Situation: You just got a new computer that you want to run Linux on, and that is going to be primarily used for gaming.

What software will you install on it? This includes, but is not limited to:
* Linux distribution
* Desktop environment
* Game launcher (like Lutris, Heroic Game Launcher) if you choose to use one

Also, it would help if you would explain why you would make your specific choices.

That's not been my experience; I've used Linux for a while and it actually does work well for me.

From my experience with dabbling in Linux Mint on and off, the answer is both "I'm no more interested in any game launcher purely the sake of it just to replace shortcut links than I am with Windows and I still hate achievements, time tracking on Linux as much as Windows" and yet at the same time for Linux specifically the answer is also "all of them for compatibility reasons".

Eg, stuff like Lutris or PlayOnLinux, etc, is used by many people to automate extracting files from a Windows-only installer and then setting up WINE around them. But some of these tools are setup to expect being fed only the very latest version of an .exe installer and will reject older ones, yet there are cases where keeping an older version of a game is desirable (eg, you could feel an "In Development" game can get 'over-extended' the wrong way / add or change a game mechanic in an update that you don't like and wish to remain on an older version for the simpler gameplay, or perhaps a new version of a game breaks compatibility with an older mod for which there is no new version). Then trying to stick to one single "friendly compatibility tool" gets a whole lot more awkward. So the last time I tried Linux I pretty much used a combination of all of them (PlayOnLinux, Lutris, play.it scripts, etc) not really out of preference but simply because some of them made things more awkward with "versioning nit-pickityness" than they really needed to.

I love this situation :) It's a lot of fun installing and configuring a brand new computer on Linux. It's something new and shiny, and you get a similar feeling when hopping distros.

I have two sets of choices by me. First is the "Comfy" setup with minimal configuration required and rarely time spent in the terminal.

Comfy:

Distro = Pop!_OS
DE = COSMIC (Pop!_OS)
Game Launcher = Lutris
Bonus gaming-related software = MangoHUD, vkBasalt, GreenwithEnvy, Piper, Gamemode, Noisetorch

Reasoning:

This is my current setup and it is an extremely smooth experience, not just in gaming. Pop!_OS has really sane defaults, it looks amazing, is snappy, and is just, well, comfy. The included tiling window manager is so good, that once you try it it's very difficult to go back to DEs without tiling out-of-the-box.

Back to gaming - it has the latest Linux kernels (which is important for performance in new games, like having the option for futex2), you can install the whole distro with Nvidia proprietary drivers baked in, and anything else is available in either its own repos, or Ubuntu repos (which it also uses as it's basically an Ubuntu derivative), or its own Pop!_OS shop that also includes flatpaks. So pretty much anything you want, you can find and install.

Lutris is the best swiss-army-knife game utility - with the press of a button, it will download, install and setup the game. Game-specific fixes and hacks are included to get everything working, but you can also tinker a lot with Lutris. Wine versions, environment variables, DLL overrides etc., pretty much anything. But you usually don't even need to. I picked Lutris over Heroic (also excellent for GOG and Epic games) and Bottles (so much potential) because after trying all 3 out, Lutris consistently provided the best running setup. In fact, there were times when some games just refused to run on either Heroic or Bottles but ran flawlessly out-of-the-box with Lutris, and I pivoted back to it for convenience.

Other gaming software and utilities that I couldn't live without include MangoHUD for it's excellent monitoring and info overlay on top of a Vulkan framerate limiter. vkBasalt for cheap sharpening and anti-aliasing (I use a combination of CAS with FXAA in many games, which is toggleable and customisable). GreenwithEnvy for custom fan profiles with Nvidia cards and overclocking. Piper for Logitech gaming mice. Gamemode from Feral has apparently a bunch of scheduling and IO priority tweaks that might squeeze out some fps and reduce stuttering. Noisetorch for noise-reduction with mics when you're playing with friends.


Then comes the "Tinkerer's Dream" setup, where you have lots of configuration and possibilities to really optimise the experience. Whilst at the same time having possibilities to really get a sub-optimal experience if you're not willing to put in the time and effort.

Tinkerer's Dream:

Distro = Arch
DE/Window Manager = KDE/i3/doesn't matter
Game Launcher = none
Bonus gaming-related software = same as in the Comfy setup

This is for people who compile their own gaming kernels and Wine versions, plus anything you want. You handpick your mix of patches and tweaks with TkG's custom kernels and Wine setups, giving you bleeding-edge features and performance. You will make your own Wine prefixes with additional programs and libraries installed for getting games to run, and add environment variables and commandline arguments for a bash script to launch the game. You will use the excellent lgogdownloader or legendary to download/install/run your games.

