Quoting: CatKillerThere's absolutely no reason why people need the highest version number of everything on their computer.

That's simply wrong, security is a reason.

Quoting: CatKillerThe range of distros available is intimidating to new users; people going around saying that they might make the wrong choice makes it needlessly more intimidating for them.

I also disagree on that, it would be much more helpful for new users to give more detailed descriptions of distros, than simply saying "use ubuntu".

Quoting: CatKillerThere aren't wrong choices, and neither rolling nor non-rolling distros are inherently superior to the other.

There are many wrong choices, so users should inform themselves before the installation.
And obviously I disagree on the validity of stable distros.

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Quoting: firesBut cant find any sreen shots

Just search for it in a search machine of your choice.

Quoting: firesNice links so i am downloading clear linux

Maybe I am wrong, but you should check before you think "thats the distro".
I assume it might not be the right choice.
The first sentence on distro watch:
"Clear Linux is a minimal distribution primarily designed with performance and cloud use-cases in mind."

Minimal is the word you don't want as a Gamer.

Smooth

Reminds me of some old training I had. The instructor's mantra: "Smooth is fast". For me, that's not a speed metric, but how cumbersome it is to get to the point when you're ready.

A smooth distro let's me administer it so I can get to the gaming quicker. Complicated set up, command line, editing confs, adding repos aren't difficult, but they aren't gaming.

I've tried OpenSuse Tumbleweed for almost 2 years now and have been impressed. It setup very easily, included file system snapshots in case of breakage and needed fairly minimal tinkering to get it to gaming shape (I think I had to check a box in repository management).

Only bump I can think of is that it is preferred to update packages via the command line, but I think that is true for many distros.

Software is constantly in flux, as new code is written and compiled to new packages. It is common for developers to make mistakes and produce code with bugs in it - This can happen early in development or in the very latest release.

It is true that earlier software flaws and bugs are often identified and fixed in later releases, but also newer releases are often larger, with more features, and more difficult to maintain than the earlier ones.

It is perfectly possible for an earlier piece of software to be more stable, less buggy, and more secure, than the latest update. The latest updates haven't had the opportunity for quality testing, that older software has had.

There are different levels of security flaws as well - Ones which are very low risk (and less urgent to fix) and ones which are a big threat and need an urgent response. Older software tends to get these important security patches as soon as it is available.

need to remember what mods are actually for on forums and ban for stupid flame questions

Quoting: mosneed to remember what mods are actually for on forums and ban for stupid flame questions

You might want to read the rules. According to them, distribution wars are not allowed (and I fully agree that they're pointless), but another rule goes like this: "Backseat moderation is not wanted. If you have issues, report it by hitting the little flag icon on a post."

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: mosneed to remember what mods are actually for on forums and ban for stupid flame questions

You might want to read the rules. According to them, distribution wars are not allowed (and I fully agree that they're pointless), but another rule goes like this: "Backseat moderation is not wanted. If you have issues, report it by hitting the little flag icon on a post."

I'd rather ban those who support the pointless discussion with "da serious" answers
troll the idiots so they leave the forums themselves I say... BUT there's the actual gripe with moderation - you'll be moderated for keeping the Internet clean and culling the entropy. NOT the idiots.. in most cases, sadly.

Quoting: GuestGNU/Linux desktop solutions are not a one-size-fits-all

thanks. am in dis game since roughly 2004 and tasted distros that were big in the day but donna even exist now.

am talking about something completely different here. and no, there's nothing useful in a thread like this.

the rule of thumb in this is the same that is true for most things in life - it's not that important what the tool is (one vs the other) but the expertise of the user.

Quoting: GuestNobody is born with intimate computing knowledge

exactly. not even the nipple. it's all LEARNED. (c)
it's not learning this discussion. I KNOW what's learning is. and it's not this. same goes for 90% threads on similar subjects on the net sadly.
I've started with literally 2-3 pages of printed text first discovering that there's HDA in linuxes rather than C: or D:

but it's important how you go from there. there's much more oppo's to learn today than 15 yrs ago, but sadly way less perseverance to do so...

Quoting: GuestBene Gesserit

I'd be surprised with a user casually mentioning this stuff but then I remember there's another blockbuster on the cards.
yeah I'm so ancient I've read teh books and I also happen to LIKE the much maligned Lynch's adaptation. I can just as well admit am so nerd that I've even watched the docu on the infamous Jodorowski's treatment (pity it doesn't shed much light on what it was to be like despite teasing a huge tome of sketches implying that "it's all there")

[Egee](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXa6sE6cKXcQ97vI0Emn1XA), has some benchmark and comparison videos between distribution and DE, not really scientifically made, but it can be instructive.

I just can't get behind KDE's design, look and feel.

Gnome 3 feels much more homely to me, still customizable, but simpler, and more elegant.
And it has come a long way in its 9 years of development in terms of performance and polish.

Whether using Ubuntu, Pop!OS or Manjaro, you'll have a great experience on all three, it's all about personal preference and how up to date you want your software to be.

I use vanilla Arch for the latest and greatest, and because I feel like Debian-based distros tend to be a bit more of a pain to tinker with. And also, I just dislike spins of spins of spins of distros.

I wanted stable framerate on games, squeezing all the performance I could out of my hardware and saw big improvements with the following:

- Kernel: tkg-pds, present on the chaotic-aur: https://lonewolf.pedrohlc.com/chaotic-aur/
You need the package that works with your CPU architecture, in my case an i5 6600k, nicknamed Skylake, I, therefore, got the linux-tkg-pds-skylake and linux-tkg-pds-skylake-headers packages.
FYI: If using nvidia, also recommend getting the chaotic-nvidia-dkms-tkg package along with the other ones (settings, utils, opencl, etc..) in the same repo.
Although normal nvidia-dkms should also work, it's just not quite as good from experience.

- WM: mutter-performance in place of just mutter
- And for wine games, GloriousEggroll's latest version of Proton: https://github.com/GloriousEggroll/proton-ge-custom#installation
- Disabling mitigations (spectre, meltdown, etc..) for intel CPUs with grub cmdline parameters: https://make-linux-fast-again.com/ (only recommended if behind a secure network, and on a desktop, at home)
- Oh and of course, feral's gamemode, do yourself a favor and just use it: https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode

And if the Arch install scares you or you simply don't want to deal with installing it "the arch way", this Calamares installer does the job just fine, I recommend it: https://sourceforge.net/projects/blue-arch-installer/files/arch-installer/

There you go!

Last edited by Akitake on 19 Sep 2020 at 7:29 pm UTC

Quoting: JaredDefine what you mean by smoothest. PopOS and SalientOS do have some software related to gaming preinstalled by default. You can however customize any distribution to your liking, as well as adding custom kernels that can increase your gaming performance. These tools that are preinstalled on these distributions listed above aren't distro exclusive but rather distro agnostic.

I'm running Salient XFCE (with Zen kernel) and absolutely loving it. Silent Robot has set it up with damned near everything, and has his own repo to ensure ongoing compatibilities. Just started playing Resident Evil 2 Remaster and it's buttery smooth. I highly recommend giving it a try. The Plasma version is also gorgeous, though it was affected by the massive botch update KDE pushed out a month ago.

Salient's nice yeah, only issue I had with it in the past is the slow release cycle. There can be 2-3 months without an ISO, and by then installing and upgrading will cause issues.
But if an iso came out within the month it should be fine.

I found the answer Manjaro works best for me :smile: