Lingam Posted October 23, 2025 Report Posted October 23, 2025 (edited) Hey Vintarians, I'm a bit tired of Microsoft and how they are forcing everyone into Windows 11 which also eventually they are removing all ability to create local accounts. Because of this I am seriously considering jumping the Microsoft ship and defecting to Linux. There are lots of Linux distributions out there and I'd like to know the best one for reliability, speed, simplicity and compatibility with Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics cards for Vintage Story mainly.. honestly this is all I play now! My machine: Dell Precision 7820, Dual Xeon Silver, 256gb Ram, RTX 3060 GPU. Looking forward to a few good suggestions though I am already considering: Nobara OS, Bazzite or Pop! (Nvidia edition) Thank you! Edited October 23, 2025 by Lingam left something out 1
Lollard Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 Distros run the same family of kernels and NVIDIA drivers so there shouldn't be a significant difference between them when it comes to gaming. With some distros, you'll get newer versions, which you'll want if your hardware is very new, but since your hardware is several years old, you should be fine with any mainstream distro. Don't let gaming be your deciding factor on picking one. From my experience, I would consider the safest bet for a newcomer to be Linux Mint Cinnamon. Pop_OS should also be a good contender if you like the desktop it ships. Nobara is a lot newer and less established, but a lot of newcomers seem to like it. I will recommend against Bazzite because it's an immutable distro, which is hard to explain but it basically makes software installation more complicated and guides you find online on how to install software may not work on it. Your own experimentation will always be more valuable than other people's recommendations, so don't be afraid to try out as many distros as you like. I'll provide a general outline of distros below: There are fixed release distros like Ubuntu and Debian and their derivatives (Linux Mint, Pop_OS, etc.) where system packages are frozen for the release and don't get upgraded until the next major release. System packages will only receive bug fixes (but not always, for instance Ubuntu's universe repository usually does not receive any bug fix updates). Applications in these frozen repositories can get outdated fast, but that's where Flatpaks, Snaps and AppImages come in. These are 3 different layers that let you run the latest software on any distribution. The advantage of running this distro model is if it's working, it should stay working for years. Low maintenance and low headache. The disadvantage used to be outdated software, but with the aforementioned solutions, it's not really an issue anymore. There are rolling distros like Arch Linux and its derivatives (EndeavourOS, Manjaro, etc.) where system packages are continuously upgraded to their latest versions. You run the latest version of everything. The advantage is obvious, but the disadvantage is a higher chance of regressions and issues from upgrades. Everything is changing so there's a higher chance something will go wrong at some point, but still a ton of people say it doesn't happen to them. Also there's a higher level of maintenance you need to do with these distributions. Then there's Fedora, which is semi-rolling. It both has releases and rolls packages (not always to their latest versions, sometimes they cap the version for one release and ship the latest version on the next release). Nobara and Bazzite use it as a base. It's an interesting compromise between the two. 1 1
Lingam Posted October 24, 2025 Author Report Posted October 24, 2025 Thank you @Lollard I'll try POP! again, It's been a few years, and perhaps a few others. I appreciate the time you took to write your thoughtful response. If I could toss you a temporal gear, I would Cheers 1
Teh Pizza Lady Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 Was going to recommend a Debian-based distro but I see Mint is already listed. It's my favorite and go-to for anything Linux-related. 1
HalfAxd Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 18 hours ago, Lingam said: I'm a bit tired of Microsoft and how they are forcing everyone into Windows 11 which also eventually they are removing all ability to create local accounts. Great post... this is on my short list too. I'll likely go with Mint because I've seen a number of people new to Linux have success with it. Good luck with your transition. 1
hstone32 Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 Most linux issues I've personally experienced have to do with nvidia drivers, rather than the distro. I'm guessing that like me, your graphics card firmware will give you more woe than your distro will. I've heard amd firmware is better. I sure hope that remains the case by the time I build my next desktop. 1
Diff Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 20 minutes ago, hstone32 said: Most linux issues I've personally experienced have to do with nvidia drivers, rather than the distro. I'm guessing that like me, your graphics card firmware will give you more woe than your distro will. I've heard amd firmware is better. I sure hope that remains the case by the time I build my next desktop. No worries there, Nvidia has demonstrated an incredibly consistent commitment to the bare minimum for Linux drivers over decades. And as far as distros, don't overlook Ubuntu. It's had its controversies, but there's an awful lot more firepower and testing behind it, and it's what Mint ultimately builds on. I'd personally recommend Ubuntu over Mint, Mint has had some issues stemming from the way they delay/alter the Ubuntu repos. 2 1
hstone32 Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 1 hour ago, Diff said: No worries there, Nvidia has demonstrated an incredibly consistent commitment to the bare minimum for Linux drivers over decades. Your standard of "bare-minimum" might be different than mine... 1
Diff Posted October 24, 2025 Report Posted October 24, 2025 46 minutes ago, hstone32 said: Your standard of "bare-minimum" might be different than mine... let me qualify it a bit more then: "bare minimum to keep their corporate clients off their ass." nvidia consistently drags their feet on implementing features needed for regular desktop users and seemingly only fixes longstanding quirks if they affect their corporate clients. when they work, they work well. but the seams are there. a huge amount of effort is burned by the various desktops to work around specific nvidia quirks so that end users don't have to worry about it, until they run into one of the seams or quirks that can't be papered over. 1
Lingam Posted November 10, 2025 Author Report Posted November 10, 2025 (edited) I ended up installing POP! OS after researching how well it performs for gamers and people with Nvidia RTX GPU's. I had a few Hiccups but got VS running good, thanks for the suggestions and comments. The fonts in the game seem a little different and the graphics slightly different but pretty darn good! Edited November 10, 2025 by Lingam
Alonso7 Posted November 14, 2025 Report Posted November 14, 2025 I'm happy to see more people moving to Linux. The worst mistake I ever made was buying an NVIDIA GPU. Unfortunately, I use a custom Arch Linux Hyprland-based desktop environment which is unusable with Nvidia.
