Hello,

I'm looking for a Linux distro for gaming. I know that not everything is perfect on Linux yet, but it seems much more stable than Windows, and I’m honestly done with Windows at this point. What distro would you recommend for the most stable gaming experience? I want something very simple with a console-like feel, no bloat, just straightforward and stable for most games. I’ve heard about SteamOS. I know it’s not officially made for regular PCs, but I’m curious about how usable it actually is for most games. My PC is a full AMD system. My goal is to play my Steam games and Epic/GOG titles through the Heroic Launcher. I also want to play some older games using PCSX2. I mostly play single-player games, so anti-cheat measures don’t really matter to me. I'm interested in games like The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and others. Also, since my system is fully AMD, is SteamOS ready to use right out of the box, or would I need to install drivers or adjust settings manually? If it is ready to go, would the performance be similar to other gaming-focused distros, or noticeably worse? Thanks in advance for any suggestions! (I’ve checked the FAQ section, but it doesn’t cover all of my questions.)

Btw here's my system:

7500F

6650 XT

32 gig ddr5 6000 MHz

At first I thought it was OptiScaler causing the issue, but it happens with and without it. I even tried switching to DX11 but the game still crashes after 5-15 minutes. I've also tried with ray tracing and Nvidia hairworks disabled. I'm using an AMD GPU btw. Could it be mangohud or something?

This happening to anyone else? How'd you fix it?

Specs:

9070 XT

KDE Plasma 6.5.5

CachyOS x86_64

Linux 6.18.7-2-cachyos

32GB RAM

Swap: 32GB

9800X3D

Steam, using Proton CachyOS SLR 10.0-20260101

Hello, i'm playing Talos Principle Reawakened on Fedora 42, using Proton GE 10-28. Everything is going well except for this : Screenshots taken from within the game make it crash.

Normal behaviour : press a button to take the screenshot, a shutter sound is played.

I am talking about that because : - There are two ways to take screenshots, #1 is entering photo mode, #2 is using F12 steam shortcut. Both originally behaved the same way and had the same outcome. - A quick google led me to this https://www.dedoimedo.com/games/steam-proton-screenshot-sound-crash.html, which explains that disabling the shutter sound prevented the crash. I tried, and it did. The problem is, that parameter is only applied to the basic steam shortcut, photo mode still triggers the sound and thus the crash (btw F12 can still be used in photo mode, and this time, causes a crash).

I've asked on the game forum if there's a way to disable the sound in photo mode, in the meantime, i submit the crash report here, hoping you can id the root cause, and maybe find a fix. Thank you

