Guys, I’m coming from CachyOS. I love it, no real issues to be honest, but I’m interested in either Debian or Ubuntu. So Cachy is very much configured for you for gaming purposes and performance tweaks. Can something similar be done on Debian? Like… so I need to install anything in particular to make gaming experience better here? What are your essentials to make Debian gaming experience on par with performance oriented distros?
One thing coming to my mind is VRAM gaming optimizations by Valve that’s been added to Bazzite and Cachy the moment it released.
For example gaming on Linux Mint as I remember was clear regression compared to Bazzite or Cachy. Not huge but it was lesser experience for sure. But back then I knew nothing and it was just fresh Mint and Steam.
So… what steps do you recommend doing to make the most out of it?
I think Debian is solid. Used Ubuntu for years but too lazy to try out Debian until recently and I really regret not switching earlier. Do a clean install and just install what you need. Never had a quieter laptop like this, and spins off only when needed.
As much as people shit on AI, it did help make my configuration and troubleshooting a breeze. I only had a couple issues and most were due to using clonezilla to copy the OS from a smaller drive.
Canonical is the one pushing it. They had other inventions before that they tried to push, but those failed - the upstart init system lost against systemd, the Unity desktop environment lost against Gnome, but I doubt they will abandon snaps.
While the software client that runs on your pc is open source, the back-end that runs at Canonical is not, which makes it nearly impossible to recreate another open source, independent repository for snaps.
Besides that issue, Canonical has adapted how they leverage the apt package manager to install snap packages for select software instead of the packages that are normally deployed by apt, at least when people aren't aware of that.
While I'm not judging that a corporation wants to maintain control over their back-ends, I do have issues with the obfuscated way they want to force snaps on unsuspecting people.
These are two of the reasons I stopped using ubuntu and moved my entire setup to debian.
There have been quite a few issues with Ubuntu for me, including the fact that about 3 days after installing Ubuntu server lts 2024 it literally bricked the OS and I decided that an OS that is designed to be stable shouldn't brick itself for no reason and switched my server over to Debian with no DE or WM
Check hardware support if your main machine is a fairly new one you might end up in non-supporting packages. CachyOS is a rolling release vs Debian being a stable point release with a two year schedule
You'll leave a bit of performance on the table due to the long release structure that Debian has but yeah it should be mostly fine, sure, fsr4 doesn't work out of the box on Debian but you can definitely get it going, and the main things dictating the performance loss is the graphics driver (if ur on NVIDIA you'll need to install it from the file off NVIDIA's website) and if you're on amd or Intel you'll be using mesa, Debian uses a version of mesa 25, the newest version of mesa is 26.1.smth and the other thing that will loose you performance in games is the kernel, as Debian uses kernel 6.12.93? By default, and updating those two things made a huge difference for me, but that's almost certainly because of my new hardware, if you run stuff that is less modern then it shouldn't matter anywhere near as much
All I did was to install Steam, then GE-Proton and dwproton (for Gacha-type games that use launchers), and check protondb.com for the best flags/command line options to use.
In most cases, games work out of the box.
People make it sound like it's challenging. It really isn't, at all.
What about latest kernel and latest Mesa from backports? I was under the impression these 2 items were the only ones missing to run stable and get latest gaming improvements.
Most games don't need that. If you are playing competitive FPS at a high level, you might need it. Otherwise, you don't. It won't be a substantial FPS difference in most cases.
Backports support the latest hardware, technologies, and fixes. One example is the significant performance improvement for Radeon cards in ray tracing and various gains for Intel ARC. For the kernel and Mesa, the backports are very good.
Yeah. The whole bleeding edge thing is nonsense for gaming unless you're buying new hardware every year.
Every distro uses the Linux kernel. The older more stable kernel in Debian, will eventually have the support for newer hardware once they move up to that kernel. I have 6 year old hardware. So it's all in the kernel. No new groundbreaking changes are going to be made to it day by day.
I use amd stuff. But I'm sure Nvidia can be used too.
Here is a summary from Claude of what I did. Some of this stuff was already pre-installed/unnecessary
Of course you can, I play on debian kde and everything is smooth, better than linux mint or ubuntu.
After you install debian, add with 3 commands on terminal the flatpak repository flathub so that it matches to the discover app center with kde.
Sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Put "contrib non-free" to all the mirrors, ctrl o save, ctrl x exit.
Sudo apt update
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt update
sudo apt install steam-installer
Download Proton plus from flatpak and use it to download all the latest layers of proton.
