I’m thinking about switching to SteamOS since it’s built for gaming. Most of my games run fine on Linux Mint, but not all of them. I also heard Valve say “it’s just a PC”, does that mean it’s suitable for software development too?
I’m thinking about switching to SteamOS since it’s built for gaming. Most of my games run fine on Linux Mint, but not all of them. I also heard Valve say “it’s just a PC”, does that mean it’s suitable for software development too?
You’re not changing much when you’re changing distros, you may have slightly newer or older packages but we’re all running essentially the same Linux Kernel, Proton versions, etc.
You’d probably have less of a headache by trying to diagnose the games that don’t work than swapping OSs blindly and hoping that works.
If you were to swap, I’d look at something Arch-based. This way you’ll have access to the newest versions of everything (for good or ill).
Uh, yes and no. If you’re on Linux Mint 22.2+ you’re on 6.14. If you’re on Linux Mint 22.1 you’re on 6.8.
If you’re running Arch or equivalent, you’re either on 6.17 or 6.18 at the moment.
Now that doesn’t seem like a huge gap, but 6.8 came out March 2024. 6.14 is from March 2025. Debian 13.3 I think is on 6.12 which is November 2024.
These all seem recent, but Linux moves at such a fast pace that if you’re gaming you really should be on the latest kernel for the best possible performance for gaming, especially if you have newer hardware.
Of course use whatever you like, but I would tell people to evaluate what would be the best option for their environment. For me I run my own websites and game servers. They’re all on Debian containers.
If my mom came up to me and said she wanted to try “Linux” on her laptop, I’d just throw Ubuntu 24.04(or 26.04 for the next LTS) on it because I know she just needs something to surf the web.
And for me I recently went all in on CachyOS for my laptop and gaming desktop. I’m not running the latest and greatest hardware(Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series, Nvidia 3000 series), but this is my first attempt at a Arch based distro(well except my Steam Deck) and it’s been pretty rock solid.