these are from the reporting problem app

``` reason : wine64-preloader killed by SIGSEGV

cmdline : $'Z:\mnt\somni\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\The Talos Principle Reawakened\Talos1\Binaries\Win64\Talos1-Win64-Shipping.exe' Talos1

executable : /home/user/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton10-28/files/bin/wine64-preloader

kernel : 6.18.5-100.fc42.x86_64

container_cmdline : /usr/lib/pressure-vessel/from-host/libexec/steam-runtime-tools-0/pv-adverb --prefix=/usr/lib/pressure-vessel/from-host --generate-locales --fd 12 --regenerate-ld.so-cache /var/pressure-vessel/ldso --add-ld.so-path /usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --add-ld.so-path /usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides/lib/i386-linux-gnu --set-ld-library-path /usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/aliases:/usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides/lib/i386-linux-gnu/aliases --overrides-path /usr/lib/pressure-vessel/overrides --exit-with-parent --subreaper --assign-fd=1=3 --assign-fd=2=4 --ld-preload=/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/gameoverlayrenderer.so --ld-preload=/home/user/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_64/gameoverlayrenderer.so -- /home/user/.local/share/Steam/compatibilitytools.d/GE-Proton10-28/proton waitforexitandrun $'/mnt/somni/SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/The Talos Principle Reawakened/Talos1.exe' ```

I've been a Linux user for about like 4 months and its been pretty good until recently I've been getting lots of crashes and random issues and I've been troubleshooting and reinstalling and testing different boot loaders and stuff. I think I'm just done with Arch. I'm looking to switch to something else like maybe Debian or something. Any recommendations for a distro that's lightweight? Also I'm not here to try and troubleshoot crashes right now I just wanna switch lol. I think i just need something stable and simple.

Hey guys, some of you might remember (or not) i posted a while back that i started working on this project

I've reached a point where gogdl-cli is somewhat usable, there is still a lot of work to do, but now it is easier to use and has a bunch of new features:

- Proton downloader
- Configure each game with environment variables, arguments, and specific proton versions
- Interactive cli
- Run games directly from the cli

Here is the repo in case you want to check it out: https://github.com/fernandonr189/gogdl-cli.git

i made to switch to ubuntu after my computer suddenly decided it didn’t want to run windows 11 anymore. for the past couple hours i’ve spent researching, then trying to install minecraft various ways using the terminal is starting to give me a headache.

im also very interested in installing lunar client but its giving me all sorts of problems. neither the minecraft launcher or lunar client wants to appear in the app tray, and lunar doesn’t want to launch minecraft.

plus, the videos im trying to get help from aren’t working, probably because they’re around 3 to 4 years old.

Not sure where else to turn to but I have Oblivion remastered. I played perfectly fine on my PC when I was using Windows. Now it doesn't even make it past the menu. I've tried differen of proton versions to no luck. Proton ge 10/29 and hotfix to experimental. Anyone have a solution other than going back to windows lol. My pc is an msi a16 amd 9hx nivida 5060 with 16 gigs ddr5 ram. If ran fine on windows set at medium. I need mkre ram lol. Any solutions?

I’ve been using Wayland for my entire Linux journey and it’s been mostly smooth. However, I’ve run into an annoying issue: every ~20 minutes, my primary monitor goes black for about a second. The sound keeps playing, inputs still work, and my secondary display (a TV) continues working perfectly.

It’s still manageable for use and doesn’t bother me much, but it becomes really annoying during movie scenes or during ranked games.

So far I have tried changing the refresh rate and tweaking with the display settings but it didn't help.

I’ve read that Xorg is often considered more stable for NVIDIA GPUs and gaming, so I thought switching might help. But with my multi-monitor setup (165Hz monitor + 30Hz TV), Xorg doesn’t handle refresh rates as smoothly as Wayland does.

My setup:

• Debian 13 with GNOME on SSD
• GTX 1060 6GB, Intel i7-4790, 16GB DDR3
• Primary monitor: 1080p 165Hz BenQ via DisplayPort
• Secondary monitor: TV via HDMI

Any suggestions would be appreciated :D

PS: I only use my TV for sound output via HDMI and to display its wallpaper. I don’t use it for work or anything else.

Hi, Currently I'm using Nobara 43 KDE (a fedora gaming distro) but also have tried Linux mint 22.3 for all of these problems. For this example I'll be mainly talking about Black ops 3 mod manager and launcher T7x and Boii (I have both and they worked on windows)..

So the problem is, I want to use wine, proton, any format to make a game launcher access the files needed for the game I want to run. For these games either it runs the launcher but fails the steam and/or self validation file check OR can't even find the game itself.

