Let me start by saying I think Linux Mint is one of the top 5 greatest distros of all time. It is an absolutely essential starting point for many people and their work is responsible for much of the user-friendliness you see in the world of Linux today. It is stable, has a nice aesthetic, “just works”, and doesn’t make you update constantly.
These things are great but they are the very things that make Linux Mint unsuited for online gaming. Is this a bad thing? No!! It’s just not a distro made for gaming purposes. It’s like showing up to a monster truck drag race in a Ferrari. I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint. It happens all the time. Go look at any game on ProtonDB that is currently working, and you’ll find 1-2 “not working” reports and they are always on either Debian on Mint.
I understand why we see it so often, because Linux Mint is awesome and users want to play their games on it. But if I suggested Hell Let Loose to a friend using Linux Mint right now, the first distro suggested for gaming in our FAQ, he wouldn’t be able to play because of his choice of distro. Making rolling distros look like a fortress in 2023 and suggesting Mint for gaming will only set new Linux users up for disappointment.
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unsuited for gaming or online gaming?
Been using mint for gaming, even cracked games i downloaded are work. I am sure the problem is not the distro, but the libraries which are needed by games, and fortunately cracked games included that in the installer x-/
someone should change the FAQ then
Distros aren’t designed to do anything, “gaming distros” are a giant meme.
This just once more highlights the problem with application distribution on Linux. Flatpak is far from perfect, but just use it for Steam and it’ll be virtually the same on every distro. I game on fucking Alpine. Bottles is mainly distributed as a Flatpak as well and Lutris has a Flatpak build too. Mangohud, ProtonUp Qt, vkBasalt, Protontricks and so on are available as well.
Added benefit: You can adjust permissions, which is nice for proprietary applications (see the recent minecraft debacle).
What is the Minecraft permissions issue?
I was referring to some incident a while back, where popular minecraft mods were infected with malware, and a while before that the log4j java vulnerability that also affected minecraft.
Point being, with flatpak you can restrict the programs permission like file and device access which will protect you from things like that.
Also privacy, because i’d rather keep things like Epic Games and Ubisoft Connect contained if i can help it.
Gaming distros are only a meme if you think you’ll get more FPS.
Many of them do provide a simplified experience for “gamers” as despite the stereo type they aren’t very tech savvy.
Garuda for example starts you off with a set of software choices with explanations and one click installs on setup. It also has its own “garuda-update” script that takes even more work off the user, an example being when Arch had that grub issue most garuda users didn’t as the script reinstalls grub when there’s an update.
Try and tell me a “gamer” isn’t going to have an easier time on Garuda or Nobara compared to things like vanilla Arch, Fedora, Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, etc.
No they aren’t magic but what they do is take things we can do our selves and automate that for those who can’t.
Developer / Sysadmin here… I use Nobara because of familiarity with Fedora based systems and ease of setup for my rig (nvidia gpu…). Just makes life simple, and if I do need to go under the hood, I am familiar with what I see.
Developer / Sysadmin here… I use Nobara because of familiarity with Fedora based systems and ease of setup for my rig (nvidia gpu…). Just makes life simple, and if I do need to go under the hood, I am familiar with what I see.
Lol, funnily enough I do IT contracting work for the government and mostly build servers and while I game on Garuda I have Nobara on my laptop for Fedoras solid base and extras if I wanna dick around and play Halo some where (sadly can’t on most sites or our main site as no personal devices allowed past a certain point).
All these issues boil down to the fundamental problems of linux.
Fragmentation, especially when it comes to application distribution. The classic package managers might work well for foss, but not for complex and proprietary crap like Steam and games.
If there will ever be a proper solution to the problem, so people can reliably click on “Install Steam” and just have it work then there’s no need for a gaming distribution (and i guess flatpak integrated into a software store is the closest to that rn). You don’t see people crying for help to install Steam on Windows.
What i think we don’t need is yet another Arch or Debian based distro that installs some packages and configures some basic stuff, that’s ran by like 2 people and disappears in a year or two. That should either be made trivial in the “upstream” distro or be a setup script on diy systems like Arch. Please stop making distros, it’s not like we already 100s of them that solve nothing and just confuse people.
Sure, i see things like Garuda being useful for now, but it’s a band aid fix for the real problems.
All these issues boil down to the fundamental problems of linux.
Fragmentation, especially when it comes to application distribution. The classic package managers might work well for foss, but not for complex and proprietary crap like Steam and games.
You say that but ironically games and proprietary software are more likely to package more of the needed libraries with them. Steam being a Literal example of that. Ironic.