Endeavour Posted November 15, 2025 Report Posted November 15, 2025 I've tried different fedora distros, mint, steamdeck os and I'm now on Endeavour(arch btw). I moved to endeavour when they had the borked nvidia drivers on install last summer and honestly I can say all distros are fine as long as secureboot is off, your steam folder is formatted to linux format and you use KDE. Whenever I happen to have nvidia drivers borked post system update I just run shift f1 at initial login and run system upgrade again and that fixes it. I really enjoy linux and I hope you do to.
Scarecrow_Krieg Posted February 12 Report Posted February 12 On 11/14/2025 at 2:09 PM, Alonso7 said: I'm happy to see more people moving to Linux. The worst mistake I ever made was buying an NVIDIA GPU. Unfortunately, I use a custom Arch Linux Hyprland-based desktop environment which is unusable with Nvidia. Hey, I have an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, I'm also on Arch Hyprland. I had problems switching around GPU drivers to a point some didn't even register, which made VS lock up my whole PC and even just launching the game would make it lag incredibly. I ended up installing the "nvidia-open" driver package and it resolved everything. Running the 590.48.01 driver version. The only thing that is bugging me is that I have this feeling that the graphics got downgraded after switching from KDE to Hyprland. 1
vinnland Posted February 13 Report Posted February 13 Interestingly, I have a windows with a 3070Ti. But I play VS on my Linux (internal graphics) for the same reason. But there is another solution to the problem of being forced windows stuff. I use windows 10 LTSC (there is also 11 LTSC). This version of windows has no AI, no windows store, no bloatware and is used mainly for servers. I use it for day to day. It's the only bearable version of windows I can handle.
Weezl Posted February 15 Report Posted February 15 I'm running it flawlessly on Garuda Linux Dr460nized Gaming Edition.
PineReseen Posted February 17 Report Posted February 17 I personally run Ubuntu, seems to work pretty well, although I do have issues with drivers from time to time (looking at you, nvidia-driver-590). Initially tried doing Linux Mint, but that had resolution issues after first boot after install, then that seemed to fix itself after a restart, but my internet didn't seem to be working and I couldn't fix it, so I just tried Ubuntu instead. I hope your journey with Linux goes well!
Aezryn Posted February 18 Report Posted February 18 On 11/14/2025 at 12:09 PM, Alonso7 said: I'm happy to see more people moving to Linux. The worst mistake I ever made was buying an NVIDIA GPU. Unfortunately, I use a custom Arch Linux Hyprland-based desktop environment which is unusable with Nvidia. For all the NVIDIA horror stories I've heard I've surprisingly had very few issues in the past ten years. The worst I've had to deal with was when NVIDIA's drivers started defaulting to the open-source module. My GPU is just old enough that it's not supported by the open-source driver so a driver update a year or so ago rendered a lot of my games unplayable until I figured out what the issue was. Fortunately the closed-source module is still available (for now, at least...) via the cuda-drivers package. That said, I'll definitely be going with AMD when if I upgrade my hardware. On 2/13/2026 at 2:29 AM, vinnland said: Interestingly, I have a windows with a 3070Ti. But I play VS on my Linux (internal graphics) for the same reason. But there is another solution to the problem of being forced windows stuff. I use windows 10 LTSC (there is also 11 LTSC). This version of windows has no AI, no windows store, no bloatware and is used mainly for servers. I use it for day to day. It's the only bearable version of windows I can handle. LTSC isn't a viable option long-term, at least for those who can't/won't switch to 11. Win 10 LTSC stops getting security updates in 11 months iirc. 1
vinnland Posted February 18 Report Posted February 18 (edited) 11 hours ago, Aezryn said: LTSC isn't a viable option long-term, at least for those who can't/won't switch to 11. Win 10 LTSC stops getting security updates in 11 months iirc. There are two versions Windows 10 LTSC has support until 2027 and 2032 depending on version. A quick google would have told you that... Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021: Based on version 21H2, it receives security updates until January 12, 2027. Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021: Also based on 21H2, but with support stretching to January 13, 2032. Also, windows 11 LTSC is not the same windows 11, the post spoke about the latter, and I suggested both. Edited February 18 by vinnland clarity
BlueSteelAU Posted February 25 Report Posted February 25 i used to run a windows 11 Pro Os latest version.. in January i switch to CentOS Linux using NVIDIA drivers and so far no problems . Switched from windows because of all the AI stuff being incorporated into it and the unstable updates to the OS. I had just had enough of windows. i'm pleasantly surprised on how much Linux has improved over the years.
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