this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
60 points (96.9% liked)

Linux Gaming

20008 readers
95 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

No memes/shitposts/low-effort posts, please.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
monolalia@lemmy.world
60
Linux gaming for a non-technical person? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by grueling_spool@sh.itjust.works to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
51 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I'm putting together a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input. Obviously I'm committing myself to providing a certain amount of tech support no matter what, but I'm wondering if any of these modern Linux distros can provide a user experience at least on par with Windows in terms of ease of use and reliability for someone who doesn't know how to do much more than check their email and log in to Steam.

So far, I've looked at Bazzite, Cachy, Nobara, and PopOS based on what I commonly see recommended here. I'm leaning toward Bazzite based on its stated goal of being friendly to Linux newcomers, and the quality and amount of available documentation. Are there any other distros I've missed, or other considerations that might sway my preference?

I'd also like to hear about your subjective experiences with Linux gaming:

  1. What distro are you using for gaming?
  2. How long have you used it?
  3. How often have you had issues that require Linux knowledge and/or searching the web to solve?
  4. Have you had any other minor/annoying complaints?
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] grueling_spool@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm disappointed to hear that Mint doesn't have Plasma 6 yet - I use Plasma 5 daily, so I'm familiar with its issues.

I'm unfamiliar with btrfs, but I feel like I remember it being a bit controversial at some point. AFAIK ext4 is still standard. Seems like btrfs has gained some popularity though, so I'll have to give that a look.

Fedora is probably my next choice after Ubuntu in terms of mainstream non-gaming distros, so I'm happy to see a vote for it.

Thanks for your insight!

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I recommend BTRFS with snapper for anyone who isn't an expert, which includes myself.

With BTRFS with Snapper, should something break your install short of breaking your bootloader, it makes recovery completely idiot proof.

It is literally a matter of scrolling through a menu that appears for 3 seconds at startup to select an option in the lines of "boot from snapshot", pick a snapshot in the list that is time stamped to a time/date when your install still worked, let it boot up, make sure your OS started up fine, go in the console and enter the command "sudo snapper rollback" (which will tell the system to make the snapshot you are currently running the default one), enter your password and then reboot. Bam, you've just rolled back your OS to a point before it got broken. You don't even need to understand what broke it to begin with.

It saved my ass a few times already. Trying to recover a broken operating system without this tool requires a whole lot more knowledge than I have.

[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I've just learned that the latest Trixie version of Debian runs Plasma 6 as well. Another route to explore depending how new your hardware is.

It is also to be noted that this means that Plasma 6 support will likely trickle down to Linux Mint through Linux Mint Debian Edition 7. Eventually, maybe. If that happens, it will become a solid package for users who want a very stable, approachable and easy to use distro that is compatible with KDE Plasma 6. It might not come pre-packaged with KDE Plasma, but it should be relatively simple and quick to follow a walkthrough to install it after since at its core it will be compatible with it.