I’ve been using Linux Mint for the last…eight years? I think? Anyway, it’s been great for gaming and if you want a minimum of fussing about, I would just install Steam and use Proton for compatibility. It’s by far the easiest and most tinker-free gaming experience for Linux - at least in my experience. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to really research and tinker with any annoying issues. protondb.com has been extremely helpful in checking the compatibility of a certain game for Linux and even offers tips and tricks to make the fussier games work.

If you’ve used a Steam Deck, you’ve used Bazzite (for all intents and purposes). If you can use a game console, you can use Bazzite. That’s pretty much the entire purpose of SteamOS; making PC gaming stupid easy.

Caveats:

1. if you want to use anything other than Steam, it quickly becomes more complicated.

2. If you want to play competitive multiplayer games, many of them block Linux users.

3. If you want to use any peripherals besides KBM or controller, such as flight sticks or steering wheels, that also can be complicated.

My son, 14, is on Bazzite now after using Pop!_OS for 5 years. He specifically requested it after using it at my office and seeing how well the Logitech steering wheel he uses works in Forza Horizon 5. He’s decent with tech, to the point that his teachers called on him to help with their problems during middle school, so maybe not the best example.

My daughter, 11, is on Pop!_OS. She’s currently at the tech level you describe, though sometimes she forgets to turn the power strip on, making me think she may be slightly below that. Her PC has been on that distro for a good 2 years, though she really only plays Minecraft, watches YouTube videos, and does her homework with OnlyOffice. Zero tech-related complaints from her, once she’s logged in she’s able to do what she needs with little to no assistance.

After stints in EndeavourOS and AlmaLinux I’ve settled on Kubuntu 24.04 LTS. I needed something stable with zfs in its official repo, so I don’t risk losing access to the big volume that contains all my raw video footage after a kernel update. The experience has been about as unremarkable as possible, which is exactly what I was looking for.

All three of us are using nvidia GPUs, and have had no trouble with drivers in the slightest. I use mine for gaming and video editing using DaVinci Resolve Studio, and while I was looking for as unremarkable an experience as possible, I’ve been using Linux since around 1996, so my tech experience doesn’t align with what you’re looking for; however, if this means anything, I’d switch my 85-year-old father with dementia to Linux Mint without worrying that he wouldn’t know his way around.

a gaming system for the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input.

Definitely Bazzite. It’s almost impossible to break, it’s effortless to roll back if something does theoretically go wrong, and KDE Plasma is like the most user friendly version of Windows you’ve never seen.

Bazzite is awesome!

• => Documentation <=
• => Frequently Asked Questions <=

On it since Beta ~2+ years. It’s “Dad Linux”. It’s “Chromebook-easy Linux.” Like a smartphone it keeps 2 OS images at all times. If an update ever goes bad, just rollback to the previous image.

Also let’s you roll with bazzite-testing more confidently, without worrying about your system breaking.

You can even install Kinoite and Rebase to Bazzite alternatively!

JayzTwoCents:

“I FINALLY listened to you and tried Linux… Why did I wait so long?” GardinerBryant: “Bazzite just had a HUGE UPGRADE! (And more Linux Gaming News)”

Checkout the new Bazaar Flatpak Store app! Super easy to manage applications.

No more messing with Gnome Software or KDE Discover.

I would recommend Mint over PopOS if that ends up being the choice, but Bazzite is probably the safest choice here. Both Cinnamon and Plasma should be pretty easy to navigate for someone used to Windows. Nobara is great, but personally I would stay away from distros with so few maintainers (only GE?). GE is an amazing dev and has done some great things for gaming on linux, but the chance of having to switch distros sooner or later is fairly large. If you don’t mind helping them with that, then I don’t think you can go wrong with Nobara either. Personally I currently run CachyOS with KDE Plasma and it’s been super solid for my use case including gaming, but I would not recommend any Arch-based distros to “the kind of person who needs help if their TV is set to the wrong input” even if it is quite beginner friendly and stable. But I also keep Windows around on a separate drive regardless for the times when Linux isn’t the right tool for the job, most notably because a lot of competitive games do not run on linux as they require kernel level anti-cheat (https://areweanticheatyet.com/). If the person you are referring to have no interest in those kinds of games, then that becomes a non-issue, but if their favourite game is something like Valorant or Fortnite then Linux simply isn’t a good choice for them yet. That is also true for some Windows-exclusive applications. Most applications have good alternatives or can run fine through something like Bottles or Lutris, but some don’t.

