Feedbacks for improved gaming experience

[Jonok]

I just tried out to switch from Windows 11 to Linux after using the SteamOS3 on my Steam Deck. Not confident in harder distros, Zorin seemed to be a good choice at first, DE was comfortable enough and managing multiple windows worked smoothly...

... however as I started to install some games, aspect of the OS showed that it wasn't tuned up for gaming, and some simple tasks weren't as beginner friendly as I espected.

I'm using a Asus Laptop that mounts:
CPU: Ryzen 7 6800HS
GPU: AMD RX6800S
SSD: 1Tb NVME
RAM: 16GB

At the moment I have switched to ChimeraOS that is optimized for handhelds giving a similar experience like SteamOS3 and is working good enough but not ideal for desktop experience since it use the default GNOME layout.

As Windows 10 is ending support in about a year and W11 looks worse on every new update, I'm sure there will be an userbase that want to try Zorin but it might be worth to look on some of these aspects:

1. Installing Steam: flatpack of steam from the software manager is not always the best option as the gui have crashed on me on First installation, but booted up with "starts with dedicate GPU", but not without a problem, the window was stuck in full screen. I than realised by reading around that sometimes is better to download a software directly from the owner website, so the .deb worked better overall.

2. Something GUI to track software installed by terminal: sometimes there will be occasions where you forced to instal from terminal, but at the moment there isn't any gui interface that shows every package, I heard that synaptic was good, but I'm not aware if there are any better options also couldn't figure out how to install it.

3. Game mode: SteamOS3 has this thing called game mode, where your distro starts in big picture and the hardware only focuses on game session with DE disabled and only Steam overlay, you could also keep other program in the background like tabs, is useful if you want to put music or a voice chat client. Either that or something similar made from ZorinOS DE that doesn't require steam login.

4. TDP, GPU Power and fan controls (probably just for AMD): Steam deck game mode has decky plugins, a really easy environment to navigate for managing your hardware and some software quirks, 2 of these plugins used in the Steam Fork OS are my go to self optimization
   GitHub - aarron-lee/SimpleDeckyTDP: Decky TDP plugin for alternative PC handhelds for TDP control
   GitHub - fewtarius/FanControl for Fan control
   Maybe I didn't spent enough time but I couldn't find the DE equivalent except for SimpleTDP that opens a window that "emulate" the steam deck tab.

This is the main reason why I've switched from a Desktop distro, as heavy gaming like Helldivers 2 was running well but my CPU was above 90°C in game. Tweakings where needed so now I reach 70°C max with the same performance.

5. GUI guidance to change micro-compositor for DE: I'm not completely sure how to explain it, basically sometimes I do want to stream with discord my sceen, it looks like is only working with Gamescope rather than Wayland, the procedure is not hard, it might be the first aspect that an user should try to use the terminal but it was quite abstract for me that I come from windows.

Thank you for your time, I'm quite new to Linux but I hope you find any of these feedback useful.

[applecheeks37]

Just wanted to pop in and say a couple things real quick. Not to discredit anything you've said, just to answer a couple things.

Regarding #2, all you need to do to install synaptic is to search it in the Software store and install it as you would any other app. I agree that there should be something to view all things installed on your system (even if it's in a submenu in Software or something). But just to offer a possible reason, I'd wager they don't really want an average joe looking at every dependancy on the system and potentially doing more harm than good right off the hop. But again, I do wish that there was even an "Advanced" tab in Software to show everything.

As for #3, there actually used to be a gaming edition offered. However, I would wager that they decided it wasn't particularly useful or needed, and I kind of would agree with that (if that's what they were thinking) simply because most things you want to do, you can setup without too much effort nowadays. Also, they are primarily a standard desktop user OS first, not really focused on gaming, but you could easily at steam to start in bigpicturemode right on login, and essentially achieve a very similar effect. You can also install gamemode and it'll run automatically without much effort.

Fan control would be nice to see, or something by default to monitor it so you can read it, but in this case I feel that since there's so many hardware variance out there, that it would probably cause more non-functioning problems than functional ones, and thus more support tickets lol.

Also Wayland issues. Yeah. Not much there other than yea, its been very annoying. And flatpak, ideally (personally) you would want deb packages, but sometimes you need more up to date stuff, so I understand the need of flatpak and appimages etc. I think I would like it if they defaulted to the deb first when you click install rather than flatpak, but you could easily argue opposite that as well.

[Ponce-De-Leon]

Welcome to the Forum!

Your Ideas sounding interesting. But I want to say something: SteamOS is made with a Gaming Focus. Zorin is more a common OS. You could try it with a more Gaming focused Distro like Nobara or Nitrux.

[Jonok]

That's an understandable option, I've always used to have only windows and go but I'm starting to realize by the reply up here that no distro will do everything at once.

But I like Zorin look and stability, I'm thinking to keep it as dual boot and another OS as "game mode"

[zenzen]

I agree with @Ponce-De-Leon on this one; it's not like you couldn't possibly make Zorin OS more performant or fine tuned for gaming but it's simply not the intended audience.

Although the point you made about Flatpak is one of the most recurring issues that I see. I also like the idea of having a way to track installed software graphically.

But everything else, while I'm not exactly opposed to it, it would feel unnecessary for someone who doesn't play games. I prefer a lean system with as few things installed as I can get away with, while having the ability to install more as needed.