Hello,
I bought a razer blade 15 laptop a while ago, and world like to install Linux on it, mostly to play games. So, ideally I’d like a distro that can make the most use of the hardware and let me play the most games, while being the easiest to use and lowest maintenance possible. Any recommendation?
I have a Razer Blade Stealth 13 QHD+ touchscreen (RZ09-02393E32) since 2017. Until recently it was mostly Windows and Ubuntu side by side. I realized few months ago I never ever boot on Windows so I removed it. I also got tired on Ubuntu pushing for its own package management system which I don’t find useful. Consequently back to “just” Debian stable and works great for me. Didn’t have to tinker with anything, just works.
Is it easy to get NVIDA drivers, Vulkan, Cuda etc in Debian? I somehow thought that was kind finicky, not sure why …
It is finicky on any distribution because NVIDIA drivers aren’t perfect on Linux nor on Windows.
That being said I’m gaming, in VR and otherwise (using native games, Proton ones, Steam VR, etc), or running local AI models (thus via CUDA) on a daily basis on Debian and have no problems. You can check https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers but it’s basically just installing the driver like any other package. I don’t have more or less problem than with e.g. Ubuntu. It basically works.
make the most use of the hardware
All distros should do this equally well, and better than Windows
let me play the most games
All distros will be more or less the same. Games generally work or they dont. Check ProtonDB to see which games work and how well.
easiest to use
lowest maintenance possible
This is how distros actually differ.
Some common suggestions:
Ubuntu LTS:
- Upgrade your OS every 2 years
- Proprietary drivers are there if you need them (Nvidia is the only GPU that needs them)
- GNOME shell environment is very beautiful and fast, but very different from Windows
Kubuntu LTS:
- Upgrade your OS every 2 years
- Proprietary drivers are there if you need them (Nvidia is the only GPU that needs them)
- KDE Plasma Desktop is like all the best parts of windows 95/xp/7/10/11 + os9/OSX/macOS combined, improved, and made super customizeable
Ubuntu/Kubuntu current:
- Upgrade your OS every 6 months
- Newer software than LTS
- Otherwise same as LTS
Linux Mint:
- Upgrade your OS every 2 years
- Proprietary drivers are there if you need them (Nvidia is the only GPU that needs them)
- Cinnamon Desktop is a better looking and faster implementation of a Windows 7 style desktop
Fedora
- Upgrade your OS every 9 months (or else)
- Proprietary codecs need to be added after install to play some video and music streams in your browser. It’s like 3 commands copy/pasted into the terminal
- Proprietary drivers are there if you need them (Nvidia is the only GPU that needs them)
- Choice of several desktop environments (Fedora spins)
Pop!_OS
- Fun to spell
- Upgrade your OS every 2 years
- Proprietary drivers are there if you need them (Nvidia is the only GPU that needs them)
- Pop_shell makes you feel like a hacker from the future, but is very unlike Windows
I do not reccomend
Bazzite, Kali, Arch, Manjaro, Garuda, Debian, or Slackware. They are all great distros for specific use-cases, but they are all significantly more work to configure and/or maintain than the suggestions i’ve outlined.I haven’t tried Nobara so i cant recommend it, but from the outside it looks fine for a gaming desktop.
Edit: I have mixed feelings on Bazzite, but it might also be a good option for someone feeling adventurous
There are some other differences, for example Pop!_OS while on a LTS base still gets regular updates of kernel, Mesa and Nvidia drivers which is nice.
As a counterpoint, I installed Bazzite on a Blade 14 for a heavy gaming friend who was leaving Windows, and they have had no issues whatsoever.
I personally use Bluefun, and again, no issues at all. Incredibly good experiences on both.
I can’t imagine what you mean by needing more work to configure, they both worked out of the box with no configuration.
I just don’t see the draw of immutable distros for non power users.
With traditional ubuntu/mint/fedora you have 15+ years of forum posts, tutorials, and community wisdom to help you out if you get stuck. You probably wont need to, but it’s nice to be able to just google something and get a dozen good answers. If you want to use containerized apps you also have that option.
Also depending on your taste in gaming, you might need access to stuff outside of steam/lutris/heroic/flathub. In those cases getting your game working could be a bit of a hassle compared to a traditional distro.
I totally see how immutability can be a draw for tinkerers and developers, but for regular users it’s solving a problem that doesn’t really exist, or is pretty rare if it does.
I also think there is something to say for picking a distro that’s been around a long while. Hopefully Bazzite is still around in 10 years. I feel very confident Ubuntu/Mint/Fedora/Pop! still will be.
That said, I’m glad to hear you and your friend are happy with Bazzite. It seems like a really good option if you only play games from steam/heroic/lutris/flathub. A best of both worlds between a PC and a gaming console.
The draw is that you cannot screw them up. Non-power users are the ones who will get the most out of them!
