I have EndeavourOS, but with the nature of Bleeding Edge packages, things can break, so setup automatic snapshots with btrfs (you want this for your data anyways).
Bleeding Edge packages have the advantage of you getting the latest features, patches and improvements, which is required for some gaming cases.
I use Arch + Gnome with VRR patches on my main PC.
It find it actually easier to use than e.g. fedora or ubuntu due to better documentation and way more available packages in the repos... With many, many more packages being in AUR!
By installing all the stuff commonly found on other distros (and which many consider bloat), you'll get basically the same thing as, well, any other distro. I have all the "bloat" like NetworkManager, Gnome, etc. which is known to work together very well and which tries to be smart and auto-configure a lot of stuff. Bloat it may be, but I am lazy~
Personally, I think it's better to stick to upstream distros whenever possible. For example Nobra, which is being recommended in this thread quite a lot, is maintained by a single person. In reality, it's not much more than regular Fedora with a couple of tweaks and optimizations. Vast majority of those one could do themselves on the upstream distro and avoid being dependent that one person. It is a single point of failure. after all.
Honestly Arch (and the more pure Arch derivatives like Endeavour) is fantastic as long as things don’t break, and I’ve never had anything break that wasn’t more complicated than updating my mirror list or forcibly uninstalling a conflicting package. There’s always the potential for something more serious to go wrong, but having the Arch wiki is such a fantastic resource.
That valve uses Arch is irrelevant in all honesty. Proton is not a Valve product, Valve is merely one of its users and contributors, and it is not wedded to one distro..Similarly Valves own Steam packages are not distro specifi, and there are other gaming platforms to consider which also benefit from Proton (for example you can get Gog windows games working in Linux too quite easily), as well as all the Retro gaming options.
Pick a distro you personally like. I use Mint as I like the cinnamon desktop interface and the distro is pretty much good to go from fresh install. I use Mint both as a dual install with Windows on my PC and also within VMs in Windows. I still spend a lot of time using Windows because of specific games compatibility and work related apps.
EndeavourOS seems a good choice if you do want to go the Arch route but it's only something I've played with in a VM.
If you want something gaming specific then Draugar seems like a good choice - it apparently uses Ubuntu LTS but with the mainline Kernel updates optimised for gaming. But I have no personal experience with the distro.
I also see a lot of people seem to like Pop!_OS, but again no personal experience.
Exactly. Proton is Valve’s name for their WINE-based product. It’s basically WINE with some patches to work with the Valve ecosystem.
It’s also largely community driven, but that didn’t make it not a Valve product, Valve still controls what goes in and what doesn’t after all (which is why projects like Glorious Eggroll’s proton builds are so prevalent, sometimes you want to try stuff Valve hasn’t approved yet).
I kinda hate this take flying around constantly. There is such a thing as a gaming distro: one that has sane defaults for gaming, has the important things pre-installed like Feral GameMode, ProtonUp and the Nvidia drivers, etc. Also having an up-to-date package manager for these essentials is vital.
Yeah, technically all distros are very similar, but most people asking for recommendations specifically want something that just works for their task, not everyone can fiddle with packages and DEs to get what they want.
Distro with preinstalled packages =/= distro with exclusive features. The same packages available on “gaming distros” are available on any other “non-gaming” distro as well.
Aside from the fact that they do have exclusive features (Nobara has a number of kernal patches and general fixes not found on Fedora), a distro is way more than exclusive features. The theming, extensions, patches, tuned package manager, etc. make up a cohesive experience.
Nobody cares that you can replicate the same thing on Debian or Arch after 20 hours of hammering things together and even more hours of research and choice paralysis. Anyone asking for a distro recommendation want something that works. Not something that needs time and effort.
Nobara has a number of kernal patches and general fixes not found on Fedora
…which can be implemented on every other distro as well. Again, it’s GNU/Linux and not Windows – “all you can see/exist in a distro you can do/implement in every other distro.”
@GustavoM@simple hmm, interesting. How do I make pacman work on ubuntu? I mean, just because it's technically possible, doesn't mean it's at all easy to do, in any stretch of the imagination
Resorting to (pure) denials won’t change facts neither prove me wrong – all GNU/Linux distros are equally good and can be tweaked/improved equally – there are nothing that makes em stand out.
Good point. I had a lot of trouble with my Nvidia card before switching to pop os. I ended up switching to AMD anyhow, but the reason I even landed on pop os was this fact.
I have a 2060 super. It has all the performance I currently need. I would like to buy a non nvidia graphics card but I can’t justify buying a new card for that reason alone.
Yup, my only complaint is that Steam Deck controller doesn’t seem to work automatically with Heroic games launched through desktop mode, and most guides I see recommend running games through Steam.
If Heroic had smooth integration with the Steam Deck, I’d use it a lot more.
my only complaint is that Steam Deck controller doesn’t seem to work automatically with Heroic games launched through desktop mode
If you hold start for 1 second in desktop mode you can switch between Desktop and Gamepad profile (which should just emulate a regular gamepad), assuming you don’t mean that.
From what I see, the only way to do it is to launch Steam and configure it there, and Steam needs to be running while I’m playing whatever game. Or at least that’s what I found online. It seems most people add Heroic to Steam, so maybe I’ll try that.
It’s not documented directly since it’s done with Steam’s built-in controller customisation. Under desktop mode in Steam Settings -> Controller -> Desktop Layout -> Edit Layout – there are two Action Sets with the start button bound to switch between them on long press. You’ll hear a sound when it happens as well and the game will detect it as an Xbox controller.
This acts system wide as long as Steam is running but it won’t give you the per-application customisation you get by adding it to Steam.
Thanks! I’ll play around with it. I haven’t played around with the controller customization that much, just basic things like remapping a couple buttons.
Thanks for sharing, I haven’t picked up Lethal Company yet but I know some other games like Shadow of Doubt use the same mod loader and I bet this will work great for them.
Looks like TL;DW - rewrite Heroic in Rust, and rearchitect it a bit to more easily support other stores than GOG and EGS. There’s also an intro to other options.
Eh, I think something like Electron makes a lot of sense, but maybe they’ll go with tauri instead if it’s going to be written in Rust. The app itself isn’t really performance sensitive since it basically just launches games in another process, so using a web view isn’t really an issue, and could even be helpful in order to handle 2FA and whatnot.
So I wouldn’t expect them to rewrite with GTK+ or Qt or something, but who knows!
Nobara is specifically customized for gaming, created by Glorious Eggroll (from Proton-GE) himself, with specific packages which he tells you not to install as flatpak so you don’t lose the optimizations he made.
@JaxiiRuff@mr_MADAFAKA Competition is good, but GOG is the only one I've really seen anyone say they prefer over Steam. For various reasons, the Epic store seems to mainly be used begrudgingly for games only sold there, or to take advantage of free games they give away.
Honestly having Heroic and co. is like doing their work for them. At least Steam and GOG are supportive of Linux (much less so in the case of GOG but still), not the case with Tim “Linux=Moving to Canada” Sweeney’s Epic “We pretend saving the PC gaming ecosystem by bringing in exclusives and other shit” Games
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