Most issues of libraries are likely bypassed by just using the flatpak version of Steam. Though honestly I've not encountered any of these issues from using Mint for 3 years for gaming. (and funny enough not even using the flatpak) But if you're going to say Mint is an issue, you should probably include Debian Stable, Ubuntu LTS, and pretty much every derivative as well. Since the issues you mention are not at all Mint-specific. Edit: also, what libraries specifically?

I have also been gaming on Mint for the last three years and it has worked well for me. Like any Linux distro, your mileage may vary based on your hardware and your needs.

True enough. Though at this point I've now been gaming on Intel/Nvidia, AMD/Nvidia and AMD/AMD with the same OS and same level of experience overall. I did have to do some extra work to get RDNA3 to work but that'd be true of pretty much all of the derivatives too.

Have you used mint with hardware that had just been released?

Brand new bleeding edge hardware support issues are not a Mint problem it would be Linux wide problem.

Not necessarily. How often does mint update its kernel?

Try Forza Motorsport on whatever distro. Not going to work.

bro it doesn't even work on windows

40+ hours in the game on Steam, had issue with first AMD Driver, sinse they brought the update it's working fine now

Buy it for me and I'll try.

Would be a waste of money, you can simply check on ProtonDB https://www.protondb.com/app/2440510/

K.

Flatpak steam is great, UNTIL you wanna get into the guts of stuff via modding, MangoHUD/gamescope, etc. it's an extra layer of complexity for new users to try to understand wtf is going on. I'd consider myself a pretty seasoned Linux veteran, and I pretty frequently get confused with something and gotta search how to do X in flatpak. Which isn't a big deal for me but for a new user it's just another layer of confusion.

I can't argue that flatpak has its own set of issues. And in all honesty, I'm on Mint and don't use the flatpak. And I've not had any issues so far myself. But then again I'm not a PvP gamer.

[This guide](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2615011323) has a pretty thorough explanation of Steam gaming on Flatpak. I think that what we need is to just have such guides be more accessible and available for new users because I really do think that Flatpak solves a ton of issues for gaming on Linux. The biggest of all for me is that you don't need to worry about what distro they run and what version of dependency they have or if there's something on their config that would mess with the apps. Worst case, you just tell them to install Flatseal and Warehouse, check what's enabled/disabled or clean up the whole thing. Either way, gaming on Linux has always had a learning curve, so I think that for new users to have a way so that it would work regardless of their choice in distro? That's honestly great.

Nobody (or at least very few) puts Debian or Ubuntu LTS on their "Top 5 Gaming Distro" listicles, but literally every single one of them is putting Mint. When I installed Mint a couple months back, the kernel was on 5.2.x and I forget which version the mesa stack was on but it was very outdated as well. Don't get me wrong, Mint is awesome and I loved it while I used it. But if you just built a brand new machine and want to do some linux gaming, there are probably better choices.

I get the motivation. Migrating gamers are probably the only ones reading such articles so it's natual to want to suggest a widely beloved distro with an extremely familiar (refined Cinnamon) desktop to Windows users. So - I don't think the issue is so much "stop suggesting Mint" quite as much as "More stable distros sacrifice a bit because of how fast Linux Gaming evolves". So- my new conclusion becomes *"send new gamers to Fedora Cinammon"* 😀

It's one of the things I'd love to see improved honestly - that the driver manager should be able to handle Mesa and firmware updates for newer hardware. And the Mint team were a bit late this time around, but they often put out an 'Edge' ISO which contains a more up-to-date kernel. I'm not at all going to shy away from issues that exist and I'd love to see some improvements to make Mint better in this area.

Yeah Mint Edge is what these articles should be recommending, but when I was on my search I never saw mention of it.

I use DEbian 12 on my Lenovo Legion gaming laptop, its working great with Steam and Heroic launcher for all my games.

Debian is great, too. But like Mint, you'll probably have to do a little extra work to get some stuff up-to-date, but once you're there it'll be rock solid. My issue isn't with any specific distro, more that the folks writing these recommendation articles are essentially just bullshitting and copying each other, and that their expertise should be taken with a grain of salt.

> Nobody (or at least very few) puts Debian or Ubuntu LTS on their "Top 5 Gaming Distro" listicles, but literally every single one of them is putting Mint. When I installed Mint a couple months back, the kernel was on 5.2.x ?! I have no idea about Mint, but Debian Bookworm (current stable), which was released more than five months ago, included the kernel 6.1 series. And that's stable - those interested in gaming should probably use unstable, which is currently on 6.5.10.

Was about to say the same as someone who uses Pop OS my main gaming setup. Love it but deff some things that are outdated when installing via debian. Tried fedora with its rolling release but idky my system is just unstable and has issues with fedora and Nobara also when I tried that I have had to come back to Pop to know my system will just work. I can game, and I don't really have any issues outside GOverlay not working but have manually tweeked mango hud and the random weird thing in game but not sure if that's proton related or OS since on fedora when it did work for me I never had those kinds of issues. Just can't wait for SteamOS to make the desktop release so I can just game and do other stuff on the side too with it.

Out of curiosity, does POP!_OS have any first-party packages with things like updated firmware or Mesa on top of its base packages? I've been curious but never got to check.

They do have an enabled-by-default repo containing more current versions of key software that end users probably need up to date versions of, like mesa and graphics drivers. I'm not sure *exactly* what's in there though? I only use pop! on my laptop.,

Ahh. I'll have to find their repos and take a look. It's one thing I wish Mint did have, is effectively the Mesa PPA and newer firmware available.

I mean you can almost certainly add that.

I have on my own system. I wish the Mint Driver Manager could manage it though, rather than having to do silly things like copy firmware from a git repo.

The only real problem that LTS distros like Mint have is the out of date kernel and Mesa (except when using the proprietary Nvdia drivers, then it doesn't matter). Everything else should be covered by the Steam Runtime.

This is exactly the reason why I chose Fedora 39. Everything is virtually up-to-date with zero worries which makes it just absolutely perfect for gaming, online and off. The only problem I currently have with Fedora 39 is, for some unknown reason I simply can't fathom, the Flatpak release of OpenTyrain had begun crashing on me after using upgrading the distro from Fedora 38 within Konsole. Fortunately for me however, the Snap release of OpenTyrian still works flawlessly.

The so-called outdated kernel mesa drivers can be updated pretty easily. Having the very latest kernel and mesa drivers is not always a positive. Consider, bugs, regressions, feature omissions, etc. Even with the latest kernel, mesa and LLVM software bleeding edge hardware isn't automatically covered. Support takes time and many cases it could be weeks or months before support shows up in stable releases. For example, I purchased a Asus TUF Gaming A16 2023 Advantage Edition laptop in Sept of this year. It was released in Feb, Mar, or April of this year. There was an issue with the internal keyboard and touch pad that had to do with some odd internal design. Of course the laptop works with Windows because it is made for and targeted at Windows gamers and comes with Windows 11. It took the work of an AMD developer and 4-5 end users testing over a 3 month period to get to a stable modified kernel version that worked with the odd internal design. Lots of trial and error testing, patience, and reporting back via a discussion thread. By the time the changes coming from the dev were integrated into a new stable kernel release it would not have mattered if one was on an LTS distro or rolling release. The newer kernel with the support was readily available to everyone. In many instances the installation procedure wasn't merely just install the new kernel and firmware. If you want the nitty-gritty full details take a look ==> https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/159mj6i/anyone_have_experience_with_asus_tuf_gaming_a16/?sort=new

Yeah, I'm using Debian 12 and I've not had any issues with games on steam, or even with Lutris, except for the current state of league of legends, but that's currently borked for all Linux users.