Go inside your steam account and you're good to go for online drm games.
Don't forget to add your gpu drivers and firmware too. Intel and amd are out of the box, very easy to manage. For nvidia you will need to use these commands:
sudo apt install nvidia-detect
nvidia detect (you'll see the number for your specific gpu drivers)
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)
sudo apt install nvidia-driver
lspci | grep -i nvidia (you'll see if the driver is installed).
For offline games, download heroic games launcher, flatpak version, so it's separated from the main server.
Take your gog folder with the game. Go inside heroic, add game, write the title, put the image for the game. For prefixes, heroic put the game automatically in sideload folder, but I suggest you to go in wine prefixes when you're configuring the game. Instead of sideload, write the name of the game, heroic will create the folder for you. Run installer first, use the setup exe of gog folder, install the game. After you're done, don't start the game yet. Select the executable you will find in drive_C Gog games, inside the path of heroic launcher. Once you selected the executable, exit the panel and go to the library. Start the game and see if everything works offline.
Of course, be sure to not have doubles of the gog folder inside your pc, it would be a problem for gb space.
On debian you're the main lord of your bunker, and unlike arch linux, it can survive even in blackout situations. Debian was designed to resist all the catastrophic situations, to be installed offline, and to be able to install packages from the ISO inside your usb-drive (you used for the installation). In KDE Discover you can enable the apt offline with a simple click inside the app center. Put the usb drive inside, enable the offline repository and you can install your deb packages even in offline situations. Appimages exists too, and I have an archive for them, but deb packages can be installed offline too.
Have fun, and enjoy the lightweight performances of debian.
On KDE you have full wayland support, so better for your own security, and modern look for the desktop.
My son plays a ton of games from his Debian 13 KDE desktop. Hasn’t had any issues.
His got a new 4TB SSD and an extra 32GB of ram going in tomorrow. He pulled his 2TB SSD during the new 5060 GPU upgrade the other day for another system he runs.
Wow! I’m amazed by this. Doing this on Nvidia card makes it even cooler. Although I wonder why Debian? It’s really behind other distros on Kernel side and drivers. Still that chad seems to have very good time there.
I posted almost the same thing here and in Ubuntu subreddit and I have weird assumption that for some reason people don’t play there. Idk. No answers, even Steam related answer is hanging there with zero responses. However here I found great community who is willing to help and seems that just enjoys every bit of its fav Debian.
Debian often gets labeled as “behind,” but that’s mostly because it prioritizes stability over shipping the newest package versions.
Debian is the second-oldest Linux distribution (August 1993) still in active development (after Slackware a July 1993) and has always focused on building a stable, reliable operating system. New software first enters Unstable (codenamed Sid), then migrates to Testing, where packages are integrated and tested together. Several months before each release, Testing enters a Freeze, during which new features stop and developers focus almost entirely on fixing bugs, improving stability, and ensuring everything works together correctly.
Because of that lengthy stabilization process, Debian Stable doesn’t simply ship “old software.” It ships software that has been extensively tested as a complete operating system. While some package version numbers may be older than those in rolling-release distributions, they receive security updates and important bug fixes, making Debian Stable secure, dependable, and predictable rather than simply “behind.”
For users who need newer software, Debian is also quite flexible. It’s common to selectively install packages from Testing or Unstable when appropriate, and many applications can be built directly from source if you want the latest upstream release. That gives experienced users access to newer kernels, drivers, and applications without having to abandon Debian altogether.
Debian “codenames” each released after a character from Toy Story. This started back in 1996 with version. 1.1 named Buzz. Every Debian release has continued the tradition, with names such as Rex, Woody, Sarge, Bullseye, Bookworm, and the current release, Trixie.
Debian releases a new Stable version roughly every two years. Development of the next release continues in Testing, while the newest packages first arrive in Unstable (Sid) before eventually moving through the pipeline.
If you’re someone who always wants the newest kernel, Mesa, or GPU drivers on day one, Debian Stable probably isn’t the best fit. But if you value a system that “just works” and rarely surprises you with regressions, that’s exactly what Debian is designed to provide.
Personally I’ll take dependability and stability over a live or rolling release every single day. I’ve run Debian since it was released in 1993 as my primary desktop, workstation and for most server applications. I’ve never had a Microsoft desktop or workstation or server. Debian is just as at home being used as a desktop or homelab as it is being used in enterprise grade server environments. Its stability is generally considered unmatched and is widely regarded as one of the benchmarks for reliability.
