Specifically for anyone who doesn't already know what to install coming from Windows. I'm going to focus on 4 main ones out of the bunch that I'm most familiar with: SteamOS, CachyOS, PikaOS, Bazzite, and Nobara

Foreword: Don't focus on performance. Don't pick the OS based off of which one has a 1% better FPS rate. They all do the same thing. Focus instead on the software availability and the methods that you're supposed to use it.

Disclaimer: The Linux kernel has issues with GPUs. AMD has way fewer than Nvidia so expect issues if you're using an Nvidia GPU on Linux. These issues are slowly being fixed but due to the nature of the Nvidia drivers being closed-source, there's only so much the maintainers can do so quickly.

Great news though! A partnership has been formed by a bunch of the major gaming distributions who are working together to unify all of the improvements they've made to their gaming-optimized kernels. This includes Bazzite, Nobara, and Pika, though I'm not sure if I saw Cachy will be joining. This means that from now on, kernel performance will be pretty much the same across all the related distributions. Here's an article you can read more about this: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/open-gaming-collective-ogc-formed-to-push-linux-gaming-even-further/

SteamOS

SteamOS is a fantastic first-party distribution aimed at handhelds, HTPCs, and desktops. It does a great job getting you right into gaming, though fairly feature-limited if you're using it in anything other than a Valve-maintained device.

Should you hold out for SteamOS?

Not really. Everything the SteamOS does and promises to do is already handled exactly and better than SteamOS ever will. SteamOS will always be optimized first-and-foremost for Steam Hardware.

SteamOS also doesn't stay with the up-to-date kernel so it doesn't support the latest GPUs. This is a limitation set forth by the focus on optimizing solely on theirs and partners' hardware. There is also no Nvidia GPU support not limited support like other distros.

It's not a drop-in-replacement for Windows, it's only an OS that you can play on Linux in a Valve-controlled environment that you can ensure your software will run if they say it does. Everything else the SteamOS does is handled by the other OSs.

CachyOS

Cachy is the Arch of gaming distros. Not really, but it is Arch-based. Arch is famous for its ultimate customization and by picking CachyOS you're entering this ecosystem with a bit of assurance. Right of the bat, when installing Cachy you can pick whatever DE you want.

You also gain access to the AUR or Arch User Repository which allows Arch users to openly distribute software for everyone to use. Many of these are binaries that are built locally on your machine even if there is no build available for it.

Pacman is your official package manager but you can also set up your system to use flatpaks or distrobox if you prefer to use those.

Cachy also gives you complete control and you benefit from the thousands upon thousands of Arch-related forum posts and documentation pages that have fixed something-or-the-other on users that use actual Arch.

You also get the plus of being on the same OS that SteamOS uses so a lot of Steam functions are plug and play.

Cachy has both desktop and handheld editions available and has Nvidia support as well.

PikaOS

Pika is a similar flavour to Cachy where they're actually based off of Debian. Debian is pretty much the "definitive" Linux distributions since it's the one that arguably gets the most official software support especially because Ubuntu, the most vanilla distribution is based on Debian. apt is your package manager and you still have access to flatpaks and distrobox for anything that can't or you don't want to run natively.

The great thing about Debian as a base is that it doesn't really do anything super fancy on its own. Still, all the spins are great for picking out just how you want to interact with your computer.

Pika has KDE, Gnome, hyprland, Niri, and Cosmic spins. The only difference is just the DE/WM. Look up videos of how each DE/WM works and looks to make your pick, each has their own strengths and weaknesses and you can't go wrong with any of them!

Nobara

Nobara is pretty much gaming-flavored Fedora. There isn't really anything crazy distinguishing it from Fedora since you interact with it the same way you would base Fedora. dnf is your package manager, and it heavily encourages the usage of flatpaks, something I agree with since they're separate from your system packages.

Nobara benefits from the same kernel as Bazzite but unlike Bazzite you get control over how your system is set up. If you want to change your GPU drivers, you technically can. If you need to replace a kernel, you can do that yourself.

It still comes plug-and-play and has both desktop and HTPC and handheld modes that use the Steam Gaming Mode that SteamOS uses. You can get Nobara in Official KDE, Gnome, and default KDE flavours for the desktop too. It also has Nvidia support.

Bazzite

I'm biased. This is what I believe most gamers should use when coming over from Windows unless you really like to tinker or are not extremely averted to it. It's also what I personally use for my desktop.

Bazzite is known as an immutable Linux distribution. Like Nobara, it is based on Fedora, but it specifically based on the Fedora Kinoite spin that is atomic. Atomic implies that the OS prevents you from overwriting system packages. You wouldn't be able to easily swap out your kernel without difficulty along the way.

The benefit of this is that your system can safely auto-update itself in the background and always be in tip-top-shape and that it will always be in its most stable state. The atomic system also creates backups of your OS. If you updated from Fedora 42 to 43 this year and faced issues and couldn't boot, the Fedora 42 version is still saved as a separate boot option that you can go back to until the issue is resolved.

