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!

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I think I just might have to give pop a go and see what all the fuss is about. :)

  • Nyanix@beehaw.orgEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • jakepi@beehaw.orgEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    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 :)

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      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. :)

      • jakepi@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • Bright5park@beehaw.orgEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • Bright5park@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • Communist@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          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

    • Jim P.@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • brotherballan@kbin.social
    8·
    1 year ago

    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.

      • Communist@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

      • ladydascalie@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • lertsenem@mastodon.lertsenem.com
    7·
    1 year ago

    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. :]

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOP
      6·
      1 year ago

      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?

        • nlm@beehaw.orgOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, thought so. Hope they’ll publish their newer versions as well soon.

      • lertsenem@mastodon.lertsenem.com
        1·
        1 year ago

        @nlm You’re right, but there is an unofficial version (with some tweaks to work on standards PC) available here.

        It works as intended, but I would only recommend it if you intend to use your PC in a console-like setup (ie, plugged to a big screen, with a game controller).

        • nlm@beehaw.orgOP
          1·
          1 year ago

          Ah cool!

          Not something I’d use now then but still neat that you can get it :)

        • jakepi@beehaw.org
          1·
          1 year ago

          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.

  • DaveedMee@beehaw.orgEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    I use Arch with KDE Plasma for that comfy desktop environment feel but switch to BSPWM ever so often for productivity or to use my pc as just a media center

  • hallettj@beehaw.orgEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    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 extraLibraries option 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 extraLibraries one 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.

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      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

    • Atemu@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      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 use pkgsi686Linux yourself.

    • Chobbes@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      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-run which is a simple command line tool that automatically wraps things in a normal FHS. Super convenient for the occasional binary :).

      • hallettj@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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?

        • Chobbes@beehaw.orgEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, exactly! For steam itself on NixOS you don’t have to manually use steam-run, but steam-run is 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.

    • Joker@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      Which packages do you add to extraLibraries? How do you find the dependencies? I’m struggling with this at the moment.

      • hallettj@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

  • Don't ask my name@beehaw.orgEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      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?

      • Don't ask my name@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        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.

        • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          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. :)

    • nlm@beehaw.orgOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      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!

  • Mr_Vortex@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    I’m currently running Nobara and I really vibe with the Gnome desktop and Fedora in general. However, I recently installed Linux Mint for my girlfriend’s gaming rig and I was surprised by how lightweight and responsive it felt. It was also dead simple to use during the entire setup process and I can absolutely see how you’d never need to enter a terminal if you didn’t want to. If I ever have a reason to leave Nobara, I’m definitely going to go with Mint!

  • milo@lemm.eeEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    As a former Arch user, Fedora has been so amazing for me. It’s so rock solid and simple to use. It also has great software compatibility because lots of software is distributed as rpm due to businesses using CentOS and RHEL.

    • Zetaphor@zemmy.ccEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Came here to say exactly this. I’ve hopped distros for years, Fedora is the longest I’ve stuck to a single distro and it’s been fantastic.