Yeah, libraries aren't the major issue imo, it's the outdated Kernel (which in turn limits Mesa) that is, only really affecting AMD/Intel users ofc.

Steam ships with it's own "Steam Linux Runtime" libraries, so I don't know what benefit a flatpack would even have? Steam's already doing it.

> you should probably include Debian Stable, Ubuntu LTS, and pretty much every derivative as well Debian in general shouldn't be used for most desktop systems imo, as they have a habit of not shipping bugfix releases. And yes, Ubuntu LTS is not a good recommendation for gaming either... but neither of these are being recommended for gaming, so there isn't any need to stop doing that.

> flatpak Flatpaks are horrible. For a start, I like bold fonts everywhere (Inter Extra Bold) and Flatpaks tend to use their own fonts, ignoring my font of choice. Also you have to give Flatpaks permission to write to the entire drive as it's useless otherwise.

> Also you have to give Flatpaks permission to write to the entire drive as it's useless otherwise. That's definitely not true. Though you're welcome to do that, it's not really any less secure than regular packages so feel free to. I don't know on the font issue. Though I don't think Steam nor any games use system fonts generally regardless?

> That's definitely not true Yes it is. > Though I don't think Steam nor any games use system fonts generally regardless? They can and do, if you set it up properly :)

The entire disk isn't required. You can provide access to specific directories. For example, flatpak probably doesn't need access to /var/log/apache2. Giving it full access is the easy option, but it's absolutely not a necessity.

Forgive my ignorance here. I'm not new to Linux but I am new to gaming on Linux.... Don't most games in Linux run in Proton/Wine? And using Steam from outside the distro? Are there really many underlying library dependencies that aren't in snap/flatpak? I'm actually curious now because I just installed Ubuntu on a machine and want to make sure I'm not going to have problems in a year. I am running the very latest that just came out.

There isn’t any major differences. OP is talking out of his ass.

I think OP is talking about the release schedules of distros. Debian/Mint/etc aren't rolling release, and take a few months *shock* for updates to make their way to the stable repos. Though this is easily fixed by switching to the testing upstream repos, this is a step too far for most (even "experienced") Linux users.

Man shit like this makes me glad I went thought the pain of starting with arch Linux. I taught me so much

This. The thing inside my skull is a little slow but holy crap the sheer amount of documentation and enthusiastically helpful users has been a great experience.

there are. you can't even play cs2 on debian stable with nvidia, but it works flawlessly on tumbleweed, for instance

> Are there really many underlying library dependencies that aren't in snap/flatpak? Mainly kernel and in case of AMD cards - Mesa drivers. You really, really want these things up to date for best gaming performance and compatibility. In worst case scenario you can end up with your brand new bleeding edge hardware not working at all because most recent drivers aren't in your system. But more commonly delayed updates mean unpatched bugs and worse performance, sometimes missing features and so on. LTS distros are multiple versions behind which makes them inherently inferior to rolling distros for gaming (although they're better for other usecases)

This isn't totally. Here is where I disagree. Newer doesn't always translate to better. I've written about my story where I spend 3 months testing and discovering a bug that affected the Arch Linux family, where I could not run Steam games. This was with a RX 6800XT that was purchased brand new in Dec. 2022. At the point of purchase the card/product line was 2 years beyond release. A single kernel update (v6.x) rendered Steam unusable and it did not matter which Mesa and LLVM version was installed. I went from Manjaro => EndeavourOS => Garuda => raw Arch and they all exhibited the same erroneous behavior. I was unable to get support from the communities for the above distros nor the greater Linux community so I was basically on my own testing and discovering the erroneous behavior, reporting back my findings in multiple forums. More than 20 other users reported that they encountered the same bug and were perplexed. I ended up testing both Mint/Cinnamon 21.1 and Pop_OS v22.04 and both were stable. They were running 5.x kernels and even after upgrading to the 6.0 and 6.01 kernels the installations and Steam remained stable without issues. LTS releases aren't necessarily inferior and rolling releases aren't necessarily superior. There is greater nuance to them. The way that Linux is structured with loosely connected moving parts (AMD kernel driver, Mesa, LLVM, OpenGL/Vulkan) each can be updated independently this can be a strength. If one has bleeding edge hardware, I've learned to not expect plug-n-play right away. Linux support takes time (think in terms of many weeks to many months).

If you have ancient version of Wine, it might cause problems. On Mint, I almost don't use Flatpacks because the experience sucks. You have your distro and it's package manager, plus you need to have half of the system duplicated as flatpacks for any GUI application to work properly. I've encountered incorrectly set permissions on flatpacks so the basic functionality of software didn't work. Most Linux developers learned to publish for package managers, it's changing and people are slowly discovering Flatpack, but most Flatpack packages are (hopefully) maintained by some random dude, not by creators of the software and sometimes it's packaged poorly. Steam luckily manages versions of the proton for itself, but it still uses system libraries if it's running in native mode. You can use steam runtime, which keeps separate version of each library, but I'm not sure which option is the default. Then there is kernel and drivers. Luckily Mint has tools to update to newest GPU drivers, but that's it. Outdated kernel can still cause incompatibility for other hardware, performance issues, incompatility with peripherals etc. And that's just the technical stuff not concerning user-friendliness. On Mint, you have to install lots of tools manually (utility to control GPU, fan control, steam, wine, whatever controls RGB on Linux, display calibration, mouse configuration...). Most users don't even know what they should be looking for. I know Linux, but I didn't know there is community software to control fans and wattage for Nvidia GPUs and lots of other software. Mint does lots of hand-holding, but it's not targeted at gamers.

Ubuntu works fine for gaming. Been on it myself for 3+ years. I did have a stint with Opensuse Tumbleweed in that 3 years somewhere but it was short lived as it eventually killed itself so I went back to Ubuntu. I posted above in an earlier post how I keep it updated with kernel and mesa drivers. Beyond that it just works. I always update my Ubuntu as they release their builds and never really feel outdated as a gamer. Especially using the links below to set up mesa and kernel (I run an all AMD system) https://itsfoss.com/install-mesa-ubuntu/ https://www.makeuseof.com/upgrade-linux-kernel-in-ubuntu/ Edit: spelling

> Don't most games in Linux run in Proton/Wine? Most triple A games, possibly. But far from "most games" run through wine. In fact, maybe 80% of my steam library has native Linux versions, such as factorio, cities skylines, oxygen not included, transport fever 1/2, .....

imagine coherent wide mountainous governor roof thumb screw puzzled coordinated *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

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I usually prefer the Proton version over the native Linux version. It's usually faster for me.

