I’m currently on Win11 but I’m getting that familiar Linux itch and want to dual boot a while again. I tend to gravitate towards Ubuntu simply because it’s so big and well supported by most things.
I’ve run Arch in the past but I’ve gotten too old and lazy for that if I’d be completely honest. I have played with manjaro and endeavour though… and opensuse tumbleweed, rolling is kind of nice.
Not sure what I’d try out first this time so I figured I’d get some inspiration from you guys!
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I’ve been on Manjaro for 3 years, honestly love it, it’s treated me great for gaming and given me so little to have to fix that my wife has also been running it for 2 years.
Got to love the wife rating :D
But yeah, I had manjaro on an old chromebook at University, it was pretty nice!
It’s funny, she’s become more of a Linux evangelist than me, she really went all in.
Sounds like a keeper! :)
She certainly is <3 celebrating 10 years this year
Good for you guys!
Thank you!
I’ve been running Linux Mint for a few years now and it’s been really good for me. Runs games through Steam and Lutris about as good as I’ve had it.
I’ve also run other distros like Pop! and Fedora here and there but they seem to give me more issues.
I would take a look at pop_os. It’s Ubuntu, but without Snap and a closer to mainline kernel version. They have a lot of great usability tweaks too.
I run Arch BTW. I just like to make things difficult :)
I installed Kubuntu… I couldn’t be assed to resize my efi partition to a gig and disrupt windows… Done that in the past with varying results. Wish they didn’t require it to be that big tbh.
I do miss Arch… wouldn’t surprise me if I’ll install it again soon.
Kubuntu works. But where’s the fun in that? :)
It’s like… I installed it, messed with lutris a bit (needed a newer version) and installed Diablo 4, everything works… and now I feel like I’m missing out somehow. :)
You’re missing out on chasing the dragon for the latest and greatest. :)
Arch is fine once you get it setup, but I feel like the nerd in us can never just leave it be. I’ll probably go back to pop_os next major release they have.
Sometimes I wish I had a machine dedicated to nothing but reinstalling different distros. :)
It can get a bit disrupting to do it on your main rig too often.
Use a VM?
I know, I do that too but it’s just not quite the same for some reason.
VMs are great for that
A very simple, almost stock setup of Arch + KDE.
X11 or Wayland? I find games like csgo stutter on Wayland.
Make sure you’re running the sdl environment variable that makes them native on Wayland, in my experience when that’s on it makes my games that are native significantly more performant.
I used Manjaro with Wayland last year and had no issues at all playing games.
Wayland. I’ve had no issues, but then I don’t play CS:GO. However I’ve played Cyberpunk on ultra with no issues, for example.
I use Pop!_OS and have been happy with it for the last couple years or so.
I think I just might have to give pop a go and see what all the fuss is about. :)
I have been quite happy with Arch Linux, up until I got my Steam Deck, at which point I stopped playing on my non-Deck PCs, so… SteamOS, I suppose.
Came here to say SteamOS as well. I am surprised more people aren’t saying it. But the thing is, the Steam Deck works so well I have to wonder how many people don’t know/care the OS it runs, or maybe they have forgotten it’s running Linux, or maybe they know but don’t consider themselves “Linux Gamers” just because they are using it.
Sort of like how people playing on a Switch or PS3/4/Vita are technically FreeBSD gamers deep down.
… which is an immutable variant of arch.
It is, but I still count it as it’s own thing, in the same way most people count Debian and Ubuntu as two seperate distributions.
Yes, you’re correct, just a little funny that you moved from arch to basically steamarch, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, arch plus steam
I weirdly did not see anyone mentioning SteamOS? Formerly based on Ubuntu, now based on Arch, I believe.
It’s the distribution that the #SteamDeck is packaged with, and so it’s become my main gaming distrib now. :]
Are they providing the arch based version for download now? I was under the impression they’ve only set it up for steam decks but not for general use?
According to the website the public release is based off of Debian still.
Yeah, thought so. Hope they’ll publish their newer versions as well soon.
I tried HoloISO and had pretty mixed results. I’ve had much better luck with ChimeraOS.
The devs on ChimeraOS are excellent too, they take in community feedback and are very helpful.
Ah cool!
Not something I’d use now then but still neat that you can get it :)
A little background for context. I’m gamer and professional software developer. I’ve been dual booting windows 11 and pop os for awhile. Windows for games and pop os for everything else… Over the weekend I switched to NixOS. This came with a learning curve which I spent a day or so learning. I’ve been getting the hang of it now and I love it so much. I definitely recommend it. I managed to get steam working without much fiddling and my emulators. It’s been great! The benefits for programming are obvious. Allowing me to basically stop using docker dev containers.
I completely removed windows from my computer and I’m very happy.
We used to run Ubuntu at my last job, it was so nice! I’m back in Windows land now though…
Yeah my job recently started letting developers choose between windows and Mac now which is a step in the right direction… their excuse is that all their security software doesn’t run in Linux… Ill accept using a Mac over WSL though, that was a huge pain
I’m still happy WSL exists, it’s definitely better than nothing if you’re stuck in Windows land!