Otherwise, most games typically work fine (https://protondb.com/). Some work flawlessly without having to do anything. Some only require minor tweaks like setting a launch parameter or selecting a specific proton version. Those I believe would be acceptable, if not perhaps a little frustrating for such a person, but there are also a lot of games that run but can have issues of varying degrees that you can’t do anything about. They are almost always good enough, but sometimes those issues can be significant. What I suspect would be a killer is that some games may stop working after an update which requires further tweaking or simply staying broken until either the game devs or proton devs fixes it.

I’ll second Linux Mint Cinnamon. My understanding is it is designed to look/function as close to Windows as possible to help people transition away from Windows.

It was my first Linux distro migrating from Windows, and overall it’s been a fairly decent transition.

1. Linux Mint Cinnamon
2. About 2, maybe 3 years. Time’s a bit fuzzy.
3. There was some, I’ll leave some tips below.
4. Nothing specific.

-Check out Protondb.com. It’s a website where you can search for games to see their compatibility rating with Linux OSes, along with any tinkering/troubleshooting tips other users have done.

-Once you install Steam, go to the Settings menu, select Compatibility, and select an option for “Default compatibility tool”. This global setting means you would not have specifically select a Proton version for each game you play.

-I found that sometimes Steam would not launch from the toolbar. I have no issues launching it from the terminal window (literally launch Terminal, type the word ‘steam’, and hit Enter)

I am very non-technical and I have ended up with Linux Mint Cinnamon which was the first thing I tried, with Steam dealing with the few games I have played the past four years or so. It has been mostly non-Steam Fallout 4, No Man’s Sky, Baldur’s Gate 3, Guild Wars 2, and Steam version of Lord of the Rings Online. Stability varies but I think it is mostly my hardware being old.

Overall I have used Mint for maybe eight years, at first only for internet browsing. I still played LOTRO and Guild Wars 2 with my trusty (well okay, the games started to be rather crashy) WinXP around 2020. Hm… a year or two, here or there. I don’t actually remember when they started to drop support for XP. I originally tried Steam on Linux for LOTRO.

Just as a background info I’m going to be a little bit dramatic and claim that I don’t like Linux, I use it out of necessity. Even if I am generally fine with it, as far as I can manage it.
I just don’t like the command line at all. I also don’t like the program “shop” like system. I think I can see it on my current Mint as Software Manager, now that I check but I don’t want to start it. It is that I don’t like them “calling homes” or managing things which is how I see the command line and the manager being like.
I can download a Steam installer from the website and then it sets itself up, with command line type window, downloading what ever it likes from somewhere, managing things… fine, I have to deal, I want to play games. For general computer use I can download Firefox and some other Linux software from websites, they start when I click the executable and that’s the way I would like things to work way more. I do let the driver manager set graphics drivers when I make a new Mint installation as I can’t even begin to understand other options.

My favorite thing would be the possibility to easily set up a Linux computer for offline games without ever connecting it to internet.
Once, maybe 4 years ago I did somehow install wine on Debian which I think I didn’t connect to internet in the process. The one game I tested did launch but didn’t really display well because no graphics driver.
Another experiment, on Mint last year, was to install wine with command line (the horror!), I could launch the non-Steam games I installed but didn’t try playing them. I can’t remember for sure but it may be that the games just didn’t run as well as they did on Steam’s Proton on that same Mint installation. Based on when I sometimes read about Linux, wine does seem to need plenty of config which I really don’t want to do.