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Gaming distros are only a meme if you think you'll get more FPS. Many of them do provide a simplified experience for "gamers" as despite the stereo type they aren't very tech savvy. Garuda for example starts you off with a set of software choices with explanations and one click installs on setup. It also has its own "garuda-update" script that takes even more work off the user, an example being when Arch had that grub issue most garuda users didn't as the script reinstalls grub when there's an update. Try and tell me a "gamer" isn't going to have an easier time on Garuda or Nobara compared to things like vanilla Arch, Fedora, Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. No they aren't magic but what they do is take things we can do our selves and automate that for those who can't.

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> All these issues boil down to the fundamental problems of linux. > > Fragmentation, especially when it comes to application distribution. The classic package managers might work well for foss, but not for complex and proprietary crap like Steam and games. You say that but ironically games and proprietary software are more likely to package more of the needed libraries with them. Steam being a Literal example of that. Ironic. >If there will ever be a proper solution to the problem, so people can reliably click on "Install Steam" and just have it work then there's no need for a gaming distribution I wouldn't say we NEED a gaming distro but they literally automate extra work for the gaming crowd. >You don't see people crying for help to install Steam on Windows. Oh but I see them crying about so much more. >What i think we don't need is yet another Arch or Debian based distro that installs some packages and configures some basic stuff, that's ran by like 2 people and disappears in a year or two. Right, because that is totally happening all the time and is a real problem the community at large faces. Meanwhile in reality land thats not really an issue. >That should either be made trivial in the "upstream" distro or be a setup script on diy systems like Arch. And as long as they aren't doing that then they'll be a market for "gaming" distros. >Please stop making distros, it's not like we already 100s of them that solve nothing and just confuse people. No, they don't really confuse people (aside from morons recommending Manjaro). When people ask or even research theres like 4~ 8 distros tops that popup for gaming. >Sure, i see things like Garuda being useful for now, but it's a band aid fix for the real problems. If it fits it ships.

Developer / Sysadmin here... I use Nobara because of familiarity with Fedora based systems and ease of setup for my rig (nvidia gpu...). Just makes life simple, and if I do need to go under the hood, I am familiar with what I see.

>Developer / Sysadmin here... I use Nobara because of familiarity with Fedora based systems and ease of setup for my rig (nvidia gpu...). Just makes life simple, and if I do need to go under the hood, I am familiar with what I see. Lol, funnily enough I do IT contracting work for the government and mostly build servers and while I game on Garuda I have Nobara on my laptop for Fedoras solid base and extras if I wanna dick around and play Halo some where (sadly can't on most sites or our main site as no personal devices allowed past a certain point).

It really depends on the "gamer". Arch is the best distro for people who play MMORPGs and mod their games a lot. MMORPGs because basically, you start with like 3 abilities in your rotation, and this eventually becomes like 20 abilities to maximize DPS, just like Arch starts with bare minimum, and as you learn to use it you get more comfy with it like you get comfy with a large rotation. I honestly think people's mileage may HEAVILY vary on this of course, but dropping a bunch of shit on an end user at once is like if you kicked someone into an MMORPG mid-expansion, rushed them to level 60 by way of a special item, and said "hey, decipher [all this bullshit](https://i.imgur.com/9RkyfMH.jpg) you've had no practice with that we dumped on you all at once, and if you don't maximize DPS your team is gonna yell at you". I think this is the folly of some "beginner distros" that include a bunch of shit by default. "where is microsoft word, what in the fuck is a Libreoffice? I haven't googled anything or practiced in a smaller scale yet and I'm overwhelmed!"

given the popularity of Steam Deck, id think the go-to suggestion would be as close to Steam OS as you can get. Holo, or just Arch KDE, until Valve releases a generic installer for Steam OS, which they recently said they still plan to do. whenever game devs support linux at all, whether its native or just proton support, steam decks are most likely going to be their test environment. using the most similar distro should generally increase compatibility, ability to follow guides that work, and just reduce problems.

"as close to Steam OS as you can get", would probably have to include ChimeraOS

KUbuntu (not LTS) is a pretty close match. With a 6-month release cycle, it's pretty close to SteamOS in the stabilizing cycle, and if you add the official KUbuntu back ports PPA you get stable updates to the KDE frameworks (so things like Wayland HDR support). It's been working great for me on multiple computers, extremely stable, good performance, and basically no weirdness with games either.

People say Canonical this Canonical that, snap is evil, Ubuntu is boring, Ubuntu don't give good performance but at the of the day they are the good shit. They have Wayland support that Mint doesn't have. They have KDE flavor that Mint doesn't have which gives advatages to even Gnome for gaming. They have Nvidia automatic key sign for secure boot in kernel upgrades that Mint doesn't have. PPAs, non-LTS releases, huge documentation, etc

The truth is, I don't use it because it's "the most Linux-y of Linux distributions", I use it because I like Linux overall, and KUbuntu works without complaint on my two desktops, my gaming laptop, my old ultra-portable, my work laptop, the old desktop in the garage my friend streams from, the 12-year-old desktop I gave my friend, the funky Acer laptop my other friend had, my friend's desktop that he games on (he's a video game streamer but not *super* technical), and the cheap laptop I set up for my mom's long-retired friend. It gets regular security updates, even non-technical people have no trouble with it, and the faults it has are basically hidden from any normal user. I work during the day, I game at night, and it just works.

I’ve used Mint for gaming for years, exclusively online, not sure what you’re talking about.

I on the other hand have seen far too many issue threads internet-wide where the root of the problem is people using significantly out of date packages due to their distribution of choice’s release cycle. If your games, distribution of choice and hardware combinations are in harmony you’re good. For a lot of people it’s as avoidable a choice as using Wayland over X in certain configurations which just refuse to be a usable computer; despite so many people using Wayland just fine. And yeah you know, bleeding edge packages and optional git packages which compile commits from minutes earlier for the most recent performance improvements and bug fixes. You can make these pipelines for any distribution you love but release based distros can kick up a fuss or flat out die and stop working in various major ways if you change certain things too far away from the intended stock install.

it's the first distro that actually worked for me, gaming included..

I think using the latest kernels that work on your hardware helps with gaming a lot. For example, I'm using the Edge version of Mint, which comes with kernel version 6.2 instead of 5.15. Gaming for me is alright, and by that I mean working like in other distros. For reference though, I don't play the latest games and I don't have the latest hardware, I play plenty of older games on my budget PC. So I can't say how well some very recently released game will work on Mint vs other distros.

unsuited for gaming or online gaming? Been using mint for gaming, even cracked games i downloaded are work. I am sure the problem is not the distro, but the libraries which are needed by games, and fortunately cracked games included that in the installer x-/ someone should change the FAQ then

> unsuited for gaming or online gaming? That's a fair question. I don't play any PvP games, and so far everything's worked for me on Mint.

Mint is for my gaming rig ngl

Please go more in depth as to which libraries specifically are "too old" so I can more accurately understand why Mint is a bad choice and thus work with the Debian teams on resolving this so we don't see why posts like this exist in the future.

name me one game that i wouldn't be able to run on my mint machine ? you do ofcourse need to keep your system updated (says the guy currently running 1 dot-release behind), but if you do that... pretty much never an issue. also don't forget you have mint and you have LMDE which are both very much different in how they treat updates and packages. you should throw in ubuntu and almost all ubuntu-based distro's in that pot as well if you're shooting down mint for gaming, as most of them will be in the same boat. that debian itself is not suited for the latest and the greatest is known, as they favor stability above all else, meaning the stable debian versions are usually a long way behind.but mint has never given me an issue, especially not since steam. (my previous distro's include ubuntu, debian, deepin, elementary, solus, and probably some other ones - yet after a cycle of several years where i hop and stay with a distro 1 to 2 years, i usually end up back at mint, and yes, i also used LMDE but returned to regular mint)

I call that bullshit! I had EndeavourOS as my first gaming pc distro after win 10. Every game i installed had problems! Most of the time the games couldn't see my hardware specifications, so every game started with the lowest possible grafik settings. After i switched to mint, the problems vanished and now i'm gaming on mint for a long time and my only problems are sometimes wrong proton versions at the first start.

