Let me start by saying I think Linux Mint is one of the top 5 greatest distros of all time. It is an absolutely essential starting point for many people and their work is responsible for much of the user-friendliness you see in the world of Linux today. It is stable, has a nice aesthetic, “just works”, and doesn’t make you update constantly.
These things are great but they are the very things that make Linux Mint unsuited for online gaming. Is this a bad thing? No!! It’s just not a distro made for gaming purposes. It’s like showing up to a monster truck drag race in a Ferrari. I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint. It happens all the time. Go look at any game on ProtonDB that is currently working, and you’ll find 1-2 “not working” reports and they are always on either Debian on Mint.
I understand why we see it so often, because Linux Mint is awesome and users want to play their games on it. But if I suggested Hell Let Loose to a friend using Linux Mint right now, the first distro suggested for gaming in our FAQ, he wouldn’t be able to play because of his choice of distro. Making rolling distros look like a fortress in 2023 and suggesting Mint for gaming will only set new Linux users up for disappointment.
I guess you meant “or”, but what ever, I just wanted to say It’s probably a flawed argument, because if everybody recommends it and a lot of people use it, then of course that group will have the most error reports.
What would you suggest if not Linux Mint (or LMDE) ?
As I said in threads before, Mint is the only distro that has video codecs preinstalled / easily set up and working properly.
For me, that counts a lot. If you are a normal person trying Linux, that’s the first hurdle to overcome, and most people wouldn’t want to deal with that and dig through forums and FAQ of the distro.
But if you are willing enough to do gaming on Linux, you probably are determined enough to figure out what to do to make it work and at that point yes, the distro probably doesn’t matter much, so you can also just stay on Mint.
PS Kernel upgrade on Mint is pretty easy to do.