I have just watched this video and in it 2 things are said that made my Linux newbie heart sink:
- Debian 13 is not going to get the latest versions of Nvidia drivers and there are better distros for us.
- Debian in general is not meant to run on the latest hardware.
I am on a regularly upgraded desktop tower gaming PC and currently I have an Nvidia card and an Intel CPU (which, I know, even just because of the mobo chipset is not a great choice).
In this conditions and wanting to invest even more in gaming and new hardware in the future, what should I run on, instead of LMDE 6?
Debian is awesome. For servers. For desktop I would use something else that pushes updates more frequently.
My personal opinion ofcourse, use what you like!
I have to agree, rolling release distributions are the greatest recent development in desktop linux because they make the surface area for updates small (fewer packages more frequently, so if something breaks you have fewer places to look). Immutable distros make reverting a bad update foolproof.
I ran bazzite for a while but then my work changed their VPN endpoints to use oauth, which didn’t work on the openvpn2 version available. I switched back to Fedora (which updates pretty frequently, just not constantly) so I could install and use openvpn3. I’m sure I could have figured out a way to get it running by patching it into ostree, but that felt a bit like breaking the rules.
Debian is the underpinning for all of my homelab gear.
Yours is the first comment in this thread that didn’t make me want to simultaneously upvote and downvote.
Pika… pika pi!
Pika… PikaOS?
Pika pi, pi ka, pi chyuu, pika ¡pi! pika chyuu.
Pika pika pi chyu chyu pika pi?
Translation:
Hey! If you like Debian, but want something a bit more cutting edge…
Have you heard of PikaOS?
Roughly, PikaOS is to Debian as Nobara is to Fedora.
Also, I am hungry, can you spare an onigiri?
For fastest hardware support, you will want a rolling distribution like Arch (requires a do-it-yourself attitude) or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed (complete out of box, but some quirks, like missing codecs requires manual work). Fedora also has decent new hardware support, not rolling so not as good, but same problem as OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. You can also consider derivitives like CachyOS (Arch, but has a nice installer).
Ubuntu and Linux Mint have OK new hardware support. Twice a year they release new “hardware enablement upgrades” to bring new support.
And worst is Debian. They don’t do hardware ennoblement upgrades at all. It’s something you have to do yourself by using backports. They bring new hardware enablement by default with new releases every 2 years.
If you want something stable but up-to-date, Fedora is a very good option. Plus it has a bunch of “Spins”. The two main ones are Gnome and KDE Plasma, but there is a bunch more, and they’re all officially supported.
Then there’s also Arch. Arch should not be considered stable, but anecdotally I’ve not heard many problems with it in the past few years, so you’d probably be fine. I’d go with EndeavourOS or CatchyOS if you want Arch without the tedious setup process.
Stable doesn’t mean “won’t crash”, or that there’s any guarantee that there are less problems. It just means that there won’t be any big changes during the distro’s lifecycle.
That might mean it crashes less since you won’t see much in terms of new features, or it might mean you have to live with a very annoying bug for a few years because the package maintainers didn’t want to back port the fix for whatever reason.
Just remember to check archlinux.org before system updates.
Debian is like that. Mature. The point releases are thoroughly tested for reliability, but the cost is that they can’t include bleeding edge software in the middle of the release cycle. The “stable” branch (currently Trixie) is always lagging behind, and the “testing” branch (Forky, next in line to become “stable”) will be frozen long before it is released.
You might want to try a rolling release distro. Arch Linux or something based on it (EndeavourOS, Garuda, CachyOS), or Debian Sid (the unstable branch).
Try any suse favours, it will surprise you.
I am on the rolling distro (tumbleweed) and it is surprisingly stable, the only time it broke was because of a new Nvidia driver release. But it came with a rollback feature and 2 daya later everything was fixed.
Honestly, just because you can not use debian shouldn’t be any major problem in a modern pc
I would recommend Nobara, Bazzite or PopOS for gaming; My personal experience with Debian is that it’s a great OS, but the focus lies less on cutting edge features or support of the latest hardware, and more on stability over everything else, and the desktop environment is more of an convenience feature - Debian is very happy as a headless server. If you want an OS with record setting uptimes, pick Debian; but for gaming you want to be on the cutting edge, and that’s simply not the case with Debian.