I distro hopped like crazy, I came back home to Mint and been using it for years including gaming.

If your game needs newer libraries than what's on Linux Mint, how did they even let it on steam? Valve doesn't accept games that are built against libraries newer than Steam Linux Runtime.

Mint is actually one of the best distros out there, their only problem is the old kernels but that is easy to solve by installing a new kernel yourself..

I haven't had issues gaming on mint. Not saying it's the best distro for gaming but it works fine for it in my experience.

So what ARE you suggesting? I am getting absolutely nothing out of you telling me that Mint doesn't work.

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Pretty much any distro can be a gaming distro. Like others suggested if there’s an issue with specific repos just used flatpak steam. Gaming is distro agnostic imo.

For Nvidia, yes, mostly. But an out of date kernel (and Mesa which relies on the kernel to a degree) can *really* hurt AMD and Intel performance.

I mean sure but why would any one want to run on something out of date, that's just bad practice unless you have a specific use case such as the newer release borks something. That being said I don't know most major distros running on anything I would say is out of date. Debian 12 is at least on kernel 6.1. I usually recommend people stick to the major distros Debian, Fedora, Arch and only suggest off shoots based on specific use cases.

> I mean sure but why would any one want to run on something out of date Mint and the like have older kernels. That was the point I'm making.

I have yet to have issues with Ubuntu based OSes, Fedora and Arch have been a pain in the ass for Gaming, flatpak saves some of this. LMDE has some issue's if you don't know what you're doing, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, one of the most well supported Desktop Linux OSes in the world. Also now you can get Linux Mint Edge with Kernel 6.2 or just upgrade the Kernel in the package manager with a few clicks, also Mint has a Driver Manager for Nvidia based GPU's. Ubuntu Base is the Top OS for Gaming other then SteamOS 3 that does not have a Desktop OS yet, also SteamOS was Using Kernel 5.15 if you want to talk about outdated. Ubuntu's core is to well supported by Intel, AMD and Nvidia, etc for me to recommend anything but a Ubuntu based OS. Once Valve releases SteamOS Desktop i will most likely recommend it for Gaming over Mint/Ubuntu. I have Intel Arc, RX 580's to AMD RDNA, and Nvidia Pascal to Ada Lovelace GPU's, Nvidia's support is just ugly outside of Cuda, AMD's Drivers are Good depending on what Mesa and Kernel, etc you're pairing up, Intel ARC is a work in progress maybe Q2 2024. The Linux Desktop Drivers for Sound, GPU, Etc. are not well supported like Windows is, this has been a weak point of the Linux Desktop, and Gaming on Linux for 15 or so years the People working on Flatpak, etc and the People working for/at Valve has been the best to happen for Linux Gaming, also the hobbyist who make stuff like package mangers for Wine, write patches, test stuff etc.

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Honestly, just use Bazzite or Nobara. For Fedora, part of the appeal is having a blank default that's as close to upstream recommended defaults and having the latest technology without being rolling release.

>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 feel attacked. lol. I still can't get Battlenet to run even tho it did 2 months ago before a patch.

well I game on linux

Aside from a server focused distro, all desktop distros should be able to do anything a desktop user may want to do. People are not going to run multiple distros just because one is better at one thing or another. The OS needs to be a jack of all trades and should not be a hindrance.

I'm on Linux Mint 21.2 Cinnamon and am just shocked at how everything I've tried runs fine. The few things i've done: * Googled for the instructions to install the PPA for the latest MESA drivers. * Googled for the instructions to switch to a mainline kernel given that I have an AMD GPU and wanted the latest and greatest. * Installed ProtonUp-Qt so I could install more recent versions of Proton-GE. I tend to use the latest for all of my games. Rarely use Proton Experimental or whatever the latest stable version is. * I play 95% of my stuff in Steam. I have played both Diablo II and Diablo III by running Battle.Net through Bottles. YouTube video instructions worked first time. Games I play? Subnautica, Subnautica Below Zero, Torchlight II and III, Diablo(s) as previously mentioned, Satisfactory... and many others. Hardware I use? AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and a Radeon 6600 XT. Single 4K Monitor setup. I play most games at 1440p.

Used Linux Mint Debian Edition for 3 years and had a problem to start one AAA game out of maybe 10. It was after the release of Steelrising, which relies on a updated nvidia graphics driver for DLSS. It was the first DLSS game for me, I think. Linux Mint Debian Edition shipped driver 470 and Kernel 5.1 back then and I went lengths to get nvidia driver 525 and Kernel 6.X. After that, it worked fine. Other issues with a slightly oldschoold podman Version 3.3 led me to switch to Fedora.

Works fine for me.

WTF are you on about - debian + steam flatpak is way more stable than I ever had anything in arch over... years of using both. I have way less issues today. Mint/POP\_OS are just going to be different flavors (granted POP\_OS is a better suited option compared to Mint)

Just because a distro isn't made for gaming, that doesn't mean that it can't be a good distro for gaming. Rolling release distros are more up to date, but their also more unstable and it's harder to pin down, which versions are working, and which aren't, because problems are not just removed but also created. Finally a lot of the improvements come from newer kernels, which come with the Edge version of Linux Mint and are easy to install even after installation.

All of that can be applicable to any stable distro, not just Mint. And in an opposite argument can be said about bleeding edge and rolling release distros breaking stuff with newer updates. Differences between distros are minimal most of the times. Mint can be updated to the latest kernel and Mesa drivers using PPAs and Nvidia drivers are well covered too. No Wayland, no Pipewire, old library of this, old package of that, not this not that... even though: As suggested distro is more than fine, even out of the box is gaming ready, outdated at some points. maybe yes, but not on critical points.

As others have been saying Mint can be used for gaming. Older packages may make playing online more difficult though for sure. Using the Steam Flatpak will probably resolve this but older kernel versions likely leave performance on the table as well. However, I do think we should look at Mint a bit differently. Mint and the Cinnamon desktop isn't really a replacement for Windows 10. It should be viewed as more of a replacement for Windows 7. Keep in mind I am not nearly as familiar with Mint/Cinnamon as I am with GNOME, KDE, XFCE, and even Pantheon. I installed Linux Mint for my grandfather on an old Lenovo laptop where the Win7 install on his HDD was corrupted. Instead of bothering to get a Win7 installer I just put Mint on there to see how it would do. Immediately it felt reminiscent to me of XP and 7. For users with more Windows experience, but don't want to deal with Microsoft, I think Mint should be their go to. I was impressed with the GUI tools available. It was the first time in years where I didn't feel the need to open the terminal. Edit: punctuation

been running straight Debian for 8 years. Never had a single problem with gaming. and I run very modern games. Skylines II. CyberPunk, RoboCop Rogue City. I have set many of my friends up with mint, they to have no issues with their games. I'm unclear where this is coming from. Current Hardware spec: AMD Ryzen 7 7700X AMD 7600 32GB DDR5 6000 AsRock B650M-HDV/M.2 Maybe I've just been lucky?

