Hi! I’m getting a new laptop any day now and I plan on going back to Linux after maybe a decade on Windows. What works best for gaming nowadays? Is manjaro good for that? I prefer a distro with a nice name but of course that’s not the central thing. I’ll also do some book keeping, writing et cetera but I don’t think it’s much to worry about. I also hope to use my Valve Index on it.

  • SpicySquid@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    I think any distro will do really. I’d go for something that is friendly to new users, if you’re not very familiar with Linux in general. For example: Linux Mint. Here is an example on how you can get your installation setup easily: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyT4wfz5ZMg

    Regarding your Valve Index. It will likely work, but don’t expect it to be very easy to get it running well. I’m currently on Arch Linux with red team hardware and a Valve Index. For example, you will need to ensure the udev rules are set properly: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-devices. New issues occasionally arise, see: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/SteamVR-for-Linux/issues. Currently, it’s not switching audio devices automatically, so I use pavucontrol (with PipeWire) to switch that manually.

      • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
        0·
        6 months ago

        I’m kinda leaning towards Bazzite. I’ve downloaded it, but I realized I don’t have any USD drives at home :-/

        • yala@discuss.online
          0·
          6 months ago

          Excellent choice! I’m sure you’ll manage 😉 (right after you’ve found yourself a USB drive).

          • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
            0·
            6 months ago

            Installing now. Surprised by the amount of work needed to make my BIOS accept that Linux isn’t a security risk, but also surprised that Wifi worked just out of the box, even during the installer. A sign I’ve been away from Linux for a while.

            • yala@discuss.online
              0·
              6 months ago

              Consider making another post after everything has been done in which you note down your expectations, experiences etc.

              • laxsill@aggregatet.orgOPSvenska
                1·
                4 months ago

                I never got around to writing it, but I’ll share a couple of things shortly.

                1. I tried two gaming profiled systems: bazzite and manjaro. The systems in themselves worked great and the gaming was good. But I had some other systems I needed for work that I just couldn’t get to run smoothly. I think the biggest problem was Dropbox. One of the systems used a file management protocol or whatever it’s called that Dropbox didn’t work with at all. I ended up installing Ubuntu and it worked pretty well out of the box there. And the gaming is actually working great.

                2. when I installed Ubuntu, I also installed some kind of community built steam app. Extremely buggy. I replaced it with the official steam app and now it’s extremely smooth. Very little difference to gaming on windows except of course that everything in the system and ui is a little bit quicker, including the games.

                3. more games work on Ubuntu than are marked as Linux compatible by steam. I’ve tested a lot of games I already own and they usually work.

                4. the only thing I haven’t been able to get running is my (Swedish) book keeping system. I think I just need to get more comfortable with wine and I’ll probably get it working. We’ll see. I keep a small windows partition specifically for book keeping.

  • Seasm0ke@lemmy.world
    01·
    6 months ago

    Ill put my vote in for Garuda Linux. If you’re using Intel nvidia it is optimized out if the box. It is built on arch so youd manage it similar to Manjaro. kDE Plasma with Wayland is smooth. I cant get GNOME network displays to work to add my TV as a monitor but otherwise everything has been great.