What linux distro works best with steam and its games?

[SANIC]

Personally I think that it would be Ozon OS but I am interested to see others opinions.

[thetargos]

Which ever suits you... For me it has been Fedora, alas Valve only officially supports Ubuntu and SteamOS

[Katrina Bekers]

Originally posted by Maleko:

I wonder what exactly they've done in terms of optimization towards gaming that other distros don't have or can't do.

Unsure about Ozon, but a good deal of kernel parameters available only at compile time favor desktop or server usage.

For example, the critical HZ/NO_HZ choice, or all the various auditing, accounting and debugging kernel options, can have a pretty serious impact on how responsive/manageable the kernel is.

Often, generic distro prefer the slower, stabler config setup, to accomodate for a larger range of uses. Gamers can take advantage of a more responsive kernel, at the price of other features.

/boot/config* /proc/config.gz etc. are good places to start reading how your own kernel is built, and if you can squeeze a bit more performance out of it by recomipling your own version.

No need to say it: YMMV. :)

[cedara2]

It certainly depends on what you prefer. What's definite is that you need a decent graphics card, imho, and lots of RAM, otherwise, whatever game you choose, your game would still lag.

Personally, I use a medium nvidia graphics card and 8gig of RAM, which works for what I want, however, if I were to play games that need a faster response time, I would need a high-end nvidia card.

[SANIC]

Originally posted by Maleko:

Well I tried OzonOS in a virtual machine to check the kernel version.

uname -r
3.18.7-200.fc21

Seems like a normal Fedora kernel.

It is based on fedora. Mostly the reason why I like it is because its vastly easy to use and has a ton of great features even a new linux user could easily get the hang of.

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Archlinux is another popular distribution for gaming. I use Antergos, an Arch-based distro that is easy to setup and comes pre-configured. Arch is a bleeding-edge distribution meaning that the latest stable packages land there. The advantage is no software stays outdated for long but the downside is sometimes major OS updates can cause breakage but it's generally rare (Arch is very stable for the most part) and it's possible to downgrade to the previous cached package versions until problems are fixed upstream in those rare instances.

Steam runs fine on it as well... you just might have to run this command from time to time to remove a few conflicting libraries:

find ~/.steam/root/ \( -name "libgcc_s.so*" -o -name "libstdc++.so*" -o -name "libxcb.so*" \) -print -delete

Or... create a shortcut launcher script with this code:

LD_PRELOAD='/usr/$LIB/libstdc++.so.6 /usr/$LIB/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/$LIB/libxcb.so.1' steam

A small number of games might have minor issues in Arch (and likely some other distros) but solutions to these are mentioned here:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Steam/Game-specific_troubleshooting

[ogrobastard]

I always looked for a lightweight distro, with low hardware requirements and more efficiency. Since not all notebooks are suited for gaming, if you have a medium quality product I would recommend Lubuntu.

[Chris11B]

The best OS for gaming in general would be any distro that can be strip to only essentials.

[Dreadnought]

Ubuntu or Mint seem to work pretty good. Depending on your spec, XFCE is a good DE that's light enough to not get in the way of the games when it comes to resource use.

[76561198070159667]

cool

[Toquita]

That really depends on the distro.

Debian, although stable, has outdated video drivers that might not give you the performance you're looking for, specially if you're like me and use an AMD card.
There are Testing and Unstable releases of Debian but they're problematic. Testing is the least secure of all 3, and Sid breaks a lot more than it should.

Ubuntu might be OK for most cases, though remember that it's made by a company who broke it's own social contract by advertising proprietary software on Software Center, and installs spyware by default, that sends everything you type on the dash to Amazon: a company associated with DRM, backdoors, and employee mistreatment.
Non-LTS releases of Ubuntu break a lot too, though not as bad as Debian Sid.

Mint is, in most cases, a "better Ubuntu", fixing most of Ubuntu's crap, but by default it install non-free packages and also FlashPlayer which is a huge privacy problem.

OpenSUSE is better than all of these 3 regarding video drivers, but it's repositories are a complete mess and you may never know who's behind "packman".

Gentoo is the distro that gives you the most control of your system. However, it can literaly take weeks just to compile your system.

Arch is, well, perfect :D Bleeding edge software, no big upgrades every 6 months or 2 years (you only install your system once), better software integration in some cases, tight community, better grsecurity support.

Arch gives you a very good ammount of control over your system, you can even decide not to install Xorg, for example. In this regard Arch is like Gentoo, with the advantage of not having to compile everything from source.

