Despite wanting to for years, I finally got my life sorted out enough to be able to switch this month. After distro hopping, I am staying on vanilla ass Debian. I would really recommend Pika OS to anyone looking to change.
Also, Fallout 3 runs easier on Debian than it does on windows 10.
I will never understand why people choose Debian. I’m glad it works for you, but it’s just such an odd choice for gaming. Much higher chance of stuff not working with newer hardware than distros with more up to date packages.
I mean, I wrote a whole ass post explaining why; but here’s the summary.
Ubuntu,Mint , Pika OS are basically debian. The “noob friendly intro distros” are usually based on debian or a derivative.I challenged myself to just go for bare ass debian and could do the things I wanted to. Turns out it’s not too bad (once you install KDE). Any advice people have for ubuntu/whatever I had to configure a few things, but they helped me grow a bit. I didn’t feel the need to go to a different OS afterwards (and I’m trying to replicate the things I like in the liveboot CD of Pika OS).
I was going to migrate to Pika OS if I couldn’t hack it on debian, but I can. So why move to a derived version which might have some things less in common than the sources of the majority of the help things out there online? Sure it has a nice device manager and whatnot, but I am trying to get similar things that exist in open source ecosystems to use instead. If I fail, I can just put the stuff on my other drive and move to Pika OS later.
I did try bazzite but I didn’t like that it was immutable and fedora; I feel that I’ve grown into debian derivitives and didn’t want to start learning things “the fedora way” or something. I like apt and the majority of the search results are aimed at debian and not fedora.
why does it seem odd for gaming? my hardware has built in support (even bluetooth!) and is from 2018 anyway, so I don’t feel I’m missing much.
I’m definitely not trying to convince you or anyone that your choice of Debian is wrong. Like I said, if it works for you, that’s great. And I don’t mean that sarcastically haha.
I was iffy about immutable for a long time because I’m definitely a tinkerer. But it ended up being the best Linux experience I’ve had in almost a decade of using it.
It does pose problems if you need custom compiled kernel modules, but that’s few and far between. Especially with something like Bazzite that tries to include everything one might need in their images.
Maybe what I don’t understand is less a new user’s choice of Debian or Ubuntu, but moreso that it’s still so heavily recommended by Linux veterans when there are objectively better options.
Not understanding does not mean smugness or judgement from me, so no one crucify me lol. As long as it works for you, that’s all that matters.
You’re probably not missing much — if your computer’s from 2018, newer graphics drivers won’t bring major benefits, and stability is likely your main goal.
That said, you’re not representative of all gamers, and older systems can still run into issues. For those with newer GPUs or who want to use the latest Proton or Wine, a bleeding-edge distro will usually work better. Linux relies on thousands of interdependent packages, and while Debian backports security fixes, it rarely updates package versions. This ensures stability but causes compatibility gaps as newer software depends on newer libraries.
Bleeding-edge tools like Proton and Wine evolve alongside their dependencies, so older, stable bases gradually fall behind. Backports help, but only to a point.
If gaming, especially new titles, is your focus, a more up-to-date distro will give you fewer issues. You don’t need a fully rolling release, but Debian-based distros with faster release cycles (every 6–12 months) offer a good balance between stability and modern software.
Sure. I guess because this version of debian is quite fresh (Trixie came out in august, this version is 13.1 already) I am not seeing that much “oldness”, and the problem with this choice might come out as the OS ages.
But if I really need dependent packages updated, can’t I add sources to apt and discover that have never versions of the packages?
PikaOS sounds like a brave man’s choice. It is based on Debian “Sid”, i.e. the unstable branch that is absolutely heavily not recommended as a daily driver.
The general recommendation is: if you want bleeding edge software, just don’t go Debian.
We’re talking about two different versions of Debian here.
Normally, Debian means Debian Stable, a branch actually meant for the end users. The latest Debian version in that regard is Debian 13 (Trixie), which was released on the 9th of August and will be mostly unchanged for the coming 2 years. This thing is super stable and rock solid, and is what Debian is famous for.
PikaOS is based on another branch, Debian Unstable (Sid), which is meant exclusively for developers to test out how well their newest packages work together. Critical bugs are a normal expected occurrence here. One update may bork your desktop, the other can introduce massive security vulnerabilities, etc. It is the first line of testing, after which there’s another branch (called, well, Debian Testing), and only then after scrupulous testing it gets to Stable.
So, what you are using is not the stable and reliable Debian as most people know it, but something on top of a dynamite house. It’s a very, very bleeding and bloody edge software you got there, and while I believe the PikaOS devs do their best to react to massive bug reports, they are unlikely to verify all packages could work well together. I’d expect at least some annoying unfixable issues here and there.
Despite wanting to for years, I finally got my life sorted out enough to be able to switch this month. After distro hopping, I am staying on vanilla ass Debian. I would really recommend Pika OS to anyone looking to change.