Bazzite comes in desktop and Gaming Mode flavours with the Gnome and KDE desktops for both. It also has Nvidia support bar the same issues.

What I use

I use Bazzite on my desktop and HTPC. The atomic nature means that system packages, other than the OS itself, can be handled without my input when I'm not using the computer.

For my HTPC, it means I don't need to worry about updates that much, and on my desktop it means my computer is always ready to go.

I prefer the atomic desktop, even as a developer, because the workflow of using Flatpak and distrobox instead of system packages is safer in general. If Bazzite uses a specific version of Python, the one I use for development won't cause a conflict on my distrobox that's specific for development. Applications like Discord can also not inject random dependencies they want into my system and if I delete them, they don't leave anything behind. Flatpaks can also be completely sandboxed and you're always aware of what permissions they're using and who's maintaining them.

Hosting systems are already set up for you if you ever wanted to use those extra cores on your 8-core CPU for some actual work and it comes pre-installed and configured with Lutris so you can just plug-and-play your old games with that.

On my all-AMD system I've not had any graphical or performance issues, so I can recommend it safely for all team-red gamers.

I specifically use the KDE version because it's more traditional desktop as opposed to Gnome that has its own style. It's also much more customizeable by default but they both pretty much do the same thing.

Just pick the one you like, and if you don't like it, try the other one. Don't force yourself to use a system you don't like!

Terms I Used You Might Not Know

What is a flatpak

A sandboxed application. Similar to how a web app works, it includes all its dependencies and functions within itself so your system stays clean from dependency issues.

What is a DE/WM

It's how you interact with your system. Arguably this is the more important decision than the OS itself since this is really all that matters for you as an end-user. OS only matters for software availability or in the case of Bazzite stability.

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I recently switched to Linux from Windows. When opening a GUI (inventory, chests, etc) in Minecraft, the cursor is meant to appear in the middle of the screen, which it does properly in the video. But when I move my mouse, the cursor blinks to a different spot. The place the cursor blinks to is the same every time.

I'm using Linux Mint. I'm very new to Linux so I apologise if I left out any important information or if I explained this poorly.

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The demo only dropped two hours ago, but this seems to be a common issue facing Linux users at the moment.

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It started about two weeks ago. Something's broken it, despite it working before. I've tried Wayland, I've tried .deb, I've tried Flatpak, I've now tried the same all on x11 after switching to the last LTS for Ubuntu... I'm absolutely stuck.

I'm starting to think it can't just be me...

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Hello everyone, this is probably my first post but I need some help. I have switched to CachyOS and tried a couple games and my controller doesn't seem to work, what I mean is it keeps going around on my right thumb stick moving (no it's not stick drift) it was great on Windows 11 but on CachyOS it is giving me a problem. I installed Joystick to try to fix it and found out it's showing both right and left back buttons as well giving me the issue with right thumb stick. But after changing it with is Axis 3 & Axis 4 on my controller it seems fine on Joystick but when I play games it always does this. If anyone knows how to fix it that would be very nice.

My controller is: Scuf Envision Pro

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i want to know if cemu works on a wiiu, thanks.

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Windows 11 surpasses 1 billion users after 4 years — faster than Windows 10 ever did | Windows Central

I guess you could say Microsoft is lying but at the same time I don't think this is unreasonable. Like every version of Windows before it, public perception is often disconnected from reality. Windows should have died off 30 years ago if all the predictions of its demise were even half accurate back then.

AI is clearly the big push back today. But that's happening everywhere. Even as AI adoption isn't slowing down overall, indeed it seems to be accelerating. And I think that's long a friction point in Windows, adopting tech that isn't seen as useful or necessary, until it is. AI is going nowhere; Microsoft has no choice but integrate AI into Windows, AI acceleration is just going to continue to grow until it hits hard limits like electrical power.

But at its core, it's still Windows and Win32 and that insane ecosystem. And Linux to date hasn't replaced either. Indeed, desktop Linux is now almost completely dependent on Win32 and the same Windows ecosystem for gaming.

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I just last night switched to Linux (mint) on my main PC after running it on my laptop for about a year, and some of my favorite games (GTAV, LoL) don't work online because of anti cheats. I was thinking about dual booting windows just to run for when I wanted to play online games but I don't want that ai riddled mess anywhere near my PC after completely erasing and reformatting my drives, so the next step is to find some new games to play, and with that, I was wondering what online games some of y'all in the community enjoy that run well on Linux?

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I recently switched from Vanilla Arch to CachyOS, most of the games I installed mostly using Proton Hotfix and cachyos's native proton actually play but produce no sound at all. I tried the winecfg thingy to 'Test' the audio and got no response. Did I mess up something with the sound as a whole? I think I got just one game (GTAV) to work with sound using the bleeding-edge version of wine (the one for Adobe installers) but now using it on Heroic with another version of wine/proton has no audio output. System notifications, music files play quite alright

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An exciting new announcement is the formation of the Open Gaming Collective, a collaborative organisation between many names in the Linux sphere.

Read the full article on GamingOnLinux.

