What is the best Linux Distribution for gaming?

10

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Considered

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Oct 22, 2018

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10 Games Considered

Best Linux Distribution for gaming	Price	Default Desktop Environment	Release Schedule
-- Arch Linux	-	CLI	Rolling
-- Deepin	-	Deepin Desktop Environment	Rolling release
-- SteamOS	-	Steam Big Picture, Gnome	Rolling
-- Manjaro	-	XFCE, KDE, Gnome, Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, i3, LXDE/lxqt, and MATE	Rolling Release
-- Solus	-	Budgie, GNOME, MATE	Rolling Release

Arch Linux

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Top Pro

A package for almost everything

If you need to install something, chances are someone in the Arch community has already made a package for it. This makes it incredibly easy for you to install and maintain all of the non-media content on your computer. See More

Top Con

Manual install process

Installing archlinux must be done manually from the command line. See More

Top Pro

Support for a large variety of hardware

From latest wacom pads to obscure wireless cards in laptops Arch's hw support has been and continues to be good. It has worked on laptops where other leading distro's like debian/ mint/ ubuntu failed to detect and work with all hardware. See More

Top Con

Requires expert Linux and command-line knowledge to setup

Going in with zero Linux knowledge is not really recommended when wanting to install Arch, though it can be a good learning experience for those that are dedicated to trial and error as well as reading many faqs. See More

Top Pro

Fast and simple package management

pacman works much faster than apt-get or yum due to better mirrors than other distributions tend to select by default. There are fewer default repositories to download from though all package management is combined into one tool instead of being split into dpkg, apt-get, and apt-cache like on Debian distros. See More

Top Con

Not for the faint of heart

Arch only holds your hand a little bit of the way. While documentation is great, you are expected to know what you're doing. The result is that when you find the solution for a problem on a forum or elsewhere, the response may be completely over your head. If you're not well-versed in Linux, what would be a minor issue on another distribution can become a drawn-out research project on Arch, as you learn all the inner workings of the operating system, until you understand it well enough to solve your problems yourself. See More

Top Pro

Cutting edge rolling release

Latest version of softwares and the OS itself. See More

Top Con

Too many package upgrades that require manual intervention

Every year or so there is a update to ArchLinux that will break your system unless you first read the front page of archlinux.org. This happened with SystemD and with a few other updates that require you to do prior steps befor pacman -Syu. See More

Top Pro

As slim or copious as you want it

Arch keeps its core repositories slim and free of unnecessary dependencies. At first installation only a bare system is set up. You can easily get the other applications through the package manager. The repositories are nearly as full as those of Ubuntu, while they are often more up to date. That way you don't have to waste time with software you don't need or want. See More

Top Con

Rolling release requires bandwidth

Arch uses a rolling release model for updates. Unlike, for example Ubuntu where a new version is released every six months, packages are updated when they are ready. The advantage is a very up to date system and that the work of upgrading can be spread over a longer span of time to a point where it is hardly noticeably effort. However it can be difficult for people without a high bandwidth connection, or with limits on how many GB can be downloaded imposed by their internet service providers. A GB a month of downloads is quite possible. This can be somewhat offset by Arch being lightweight, besides the relatively small core, the user selects what is installed (and has to be updated). See More

Top Pro

Simplicity is absolutely the principal objective behind Arch development

The design approach of the development team focuses on elegance, code correctness, minimalism, and simplicity, and expects the user to be willing to make some effort to understand the system's operation. See More

Top Con

Problems with driver/kernel/gpu consistency

Arch has no proper desktop support, you must craft your system together. Things may work for the first but generally it takes days to configure a stable and working system. This is NOT ideal for a desktop user. See More

Top Pro

Latest Drivers

Latest graphics card drivers. See More

Top Con

Documentation only makes sense if you know how to adjust it

While the documentation is a very valuable reference for experts, the recipes often don't actually work on your own computer. Some articles are outdated, incomplete, contradictory or duplicated. Only if you are expert enough to know which steps to skip, to adjust or which other documentation parts to plug in, you can make it work. See More