Also, unlike Debian/Ubuntu/OpenSUSE, on Arch you can easily unninstall a package that is a dependencie for another package, without unninstalling the dependant package. You need file-roller but don't want the other GNOME crap? No problem.

Not to mention that pacman (Arch package manager) install programs 10x faster than any other package manager out there.

I didn't experience a single critical system problem in the 3 years that I've been using Arch. Two of the three problems I've encountered where about VirtualBox (the package "virtualbox-host-modules" was updated a few days later than "virtualbox", but it could easily be installed from the Testing repo).

The other one was about a lvm problem, but it didn't prevent me from booting at all. Here's the thread I created at the time: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=178058

[Toquita]

Originally posted by Maleko:

What they did with Unity [sucks, but] only applies if you use Unity. You could go with Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu, GNOME or Mate editions, or Ubuntu minimal and install w/e DE you want.

That might be true if you actually trust Canonical, which I don't. Once "something" loses my trust it's nearly impossible to regain it back.

Originally posted by Maleko:

Since we're all using Steam and playing proprietary games, complaining about proprietary software on the Software Center is a moot point.

Not, it's not. I didn't make any social contract to anybody. And if I do such contract and also break it then all the blame is on me.

Originally posted by Maleko:

And there was never any Canonical/Ubuntu "social contract" - it's Debian that has a social contract:

Yes there is. I can't find the link now because it's not even on their main page anymore (Canonical is stealthly moving it so most people don't notice), but I'll find it somewhere.

Originally posted by Maleko:

Other than the Cinnamon DE what did Mint fix about "Ubuntu's crap" ? Every Ubuntu based distro that doesn't use Unity would be the same here, right?

Wrong. I still remember that back in 2012 I installed NVIDIA's proprietary driver in Ubuntu 12.10, and after rebooting I was presented with a tty1. Why? Because aparently Ubuntu developers "forgot" to mark the Kernel Headers to be installed along with the drivers. So much for a newbie friendly distro, huh?
And if that's their attidude towards things that would come obvious if they actually tested the freaking packages they push out, than I can't imagine what more serious packages are like, such as the Network-stack or encryption drivers.

Originally posted by Maleko:

As for Flash, I would say it is more a security issue than a privacy issue on Linux.

Flash has a ton of privacy problems, the most notable to are tracking cookies and device fingerprinting.

Originally posted by Maleko:

t should be optional during the installation process in Mint

Flash is dying. It's a mess, it's privacy-enemy, it's probably on the top worse security holes list, and should not be even option. Even Google and Apple are in the process of getting rid of it.

[Toquita]

Did you really thought I'd take a huge ammount of time to respond you? I have better things to do than trying to flame with an Ubuntu fan-tard, thanks.

Originally posted by Maleko:

You'd make better arguements if you hadn't praised Linux Mint and said that they "get rid of Ubuntus crap" or make a "better Ubuntu".

I didn't praise Mint. Mint has it's problems too, like: their store usually crashes and this causes your packages (that were being installed) to get broken sometimes; or their Kernel security updates, or including non-free software by default, etc.

But overall Mint is a much more pleasant experience than Ubuntu, because most of Ubuntu's problems (here referred as "crap") aren't present there.

Originally posted by Maleko:

In reality any Ubuntu based distro that doesn't use Unity can be just as good as Mint in that respect.

If they also fix most of Ubuntu's crap, sure.

Originally posted by Maleko:

And you did not really refute my point about that,

Refute what, exactly? That Ubuntu is crap? It is for a good part, at least according to my Linux experience. Ubuntu is so bad sometimes that even Windows doesn't crash that often. And I'm gonna point out that my word isn't "universal" as you might think. Don't take it personal, if your experiece is different than that's fine by me (a lesson to be learned by some).

Originally posted by Maleko:

you just stated Ubuntu 12.10 had issues with Nvidia drivers as if that is relevant.

LOL, this is comedy fun right here.

So, for a distro that is knwon for being "easy for newbies", not marking the kernel headers to be installed with the drivers isn't a relevant thing? This just shows how their team screw things up! This just goes to show how their testing can be a real piece of crap, and if that's the situation for video drivers (something that, again, should come obvious to any DUMMY, if they actually tested things), I can't imagine how other more important things are handled.

Originally posted by Maleko:

For one thing 12.10 is end of lifed, but even when it was new it was almost universally criticized as one of the worse releases for Ubuntu, even by Ubuntu fans. So most people stayed on 12.04 LTS or waited for 13.04 / 13.10 etc.