Does anyone have a solution to how I can use wine for the launcher, then show it the file placement to then access everything it needs? (Steam files etc). No matter if I use steam, lutris, or just starting the application directly to wine it doesn't work. Snowing unable to find the game, needing steam to be installed (when it is, and ran through steam to start), or need Internet access on some setup).

Anything you guys can figure out would be amazing! Thank you

P.S - here are other games that have the same "problem" but for different launcher. R2modman for bomb rush cyber funk. An old version of baldurs gate 3 mod manager to launch the game (I don't wanna update and lose my save file) Thanks again.

Hey, so, a bit of background, an official security "update" on Win 11 Broke my system, it did something that didn't allow some games, emulators and old apps access more that 16 gb of RAM, not entirely but, if the system was running in 15gb and I opened some of this apps it would crash, reboot itself and give me a error, after 5 days trying to solve the issue and dreading that my RAM was dying (it wasn't) I find the culprit in that OFFICIAL Win 11 SECURITY UPDATE!, I WAS FURIOUS, manage to roll back, uninstall the update and all works now, but im fed up, im done.

So, now I used Linux in the past, like 10 years ago, Linux Mint, it gave new life to an old Laptop, i used it to do office work, make presentations, manage some pdfs, light image editing and access the online platform of the college at that time and submit papers and stuff, it just worked, after that the laptop died and I never touched Linux again, now I want to try again and Fedora looks to be a good Distro, modern, stable but, I want to game, so its troublesome to install everything and let Fedora ready to game? i have no problem learning a some stuff here and there and watching some tutorials, just don't want to spend days into it, just a couple of hours maybe, or would it be better to just Install Nobara that comes pre-configured and just forget about it?

This are my specs:

- AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

- 32 gb RAM

- Radeon RX 9060 XT 16 GB

Also, for the OS I have an 250gb SSD but for the games, I have an 1tb SSD but is in NTFS format and I was reading that gaming on Linux with that format is a No go, so i will need to format it and backup my data?

Thanks in advance and I hope you guys can point me in the right direction so I can take the leap to Linux, also, if there is another Distro that I should try just drop the name, I was thinking in Fedora just for the "just werks" felling it gives me, also, the name sound cool.

Hi everyone, I’m trying to run Resident Evil 4 Remake(steamRip) on Linux (Fedora) through Steam/Proton, but I can’t get it to launch properly.

Setup:

OS: Fedora Linux

I’m managing games with Hydra, which adds the game to Steam using Wine.

Steam compatibility forced to Proton 9.0-4.

What happens:

When I launch the game from Steam, it immediately fails with: “An error occurred while launching this game: No licenses.”​

I was able to bypass the “No licenses” screen by using a Steam API emulator (Goldberg), but then the game actually opens and immediately goes to a crash report tool / crash screen and won’t run.​

The crash report shows error code: 0x2000000.​

What I tried:

Downloaded a “crackfix”/fix archive from steamRip and replaced the game files with it (people say the game wouldn't run without it).

After applying that fix, the game goes back to the “No licenses” error.​

If I restore the Steam API emulator files again, it goes back to crashing with the crash report tool.​

alright so I download Genshin everything's good and all but I just can't find the files anywhere so I can't add it to my steam library

I've looked for a while with no success so if anyone knows where it could be located that would be very helpful

Just got a Deck and I know nothing about PC’s really. I’m using Lutris to run my games from GOG but a couple games have problems. First photo is of Painkiller black edition, the game only takes up a quarter of the screen and I have no idea why. Next one is prince of Persia sands of time, game looks totally washed out and the controls are screwed too. I downloaded a fix for PoP but I don’t know how to make it work I guess. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I’m just learning all this!

Inexperience hates me. I'm pretty new to Linux and I'm having issues with Steam (installed from RPMFusion because the flatpak isn't updated) on Fedora 43. I wanted to play Hollow Knight: Silksong but I noticed the commands aren't correct (X and A are inverted, B and RT...). it is all fucked. I'm not using steam input because the game has native support for the Xbox controller and even native support for Linux. Then... what am I missing, am I making some sort of mistake?

I don't want to switch back to Windows cowardly 'cause I hate it. Thanks in advance

I'm trying to move away from Windows on an older PC which doesn't have official Windows 11 capability. Mainly want to use it for some light gaming by the kids; the setup isn't powerful but still somewhat more powerful than a Steam Deck, so it should work fine for basic 720p to 1080p gaming.