Top Con

Package manager is so naive

For example, it doesn't allow you to purge (remove package and it's configuration files). See More

Top Con

Requires some background with Linux and the command-line to setup

Going in with zero Linux knowledge is not really recommended when wanting to install Arch, though it can be a good learning experience for those that are dedicated to trial and error as well as reading many faqs. See More

Top Con

Fragile packages

Updating an Arch system is always a gamble. The problem could be as simple as a package having a bug causing a program to crash on start or it may be something bigger like the WiFi or Bluetooth no longer working. There is also the slight chance the system may not even boot at all after a large update. If the user does not plan to read the forums weekly/daily or update fairly often, things can go wrong very fast. See More

Top Con

Not ready out of the box.

You have to install your day-to-day software requirements manually. See More

Top Con

Instability can be an issue

Sometimes you can have a surprise, but in most cases it can be fixed quickly. See More

Top Con

Not for gamers

Arch is very hard to install and to use, which is why a gamer will probably not like it and will use some other Linux distro. See More

Deepin

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Top Pro

Steam installed by default

Deepin includes steam installed by default. See More

Top Con

Team doesn't know what to do

Deepin has changed the base 4 times, and the name 3 times. The Desktop Environment also has been changed 4 times. See More

Top Pro

Contains better graphics drivers

Deepin has it's own version of graphics drivers and it's own version of wine which makes it very good for gaming. See More

Top Con

Slow on some computers

Very slow - launching apps takes more time than other distros. On the other hand - booting and shutting down is very fast on SSD. See More

Top Pro

Excellent apps

Having Deepin installed also means you have thousands of quality apps to choose from. The apps which come with installation will suit your needs to browse the Internet, listen to music, watch videos, talk with friends, editing documents or simply any task you want to do at home or in your office. See More

Top Con

Slow default repos

Download speed for packages from the default repos, is abnormally slow if you don't choose the correct sever. See More

Top Pro

Very stable

Even though it is based on Debian unstable, it is still pretty stable and you will hardly ever get a dependency issue. See More

Top Con

Deepin spies on you

The deepin store spies on your every move, it's no better than Windows. See More

Top Pro

Very easy to install the OS

Installing Deepin is very easy, even easier than installing Ubuntu! The installer doesn't ask you a lot of questions. It doesn't ask you about making a swap partition (it automatically makes a swap file) and thus makes installing the OS very easy. See More

Top Con

Customization is a bit hidden

GUI is not straight forward for changing GTK+ or QT themes. See More

Top Pro

Based on Debian

It is based on Debian which is the best Linux distribution for desktops See More

Top Con

Slow

Very slow - launching apps takes more time than other distros - it is a very resource heavy system. On the other hand - booting and shutting down is very fast on SSD. See More

Top Pro

Not based on Ubuntu

Some people don't like Ubuntu nor its derivatives. See More

Top Con

Mix of toolkits

GUI is partialy written in QT, but also in GTK+. See More

Top Pro

Launches programs faster

Programs load and launch faster in Deepin than other Linux distributions. It takes only about 3 seconds to launch Chrome. See More

Top Pro

Supports Flatpak

Deepin OS supports Flatpak. It also has some Flatpak programs installed by default. See More

Top Pro

Well-designed in every detail, developers have a professional aproach to the system

Deepin has a sane default set of apps including custom apps of their own design that gives the distro a very consistent look and feel. By working with the community on these tools as well as custom translations there is a great sense of polish when using it that is not often seen when using such a new desktop environment. See More

Top Pro

Automatically cleans package cache

Deepin automatically cleans package cache. Cleaning package cache is a good thing as it will make the OS much faster and lighter. See More

Top Pro

Exciting applications

It has some exciting applications, such as Deepin Graphics Driver Manager which can easily change between free and proprietary drivers without any issue. See More

Top Pro

Can be made to look like Windows

By default, Deepin looks kinda like macOS but it can be made to look like Windows by right-clicking on the dock and changing the mode from "Fashion Mode" to "Efficient Mode". See More