If there will ever be a proper solution to the problem, so people can reliably click on “Install Steam” and just have it work then there’s no need for a gaming distribution
I wouldn’t say we NEED a gaming distro but they literally automate extra work for the gaming crowd.
You don’t see people crying for help to install Steam on Windows.
Oh but I see them crying about so much more.
What i think we don’t need is yet another Arch or Debian based distro that installs some packages and configures some basic stuff, that’s ran by like 2 people and disappears in a year or two.
Right, because that is totally happening all the time and is a real problem the community at large faces.
Meanwhile in reality land thats not really an issue.
That should either be made trivial in the “upstream” distro or be a setup script on diy systems like Arch.
And as long as they aren’t doing that then they’ll be a market for “gaming” distros.
Please stop making distros, it’s not like we already 100s of them that solve nothing and just confuse people.
No, they don’t really confuse people (aside from morons recommending Manjaro). When people ask or even research theres like 4~ 8 distros tops that popup for gaming.
Sure, i see things like Garuda being useful for now, but it’s a band aid fix for the real problems.
If it fits it ships.
Uff this pointless back and forth reminds me why i don’t comment usually.
You say that but ironically games and proprietary software are more likely to package more of the needed libraries with them. Steam being a Literal example of that. Ironic.
They ship a runtime for the games, but the Steam Client regularly breaks or has (sometimes minor, but still) problems. The post literally is about this very thing. Steam recently also broke with a glibc upgrade on several distros and flatpak wasn’t affected.
My point is that each distro shipping their archaic package manager and packaging the entire world is not sustainable, causes inconsistencies between distros and makes software developers shy away from distributing software for Linux.
Another exmpale is DaVinci Resolve, that shit constantly breaks on Arch from what I’ve heard.
The rest I feel ist not worth responding to.
You mean when you get called out for trying to either pass opinions as fact or simply saying untrue things?
They ship a runtime for the games, but the Steam Client regularly breaks or has (sometimes minor, but still) problems. The post literally is about this very thing. Steam recently also broke with a glibc upgrade on several distros and flatpak wasn’t affected.
And yet thats less about “fundamental issues with Linux” and more about the pros and cons of different approaches to software.
Using a flatpak.apiimages are great options for people and I wholeheartedly support their promotion and development. That said its not a drop in replacement and people to have to make certain considerations and acknowledgements such as permissions and performance loss which can be zero or in the worst case for some up to 20%.
That, and you’re acting like Windows has never had platform breaking updates before so its not even a “Linux” problem.
My point is that each distro shipping their archaic package manager and packaging the entire world is not sustainable,
You say “each distro” like every distro uses apt.
I would love for you to explain how DNF is archaic. Its not like Windows still using code from NT workstation and running a file system from 1993.
causes inconsistencies between distros and makes software developers shy away from distributing software for Linux.
Lol, this is just a copy pasta bad faith argument. They can just literally choose to package and use the libraries they need that may be effected. If you claim this is magically TOO MUCH then you just argued against Windows and Mac as well.
Another exmpale is DaVinci Resolve, that shit constantly breaks on Arch from what I’ve heard.
Oh I just love that. “from what I’ve heard”. Very scientific. Thats not really a thing. Sure DaVinci wants you to be on Fedora or REHL but theres a work around for its check. Thats it. Hell you don’t even have to use the AMDPRO driver for gaming to use it for DaVinci.
Plus maybe the outdated take on Arch’s stability should be shelved in favor of reality. Sure it was unstable back in the day, and so was Ubuntu and other distros to an extent. But Arch, even with occasional hiccups is pretty solid.
And if Windows is “stable” Then Arch is almost unbreakable by that standard.
The rest I feel ist not worth responding to.
Sure thing buddy. Just remember for next time, throwing out emotion and stating it as fact doesn’t get you far in a tech sub.
Using a flatpak.apiimages are great options for people and I wholeheartedly support their promotion and development. That said its not a drop in replacement and people to have to make certain considerations and acknowledgements such as permissions and performance loss which can be zero or in the worst case for some up to 20%.
Yeah agreed, that’s why I said in some comment above that the classic package managers work well for foss and not for proprietary software. And i’m not a big fan of flatpak anyways, but it just works more realiably because of the runtimes when talking about things like Steam.
Foss software you can rebuild against new libraries and do qa to make sure they work. Proprietary software is a blob that might break with a libc upgrade or it might not. And when debian ships an older version of the library and arch a newer one then it causes inconsistencies when talking about proprietary blobs.
That’s what i meant.
