Hi! I’m getting a new laptop any day now and I plan on going back to Linux after maybe a decade on Windows. What works best for gaming nowadays? Is manjaro good for that? I prefer a distro with a nice name but of course that’s not the central thing. I’ll also do some book keeping, writing et cetera but I don’t think it’s much to worry about. I also hope to use my Valve Index on it.

  • Tyoda@lemm.ee
    6·
    6 months ago

    I prefer a distro with a nice name

    That’s honestly a really good distro picking strategy for someone just moving to Linux.

    • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
      1·
      6 months ago

      Credit where credit is due. I was taught the strategy by Amelia Andersdotter, back then running for the European Parliament (then member of parliament).

  • boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net
    6·
    6 months ago

    Ublue Bazzite.

    Bazzite is fundamentally different as it is based on Fedora Atomic Desktops. This is huge.

    The OS is worlds more stable and reliable.

    They use Fedoras base and add all the gaming stuff to it, to work out of the box.

    I use Aurora, coming from Fedora Kinoite (KDE Atomic) and then uBlue Kinoite.

  • yala@discuss.online
    3·
    6 months ago

    What works best for gaming nowadays?

    Depends on your system/setup. Though, you should be able to get it to work on most distros (eventually). Consider checking out https://linux-hardware.org/ to see which distros are known to work for your new laptop. Personally, I’m inclined to believe that Bazzite is the most hands-free solution for most people. However, other good options include Linux Mint and Pop!_OS.

    Is manjaro good for that?

    I really wonder where newcomers get to know about Manjaro 😜. Manjaro does a bunch of good stuff and has in the past been great for providing a platform by which Arch Linux (Manjaro is based on Arch) could be (relatively) easily consumed. However, Manjaro has since tarnished its own branding (see Manjarno). Hence, I find it hard to recommend it ever since.

    I’ll also do some book keeping, writing et cetera but I don’t think it’s much to worry about.

    You should be fine unless you need specific software (that’s not available on Linux) to do those things on. For most software there are decent alternatives; https://alternativeto.net/ might be a helpful resource in that regard.

    I also hope to use my Valve Index on it.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have any experiences on that. Therefore I abstain from giving any further comments. Wish ya good luck with that though!

      • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
        2·
        6 months ago

        I’m kinda leaning towards Bazzite. I’ve downloaded it, but I realized I don’t have any USD drives at home :-/

        • yala@discuss.online
          1·
          6 months ago

          Excellent choice! I’m sure you’ll manage 😉 (right after you’ve found yourself a USB drive).

          • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
            3·
            6 months ago

            Installing now. Surprised by the amount of work needed to make my BIOS accept that Linux isn’t a security risk, but also surprised that Wifi worked just out of the box, even during the installer. A sign I’ve been away from Linux for a while.

            • yala@discuss.online
              1·
              6 months ago

              Consider making another post after everything has been done in which you note down your expectations, experiences etc.

              • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
                1·
                4 months ago

                I never got around to writing it, but I’ll share a couple of things shortly.

                1. I tried two gaming profiled systems: bazzite and manjaro. The systems in themselves worked great and the gaming was good. But I had some other systems I needed for work that I just couldn’t get to run smoothly. I think the biggest problem was Dropbox. One of the systems used a file management protocol or whatever it’s called that Dropbox didn’t work with at all. I ended up installing Ubuntu and it worked pretty well out of the box there. And the gaming is actually working great.

                2. when I installed Ubuntu, I also installed some kind of community built steam app. Extremely buggy. I replaced it with the official steam app and now it’s extremely smooth. Very little difference to gaming on windows except of course that everything in the system and ui is a little bit quicker, including the games.

                3. more games work on Ubuntu than are marked as Linux compatible by steam. I’ve tested a lot of games I already own and they usually work.

                4. the only thing I haven’t been able to get running is my (Swedish) book keeping system. I think I just need to get more comfortable with wine and I’ll probably get it working. We’ll see. I keep a small windows partition specifically for book keeping.