Top Pro

Rolling release

It's a rolling release. Meaning that it will get updated automatically. See More

Top Pro

Great design to the app store

The app store is gorgeous. See More

Top Pro

Best for daily use

Top Pro

Easy to install

Installing Deepin OS is very easy. Even easier than installing Ubuntu! See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

It's very easy to use. You can easily uninstall a program by going to the menu then right-clicking on the preferred app and selecting "Uninstall" option. See More

Top Pro

Blur and transparent design

Deepin has a blur and transparent design throughout the OS, which makes it one of the, if not the, most beautiful Linux distro. See More

Top Pro

VLC media player works without any issue

In some cases, VLC media player has some problems with Ubuntu or Ubuntu-based Linux distros. That isn't the case with Deepin. See More

Top Pro

Enjoy the simplicity of Deepin's desktop

The desktop interface and apps feature an intuitive and elegant design. Moving around, sharing and searching etc. has become simply a joyful experience. See More

Top Pro

Has their own tool kit

They have their own tool kit called "Deepin Tool Kit". And they themselves uses it. See More

Top Pro

Includes a lot of packages in the official repository

The official repository of deepin OS includes over 73,000 packages. See More

Top Pro

Gives warning messages when upgrading packages using apt

Deepin uses their own modified version of apt. When there is a distribution upgrade available and if we try to upgrade by running "sudo apt upgrade", then this modified version of apt gives this warning message, "DDE programs will work abnormally if run this command. Run sudo apt dist-upgrade or sudo apt full-upgrade instead." See More

Top Pro

Great support for graphics cards

Deepin OS includes a program called "Deepin Graphics Driver Manager" which can easily install a good driver for the graphics card. See More

Top Pro

Quite lightweight

Deepin 15.7 is lighter than Windows 10 and Ubuntu. See More

SteamOS

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Top Pro

Made for gaming

SteamOS is built by Valve specifically to run on machines for gaming on Linux. See More

Top Con

No support for wine applications

You can't run wine from SteamOS. UPDATE: The Steam Proton runner in the beta branch of steam allows you to run games in WINE. YYMV. See More

TirelessKydoimos's Experience

I am enjoying this debian based distro. I play not only linux games but also mac, windows games through streaming. What I need else ? I could not play three OS'es games in an OS without it. ☺ See More

Top Pro

Native graphics processor support

The OS natively supports Nvidia, Intel, and AMD graphics processors. See More

Top Con

Hard to install

If you've installed Arch you're probably fine, but for those used to simple installs like (Ubuntu to name just one) you should prepare some patience, determination, and painkillers. Good news is, it's getting better (it's very young). See More

SensibleHunor's Experience

Top Pro

Streaming service integration (under development)

Valve is in talks with streaming companies such as Spotify and Netflix to bring their features to SteamOS. See More

Top Con

Not built around the desktop experience

SteamOS is, first and foremost, meant to act as a gaming console - it doesn't ship with even some of the most basic applications, such as a file manager or image viewer. As a result, using SteamOS as your primary operating system would require a fair bit of work. See More

Top Pro

For entertainment, it just works

What media center software do for videos, it does for games (and later videos). See More

Manjaro

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Top Pro

Steam installed by default

Top Con

New packages and security updates are held for testing longer

Packages are usually about two weeks behind Arch's stable repository. While some urgent security updates are released as soon as they become available, other security updates are held for testing longer. See More

Top Pro

Based on Arch and user friendly

Manjaro is an Arch-based distribution with all the benefits of the Arch ecosystem and community but with the added benefit of being much more user-friendly than Arch. See More

Top Con

Bad dependencies

This is similar to the mac0S experience in that you're not allowed to remove plank. See More

Top Pro

Arch User Repository access

Manjaro allows the user to access of the Arch User Repository, a very large user-maintained repository of packages for Arch Linux and derivatives. See More

