*"I cannot count on my two hands how many times I have provided support to a user, to find their issue was outdated libraries due to using Linux Mint.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.

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."*

Also words from the OP. Which you conveniently left out!

I could care less what you are flaunting like a egotistical elitist as what you got to run. Not everyone is going to have “The Ghoultek Linux Gaming Experience”. Far from it. Many people are going to confused as to why Game XYZ isn’t running only to find out their Battle Royale favorite has an anticheat that Wine/Proton doesn’t like to allow workability. Why? Because, these are going to be Windows users diving in, head first, without a safety net not knowing what they’re up against.

Is Linux Mint a good distribution to start with? Yes

Is Linux Mint a good distribution to game with? Hell no.

The expectation of GNU/Linux is, it will work OOTB.

The reality of GNU/Linux is, it may work but you’re going to have to jump through hoops.

If you say you don’t need an explanation then you’re the problem and the elitist. Not me and people like me. And my standards? Excuse me, but these aren’t my standards, they’re common practice knowledge of GNU/Linux and common sense practices for anything in life.

Do you drive a Formula 1 Race Car without any knowledge or practice behind the wheel of one? No, and if you did you’d be foolish and probably wreck and kill yourself before you realized you had done something insanely stupid. The same goes for GNU/Linux. You have to learn the system. GNU/Linux is NOT Windows. You don’t treat it like Windows.

As the OP said, there are too many problems with software on Mint especially the packages. As DistroTube himself said it, in the freaking video, people hear about certain stuff being the next-gen jack of all trades system, but find out it’s a buggy dunghill.

But please by all means have fun explaining sudo, systemctl, bash shell, /etc conf files, and use qemu to create Windows 11 containers to hopefully run a few games other than Valorant to do everything they can with.

I’m not going to speak for ArchLinux users and veterans, but now I see why they get pissed off and get rude telling people to read the freakin’ manual. You don’t throw a user into a wolf-den with a blood drenched steak around their neck and expect everything to be fine, but that’s what you’re doing with Mint and gamers.

It’s people like you who can’t see past their own hubris to say “I might be wrong” when someone is saying “I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and it not a good idea”, and you dismiss them. Me, having an ego? No, it’s you who has the inexperience.

Watch this… This explains everything, and why I say what I say.

https://youtu.be/Gt0WBoYAG1s?si=0owUbDMsrtFBXzA5

Why am I here? To offer REAL help, not excuses. Because you have to teach newbies to GNU/Linux the proper way. You throw a newbie into GNU/Linux without any level of knowledge of what they’re getting into and guess what is going to happen? They’re going to give up and go back to Windows within a month. This is how you lose users to a system. You give them a point-click-and-go distribution, teach them nothing, and when something breaks and they’re told by the game developers “Sorry, our game is only made to work on Windows.” Guess what they do? They reinstall Windows… Again, and guess what else they do? They don’t come back to GNU/Linux in any capacity. This isn’t ego talking, this is experience talking and giving a warning, even if sternly. Why? Because guess who did the same thing? Me!

Why do I recommend Slackware? Because out of all of rhe advanced level GNU/Linux distributions, it’s actually the easiest and has plain language to set it up. Read the Slackware-HOWTO included on the install media. It’s a step-by-step manual to set it all up, in one shot, and get a working system. Patrick Volkerding actually wrote everything so a human being could understand it, not just tech heads. It’s a beginner’s distribution disguised as an advanced distribution.

Am I recommending Arch, Gentoo, LFS, etc. advanced level distributions to newbies? No. Hell no, and you’d be insane to think anyone would.

Do you know what I tell newbies to GNU/Linux? First off, dual boot the OS with Windows, or use a Virtual Machine. Get a feel for GNU/Linux. Virtual Machines let you intentionally screw up the system, and then reload it, and try again without harming real hardware. Dual booting let’s you migrate at your own pace, and see what does and doesn’t work, find workarounds, and learn the system. Once you’ve found your ground to stand on, then, and only then, you commit. Not before.

It’s mainly due to this…

Xorg is an entire ecosystem. It has it’s own drawing system. It’s own Windowing system. It does everything internally within the system. It’s got a decent foundation, decent walls, and a decent roof over the structure. It’s not great, but it’s decent all around and it works as intended.

Wayland is nice internally but… then it outsources everything to compositors that may or may not have the same standards, ways, and means to render the same thing across every single one of them. There’s a solid foundation in Wayland itself, but the walls holding up the roof are paper (most compositors are still hit or miss in stability), and the roof is either a metaphor or exists in one universe, but doesn’t exist in other universes (KDE, Gnome, and Enlightenment to name a few).

Do I fault the author. No. He sees something we may not, or maybe we did see. But obviously, something is wrong and merits the decision.

To be honest, I actually don’t use KDE/Plasma, Gnome, etc. because I find them too clumsy as UIs. I actually like Mate and XFCE. Why? They work without insisting upon themselves.

A distribution that doesn’t teach you how to use GNU/Linux isn’t even worth using. Slackware at least teaches you GNU/Linux at the basics. I’ve used other distributions before and a point-click-and-go distribution is a waste of time. You’re basically wanting Windows without it being Windows.

Gaming on Linux requires knowledge of how the system works, especially to troubleshoot. If you want a point-click-and-go OS, then just stick with Windows and make your life easier.

Mint and Pop are nice for beginners, but that’s all they’re for. Beginners who just need to get a system working. As an IT Technician, Mint is great. I can throw Mint onto a system and have a user ready PC ready in under an hour.

You want to game? Mint and Pop are terrible. Too many “I used this in Windows! Why isn’t it like Windows?” because there’s too much handholding.

Pros? If you aren’t willing to learn GNU/Linux then why use an operating system that is traditionally a command line OS where everything once stripped down is ran on command line via Bash that requires knowledge of the system to get problems solved? Stick with Windows for the love of God if you’re not a pro and willing to learn!

Mint is good to get your feet wet in GNU/Linux, but yes, it’s far from a gaming centered distribution by far. Mint, Debian, and Ubuntu are basically distributions that are jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.

You want a more minimalist distribution for gaming to lighten the resource loads. Arch and Slackware (mainly Slackware’s -Current branch), possibly, are my better for gaming choices due to how resource light they can be under ideal circumstances.

Lutris, Steam, and Heroic are pretty much all you might need to be honest to get a good solid start.

A lot of devs and publishers are guilty of basically seeing GNU/Linux as a non-marketable OS.

When and if Valve and Wine can ever add a sandboxed Ring-0 fake kernel mode to Proton and completely fool the anticheat software, it would be a miracle.

A lot of devs and publishers are guilty of basically seeing GNU/Linux as a non-marketable OS.

When and if Valve and Wine can ever add a sandboxed Ring-0 fake kernel mode to Proton and completely fool the anticheat software, it would be a miracle.