Like, why Valve? I was so close to clearing out all the games I was partway through, now I need to add some demos to my backlog (not many, this Next Fest is kinda weak).
Probably could’ve made it but I haven’t picked a distro. I’m planning on turning my desktop into a dedicated gaming computer and not daily driver, because of the malware risk. I wanted something not finicky, something devs would test on as a known quantity, and preferably something Arch-based like SteamOS.
- Garuda (Arch-based)
- Bazzite (Known quantity, immutable, Fedora-based, I don’t trust it for some reason)
- Nobara (Proton-adjacent distro, Fedora-based)
- CachyOS (Super fast, Arch-based, presumably finicky?)
- Windows 7 (Based, unsupported by steam, insecure)
Try Bazzite first. It really is the best beginner Linux distro, especially for gaming.
If you decide you want more control, switch to Fedora KDE.
Bazzite and Fedora, in my experience, are the two distros that “just work” best for new users on the widest variety of hardware.
Cachy is fantastic, but I wouldn’t recommend switching to it unless you need even more control and have become very comfortable on the command line. It’s not a distro I would recommend anyone start with.
You will also see Mint recommended often, but I’ve had problems with hardware support — usually on newer builds — and I absolutely hate Cinnamon, its default desktop environment. I would honestly only look at distros that include KDE Plasma out of the box, and Mint does not.
Why Arch? I used it for a few years, but ended up getting tired of it due to random breakage.
I’ve been on Tumbleweed since, and the breakage is pretty much nonexistent.
Not finicky and Arch-based don’t really go together well.
Just go with Bazzite or something, the exact distribution doesn’t matter (as long as it’s not Arch). The more important choice is the desktop environment, which is the user experience and looks of the distro. If you’re moving from Windows, I assume you’ll like KDE Plasma. It’s basically Windows 10 but modernized, with a more aesthetic and clean look. (It’s also paralyzingly hypercustomizable, so I would recommend using the default settings initially and slowly learning the settings, rather than diving into the settings headfirst the moment you install)
I personally use Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE Plasma), but it’s slightly more annoying to set up than something like Bazzite
You don’t want finicky but want an Arch based distro? Okie dokie.
Arch is finicky?
It is inherently more unstable than the others due to it being rolling release, but it hasn’t had very many hiccups in the last couple of years, so if something breaks, it is likely to be fixable by just waiting for a patch.
I’ve had almost no problems in Arch so far. I can’t say the same for Ubuntu, though my problem with Ubuntu was often having to wait for ages to get things to be updated.
You’re overthinking it. The hardest part is making sure you have a good backup. Get your files backed up, don’t forget about save games and whatnot that might be hiding in random folders. Take a disk image if you know how to do that.
Format the drive. Install an easy to use distro with gui stuff. Mint is great - feels windows-y. Ubuntu works - the drama is real but overblown for someone just starting out with Linux. Fedora desktop is the new Ubuntu. It just works. Gnome is different but many people like it a lot (myself included). It’s not hard to learn. Save the distro hopping and niche distros for later.
Install your nvidia drivers. (Look up Rpm fusion for fedora, mint has directions on their forums).
Install steam. Log in. Buy a game. Install game. See if everything behaves. It probably will. If it doesn’t - spend 15 minutes researching and trying the fix. If you can’t get it to work - just wipe the drive and try another distro. Generally newer distros will “fix” whatever issue you are having.
You can do all of this in an hour or two as a newbie and be playing games from the steam sale.
Just stick with Fedora for your desktop if you want a traditional desktop workflow without having to jump through hoops. Any of the immutable distros have hoops you don’t want to mess with as a beginner, and the decades of forum and docs history generally won’t have information specific to your immutable distro and how to manage, so stick with the basics and Fedora.
All distros perform the same in general as far as gaming goes. There is negligible if any difference even tuned straight to the kernel, hands down.
The only thing you’ll need to figure out is what Desktop Environment you fit better with to start: KDE or Gnome.
Gnome is more like MacOS, and KDE is more like Windows. Both can be used at the same if you really wish, and there is nothing stopping you from altering whatever you install to behave like some other distro trivially.
Fedora is a good starter to figure out what you do and don’t like about which bits, and then make more informed decisions after using it for awhile.
I went with Fedora 43 KDE Spin on the computer that doesn’t support Windows 11 and Workstation on the one that does. Next weekend I will be converting that one (my main rig) to Fedora KDE Spin as well.
I hope you like Indy games cuz that’s all that’s on there. Not a single thing looks good to me really.
Indie games rock! Just browsing, here are a few I found interesting:
- astro protocol - looks kind of like Masters of Orion or, if you really squint, Stellaris
- Aerial_Knight’s DropShot - ridiculous looking skydiving racing game using finger bullets
- Stellar Freight: Echoes of the Void - reminds me of ∆V: Rings of Saturn, but more approachable by casuals
That’s just a couple pages of games, there are more gems to find.
Bazzite enjoyer here:
I mean… you are free to have your preferences and opinions and such, but… I’ve been running Baz on my Deck for nearly a year now, works great?
Like yeah there are some oddities from trying to use it as laptop/pc via docking in more like, dev oriented scenarios, in that you need to / really should make some kind of distrobox type env to directly fuck with dependencies or try to compile something more esoteric, due to being immutable and flatpak oriented… but its generally been awesome?
I dunno, not trying to fanboy, but maybe I could answer some questions or concerns you may have?
I think Bazzite is good for Linux newbies. Once you hit roadblocks (e.g. immutable files, sandboxes) you can choose to work around them or switch to a more vanilla Fedora distro. Most annoying thing I’ve run into, maybe not unique to Bazzite, is setting up port forwarding without having to use low-level rules that firewalld doesn’t detect.
Oh it very much is good for newbies, but… what you describe as ‘roadblocks’ are what I would describe as viable workarounds that maintain core OS integrity, and it has forced me to learn more about how just linux in general works, as well as docker and stuff like it.
But yeah I will totally give you that a more traditional Fedora is probably going to be easier for someone looking for a more traditional set up and all the normal stuff that works normally, lol.
Also yeah lol, properly setting up a low level portforward is basically always a struggle session no matter what distro you’re on, at least on my experience.
But again, a workaround to that is to just set that up for one sandboxxed env, and then act accordingly, don’t cross the streams.
A word of warning: Garuda is kinda cool and allows you to try lots of stuff you would normally have to set up yourself. It is great if you want to experience what Arch is like. That said, it has not exactly been a stable experience for me. You are probably better off just running EndeavourOS or plain Arch (via archinstall) in the long run.
I’m a fedora user, so I would recommend Bazzite/Nobara, but all of these are good (Except Windows 7, it’s not officially supported anymore and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t even get security updates). I think you can try them before installing thanks to live USB, so you can just see which one you like more.
I’ve gone with CachyOS, frankly it just works. Can recommend. You can tinker more if you want to, but there’s no need.
Arch is Arch-based, btw
I used Garuda, and garuda is cool, seriously the first time user experience is fancy, but it’s also a lot and if you need more than basic support you’re probably going to be headed over to the Arch community who is going to treat you different because you’re not really fully on Arch. You’re also definitely going to forcibly learn a lot picking anything arch based as your first Linux distro.
Skipping ahead, of the choices you’ve listed and for someone new to Linux who just wants an OS to use I’d go for Bazzite.
Why not Debian?
