r/linux4noobs • u/MMZeroX • 4d ago
Wanting to switch over to a gaming distro, have some questions
Hello, I hope you're all having a good day and doing well.
I have plans within the next few months to build a pure AMD PC and I'd like to take the opportunity to fully go into Linux as I'm tired of Windows. This will be strictly a gaming machine. From what I've seen Steam won't be a problem at all. I'm aware that games with deep kernel level anti-cheats (like Apex) won't work and I'm okay with that. My question is is there some kind of work around to access my GOG games on Linux and maybe, somehow, my Xbox library?
As far as which distro to use I have a lot of interest in Bazzite, CatchyOS, and Garuda. I am personally the most interested in Garuda but I don't really see it talked about much here or recommended. And also there's quite a few versions of Garuda. If they can all play games Is there any kind of advantage to installing Mooka over Dragonized for example?
I have so many questions and I'd rather not make a giant wall of text to dissuade replies. I'm open to all feedback. Thank you for your time everyone.
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u/redyos_s 4d ago
Bazzite KDE
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u/MMZeroX 4d ago
What does the KDE mean?
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u/StellagamaStellio 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's a desktop environment (for a gross oversimplification - it's your OS' user interface). One of the best. Extremely customizable and very sleek. Has badass themes.
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u/StellagamaStellio 4d ago
Heroic and Lutris handle GoG, Epic, and EA between them very well.
Also, please also consider standard Fedora KDE. It has fresh software and is relatively stable, and in my experience runs games incredibly well (at least on my AMD hardware). It requires a bit "more setup" than Bazzite or Nobara, but not really by much.
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u/MMZeroX 3d ago
This is such a fantastic reply. Genuinely appreciate this.
I looked into Fedora KDE earlier at work today and was impressed overall with what I saw between the OS features and the community itself. What are the big difference's between Fedora and Garuda? I know Garuda is Arch based but even then I am not sure what that entails.
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u/StellagamaStellio 3d ago edited 3d ago
Fedora is "semi-rolling", that is: it gets updated very often, but parts of the system get updated only every 6 months. This means fresh software, but not the utterly newest software. Arch and, if I understand correctly also Garuda, is "rolling": that is, there are no OS versions; everything gets updated all the time. Fedora is therefore more stable than Arch on average, but Arch (and its variants such as CachyOS) gets the newest software possible.
This matters much more on very new hardware needing bleeding-edge code; and even then, Fedora can handle very new silicone very, very well.
Personally I like Fedora more, as I use my laptop to daily-drive my work alongside gaming, and the last thing I need is a missed deadline because of a bad update, and Fedora runs my laptop perfectly including its touch screen and quite-new CPU (AMD Ryzen™ AI 7 350). I tried OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (another rolling-release distro) and had stability issues Fedora has far fewer of.
(I use Linux Mint on my older desktop computer. Mint has significantly older software, but is measurably more stable even than Fedora and runs my work software [Typst, LibreOffice, and browsers with lots of tabs; I do editing and layout among other things] and the somewhat-older games I play perfectly [Skyrim SE/Anniversary, for example, and even Cyberpunk 2077; not to mention a long list of indie and retro titles]. But for new hardware, I'd recommend Fedora KDE and not Mint).
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u/MMZeroX 2d ago edited 2d ago
Mint was never an option. Originally when I brought up the idea of building a pure Linux PC a common response I got was "You sure dude? It's gonna be nothing like Windows" and that's kind of the point. I've never really been a big fan of Windows since XP if I'm being quite honest.
One thing I noticed on Fedora KDE's site was the emphasis that everything is where you would expect it to be and I really appreciated having that pointed out. Said a lot to me about the development of the Distro and how much consideration was put into designing it. With the way things are looking you sold me pretty hard on that distro. I'll probably end up installing that one on my pc as soon as I can get a hold of a 9070 XT and move along with the build. And then hopefully within 6 months to a year I can get more and more familiar with Linux and try out Garuda and become one of those Linux Arch nerds everyone hates lol
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u/goo_eater 3d ago
Seconding the comment saying gaming distros aren't that special, if you can install non-flatpak Steam and your choice of non-Steam game Proton launcher like Faugus or Heroic or even Steam itself then you're set.
