Linux Gaming 4 Noobs – Choosing a Distro in 2024

So how has your experience with Linux Gaming been? Which distro did you end up choosing? Let me know here in the comments!

Be sure to watch the follow-up video: https://youtu.be/kNWZ3rRMnXo

Also one thing I wanted clarify. Since Arch and Fedora based distros have newer kernels/drivers, they're usually a better choice for PCs that contain brand new hardware.

there is one thing that makes me pissed off after i switched to linux and use windows again, and that thing is: idle performance

i have deleted every single app out of my windows partition and just leave valorant and discord because my friends only play valorant, but god, it is soooo damn SLOW

everything in windows 10 after i switched just looks snappy, slow and sometimes the start menu doesn't even work

while in linux, i click something and it happens instantly while still playing a funny animation while doing it

here is my specs btw, not great but it's what i could afford and i can run doom eternal smoothly so i'm happy with it:

gpu: amd radeon rx480 4gb vram
ram: 16 gb
cpu: intel core i5 (i don't remember exactly which core i5, but it is a core i5)
ssd: 512 gb, dual booted with windows 10 home and kubuntu 24.10

Im gaming on intel arc card and have only gotten one game to launch on fedora everything else just launches then crashes. Would switching to an amd card solve this?

2:20 its not the developers stubborn or lazy you have any idea how hard it is to make that compatibility for so many games or so many distros and drivers -.-plus its a topic of work that the developer will never get paid for and its gonna take him hundred of hours plus you need to be super seasoned programmer as well on these matters and accustomed linux users

Not for vr though else Linux is beast

The best part is when you play Titanfall

thanks, no way im going to win 11 – F MS

I liked this video because of how clear you were talking about the topic!
And that there haven't been unnecessary music until the end!

New full time Linux/MAC user here. I have officially banned Windows unless forced to use for a job.

installed mint yesterday, lol, i grow increasingly impressed with it, every day.

I just installed ubuntu 24.01 lts version. Yes its gnome but honestly I don't mind it, it gives a different vibe from windows. And I have set it up for dual boot without many issues. Had to select ubuntus efi first as a priority in bios. That way I boot with grub and can choose between the two systems If I want. What really surprised me after coming from Fedora kde plasma version 40 is how it just works out of box literally. I even have my nvidia 550 drivers pre installed. Gnome is different but a lot faster and idk fancier then fedora I used. Now I need to figure out some apps how to install them and maybe try running some games. Also it seems like I can open up my windows partition and go through files if necessary. Overall so far its one of the better linuxes I installed so far. Only thing I liked with fedora is how light it was. Only 8gb compared to 28. But I don't mind. Because I don't need to hassle to install drivers and browsers and what not.

Bruh I don’t want to use windows but I can’t even play my main games (modern warfare and black ops to name a few) this is bs

How about Intel GPU's?

I think pre-configured distros like Nobara are important for new users to remove a lot of the difficulties in switching over from windows. Not having to worry about setting anything up except for their steam and knowing that any game fix or launch option they find online for whatever game won't have them trying to install and build a bunch of packages that will need manual updates later on. A not super common example that might only apply to me and like 4 other people are those that wants to use HDR reliably, gamescope is the only real option for that, and it might not always be available through the package manager so you would have to build it. Even though it isn't super difficult, most people are intimidated by it and won't even try.

Take a gander at these setup steps I kind of remember doing while just starting to use Linux and wanting to try out some game with HDR on Nobara and Kubuntu (tried kubuntu first and only used KDE because I don't like gnome and KDE is the only one that mentions HDR as "usable"):

Kubuntu: Plugged in USB, kept secure boot on, chose USB as boot device, went through installer, almost missed third party drivers' checkbox, rebooted, got weird resolution at desktop, changed to native resolution, opened Firefox and search for steam Linux, saw article about using flatpak version, looked in discover, only found snaps, search for flatpak kubuntu setup, got it working, installed a bunch of stuff, didn't see any of them in start menu, after a while found out you need to reboot to see them, rebooted, found steam, logged in and got proton set up via the same article, installed some HDR compatible game that I can't remember, tried to enable HDR but didn't find the button, quick search recommended updating packages and drivers if features are missing, 1x update and upgrade later, still not there, check NVIDIA drivers and try Ubuntu-drivers install anyway, no difference, get confused but seems like apt can install NVIDIA driver, try to reboot, black screen, long search later, recovery mode, install them again via apt, works, reboot and still no HDR, a bit more research and seems like you need KDE 6 but kubuntu is 5.2.something, check if I can update, negative, a bit more searching and convince myself that somehow gamescope would work because it does on the steam deck even though it's arch but whatever, try to apt install, cant find, search install guide, find GitHub, see build tutorial, get scared, leave, give up on HDR, got annoyed with Linux, started the game, got stutters and decides to look for frame rate monitoring like RTSS, mangohud time, apt install, nothing in game, a bit more search finds goverlay, flatpak download exists, find global enable for mangohud, finally fps monitor and game isn't running great, a bit more searching and proton-ge might help, find protonup-qt, installs proton-ge, select for game runs better.