Also, Fallout 3 runs easier on Debian than it does on windows 10.
I wrote up two reports here :
Preparing to Switch, with advice from people : https://lemmy.world/post/35450797
After Switching : https://lemmy.world/post/37274818
I will never understand why people choose Debian. I’m glad it works for you, but it’s just such an odd choice for gaming. Much higher chance of stuff not working with newer hardware than distros with more up to date packages.
Bazzite is fantastic.
I mean, I wrote a whole ass post explaining why; but here’s the summary.
Ubuntu,Mint , Pika OS are basically debian. The “noob friendly intro distros” are usually based on debian or a derivative.I challenged myself to just go for bare ass debian and could do the things I wanted to. Turns out it’s not too bad (once you install KDE). Any advice people have for ubuntu/whatever I had to configure a few things, but they helped me grow a bit. I didn’t feel the need to go to a different OS afterwards (and I’m trying to replicate the things I like in the liveboot CD of Pika OS).
I was going to migrate to Pika OS if I couldn’t hack it on debian, but I can. So why move to a derived version which might have some things less in common than the sources of the majority of the help things out there online? Sure it has a nice device manager and whatnot, but I am trying to get similar things that exist in open source ecosystems to use instead. If I fail, I can just put the stuff on my other drive and move to Pika OS later.
I did try bazzite but I didn’t like that it was immutable and fedora; I feel that I’ve grown into debian derivitives and didn’t want to start learning things “the fedora way” or something. I like apt and the majority of the search results are aimed at debian and not fedora.
why does it seem odd for gaming? my hardware has built in support (even bluetooth!) and is from 2018 anyway, so I don’t feel I’m missing much.
I’m definitely not trying to convince you or anyone that your choice of Debian is wrong. Like I said, if it works for you, that’s great. And I don’t mean that sarcastically haha.
I was iffy about immutable for a long time because I’m definitely a tinkerer. But it ended up being the best Linux experience I’ve had in almost a decade of using it.
It does pose problems if you need custom compiled kernel modules, but that’s few and far between. Especially with something like Bazzite that tries to include everything one might need in their images.
Maybe what I don’t understand is less a new user’s choice of Debian or Ubuntu, but moreso that it’s still so heavily recommended by Linux veterans when there are objectively better options.
Not understanding does not mean smugness or judgement from me, so no one crucify me lol. As long as it works for you, that’s all that matters.
You’re probably not missing much — if your computer’s from 2018, newer graphics drivers won’t bring major benefits, and stability is likely your main goal.
That said, you’re not representative of all gamers, and older systems can still run into issues. For those with newer GPUs or who want to use the latest Proton or Wine, a bleeding-edge distro will usually work better. Linux relies on thousands of interdependent packages, and while Debian backports security fixes, it rarely updates package versions. This ensures stability but causes compatibility gaps as newer software depends on newer libraries.
Bleeding-edge tools like Proton and Wine evolve alongside their dependencies, so older, stable bases gradually fall behind. Backports help, but only to a point.
If gaming, especially new titles, is your focus, a more up-to-date distro will give you fewer issues. You don’t need a fully rolling release, but Debian-based distros with faster release cycles (every 6–12 months) offer a good balance between stability and modern software.
Sure. I guess because this version of debian is quite fresh (Trixie came out in august, this version is 13.1 already) I am not seeing that much “oldness”, and the problem with this choice might come out as the OS ages.
But if I really need dependent packages updated, can’t I add sources to apt and discover that have never versions of the packages?
PikaOS sounds like a brave man’s choice. It is based on Debian “Sid”, i.e. the unstable branch that is absolutely heavily not recommended as a daily driver.
The general recommendation is: if you want bleeding edge software, just don’t go Debian.
I don’t quite follow your reasoning with the gestalt post. Debian is too outdated, but PikaOS is based on debian that is too unstable and up to date?
regardless, on my '18 laptop, and with trying to be self reliant and manage just one personal computer, I don’t think I want bleeding edge.
We’re talking about two different versions of Debian here.
Normally, Debian means Debian Stable, a branch actually meant for the end users. The latest Debian version in that regard is Debian 13 (Trixie), which was released on the 9th of August and will be mostly unchanged for the coming 2 years. This thing is super stable and rock solid, and is what Debian is famous for.
PikaOS is based on another branch, Debian Unstable (Sid), which is meant exclusively for developers to test out how well their newest packages work together. Critical bugs are a normal expected occurrence here. One update may bork your desktop, the other can introduce massive security vulnerabilities, etc. It is the first line of testing, after which there’s another branch (called, well, Debian Testing), and only then after scrupulous testing it gets to Stable.
So, what you are using is not the stable and reliable Debian as most people know it, but something on top of a dynamite house. It’s a very, very bleeding and bloody edge software you got there, and while I believe the PikaOS devs do their best to react to massive bug reports, they are unlikely to verify all packages could work well together. I’d expect at least some annoying unfixable issues here and there.