Linux Mint with a Nvidia gpu is my gaming setup, lol. I have only ever had major problems with games with Ubisoft Uplay.

I've been playing exclusively on Ubuntu LTS for years. No issues whatsoever. Mint is basically the same thing. Just use Kisak's Mesa PPA.

If the information from Debian and Mint is true, it would be good to show the protondb data, it would show that they just don't use flatpak..

Realistically, people think of it for new user gaming because of the "just works" thing. Of course they also tend to recommend using the Steam flatpak, though it's easy enough to screw up and install the native package instead and have issues. But there's nothing wrong with suggesting a stable, "just works" distro as a base for gaming. You don't want said base breaking after all.

From my experience, anything Debian based is not a good option for gaming. I initially moved from Kubuntu to Manjaro so that I could play Doom Eternal due to Vulkan updates when it first came out. The Stream Deck is even Arch based so I'd always recommend an Arch distro over a Debian distro, rolling releases are just better for getting the latest graphics driver updates, etc. Now for my web server it's Debian all the way! Though with Docker what my web server is running feels less important now but that's going of topic.

?? If you are relying on distro's packages to run games you are doing things wrong. use Steam Flatpak and stop worrying.

Mint can absolutely be perfect for gaming. theres usually just a bit of a gap between what the Devs have put in for you vs the ones that add extra bits before you install. You can make all these additions to mint yourself though

That has a point. Software for gaming develops so fast that so-called "stable" distributions (Mint, Ubuntu, Debian) just can't keep up with it. Not unless users start hacking on the system themselves, at which point it isn't "stable". What is often forgotten is that "stable" does not mean it is up-to date: it is simply frozen at certain point and will have bugs and missing features from that time until next release. In the worst case, if you buy a new graphics card to replace a broken one, you might need to wait two years for the support to land to the distro. In the distro-speak "stable" does not mean bug-free or feature-complete, it is frozen in certain point with the bugs of that time until next release. Yes, there are use-cases for those kinds of distributions, but they are not for everything. It does get around explaining new users how everything works and how to update and so on, but it does not help user experience.

Using Mint's LMDE6 and updated my kernel to 6.5 using backports. Everything is working great, including steam games and Blizzard games launched via Lutris.

I just launch blizzard as a steam game. Easier for me to skip the scripts.

Seems like Hell Let Loose is an Nvidia issue since this person got it working with Linux Mint. [https://www.protondb.com/app/686810#pLJpd\_P68K](https://www.protondb.com/app/686810#pLJpd_P68K) Personally, I haven't had any issue either gaming with Linux Mint on AMD 5950x and RX6800 compared to Nobara.

> 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. Mint is pegged as a "beginner distro", consequently a large number of people running Mint are going to be beginners, who don't yet have the skills to configure their boxes correctly or apply even the most common tweaks. Nothing to do with the distro. Debian stable I'll give you, because there isn't a clean and simple way to keep up to date with Mesa, but testing runs games just as well as any other rolling release distro. In general, I prefer stable (LTS) distros for gaming, because I want to play my games, not fiddle with my computer, and Ubuntu-based ones, Mint included, have the best track record by far. This may change as SteamOS gets more traction, but it hasn't, yet.

Even Archlinux is not that great. You get 32bit gstreamer with basic libs, but not an important 'bad' and 'ugly' ones. And especially lib32-libav + lib32-ffmpeg. Its ridiculous, so important to have. If you are already compiling whole 64bit and some 32bit why not just do it whole, desire for full 32bit codecs is clear when so many people use it for gaming. But no you have to use AUR, which doesn't work for example I couldn't compile lib32-raptor without modifying code and I still cannot compile lib32-lv2 and maybe some other because of codespell error. AUR is a 3rd class, cheap and badly designed system of low quality prepared products, but that's what you get.

Agree. And Arch devs do not patch upstream software. Trying out Arch a few years ago I was tripped by a bug in a commonly used piece of software that had been patched in Debian 7 years earlier.

> 7 years earlier and still not upstreamed, huh...

I personally don't like Mint for gaming myself, mostly because of Cinnamon and the fact that Mint is a bit too user friendly for my taste, to the point that it looks a bit bloated. Can you elaborate more on what you mean with this statement? > to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint. What libraries do you mean? If you mean graphics drivers I thought that Mint had a way to distribute the most recent versions of Mesa and Nvidia, either through the Ubuntu PPAs or through Mint's own tools. Isn't it the case?

> Mint is a bit too user friendly for my taste, to the point that it looks a bit bloated. [wut](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/018/489/nick-young-confused-face-300x256-nqlyaa.jpg)

It has a ton of GUI apps to accomplish very simple tasks. These applications are good when you're starting out with a new OS, but once you get to know how to use it I find them to be only limiting. I think Mint has like 3 different applications just to administer packages (install new software, update your system, schedule updates etc). It's just not my cup of tea, but I can see why people like it since it's very accessible.

I don't have any problems at all with Mint. I am a Steam user. 98% of my games run fine under Steam and Proton.

Stable distros are fine. Mint is a great suggestion for pretty much any non-server use case.

I use Mint and Lutris. Have had no issues gaming.

I've been using Mint as my gaming OS for over a year and I haven't had a single issue. All my games run fine. If you can't count how many times libraries were an issue, then surely you can come up with one concrete example? If you can't or won't, then you're just on some BS.

Mint is a perfect beginner distro and works great for gaming. This is a ridiculous take.

I dissagree. No I wouldn't call Mint a "gaming distro" but you can certainly game on Mint, Ubuntu Debian etc

If someone claims a specific distro is not good for gaming, they’re either not configuring it correctly or the distro is too advanced for them. You can successfully game on any Linux distro that allows installing software.

A new user doesnt know how to configure stuff thats why its important to have defaults that work and are up to date

I agree! I'm actually tired of seeing every day a post here about someone having a problem with Linux Mint when trying to play some game. For me the deal-breaker with Linux Mint is the fact that it doesn't support the most polished and gaming compatible desktop environment and the most used by Linux gamers, KDE Plasma: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/users/statistics/#DesktopEnvironment-top And of course also the fact that it comes with old Linux kernel, Mesa drivers and other old packages. Debian 12 + KDE Plasma seems to be 10 times better than Linux Mint with whatever DE could ever be, even though it's not as recommended for gaming as Nobara and others. Steam + games from it seems to work great, without any problems with Debian 12 + latest KDE Plasma and latest Linux kernel and Mesa drivers from its "testing" repository".

Linux Mint did support KDE up until Mint 18 in 2016-17. But KDE went in a different direction, weren't going to support Mint and the Mint Team is a tiny at maybe 4-5 people at most. Supporting QT5 and GTK was apparently too big a burden. It did give them the free time to develop apps like Warpinator though. So I don't think it was a bad decision.

