I use KDE Neon on my laptop and I'd prefer to have KDE as a DE on this one too (if possible) but I don't mind a non Ubuntu base. Basically I'd just like to be able to play games on it without much hassle but I know how to paste commands into the terminal if the need arises.
Bazzite would be my suggestion. Throw the full install on the ssd then format the HDD for general storage. I'd be a little concerned about the 1060 3GB GPU though. Drivers will likely be fine, but the "10 series" have notoriously awful async compute and take a much larger penalty when running games/apps under proton/vulkan if I recall correctly.
Ok cheers that's definitely worth a shot
Yeah, Bazzite had dedicated installers for NVdia GPUs. Considering that Neon is being left to die by KDE, it's sensible to switch distributions anyway.
This is faster than my computer :(
I use Ubuntu studio with KDE but I'm not necessarily recommending it.
I heard popos is good with games.
Nobara doesn't because the GPU is too old, that's why I asked. But Bazzite has a legacy version so it's fine.
In that case you can just use fedora itself and install the drivers that way
This can't be. I am using a GPU from the same Pascal generation and just installed the newest availabe Nvidia 570 driver. I also use a Laptop with intel 4770HQ and Nvidia 950m GPU running with the same driver under the same Nobara 42 version with KDE.
You should switch from the open driver to the closed one, if your gpu is in one of the lists: https://wiki.nobaraproject.org/graphics/nvidia/supported-gpus
They explicitly mention the GTX 10xx series not being supported due to being too old. I'm sure there's a workaround but bazzite works out the box so I'm set.
There's already a thousand comments, but I'll give my opinion anyway. Debian is by far the most reliable distro I have ever used. It's easier to install than arch in my opinion, and is completely rock solid. However, if you have at least a year experience with linux and you like tinkering, nothing beats arch. I don't recommend using distros like pop_os, endevour os, or manjaro, simply because once you have a bit of experience, it just introduces more points of failure.
TLDR;Debian, or if you are experienced, arch.
Building off of that:
I recently discovered PikaOS, which is a Debian based distro that... more or less is as Nobara is to Fedora, highly streamlined, tons of optimizations for gaming built in, closer to, but not literally bleeding edge to keep up with driver optimizations, as well as comes pre packaged with a number of common, useful apps and packages.
I have seen some benchmark videos of it actually outperforming Nobara in gaming performance on older hardware... maybe not as old as OP's, but like, 10% to 20% more frames.
Downsides for this use case, seemingly a relative linux noobie, are that... well its still arguably in the experimental/development phase, it is fairly new, and of course, as compared to something like Bazzite, it doesn't come with guardrails via sandboxxing everything into flatpaks and making it more difficult to do something destructive to the core OS.
You Cheapo pc outperforms my scrap
It's my one and only rig too so don't worry 😅
Latest drivers and packages?
Want to do maintenance work, set it up and learn?
Note: Bazzite is so established that Marvel Rivals' developer Netease has released game patches targeting that distro specifically. It's the current most recommended gaming diestro.
I use Aurora on my laptop & Bazzite on my desktop.
Bazzite, really? I had never really heard of it before now! Very interesting.
Bug Fixes
All Platforms
General
- High-end computers running the Bazzite (Linux) system were mistakenly tapping into low-quality UI resources. Fear not—this issue has been rm'd!ll
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2767030/view/523083139556311044
It’s fantastic. If you are completely gaming-focused, there isn’t a better distro.
Bazzite has been the winner for all of my old windows pcs but all of my pcs are AMD cpu/gpus. There is and nVidia specific version of Bazzite but I have no experience with it so I can't verify if it works well or not.
I’ll second Bazzite. It’s secure, it stays up to date, and it “just works”.
If the immutable system becomes a problem for any reason, try Endeavor. openSuse Tumbleweed is also a good alternative.
I would just toss in my experience w Bazzite as a warning - I don't recommend, unless you're already a fedora devotee or really cool with how an atomic distro works. The 'it just works' was exactly NOT what I experienced - had to constantly manually set Xwindow compatibility with Flatseal (apps just ... wouldn't open... no explanation! Yay! The wayland is buggy? Took a few threads on Bazzites official discord to figure that out). It wouldn't mount secondary drives... would take a fuckton of work to get them recognized, mounted, and then it would 'forget' them again! Discord NEVER functioned properly (no streaming, even on Canary fork, etc. etc. etc.) It come's with things 'preinstalled' and if those are exactly what you need its probably fine, but its a handheld/steamOS facing project... I don't see any reason to recommend it here. For me (prefer GNOME environment, despite limitations), I've settled on a slightly tweaked version of Pop!_OS and s76's cosmic environment... but y'know, as others mention, this will run most popular stuff. I always love to go w a Debian fork for stability and familiarity. YMMV. Good luck!
Thanks for the warning. I am currently running Fedora (because "it just works") and I'm drowning in bugs and incompatibilities.
I was considering Bazzite because of all the recommendations, but considering my luck (and probably my hardware combination) I'd probably end up just like you described.
Could try Nobara, too.
its Fedora based, as well.. and I am a blithering idiot and had almost no issues with it.
I have found it won't mount internal drives on boot except for the main OS drive and its a real pain in my ass to fix otherwise it's been fairly good. definatley much better than any other distro I have tried.
I faintly remember having to deal with that. There’s a built-in “Device Auto-Mount” app that may be able to help with that without messing with fstab, assuming the drives are recognized.