Top Con

Can still be unstable

Here are the details of it. See More

Top Pro

Community flavors available

Spins/versions include : Budgie, Cinnamon, Deepin, GNOME, i3, lxqt, mate, xfce, kde, minimal. See More

Top Con

A fair amount of the documentation is outdated or incomplete

Not a huge deal though, due to the similarity with Arch. See More

Top Pro

Improved stability due to a longer testing period for new packages

Packages from Arch's repositories are tested (about two weeks) longer for stability and compatibility issues. Patches are applied, when necessary, before being made available in the stable repositories. See More

Top Con

Installing software with pamac takes more clicks than necessary

Mostly due to GTK3. See More

Top Pro

MHWD offers easy hardware management with free and non-free drivers

Decent GUI for selecting video drivers, and easily installing and switching between multiple kernel versions. See More

Top Con

A start job is running for LiveMedia MHWD Script

No timeout on a boot script that can't easily be diagnosed. See More

Top Pro

Pretty UI

Balanced colors, icons, and wallpaper. See More

Top Con

Security issues

Since packages are not updated as fast as in Arch, critical security updates may not come as fast as needed for packages that may have issues. See More

Top Pro

AUR support enabled by default

Top Con

ARM version just got dropped

Solus

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Top Pro

Easy installation

The installation procedure for this distribution is quite simple. It's GUI based and all you have to do is follow the instructions given by the installation window itself. See More

Top Con

It's impossible to get Radeon proprietary drivers

Sadly even Solus creator stated that right now it's impossible to use Radeon proprietary drivers on Solus because it doesnt support .deb packages that are only way of attaining them from AMD. See More

GardenData61371's Experience

The Distro that ended my Distro hopping. See More

Top Pro

Great package management

The software center makes really easy to install the latest software, including third party software. See More

Top Con

The default desktop environment is not very customizable

Maybe due to the fact that it's a relatively new project, Budgie desktop environment of Solus OS is not very customizable. You can only change the theme and wallpaper. Hopefully this issue will be resolved in the future. See More

Top Pro

Looks great out of the box yet customizable

Budgie has now evolved and is much more customizable than it was in the past. Solus is making great improvements. See More

Top Con

An upgrade breaks the system quite often

Top Pro

Stable

The system itself is very stable. All packages in the repository seem to be carefully picked, well prepared and run stable. See More

Top Con

There is often a black screen after update

Top Pro

Rolling release

Top Con

Software a bit slower to launch than for other distributions

Top Pro

Modern desktop environment

The default desktop environment used by Solus is called Budgie and is quite nice and minimalistic. See More

Top Con

Slow development

Top Pro

Built from scratch

Top Con

No USB Image writer

Top Pro

Home of LSI (Linux Steam Integration)

The devs put a lot of time into optimizing the distro for optimal performance, LSI is a tool which fixes a lot of bugs and increases integration and performance of Steam games with the system. See More

Top Con

Forums are not very friendly

Top Pro

Responsive

System boots quickly and stays responsive. Does what operating system should do, and does it really well. See More

Top Pro

Optimized

The devs put a lot of working into optimizing system libraries for the best performance. See More

Top Pro

Exclusively for desktop systems

Elementary OS

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Top Con

Very slow development cycle

Elementary does not offer any release date for their stable releases, they're going more with a "it's done when it's done" attitude. This makes depending on newer apps a difficulty as well as a poor choice for those that need consistent release schedules for their OS. See More

Top Pro

Built on Ubuntu

Built on Ubuntu LTS with all its qualities and support. See More

Top Con

Old base and applications

The slow release schedule makes the applications outdated. It drags behind Ubuntu LTS (on which it's based) which itself drags behind Ubuntu which is often still quite far behind Arch for example. See More

Top Pro

Extremely user-friendly

This distribution promises you a very tailored user experience and it does deliver on that promise. The developers provide you with a custom desktop environment and a set of neat programs. And the whole desktop looks simply gorgeous. See More

Top Con

Upper panel requires extra spaces

The upper panel in Elementary OS requires more space. This can be a problem for computers with small monitors. See More