Exactly, because Ubuntu these days is pretty much a hit-and-miss situation: nobody will ever known how the next release is going to be like.

Ubuntu was good only untill 2008-2010. Up to that point Ubuntu was an actual good distro.

Originally posted by Maleko:

All Mint did with their Ubuntu version is provide Cinnamon as a DE and hold certain updates back by default.

Not really. I tested Ubuntu 12.10 video driver installation and then went to see how Mint was doing with their related release, and it worked beautifully over there.

Originally posted by Maleko:

Since you can do that in Ubuntu itself I fail to see how that is "a better Ubuntu"

I can see that.

Originally posted by Maleko:

If you are using the Ubuntu based Mint that is still putting some trust in Canonical. So either you trust them or you don't. But don't praise Ubuntu-based Mint and shame Ubuntu just because of Unity specific issues. That's kind of giving Mint too much credit and taking away credit from other Ubuntu-based distros that don't use Unity.

hehehehe. I see I really touched a nerve there.

Not only you put false words in my mouth (symptom of a butthurt) but I can see you're actually mad about this. Such a shame.

Yes, using Ubuntu-based Mint is still trusting Canonical a bit, and that's one of the reasons I don't use Mint. But if I did, I'd be on a much more stable system than if I was using Ubuntu.

And no, I didn't praise Mint, I just said they correct most of Ubuntu's crap (mistakes) and that it makes for a much more desirable experience.

Originally posted by Maleko:

Again, non-free software isn't an issue to people who use Steam and play proprietary games, and Flash is optional in Mint, not forced onto you.

It is to mee, specially if the proprietary software spies on the user and is a big security hole. The only non-free software I use is Steam and my graphics card driver (Catalyst) because I need it's OpenCL for work, work that I should be doing instead of explaining myself to someone who will probably distort my words again and feel butthurt about his favorite little system (and will probably start with Ad Hominem next).

The Flash/proprietary software point about Mint is that it all comes as default. I don't like that. If I do want to install a software, be it Free or non-Free, I want to have the choice of doing so like I do on Arch, I like to have control over what is "defaulty" installed and that doesn't happen in 95% of distros out there.

Originally posted by Maleko:

It's optional in many other distros too, even Manjaro which is based on Arch.

it wasn't option untill last year since the last time I tested Mint 17.

And Manjaro is a problem too when it comes to proprietary software. I remember it comming with Skype and/or Chrome?
There is allegedly a GNU Manjaro ISO, which I tried, but it's overly complicated when trying to install it with custom encryption options and therefore it's not an advantage over Arch.

In fact, Manjaro's only advantage over Arch is the easy installation, but the meaning of "advantage" in this case is very subjective.

Originally posted by Maleko:

You can insist there was a "social contract" where Canonical promised to never include non-free software but I'm fairly certain you are confused between Debian and Ubuntu on that one.

No, I'm not. There is a social contract (which they broke), but like I said, Canonical is making it really hard for people to find it. I don't remember where I found it, but it probably was in the PRISM-break website or related. There is a link to this Canonical's social contract in their site somewhere.

Originally posted by Maleko:

Even if they *used to* state something like that, they don't anymore so maybe they took it down once they started to include non-free software in their Software Center, that's possible.

Exactly, one more reason not to trust them.

[Toquita]

Originally posted by Maleko:

Originally posted by Linux Junior s2 Camila:

Did you really thought I'd take a huge ammount of time to respond you? I have better things to do than trying to flame with an Ubuntu fan-tard, thanks.

No, I just thought you would respond in a more civil or mature manner. Clearly I was wrong. End of discussion.

My bad. It's just that I'm really busy lately and I really couldn't take a good ammount of time to respond to all your inconsistencies with huge replies.

[Toquita]

Originally posted by Maleko:

Except you did reply to my comment with what is probably the longest post thus far in the discussion and you also started it off by name calling and insulting. If you are busy then don't reply at all. I really don't care about you or your life but if you are going to reply to my comments at least show the same respect that is given.

Usually I take 1 hour to give a good response, but I couldn't do it this time. So the response you may think is long is actually just a warm-up :P

And I agree, I shouldn't have called you by names. I apologized already, so please don't keep pressing the same key on your keyboard. Just move on ;)

[Toquita]

Well, an hour isn't the time I take for a normal response in which I just read, think, and write. Rather, it's for replies that have hundreds of lines, links, etc.

ButI'm offtopic and I'll stop it right now.