I didn't read through the whole FAQ, but I did read through the distros section. For a gaming focused subreddit the recommendations are outdated at best, harmful at worst. They may have made sense back when they were written, but not today.

First of all, I know it says "The following recommendations are not ranked, so please don’t just pick whatever’s on top of the list", but a ton of people aren't ever going to read that part, they'll just jump to the sub heading they're looking for. And why even mention some of these distros at all?

Two bad recommendations:

• Pop!_OS
  • Yeah, Pop was cool back when it was cool, and I understand why it was written down initially. But it's 2026 soon, and the latest Pop!_OS release was almost 4 years ago.
  • Just get this thing off that list, just don't ever recommend it.
• Linux Mint “Edge”
  • Linux Mint used to be the king, back when all other distros sucked ass and were hard to install. But that's no longer the case, other distros like Fedora, CachyOS, Bazzite, Ubuntu, openSUSE have caught up and are just as easy to install and use.
  • Mint is quite literally one of the only distros out there still running on X11. This means that modern features like HDR, VRR, fractional scaling, VR headsets, and DLSS/FSR might not work properly or at all on Mint. Here's a GNOME team developer explicitly stating that developers don't focus on X11 anymore, they barely fix critical bugs.
  • While the FAQ does recommend the Edge version at least, that too runs on X11 and Mint team in general doesn't have gaming in mind. Edge happens to be good enough in some cases, but that's not even an afterthought, that's a side-effect.
  • Don't get me wrong Mint is still great for home servers and whatnot where you don't need new hardware or games or desktop features, but it's just not for gaming and not really for desktop use either at this point (until they transition to Wayland).

Two missing recommendations:

• Fedora
  • Along with Ubuntu, this is one of the two "basic" general use distros for new users. It should 100% replace Mint on the list.
  • Super simple installation with the Fedora Media Writer that you can run on Windows and get a perfectly working USB drive. No need to download ISO manually and burn it with a separate tool.
  • They ship with Wayland. They are actively dropping support for X11. They are modern and forwards looking, not old and slow.
  • Great out-of-the-box support for both KDE Plasma and GNOME.
  • Similar to Ubuntu, they release a new version every 6 months. That's stable enough to not break things, but bleeding edge enough to support new hardware and whatnot.
  • The only caveat is that the consumer needs to install RPM Fusion to get all the codecs and whatnot. It's one command line instruction, but it's a small minus for sure. This should be mentioned in the FAQ ("Fedora with RPM Fusion").
• openSUSE
  • This would go in the "advanced" section for sure, but Tumbleweed is the most stable and reliable truly rolling release distro out there. If you just want the latest and greatest GPU drivers or whatever, and don't want to actually tinker with your Linux, then there's no reason to pick Arch or EndeavourOS over Tumbleweed.
  • openSUSE's openQA tests run automatically on every release, and they basically ensure that your system will stay stable. Of course mistakes can happen, but in openSUSE's case they're extremely rare.
  • Snapper is probably the best snapshot and recovery tool out there. If your system was to ever break, it's extremely easy to revert back and just wait for a fix before upgrading again.
  • With the new Agama live installer, the installation process is no longer difficult.

That's all, free to discuss and disagree or add new recommendations even. And please, avoid anecdotal "well it's been good enough for me thus far" comments. Just because something can be good enough for some people doesn't mean it should be openly recommended to all the beginners.

Hi guys.

I don't have much space left on my main drive where Steam is installed, so I want my Steam background video recording and screenshots folder to be set to another drive. However, for some reason background recording doesn't work when the recording folder is set to another drive OR a different location outside of Home directory.
Please help 😢

I recently moved my gaming setup to Linux Mint and I’m curious about your experience modding the DRM-free Skyrim Special Edition from GOG.

How smooth is the process on Mint specifically? Any problem workarounds you’d recommend?

Also what would your must-have mods list be for someone playing Skyrim for the 20th time, but modding it for the first time? I’m looking for those “I can’t play without this anymore” type mods, gameplay, immersion, or graphical.

Same as title

What are the most popular distributions to switch from Windows to Linux? I would like to know which one you were with or which one you recommend for a person who wants to change in 2025, without getting very dizzy and that the system is as versatile as Windows and also serves to play

I currently dual boot Kubuntu and Windows 11 just for the games that aren't supported on Linux. I have an AMD graphics card and when I just used Windows, I always used AMD's cleanup utility to fully remove the graphics driver before installing the new one. Now that I am dual booting, should I still be ok to do this without impacting my Linux drivers? Thanks in advance.

Price is probably the biggest one, but what are some things on Linux that make going back to Windows difficult?

