Thinking of switching my gaming desktop to linux. Should I?
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Dunno how nvidia drivers are for manually installing these days, know there was som jank before.
Im running Nobara and they got ez driver setup for both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Either way I think you'll be fine no matter what distro you use.
Personally I like Nobara because it comes with a bunch of kernel patches, fixes and gaming utilities pre-installed.
Also Nobara is built on fedora, so OP doesn't have to adjust to something new
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
wrote last edited by [email protected]You don't need a gaming specific distro. Those just mean some apps are pre-intalled, like Steam and Heroic (for GOG, Epic, Amazon games). If you like Fedora, keep using Fedora, it games just as well as any other distro.
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Dunno how nvidia drivers are for manually installing these days, know there was som jank before.
Im running Nobara and they got ez driver setup for both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Either way I think you'll be fine no matter what distro you use.
Personally I like Nobara because it comes with a bunch of kernel patches, fixes and gaming utilities pre-installed.
I can’t think of any modern distro that doesn’t just have Nvidia drivers as a package in the repos.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
What about Bazzite? It's fedora based and made for gaming. I've only tried it on handheld like steamdeck and rog ally but it's awesome, even better than steamdeck os.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
Bazzite is made for gaming and it's worked for me pretty flawlessly for about 6 months BUT I had a lot of issues getting it to run a VM. I'm certainly not a Linux expert but I eventually gave up trying.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Bazzite (immuatable) or Nobara (mutable) if you want something Fedora based. Both are great.
You absolutely can use VMs, but you don't need a VM to run windows software and you won't have a good experience if you try. Steam/Proton or Heroic/Proton handle basically all non-native games (sometimes better than the native version, sometimes better than Windows itself honestly). Wine/Bottles handles Windows applications. They just work. A VM is an additional layer of complexity and slowdown and missing features that will mess everything up.
Honestly the biggest headache is with the "linux native" stuff. It remains and exhausting and unclear figuring out whether I should use a system repository package (when available), flatpak, AppImage, snap, manually download a system package designed for the upstream distro, run it as a docker, or just unzip a raw tar.gz and build it myself. Because they're all subtly different, provide access to different versions, behave in different ways, update in different ways (or not at all) and each method has certain applications where it makes the most sense. It ends up being a huge cognitive burden of inconsistency. Some work is done to streamline it but it's far from transparent to the user. Maybe I've overthinking it but in my opinion it's a quick way to turn your system into a mess where you don't know what is installed where and how and why, having things installed in multiple ways and different places.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Take Fedora, as you're already used to it. Steam handles Windows games for you. In 99% of cases they just work. Only games that do not run nowadays are games with unsupported kernel level anti cheat. Look at https://areweanticheatyet.com/ to see if your games are supported. A VM won't help you as that is usually blocked by such anti cheat as well.
If you do have a problem with a non-multiplayer game look at https://protondb.com/.
For games from GOG, Epic or Amazon use Heroic. For every other store you can add the launcher or just the game itself to Heroic.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
FYI: I have a rig similar to yours. I’m currently running Mint and have had no issues. I used to run Pop OS, but even after a fresh reinstall of their LTS, updates stopped working, so I recommend avoiding Pop OS.
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IMO, basically any distro with fairly modern (fairly often updated) packages should do. Apart from some build/packaging differences it's all same software anyway. The gaming side of software gets updated fairly often, so that's why you'd probably want frequently updated packages.
"Gaming" distros are basically just selection of gaming specific packages installed as default, instead of lets say productivity apps. You can run VM's in gaming/studio/whatever distros
FWIW, I got 5800x3D, RTX3090 - so, "close enough" same system as you. At least same series cpu/gpu. Running Arch, and gaming has been pretty easy, haven't yet found a game which didn't work - that said, some occasional game has had odd stutters (Darktide, for one. But I haven't tested in months).
Getting things to run did get a bit more involved than "just click it". Some extra compatibility stuff (proton-ge-custom), launchers (lutris, heroic, because GoG Galaxy just refuses to work). Steam & steam-games tend to "just work", although actual native-linux games seem to have issues while running the windows-version of the same game on proton just work - WEIRD.
But overall, stuff works, and in case of issues it now just seems to be either disabling ntsync and/or wayland for specific games and gaming away.
Some things work, some do not. Check proton compatibility DB for your games of choice.
If you like fortnite, GTA, rdr, or games with really strong anti cheating features, expect to be launching Windows..
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Some things work, some do not. Check proton compatibility DB for your games of choice.
If you like fortnite, GTA, rdr, or games with really strong anti cheating features, expect to be launching Windows..
Everything this.