If you happen to remember what it is called it would be appreciated. I had to install Gnome Disks in order to get it to work because the default KDE disk manager wouldn't do it even though there was an option for it (greyed out).
That's what I decided to try and so far everything works as expected
CARD READER: Card Reader
What cards are we talking about? If it's punch cards, you might be out of luck.
Any, honestly. That PC has good specs.
With a 10 series cards, dx12 performance will be terrible. Nvidia already has issues with dx12 on newer cards but Pascal is beyond worse. You'll have to enable dx11 on games that support it.
I decided on installing debloated windows for my 1070ti media machine. Plugs into a 4k tv and runs modern games well enough at 1440p on medium.
This is my experience and your mileage may vary. I still use linux (cachyOS) on my main machine with a 3070ti but Nobara or Bazzite are also good as others have mentioned.
That PC is quote good Even Today. You can run whatever you want. Have you tried endivourOS?
This should run pretty much every distro just fine.
Those are really decent specs! Which I had this kinda hardware sitting around. I'd probably try arch. Its kinda fun if you don't break it.
Steamos might be cool as a gaming rig too arch based so you get the best of both worlds
SteamOS doesn't support NVidia
I use Nobara, moved to it from Neon myself after the debacle that was the rebase to 24.04. It's Fedora based and you can get it with regular KDE or their own customized version. It's Fedora with special mods made by GloriousEggroll (the dev behind Proton-GE) to improve performance mostly for gaming though the improvements can be of benefit to other applications as well. It was probably the most popular "gaming" distro until Bazzite became the hot new thing. Give it a try and see how it runs on your hardware.
I don't think my GPU is recent enough for Nobara. That's what I wanted to use initially. Haven't actually tried it yet though.
We have a similar machine and it has openSUSE Leap for nearly 2 years. It's been fine so far.
Grab the Pop! OS nvidia image and you're in business.
I'm currently installing bazzite but if that gives me any trouble I think I'll try pop. I've just never really used gnome or its derivatives before. But it hardly matters for gaming anyway.
I ran into problems with bazzite recognizing that second hard drive where I wanted to store my game files. Had to jump through some hoops to make sure Steam had the correct path. Just FYI
The bazzite project website has an explicit "how-to" for extra drives. Worked for me with no issues, though I am definitely more experienced with tinkering with that kind of thing.
Wish I'd known this a month ago xD.
Kubuntu would run just fine on that machine.
I'll also throw in my vote for Bazzite. I've heard a lot of good things about it in terms of its default included packages and configurations for gaming. It sounds like you may not be advanced enough to mess with settings to make gaming run smoothly, so bazzite would do all of that for you. They have a KDE version. And it is what's called an "immutable" distro where the main systems files can't be modified easily by the user. That will make it safer to those who aren't sure of what they're doing. You can also easily set it up to run Big Picture Mode by default, so if you decide to use that pc more like console connected to a tv, bazzite would be great for that. Like others have pointed out, Bazzite has good support for nvidia cards out of the box, and that's a key feature to note. Bazzite is kinda like an unofficial version of Steam OS that's ready for widespread use and supports a lot of hardware. They're doing what Steam is not ready to do yet.
I just wiped Bazzite in favor of Tuxedo OS. I liked Bazzite a lot until I wanted to do the faintest wisp of development (setting up a new DIY keyboard with QMK). At that point I realized I’m in a very specific doughnut hole where I will occasionally want to do things that are still not mindlessly simple on an immutable distro, but I’m still untutored enough to need the walkthroughs that never include how to properly layer or sandbox stuff without just fucking up the very immutability that made it a good idea in the first place.
Shame though, as it was dead easy to install and use for basic productivity and especially games. A person with different needs and/or more skill would do very well with it. In the meantime, Tuxedo seems like a good snap-free Kubuntu alternative, and I’ve been floating around in KDE-running Debian derivatives (off and on) for decades.
Yeah, that makes sense. I guess you "outgrew" Bazzite. That's what's awesome about Linux, there's a distro for every use case. If I were to setup a HTPC/pc gaming console connected to a tv, I'd use Bazzite. But, for my desktop, I run Arch cuz I tinker so much with it.
I have arch kde on a similarly spec'd computer, and it runs great. Fairly easy to install with archinstall. Not sure about the 10-series GPU, but the nvidia drivers work fine on my 3070 under arch
To Realy harness every single BOGOMIP, there is only one: gentoo with cpu specific compiler flags. Distcc helps.
For everything less it does not really matter. Use the one you feel good with.
And to be honest, gentoo is my daily driver. But on a threadripper... i would just put a fedora on it and call it a day
Alright I'll throw in my experience since I'm sort in the same boat as OP: I have a 6 year old Gigabyte PC with a 1070 TI (still chugging). I replaced the old Ryzon 7 CPU i had with a 5. It's like a low-end chip though. I also have 32GB of RAM and on a 1TB SSD card. Linux Mint has been my best go to Distro. I've tried Garuda Dragonized with KDE DE and it runs fine. I just find Garuda to be too much bloat and unneeded programs/software.
I should stress I don't play a lot of up to date games that demand a better card than the 10 series. I play a lot of older titles that can run on a Toaster oven if I tried it. World of Warcraft Retail runs fine for the most part on this thing under Mint using Lutris. I think like what others have said is that once you get into games that require D12 is where I'll probably run into performance issues.
I'd say Manjaro is pretty good as well with KDE Plasma. I just prefer Cinnamon really.
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