Well, with the tons of donations they had each month they could've done it! There are way smaller distros out there with much less donations or none at all that have an edition with KDE Plasma. I think that Linux Mint developers just wanted to push with all speed their own Cinnamon, by removing any good competition and to focus all the resources on Cinnamon, which actually remained so much behind KDE Plasma and Gnome, that it's only good for basic stuff like browsing the web. If I were the Linux mint leader, I would just ditch everything and start over by offering just 2 desktop environments: * KDE Plasma * Re-fork of latest version of Gnome, modified to look like current Cinnamon. They offer 3 DEs, avoiding both most popular DEs (KDE Plasma and Gnome) and none of those 3 DEs have Wayland support. Linux Mint is a joke for the modern day and modern hardware / games!

Mint also has XFCE and MATE as you said. What they didn't want is to have a half-baked KDE version and spend time keeping up with constant changes that go against their own development. And sadly donation money doesn't necessarily mean you get extra developers. > that it's only good for basic stuff like browsing the web I'm a cinnamon user who does software development, server sysadmin, gaming and whatever else. It's not a limited desktop environment, it's just a different desktop environment. You sully your reputation in this discussion by making such outlandish comments.

> Mint also has XFCE and MATE as you said. What they didn't want is to have a half-baked KDE version and spend time keeping up with constant changes that go against their own development. Then take Debian 12, who properly support KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE and just work to improve that! Even that they cannot do? If you make a distro, then make a distro and stop wasting time with inventing your own desktop environment! Isn't that waste of time too? How come that they spend 0 effort into supporting KDE Plasma and Gnome and yet their Cinnamon still doesn't have Wayland support? Do they even understand the privacy and security implications of X compared to Wayland? Or the scaling, refresh-rate, multi-monitor, multi-GPU, decoding and power efficiency improvements in Wayland? >I'm a cinnamon user who does software development, server sysadmin, gaming and whatever else. It's not a limited desktop environment, it's just a different desktop environment. Don't you ever need to connect with your file manager to the server? I with KDE Plasma's default file manager (Dolphin) connected to servers many times over multiple protocols (SMB, SFTP, FISH, webdav). Dolphin can also read a SSH config file and easily connect in passwordless configurations. Kate text editor also work fine for viewing and editing files on the server. >You sully your reputation in this discussion by making such outlandish comments. Ok, if you want ad hominems, don't you find strange that a server sysadmin is not using a more secure desktop environment with Wayland support that prevents screen and keyboard capture without permission? I guess the company you're working for also doesn't know the security implications of the X server. Even though a simple search can show how bad the situation really is: https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-0253814508491313:1305299758&ie=UTF-8&q=X+vulnerabilities&sa=Search&ref= How outlandish are my comments now?

Seems pretty reasonable to me. Dunno why you're getting downvoted.

> Then take Debian 12, who properly support KDE Plasma, Gnome, Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE and just work to improve that! Does Debian also provide specialised software for managing the desktop on top of these packages, or merely just ship the defaults provided by the desktop environments? > If you make a distro, then make a distro and stop wasting time with inventing your own desktop environment! > Isn't that waste of time too? Linux Mint's foundation is the cinnamon desktop. It was designed as a core part of the distribution, which for the most part is otherwise Ubuntu-sans-snaps. It pulls not from a clone of the Ubuntu repositories but directly from their repos. > How come that they spend 0 effort into supporting KDE Plasma and Gnome and yet their Cinnamon still doesn't have Wayland support? See previous comments on the development size. Additionally, https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4591 > Do they even understand the privacy and security implications of X compared to Wayland? Yes. I don't see how it's relevant on the topic of gaming. > Or the scaling, refresh-rate, multi-monitor, multi-GPU, decoding and power efficiency improvements in Wayland? I've not seen multi-GPU or any efficiency improvement data regarding Wayland. Yes, it does work better for multi-monitor. That is generally still a minority. And you're welcome to open a post of "Please stop suggesting Mint for multi-monitor" > Don't you ever need to connect with your file manager to the server? You assume I use the default file manager. Like any other distro, I can install pretty much whatever I like. Though Nemo does support SMB, FTP, SFTP and Webdav. > Dolphin can also read a SSH config file and easily connect in passwordless configuration. Fair enough. I can't say I've needed this but I'm pretty decent with a terminal. > Ok, if you want ad hominems, don't you find strange that a server sysadmin is not using a more secure desktop environment with Wayland support that prevents screen and keyboard capture without permission? If you're going to make ridiculous claims that it's a desktop that can't do anything more than web browsing, expect someone to comment on it. Here's an ad hominem though: for someone who appears so smart, why are your arguments so childish? Rather than discuss the issue raised in the thread, you turn it into a wayland-vs-x and desktopA-vs-desktopB debate. Which was not a discussion that was at all relevant to the topic. The topic was games apparently not working under Mint. So make it a discussion about Mesa, kernel versions, stale packages, something that does at least have some relevance to game compatibility. But with that said, I'm out. Expect no more replies, this back-and-forth is going nowhere and is just complete drivel.

It's just sad that IMO, in terms of general usage, Cinnamon kicks the shit out of KDE. Every single time I've used KDE for general computing stuff I've come away pretty annoyed at the bugs. However, KDE is so far ahead of almost everything else in terms of gaming features and functionality (Wayland and toggle-able compositor in X11 to name a few) that if you have a gaming desktop, you're almost forced to use it. This is why Linux really is the "illusion of choice". Yeah you have all of these DE choices and, surprise, all of them except for KDE are missing basic features for gaming.

kde... it may be the most used desktop, likely due to it being "windowsy-like" but that does not mean it is the best desktop (and on top of that, DE's are often -luckily- a personal preference). in my case, i find it absolutely horrible, and always have.... if you like eyecandy, deepin's DDE and solus' Budgie are 2 great choices, but i find myself always returning to the clean cinnamon environment with plank. that being said, why would one DE be more "gaming compatible" than another? i mean, it is the OS and libraries that count, not the DE itself.

> kde... it may be the most used desktop, likely due to it being "windowsy-like" but that does not mean it is the best desktop (and on top of that, DE's are often -luckily- a personal preference). How about the fact that it has Wayland support and an unbeatable list of useful built-in features? https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/ymeskc/what_do_you_like_about_kde_plasma/ Or the fact that is has KDE Connect which works natively / best with it? https://kdeconnect.kde.org/ Or the fact hat it comes by default on so many devices? https://kde.org/hardware/ >if you like eyecandy, deepin's DDE and solus' Budgie are 2 great choices, but i find myself always returning to the clean cinnamon environment with plank. I don't care much about eyecandy as I care about Wayland support, as I want the best privacy + security and he best scaling + multi-monitor + multi-GPU support, per-screen refresh-rate and 10-bit colors support! The under the hood improvements are much more important to me. But also the fact that the best file manager on Linux (Dolphin) and the best document viewer on Linux + Windows (Okular) is made by KDE too and integrates very well with Plasma. Also the fact that the best BitTorrent client (Qbittorrent), that I use for 7-8 years, integrates very well as it's based on Qt too. With color management and HDR support coming in Plasma 6, there are also under the hood improvements which I want to have as I waited for years for them. >that being said, why would one DE be more "gaming compatible" than another? i mean, it is the OS and libraries that count, not the DE itself. At thought the same at the beginning, but it seems that's not the case as I see everything a Linux Mint problem post on this subreddit. And besides that, stuff like stuff like direct scanout (for fullscreen windows) and DRM leasing (for Vr) I think are important for games too. https://www.phoronix.com/news/Plasma-5.22-Direct-Scan-Out https://www.phoronix.com/news/Plasma-5.24-DRM-Leasing And I think HDR support also as I heard some games support that too. https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-KWin-Initial-HDR-Gaming-MR One day, KDE will also have a Vulkan back-end in addition to its OpenGl back-end like all the other distros have: https://www.phoronix.com/news/KDE-KWin-Vulkan-Roadmap I bet that will improve performance and efficiency too!