I know that I’ll never get a call from my friend saying, “I ran this command I found on an Ubuntu forum, and now my system won’t boot…”
It’s certainly safer though one can probably still do some damage in /etc, if determined.
Good counterpoint
for me immutable makes more sense on like a web browsing basic use laptop that u plan to have for a very long time. And like very basic gaming. Cuz with immutable u never have to do a full upgrade which is nice on a laptop thats gonna last like 10+ years.
You may want to look into something like Bazzite or Nobara.
Generally though, most distros will be perfectly fine for gaming – just note that some distros will need a little bit of extra work done for stuff like nvidia drivers, so if you’re new to linux, something like those above, which have that done already, will likely be best. Bazzite in particular should be very low maintenance.
I can confirm that Bazzite works flawlessly on a Razer Blade 14 without any additional configuration. Just installed from ISO and it was perfect.
Generally hardware compatibility should be identical across all distros, as most drivers are baked into the kernel
The exception being Nvidia drivers, you have to install those yourself pretty much everywhere
Lowest maintenance possible is probably gonna be bazzite as people are saying
None.
I had a Razer laptop in the past when they were talking about being dev laptop forward & supporting Linux.
This never happened. Instead flashing Linux voids the warranty now, support drops you, & firmware upgrades only happen thru a green-accented genuine Microsoft Windows GUI installation (no *.bin flashing, no CLI FreeDOS support, no Windows PE).
flashing Linux
I’m a bit confused here… aren’t we talking about a laptop? Why is flashing anything required? Doesn’t the BIOS let one boot on any peripheral, e.g. disk, USB stick, etc and thus allowing one to install Linux (or just boot on live USB stick to test) without flashing?
To upgrade the UEFI or other hardware-level firmware you need a way to upgrade. Best OEMs use LFVS; good OEMs use have ISOs or bin files you can flash from UEFI; terrible OEMs lock that into a Windows-only executable.
In my case there was a fan & thermal update I was never able to get.
upgrade the UEFI or other hardware-level firmware you need a way to upgrade
Indeed but unless the unit received is seriously flawed (to the point of possibly being exchanged by the manufacturer), no upgrade to UEFI or hardware-level firmware is actually required. Most people who received a computer never even upgrade the firmware. I’m not saying it’s not “nice” to upgrade it but the typical scenario for most common laptop or desktop is that such upgrades are optional.
I’ve been running Fedora with KDE on my Razer Blade 15 (2020 Advanced). Without knowing your specific hardware model I think you can run any reasonably popular distro and game happily.
I have a Razer blade 15 advanced from a few years ago. I’ve run Arch on it, and now NixOS
It does steam fine, I can use the GPU for gaming, all that fun stuff.
+1, I used EndeavourOS
I would try with Bazzite or Pop OS first.
My gaming rig has been running Nobara for years now, it’s built off of Fedora by the developer who does the glorious eggroll version of Proton.
It’s got multiple desktop environment versions and is optimized for Linux gaming. It has a bunch of gaming-specific kernel patches and optimizations. Extra drivers pre-installed for controllers and Nvidia GPUs, etc.
It has a very easy update wizard, I run it once every few weeks, works awesome.
I had to set one of these up for my SO a couple of years ago. I dropped EndeavourOS on it, installed btrbk and configured automatic snapshots on a schedule and before package installation/update in case she managed to bork things by pip installing things into system python.
Fedora would probably work well too if you want a lower maintenance burden. I hesitate to suggest Ubuntu or Debian or their derivatives since you’ll probably want to be somewhat current with your Nvidia drivers.
Normal distros
- Pop!_OS
- Mint
- Fedora
- Ubuntu
Gaming distros
- Garuda
- Bazzite
- Nobara
…or any other distro really. I’ve been gaming on vanilla arch linux. It’s pretty stable and low maintenance once you’re done setting it up and don’t tinker much and have backups with something like Timeshift in place. archinstall script makes it really easy to install vanilla arch linux with everything essential configured.
I’ve used a Razer Blade 16 last year and could never get the speakers to work no matter what I tried. Tested quite a few distros (Mint, Manjaro, Debian) and ultimately settled on Fedora. Didn’t mind the speakers not working much since I used Bluetooth speakers/headphones mostly anyway. Other then that Fedora worked prefectly.
I never owned this model but the ArchLinux wiki confirms that it’s supported, while “it is known to have very limited bios feature and limited Linux stability”.
Can confirm that the Razer BIOS is absolutely bar bones. Never really minded that and as I said aside of the non-working speakers (apparently a known problem with Razer) it was all good.
Maybe Garuda ?
Thanks for your thread, I also have to upgrade my Blade 15. It automatically installed Windows 11 which broke the built in monitor (lol). Let me know if you have any success with these comments’ suggestions!