You say “each distro” like every distro uses apt. I would love for you to explain how DNF is archaic. Its not like Windows still using code from NT workstation and running a file system from 1993.
I meant the underlying design of having (mostly) one version of a library on your system that every binary uses.
Flatpak uses the lazy approch of just shipping a linux distro minus the kernel as a runtime and something that actually tackles the dependency problem in a smart way is nix.
Lol, this is just a copy pasta bad faith argument. They can just literally choose to package and use the libraries they need that may be effected. If you claim this is magically TOO MUCH then you just argued against Windows and Mac as well.
Not really sure what you mean here. How would a proprietary application bundle for example libraries in the context of a traditional package manager? The entire idea are shared libraries. Glibc doesn’t support static linking afaik so that’s out of the question.
Oh I just love that. “from what I’ve heard”. Very scientific. Thats not really a thing. Sure DaVinci wants you to be on Fedora or REHL but theres a work around for its check. Thats it. Hell you don’t even have to use the AMDPRO driver for gaming to use it for DaVinci.
Yeah in one of Brodie Robertsons videos. I don’t use it, it’s just an example.
And i’m not saying Arch is bad, it’s just once again the problem of programs being build for one version and Arch constantly updating libraries that might cause problems with software you can’t rebuild yourself.
Plus maybe the outdated take on Arch’s stability should be shelved in favor of reality. Sure it was unstable back in the day, and so was Ubuntu and other distros to an extent. But Arch, even with occasional hiccups is pretty solid.
You’re confusing the terms stability and reliability. Arch is inherently unstable, like every rolling release.
It might be reliable with regular packages, but the combination of the shared libraries that constantly update in combination with proprietary blobs will cause issues.
And why so defensive? I’m not attacking your precious linux in bad faith, i use it myself and prefer it to windows & mac.
It really depends on the “gamer”. Arch is the best distro for people who play MMORPGs and mod their games a lot.
MMORPGs because basically, you start with like 3 abilities in your rotation, and this eventually becomes like 20 abilities to maximize DPS, just like Arch starts with bare minimum, and as you learn to use it you get more comfy with it like you get comfy with a large rotation.
I honestly think people’s mileage may HEAVILY vary on this of course, but dropping a bunch of shit on an end user at once is like if you kicked someone into an MMORPG mid-expansion, rushed them to level 60 by way of a special item, and said “hey, decipher all this bullshit you’ve had no practice with that we dumped on you all at once, and if you don’t maximize DPS your team is gonna yell at you”. I think this is the folly of some “beginner distros” that include a bunch of shit by default. “where is microsoft word, what in the fuck is a Libreoffice? I haven’t googled anything or practiced in a smaller scale yet and I’m overwhelmed!”
Most issues of libraries are likely bypassed by just using the flatpak version of Steam.
Though honestly I’ve not encountered any of these issues from using Mint for 3 years for gaming. (and funny enough not even using the flatpak)
But if you’re going to say Mint is an issue, you should probably include Debian Stable, Ubuntu LTS, and pretty much every derivative as well. Since the issues you mention are not at all Mint-specific.
Edit: also, what libraries?
I keep on the most recent non-lts Ubuntu distro and i’ve had very little issues with steam. The LTS part might be the issue?
I run on Mint myself and use Steam without issue. It’s possible we’ve not hit any of the games the OP was talking about, but it’s hard to know.
The non-LTS version does have better hardware compatibility with the latest Intel/AMD GPUs out of the box though.
Yeah, the kernel and hardware compatibility as well as older libraries on LTS distros are what i was wondering about. Perhaps one or both of those contributed to the Mint issues seen.
flatpak
Flatpaks are horrible. For a start, I like bold fonts everywhere (Inter Extra Bold) and Flatpaks tend to use their own fonts, ignoring my font of choice. Also you have to give Flatpaks permission to write to the entire drive as it’s useless otherwise.
The only real problem that LTS distros like Mint have is the out of date kernel and Mesa (except when using the proprietary Nvdia drivers, then it doesn’t matter).
Everything else should be covered by the Steam Runtime.
I typically always game on nvidias drivers. Although there is a ppa for that now. To make things simpler. Also the open version of the driver Nvidia started making.
I don’t see the problem people have. I update the kernel and mesa manually in Ubuntu LTS using one of the kernel methods here:
https://www.makeuseof.com/upgrade-linux-kernel-in-ubuntu/
And update mesa using this Kisak-mesa PPA. Which instructions can be found here:
You can use a new kernel and a new Mesa, it’s not difficult at all. Maybe even easier than changing distros.
