My teenage son wants to try a new distro for gaming. Our family has been using pop os for years, but he wants to try something new. The main three I see are

  • nobara (fedora based)
  • garuda (arch based)
  • drauger (ubuntu based)

The machine he’s using is a 2018 Intel nuc. It has a strong processor (core i7) but no discrete graphics. I can’t tell which (if any) of the distros above would be better or worse for his case.

Reading around, it seems like Garuda might be slightly more fiddly. And, Drauger I only saw mentioned in a couple of articles, but not on this forum. Are these impressions correct? Do you have any other advice for us?!

  • WeLoveCastingSpellz@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    6·
    10 months ago

    Gaming? Nobara. It is created and optimized for gaming by Glorious Eggroll, creator of Proton-GE. He is the most knowledgable Person I knpw about Linux gaming and therefore Nobara is the right choice for me.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    10 months ago

    I’m still not sure what he’s trying to achieve by switching. Is he having issues with pop OS? Or does he just want to try something different?

    I would say anything Ubuntu based will be so similar as to not be interesting, so maybe pick something different. Nobara and Garuda are different, but I honestly don’t know what they offer to someone looking to try something new since they essentially do all the config for you. So my recommendation is one of the following:

    • Fedora - most nobara guides should be compatible, but it does require a little effort to get set up (not a ton, just need to install stuff)
    • Tumbleweed - rolling like Arch, but without the upgrade issues; it’s what I use and I think it’s solid
    • Mint Debian edition - should be pretty similar to pop OS since Ubuntu/pop OS is based on Debian, but perhaps different enough to be interesting

    Those are all major distros and thus should have lots of help available online.

  • Bruno Finger@lemm.eeEnglish
    2·
    10 months ago

    I’ve been using Fedora and honestly I’m impressed. Especially since version 39. It’s solid, stable, gaming just works. It requires some initial setup with COPR and installation might not be as straight forward but it’s definitely not hard.

    I may get downvoted but make sure you’re using X11 for now because Xwayland latency is real. Wine on Wayland is around the corner but not there yet. And use Steam from COPR not flatpak. Besides that, in my opinion, it’s a dream setup.

  • mateomaui@reddthat.comEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I’m using Garuda and it’s great. Get the gaming edition distro and it installs most everything you need. Most anything that’s not installed by default is easy to add any time from the setup assistant. It’s simple enough to change the default theme or switch to a different desktop manager.

  • Potajito@feddit.chEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    For me it would be nobara or endevour os. Garuda is too messy imo. I run endeavour, but I don’t know how much gaming is possible on a nuc.