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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[–] 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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