i have a gaming PC, its specs are an AMD FX8350 (8-core 4ghz) CPU, AMD HD7950 GPU, 8 gigs of RAM.. its currently running microsoft 8.1 which i dont mind the look and feel of but to be quite honest, i hate microsoft and i dont trust the security measures they have, i do not trust cloud integration or any software that ties itself into collecting and publicizing private data.. but the primary reason i want to put linux onto it is to support linux as the best gaming platform (which it has all the potential to be with support)

i dont know how compatible steamos games are with non debian distros, it would seem to me theyd be fairly compatible so i guess the distro options are pretty wide open here.. i hate bloat, i hate distros that install like 4 web browsers, 10 text editors, etc.. something simple, but with a good, clean, modern looking compositing desktop environment that can show off what linux can do, but not be over bloated (if thats possible)

distros ive used in the past are slackware, debian (though it still confuses me a bit), ubuntu, arch, mint, gentoo, and probably a few others here and there.. im a fan of arch and mint, slackware was my first back around '05/'06 and havent really used it since as i like the convenience of package managers, though now that i have the hardware a from-source type of package manager may not too inconvenient

so.. suggestions?

Well if it is a gaming pc, i would recommend to stick with windows, maybe go back to windows 7 since it has a cc eal 4+ rating. Same as RHEL5 and 6. Ubuntu does not have those according to my knowledge.

Ubuntu is also heading the windows 8 way with the amazon integration within the app window

my tower has an external HDD loading dock thingie that i have a spare 500gb HDD i can simply plug in, i will install linux to this so i can configure my BIOS to load that HDD first when its present and essentially dual-boot depending on whether the hard drive is in or not

and im wanting to show support for gaming on linux because theres no doubt linux could be an absolutely SUPERIOR gaming platform if it had even a fraction of the attention windows had, which it has primarily through the hijacking of directx and a lot of corporate bullcrap to put a stranglehold on the gaming PC market... for the games not available on linux, i still have windows, but for the ones i can get on linux i will start playing them on linux

I run Arch on my main PC (which I also use for gaming), but you will run into problems with the proprietary AMD video driver due to its lack of support for newer kernel and Xorg versions (I wouldn't recommend AMD for a Linux gaming PC anyways, due to their abysmal drivers).
Debian 8 should work nicely, as should Ubuntu or one of its derivatives. Compatibility with non-Debian distros is mostly not an issue, since Steam provides its own runtime environment.Both of these are not able to run Steam due to their older glibc versions.

1 members found this post helpful.

Very true. That was in reference to security concerns stated by the op, albeit not the primary issue of gaming. No one in their right mind will ever consider gaming on rhel and its derivatives.

I do not look down on this thread and think it is great if proper gaming can be brought to linux. I also do applaud steam for their efforts. It is needed, however, I do not see the value of taking a machine specifically built for gaming that is already working perfectly fine for purpose and switching it for security reasons to linux, hence for max gaming, I simply recommended windows 7 and specifically addressing security concerns stated it had eal4+ which is pretty good and the same rating as the linux distros I have mentioned.

well steams effort to bring gaming to linux will mean absolutely nothing if no ones actually going to use it because if no ones willing to play PC games on linux then no one will be willing to make PC games for linux, so when you have the opportunity to use linux for a gaming PC, more users gaming on the system brings more attention from larger developers...

so i will support gaming on linux whenever i can by installing games available on linux on linux first, i still have my 1tb HDD with windows 8.1, all id have to do is pop out the linux HDD from the dock and reboot to play those games which quite frankly the number of games i CANT get to play on linux is shrinking pretty quickly

__

anyway, i guess i will look for a truly debian based distro that isnt as overweight or bloated as ubuntu or mint (even LMDE2 is a 1.5gb download) or something arch based.. ive installed arch on one PC in the past with success so im sure i could do it again but honestly not having a proper installer is just a waste of my time

Absolutely. I don't have a Windows installation anymore since January, and even before that I booted into Windows maybe once in 2 or 3 months. The games I care about that don't have a Windows version work fine with Wine, everything else I play has a Linux version.
In that case I would just go for Debian 8, starting with a minimal installation and then installing only the packages you need.

The whole gaming thing on linux is actually very interesting. I remember when i started playing games the only system i could succesfully do myself was windows 95. I never had internet or anything back then. Just windows 95 on floppies.

It was sort of easy enough to just follow commands and let the installer do its thing. Thank goodness, i was only 11. The only game i had was flight simulator.

So the windows gaming industry kicked off because back then most people could install windows without being a geek. My firat succesful installation of linux happen with redhat 5 that was about 15 or so years back. Even back then I could not get it ro do anything i wanted and just gave up. A few years after that i managed to get suse going and it was much better in the linux world back then. So traditionally, games were played by kids.

