If I want to use my laptop for gaming (my platform is Steam, I don’t know if this is relevant), how does openSUSE Tumbleweed compare with other Linux distros? It does not appear in most “Top 10 Linux distros for gaming”-ish websites/articles. So I wonder?
I want to buy a new laptop, with good gaming performances. Say I can spend up to around 1500€ (I live in France, again I don’t know if this is relevant).
What kind of laptop should I look for? Any recommandations about laptop/processor/graphic chip/other hardware － brands?
Please note that I know almost nothing about hardware in general, so you need to keep your answers simple
And I insist that I want a laptop, a portable computer. If possible, I’d add a reasonably light one, and (extra bonus but no priority) I am not a big fan of red/rainbow lights under the keyboard ^^
I do use an external display for gaming though (most of the time).
No problems with Tumbleweed and Nvidia. Owner of three different Nvidia cards with proprietary drivers. Steam player here…
You only have problems with Tumbleweed and Nvidia if you are a owner of ancient hardware (>10 years). Actual hardware and Tumbleweed play perfectly together…
Unfortunately the FUD about Nvidia is mostly spread by ppl who don’t even have a Nvidia card or are not capable of following SDBs howto install a driver…
Never used Steam myself, so I can’t really help with 1.
I use Leap instead of Tumbleweed and it has worked perfectly fine for gaming for me. Play linux native games and wine some games when I feel like it. I don’t play a ton of titles, so I’m not the best judge, but the only thing I haven’t been able to get working is a Windows game from the 90s, so there is that.
I have had a few different ‘gaming’ laptop configurations over the past years. Both Nvidia GPU + AMD processor and AMD GPU + processor. First Nvidia+AMD unit was a little hard to set up because of the suse-prime problem not working with AMD at the time (circa 2019), community was really helpful and guys at Nvidia also helped out. That said, compatibility has since been fixed. I use Leap, just because, but have had no problems.
AMD + AMD worked out of box, no issues at all (2023).
For laptop recommendations: Anything you like the feel of is probably the right answer. I run Asus because I like the keyboard, no real other reason. The internals depend on what type of games you want to play more than anything.
Intel i7, i9 or Ryzen 7, 9 processors are the kind of top end and would handle just about anything.
16G-32G of ram is typically more than enough.
A 512G harddrive will likely be enough, though some folks like more space (1+ terabyte) if they download a lot of games. A solid state (SSD) drive is standard these days, and boots fast, but regular Hard drives (HDD) work just as well.
Most graphics setups are fairly easy to get working; I don’t play really graphics heavy games, so am likely not the best judge here.
For your budget, I would expect you could find something nice with most of the above specs. The usual suspects in the market tend to be Acer, Alienware, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI… Gigabyte is kind of new on the market.
Weight has something to do with physical size too: My experience has been that most modern laptops aren’t too heavy in the 15-17in size. Very light means smaller 14in, which cramps the keyboard a bit.
And for what it’s worth, usually you can turn off the keyboard backlights if you don’t like them.
@ultome I do have a HP Pavilion Laptop (circa 2018) It’s an AMD CPU and dual AMD GPU’s running MicroOS Aeon, using switcherooctl can use the alternate gpu for offload…
