Switching to Debian on my gaming pc

Hello everyone - I have been wanting to ditch windows on my gaming pc for a while now, and since I have recently finished a large project, I now have the free time to switch. I am relatively comfortable with Debian having used it for a while on my web server as well as school laptop, but I am concerned about using it on my gaming computer since I have heard stock Debian is not the greatest for gaming. All of my other daily driver programs I know will work, so I am mainly concerned with the gaming aspect.

In the case that you don’t recommend Debian for my gaming computer, do you have an OS that you would recommend?

I appreciate any insight!

rotopenguin,
@rotopenguin@infosec.pub avatar

Nobara, which is by GloriousEggroll of ProtonGE fame, is the first thing to think of when looking for a gaming distro.

Unyieldingly,

I been running Debian with a few Backports like Pipewire, Kernel, and Flatpak it has been good so far.

bruhduh, (edited )
@bruhduh@lemmy.world avatar

I was daily driving arch for 5 years and decided to switch two months ago just like you now and running Debian 12 happily, tried fedora, set subvolumes to timeshift btrfs to work because it was not installed out of the box, and after update from 38 to 39 with official gui update tool, it broke and locked away ssd so i had to recover data, after that i installed Debian 12 and had no problems at all, machine ALWAYS ready to work and stable as fuck, heavenly experience so far actually

earmuff,

At the end of the day, the distribution is not that important for gaming, unless you need those 1-2 extra fps. Debian is a very good choice for workstations nowadays. I was a long time OpenSUSE user, always had joys with Debian, but yesterday switched to Garuda Linux (Arch variant optimized for gaming) and I love it so far very much.

dino,

You need an up to date systems to utilize newest packages of drivers (etc.) to make full use of recent hardware and to be able to play new games.

selokichtli, (edited )

If Debian Stable supports your hardware, go for it. If not, try Debian Sid, but it won’t be as stable. You can install up-to-date applications, like Steam, using flatpaks in any case.

Even if you opt for stable and there’s an update that you may take advantage from, you can always update your kernel in several ways or change to Debian Sid (unstable), but you can’t go back unless you change to Debian Testing and then wait the freeze of Testing which then becomes Debian Stable.

The_Zen_Cow_Says_Mu, (edited )

Currently running debian with an amd GPU. Using the regular 6.1 kernel

With steam flatpak and bottles (for nonsteam windows games) everything is running just fine.

doctorn,
@doctorn@r.nf avatar

Last time I tried this myself I could play a lot, but never the ones I wanted and ended up switching back anyway. Ever since I’ve just always been running a linux and a windows PC, each to its best use.

I must stress however this experience of mine was over a decade ago and I have heard there’s been a lot of improvement on the subject, with steamdeck becoming a thing and alike, so I have no up-to-date experience in what runs and what doesn’t anymore. What I cán tell you however is that whichever Windows-only game did play (using Wine back then, dunno how it’s done these days) always played at least 2-5x better than on the actual Windows it was made for. 😅

So good luck and I would love some information as to your eventual result!

lemmyvore,

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE 6) might also be a good fit for you.

nik282000,
@nik282000@lemmy.ca avatar

Late to the thread but I would say yeah, Debian is good for gaming. The only place I have issued is with VR, otherwise it’s been smooth sailing for the past 3 years.

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