I heard so many recommendations for Fedora-based distros like Bazzite or Nobera only to find out after installing that they don't offer X11 support. The problem is that wayland apparently is prone to stutters, screen tearing and crashes on this old GT 1030 (Pascal architecture) card, even with the 580 driver which was released last year and will be the final driver version for the card now. Using X11 definitely makes things easier and runs fine, and it's not like such an old card would be using anything that wayland support makes easier, like HDR.

I'd like to use a gaming-focused distro that actually intends to keep X11 support around for the years to come, which means nothing with KDE or Gnome which have dropped support for it. I mainly want to just run Steam Big Picture on the machine, and maybe allow the kids to do some light Desktop tasks like web browsing, but that's it. But if the distro has good support for the usual gaming-focused shenanigans that Bazzite and Nobara give you, that would definitely be a plus. Anyone have a recommendation, ideally one they have actively been using themselves?

I installed Mint to laptop (a msi lowish end gaming laptop). I installed Proton+, wine, bottles, steam, lutris and heroic games. Anything else i shouldnhave and missed?

Im planning to leave windows entirely since linux does almost everything i need it do to there. So i want to make sure playing games like fortnight or any easy-ani cheat game can work here. (fedora 43 KDE)

Hi everyone

Where should I start? 🤔 Maybe with my setup?

Specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X

RAM: 32 GB DDR4

GPU: RX 6900 XT SE

Out of curiosity, I installed Linux Mint in dual boot a few weeks ago to test things out. My first impression was:

It’s… kinda ugly 😅😂

Luckily, after some research and watching some videos (thanks ZH Soft), I found this website with tons of customization stuff:

👉 www.gnome-look.org

Is it safe? What do you think about it?

Then I installed a few apps to see how everything runs.

For gaming:

FFXIV

Steam

But I ran into an issue with my Xbox controller over Bluetooth (no problem with a cable). From what I found, it might be a driver signature issue. Can anyone confirm?

I also had some keyboard issues, especially with “select all” and copy/paste in LibreOffice and the file manager. After some digging, it seems my Swiss French layout isn’t handled very well. As a workaround, I switched to Swiss German, and it works fine 😁

There are still a lot of things left to test, like installing my two Wi-Fi printers (one HP and one Brother), and finding a good app to create and run VMs. From what I’ve seen, VirtualBox seems decent — is that still the go-to?

I’m probably forgetting some things, but I’d love to hear your thoughts about daily driving Linux on a machine that’s not only for gaming.

Oh, and I also installed a VM to try Zorin because it looks nice out of the box 😂 We’ll see how that goes ^^

I also noticed some “gaming-focused” distros like CachyOS, Bazzite, Garuda, etc., but for now I’m not really convinced 😕

Thanks for reading, and I’m looking forward to your feedback 😊

Note: I am a newbie at gaming on linux

Hello everyone. I installed CachyOS on my lenovo ideaPad gaming 3 laptop with the following specs:

Intel core i7-12700H
RTX 3060 Mobile (6GB VRAM)
16 GB of DDR4 RAM

But when playing Minecraft with mid shaders i get no more than 25-30 FPS while inWindows I got 55 FPS. I REALLY don't wanna go back to windows but this is something that holds me back from daily driving linux everywhere. plz help. thanks

Additional info

Kernel version:

❯ uname -a

Linux batupc 6.18.6-2-cachyos #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun, 18 Jan 2026 01:31:44 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

~

❯ uname -r

6.18.6-2-cachyos

~

❯

Nvidia drivers:
❯ nvidia-smi

Sun Jan 25 23:24:25 2026

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| NVIDIA-SMI 590.48.01 Driver Version: 590.48.01 CUDA Version: 13.1 |

+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |

| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |

| | | MIG M. |

|=========================================+========================+======================|

| 0 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 ... Off | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |

| N/A 35C P0 752W / 80W | 1MiB / 6144MiB | 3% Default |

| | | N/A |

+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

| Processes: |

| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |

| ID ID Usage |

|=========================================================================================|

| No running processes found |

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

~

❯

I am running Minecraft using Prism Launcher and I am using the shader loader Iris with Fabric. I haven't gotten the chance of installing any other games yet

Edit: u/Gloomy-Response solved my issue. "In prism launcher, there is a setting to use the dedicated GPU. Settings -> Minecraft -> Tweaks -> Use discrete GPU." I get 95-100 FPS now