If you want to keep up with newer hardware and software and get the best performance out of your games, you’ll want to use a distro with faster updates.
I’ve been using Nobara on my gaming computer for about 2 years and it’s been pretty good, I get great performance in all my games.
Are you a huge fan of Debian as a base? And what Desktop environment/window manager do you prefer?
Debian is a good stable distro but I personally wouldn’t recommend it for desktop home users. There are debian derivatives that do use it as a base and offer more up to date packages.
There are also lots of alternatives that are dedicated rolling release or more frequently updated point release distros.
I often recommend Linux Mint as a good first distro. It’s got a big user base, so lots of support online, and it’s based off Ubuntu which itself is based off Debian, so has a wide range of software already packaged for it. Once you know what you want / like from Linux you could move on or stick with Mint if you like it.
I used to use Mint but I wanted to switch to KDE. You can install KDE with Mint but things are a little janky as the core mint tools are really built for Cinnamon (and GTK). I moved to OpenSuSE Tumbleweed 2+ years ago and like it. I’ve also used Nobara on another device - it’s decent buf have moved away from it after some update issues. Regardless there is a lot of choice out there.
But I’d recommend starting with Mint as a good stable but updatable option. You can use Mint and add in cutting edge Nvidia drivers with relative ease for example.
I would not start with Arch as some others are recommending. It’s a good distro but it’s an involved manual set up and can require a lot of troubleshooting. I’d recommend picking something that is a simpler install and get used to Linux basics first before venturing into distros like Arch.
I run on debian-testing otherwise my resolution sucked. On newish AMD cpu and GPU.
I would recommend Linux Mint for stable general purpose, or Bazzite as I see other people recommend it for more gaming oriented until SteamOS 3.0 comes out for desktop PC’s
I ran mint (non debian) on older hardware for years and loved it mostly.
Upgraded everything in march and realised i needed newer kernel newer mesa. I could of installed from certain ppa’s but hey 12-13 years on one distro i fancied a change.
Kde took some learning (does one need all those settings) but hey functional hardware is the goal and the goal was met. Like graphics tablet i had to mess with modprobe and .sh files just works magnificently.
I can’t compare performance as 8 thread to 24 thread i do not see a fair comparison.
Leaving the comfort zone i think made me understand more about linux and that is very good.
First of all, no, youre not a noob, the corrent Name for people who contradict their own statements in less than 2 minutes of reading their Text (first you say you run Debian, them you say you are running Mint, which are completely different distros), is A stupid dummy dummy dumb dumb. (Seriously, .ml mods, you either let me say the R word, or you insta block such braindead clumps of biomass)
Second, LMDE still has newer packaged than vanilla Debian, afaik
Third, did you not take a single look at debians Home page, before installing something you yourself call Debian? It literally States that it is a „Stable OS”.
Fourth, if you dont want to overwork your single braincell, just use flatpaks. They already have their own drivers in their Sandbox, so you should be fine.
You use Arch, btw.
Asking the others, since I don’t think you are up for a conversation with me: is it a wild guess to imagine that the high chance to receive this kind of comments is the reason why Linux doesn’t have a wider penetration on the consumer market?
I know the alternative of a call center slave from India for Microsoft is not exactly the most appealing, but anything is better than this, in my opinion.
I am in since a few months, as stated in one of the comments, and it is already the 4th or 5th time I get someone responding in this way.
For the most part its because most people who are in such Forums know way more about Linux than the Indian call center, and would much more like to think about real questions, such as actual comparisons between software and specific appliances.
The Questions you are asking had already been answered hundreds of times in other threads. There are whole megathreads about these Questions.
People have thrown hundreds of hours into writing Wiki pages so you can choose what distribution is for you based on literal essays, if not even longer, detailing the exact philosophy of every distribution, what it is for, what it isn’t for, and what to expect from it.
Yet you choose to disregard those works from people, instead deciding to ask for yet another Tl;Dr, because you just can’t be bothered to type your Question into searXng or Reddit or Kagi or even frickin’ ChatGPT, which would all be able to answer it.
No, not even that. You can’t even be bothered to do the bare minimum and offer actual information to the people trying to help you in their free time, making them have to painfully dig through your pile of horsecrap until they even understand what it is you want help with.
I’ll just use AI next jfc, talk to a therapist.
