Just for clarification – the only Arch-based Linux distro, as there are also Bazzite and Nobara, both based on Fedora.
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and which one is preferable?
Sure, but they aren’t worth consideration, you need to be a rolling release distro to actually be suitable for gamers unless all they will ever play is games that released at least several months ago; and always on hardware that’s at least been around for 2 years.
It’s fairly common for major games to require graphic driver updates on or near their release date to properly work, Linux already lags behind a bit with these. Which makes not rolling release pretty much unthinkable, since it can mean potentially months of delay till you can play something; which on rolling release could have just been a matter of a few days or weeks.
You can also get caught in a situation where you buy a new pc, or piece of hardware, but it only works after kernel version X.Y; and it’s very common for gamers to obsess over having ‘high-end’ hardware, thus frequently updating their pc, I mean sure it might even be once per year, or every 2 or 3 years, but everytime that happens they could get in that situation.
On rolling release that is not really much of an issue, if linux supports your hardware in any kernel version, you can always have the latest one.
I have encountered both of these particular scenarios several times over the past decade, and I tend to only upgrade my pc every 3 years, and i’m rarely among the first wave of buyers for any game either.
SteamOS was originally based on what? Ubuntu? Debian? But now it’s arch based, ever wonder why? Personally I believe it’s because valve realised this exact thing.
It’s likely their main reason was faster graphic driver updates considering they really made the current iteration primarily for the steamdeck.
This entire thing is one of the main reasons why I have stuck with rolling release distros since just about when I started using linux, it was unknowingly at first, luck of the draw kinda thing, but I have since tried stable release, tried debian, tried mint, tried ubuntu, tried fedora (and I’ll admit I liked fedora the best of them all)…
But for gaming, rolling release or stable release is barely even a choice. There are some problems with rolling release I suppose, and the only motive I can think of to make a gaming distro that’s not rolling release, is to avoid those problems.
But with distros like endeavour, manjaro and cachy already out there which largely do mitigate those problems in their own unique ways; if not completely eliminate them, I cannot think of many reasons to give either of those distros a shot.
The only reason I can think of to try nobara is the identity of it’s lead developer lol.
@pol22 regular is generally preferable, bin should be identical to regular usually, except precompiled (means you install faster), git is latest alpha version, use with care.
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If it’s available, I install the bin because it takes less time otherwise I install the regular. The git is for when you need a specific feature or fix that hasn’t been released yet.
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With Fedora being released every few months and Bazzite based on it being even immutable, I don’t think this point is valid.
That’s why the kernels in gamer distros are patched in the first place. Hence, the instructions to do manual tweaking (it’s inevitable, even on rolling releases) or scripts are provided.
Ofc, I’m not here to discourage anyone from using Arch-based distros for gaming purposes, I just want to point out that there are alternatives. And some of them are said to be ticking the right boxes[1].
can’t confirm myself, not a gamer ↩︎
Thanks for opening your mouth and proving you are an idiot.
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Please have a respectful discussion and don’t call each other names. Thank you!
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And just what the hell do you call his post??!!!
Well, he didn’t directly call you a name. Still, my comment on name-calling should apply to ALL of us, not just you, not just @Shjim.
you are welcome very!!! take one to know one 
Have a wonderful day 
Well I am big enough to apologize for my post. Much bigger a man than Shjim who just posted another suggestive name calling.
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i have zero to apologize for . act your age sir!!
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@Shjim & @DarcSceptor you’re both acting very immature. You’ve already been warned by a mod, just stop it or I’m going to have to take your toys away and put you on the naughty step for an hour.
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