This all might be a painstaking process - many games require their own set of fixes, hacks and/or patches. This is nicely automated for convenience in Lutris or other utilities, but sometimes they are out-of-date so you might gravitate towards this Tinkerer's setup to get stuff working, or working smoothly. The potential for fuck-ups is huge though, and you might be spending hours just to get some games running well. When it does work, it's glorious however.

In addition to bleeding-edge features and performance, Arch has the AUR and the Wiki. These are game-changers and represent the best Linux has to offer for a tinkerer.


I personally ran this Tinkerer's Dream setup for 2 years. There wasn't a single game that I couldn't run, and run well. However, the absolutely smooth and comfy experience of Pop!_OS made me migrate recently, and I now have a lot less headaches with set-ups and can devote more time to actually gaming.

I never really put any special thought into it. Bizhawk/Ares (Fuck Retroarch), Lutris, and well, I go though as I please.

I never made any special considerations and I don't even have Winetricks installed this time around.

I'm using Fedora. It's bleeding edge with an air of professionalism.
Gnome belongs in the garbage, so let's install the i3 Spin to minimize the cruft.

Now, dtgreene, I realize that I didn't answer your questions.

I'm using Ubuntu. It sucks.
At the university I studied to they had Red Hat on the computers, so I think I'll switch to that (or Fedora, or CentOS, they're both Red Hat)

The play.it scripts work like a charm, they give you packages for Debian(and its variants like Ubuntu) and ArchLinux that will integrate seemlessly in your system (it'll be exactly like installing something from your native software manager/repos).
Downside is they don't support that many games (it's apparently maintained by only a handful of active devs) and good luck installing those packages on other distros than Debian/Arch. Other than that, play.it is PERFECT.

I tried playonlinux, doesn't work. And I DON'T LIKE LAUNCHERS.

I haven't tried Lutris so I don't know what it's worth, but I REALLY DON'T LIKE LAUNCHERS.

Haven't meddled with Wine.

I use Fedora because in my short experience it's been very stable and also because I'm more productive and comfortable using vanilla Gnome with just a few simple tweaks (that's the sort of design language I jam to, but everyone's different of course). I used Pop before, but I ended up switching after they introduced their Cosmic customization of gnome.

As for game launcher (and I know this is going to sound heretical), Steam offers a very frictionless experience; otherwise, give Heroic a try.

First, I am not sure if you are talking about running (Windows) games on Linux, or using a computer in general (ie. "nothing works on Linux" even if you are talking about mundane tasks like doing your online banking or visiting the GOG site with Firefox browser).

Either way, there's quite a wide cap between "it's a mess, nothing works" and being "a perfect solution". I don't agree with either of those assessments.

For general computer usage, I don't agree at all that "nothing works and it is a mess unless you put a lot of work on it".

Specifically for trying to get Windows games to run on Linux (which I guess this thread is about), I am more inclined to agree it takes more work to get many or most games to work as there is in Windows, which is kinda to be expected since you are trying to run games which are not originally designed to run on it. I consider it a similar "nuisance" as trying to get older Windows games to run on Windows 10/11, ie. in many cases you may need to google for solutions to the problems you face, try out different possible solutions yourself etc., game by game.

Specifically for some older Windows games, even older GOG games, I've actually found it to be easier to get them to run on Linux, than on Windows 10/11.

We got some positive feedback from people who tried building .deb packages using ./play.it then used alien to convert them to .rpm packages. I think the tests were done on OpenSuse. I would like to add real support for .rpm packages (Fedora, OpenSuse, Mageia, etc.) but can not do it without some help from someone actually using one of these systems.

About the small number of supported games (less than one thousand), it is indeed due to our very small team and my lack of will to do "advertisement" on a scale that would bring new contributors. And of course the lack of time due to having a day job again… Thanks a lot, this started as a tool explicitly targeting people who don’t want to mess with any kind of launcher/client, so I am happy to see that it fills this purpose perfectly ;)

Linux distribution: probably Linux Mint as it seems to be geared specifically to home users and even gamers (like that it apparently includes also proprietary codecs and drivers and is not so gung-ho about being a clean open source environment, if it makes the life easier for the end-user), and it is basically Ubuntu without many of the annoyances of Ubuntu, like trying to push snaps to you etc.