Yeah absolutely! I know I dissed it, but I was happy to have it when I was stuck on windows for work.
NixOS is the path to enlightenment. Very good stuff. Also look into steam-run if you’re not already aware!
Save yourself a lot of trouble and get a secondary SSD to put Linux on instead of doing a traditional dual boot. Normal dual boots with windows suck ass and lead to problems.
As for a distro, I keep going back to endeavourOS. It’s just so minimal out of the box, and I still can’t find anything to match the convinience of the AUR + Pacman for package management.
It’s on a laptop. I do have an external usb that I have linux installed on but it feels like a hassle to connect/disconnect every time I need to switch OS. Maybe it could’ve been worth staying on it though?
I actually usually run linux on a USB SSD myself haha, but I am on a desktop so I can just leave it there. For you that’s definitely a hassle.
I mean it works I suppose, at least when I’m at my desk at home which is where I mostly use it, but still. It’s not quite optimal. :)
I’ve been evaluating NixOS to make sure I can run games on it. I’ve only tried a machine with Intel graphics so far, but I see that AMD and Nvidia drivers are packaged. It seems convenient now that I’ve figured out the setup.
Vulkan is set up out of the box.
It’s necessary to enable 32-bit DRI support by adding this line to
/etc/nix/configuration.nix:hardware.opengl.driSupport32Bit = true;To use Lutris install the package and use its UI to install runners. I didn’t have to configure any extra libraries to get Battle.net running. You can configure the “system wine” that Lutris sees, and extra libraries your games might need like this:
home.packages = with pkgs; [ (lutris.override { extraLibraries = pkgs: [ # List library dependencies here ]; extraPkgs = pkgs: [ wine-staging ]; }) ];Those lines go in a Home Manager config file, like
~/.config/home-manager/home.nix. That installs Lutris, and any listed dependencies at the same time.NixOS does not put dependencies in the file paths where programs usually look for them. That traditional directory structure is called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, or FHS. But Nix packages can create a virtual FHS where needed, and that is what the Lutris package does. That lets software that isn’t built for Nix work, like Lutris’ Wine runners. That means that for games to access libraries those libraries must be listed in that
extraLibrariesoption so that they are included in the FHS.32-bit libraries are in
pkgs.pkgsi686Linux.*if you need them.I haven’t tried Steam yet, but I think it has an option similar to the
extraLibrariesone for Lutris.A nice feature of NixOS is that if you add a bunch of libraries to your config trying to get a game to work, those libraries are automatically unlinked when you remove them from your config so your system stays nice and tidy.
Never really looked into Nix at all… it seems neat but I really don’t think I want to tinker too much these days. I’ll probably settle for something easier. Probably either *buntu/buntubased or arch-based.
…or tumbleweed…
…or something else… :D
32-bit libraries are in
pkgs.pkgsi686Linux.*if you need them.Put the libraries into
extraLibraries; it’ll add them for both µarches. No need to explicitly usepkgsi686Linuxyourself.Oh good tip, thanks!
I’ve been having a great time with games on NixOS. Steam just works when you enable it. I believe you can specify extra libraries for the filesystem hierarchy hackery, but I haven’t needed to yet. One thing you should know about (if you don’t already) is
steam-runwhich is a simple command line tool that automatically wraps things in a normal FHS. Super convenient for the occasional binary :).Good to know, thanks! Do you find steam-run to be helpful even for non-steam binaries that need an FHS? Or do you use it mainly for games?
Yeah, exactly! For
steamitself on NixOS you don’t have to manually usesteam-run, butsteam-runis a handy little tool to wrap / run other commands with the FHS that NixOS sets up for steam. I’ve mostly used it to run a few Linux games that I have binaries for, but don’t have on steam… I’m pretty sure I used it for another Linux program too, but I can’t remember what right now.
Which packages do you add to extraLibraries? How do you find the dependencies? I’m struggling with this at the moment.
It depends on what your games need. I haven’t added any libraries yet, but I haven’t tested many games yet either. If something isn’t working you might be able to determine a missing library from the log output. In Lutris the Play button has an arrow on it that you can click on to find the “Show log output” button.
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Tumbleweed’s always treated me very nice, you ought to try it out!
Kind of makes me wish I opted for that right now… It’s always given me a very polished feeling!
Does StreamOS count?
Sure does!
EOS / Arch.
In my case, I use Fedora exclusively (no dual boot).
I tried PopOS, but I had problems with each update.
Any particular reason for Fedora or is that just what you are comfortable with?
No real reason I think.
I had problems with PopOS, but I could have gone Mint since it’s the one I knew the most.
But since I was reinstalling, I gave Fedora a try, and I liked it so I kept it.
Feels like that’s pretty common these days. Most of the big distros are polished enough to get the work done without jumping through too many hoops really.
Pop!_OS. It just works, it’s easy, and it makes me enjoy using my computer.
I’m starting to want to try Pop… they seem to have quite a few fans around here!
It is one of the simplest ones to play games on
Yup, Pop!_OS is virtually flawless for me on my Nvidia laptop. It can run every game that I play for hours with no crashing including Tears of the Kingdom on the yuzu emulator.