Personally nonissue since I don't play any of those online/pvp games
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Take Fedora, as you're already used to it. Steam handles Windows games for you. In 99% of cases they just work. Only games that do not run nowadays are games with unsupported kernel level anti cheat. Look at https://areweanticheatyet.com/ to see if your games are supported. A VM won't help you as that is usually blocked by such anti cheat as well.
If you do have a problem with a non-multiplayer game look at https://protondb.com/.
For games from GOG, Epic or Amazon use Heroic. For every other store you can add the launcher or just the game itself to Heroic.
I believe you meant to type protondb.com
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I believe you meant to type protondb.com
Yes, thanks!
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Bazzite is made for gaming and it's worked for me pretty flawlessly for about 6 months BUT I had a lot of issues getting it to run a VM. I'm certainly not a Linux expert but I eventually gave up trying.
I think there's some hidden complexity with immutable distros that most people ignore, I also had issues getting podman/docker to run properly there IIRC but dunno if its the same thing
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
nvidia shenanigans aside this should be fine for linux gaming.
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FYI: I have a rig similar to yours. I’m currently running Mint and have had no issues. I used to run Pop OS, but even after a fresh reinstall of their LTS, updates stopped working, so I recommend avoiding Pop OS.
I use Mint too and I've never had any trouble running my games.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
Surprised I haven't seen Bazzite or Nobara recommended here, those are full desktop experiences with built in features for gaming. I use nobara because it has a version with pre-packaged Nvidia drivers.
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Take Fedora, as you're already used to it. Steam handles Windows games for you. In 99% of cases they just work. Only games that do not run nowadays are games with unsupported kernel level anti cheat. Look at https://areweanticheatyet.com/ to see if your games are supported. A VM won't help you as that is usually blocked by such anti cheat as well.
If you do have a problem with a non-multiplayer game look at https://protondb.com/.
For games from GOG, Epic or Amazon use Heroic. For every other store you can add the launcher or just the game itself to Heroic.
I just want a VM for my 10 year old cracked version of photoshop and some other apps. I never intended to game on a VM.
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Bazzite (immuatable) or Nobara (mutable) if you want something Fedora based. Both are great.
You absolutely can use VMs, but you don't need a VM to run windows software and you won't have a good experience if you try. Steam/Proton or Heroic/Proton handle basically all non-native games (sometimes better than the native version, sometimes better than Windows itself honestly). Wine/Bottles handles Windows applications. They just work. A VM is an additional layer of complexity and slowdown and missing features that will mess everything up.
Honestly the biggest headache is with the "linux native" stuff. It remains and exhausting and unclear figuring out whether I should use a system repository package (when available), flatpak, AppImage, snap, manually download a system package designed for the upstream distro, run it as a docker, or just unzip a raw tar.gz and build it myself. Because they're all subtly different, provide access to different versions, behave in different ways, update in different ways (or not at all) and each method has certain applications where it makes the most sense. It ends up being a huge cognitive burden of inconsistency. Some work is done to streamline it but it's far from transparent to the user. Maybe I've overthinking it but in my opinion it's a quick way to turn your system into a mess where you don't know what is installed where and how and why, having things installed in multiple ways and different places.
I will try just normal fedora and if stuff does not work I will try bazzite. VM would be used for stuff that does not work through WINE like photoshop (10 year old cracked version).
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
Bazzite is a Fedora Atomic based immutable distro focused on gaming, this means...
- out of the box support for Nvidia cards
- ships with a lot of useful gaming utilities
- very hard to break as you should primarily be installing Flatpaks and can do rollbacks
Basically all modern Linux distros have virtualization support, so does Bazzite, of course. Actual performance differences between distros is also negligible, so feel free to choose whatever you like.
https://bazzite.gg/ if you're interested.
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IMO, basically any distro with fairly modern (fairly often updated) packages should do. Apart from some build/packaging differences it's all same software anyway. The gaming side of software gets updated fairly often, so that's why you'd probably want frequently updated packages.
"Gaming" distros are basically just selection of gaming specific packages installed as default, instead of lets say productivity apps. You can run VM's in gaming/studio/whatever distros
FWIW, I got 5800x3D, RTX3090 - so, "close enough" same system as you. At least same series cpu/gpu. Running Arch, and gaming has been pretty easy, haven't yet found a game which didn't work - that said, some occasional game has had odd stutters (Darktide, for one. But I haven't tested in months).
Getting things to run did get a bit more involved than "just click it". Some extra compatibility stuff (proton-ge-custom), launchers (lutris, heroic, because GoG Galaxy just refuses to work). Steam & steam-games tend to "just work", although actual native-linux games seem to have issues while running the windows-version of the same game on proton just work - WEIRD.
But overall, stuff works, and in case of issues it now just seems to be either disabling ntsync and/or wayland for specific games and gaming away.
I already installed fedora but games just don't get stable framerates. might have to do a clean install and try again.
