If you want gaming performance then you shouldn't be on Debian. Systems like Arch are a lot more up to date, out of the box. I know there's some repositories on Debian that add the latest drivers, but you have to rely on the maintainer of the repository for updates. Plus, it broke my system last I tried.

I run both Arch and Debian, literally no difference. Besides, for the newer nvidia drivers, it's easier to just not install them via the package manager, and install them via the nVidia installer, which they've improved immensely. In fact, I'm running the beta driver now, which I think is newer than what Arch has in it's normal repositories.

Granted I also Debian Sid, so it is pretty much up to date with Arch.

But that disregards the topic, I didn't ask what Distro had better performance, I was asking which out of Debian Jessie or SteamOS (basically they're the same release, Valve has just tweaked the base Jessie with things like their own compositor.)

I'm just making a guess, SteamOS. Because it's been tweaked. Plus, if you like to use NVIDIAs installer, then I can't even look at your computer. I have a heartattack just from running installers.

I'm using latest drivers on Debian without any issues. If you are looking for maximum performance oriented distros, I can only see a benefit of some specific distros like Gentoo, which actually compile packages for your hardware during any upgrade and isntallation. That can indeed improve performance. Otherwise most distros are pretty much the same.

Quoting: ShmerlI'm using latest drivers on Debian without any issues. If you are looking for maximum performance oriented distros, I can only see a benefit of some specific distros like Gentoo, which actually compile packages for your hardware during any upgrade and isntallation. That can indeed improve performance. Otherwise most distros are pretty much the same.

Wait, Debian has the latest Mesa? I seem to remember GOL trying out the Nouveau driver and they had to use an external repository.

Unstable has Mesa 11.0.5 (it was in experimental a while ago): https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/mesa

Huh, you're right. Weird that they used an external repository then.

Quoting: StianTheDarkHuh, you're right. Weird that they used an external repository then.

I'm not sure which article you're referring to, but if it was written by either Liam or Samsai, neither of them are likely to have used Debian for the tests. And although Ubuntu and its derivatives are based on Debian, they are not Debian. Not everything available in Debian Unstable/Testing can be installed cleanly on Ubuntu/Mint/whatever without updating a whole bunch of other system packages.

Yeah, Ubuntu does a pull from Debian Unstable every 6 months, adds their own tweaks / packages, rebuilds them all with the _ubuntu_ naming scheme. At least that's how it used to be, I stopped following it's progress since it seemed to be less stable than Debian Unstable branch.

On the subject of Mesa, apparently mesa 11.x causes some nasty issues with VMware Fusion on OSX. Makes gnome-shell pretty much unusable. I've reported the bug to vmware, not sure if they'll do anything about it. Will probably try to report it to the mesa devs.

@StianTheDark
Ha, yeah I generally stay away from using the installers outside of the repository, but nVidia seems to have cleaned up their act, going so far as to informing you that you already have the packaged drivers installed in Debian, and that you should remove them before using their installer, plus it puts in place the alternatives files, and asks if you want dkms enabled.

slaapliedje

The only reason I use Arch is because it has the latest software all the time, and the wiki. The Arch wiki is a reason in itself to use Arch :p