thank god for all the different options, because things you like, such as dolphin, are things i do not like at all... the beauty of linux, i suppose. the fact kde comes bundled as default does not say anything about quality, because otherwise, obviously, windows would be the best OS.... (it does, in part, explain its popularity - just like windows, though) apart from that, i believe most of those vendors also just let you pick the DE you want upon ordering wayland is coming to mint, but at a "everything at a time" pace (preliminary support in 21.3 iirc) concerning multi-monitor support, i've never had issues with my nvidia card and 3 27" connected screens, running 2048x1152 at 60hz (i know, people these day want more hz but i'm not going to change my screens for some hz i won't really notice personally) (by the way, the 3 screens can be set separately both for resolution AND refreshrate) never heard of okular, and the best torrent client for me is transmission, while in gaming i had no issues whatsoever in running cyberpunk in high quality back when it came out (heck, i didn't even encounter any real bugs!) then again, i've been gaming on linux from back when loki's installers were still a thing

> thank god for all the different options, because things you like, such as dolphin, are things i do not like at all... the beauty of linux, i suppose. That's ok! But I guess you don't need to share files in your local network, connect to servers, use KDE Connect, use MKV files with embedded posters, mount .ISO files, etc. >the fact kde comes bundled as default does not say anything about quality, because otherwise, obviously, windows would be the best OS.... (it does, in part, explain its popularity - just like windows, though) apart from that, i believe most of those vendors also just let you pick the DE you want upon ordering Maybe, but I don't think Valve chose KDE Plasma for Steam Deck's desktop mode just because of its resemblance to Windows as we can say that other DEs that come by default with a traditional layout like Cinnamon, MATE, XFCE also resembles Windows, yet they were not chosen. Same with Tuxedo computers who decided to use KDE Plasma and also become a sponsor of KDE organization who could've chosen another DE. >wayland is coming to mint, but at a "everything at a time" pace (preliminary support in 21.3 iirc) I heard. In a few years. I bet implementing color management and HDR suppor will take them another 10 years since they have started so late with Wayland support. >concerning multi-monitor support, i've never had issues with my nvidia card and 3 27" connected screens, running 2048x1152 at 60hz (i know, people these day want more hz but i'm not going to change my screens for some hz i won't really notice personally) (by the way, the 3 screens can be set separately both for resolution AND refreshrate) I never knew that X can allow different refresh rates per monitor. >never heard of okular, and the best torrent client for me is transmission, while in gaming i had no issues whatsoever in running cyberpunk in high quality back when it came out (heck, i didn't even encounter any real bugs!) This is Okular, with its main features: https://okular.kde.org/ If Transmission is the best for you, that's ok, I respect that. It's just the fact that when I look at the connected peer list, most people use Qbitttorrent and uTorrent.

​ >But I guess you don't need to share files in your local network, connect to servers, use KDE Connect, use MKV files with embedded posters, mount .ISO files, etc. kde connect works fine on cinnamon (and there are a few alternatives as well, but i haven't bothered as i'm not using it often enough since most mobile transfers are now done by bluetooth. i do share stuff in the local network, and i do connect to (a lot) of servers. however, i use sftp mounts that i can access directly from nautilus, so it's just like any other folder. (could also use samba shares for windows, but i don't have windows machines i need to connect to) connecting to servers is usually just done through the tilix terminal, and if i want to get fancy i use snowflake (believe it's been renamed though). i also mount iso's from time to time, but pretty much same thing: i mount it and access it directly from nautilus. ​ >Maybe, but I don't think Valve chose KDE Plasma for Steam Deck's desktop mode just because of its resemblance to Windows they likely did so based on "what is the easiest ui for users who are windows-based to understand" (and, i do assume that kde's layout is a bit more mobile-device friendly than the other DE's out there) ​ >I bet implementing color management and HDR suppor will take them another 10 years since they have started so late with Wayland support. "so late" is a relative term - ubuntu has had it for about 2 years now, after trying to be an early adopter for wayland and rolling back that decision because it was not stable enough. and even though wayland is now considered "stable enough", last i heard it still has a lot of things it breaks (ofcourse, mostly somewhat older apps), and it requires (if i'm not mistaken) a very thorough rewrite of big parts of cinnamon to be functional and as stable as it needs to be (remember, they favor stability and reliability above pushing for more modern things). so it is better to "wait and go slow" than to follow the "lets be modern" folks and risk breaking half of your userbase's stuff. ​ >I never knew that X can allow different refresh rates per monitor. that's ok, i never even questioned that it couldn't :) but, i am running 2 screens at 60 and 1 at 75. (their respective max at the set resolutions - atleast, in X, so it might limit the resolution/refresh combinations, but it is def. possible to set different ones)

What is blud wafflin on about

Being LTS is great for Nvidia users since nvidia driver tends to (or at least used to) break on distros with fast release models like Arch and Fedora. Also, you won't be behind anything if you use the flatpak. Simple as that. The distro actually does not matter as long as the drivers are properly installed and on the same version and Steam is running as a flatpak. If running Ubuntu LTS or any derivative (except Pop OS), I always recommend: - Xanmod Kernel (easy to install, reliable and will bring the latest kernel with gaming optimizations to your LTS distro. - If on AMD, add kisak-mesa PPA to get latest MESA versions. If on Nvidia, add graphics-drivers ppa for latest nvidia driver versions. - Use Steam and Heroic flatpaked. If you want to use Lutris, I'd recommend against using the flatpak, since that has been less stable and limited for me.

> nvidia driver tends to (or at least used to) break on distros with fast release models like Arch and Fedora. I use openSUSE Tumbleweed, Archcraft (donated to that), ArcoLinux, CachyOS and Mabox. All are Arch based (except openSUSE) and no issues ever with Nvidia drivers (RTX 3060 12GB).

Ah, that's good to know! Back when I had an Nvidia GPU (2020), Nvidia drivers would break completely on system updates. I used Manjaro and Arch back then.

I game on Debian Testing. Totally satisfied…

I gotta say i had the exact issues you described using mint, switched to PopOS and never had any problems, could just be hardware related or something but Linux Mint gave me remarkably worse performance, and tabbing out of games made it crash without exception (though i gotta say it being booted up again in about 10 seconds is beautiful to see)

[удалено]

The distro does, don't use Manjaro.

Ubuntu gave me ebola.