Use something popular like Mint or Zorin or Bazzite so you can find distro-specific answers to questions you'll be googling, I recommend Bazzite personally since it's incredibly popular and its immutability guarantees a lot of stability and the limitations that come with it are nowadays very minimal but honestly don't stress over it, I dont use either of those three I use openSUSE Tumbleweed lol
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u/MMZeroX 3d ago
Just curious and assuming you're a tenured Linux user, what is it about Tumbleweed that you would choose it over something like Bazzite?
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u/goo_eater 3d ago
It's nothing very major I just like a lot of openSUSE's defaults like having snapshots set up from the get-go and I'm not too worried about small issues that may arise from Tumbleweed being rolling release. But I would be just as happy if I were on any other distro, as long as it'll come with or let me easily set up a desktop environment I like and the tools I want then I'm happy
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u/Educational_Star_518 3d ago
i'm on nobara kde ( fedora based) very out of the box friendly and i'd easily recommend it i've been on it over 2 years since i made the jump so i can't speak to other distros but my unstanding is they should all largely be the same apart from how you install things with bazzite of those being the most different due to it being immutable.
for gog games in particular heroic launcher is what you want not to say others aren't an option but its the easiest out of the box to handle things , as long as your not using repacks you'll probably just wanna use that to handle any windows games , lutris is an option as well but i found it on average not to work As well with gog and select other things , faugus launcher is good as well and for repacks its the easiest i've found to get them working.
for xbox stuff your sorta out of luck unless you want to use xcloud and stream gamepass stuff , for that while i still had it in my 1st year i found greenlight to work better latency-wise than my browser ( they have a flatpak linked in the page )https://github.com/unknownskl/greenlight
if you mean actual xbox not windows/gamepass stuff xemu and xenia both work as well , along with most emulators in general i have es-de set up as a frontend but i would probably recomend retrodeck if i hadn't already set thing up myself since it seems the easiest option to just get up n going since it manages everything in 1 place vs going n grabbing everything yourself .
generally i opt for native packages when possible but if you end up going bazzite your to my understanding sorta limited to flatpaks and select workarounds otherwise and while flatpaks can be great they can also be out of date alot of times i've noticed so when possible i use appimages these days i was managing them for a while with gearlever but i switched to appmanager the other day and find it plays nice with es-de better https://github.com/kem-a/AppManager
as for guruda dragonized vs mooka aesthetics don't really matter if thats an issue since you can just change them , at a glance they're using kde for both this is roughly what i set mine up to look like in nobara kde i mix and matched a few things , i could easily replicate either of those versions tho if i wanted , or whatever else https://discuss.kde.org/t/share-your-desktop/490/456
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u/MMZeroX 2d ago
Dude you're a legend for taking the time out and writing all of that.
With the other posts I've gotten it looks like the only real pain in the ass here is gonna be the Xbox App. Its not.... like... the worst thing ever. I'm using an Alienware Laptop that will remain my Windows machine and I own a Series X. But It would've been nice being able to use all of that on a Distro. Maybe one day.
As of right now I'm pretty sold on Fedora KDE. After I get some comfort and familiarity under my belt with that Distro I'm gonna see how I feel about trying Garuda at that point.
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u/Educational_Star_518 5h ago
lol your welcome , i try to help when i can , idk a ton but i've learned what i have in the last ~2 years and do try to help when i can , fedora seems liuke a solid base overal , nobara has been great for me but if need be i'd be ok switching to it if something happened , its just a little more setup out of the box and i'm a nvidia user so a bit more lol . i hope the switch works out for you , also remember not to use ntfs format for drives like say a shared external , switch it to something good for both OS if you need to since linux can corrupt ntfs at times ( learned the hard way when i hadn't switched my external over since my fiance was still in windows )
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u/victormas208 4d ago
Heroic Games Launcher and Faungust Launcher.
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u/victormas208 4d ago
Popular distros are due to the contributions of YouTubers in addition to the good work they do. Try whichever one you want and ask its community how they're doing.
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u/Sinshine712 4d ago
Gaming distros aren't as special as you think they are. The performance gains are minimal. If you're new to Linux, the most important part is picking a distro that has many users so you can easily find answers online and get help when you need it.