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I decided to update my arch system, and as it usually does it broke my nvidia drivers, I ended up salvaging them with nouveau because "nvidia" alone wasn't working. I managed to solve the resolution problems and my screens.
Mainly by commenting "blacklist nouveau" from "/usr/lib/modprobe.d/nvidia-utils.conf"
but now I have a new problem I didn't have before updating, I tried to open a steam game and instead of working as it used to I get this error style box and crashes

https://preview.redd.it/94w4rh4966gg1.png?width=399&format=png&auto=webp&s=34a2bcff2c5506c8a7b3a80515d945536275b697

Deep rock galactic tries to load and says "A D3D11-compatible GPU (Feature Level 11.0, Shader Model 5.0) is required to run the engine" when loading DirectX11 the same version i was playing yesterday.
The one game for now i've tried and works has been tabletop simulator but it maxes my CPU when it never did that.
After this I tried making a blacklist.conf in "etc/modprobe.d/" with
blacklist nvidia_drm
blacklist nvidia_modeset
blacklist nvidia_uvm
Blacklist nvidia

This is the journalctl https://appdevtools.com/pastebin/LUZxAr
And my specs are: OS: Arch Linux x86_64 Host: MS-7845 1.0 Kernel: 6.18.7-arch1-1Packages: 1237 (pacman), 50 (flatpak) Resolution: 1600x900, 1920x1080 DE: Plasma 6.5.5 WM: KWin CPU: Intel i7-4770 (8) @ 3.900GHz GPU: NVIDIA Quadro K620 Memory: 6927MiB / 15931MiB

I think it must be the graphics drivers, it's what's given the most trouble, it's late in the night, I'm tired and starting to get exhausted with all this shit.

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Today I started a game that I play a lot, played for some time, and the game froze. It still ran in the background, I could hear it and still control the game, but the display was frozen. Alt tabbed and restarted, same issue.

Now I can barely start the game before it freezes. I didn't change any setting, and I have no idea why it does this now when it worked fine just a day ago.

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Hi there, new Linux user here. I've installed Mint recently and wanted to try how Monster Hunter Wilds runs, specially after the big new performance update. I have a Ryzen 5 7600X and a Radeon RX 6700 XT.

With frame generation on, the fps count from Steam says that the game is running at like 90 or 100 frames per second, but it doesn't even feel like 60. It actually feels more like I'm playing at 30 fps. There's even some big stutters here and there. I tried tweaking the game's settings but it didn't change anything, and of course I've set Proton compatibility on and whatnot. On Windows I was running this game at full 60 fps with frame generation on, even before the new update.

When booting up the game, it tells me that my GPU drivers aren't fully updated, and it redirects me to a Steam page linking to AMD website, so I can download the latest drivers from there. But, as far as I know, AMD drivers already come with the Linux kernel, so I don't really have to install any further GPU drivers, right? I'm still pretty noob with Linux.

Has anyone been able to run this game on Linux Mint with both AMD CPU and GPU without any issue? Should I switch to Bazzite instead?

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Don’t know much about Linux but bought a new 1tb nvme to try Linux, all I do is gaming web browsing and sometimes stream, want to keep windows 10 on my other nvme just in case some programs or games don’t run on Linux.

7800x3d

32gb 6000

6950xt

1tb nvme 3,500

1tb nvme 5,500

5tb hdd

Mainly want to switch since win 10 is not getting more updates

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Hello,

I've just gone From Windows 11 to CachyOS, KDE Plasma running Wayland. I cannot be bothered with the Windows way of doing thing anymore, and having a pop up every third day telling me to finish setting up my computer to get some office 365 deal. This is unfortunately yet another post asking for suggestions for the ideal gaming distro, but not because Im new to team Penguin or because I heard X is better than Y. Anyway, CachyOS. I'm not new to Linux at all, I have 3 laptops and a NAS all running Linux, my main laptop is on Arch so Cachy should (and does) make sense for the most part. What's not making sense however, is the stutter I'm getting in a few places across the OS and Steam, and some weird little quirks that I cannot seem to get rid of for whatever reason.

This is a brand new install on a decent PC - I'll put the specs in a comment below. Steam big picture mode is very slow and very laggy. I've got it set up just as I had it on Windows, and it's ridiculous just how slow it's running. I cannot for the life of me get the panel to disappear when starting a full screen game, the closest I can get is having it disappear altogether until I push the cursor all the way down and I don't really like that. I want it there permanently until a full screen game starts. For driving games I use an Xbox controller, and it took me nearly 10 minutes for it to be detected by the PC via Bluetooth, and then a good 30 seconds for it to actually connect.

For these reasons and not being willing to run into more issues along the way, I would like a distro that is smooth, works out of the box and doesn't have any word lag anywhere. Preferably not something Arch based if this is what it involves on a Desktop, and not Fedora, simply because I hate the name. Petty reason I know but there we go.

Apologies for the "Suggest me a distro" post, but Im not only looking to get away from Windows stupidity, but also make using the PC a smoother experience, which Cachy isn't giving me.

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