Linux for Gaming? Recommend me distros!

[Herr Dethnout]

Welp, to make the long story short, I have the lowest-end pc, so old that it has to be in musseum (heh), and since I'm using Windows 7 since 2011 I think is time for a change.

At first, I was thinking to go straightfoward and just install Windows 10, but since my hardware is too old, theres no support or drivers for it, I starting to think into making the switch to linux (who has better support thanks to MESA Drivers) after discovering Valve's Proton, but I'm still not convinced if Linux is a great platform for gaming yet. The only time I used Linux for gaming was a Bootable Pendrive with Linux and Dosbox for a Laptop without HDD.

So I'm asking you, probably Linux user, if is a good platform for gaming and other stuff like music production, image editing, etc... And recommend me good distros that have a UI and exe management friendly like Windows. :P
 

[dasho]

Have you actually tried Win 10? Most drivers for hardware that old will already be provided via Windows Update or may even be baked into the installation image at this point.

[Herr Dethnout]

Just now, dasho said:

Have you actually tried Win 10? Most drivers for hardware that old will already be provided via Windows Update or may even be baked into the installation image at this point.

I used it shortly after his release, but in that time I had a GPU with legacy support so it wasn't a big deal. For the record, I'm using a Dual Core with his IGD. The windows Drivers tend to not work properly with my hardware (Some functions doesn't work as intended), and even if works, for what I see, Mesa Drivers are even better. So that the reason why I consider switching to Linux.

Edited October 28, 2022 by Herr Dethnout

[Graf Zahl]

Before giving you recommendations, please post your exact hardware specs. That would make it a lot easier to evaluate the available options.

"Old" can mean a lot and even what you said in the last post is not really enough.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Graf Zahl

[Herr Dethnout]

Just now, Graf Zahl said:

Before giving you recommendations, please post your hardware specs. That would make it a lot easier to evaluate the available options.

 

Pentium Dual Core E5300 2.60GHz
2GB Ram
Intel G41 Express Chipset IGD

Yup, is old AF but is better than nothing(?)

[dasho]

I'd say probably give Linux Mint XFCE Edition a try if you want something relatively lightweight that also caters to newcomers. Ubuntu Studio also has this listed for its requirements and includes a lot of multimedia creation stuff:
 

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo equivalent

RAM: 2 GB

Drive Space: 16 GB

[Azuris]

54 minutes ago, dasho said:

Linux Mint XFCE Edition

 

Bought an Veriton N4640G early this Month and put on exactly that.
It has:
Intel Celeron 3900T 2x2.60GHz 
8GB DDR4

I also messed around early this Year with a 32 bit Netbook with Intel Atom CPU, VERY underpowered and Linux Mint XFCE runs very good on it, i was also able to play DOSBOX Games and some native Linux Games (Freeciv) and naturally Choclate Doom.
 

Back to the Veriton:
Lutris: The Flatpak on the Store has a major Bug, no Windows Game will run, get it from Github and everything runs fine.
Steam: Proton is very good, but some older Games could be buggy (Might and Magic VI, wasn't able to press Space or Enter, runs flawlessly over Lutris (wine))

Playonlinux: Easy Wine use.

 

Just Recommendations from an absolutly Linux Noob.

 

1 hour ago, Herr Dethnout said:

Pentium Dual Core E5300 2.60GHz
2GB Ram
Intel G41 Express Chipset IGD

Yup, is old AF but is better than nothing(?)

 

Dual Core is fine, 2,60 GHz has some Juice and as mentioned, the Netbook i have is much worse and Linux Mint XFCE makes it usable.
I would recommend you to put in some more RAM and if possible any Radeon HD something GPU, just get some used ones.
With that you should be able to play some Games until ~2008 and some beyond.