Nobara: Plugged in USB, disabled secure boot, chose USB as boot device, clicked through fedora installer, rebooted, got pop up for "first steps", installed updates and drivers with a couple of clicks and my password, restarted, saw steam on the desktop and logged in, got windows only error, remembered to enable steam play/proton, installed doom eternal, enabled HDR in display settings, found out the games can't find HDR signals ootb and no fps is showing, goverlay is apparently pre-installed, global enable should work, check protondb and arch wiki with keyword HDR, copy-paste launch options and see that user had proton-ge, check protonup-qt and its already installed, add proton-ge to steam, select for game, and I'm gaming with a pretty experimental feature for KDE 6 without any real issues.

Yes, you can say that I was more experienced when using Nobara, and it's more up to date and fedora vs Ubuntu isn't a fair comparison, but new users might not know all that. It had also been maybe two months since the first time I had touched Linux on my main desktop PC and not just on an old laptop. I was just kind of hopping around distros and getting confused. My use case with HDR is also not very common, but I had just gotten a new monitor and the "amount of troubleshooting" involved will probably be even worse for people that want to mod, so I think it's a fair point in being something a lot of ppl might have to deal with when switching over.

What games are you playing in the B-Roll of the first few minutes? They looked cool to play!

Once again someone talking about Debian without knowing about it… inform yourself before saying inaccurate things. If you want to compare debian to other desktop distro, look the testing not the stable that is for server.

I dove into switching to Linux a couple months ago. I'm 53 and have been building sand tinkering with PCs for almost 30 years. So I'm a total noob with Linux but not with PCs. My experience with getting my Nvidia 30xx card to work well with most distros has been challenging at best. I've done a ton of distro hopping and only a couple distros even bother to ask if you want to install the proprietary drivers at installation. The others just install the nouveau driver and expect you to know how to install the proprietary driver later. Some are relatively easy like Ubuntu that have a driver manager. Others just leave you hanging and you're expected to be able to navigate through forums and wikis that make assumptions on the user's experience level. The number of times I've seen people on forums just tell you to install it without any actual instructions on how to do that is mind boggling.
I admit a lot of my issues are pebkac and I'm slowly figuring it out. But I think a lot of Linux users have forgotten how little they knew when they first started using it.
I'd love to see an updated guide in plain language that shows step by step with explanations on how to install Nvidia drivers on various distros.
I'm sure this comment will ruffle some feathers. But this is just my experience and my viewpoint as a complete Linux noob.

I had Debian installed cause i wanted stable software and didn't care about old packages. But then i upgraded my graphics card and the kernel Debian used did not have drivers for it and it wouldn't boot. I then debated between Fedora and Ubuntu for a later kernel version and settled on Kubuntu because I'm already familiar with apt.

I set up my first gaming linux setup recently with nixos, was also my first time using nix but it was really easy to set up for gaming once in. Partitioning the drives was weirdly hard though for nix

Can someone point me in the right direction. I am trying to switch to Linux (starting off with Pop OS since it is my most recent distro I have experience with) for development and gaming and have mostly professional experience with Linux. The problem I am running into, is when I try installing a particular Minecraft mod pack, it will not run after the first run. The crash log doesn't really tell me anything useful (other than some exception happened). Should I try a different Distro? Should I be asking for help in a Minecraft reddit forum, the Pop OS one, somewhere else entirely?
Google hasn't been my friend either so I am kind of at a loss. So what would people recommend?

I've been running Vanilla Arch for a year and Steam with Proton plus a few minor tweaks, I am able to play almost every title I used to play on Windows. F#ck Windows and its Telemetry, Account Setup and other blocking crap that made me switch to Linux for good.
Note: I use Linux since 2008, but was using it as a dual boot. However, a year ago, I decided to quit Windows for good and it has been the best decision ever!

PikaOS, based on Ubuntu but with Nobara optimizations.
Ultramarine Linux, based on Fedora, not as optimized as Nobara but more stable.
Holo ISO. based on SteamOS (which is based on Arch) for PCs.

Pop os❤😊

Brothers Microsoft pissed me off so hard, I am, no bullshit, gaming on Kali Linux on a 2017 i7 (Quadcore) 16gb ram Thinkpad Yoga, and it runs like its 9 days before being produced, i mean like uber fresh new.

Windows 10 bricked my dear thinkpad countless times prior to that

Fk microsoft for this

Ok… How much did Ubuntu pay you? xD. Nah for real, im not a fan of ubuntu. Besides the nasty gnome desktop its just not visually pleasant and doesnt offer as good of a performance as other distros do