Oh, and because I am more familiar with Mint/Ubuntu in home use, than any other distro. If I was to set up a server. there I might choose some RedHat derivative like Oracle Linux or Rocky Linux instead, if not for any other reason but that they are supported for much longer than Ubuntu LTS.

Desktop environment: XFCE or similar light-weight desktop environment that takes little resources and is clean by its design. I mainly use the GUI to launch graphical applications (like games, browsers, VLC etc.), and maybe some file operations that may be easier to perform on GUI than on CLI. I don't need anything fancy with my desktop environment.

Game launcher: Probably Lutris, usually as a fallback solution in case something doesn't work out of the box in WINE but needs some extra tricks, that Lutris already knows so I don't have to seek out and apply those tricks myself. I am not even sure what CentOS is good for nowadays as IBM/RedHat killed CentOS 8, and how the current existing CentOS differs from Fedora.

EDIT: I guess nowadays CentOS Stream sits somewhere between Fedora and RHEL:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/where-fedora-fits-in-the-new-red-hat-centos-stream-linux-world/

If I were to choose a RedHat family Linux for home use, I'd probably go with either Rocky Linux or alternatively Alma Linux, as they seem to be proper successors to CentOS (the earlier CentOS, not Stream), especially Rocky. For me, so far it has been "if something doesn't work out of the box or easily straight from WINE, then I check if Lutris has an entry for that game and whether it works fine with it without further effort from me. If not, then I guess I have to google how to get that game to run on WINE, by manually applying some extra fixes and tricks".

Linux works wonderfully for gaming. The distro doesn't really matter. Each just installs different software by default but you can start with any and install what you want yourself.

For desktop it's basically Plasma or Gnome. I choose Plasma because it's very much like a Windows UI and very customizable.

The easiest way to get games working on Linux is to install Steam (even for non-steam games). Games that you buy from Steam will just work 99% of the time. I've never seen a game not work actually. All you need to do is set the compatibility mode in the game's properties to use Proton (Steam's version of WINE).

For GOG games, I would download the offline installer. Then run the installer with WINE. Then add the game's exe to Steam as a non-steam game and again set the compatibility mode in the game's properties to use Proton and you''re done.

There are many other ways that don't involve Steam. But for a non-tech savy person I believe Steam is the easiest and it can act as your "launcher". But I just make desktop shortcuts for each game and launch each from my desktop.

The new SteamOS 3 (available as Holoiso) is quite competent and effort free way to play games, the bigger downsides are needing Steam of course and not as easy to setup with nVidia cards.

I sporadically used it for a few months before receiving the Deck and was actually a very good experience, I would say it's way better than in the Deck itself.
Wine/DXVK performance is nothing short of amazing (as it should), with very little overhead and minimum latency, the gamepad setup utility is freaking awsome on the Deck but also very handy with any gamepad setup, most games are just plug and play and games availability is really good on Discover (Flatpack repo). Space Cadet Pinball Baby!!!!

There's some qwirks however, like constant changing between Steam DE/Gaming mode) and KDE Plasma/Desktop mode and the system folders are read only. While easy to change it can make some easy tasks quite cumbersome, eg. installing Java for a small aplication I frequently use (there's a newer Electron version but still prefer the old one).
Installing a lot of GOG games manually is also somewhat frustrating, not because its hard but because it's tedious.I don't install a lot of games at the same time but for someone who does, Heroic or similar is recomended.
Also, searching the web for any help from any non-standard stuff is a nightmare and the only place I've usually found some info is Reddit. Most results are from copy-pasta websites with articles on how to turn on and off <- bit of sarcasm here.


With that said, my secondary OS is Linux Mint 18 (yeah it's old, haven't updated in ages) with some installed native games but the real "gaming" OS is Batocera on the living room with two gamepads.

You beat me to it! One question though; does Steam OS still require an AMD setup (CPU and GPU)?

I wish Valve would just make the disto standalone already; a Linux distro that can play nice with Windows games should be an easy sell for any Linux user. It would probably be THE Linux distro to move Windows gamers off of that platform (myself one of them).

Most Intel CPU's and GPU's should work out of the box with Holoiso (modified SteamOS), nVidia seems iffy.

Check the GitHub page of Holoiso