Top Pro

Lightweight & fast

Runs well on limited-resources hardware, including netbooks or chromebooks. See More

Top Con

Problems with basic functions

Problems often arise with functions like keyboard layout and touchpad. See More

Top Pro

UI design consistency

Excellent uniformity between all the stock application and an overall extremely clean design with simple animations. See More

Top Con

Emacs doesn't work

Emacs crashes due to a partial gnome library update. See More

Top Con

Window control button placement may be unintuitive to some

Elementary OS has window controls on the left side of the window. It may be less intuitive for users coming from other operating systems that put window controls on the right. See More

Top Con

UI doesn't let you change anything

Every installation of elementaryOS looks excactly like the same See More

Top Con

Outdated or bad default applications

Zorin OS

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Top Pro

Low resources consumption

Top Con

Limited desktop styles in free version

All free editions only offer Windows XP, 2000, and 7 and Gnome 2. You have to pay $9-10 in order to get Unity (Ubuntu) and Mac OS X themes. See More

Top Pro

Accessibility features

Top Pro

Stable

Top Pro

Bundles tools for changing the look and feel of the distribution

Zorin includes look changer and theme changer. See More

Top Pro

Partial Windows compatibility

Zorin includes WINE and PlayOnLinux to run many Windows applications and games. See More

Top Pro

Ubuntu-based

Zorin is compatible with Ubuntu's sizable repositories of Free Software. See More

Top Pro

Installer can set up dual boot

Top Pro

Good Selection of pre-installed software

New users may be unaware of what software is available for Linux, but Zorin includes a good selection for everyday tasks out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Windows desktop style

The desktop UI was made to resemble Windows 7, but alternative settings are available. See More

Fedora

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Top Pro

Stable

Fedora is a very stable Linux-based OS, as the developers place a lot of value in quality engineering. See More

Top Con

Proprietary drivers are unsupported

Fedora does not support proprietary drivers, meaning that users may have problems with a lot of hardware when using Fedora. The software to make that kind of hardware work can be installed, but it can be done only through third-parties and it's not easy for the average user. See More

IngeniousEiresione's Experience

With couple offre tweaks, it's the best distribution out there See More

Top Pro

Strong commitment to free software philosophy

Top Con

Updating to new release can be problematic

While there are a few tools on offer that will upgrade an old Fedora release to the newest, there can often be problems with these methods. Some that may not even crop up at first but will show later down the road. Being that upgrading can be an issue, it can be exacerbated by the fact that Fedora updates every six month, which means twice a year there is a risk of completely borking ones install. See More

Top Pro

Focuses on innovation

By using bleeding edge software, Fedora allows for innovation to take place by testing out things which other distros are not willing to try due to fears of having instability issues. See More

Top Pro

Always up to date Kernel

Fedora is known to be up to date, using the latest kernel in a matter of weeks after being released. It has a good balance among stability and bleeding edge. More up to date kernel = better compatibility with drivers for gaming. See More

Top Pro

Integration with GNOME

It perhaps has the best integration with GNOME (GNOME software works out of the box). See More

Top Pro

Great community

Want to find an answer to a question: Fedora community, Rhel community, CentOS community are most active and friendly communities. See More

Ubuntu

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Top Pro

Solid and great driver support

Top Con

Unity sucks.

Bloated unity desktop sucks, but maybe it will be better with 18.04 with Gnome. See More

TrustworthyChukwu's Experience

slow and bloated See More

Top Pro

Ubuntu GamePack is a Gamer's Distro based on Ubuntu

Top Pro

Possibly the BEST Forum in the world for easy help, should you need it

Top Pro

Lots of support

As the most popular Linux distribution, there's a wide range of sources for support online if you ever need help, including the Ubuntu Wiki, Ubuntu Forums and the Ask Ubuntu Stack Exchange site. This can come in hand particularly with gaming as the large userbase, tutorials and forums will allow one to troubleshoot any issues they have with gaming and their particular rig. See More

Ubuntu LTS

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