42
Sorry, but which of these distros is right for me? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by ClockworkN@lemmy.world to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'm currently trying to decide between CatchyOS and Nobara.

I'm sorry to be generating another of this kind of conversation as I can see they are getting pretty tedious. But you see I'm finally getting ready to take the plunge and try Linux again (after a brief encounter in the early 2000s).

I'm a gamer and I care a lot about gaming but I'm also a game dev. I need to be able to use Unreal Engine, Blender, Gaea, and other dev tools. My understanding is that something like Bazzite isn't right for me there.

So I've been looking at CatchyOS and Nobara. I've read their documentation and so far leaning toward CatchyOS. But sometimes people say Nobara is easier to use. I am not afraid of a command line, but frankly I don't tinker with my computer for fun. I get in and get what I need set up so I can get back to making things.

So what do you all think?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

Just to really clarify: there is no real performance difference between "gaming" distros and any other one. They just have some stuff pre-installed you can just install yourself. The only real thing you want to be aware of are standard distros vs immutable distros. I would steer clear of immutable until you're more comfortable in general.

All that being said CachyOS (Arch based) is fine, but skip Nobara and just go stock Fedora Gnome or KDE to skip the prepackaged customizations and just get a clean experience.

[-] ClockworkN@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Okay. I'd been hearing that performance gains were essentially immaterial or on a case by case basis, but that the prepacked stuff helps things "just work". For example I like Sim Racing and I use a Fanatec race wheel, I'm hoping that one of these would reduce the hassel with it.

[-] rtxn@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

Fanatec will need an extra kernel module: https://github.com/gotzl/hid-fanatecff

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

They won't help anything materially work "better" let's say. I guess Nobara might have an edge with something like Nvidia drivers being prepackaged in a way that makes them easier to run on first install (it's a big maybe), but the same issues will arise after the fact with Nvidia's drivers, just because the hoops you have to jump through are the same everywhere. That's an Nvidia problem.

[-] jinx@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

those prepackaged nvidia drivers were a lifesaver for me personally. i kept hitting walls trying to get them on fedora.

[-] Nachtara@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

What's the problem with nobara?

[-] vikingtons@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

The primary concern I see expressed about Nobara is that it's maintained by a single person. I'm not sure if that's still true today, however.

this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
42 points (100.0% liked)

Linux Gaming

20431 readers
207 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

No memes/shitposts/low-effort posts, please.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
monolalia@lemmy.world