this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Privacy
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I literally only use Windows for video games these days and Steam OS is looking better and better for that.
SteamOS will not be your best option for desktop. Stop waiting for it. It's made for the Deck and console like experiences, not desktop. It's immutable too, which is great for a console experience, but probably not ideal for a desktop user.
Just go download Linux now. There's nothing special in SteamOS that you need. I use Garuda, which is Arch based (which SteamOS is also, if that matters), and has a version specifically designed for gaming. It comes with most of what you could need set up, and a tool to quickly install any packages you may want for additional things like controllers or whatever.
I've been enjoying Fedora Atomic, personally.
Aurora DX (which is based on Fedora atomic) has been the best distro I've used in a long time. Immutable OSes are great for general purpose desktop use! I set up a container for each development environment and never need to worry about conflicting dependencies anymore. But yeah, I wouldn't go with Steam OS for that. Steam works fine on pretty much any modern distro, so I don't see any obvious benefit to using it.
There's pros and cons. I personally don't want an immutable distro, but there are reasons for it. It's especially good for what the Deck is with a large portion of people who probably don't know what they're doing.
What?
https://www.howtogeek.com/what-is-an-immutable-linux-distro/
I know what it is, my question was more at the “not for desktop use”
I think being able to rollback is better for new users
Sure, that is an advantage. There's a lot of advantages. I just don't think it's good for users willing to learn. It's good to make sure the user can't fuck up, but then it also limits what they can do. I think if you've made it here and can use a full OS currently, you should try a non-immutable distro. If it turns out you fuck it up then you can swap to something that'll hold your hand.
Fair enough
Look into bazzite. LTT and Game Foundry have made videos about it too, and they were pleasantly surprised
Pretty much any Linux distro will work for gaming. Some just do more work for you at the beginning. Linux mint, Pop OS, Endeavor, manjaro, etc, you can game on basically any of them. After familiarizing myself I eventually swapped to Arch, but if any of the other distros I mentioned work, and you feel satisfied with it, then stick with it. Its about finding a distro you enjoy and can work around despite it's flaws.
Yeah, some distros just make it easier for the user
Bazzite works wonders for gaming. Nvidia cards are supposedly the one’s you will have to tinker with a bit, but everything besides VR has worked for me without needing to do a thing. Only really needed to install ALVR to get that working which took about 20-30 minutes to get set up.
You can also undervolt, overclock and all that with LACT. I believe it’s installable through the software center too if I’m remembering correctly. It fully supports Nvidia cards now.
VR is indeed a thing that keeps me chained to Windows for now. I spend a lot of time in Visual Pinball VR especially! But it’s not the biggest problem having a dual boot situation and only using Windows for games. Perhaps one day even VR will be doable in Linux and I can abandon Windows entirely. For now, it looks like my gaming sessions are going to be spied on so I better aim to impress. Heh.
Well, from my experience as someone who’s pretty new to Linux, it was very easy to set up as long as you follow the guide on the ALVR website. I had to do that for Oculus. Depending on the headset you have, it may work without needing to install any extra software! Been playing Half Life: Alyx and Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners without any problems.
@CallateCoyote @zdhzm2pgp
I installed Bazzite on my ROG Ally to get rid of Windows. I have a gaming laptop with Windows installed for 3 games that aren't compatible with Linux and that's all it's used for.
I really wish sim racing worked well on Linux. The other stuff I need windows for I can work around or compromise. But the sim rig is just too damn windows dependant
Will it work running in a VM with pass through?
Yeah, I’m big on Visual Pinball VR and I don’t think anybody has that running on Linux.
You can also use wine and other emulators to play games.
I use Debian for video games. Haven't had a problem yet.
Most distros will run games just about the same as any other. No point waiting for SteamOS like it's the golden egg.
I use Mint btw.
Buts its unique Gamescope is hard to recreate
Just install gamescope then
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope
Thats very wrong. Its hard to get just gamescope as Login together with steam and think everything works.
I am unsure what was missing but many people get low fps when doing it by themselves while the steam deck works fine.
I’ve only used it with Heroic and had no issues
No issues doesnt mean there is no difference. Its still not the same at all.
What am I missing that I don’t realize is missing
Seems like, to have the exact same thing, you need to is set this up.
https://github.com/Grimish-ng/steam-gamescope-guide
But idk what my brain really wants. It still feels like the Steam Deck has less issues with ganescope than some people on their hardware. Maybe I also have read that stuttering is solved when using a tty instead of Desktop to put Gamescope on.
I really dont know if you used Gamescope on your Desktop or not. But I also experienced wrong keyboard mappings and inability.
Additionally, on a Desktop, you will have some Latency added but its not noticable.
Doing the same on Ubuntu myself after trying Bazzite for a couple weeks. Bazzite kept messing up SSSD and would prevent me from authenticating with my home domain.
Will definitely try SteamOS once it is fully released.