I was able to get a slew of retired machines from work (giant towers no one wanted) and I am going to do a home lab project where I'm testing #gaming on a variety of #linux distros.

[dave_cochran@infosec.exchange]

@infoseclogger @tinker I had more trouble getting my xbox controller up and running (and that wasn't even that much, just that i had to search for the steps to take & then do them) than playing Steam games in Mint. I haven't tried any other platforms (GOG, Epic, etc).

[jesticulated@mastodon.social]

@infoseclogger @tinker Throw my vote in for Bazzite

[infoseclogger@infosec.exchange]

@Jesticulated @tinker

I am adding Zorin, Bazzite, and Cachy to the list.

[jourei@mas.to]

@infoseclogger awesome!

[dave_cochran@infosec.exchange]

@infoseclogger @tinker this is probably due more to Steam putting in a lot of effort to make sure no one has an excuse to not be a customer, than to anything Mint specifically has done. This is based on how much of a pain it was to do unrelated tasks, like "get my mouse's thumb wheel to control volume like I want", or "set up my task bar", or "use winetricks".

[fritzadalis@infosec.exchange]

@infoseclogger @tinker
Maybe Fedora gnome or kde spins, or even Alma 10 since it supports nvidia now.

[infoseclogger@infosec.exchange]

@FritzAdalis

A couple of the gaming distros are built on forks of Fedora Linux with all the packages installed. I may do base Fedora, but it will be at the end of the list.

[fritzadalis@infosec.exchange]

@infoseclogger
I think Bazzite is based on Fedora Kinoite, which is immutable Fedora plus KDE. Not quite the same thing, but I'm not the one doing the thing.

[fritzadalis@infosec.exchange]

@infoseclogger
Oh wait, I don't think I parsed that properly. Carry on, sorry for the noise.

[fd93@fosstodon.org]

@infoseclogger @FritzAdalis You could use Fedora as a control since it's not intended as a "gaming" distro but it does have rolling releases, unlike Ubuntu.

My suspicion is that many gaming distros actually perform similarly to their parent distros and it would be good to have that control.

[fd93@fosstodon.org]

@infoseclogger @FritzAdalis Likewise, baseline Arch and maybe Debian seem worth testing to get an idea of the difference between them and tuned distros. (I say maybe Debian because Ubuntu adds so much on top of Debian that it's hard to say Debian is really the parent distro of e.g. Pop OS)

[fritzadalis@infosec.exchange]

@fd93 @infoseclogger
Fedora's not quite rolling release, it's every 6 months. Feels like it's rolling release some days though.

My understanding of gaming distros is they're convenient; they already have driver and app repos set up. Kind of like Fedora vs. KDE or Mate spins.

Immutable takes some getting used to. You'll either love it or hate it.

[fd93@fosstodon.org]

@FritzAdalis @infoseclogger Could just be Ubuntu land but I always found that child distros had package issues which outweighed the convenience of initial setup.

Like configuring COPR on Fedora and getting Nvidia drivers takes 5 minutes when you know what to do. But being stuck on some weird version of glibc because the maintainer is a CS research lab that can't win funding wrecks everything on the system.

[tinker@infosec.exchange]

@infoseclogger - Folks have given some really good ideas already (I myself have used Bazzite as well and like it for gaming specific builds).

One thing I can add is this resource: https://www.protondb.com/

Highlevel overview for discussion: Proton is the "compatability layer" that Valve/Steam puts out to allow for playing Windows games on Linux.

ProtonDB specifically goes into detail on individual games and what Linux distros they work on and with what tweaks (if any) are needed.

I found it really helpful to see who was using what distro for gaming and how well they liked, for example.

(Edit to include: I've considered SteamOS proper but have not attempted a build of it: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/65B4-2AA3-5F37-4227 )