Now linux has become much easier and adults that have a bit more know how to search for instructions and thanks to the internet it is possible to things like gaming on linux. Now the younger generation adults play games the way I use to when being a teenager. Many do not grow out of the gaming phase (no personal attack here).

Traditionally speaking from a company perspective. If you wanted a mainframe, you got ibm, a client, windows nt, a home user the desktop varients. And gaming since the start was targetted at the home user, so right now it is still about money. The windows pc is the cash cow for studios. The adult gamer the target with observing the increased realism and difficulty.

I am not that old in terms of age but my thinking is still flawed by how my experience with computers came along. To this day I still use a mix of windows and linux. In terms of linux old and stable, in terms of windows bleeding edge coz you know you got to reformat the sucker in a few weeks. Well, sort of anyhow.

But none the less. It is amazing how technology has changed over the years and how affordable it has become compared to 19 years ago and even more mind boggling if you think about when I played my first computer game, i use to have to ask my dad to get the commands typed in using dos, way before win95 came about.

So for all you into gaming here is the first game I played in my life.

https://youtu.be/fysoXmhtWy0

Good old grand prix circuit from accolade. How many of you guys remember that one?

so which debian would i even use?.. stable, unstable, testing, what do i go with if i want sort of an updated, yet reliable rolling release?

It plays in dosbox on my low powered intel single core atom netbook with 1 gig of ram and intel 945 graphics chip just fine and dandy.

http://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=376&letter=G

But I do not have a gaming computer. Just hand me downs.

@ the OP. Linux-Lite comes with steam

https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/o...in-linux-lite/

Try it. You might like it. Version 2.6 is hitting scheduled release in a week or so.

https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/o...cseen#msg16666

If going with Debian. Wanting Rolling. Testing or Unstable is the way to go.
Plus your new gear will have a struggle with dealing with older stable kernel, maybe, not sure.

grinning at that.

I'm not sure why you're worried about "bloat" with specifications like yours! So what if you have two media players? Extra software doesn't slow the computer in Linux as it does in Windows.

If you want a rolling-release that's reliable and looks fancy, try PCLinuxOS with its default KDE desktop. Unlike most KDE distros, a lot of the special effects are turned off by default, but you can obviously fix that with a couple of clicks.

Personally, I've always agreed with the reviewer who described Debian as more like the ingredients for building a distro than a finished product, but its fans seem happy enough!

i believe "testing" would be the one for a general purpose desktop so thats what ill download

as for PC gaming im looking into vulkan API, just read about it, it takes opengl, improves it with the technology in AMDs mantle API which made it superior to directx and gives you a new generation of opengl that outperforms and surpasses directx with the ability to be used on linux, mac, windows, xbox, playstation, nintendo, android, or IOS... couple that with the better performance over directx and youre looking at a true directx killer that in the near future develops will have absolutely zero incentive to use over vulkan since vulkan can be used on windows anyway

when this happens it will completely take away microsofts stranglehold on PC gaming and in my opinion this is the ONLY thing keeping microsoft and windows alive right now, especially if the idea of integrating android kernel features into the linux kernel to natively run android apps on linux comes to fruition

but yeah, anyway, ill go with the latest debian testing on my gaming PC.. im also wanting to work on a dual-mode type of desktop environment that can either switch to kodi or an android emulator when pushing the guide button on my controller for full-screen application launching controllable via gamepad for something like a windows 8 or steamos system, but more customizable (and android integration would be great for netflix/spotify, etc

Personally I wouldn't run Debian Stable for gaming -- the packages are olderversions which are well proven but not necesarily the new and improved versions. Running Debian Testing or Unstable (as I do) is not a job for the impatient and can be frustrating but if you obey the golden rule of checking before upgrading and backing out if it looks to remove things you need you can run them without too much stress.
However, I thing an Ubuntu derivative might fit better, or Mint, as they's a bit more up to date.
As far as the look of the desktop goes I think KDE might be worth a try as it's funky-looking (for want of a better way of putting it) and well integrated. Personally I use XFCE but I think that past Windows 2000 era no improvements have been made apart from compositing (which I use for transparent terminals) and XFCE takes a bit of work to get things looking good.

ive used KDE4 before but its been a while, i dont have any issues with giving it another chance as i prefer QT based applications more anyway though i always preferred the look and feel of gnome 2, i actually want a modern compositing desktop for this PC so i can highlight how "modern" linux has become to those who see it.. what are the options of modern compositing desktop environments? (though compiz can be added to pretty much anything)

@ ericson007
Remember that one?
Thor