton and vk3d and other projects. It's important to give credit where credit is due and to support any and all innovative steps forward for Linux. I run Endeavor OS for gaming myself using my own personal setup scripts to do so since I know exactly how to build based on my hardware components and what I want out of my experience. Still, I think it's wise to give credit where credit is due.

[thundrstruck]

I've been using PopOS 22.04 fir gaming and its been great. I did have to manually install Steam, Lutris, Heroic, Protuo-Up, mangohud, goverlay, etc but once that is done it works great.

[jamespalsson]

Thanks for the recommendation Chris, been looking to get into Fedora since 36 was released. Hope you'll do a video of how you've customized Fedora on your PC.

[itzamedave]

Very cool I'll give it a spin on my shop rig thanks for info look forward to checking it out

[jjvm]

Last six months I've been distro-hopping to test linux-gaming. So far, Manjaro and Garuda were my best experiences, having in mind that I also use that same laptop for work. After watching this video, I'm pretty motivated to try this on the weekend... worst case scenario, I would return to my previous distro, but (again) this video made me have a good feeling about this project... 🙂

[princemjmc]

Thanks Chris for this video, I will definitely try Nobara out! 😎

[josegarita]

I just put the Nobara repos on my Fedora installation, installed Nobara kernel and now I don't have micro stuttering while gaming, thanks for bringing this up

[wilfridtaylor]

One thing I found really useful is Distrobox. Runs up the user space of lots of different distros in a container and if you install mesa drivers in it you can run games.

[jeffsadowski]

I have fedora running as my host for vms and shared my video card using pci pass through (note: for linux distros to use pci pass through I had to lie and say I was installing windows to virt-manager) and have been using Manjaro for playing games for about 6 months. It has been pretty good experience.

[timjroughton]

this was so useful, hope u make some more!!

[BjornsTIR]

I'm def. gonna try that, not sure if I'd switch to it, though. I'm just very used to arch, and kde with wayland works fine there. (my multi-monitor setup with different refresh rates basically needs wayland to be usable)