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best linux distro for gaming ?

Discussion in 'Installing Linux' started by dem, Sep 18, 2014.

  1. dem

    dem Member

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    Hi,

    What is the best linux distro for gaming, mostly steam but also wine based ?

    For a intel i5 with relatively high end ati graphic card. No need for fancy effects on desktop, but game performance, stability, and support for graphic drivers and steam.

    Thanks
  2. booman

    booman Grand High Exalted Mystic Emperor of Linux Gaming Staff Member

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    I'm not a distro hopper or tester, but I really like Mint 17 and openbox desktop.
    You can install all of your games in Cinnamon, but when you are ready to play with some extra performance, log into Openbox and just open Steam.

    Otherwise Ubuntu is great and I've heard Manjaro is another straight-forward distro.

    I have played with Peppermint a few times, but never tried any games. Its easy to install and setup.
    Its based off of Mint (which is based off of Ubuntu based off of Debian), so you can run anything that Mint and Ubuntu can run.
  3. dem

    dem Member

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    Thanks

    Is openbox complex to install ? And once installed, is it difficult to use ? It's for my brother who wants a simple to use gaming pc.

    For now I installed him ubuntu 14 (unity) but I messed the system a bit, because I had problems with some games (see my other topics). SO I'd like to install a new fresh system.
  4. booman

    booman Grand High Exalted Mystic Emperor of Linux Gaming Staff Member

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    Easy to install. Just use your software manager or synaptics package manager and search for Openbox
    Once installed, log off and then switch to Openbox and login.
    Yes, its very hard to use because its "bare bones" desktop.
    No menu's, no buttons, nothing!
    Just right click and select Terminal, then type Steam
  5. dem

    dem Member

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    I don't think it's somehing for my brother, then !

    A xfce based OS should be easier, probably xubuntu, I'm using it on my laptop already. Even if I'm not sure it will dramatically boost his pc performances (i5 4670K on msi gaming motherboard)
  6. mrdeathjr28

    mrdeathjr28 Active Member

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    Most problems stay in graphic card, ATI/AMD dont have good relationship with wine

    However you could try propietary drivers, normally gives more performance however dont have same performance and compatibility as nvidia

    :)
  7. dem

    dem Member

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    I installed the proprietary drivers from PPAs, and I installed lubuntu, it seems to work correctly now.

    My brother paid about 150euros last year (or 2 years ? Cant remember) and he's not ready to buy a new one for now, so I had to find workarounds.
  8. mrdeathjr28

    mrdeathjr28 Active Member

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    New nvidia has very good ratio tdp/performance, maybe in october launch GTX960 (may be this card works in your case if want upgrade card for this date)

    :)
  9. Aryvandaar

    Aryvandaar Active Member

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    I would highly recommend Manjaro because it's rolling release and it has this built into (or any other distro using this scheduler) kernels: http://algo.ing.unimo.it/people/paolo/disk_sched/

    It notably increases performance on for example SSD.

    Of course, if you set up your own kernel you can do this in any distro.
  10. Gizmo

    Gizmo Chief Site Administrator Staff Member

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    Fedora is mediocre in my experience. The biggest hassle is getting the nVidia drivers fully loaded on a 64-bit system so that everything plays well with the 32-bit stuff in Wine.
  11. dem

    dem Member

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    Since my brother upgraded his PC, I think I'll reinstall ubuntu 14LTS, it's the simpliest way for him, as a beginner.

    Perhaps later, once steamOS will be released, we'll swap to this new OS.
  12. booman

    booman Grand High Exalted Mystic Emperor of Linux Gaming Staff Member

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    That should work fine. You can always install another desktop manager or just use Gnome 2D instead.

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