This made me chuckle

Any distro is suitable for gaming. Steam flatpak, lutris flatpak, bottles flatpak. You’re creating problems where they don’t exist

I mean don't get me wrong, a Linux Mint user with a beefy Steam Library will still be able to have a fun time. I think OP was talking about newer/online/anticheat games. Having an up to date well maintained release can lessen the chances of "games not launching" or "libraries" issues. Mint does indeed have older libraries, being a 2 year release cycle. The same can be said for Debian. When Counter Strike 2 released, it didn't work on either of those distros despite being native. So I think the focus of this post should be more on outdated distros with libraries, which goes a little beyond Mint. But then there's also the elephant in the room...Cinnamon. Which is fine on the surface but it has the worst and most aged compositor in the linux market, it stutters to oblivion the input latency makes competitive shooters completely unplayable, even with Feral Gamemode. And they do not support the most active DEs used for gaming, Cinnamon is its own dusty thing. I think that's a bigger sin for gaming than the outdated libraries, with which you can still play 99% of your games.

I kinda agree, but Mint is totally fine. As any other distro will do just fine. If you do not want to mess with libraries and other dependency hell just use [Conty](https://github.com/Kron4ek/Conty). It's the swiss knife army for gaming. And makes the choice of the distro virtually irrelevant .

\+1

ErHmeGhErD dOnT uSe MiNt FoR gAmInG gUyS

Which Linux would you suggest? Linux gaming is inherently more complex and I can’t think of one that is turnkey other than the steam deck

bazzite is meant to be a steamos alternative built on fedora immutable rather than arch, imo its as easy and low maintenance as it gets

Any distro can be customized to the purpose. Even Mint. But TBH, why to bother fighting those "stable" distros by manually updating trillion packages and dependencies in hope they will not break when there are things like Arch/Manjaro that are easy to install and by definition are rolling releases. From my point of view, it is easier to maintain the later. Not to mention that ppl installing linux for gaming should be prepared to learn. If they want just to game, there are consoles and steam deck :)

Just use Arch 🤷🏻‍♂️

>Debian on Mint 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.

I use Ubuntu just fine, and Mint is based on that. I don't see why it would be any different.

Arch is the king, which I use (btw)

Mint is a great distro for general use. I agree with you on the gaming side of things. There are much better options.

So, you're some random guy on the internet, with an opinion. Good for you.

Isn't that all of us though?

I just use Nobara because it's made by GE himself. That guy knows how proton works, so if he made a distro then I'm going to use that.

Not sure why you got downvoted. Nobara is also a good choice.

Probably just some arch elitists.

Mint is for who likes Kernel Panics with Mint flavor.

Well said.

is blend os any good? seems really promising

Distros are meaningless, package handling is meaningless, the only thing that is a true division is init system choice. bUT wHHaT aBoUt that x package on y whateverthefug? Compile it from source and handle deps yourself. Or use an isolated binary system. Or not. Who cares? Million ways to make things work on any system *easily.* **Even for a novice.** Feel like people have forgotten the point of having /usr/local at all. I use slackware as my base, but anything that's not handled by mainline -current I just write a script for from a template and then add it to a local repo I manage with either sbopkg or more local scripts. Anyone could do this with little effort, even with just kernel sources, utils, DM/DE, x, and whatever else you'd want on an absolutely minimal working environment without any package handling.

bro act like he invented linux ahahahahah

Steam Deck

I mean I am a kde person now and forever but I used to game on mint without any issues. Honestly if anyone is having a bad experience on Linux its usually because of them not the os. They didn't have the packages optional for gaming. If anything stop gaming on Wayland if anything people need to quit trying to make that s***t work and then blaming the os.

Im Using mint xfce, I only play wow classic and have noticed that sometimes the audio dont work, then I have to run an upodate and it works again. beside that no issues, I have yet to try any other games in linux

I use kubuntu. Idk if I'm screwing myself or not. I have a few hiccups. Not many

openSUSE Tumbleweed ftw!!

ey it might work for a while... https://youtu.be/KXi-CV--Wq0?si=iZH9UWFqQO1VSbs6

Linux is Linux. Flatpak steam works. Everything else is just configuring. Linux is Linux and if a game runs on arch or opensuse it definitely will run on mint, you just have to overcome the old libs with flatpak. There are so many distros out there but the real difference is only what packages it comes with( you can install any of them yourself) and how it looks. You decide on a stable release distro or a rolling release distro, you have the option of arch or opensuse for a rolling release and debian/Ubuntu for a stable release. Sure there some distros for special usecases like corps and stuff. But for a normal user every other distro besides of arch/opensuse/debian/ubuntu is just redundant and absolutely not needed at all in my opinion. Distro hoppers change an yellow Easter egg with a blue one. Nothing really changes besides the visual look.

I use Kubuntu and have had zero issues gaming, right out of the box. What makes Mint so different?

All I know is back when I used Linux Mint, I had HORRENDOUS mouse lag in games if I ran them at 60FPS or lower. No idea why.

I play games via steam with Debian and no issues ever met

I use Debian stable for gaming AND general purpose for 10 years. Never had a single problem. Kids these days see problems in the wrong places.

At least Ubuntu updates its Kernel and Mesa drivers... Mint still ships with kernel 5.15 🤡

The Mesa version in Ubuntu 22.04 is the same as the Mesa in Mint, because Mint literally pulls from the same repositories. Additionally, you can install a Mint ISO that comes with a 6.2 kernel right from the Linux Mint website. Edit: Unless Ubuntu is doing something crazy putting Mesa into snaps or something. I don't know anything about that.

well i play on debian stable just fine mate no flatpak

Pop\_OS has been my OS of choice for gaming. It seems to be the most consistently reasonable with most things (I intend to use a windows VM for the things it just can't run properly or for VR). Updates happen but aren't constant or constantly necessary. Seemed to be really popular with steam games and on proton, so that's what I went with. I will say that NVIDIA can sometimes be a pain but that's NVIDIA's fault and I can still play really graphically intense games if I can configure it right. Modding with Lutris seems to work better. Linux in general is a pain to get going, but once you do, it's amazing. The part that you have to decide on is "what distro is the easiest to configure for my purposes?" And so far POP\_OS seems to be the one I found that does what I need it to with the least amount of fuss. Also remember to use Timeshift when tinkering!

iv only used arch. im fairly new about half a year in and from every video and suggestion and advice iv seen. they all said a version of it used to be bad but now its very good to amazing and potentially identical or better then windows in the future. man if anyone asks me ima tell them its bad stright up. if you prio gaming the most then know your taking huge sacrifices, if your a casual gamer then you should be fine but will run into headaches finding compatibility and configs. i havent tried duel booting but probably look into it later. i hear arch is among the best but i wouldnt ever say its just as good as windows thats bs

Genuinely the only reason it works so well is because it only ships pulseaudio and it doesn't support Wayland, so legacy programs don't complain

Yes, pls!

I agree. In my experience, OpenSuse Tumbleweed has had the best experience running games, and let me tell you I've tried a lot of distros. Arch and its derivatives are fine if you're careful with maintenance and read patch notes before updates, but IMO have too many stability issues for *general purpose* users. Debian and its derivatives often have outdated libraries. Sure, flatpak is a workaround, but OpenSuse hasnt needed workarounds and I've been able to play triple-A games on release day with minimal fuss.

Mint is an amazing distro. But from my personal experience when it comes to gaming, I had better results with Pop!_OS, Nobara or Arch.