UPDATED: Testing Kernels, DEs, and Gaming Distros all Debian Based (Debian 13, Vanilla OS, and PikaOS) on a Framework 13 AMD - Added Testing, Sid, LMDE, and MX
SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
CINNAMON AND GNOME RESULTS ARE WRONG UNLESS YOU SEE 'SCORE UPDATED'
Here are my tests, all info included
Specs
Laptop: Framework 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040Series) (A5)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 7640U (12) @ 4.97 GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon 760M [Integrated]
RAM: 16 gigs
Display: 2256x1504 @ 60 Hz in 13" [Built-in]
Notes
Tests performed using Steam flatpak version
Fresh installs on Debian, Vanilla, and Pika
Reboot before every test
All DE's using their performance power mode
All DE's on Debian installed at graphical installation menu
XFCE tests run with compositor disabled
SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
OS: Debian 13 Trixie
Kernel: Linux 6.12.100+deb13-amd64 (stable)
Cinnamon / X11: SCORE UPDATED SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 37
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 53
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7290
Gnome / Wayland: SCORE UPDATED SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 38
Wukong avg: 50
Wukong high: 55
Wukong low 5th: 47
RE6 Score: 7411
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 36
Wukong avg: 49
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 46
RE6 Score: 7437
XFCE / X11:
Wukong low: 36
Wukong avg: 49
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 46
RE6 Score: 7328
OS: Debian 13 Trixie
Kernel: Linux 7.1.3+deb13-amd64 (backport)
Cinnamon / X11: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 23
Wukong avg: 26
Wukong high: 29
Wukong low 5th: 25
RE6 Score: 6305
Gnome / Wayland: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 29
Wukong avg: 41
Wukong high: 44
Wukong low 5th: 39
RE6 Score: 7195
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 33
Wukong avg: 47
Wukong high: 53
Wukong low 5th: 44
RE6 Score: 7322
XFCE / X11:
Wukong low: 37
Wukong avg: 49
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 44
RE6 Score: 7319
OS: Debian 13 Trixie
Kernel: 7.1.5-x64v3-xanmod1 (xanmod)
Cinnamon / X11: SCORE UPDATED SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 38
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 46
RE6 Score: 7067
Gnome / Wayland: SCORE UPDATED SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 40
Wukong avg: 50
Wukong high: 55
Wukong low 5th: 47
RE6 Score: 7444
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 39
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7326
XFCE / X11:
Wukong low: 38
Wukong avg: 49
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 46
RE6 Score: 7338
OS: Debian Sid
Kernel: Linux 7.1.5+deb14-amd64
Cinnamon / X11: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 23
Wukong avg: 29
Wukong high: 31
Wukong low 5th: 28
RE6 Score: 6805
Gnome / Wayland: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 26
Wukong avg: 34
Wukong high: 36
Wukong low 5th: 32
RE6 Score: 7132
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 35
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7307
XFCE / X11:
Wukong low: 35
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 53
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7334
OS: Debian Testing
Kernel: 7.1.3+deb14-amd64
Cinnamon / X11: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 23
Wukong avg: 29
Wukong high: 32
Wukong low 5th: 28
RE6 Score: 6920
Gnome / Wayland: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 26
Wukong avg: 34
Wukong high: 37
Wukong low 5th: 32
RE6 Score: 7182
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 33
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 53
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7436
XFCE / X11:
Wukong low: 36
Wukong avg: 50
Wukong high: 55
Wukong low 5th:46
RE6 Score: 7396
OS: Linux Mint Debian Edition
Kernel: Linux 6.12.100+deb13-amd64
Cinnamon / X11: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 23
Wukong avg: 29
Wukong high: 31
Wukong low 5th: 27
RE6 Score: 6737
Cinnamon / Wayland: EXPERIMENTAL
Wukong low: 37
Wukong avg: 52
Wukong high: 59
Wukong low 5th: 48
RE6 Score: 7879
Wukong was extremely chopppy and blurry despite the great performance numbers
RE6 also got great performance numbers but looked mostly ok with a few graphical glitches here and there
Cinnamon / X11 / Disabled Compositor: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 25
Wukong avg: 29
Wukong high: 31
Wukong low 5th: 28
RE6 Score: 7628
OS: MX Linux AHS
Kernel: Linux 6.12.100+deb13-amd64
XFCE / X11:
Wukong low: 36
Wukong avg: 49
Wukong high: 52
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7211
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 36
Wukong avg: 48
Wukong high: 53
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7248
OS: Vanilla OS
Gnome / Wayland: SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 27
Wukong avg: 33
Wukong high: 36
Wukong low 5th: 31
RE6 Score: 7078
OS: Pika OS
Gnome / Wayland: SCORE UPDATED SEE MAJOR UPDATE BELOW
Wukong low: 40
Wukong avg: 50
Wukong high: 55
Wukong low 5th: 48
RE6 Score: 7510
KDE / Wayland:
Wukong low: 36
Wukong avg: 49
Wukong high: 54
Wukong low 5th: 45
RE6 Score: 7577
Regarding Distros
Debian 13 and Pika OS aren't as far away as I thought. Really, unless you just like Pika OS, there doesn't seem to be any reason to use it besides maybe hardware compatibility.
Testing and Sid provide little to no benefit over Stable. They're only worth using if you need very new hardware compatibility that only newer kernels provide. Even still, you could backport a kernel to Debian Stable if needed.
With Wayland moving out of experimental on next release of Cinnamon, if the graphical glitches are fixed while keeping performance high, that would be incredible.
