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Switching to Debian on my gaming pc (lemmy.one)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Hello everyone - I have been wanting to ditch windows on my gaming pc for a while now, and since I have recently finished a large project, I now have the free time to switch. I am relatively comfortable with Debian having used it for a while on my web server as well as school laptop, but I am concerned about using it on my gaming computer since I have heard stock Debian is not the greatest for gaming. All of my other daily driver programs I know will work, so I am mainly concerned with the gaming aspect.

In the case that you don't recommend Debian for my gaming computer, do you have an OS that you would recommend?

I appreciate any insight!

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[–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

I’m using Debian testing + a few packages from experimental (Mesa) and xanmod or liquorix kernel.

It’s been a great experience. Stable as expected, performant as anything else.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    You probably have your reason to run Debian testing but I read somewhere that testing is somehow a bad idea as desktop environment !

    If somehing is stuck and being updated in sid, and bugs are still happening, you could be stuck for month without the correct update in testing.

    Sorry if it's not clear, but I read it somewhere in the official debian documentation.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Hey, I appreciate your warning.

    For a bit of context, I have been a Debian user for almost 30 years now. Mostly using testing for desktop / workstation systems, and stable on servers and containers. Debian is comfortable and provides me with stability where I need and cutting-edge where I want. It mostly "just works" with great defaults for everything, and it's easy to customise where I desire.

    With that out of the way: you're not wrong. In fact, the testing FAQ describes situations where these kinds of breakages could happen.

    That said, this is exceedingly rare if not nearly unheard of, and I can always pull packages from sid or experimental if I need (like I do Mesa).

    Edit to add: for anyone interested in trying out Debian testing, please check out the Wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting

    Edit 2: I have published a blog post describing my setup if you're interested: https://blog.c10l.cc/09122023-debian-gaming

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Thank you for your insights and personal experiences :) I love Debian stable as server, never had any issues on a old Asus laptop ! I have only 2 years of "experience" and started with Ubuntu. Good introduction to linux but switched to Debian (<3)

    That's way I'm asking arround I don't wan't to have a too bad experience with Debian as main personal PC !

    Thank you for your personal blog post and the wiki link :) will surely read through before making my final choice !

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    My desktop has been Debian testing since Jessie. I was inconvenienced a total of 2 times where something broke and made an app unuseable. My KDE menu was fixed within a day and my torrenting app took longer to fix, but I was able to apply a one line fix in the meantime with help from our awesome community.

    I know it's named "testing", but I'd bet it would be very stable for most people's use cases and trade off is absolutely worth it if people would give it a try.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (2 children)

    Do you consider testing a better choice than sid for desktop/gaming environment?

    I'm really not sure which one I should use. I only have experience with bare bone debian stable as server, I'm trying to find the best choice when switching from windaube to debian :)

    Thanks for your insights and personal experiences !

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    To answer that, you must understand how testing works. Packages first are updated in Sid (unstable), then they go to Testing. At a certain point of the release cycle, Testing stops being updated to become the new Stable version. So basically Testing is not constantly updated. Also, security patches don't follow this route: instead, they arrive in Sid first (thanks to the maintainers themselves) and then they get into Stable first (by the Debian team) because Stable has the priority. Only after that, they arrive in Testing.

    Also see this paragraph from the Debian Wiki regarding security:

    Security for testing benefits from the security efforts of the entire project for unstable. However, there is a minimum two-day migration delay, and sometimes security fixes can be held up by transitions. The Security Team helps to move along those transitions holding back important security uploads, but this is not always possible and delays may occur. Especially in the months after a new stable release, when many new versions are uploaded to unstable, security fixes for testing may lag behind.

    Also:

    Compared to stable and unstable, next-stable testing has the worst security update speed. Don't prefer testing if security is a concern.

    My advice to everyone who wants Debian to be more current is to just run Sid (unstable). It's always going to be more secure and up-to date than Testing. Also, it works like a rolling-release distro, i.e. the updates are incremental and constant

    EDIT: whatever you do, read and follow this guide. apt-listbugs and apt-listchanges especially will save your ass constantly

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