this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2025
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Linux Gaming

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Linux gaming for a non-technical person? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I'm putting together a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input. Obviously I'm committing myself to providing a certain amount of tech support no matter what, but I'm wondering if any of these modern Linux distros can provide a user experience at least on par with Windows in terms of ease of use and reliability for someone who doesn't know how to do much more than check their email and log in to Steam.

So far, I've looked at Bazzite, Cachy, Nobara, and PopOS based on what I commonly see recommended here. I'm leaning toward Bazzite based on its stated goal of being friendly to Linux newcomers, and the quality and amount of available documentation. Are there any other distros I've missed, or other considerations that might sway my preference?

I'd also like to hear about your subjective experiences with Linux gaming:

  1. What distro are you using for gaming?
  2. How long have you used it?
  3. How often have you had issues that require Linux knowledge and/or searching the web to solve?
  4. Have you had any other minor/annoying complaints?
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

go through their list of games on protondb to see if linux would be a good fit, it might not be, depending on their library.

you've got a nice 'short list' of distributions to evaluate. i'd recommend setting each up yourself on a spare system to see how 'point and click' they are in setting-up, running, and updating the games they play.

also keep in mind the more hoop-jumping and manual configurations you need to do, the greater the chance of something breaking--like during os or wine-related updates. those kinds of issues are the ones your friend will be relying on you to fix for them so you definitely want to minimize the chances of that happening.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I'm definitely aiming to keep the hoop-jumping to the minimum. Ideally, I'm just going to set up their user account, log them into Google and Steam, pin some stuff to the taskbar and everything will "just work" from there.