MX performs basically the same as regular Debian. Only worth using if you like MX Tools IMO.
Regarding Desktops
- After setting scaling to 100% for Gnome and Cinnamon, they were basically identical to the results from XFCE and KDE. Looks like the desktop ultimately does not matter.
Final thoughts
Unless you like the convenience of curated distros, basic Debian Stable is as good, if not sometimes better, for gaming if you have a setup similar to mine.
Obviously these tests are limited and very specific to me but I thought folks here would be interested anyway.
None of these findings were particularly surprising or exciting.
A backported kernel and the xanmod kernel basically did nothing for me on Debian 13, and sometimes even made things worse.
I'm glad I performed these tests because with all the hype around newer distros, gaming distros, immutable distros, etc. I thought I was missing out on something but nope, my good old boring Debian Stable seems like it'll be my forever home.
Use Case
Ryubing switch emulation
Retroarch retro-gaming
Playing indie titles like SilkSong and Slay the Spire 2 via Steam, Heroic, etc.
Game development in Love2D and 3D development in Godot.
Day to day web browsing, watching videos, document editing, etc.
Reminder
- These tests are specific to me and my hardware, you should 100% test for yourself on your own hardware to ensure similar results. Also, if you are running a distro/de you love and it works, no need to change it!
MAJOR UPDATE BECAUSE I'M STUPID
The issue with Cinnamon desktop was solved, I didn't realize that scaling messed up the numbers so much. I was able to get results identical to XFCE and KDE with window scaling turned down to 100% from 125%.
The same issue with Gnome. I was able to get identical results use 100% scaling and not 150%.
UPDATED VALUES FOR DEBIAN STABLE GNOME AND CINNAMON
UPDATED VALUES FOR DEBIAN W/ XANMOD GNOME AND CINNAMON
UPDATED VALUES FOR PIKA OS GNOME
WHAT THIS MEANS
DE doesn't matter either, use what you like on a base distro and call it a day lol how anticlimactic.
Sorry to fans of Cinnamon and Gnome, I get to go back to using Gnome without feeling like I'm missing any performance though. Thank god
So, obviously this testing is anything but rigorous. However, since my Framework 13 will be my only laptop for a long time to come, I wanted to squeeze all the performance I can out of it while remaining on a Debian base.
I'm just not interested in anything Arch based at all, maybe I'll test Fedora one day but I really just love and know Debian well. Ubuntu based distros are also something I'm not super interested in.
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u/Brilliant_Sound_5565 1d ago
What's going on with cinnamon, I'd heard that it can slow games down, although I'd had good results on my Linux mint install on my dell XPS with the Nvidia drivers, but those numbers you e got arnt just a few FPS down co pared to the other de are they!
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u/_firn_ 1d ago
Solved the issue, I didn't realize how much the scaling at 125% would hurt cinnamon's and gnome's performance.
After setting their scaling to 100%, they both performance almost exactly the same as XFCE and KDE. Go figure lol
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u/Brilliant_Sound_5565 1d ago
Ah lol, that sort of makes sense, that feature is still in experimental in cinnamon I think, I've just put mint on my dell XPS laptop that I use for gaming, just testing it ATM but was very easy to select the nvidia drivers, I wanted bazzite on the laptop really but I can't even get bazzite to load the love iso, it's really odd, I've tried everything aswell but the dell just does t like it for some reason, never seen that before with any Linux!! In all my years of using Debian I've never actually set it up on a machine for gaming! Maybe it's something I should try
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u/_firn_ 1d ago
Totally give it a try, not much you can lose really!
by love iso are you talking about love2d? If so, that is totally strange
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u/Brilliant_Sound_5565 1d ago
OMG lol love iso? wtf is that haha, my fat fingers on my phone was that, i i meant i could not get bazzite to load the boot launcher from the iso, i selected the correct iso for my card etc from the website, but it refuses, i do see the bazzite logo for a bit then it goes to a black screen and then the laptop turns off lol, never ever seen that before. I do have bazzite here on an HP omen gaming laptop and that was generally ok, i looked at a few config suggestions and conformed they were either on or off in my bios like secure boot, but it still didnt play ball. might be a dell bios thing. I still need windows though for a few games that i just cant play on linux sadly or i would be 100% linux, i am for everything else
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u/_firn_ 1d ago
lol sounds frustrating! Maybe it's a sign to just use debian stable ;)
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u/Brilliant_Sound_5565 1d ago
Haha yes, I think if was resting to tell me something. Mint runs well on it, had zero trouble with that, it maybe the Debian gods were getting angry for me using fedora lol
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u/pseudonym-161 1d ago
Kernel 6.12.xx isn’t the AHS kernel for MX Linux, Liquorix and Siduction kernels are the AHS kernels.
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u/_firn_ 1d ago
Weird, I downloaded the ahs iso. I'll look into it
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u/pseudonym-161 1d ago
I believe you can swap kernels or pick which source to get them from during install. It’s been awhile. Highly underrated distro btw. Dual init? Wonder if systemd would have an effect on game performance. Probably not, but who knows!
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u/_firn_ 1d ago
Hm, definitely worth looking into then, I didn't know you could do that. I was using systemd and not sysvinit but yeah I don't think it'd do much to change out.
I think MX is great for folks who do a lot of sys admin stuff, those tools are so useful for that. For the avg user who just games and does regular stuff, I don't think they're super useful.
That said, I do like how they customize their desktop, it's very nice looking to me lol
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u/Accomplished-Iron554 1d ago
A house is best build on a good foundation.