best linux distro for gaming in 2024?
Hi im new to Linux and want to try gaming on Linux.
I have been on PC since before windows. so I kind of remember command line and DOS from back in the day.
does steam OS work with PC? I hear some say yes but it is buggy, and some say no.
last topic I saw similar to this was from 2020 and a lot has changed since the deck came out.
thanks in advance for any help 
It largely depends on what GPU you have.
Pop_OS! and Nobara has excellent gaming performance, sometimes even better than Windows in a some cases. They are forks/derivatives of Ubuntu and Fedora, respectively. Personally, I like Ubuntu and Fedora more for your sanity because it breaks less and you spend time tinkering with it less and more time gaming.
The old Steam OS (the Debian based one) is still officially available but do take note that Valve will take your support request on Ubuntu because it is their only supported distro in Linux. The new HoloOS (Arch based) that is on the Steam Decks are still not available for general use. There is a fork of it that you can install but IIRC, it only supports AMD/Radeon graphics at this time because it is what the Steam Deck is using. Because Nvidia isn’t really so friendly with open source and would like to keep their secret sauce remain secret that makes their GPUs so good. AMD is more helpful in the open source scene.
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I’d say Debian (Testing).
Hits the sweet spot of just enough bleeding edge and stability a la gaming.
That said, you will still have to tweak a few things.
If you’d prefer a more out of the box experience then Nobara is probably your go to.
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The official steam os hasn’t been upgraded past version 2. The latest version of steam os on the steam deck is version 3. And they switched from debian based to arch based between 2 and 3. You can try the unofficial steam deck os for pc called holo os, but use at your own risk.
As for a distro for gaming there are plenty for just gaming. My main pc that I do everything on is running linux mint and I’ve only been running it since october of last year as I took up the 1 year linux challenge in the forum.
So far as long as your good with using the open source version of programs / web based apps / linux versions of the same app you can get by fairly easily!
For gaming I have the steam (system package) of the app installed and it’s running 70 - 80% of my games with no issues. The last bit of games either need to be tweaked in some way to get them to run and there are going to be a few that just refuse to run at all.
Feel free to ask question - only way to learn!
Hope this helps!
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I run plain Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS with Steam (NOT FROM THE UBUNTU SOFTWARE CENTER) and it runs great. I am a very casual gamer though. X-plane runs great, and natively ie: not on steam.
I am on an all AMD system, 7950X and 7900XTX with 64GBs of Gskill RAM.
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I run all AMD 3700X/B550 with 6700XT Red Devil and 32GB DDR4 3600 samsung B-die
Many say Pop OS is best suited for gaming, your mileage still varies on your hardware as every GPU still has their unique driver hell. If you plan to change out your GPU at any point such as any rumored GPU launch(AMD or Intel Arc 2), using a bleeding edge distro is sometimes the risk you’ll need to take.
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Unfortunately, Ubuntu really really likes their snap and while in principle, I am with you in wanting a deb install, I cannot really advocate for a non-snap experience in Ubuntu anymore (for Steam and in general) because they are really pivoting on it and pushing more and more of the OS components into it. Going against it makes the overall experience painful so it maybe wiser to move on other Distros like Mint.
All my daily drivers are vanilla Fedora Workstation. They seem to have sane defaults, privacy and security-wise. I tried Nobara but its fussy if you have other use cases.
The Deb install from Steam is the recommended way to install Steam. The Packaged Steam in the Ubuntu Store will lead to nothing but grief and will lead to the user getting no support from Steam, but being redirected to Canonical or whoever maintains the package instead.
I am positive there are other sources for the same news if you don’t like this one.
Lastly, imo, Ubuntu 24.04 is shaping up to be a great release, IMO.
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I have been pleasantly surprised by Fedora. I was able to run some “classic” GOG titles without much issue with just radeon vega 8 mobile and Lutris. Lutris also has a really nice launcher that can connect to your different libraries, I haven’t tried that yet myself. It seems Proton support is pretty good too, but I haven’t tried it personally. I think probably some fancier gaming peripherals might lack plug-and-play support, your macro mice and whatnot.
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Rolling releases like Arch and SUSE tumbleweed are good since having up to date packages can improve things, especially for new hardware.
I tried out Nobara and respect what Glorious Eggroll is doing, a lot of the tinkering is done for you, really reducing the friction to just get gaming on linux.
Normal people are hesitant with the CLI and you really cant install deb Steam on a nice Ubuntu GUI.
I’d defer to @KRAVER 's preference if he can tolerare or maybe even like the command line. I agree that a deb install is best for compatibility/troubleshooting but @KRAVER should try to install it as a snap first if it seems fine on the user’s experience.
Personally I would just stick with windows…but that’s me.
With how I see; things tend to go wrong more often with Linux then windows and with how you can change almost anything with a windows OS with a Ntlite program I couldn’t go back to Linux just for that fact. Something would have to change dramatically for me to switch.
Either way I always try to respect people’s decisions in what they want or want to try. No risk no reward.
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I just want to point out, there is no command line necessary with the .deb from Steam. Click download, that downloads a .deb, then you open that with Software Install and you’re off to the races, no command line necessary.
This is the realistic option these days, everything seems to randomly break on other distros due to random changes may it be non-kernel drivers or under-the-hood dependencies(Snap in theory is good for security but the sandboxing is a yikes for 3rd party drivers that aren’t in the kernel). Keep in mind Snaps are being promoted as a secure platform for Linux to other commercial distros based on Debian and Ubuntu.
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I use Debian (testing) for steam gaming with an AMD GPU. Works well. I use Debian for everything. Coincidentally it comes up at work a lot, there are a lot of Debian hosts in the world. Redhat servers aren’t unpopular, but when you have a lot of subscriptions you end up sending IBM a lot of cash.
But, any major distro can work. They are all running the same kernel after all, and mostly the same software too.
Related topic:
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I would say try Nobara from Glorious-Eggroll, the creator of Proton-GE. He has baked in so many gaming optimisations and runs Mesa-git for bleeding edge performance. Its the one distro Ive had the least issues with regarding gaming and even newer hardware releases ( such as RX 7900 XT/XTX and Threadripper 7000).
That being said, you can get really good gaming performance on just about any distro as long as Mesa /Wine / Proton is up to date (along with a few other tweaks). I havent verified the numbers but I dont think the differences are vast enough to make a complete switch from to another. The suggestions everyone else has given is really good so you cant go wrong.
Im currently running Manjaro + Hyprland and it works great.
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Another vote for pop_os. However, I would go with a deb instead of flatpak. Here are a few of the things I have experienced with the flatpak:
- Forgetting all my settings
- Periodically forgetting what games are installed
- Periodically not being able to find games after re-pointing it to to the games directory
Since I moved to the deb, all these issues went away.
EDIT: One thing to note is that it does take a bit for new nvidia drivers to make their way into the repo. You can always roll your own, but it’s probably worth knowing.
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I think AMD support is much better than nvidia in general for Linux
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agreed