Operating Systems

@nlm CachyOS. It's Arch based with a bucketload of performance tweaks & bespoke patches, including a kernel scheduler developed by distro maintainers. It also has a small but super-responsive community that tends to resolve issues quite rapidly

PopOS is best for out the box gaming, its similar to Ubuntu so you'll be familiar with it

I’ve been running Arco Linux just up till now and have switched to the new Debian 12 release. It have not been to much trouble to get my Nvidia card and Steam running. I mainly switch because of all the updates and “maintenance” that I feel is associated with a Arch system, so kinda like you said.

I've been evaluating NixOS to make sure I can run games on it. I've only tried a machine with Intel graphics so far, but I see that AMD and Nvidia drivers are packaged. It seems convenient now that I've figured out the setup.

Vulkan is set up out of the box.

It's necessary to enable 32-bit DRI support by adding this line to /etc/nix/configuration.nix:

hardware.opengl.driSupport32Bit = true;

To use Lutris install the package and use its UI to install runners. I didn't have to configure any extra libraries to get Battle.net running. You can configure the "system wine" that Lutris sees, and extra libraries your games might need like this:

home.packages = with pkgs; [
  (lutris.override {
    extraLibraries =  pkgs: [
      # List library dependencies here
    ];
    extraPkgs = pkgs: [
      wine-staging
    ];
  })
];

Those lines go in a Home Manager config file, like ~/.config/home-manager/home.nix. That installs Lutris, and any listed dependencies at the same time.

NixOS does not put dependencies in the file paths where programs usually look for them. That traditional directory structure is called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, or FHS. But Nix packages can create a virtual FHS where needed, and that is what the Lutris package does. That lets software that isn't built for Nix work, like Lutris' Wine runners. That means that for games to access libraries those libraries must be listed in that extraLibraries option so that they are included in the FHS.

32-bit libraries are in pkgs.pkgsi686Linux.* if you need them.

I haven't tried Steam yet, but I think it has an option similar to the extraLibraries one for Lutris.

A nice feature of NixOS is that if you add a bunch of libraries to your config trying to get a game to work, those libraries are automatically unlinked when you remove them from your config so your system stays nice and tidy.

My main distro for years has been Mint, but I play around with a several others frequently. For me, it comes down to the package managers I feel most comfortable in (I know apt the best, but I know zypper and pacman ok enough to get by) and the window manager integration. Personally, I prefer Cinnamon and I think Mint has the best integration for it. My only complaint with Mint lately is the difficulty of getting nvidia drivers to work properly. It should be as simple as selecting the driver you want in the driver manager, but secureboot complicates things a bit.

I'm using Manjaro KDE - working well with Steam Games with Proton for must games.

I'm really comfortable with mint cinemon

I use Arch with XFCE. Yes, it took a while to get running properly, and just the other day I went to print something and realized cups hadn't even been installed yet, so I spent 15 minutes getting my printer up and running, so I totally get that it's not for everyone. I like it because of the detailed wiki with great tutorials and instructions on getting things working, like the one I used to get a nextcloud installation working on my computer. And I like it because of the extensive Arch User Repository, so I know I can install whatever I like. I mostly just play Stardew Valley and trackmania on it. I've used Manjaro before and enjoyed that too, and it comes with all the benefits of arch.

I installed Mint on my friends computer, which works totally fine, but I don't know how it is for gaming; she definitely doesn't game.

Linux mint gaming

On my gaming desktop, I am using Fedora currently with the Awesome WM. That might change though with all the RH stuff going on. On my gaming laptop I switch between Arch and Void with Qtile on both.

I was using Gentoo for a while, but I kept having issues with the proprietary Nvidia drivers, so I set up a Win10 VM with GPU passthrough.

I actually just switched to NixOS, haven’t had a chance to get my games set up just yet but I am excited for the number of people I have seen have success with it. Setting up gaming is next on my list.

Like several others here I am using pop_os. I bought a System76 laptop though so they kind of go hand in hand.

Zorin OS 16.2

Not at all an expert, but I'm doing fine with most games on Manjaro. Most things worked out of the box with Proton on Steam. I also liked Arch before I got old and lazy, and Manjaro seems to be a good way to get most of the benefits of Arch with lazier upkeep.

I've been using PopOS for about 3 years now. I found it easier to get Steam to work compared to Linux Mint (can't remember why though). I've never tried Ubuntu or non-Debian based systems.

I've been running Pop for a bit over a year now and am (mostly) satisfied with it. The only issues I had were due to kernel updates, it would cause flickering on my screen and (like someone else mentioned) had to revert to an older kernel until the situation was resolved.

I use Arch, but I have two graphics cards in my system and I run a stripped windows VM for any game that I want ray tracing or 4k in.

My arch setup has an older Nvidia Quadro card and can run everything on like medium settings, but my virtual machines have a 3080ti. I didn't want the wear and tear on my 3080ti just to watch YouTube or play indie games that don't need the horsepower, but I still want to try stuff like portalRTX or stable diffusion and the like that needs an enthusiast graphics card.

This to me is the best of both worlds. I can run the VM in the background so I can use my desktop(connected to the TV) as a media center and have cyberpunk playing totally hidden and streaming to my steam deck for ray tracing maxxed settings.

Hell I even play Half life:Alex VR in a virtual machine and stream it over wifi to my Oculus quest.

Debian

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS - it works perfectly all the time now. I have no idea at this point why anyone would continue to use Windows, tbh. A couple of years ago, audio management and networking were still a little bit fiddly, but I have not typed SUDO in almost two years now. I game with Steam, and Proton works with pretty many titles, but not all; I guess I am not that heavy a gamer - having a hard time getting past Kerbal Space Program 1.0 with its endless variety of fanbase mods and CKAN for mixing and matching them.

I'm on Arch right now, migrated to it after almost 2 years on Fedora. I'll probably still go back and forth between the two.

I'm running Kubuntu which is just Ubuntu but with KDE Plasma instead of Gnome

Im running good old Ubuntu with gnome. I mostly play terraria, minecraft I and Bethesda rpgs these days so it does everything I need.

NixOS. If you played around with Arch you'll be fine. My only gripe (although it's kind of important) is NVIDIA doesn't work. Call me lazy but I haven't felt like switching to an other distro, plus I'm not much of a hardcore gamer.

Im really surprised that I don't see zorin os on these types of threads. Its main stick is to be chock full of out of the box software especially around windows compatibility. wine and play on linux are ready right away and I can run most windows programs right after install.

EndeavourOS with Plasma. migrated from Manjaro after one too many questionable decision on their side.