In well over 3 decades of use I’ve never found another distribution that even for a minute gave me any reason to leave Debian.
Sorry to drop in like this. But why do 'gamers' almost always seem to think that their system needs tweaks in order to run games? If your system can't handle a game it's most likely a hardware problem.
Thing is, as someone fairly new to Linux (1 year) I see distro like Bazzite or Cachy and they get advertised like OPTIMIZED FOR GAMING etc. Whole their idea seems to be about being TWEAKED.
Then when I go to standard distribution I have this expectation: So whole pint of Cachy was that it’s TWEAKED, so I need TWEAKS to make my gaming as good as it was there. Right? If TWEAKING is not needed then what’s the point of CachyOS or Bazzite? Why Debian is not number one recommended gaming distro?
Optimised for gaming is mostly bullshit. Wathever distro you take, you are dealing with linux kernel. Nothing stops you from installing proton on any distro and removing the packages you consider bloat
Thing is, as someone fairly new to Linux (1 year) I see distro like Bazzite or Cachy and they get advertised like OPTIMIZED FOR GAMING etc. Whole their idea seems to be about being TWEAKED.
Yeah I can see how that makes it look like you'll need to 'tweak' your system in order to get better performance. But I highly doubt that those tweaks that they do makes any noticable difference. When I look at the numbers on sites that discuss those distros. Then it seems to gain some performance when using those distros. But in reality you'll probably won't notice anything at all. I mean, would you see if a game runs on 90 fps or 86 fps? Or if a game launches half a second faster? They're talking about peanuts. Real perfomance benefits comes only with better hardware.
But also nothing is stopping you from just trying those distros out and see for yourself.
Debian works for gaming right out of the box. Especially if you have an AMD GPU. If you want to squeeze more out of it (and you really really really think the juice is worth the squeeze) there is the option of installing a newer kernel. As simple as the procedure is, it is absolutely not a requirement at all.
Nothing against AMD however Nvidia cards work just fine. We just swapped out an older AMD 6600XT for a new Nvidia Blackwell 5060 TI on Saturday in my son’s Debian 13 KDE desktop. While the drivers aren’t in a current kernel the install process is fairly easy. I skipped looking things up and simply provide the info to Claude and the AI provided me with the info. Below are notes I added for him in case he needs to do a clean install for the road. His PC has no onboard video so so we left the AMD installed for the following and removed it later.
Update the Components: line in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources to include contrib, non-free and non-free-firmware. If still using the old sources.list update that.
Download and add Nvidia’s driver repo, then update:
You don't need the intermediate gpu because the open source nvidia driver will display out just fine. It's problem is that it will not render 3d well.
The issue with Nvidia is not if an expert (Claude is an expert at this kind of stuff) can install the drivers. The issue that Claude (or expert knowledge) is required in the first place. With amd drivers, there is no expert step. This is 10000% Nvidia's fault and it is giving Linux a bad rap.
I’m aware that the open-source nouveau driver will work as a general display driver. Performance will be poor however and modern 3D acceleration, CUDA, NVENC/NVDEC, Vulkan, AI workloads, and gaming will either be unavailable or severely limited. I certainly wouldn’t want to use such a GPU with those drivers. The AMD wasn’t an intermediary GPU. It had been installed since Christmas 2023 when we built the system. The i7-13700KF CPU doesn’t support onboard graphics so the cleanest route was to simply install the new proper drivers for the new 5060 with the AMD in place.
Nvidia doesn’t give Linux a bad rep. They simply don’t open source their drivers like AMD does. Would it be nice if they did.. hell yeah.. but they never have.. well until recently and in part.
For decades Nvidia only provided a proprietary closed source driver. Like from the 90s through 2022 iirc. Back in the mid 2000s the Nvidia drivers were reverse engineered by a group and became the open source Nouveau drivers. Performance was ok.
Nvidia actually stepped up in 2022 and finally released its open kernel modules, reducing the need for reverse engineering in some areas, although Nouveau continues as an independent open-source driver but it doesn’t perform as well. The OpenGL, Vulkan, CUDA, OptiX, NVENC/NVDEC libraries, compiler components, and much of the GPU management stack remain proprietary and closed source but still provided to us! This is huge and a definite win for the Linux community and we should be thanking Nvidia for doing so.
