Arch. Just dropping the dxvk/vkd3d libs in the game main dir with exe and double click. No need for bottles, crates, kegs and other warehouse ware. π Just plain old simple and highly customized Wine 10.5.
this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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You can game on just about any distro -- I'm using NixOS and it's great for many reasons, but also can be a real pain to learn and to solve new problems.
But if you're looking for the easiest to set up that will be most likely to just work and gaming is a priority, go for Bazzite.
I will second Fedora and Debian as extremely solid, well-supported distros, though both will require some initial setup (mostly enabling nonfree repos, especially for Nvidia gpus)
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed here, both on my desktop and Steam Deck. i like the stable rolling release model. Allows me to get shiny new things that have at least gone through automated tests.
And in case anything goes wrong it comes with snapper configured by default for easy rollbacks.
Yes! Tumbleweed squad.....rise up.
This got me started with Linux. Such a great first distro.
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Comes with a bunch of warnings for Steam, is there some postinstall setup needed before gaming is convenient on opensuse? Or am I out of loop, I was under the impression that it's not that good for that https://en.opensuse.org/Steam
Luckily I did not read those warnings so they did not apply to me.
So far no problems.
I game on Fedora because it was just the OS I installed on my gaming PC when I moved to Linux. Everything is fine between Steam, Heroic, and Lutris. The NVIDIA drivers were easy to install from the App Store and the only game that doesnβt run well is Death Loop but thereβs been some updates and I havenβt tried it in six months so it may be better now. There was a memory leak apparently but I think there were more problems.
Fedora
Bazzite and Mint
Debian. It wont win any awards for fastest release cycles but it's rock stable with great support for my Ryzen 2700 and 6700xt.
Debain gamer here as well!
There seem to be dozens of us
As a FreeBSD user just trying to game on Unix, I've blown up my Debian machine so many times. A couple of years ago, trying to get CUDA in Blender working AND have a recent enough driver for the Windows games I was playing on Proton was killing me. I don't remember what exactly but it seemed like every time I tried to change something, the whole fragile mess would bork itself.
yeah, back when I used nvidia I had to run their driver installer or nothing would work right, and of course any little system update would bork everything until I ran the installer again. Thankfully everything with AMD just works now.
Thank you for validating my pain.
I'm a Linux Mint user and I've not had many problems using Steam as a Flatpak.
Nobara (Fedora)
Tried Bazzite for a year. Was fun but now back to a normal distro.
Fedora KDE works great for me, but I'm quite comfortable with Linux already
Bazzite on the living room PC.
Pretty much any distro will work for gaming these days. Really up to personal preference. I use Arch but have heard good things about Pop!_OS.
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Currently Pop!_OS
Another vote for Bazzite. It's been such a smooth experience for a year or so.
Just rolling with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
Cachy OS on personal PC and Bazzite on steam console (htpc) and a onexplayer handheld. Then just good old steamos on the steam deck.
NixOS. Works great. I'm a bit of a masochist.
Tumbleweed. Stable rolling release distro.
Fedora on my desktop, bazzite (rebadged fedora) on my steam deck.
I'm always a lil surprised how few fedoras I see on these posts. Fedora is chill. Considering the difference between distros is basically a package manager, seems weird the second most bleeding edge distro doesn't get much love.
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I switched to Cachyos KDE a week ago. It's the best distro I've used (previously I ran Debian KDE, and Mint Cinnamon before that). I have a GTX 1070 ti and it set up with zero issues. Steam installed perfectly, and I used AUR to install the gaming-meta package.
PopOS. Lots of folks recommend bazzite for gaming though.
Slackware current.
This isn't a troll. I use it to game on my dual core pentium lovingly dubbed 'the craptop'. And I use it to game on my mid-tier gaming PC.
Linux Mint Xfce
Mint because it doesn't break often and usually fixes are simple enough, and Xfce because, though I don't know how well it fares compared to others nowadays, it was the variant that would run the lightest in a previous computer I had some years ago, so I grew attached to it.
Also besides Steam, Heroic (for GOG, EGS and Amazon Prime) and Mitch (for Itchio) work fine on it.
OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. Meets all my requirements π
I've been enjoying EndeavorOS on Plasma.
Void with X11 (fvwm3). The fussier games tend to be online live-service titles; every new release Genshin Impact does a new weird.
Bazzite. Literally built for gaming.
Endeavour OS! So far it's been smooth for the past 4 years. I've enjoyed it.
Mint for two years. Then Arch for a decade. This year I have been trying out CachyOS.
Be aware support for 1050 on 580 version of driver is ending so rolling release distos can make u a problem when they will upgrade version higher than 580
Generally they should offer a package for older drivers, though.
I was running a GTX 1660ti and an i7 until yesterday using CachyOS. Worked great! Though for older cards, I might recommend a LTS distro to ensure you retain support (Mint is my go-to recommendation).
A rolling release is probably better long term. Arch for example currently has Nvidia drivers as far back as for Fermi (GeForce 400/500) cards.
Arch, all flatpacked.
Manjaro (Arch) with hyprland for my window manager.
I've been using Nobara for about 2 years and it's been very good.
Bazzite runs great on my main gaming PC in desktop mode and on my HTPC in gaming mode. Maintenance is minimal and it just works (on AMD hardware), while packages are pretty recent and it's absolutely stable.
Bazzite and Mint
Fedora and steamOS
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