[Herr Dethnout]

Just now, dasho said:

I'd say probably give Linux Mint XFCE Edition a try if you want something relatively lightweight that also caters to newcomers. Ubuntu Studio also has this listed for its requirements and includes a lot of multimedia creation stuff:
 

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo equivalent

RAM: 2 GB

Drive Space: 16 GB

Interesing, I will check both to see whats up. Another distro that got my attention is Manjaro (The KDE version mostly), as I can see, it has a friendly UI and is easy to use.

 

 

Just now, Azuris said:

Back to the Veriton:
Lutris: The Flatpak on the Store has a major Bug, no Windows Game will run, get it from Github and everything runs fine.
Steam: Proton is very good, but some older Games could be buggy (Might and Magic VI, wasn't able to press Space or Enter, runs flawlessly over Lutris (wine))

Playonlinux: Easy Wine use.

 

Dual Core is fine, 2,60 GHz has some Juice and as mentioned, the Netbook i have is much worse and Linux Mint XFCE makes it usable.
I would recommend you to put in some more RAM and if possible any Radeon HD something GPU, just get some used ones.
With that you should be able to play some Games until ~2008 and some beyond.

Since you are in Linux, if Wine is capable to start Domino then that will completely sell Linux for me. heh
 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Herr Dethnout

[omx32x]

what games do you usually play? if its old games then i would say go for it

 

at least on my experience linux has better support for old games then windows

[dasho]

33 minutes ago, omalefico32x said:

what games do you usually play? if its old games then i would say go for it

 

at least on my experience linux has better support for old games then windows

 

For me, WINE has far superior support for the very late 90s/early 2000s era of Windows games, and yes I'm aware of the various compatibility settings you can set within Windows for a certain executable.

[MFG38]

On 10/28/2022 at 8:30 PM, Herr Dethnout said:

Pentium Dual Core E5300 2.60GHz
2GB Ram
Intel G41 Express Chipset IGD

 

With this sort of hardware, your choices of a desktop environment that won't bring the system to its knees become pretty slim. I'll agree with dasho that a distro that ships with the Xfce DE - like Linux Mint Xfce - would likely be your best bet. Either that or LXDE, which I believe is even more lightweight than Xfce. Don't quote me on that, though.

[ducon]

Recommend a distribution? Debian for me.

Actually, try a few major distributions, live on an USB key then choose your preferred one after having played a bit with them.

[xX_Lol6_Xx]

In my experience, Mint and Ubuntu were very good candidates for casual gaming, I don't play a lot of games but the ones I do play (Terraria, Minecraft, L4D2, Doom of course , Doom 3 with the dhewm3 source port and Half-Life) didn't show any issues whatsoever, I hadn't really tried out non native games so I can't say much in that field. Considering you have low end hardware I'd go with either Xubuntu (XFCE desktop), Lubuntu (LXQt desktop) or Mint XFCE. Recently switched to Arch (Btw) and so far I've experienced no issues with native "old-ish" games, however I would tell you to go for an Ubuntu/Debian based distro (like the previously listed) for stability reasons. If you like bleeding-edge stuff and you're not that afraid of manually fixing some issue here or there, you can use Arch or an Arch-based distro with LXQt or XFCE.

 

Hope this helps a bit :-)

Edited October 31, 2022 by xX_Lol6_Xx
Wrote tired instead of tried, lmao

[InfernalMonsoon]

You can game on any distro but I strongly recommend anything that uses or has the option for the XFCE or Mate desktop environments as those are very lightweight, reliable, stable and perfect for older hardware. Personally I would recommend something based on Ubuntu like Linux Mint and Zorin OS but some Arch-based distros like Manjaro and Garuda Linux are also very good based on my own personal experiences as they have basically everything you'll need for all your gaming stuff out of the box. I have heard Ubuntu itself and Drauger OS are also good candidates too.

 

My advice would be to try them all via the live sessions and see what works for you, eventually you'll land on something that feels perfect for you. I also recommend installing applications like Lutris, goverlay and Protonup as they'll make the process of setting up your games a breeze :)