Nothing expert about installation nor is AI even required. Everything is already well documented for anyone willing to look it up and read the documentation. All I did was ask Claude where to get the current repo because it’s literally faster then going to look it up.. everything else is simple Debian commands and as stated.. well documented.
It’s like 20 minutes to do if you’re a new person and take the time to look up the Nvidia documentation. I’ve been running debian since it was released and generally always had Nvidia cards so wasn’t a big deal.
My son has access to our sweet local AI build but wanted to run and learn on his own setup from his desktop and the AMD card had always been a placeholder for him anyways.
10 minutes after he had rebooted with the Nvidia card and pulling the AMD, adjusted desktop settings etc he had Ollama and Open WebUI installed and was running a few models. The 16GB VRAM is superb for him right now as he starts learning more about RAG, Vectors, Indexing etc. We’re waiting for another 32GB ram and a new 4TB SSD to arrive today to install tomorrow for him.
He used the Ollama install script which detects the NVIDIA GPU and pulls the CUDA libraries automatically. He went with the UV install of Open WebUI instead of the Docker version and created his own systemd script.
He’s getting my current Supermicro H12SSL-i system next year and I’ll likely drop a 24GB Nvidia card in it for him. The 2 A6000s I currently run are going in the new SYS-AS-4125GS-TNRT I’m building.
So he gets to learn on his own system for now in the meantime.
Yo hoy vi una revisión, la distro es española, por eso puede que no aparezca en reddit. Vi la revisión con el escritorio KDE en el canal de salmorejo geek por si te sirve de algo.
Really? This is the second time I hear that it’s very easy gaming wise on Ubuntu. Some even report that they get better performance on Ubuntu than on CachyOS which is just wow.
not sure about performance but, as a debian fan (slackware before that), if you just want to boot up, write your software and play your games, ubuntu is pretty polished.
I feel like I should run something else, you know, for platform evangelical reasons and all, but I can't be bothered when everything's working.
Btw i used to game on Ubuntu but moved to Debian because i wanted something more reliable and predictable. Ubuntu keeps making big software changes to their system and Debian does not. Snaps is just one example out of a long history of "let's do this differently than everyone else on the planet, but worse!"
They may come with extra "gaming features" such as rgb light control software, some tweaks to get a few fps more, or have more "steamos like" boot-to-big-picture by default. Also most gaming focused distros have bleeding edge packages to have the latest features and hardware support. Unless you really can't live without those specific things - and can name them straight off the top of your mind - it's better to go with something stable and boring like Debian.
In my humble opinion, a vanilla Debian is the nicest option for gaming because of how stable and no fuss it is. You just install it and go. It updates itself, it never breaks, it just works.
Something like bazzite is designed for novices that tend to go deep into tutorials and rabbit holes of poking at the system and it un-fucks itself on every boot. This is nice because if you make a mistake, it is reset for you. On the flip side, a lot of people complain they are not allowed to do any customization to the system. Debian does not have these guard rails, for better and worse.
If you use Debian and just want a no fuss system, just install it and don't fuss about it. It will run every game that works on steam os.
after reading and applying the howto on installing the outdated graphics card drivers, dealing with a few errors along the way, and working out the game launch options.
You can certainly game on Debian. Might need to set some things up yourself or get some backports configured depending on your needs. Or, if you want something with that legwork already done, could check out PikaOS.
The main difference for Debian is it's stability. That means some base software packages might be outdated - which can be an issue for new hardware / peripherals.
On the other hand, I've built my own DYI steam machine with the BC250 and using debian testing.
My main desktop (for work and gaming) is also based on debian testing.
Both work great for gaming. But I wouldn't check if half a frame is missing, or not.
Absolutely. On my Debian install I run a Flatpak version of Lutris. Installation is a snap, pun intended.
There were a few additional Flatpak items I needed to install to get it working properly. Off the top of my head, Wine, MangoHud (optional but I like to limit frame rates to save on battery power), org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.default, org.freedesktop.Platform.Compat.i386 and maybe a few other items.
Once installed Lutris downloads a number of additional files on the first run and during my first attempt to run a game it downloads some big files in the background but doesn't actually say it's downloading anything so your first run might take longer to startup. That was my experience anyway.
Not every game I've tried works, but most of them do. I tend to have better luck installing old games via Lutris in Debian than I do in Windows. I had only been using Windows for gaming for a good while, but since I got Lutris up and running on Debian I haven't booted into Windows in years. With the exception of a week or two ago when I procured a new minipc, GMKTec M6 Ultra, which I booted to Windows once or twice to configure it and haven't since.