The so-called outdated kernel mesa drivers can be updated pretty easily. Having the very latest kernel and mesa drivers is not always a positive. Consider, bugs, regressions, feature omissions, etc. Even with the latest kernel, mesa and LLVM software bleeding edge hardware isn’t automatically covered. Support takes time and many cases it could be weeks or months before support shows up in stable releases.
For example, I purchased a Asus TUF Gaming A16 2023 Advantage Edition laptop in Sept of this year. It was released in Feb, Mar, or April of this year. There was an issue with the internal keyboard and touch pad that had to do some odd internal design. Of course the laptops works with Windows because it is made for and targeted at Windows gamers and comes with Windows 11. It took the work of an AMD developer and 4-5 end users testing over a 3 month period to get to a stable modified kernel version that worked with the odd internal design. Lots of trial and error testing, and reporting back via a discussion thread. By the time the changes coming from the dev were integrated into a new kernel release it would not have mattered if one was on an LTS distro or rolling release. The newer kernel with the support was readily available to everyone. In many instances the installation procedure wasn’t merely just install the new kernel and firmware.
If you want the nitty-gritty full details take a look ==> https://www.reddit.com/r/AMDLaptops/comments/159mj6i/anyone_have_experience_with_asus_tuf_gaming_a16/?sort=new
Asus TUF Gaming A16 2023 Advantage Edition
I ordered the same one, next week ill receive it, which distro do you use? Is linux running fine now on it ? I’m new to this stuff, so im totally unknown of everything except i tried nobara on my pc with nvidia, thats why i bought this amd/amd laptop ^^
The only real problem that LTS distros like Mint have is the out of date kernel and Mesa (except when using the proprietary Nvdia drivers, then it doesn’t matter).
Indeed. It’s a gripe I still have. A few times already in this thread I’ve mentioned that I wished Mesa and firmware would be handled by Driver Manager software.
This is exactly the reason why I chose Fedora 39. The only problem I currently have with Fedora 39 is, for some unknown reason I simply can’t fathom, the Flatpak release of OpenTyrain had begun crashing on me after using upgrading the distro from Fedora 38 within Konsole. Fortunately for me however, the Snap release of OpenTyrian still works flawlessly.
Yeah, libraries aren’t the major issue imo, it’s the outdated Kernel (which in turn limits Mesa) that is, only really affecting AMD/Intel users ofc.
Mint doesn’t really appear to be LTS anymore. It’s still running a 5.x kernel as opposed to the 6.2 kernel supported by actual LTS releases.
Flatpak steam is great, UNTIL you wanna get into the guts of stuff via modding, MangoHUD/gamescope, etc. it’s an extra layer of complexity for new users to try to understand wtf is going on. I’d consider myself a pretty seasoned Linux veteran, and I pretty frequently get confused with something and gotta search how to do X in flatpak. Which isn’t a big deal for me but for a new user it’s just another layer of confusion.
you should probably include Debian Stable, Ubuntu LTS, and pretty much every derivative as well
Debian in general shouldn’t be used for most desktop systems imo, as they have a habit of not shipping bugfix releases. And yes, Ubuntu LTS is not a good recommendation for gaming either… but neither of these are being recommended for gaming, so there isn’t any need to stop doing that.
Nobody (or at least very few) puts Debian or Ubuntu LTS on their “Top 5 Gaming Distro” listicles, but literally every single one of them is putting Mint. When I installed Mint a couple months back, the kernel was on 5.2.x and I forget which version the mesa stack was on but it was very outdated as well.
Don’t get me wrong, Mint is awesome and I loved it while I used it. But if you just built a brand new machine and want to do some linux gaming, there are probably better choices.
Nobody (or at least very few) puts Debian or Ubuntu LTS on their “Top 5 Gaming Distro” listicles
I would absolutely put Ubuntu LTS at the number one spot by a country mile. I just want to play games. I don’t want to spend hours tinkering or installing untested bleeding edge software in the hope of getting 2 more FPS. I did a lot of that 20 years ago because I am a hardcore nerd, but nowadays I want well-tested software that means everything works well out of the box.
I see problems coming up in this sub time and again that look like “I’m using libfrobnizzle-2.9.9-alpha7 and all of my colours are inverted”, where people respond like “lol you noob; that’s ancient history, it’s almost a week old - libfrobnizzle-2.9.9-alpha9-pre6.1 came out 17 seconds ago, just upgrade”. Meanwhile libfrobnizzle-2.8.42 works perfectly.
It’s one of the things I’d love to see improved honestly - that the driver manager should be able to handle Mesa and firmware updates for newer hardware.