So based on my post yesterday, which is just so encouraging to see people view it and just skidaddle XD.

I bought a brand new ps5 controller, as a I heard the features it has works completely out of the box with linux, both wired and wirelessly all features from, trackpad, haptics, HD haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and gyro, should all work without having to install, add, remove or change anything (even Udev wise). Atleast in 2025, the documentations or results say this.

I spent the better part of 2 days, getting nowhere.

Im currently running Bazzite:

https://preview.redd.it/cp4vyrrfdkzf1.png?width=885&format=png&auto=webp&s=96a961a6d0d303eab880df1a716a69b63a9bfb67

lastest, I have read several documentation, from a year to 3 years or more, old. which states, that support was limited with proton, you need udev rules due to translation of the controller in games wasnt done correctly by steam, turning off steam input etc.

None-worked so far, atleast from what I ventured into (and considering some bazzite shenanigans I cannot really dive too deep into editing, without major road blocks.

I JUST CANNOT GET MY HD HAPTICS TO WORK.

1. steam input is off
2. controller is wired (although many have said, and people IK {granted on other distros} that the features flawlessly OTB works wirelessly too)
3. controller when wired is showing up in system sound, and doing sound test on front left and right "speakers" produces vibration. gamepadtester and dualsense tester showed that basic rumble was atleast functional so my controller works (and it works fine on windows, HD rumble and all)
4. Using proton Ge 10 and higher. (I also tried proton 8, 9. beta 10 and many 10-X ge protons)
5. and ofcourse, using the controller on FULLY supported games.

Yet to no avail, the controller will not rumble in games. the adaptive triggers work fine. but HD rumble and trackpad (out of the box without steam input, which you have to have disabled for haptics to work anyway) are not working.

I have a few more things I want to try, but im getting to my ends wit with the limited options I have, and Ive almost exhausted them all.

As ive had people testing with me on bazzite (1 so far having the same issue) while it works perfectly for them. same setiings, options etc.

https://preview.redd.it/p7kgj30zekzf1.png?width=1644&format=png&auto=webp&s=3acb3120f6ed9132cbf0225ea235982e19277c2f

Only thing I can think off is the following:

1. easy effects is affecting how the sound is transmitted which is the whole basis of HD rumble.
2. the controller needs to be read as "wireless controller" and not Dual sense.

in the case of number 1: I dont have easy effects constantly open, but open or not, haptics are not functioning (it may be smthn else that would as added by easy effects possibly)

in the case of number 2: others have the same naming scheme as I do in the image, and they have no issues.

If anyone is on bazzite, or has encountered the same issue and can provide some help, please it would be much appreciated.

I want to make HD haptics work fully including the trackpad as well. BOTH wirelessly and wired, as "advertised" by many linux users. if you have any suggestions, notes, or recent documentation, please lets dissucs.

EDIT: I forgot to mention adaptive trigger work just fine. the games I tested on have been marvel rivals, CP2077 and marvels spiderman 2. Its just the haptics (HD rumble) and the trackpad are not working as they "should"

Playing Arc Raiders. Im using an Xbox controller and a headset w/ mic. When i hit Z to toggle my mic, the cursor appears on screen. Iv turned my mouse off and it did not fix the issue. Using proton Cachyos SLR

Operating System: CachyOS Linux

KDE Plasma Version: 6.5.1

KDE Frameworks Version: 6.19.0

Qt Version: 6.10.0

Kernel Version: 6.17.7-3-cachyos (64-bit)

Graphics Platform: Wayland

Processors: 16 × AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8-Core Processor

Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (30.9 GiB usable)

Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT

Manufacturer: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd.

Product Name: MS-7D78

System Version: 1.0

TL;DR - how to launch games from steam without using steam directly?

Here's my predicament. My Laptop is quite old. As such, I have to be on Mint 21 instead of Mint 22, because my the proprietary graphics drivers for my NVidia card stopped being supported going forward.

Steam, however, only works using the barebones open source drivers (my older drivers are no longer supported). So, when I want to run those games, I have to be on the open source drivers. Which can't make any real use of my GPU.

Meanwhile, games installed natively, or other windows games from GOG can be installed and work (I'm using bottles, because I like things to be tidy).

What I really wish though is that for steam games (or even repacks of games I own) that can only be purchased through steam, I wish I could launch them outside of steam so that I could make use of my GPU. But no matter what I try, getting games that come from steam to work in bottles seems impossible.