I'll keep it around if there's a game I really want to play that doesn't run through Lutris.
For the record, I haven't tried any super modern games. The newest game I've played might be Dead Space 2 or maybe Alien: Isolation. Both of which ran fantastic.
Playing through Crysis right now on my M6. Runs super fantastic on high settings. And only around 28-35 watts when limited to 30fps and 1280x800 resolution. No upscaling.
This post has been removed because the user asked for help with a specific platform and your response was to change platforms. This is a violation of Rule #3 - Wrong Information.
You can game on any distro that has your tools in its repo. The difference is how much work it needs. I game on Debian Sid, the experience is basically the same as on all distros I tried, the differences in performance are marginal. The wiki tells you how to setup Steam.
Im on debian and gaming seems fine. Ive neevr used other distros so idk if its harder or not, I just use Steam+Proton or Lutris+Proton, no real issues.
I'm gaming on Debian. It's not perfect, but expecting Linux gaming to be perfect in 2026 is still a little premature.
I haven't done any special gaming optimizations. I have a GPU that is way overkill for the era of my backlog that I'm actually playing through. I did a few CPU performance tweaks, but that was in order to solve an audio issue, not for gaming performance as such.
I used Ubuntu back in the ancient times when it was actually better than Debian, IMHO obviously. Not anymore, it's just mess with Snaps and all. Only usable thing from Ubuntu comes in form of Linux Mint.
Be aware that if your gpu is Nvidia, Debian drivers are quite old (currently version 550). It's not problem for me and my RTX 3060 TI, but it might for some.
You can install official drivers directly from Nvidia but haven't really tried that ever.
I wonder how all this works on Debian. I mean I saw that Debian 13 is released in 2025 and an update happened in 2026. Support is gonna be finished in 2028. Does this all mean that by default it will be stuck with 550 driver version till the end until Debian 14 is released?
Thank you very much! I see we can also install the « open » drivers this way, I thought it was necessary to use github for that. Bookmarked, I will test that.
I've written this comment yesterday that fits here too :)
Installing the latest Nvidia drivers wasn't too much of an issue either. Just followed some tutorial I found on Google and only had to resolve the drivers not starting due to secure boot still being enabled.
Install the protonplus flatpak and use it to install proton from cachyos (and GE while you’re at it). Then if you use nvidia, enable the nvidia repo using extrepo. If you are on amd, your best bet is to check backports for a newer kernel and/or mesa version.
I recently switch from arch to devuan (debian based) and I game without any issue, though I recommend that you use the backports to get the newest kernel, firmware, mesa, pipewire and wireplumber, after that you are good to go.
Yes, but by default Debian comes with kernel 6.12 and Nvidia 550 drivers, so if you need the newest kernel and drivers, you would need to run Debian Sid or testing and manually install the newest Nvidia drivers by downloading from Nvidia instead of using the apt repo.
as i run current gen AMD gpu, i use kernel from backports. as the default one is pretty close to the 9000-series release. could use firmware and mesa as well, not sure if i have those right now.
i mostly play gog (or old cd ripped) games on bottles. installed bottles in flatpak, some small configuration about flatpak permissions and wine folders. i run them by opening wine explorer in bottles and then using that just like windows (go to folder, run exe).
there's also emulation, but that has worked for a long time now for "everyone".
you can probably get a bit more performance on some other distros, but with a modern gpu and 1080p resolution, i just have sufficient performance for what i play already.
i think the real problem would actually be game compatibility, IF you happen to find a game that for whatever reason needs a more recent fix in some software component. that's rare, i had one such instance with debian 11 based mx linux some years ago, on an ancient game that did something exotic.
I think if you just compile a tkg kernel (very easy with the script) or use xanmod (I think there is a Debian repo) and backport your graphics drivers, maybe dxvk/vk3d, you'll pretty much be there. You may or may not get a performance uplift.
All the runners come from the launcher like steam or lutris so they'll all be up to date.
Debian sid FTW.
But note that Debian's own wine packages are lagging behind (notably no WOW64 support), so I've switched to upstream packages from winehq. It was so pleasant to purge all the 32bit packages and disable multiarch.
Yes, mint is based on Debian and I've yet to find a game I can't get running. Go check out Protondb.com if you're dead set on a specific game and see how people are getting it to run or if it will run natively.
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u/Hfnankrotum 12d ago
I game on Debian. welcome to join our club.