I’ve been on Pop_OS for 4 years and I’ve used Bazzite and Endeavor on my other computers for a few months. My only issues have been with nvidia drivers (not so much of a problem anymore) and some of the propriety hardware in my laptop being funky. I’d say, honestly, if they can handle Windows they can probably handle any mainstream distro. If all they use is Steam and a browser, anything will suffice. I’d personally lean toward Bazzite as I doubt they can break it and it comes set up for gaming already. If they game with anything outside Steam, teach them how to use Lutris. The Bazzite forums and wiki pages are also great, albeit some are a bit technical, although I doubt they’ll need it if they are very tech illiterate anyway.

1. CachyOS
2. More than a year
3. I had to setup snapshots and timeshift
4. A bug between kdrive app and key wallet from KDE (I can still not auto log in the app on Wayland at start.)

I decided to set the snapshots in order to recover in case of bad update. Then I decided to update the system at least once a week brainlessly, just to see how much time it takes to break. so far, I’ve never used the snapshots.

I set up Ubuntu for my somewhat non-technical brother (not as non technical as you mentioned, but not someone who will ever open CLI), and they used it happily until their laptop got too old and they had to change (5-7 years, even upgraded to next LTS once)

So, I will vote for something stable and mainstream like that. Set up steam on that, and they should be good to go.

go through their list of games on protondb to see if linux would be a good fit, it might not be, depending on their library.

you’ve got a nice ‘short list’ of distributions to evaluate. i’d recommend setting each up yourself on a spare system to see how ‘point and click’ they are in setting-up, running, and updating the games they play.

also keep in mind the more hoop-jumping and manual configurations you need to do, the greater the chance of something breaking–like during os or wine-related updates. those kinds of issues are the ones your friend will be relying on you to fix for them so you definitely want to minimize the chances of that happening.

Linux gaming has gotten really good and continues to get better. Currently, I’d agree with what most of the other responses here have been and say Mint or Pop!_OS

This doesn’t help for the current build you’re setting up and I’m not suggesting to wait for it, but for the future I’d suggest also to keep an eye on SteamOS and when Valve eventually releases it for people to just download and install on whatever machine, it’s likely going to be the best option for this kind of scenario

Linux Mint, Wine Bottles/Steam, 3 years, never had any issues, but I mostly run older games. I cant speak for newer games or competitive multi player games

Personally I’d say none of the above for newbies. I have had experience with Nobara and it’s OK but I literally had problems with GPG certificates for updates for the second time in 3 months, and yesterday the update engine crashed during an update and my plasma desktop only showed a black screen with a cursor on it when I logged in.

I can problem solve that but it’s annoying as hell and not suitable for someone who doesn’t want to do that.

Pick a more mainstream distro and not something that is rolling release. They don’t need that - they need something that is rock solid. The gaming modifications on distros are overrated - they only matter if you really want to push things to the limit.

I’d probably go with Mint for your scenario. It’s stable, and the 22.1 is a long term release up to 2029 - so it’s unlikely to break with a major update.

I’d personally go with KDE over cinnamon - it’s user friendly but its slicker than the default desktops in Mint and will make the machine feel more high end as a gaming machine. There is also scope to customise it if the person using that wants to go down that route or has something they’re already familiar with (KDE very flexible - feels like a nicer version of windows GUI by default but can make it look like MacOS or even Gnome, or whatever you want tbh). Cinnamon and Mate have flexibility too but KDE has a whole ecosystem of software to draw on and doesn’t suffer from Gnomes rather marmite design philosophy.

In terms of games - use Steam where possible. It’ll “just work”. There is almost no configuration required and personally I have a huge games library and haven’t had to troubleshoot anything so far. I don’t play competitive games or the highest end fps games though. But I’ve just completed cyberpunk 2077 on my desktop, which is a 3070 and had no issues.

Some popular games like Minecraft have their own clients and set up but it’s not difficult to set up once and leave it going.

Lutris is a good games client if they do have games in other stores like GOG or Epic, and it works well with steam too. Heroic is also a good multi store client - slick and easy to use if that’s preferred, good for gog, Epic and amazon.

Whatever you chose to do, keep.ot simple. I’d honestly avoid the gaming distros and go for something stable and widely support like Mint. Definitely avoid pure Ubuntu, and avoid rolling releases of anything and you should be fine support wise.