241

Joined the Linux master race! (thelemmy.club)

submitted 3 days ago by lazynooblet@lazysoci.al to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world

64 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Had a slow day yesterday so thought, why not wipe the gaming PC and put Linux on it.

I work with Linux every day for work so I wanted a debian-based distro as that's what I'm most familiar with. After a short impulsive-driven search, I picked pika-os. Never heard of it but thought I'd give it a go.

Picked KDE, installed the OS, booted first time and immediately regretted it. No network. I have a 2.5G Realtek 8125 nic and whilst it was detected, it was showing RX packets as "dropped". Couldn't install firmware-realtek as it conflicted with linux-firmware. Tried the Realtek website, what a mess that is, compiled a driver, couldn't get it to load. Ended up finding a git repo that created .deb packages for all realtek drivers.

Got network up and running and its all been great from there. Last time I tried this in 2021 I had loads of issues but so far, other than having to download a later version of Proton and select it in a game, or add some command-line arguments in Steam, its been great!

I'm so surprised that every app I normally use on Windows is either available as a Linux native app, works with emulation (bottles) or there is a decent alternative.

Definitely, 100%, the Linux desktop is ready.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top new old

[-] ZombieCyborgFromOuterSpace@piefed.ca 11 points 2 days ago

Just a fair warning, PikaOS is a hobby project. The authors of this distribution make it very clear with a warning message when you install it. They'll try to maintain it as best they can, but provide no guarantee.

It's nice for messing around or if it's for a dedicated gaming PC or device, but it's a terrible idea as a daily driver.

Either way, I hope you enjour it!

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 5 points 2 days ago

Thanks. This pc is just games. It's only turned on when I want to game. It gets used twice a week, if I'm lucky. If I were to put Linux on my main machine it would be direct Debian.

[-] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Not accusing anyone here of white supremacy but "master race" is a term we really need to stop using/normalizing.

[-] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 days ago

It's a reference to an old Zero Punctuation video. Plus, the community here put it to a vote about a year ago and decided to keep it

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

The majority can still be wrong

[-] natecox@programming.dev -1 points 1 day ago

"It's just a meme, bro"

[-] Squidious@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 day ago

Stop being scared of words. It's the intent that matters.

[-] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago

Right, no stupid people have ever misunderstood a nazi joke in catastrophic ways that led to the fall of the western world.

[-] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago

Competitive PC running then?

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

I'm glad we seem to be past "ricing"

[-] natecox@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago

I feel like I still see that one and awful lot, too.

[-] caseyweederman@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

Aw. Maybe I've just blocked those communities.

[-] Surp@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Its not 100% ready if you had to find drivers for your Ethernet and mess around with settings to get a game to launch. Most people aren't savvy and expect their programs to just launch.

[-] snugglesthefalse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Tbh I've never had to find ethernet drivers on Linux and the games that don't work out of the box (at most forcing a proton version) are the ones that aren't on steam

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 11 points 2 days ago

Then neither is Windows. The amount of time I've spent troubleshooting Windows crap.....

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

They buy pre-installed then.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] LostWanderer@fedia.io 22 points 3 days ago

Man, you had it harder than me with the realtek drivers. PikaOS is pretty cool overall, as it does streamline some things that Debian makes annoying (graphics drivers, for example). I do hope you enjoy PikaOS, after troubleshooting that annoying issue! The good thing about anything Debian based is that .debs are probably the most prevalent installer out there (cries in Arch).

[-] who@feddit.org 7 points 3 days ago

it does streamline some things that Debian makes annoying (graphics drivers, for example).

Do you by any chance mean Nvidia drivers?

[-] LostWanderer@fedia.io 5 points 3 days ago

Yeah, but ultimately, it was even easier with Garuda Linux which was built to be used. As my drivers were correctly selected when the installation began. It was a good surprise.

There is a command line workflow for installing NVIDIA drivers, but, the provided drivers (which Trixie was built against) were pretty moldy at that point. For just a simple productivity machine, Debian would've been my go to.

For one that is a gaming/entertainment/productivity machine...It wasn't for me, personally. As Debian is pretty stable and mostly easy to use.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 6 points 3 days ago

Really enjoying it so far. Been playing D4 and The Alters today. I'm still surprised at how smooth the experience is!

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] MuttMutt@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

Realtek stuff is a major pain it seems. I'm guessing that is why FreeBSD is will known for being fine with nearly anything but realtek.

Not that I really use it by my AMD MoBo runs an Intel NIC for a reason. I started 10G networking a while back. Was a pain to get my Mellanox ConnectX3 working on windows. Linux didn't even blink.

I tried switching a long time ago. And every 3 or 4 years since. I'm happy I have. Things got a lot better in the last few years.

[-] vogi@piefed.social 10 points 3 days ago

Oh wow I never heard of PikaOS but of seems great, even though you had some difficulties. I love Debian and have it on my Server, Laptop and now also on my older Gaming (Nvidia) PC.

I feel like Debian really only needs a couple of (hardware specific) tweaks to be a great out of the box experience and it seems PikaOS tries to do that. I don't like that most other desktop first distros opt into using Ubuntu as their bases. But that is only because I'm willing to invest some time to fix stuff and understand how my PC works.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 9 points 3 days ago

Yeah I'm enjoying pikaos. I use chrony for time-sync and their "pika-base" package absolutely required systemd-timesync and I wanted to remove it. I asked in their discord and they changed the package for me right there and then so that it was "systemd-timesyncd" OR "chrony". I did "apt update" 10 minutes later and it was resolved.

[-] Amaterasu@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

How people feel about this distro in general? Would one consider using it in a server? Auto updates with a Debian based distro that is using newer kernel and applications sounds promising.

[-] 16mhz@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Maybe consider Spiral linux, it's just Debian with better defaults and backport repo probably without the bloat that comes with "Gaming" distros.

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 2 points 2 days ago

Pika OS is gaming centered and is based on Debian sid. For a server just stick with normal Debian. If you want latest and greatest use Debian sid

[-] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

In a time where Nazis have made a comeback and racism is rampant world wide, maybe it's time we dropped the whole "master race" joke

[-] Hund@feddit.nu 17 points 3 days ago

You do know that the PC Master Race was originally intended to make fun of the pseudoscientific Nazi ideology "master race"?

It feels like we need this joke more than ever before.

[-] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 day ago

I think they did since they called it "the master race joke"

[-] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

Let's mock nazis by appropriating their ideology. That'll show them

[-] Hund@feddit.nu 0 points 2 days ago

[-] ZephyrXero@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

It's originally for lame PC gamers to feel superior. It's always sucked

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (8 replies)

[-] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 14 points 3 days ago

That is taking what is said so far out of context that I'm more concerned for your comment than the title.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] Damage@feddit.it 9 points 3 days ago

Nah, let's keep associating that concept with a joke, because that's just what it is

[-] vala@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago

Remember when a Trump presidency was just a joke? I do.

Jokes get taken over by people who are too dumb to understand satire and irony. They don't see a joke, they see an appealing idea being normalised.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] Franconian_Nomad@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

Had a Realtek network card in my gaming pc. Had nothing but problems with it under windows AND Linux. Finally ripped it out a month ago and replaced it with an intel. It’s so nice to have finally a stable connection.

load more comments

this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2026

241 points (94.1% liked)

Linux Gaming

26589 readers

322 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

No memes/shitposts/low-effort posts, please.