this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Linux Gaming

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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?
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[–] slimerancher@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I set up Ubuntu for my somewhat non-technical brother (not as non technical as you mentioned, but not someone who will ever open CLI), and they used it happily until their laptop got too old and they had to change (5-7 years, even upgraded to next LTS once)

So, I will vote for something stable and mainstream like that. Set up steam on that, and they should be good to go.

Ubuntu would probably be my first pick if I hadn't been seeing so much praise for all these "gaming" distros recently - it's definitely a contender if I run into any showstoppers.