Hey folks!

Thinking of switching back to Linux. I was running PopOS about 1.5 years ago and was pretty happy with the gaming aspect of things, but I was playing a lot of VALORANT back then, and I got sick of dual booting. That is less the case now, so I would like to try going back to Linux for the majority of my gaming / streaming setup, and just use Windows for the handful of games like Destiny 2 that won’t run on Linux.

I am fairly new to Linux. Don’t mind learning some terminal stuff, but I am basically a noob so it does need to be pretty easy to start with. Got a NVIDIA 3080 and AMD CPU if that matters at all.

Recommend me a distro please fellow penguin gamers.

  • Kory@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I was using Linux Mint when I made the switch and it was great cause everything was just working, no tinkering needed. I want to mention https://nobaraproject.org/ though, cause it’s a modified Fedora version that works very well for gaming too.

    • apprehensively_human@lemmy.caEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’ve had Nobara running on my gaming PC for over a year and it’s worked fantastic. I was using Fedora previously but was having some issues figuring out how to get Blender to properly utilize the GPU for rendering. It worked seamlessly once I made the switch to Nobara.

  • Sploosh the Water@vlemmy.netEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Pop_OS is good, I’ve been using it for a bit on my laptop. On my main gaming computer, I have been using Nobara for over a year and it’s been great. Very stable, only a few small bugs. Games run great on it and it’s optimized for gaming specifically. It’s part of the Fedora family and developed by the same person who created the Glorius Eggroll version of Proton for Linux.

    If you want to stick with something more fully mainstream, then Fedora Vanilla is fantastic also. Just know that the default Wayland desktop will be a little buggy depending on the game/app. I still use X11 personally and will stick with it for another year or so while Wayland gets a bit more ironed out.

    Overall, you won’t go wrong with Pop_OS or Fedora for mainstream Distros. If you want a little more freedom and customization, go with Fedora and their Plasma desktop version. If you want something a little more power-user but still very friendly and slightly more optimized for pure gaming, Nobara with the Plasma desktop.

    If you want total no muss/fuss vanilla, plug n’ play, go with Pop_OS.

    Links for you:

    Fedora KDE Plasma - https://spins.fedoraproject.org/kde/ Nobara All versions - https://nobaraproject.org/download-nobara/ Pop_OS - You already know it lol.

    Good luck and welcome back to the full Linux experience!

    • Moonrise2473@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      There’s no official installer for steamos, only a recovery image for the steam deck. Then, some people in their free time hacked that image to allow installing on other hardware (except Nvidia GPUs) but imho not very easy

      • teruma@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        Huh? the first thing that comes up when I google SteamOS is DIY install instructions.

            • Contend6248@feddit.deEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              This is an old version which was for SteamOS devices, the Steamdeck has a completely revamped OS which has not that much in common with the old one.

              That SteamOS used Debian as base, the new SteamOS 3 Arch with countless of adjustments to make the usage of the Steamdeck a joy.

              I really wouldn’t install the old SteamOS as of now, there won’t be an upgradepath because they use different bases, there are countless of better alternatives out there and maybe they will release SteamOS 3 for custom devices in the future.

  • Cathasach@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    I use Endeavour. It’s not necessarily easy and not necessarily hard but there’s a Calamares installer and the website has really good instructional articles and forums. Comes with Dracut now which is super fast compared to mkinitcpio. Everything runs great for me and I have similar hardware (same GPU, AMD 7800X3D proc). Tbh I would just recommend rolling release for gaming.

  • bootyberrypancakes@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 year ago

    endeavourOS! It’s pretty much Archlinux with a gui installer and some helpful things for new users. I recently installed it on a spare drive on my gaming PC with AMD/nvidia and everything just worked after installing steam.

      • evadzs@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        If you’re newer to Linux I recommend Garuda as a beginner distro. It’s very similar to Endeavor as an Arch base, but has some friendly GUI options like Snapper bootable backups for easily undoing bad updates and an update script that takes care of mirror list and orphan notifications. People complain about bloat in Garuda and while there is some it’s also helpful bloat, still less than Windows, and has negligible impact on modern hardware