I'm a little new at this, but maybe you guys could help me understand what my options are in accomplishing this. I'm sure that games from GOG work because they just contain all the things the game needs to run, whereas Steam probably doesn't? Is there some settings in Bottles I'm missing? A different program to use? Something else I haven't considered? I understand this is probably a pretty niche problem, and I apologize if I haven't explained very well either. If you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. I just know that games that have steamworks and steam api DLLs don't launch in bottles, and games that don't have those do launch.

This error message comes up looking for some help

Be honest. What thing from Windows you kinda liked but then made even better on Linux through tools or scripts

Hello everyone,

I wanted my PC to be used in a console-like mode (i.e. using only controller) so I can lay back on my bed or couch… I have The legendary Logitech F710 and a new 8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless. The goal was simply to let both controllers switch between two modes:

A - Game mode: regular gamepad for Steam’s Big Picture Mode / in-game. B - Desktop mode: to launch/close/use non-game apps (browser, file manager, etc) the controller acts like mouse + shortcuts + toggling On-Screen keyboard.

I’m on linux obviously, on GNOME 49 (Wayland). I couldn’t use Bazzite OS because of compatibility issues and the use cases of my laptop so Fedora 43 was the better option for my setup. After searching for solutions I landed on AntiMicroX and InputRemapper. Both are good in their own right and they compliment each other (in my case here). I actually use both now to to get the full experience.

Here are the steps that I followed:

1- Installed Both InputRemapper and AntiMicroX.

https://github.com/sezanzeb/input-remapper https://github.com/AntiMicroX/antimicrox

2- Created 2 keyboard shortcuts in the Gnome settings to launch and close AntiMicroX

Start AntiMicroX: Ctrl+Shift+O / command: antimicrox

Stop AntiMicroX: Ctrl+Shift+X / command: pkill antimicrox

3- Configured the Controllers in InputRemapper with two remaps per controller (one for Game mode, one for Desktop mode) and bind them to the same shortcuts Ctrl+Shift+O / X as output in my case.

4- Set the Preset to Autoload in InputRemapper (so it launches on log in)

5- Configured each controller in AntiMicroX to be used as a mouse + Shortcuts

So, in short :

AntiMicroX = turns controller into mouse/keyboard Input Remapper = lets the controller launch/kill AntiMicroX GNOME shortcuts = the glue between everything

How it works —> In Steam Big Picture, I navigate with the controller in Game mode. When I open a desktop app (browser, Spotify...), I press my controller shortcut to launch AntiMicroX, and now the controller works in Desktop mode (mouse + shortcuts).When I’m done, I hit the stop shortcut to kill AntiMicroX and the controller goes back to Game mode.

Before buying the 8BitDo I used AntiMicroX alone with startup launch and the hardware D/X input switch to change modes on Logitech F710, which is not available on the new one (at least not as straightforward).

I’m pretty satisfied with this setup for now. Although the 8BitDo special buttons don’t work (I couldn’t figure out how to let Linux detect them.)

One peculiarity, I mapped both analog sticks to mouse movement to get more granular control (one with higher sensitivity and one with lower sensitivity for precise pinpointing). If you want, I can also share my AntiMicroX profile.

https://preview.redd.it/y16b30v3yizf1.png?width=1572&format=png&auto=webp&s=e468954d49231c5497b3fe96104903f20275c41a

Im building my first pc and trying to decide which os I wanna use. Id love to try linux but I heard online play is serverly limited because of kernel level anti cheats. Someone told me using secure boot would fix this issue though. I was just wondering if that advice was legit and if its not are there any other fixes yall can suggest. Playing online is the main reason I want a pc. So if theres not a fix ill just save for a few more months to buy windows.

Hey, so like many others I wish to ditch windows 10 and go to Linux, but I'm unsure which distro to choose that will suit my needs.

At work I switched to Mint and I really like it so far, but obviously I can't game on it, and from what I gathered online it's ok for gaming but not the best

For my home computer I would need a distro for the following :

-Gaming (mostly offline games, from indie titles to AAA games) -Video editing (Davinci resolve) -Photo editing (Affinity suite) -Coding -Online TTRPG (Foundry VTT)

I know some distros are made for gaming but would they also be able to run all the rest ?

I have been gaming on Linux + KDE for many years, but after the forced switch to Wayland last year, I have problems with mouse capture in some games and setups. What I mean by this is that there is nothing preventing my mouse from moving over to my second monitor, which is especially a problem for games that use edge scrolling or hide the cursor. 9 out of 10 games still work fine, but the remaining few are frustrating. I found that gamescope can kind of solve this problem, but with too many drawbacks to be worth it.

I am curious is this is a problem for everyone on Wayland or if it's specific to KDE+Wayland. Any Gnome users run into this?