It really isn’t. I’m not digging on PopOS, but articles like this make it seem like there is a world of difference in performance between distributions, and that’s just not true.
I have nothing against Pop_OS or what not, but this article gives absolutely zero info on why/how.
It’s an ads for Pop_OS! paid by System76 or it’s AI generated.
This article is total shat.
Is there really much of a difference in game performance between “game focused” distros and other ones like mint?
Not really. Nobara comes prepackaged with a plethora of game related utilities and tons of kernel tweaks and packages to optimize it for gaming, but I highly doubt any gamer could tell the difference, between it and mint in the middle of a game. Use the distribution you like that works well for you.
That’s kinda what I was figuring. I’ve been using mint for several months now and I really like it and I’ve gotten it all adjusted to my preferences. I’ve checked out pop os, but I’m not a fan of the OS layout. It reminds me of android lol.
I’d argue it’s more about having all the things preinstalled rather than the tweaks. Having steam ready with all the proton versions available in the compatibility drop-down (including GE) plus heroic, gamescope, mangohud, etc. waiting to be discovered, that all reduces friction for newcomers.
Performance? No. But some of the new distros include Gamescope, which is kind of a big deal.
But is there any difference between installing a distro that includes Gamescope, vs. installing it yourself afterward?
Gamescope is great to use even on desktops, it runs the games in its own little shell which is particularly good for compatibility with old games where you can change stuff like resolution, fullscreen, keyboard layout… without impacting your distro.
I just left Pop!_OS for Fedora because it being based on Ubuntu 22.04 means that it’s getting fewer and fewer critical updates for me, and their website doesn’t make any indication that they intend to change that any time soon.
I’ve never used arch or manjero, but I’ve used Ubuntu, Fedora, Bazzite, and Pop, and Pop has been the best for me for a desktop experience. Definitely for people looking to switch it’s the least intimidating
I used mint a bit a few years ago, for first timers who need gaming I’d say yes. Idk if Mint does but the pre-baked in NVidia drivers made it extra easy for me.
Genuine question, doesn’t PopOS requires to disable secure boot to install? Not a big fan of distros that request it
Because you as a Linux user still want to hang on the insecure leash of MS? Or why do you want to be forced to wait for MS again and again? UEFI is still a nasty disease and should be eradicated.
The idea is the opposite, to not rely in MS for Secure Boot. True that they created the secure boot but not because they created that is a bad idea. Many Linux distributions support Secure Boot through their own signing keys or by using tools like Shim (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, OpenSuse, Arch, Gentoo and NixOS), allowing us to maintain control and security without depending on Microsoft. Secure Boot is a security feature that ensures your computer boots only trusted software, reducing the risk of malware. It checks the signatures of boot software and only allows signed, trusted components to load. This helps protect your system from unauthorized access during startup. Not flawless but is better with than without. Also, along with other strategies it may some day be used by the gaming vendors as a potential via to validate anti cheat. Recently the systemd made some progress in the area enhancing the TPM config.
https://lwn.net/Articles/1001730/
“the TPM PCRs could be used either to lock a disk-encryption key to only be used on kernels signed by a particular OS vendor, or to lock a disk-encryption key to specific local things, such as the firmware version, available hardware, etc. Now, with systemd 257, the user can configure both these kinds of requirements at once.”
