I’m putting together a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input. Obviously I’m committing myself to providing a certain amount of tech support no matter what, but I’m wondering if any of these modern Linux distros can provide a user experience at least on par with Windows in terms of ease of use and reliability for someone who doesn’t know how to do much more than check their email and log in to Steam.

So far, I’ve looked at Bazzite, Cachy, Nobara, and PopOS based on what I commonly see recommended here. I’m leaning toward Bazzite based on its stated goal of being friendly to Linux newcomers, and the quality and amount of available documentation. Are there any other distros I’ve missed, or other considerations that might sway my preference?

I’d also like to hear about your subjective experiences with Linux gaming:

  1. What distro are you using for gaming?
  2. How long have you used it?
  3. How often have you had issues that require Linux knowledge and/or searching the web to solve?
  4. Have you had any other minor/annoying complaints?
  • mrcleanup@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    16 hours ago

    I started with Bazzite but didn’t like that it was immutable. I broke the permissions on my drive and had to reinstall trying to force it to let me change the login screen background.

    After that I switched to Garuda and have had it about a year.

    The most painful part was figuring out what Linux uses as app stores and how they work. Bazzite just released Bazaar and I haven’t tried it yet but I hear it works on other distros too. Software installation and management is the biggest hurdle to easy use and that gap is closing fast.

    The most common problem I have had is that a Windows app stops working and I try a different version of proton and the problem goes away.

    I have only ever had to use the command like when doing weird stuff. Most people won’t need to.

    Garuda also has a great helper app that lets you choose common starting software with check boxes, has buttons for updates, firmware, and other common settings, tweaks, and troubleshooting tools. It makes it pretty painless to get started.

    Garuda also comes with KDE, Gnome, or Xfce (your choice) so you can get the desktop experience you like.