And the Mint team were a bit late this time around, but they often put out an ‘Edge’ ISO which contains a more up-to-date kernel.
I’m not at all going to shy away from issues that exist and I’d love to see some improvements to make Mint better in this area.
That comment would seem to be a misnomer since mint is built on top of a desbian base as well as Ubuntu. If you look at distros with a desbian foundation then it’s constantly at the top. The difference is the packages meaning all distros have the potential to perform well. They just need to be configured properly.
Steam ships with it’s own “Steam Linux Runtime” libraries, so I don’t know what benefit a flatpack would even have? Steam’s already doing it.
Latest version working great for me. Started to have issues with POP so moved over and its been great.
it’s the first distro that actually worked for me, gaming included…
Mint is a great distro for general use. I agree with you on the gaming side of things. There are much better options.
Mint is for my gaming rig ngl
Go look at any game on ProtonDB that is currently working, and you’ll find 1-2 “not working” reports and they are always on either Debian on Mint.
I feel attacked. lol. I still can’t get Battlenet to run even tho it did 2 months ago before a patch.
Well said.
given the popularity of Steam Deck, id think the go-to suggestion would be as close to Steam OS as you can get. Holo, or just Arch KDE, until Valve releases a generic installer for Steam OS, which they recently said they still plan to do.
whenever game devs support linux at all, whether its native or just proton support, steam decks are most likely going to be their test environment. using the most similar distro should generally increase compatibility, ability to follow guides that work, and just reduce problems.
“as close to Steam OS as you can get”, would probably have to include ChimeraOS
I dont like that it uses gnome as the de
Isn’t that also what SteamOS on the Deck does?
Unless you use gamescope as a login / tty session then it falls flat on its face. The Deck doesn’t use KWin in its gaming mode so it’s pretty much irrelevant what compositor you use if it isn’t gamescope if you’re trying to get close to SteamOS
Manjaro is a great starting with sensible installer.
EndeavorOS would be closest for “new” users because it’s still arch just less difficult to setup from scratch.
KUbuntu (not LTS) is a pretty close match. With a 6-month release cycle, it’s pretty close to SteamOS in the stabilizing cycle, and if you add the official KUbuntu back ports PPA you get stable updates to the KDE frameworks (so things like Wayland HDR support). It’s been working great for me on multiple computers, extremely stable, good performance, and basically no weirdness with games either.
People say Canonical this Canonical that, snap is evil, Ubuntu is boring, Ubuntu don’t give good performance but at the of the day they are the good shit. They have Wayland support that Mint doesn’t have. They have KDE flavor that Mint doesn’t have which gives advatages to even Gnome for gaming. They have Nvidia automatic key sign for secure boot in kernel upgrades that Mint doesn’t have. PPAs, non-LTS releases, huge documentation, etc
I think Kubuntu is probably a great suggestion because people are able to theme/modify the UI however they like using KDE’s panels. Gnome has some useful stuff in it, but the UI is different enough from Windows that it might annoy some people unless they’re using Gnome extensions.
Im Using mint xfce, I only play wow classic and have noticed that sometimes the audio dont work, then I have to run an upodate and it works again. beside that no issues, I have yet to try any other games in linux
well I game on linux
I agree. In my experience, OpenSuse Tumbleweed has had the best experience running games, and let me tell you I’ve tried a lot of distros. Arch and its derivatives are fine if you’re careful with maintenance and read patch notes before updates, but IMO have too many stability issues for general purpose users. Debian and its derivatives often have outdated libraries. Sure, flatpak is a workaround, but OpenSuse hasnt needed workarounds and I’ve been able to play triple-A games on release day with minimal fuss.
Mint can be perfectly fine for gaming. Windows isn’t for gaming either until you start installing it’s libraries etc.
It’s kind of what you make of it imho. Linux is still isn’t “easy” for the novice user but it’s slowly getting there. If Valve ever make an official SteamOS that is agnostic from the Steam Deck. It will be massive. I know HoloISO exists but isn’t the same as if the backing of Valve made a distro.
Well, I use Arch, the one that Steam OS Is based on, and I have had problems, counted on one hand, but some are important, like a version of the AMD drivers not working properly after an update and people just saying that they are not good, either way steam should test against it before an update, or having problems with my ps5 controller in Linux native games when it works fine trough proton (this has nothing to do with the OS), something that I informed to the steam repo but there is no solution, if it works trough proton it should work in native, this one is important because of the Deck.
The point is that every OS will have problems, but yeah, I wouldn’t touch a system that uses PPA for gaming, they have failed too many times for me, specially when using a Nvidia card (since Nvidia forces the use of additional PPA)