Ubuntu, the best gaming distribution?

[u/ZealousidealFruit935]

I'm looking for advice/tips. My goal is a personal desktop with up to date gaming related stuff, but everything else stable boring Ubuntu LTS. I'm tired of constant rolling updates and chance for breakages with distros like CachyOS, but I don't want to give up gaming related updates. I don't want to sacrifice much stability but want to optimize when possible.

I have over a decade on Ubuntu, Debian, and their derivatives and a year or two spread between Bazzite and CachyOS. I missed .deb and the convenience and calmness those distributions have for personal desktop and gaming use, so I'm back to Ubuntu.

It's a shame there's not a gaming optimized derivative of Ubuntu out there but I don't think there is.

Here's what I've done so far. Did I do too much? Not enough? Let me know what you think.

1. Up to date optimized kernel. I used Liquorix.

2. Up to date graphic drivers using kisak-mesa ppa.

3. Use official Steam .deb, not snap

4. Use CachyOS proton version

5. Use Feral GameMode, at least on demanding games

6. Use zram-tools for fast compressed swap (if ever needed)

7. Change swapiness and virtual memory allocation (vm.max_map_count = 2147483642, vm.swappiness = 10)

I know I could have went with Fedora but I would miss .deb and LTS too much, and Linux Mint or Kubuntu or something too but I personally prefer default Ubuntu (Gnome) desktop environment usually.

[u/Far_Combination_3780]

I've just been using Ubuntu 26.04 LTS now, I might lose maybe 5-10fps compared to other distros but doesn't really matter when pushing 160fps+

What matters to me is not having to mess around and I can just click my game and it works.

[u/ZealousidealFruit935 → u/Far_Combination_3780]

Yes, knowing you're going to be able to just sit down and play and nothing weird is going on is priceless.

[u/CritSrc → u/ZealousidealFruit935]

What weird things did you encounter on Cachy/Bazzite? Or you're just not as used to them?

With how you're replacing your kernel and graphics stack with rolling packages, the LTS choice becomes questionable. Yes, Bazzite and Cachy update often, so the entire stack, including the gaming packages, move incrementally together.If it gives you piece of mind, sure, go ahead. But if Cachy is working fine, just keep updating it weekly and let it just work.

I was on Nobara, and it dropped support for my old GPU, so I moved to Cachy. If it ain't broke, I'm not fixing it. If you just miss .deb packages, you can opt into Distrobox on your current setup.

[u/ZealousidealFruit935 → u/CritSrc]

I do enjoy distrobox as long as the app works in it properly.

The biggest issue, other than just the amount of updates, which started to wear me down, was when I would have an app lose a dependency because it was replaced with a newer version and the app suddenly would silently crash when I try to open it. Unity Hub was the last one I remember and I would be so confused because it had just been working and now it wasn't, and eventually I'd be smart enough to remember I'm on Cachy and what had probably happened. Maybe my tolerance for things like that is too low but I didn't like it lol

Cachy definitely ran great otherwise.

[u/CritSrc → u/ZealousidealFruit935]

Aaah, official package support. That's a slightly different issue and Ubuntu has the clear advantage. That+familiarity may be worth the effort in migrating and replicating your current gaming stack. But do use stock, LTS just doesn't seem to offer any advantages for you case.

I see Unity Hub has a flatpak, but it's unofficial. Shelly can manage the Unity Hub AppImage, but it's a workaround to the upstream issue.

[u/Mountain_Bedroom5170]

That's basically my exact setup on my main rig, right down to the Liquorix kernel. Only thing I'd add is MangoHud for the overlay if you want to keep an eye on temps and framerates without it being a whole thing.

You might also peek at the Valve-sponsered linux-firmware repo if you have newer AMD hardware, sometimes they push firmware blobs there before Ubuntu gets them.

[u/ZealousidealFruit935 → u/Mountain_Bedroom5170]

Oh cool! I didn't know about that, I'll look at it, thanks

[u/Smugness1917]

I just use stock Ubuntu.

Do fast kernel updates make that much difference these days? I don't think so.

For graphics drivers, whether or not you use Nvidia can make a difference.

Isn't Proton shipped with Steam? Why use CachyOS's? Genuine question.

But since I do game, I always upgrade to interim releases. Every day kernel updates is pointless, but 6-monthly I believe has some value.

[u/Oerthling → u/Smugness1917]

It rarely makes much difference and there's always the option of using the HWE ppa.

[u/ZealousidealFruit935 → u/Smugness1917]

I do enjoy the simplicity of just stock. Maybe I should just be doing that lol

[u/ZealousidealFruit935 → u/Smugness1917]

Im merely parroting what I've read but it's more about frame pacing than fps. Supposedly stock kernel is for servers and stuff, and optimized for power efficiency and pure bandwidth, where as a gaming optimized kernel will prefer smooth frames at the expense of raw bandwidth and power. I dunno if it's a real measurable thing in practice or not.

[u/BashfulMelon → u/ZealousidealFruit935]

You're talking about scheduling. You don't need a custom kernel to change the scheduler. The gaming kernel stuff is nonsense. The best kernel is the latest upstream kernel, that's the one everybody is working to improve.

[u/lemmiwink84]

But 1024 filedescriptor limit will surely make it quite bad in newer games with newer protons. Should up that limit as well

[u/flemtone]

Kubuntu minimal install with flatpaks and flathub enabled in discovery.

[u/obbrz]

I use the snap steam and flatpak Faugus and the default kernel. Everything is as smooth as can be. All AMD system.

[u/moky4mido]

Man, I'm still fiddling between which game launcher to choose from LOL.. I might finally settle on with faugus after trying steam, bottles and Lutris.

Since I have done neither of those customisations, I'm saving this post might need it later :'))

[u/un-important-human]

of course not!

ah i see what you did there you un-ubuntued it. yeah ok could work

[u/Ok-Anywhere-9416]

I just use stock kernel with snap steam, flatpak heroic and proton cachy that is default. If I try a different kernel, it might mess with Nvidia.

[u/Stilgar314]

I've been gaming in Ubuntu LTS for years now. I do so because Valve's only official Steam version is a DEB file aimed at the last Ubuntu LTS version and I kinda prefer to open a ticket to Valve rather than Canonical (for their Snap Steam, you know). I'm also using Kisak and games simply run when I press play. Maybe I could squeeze a few FPS with a gaming focused distro, but if I wanted to add a gaming distro to my boot choices, it would be SteamOS for sure. So, if I were you, I'd simply try gaming on vanilla LTS and, only if you miss something, start tweaking with all those things you mentioned.