Debian 12 gaming setup help

[MC.Morrado]

I am wanting to install the latest stable release of Debian on my programming PC. How do I install all proprietary hardware drivers, VLC Media Player, Steam, and VS Code? System packages are more lightlight: is there a way I can install VLC, VS Code, and Steam all as system packages instead of flatpack.

 

Having something stable for both gaming to learn from a player's perspective and have the tools necessary to start programming my own indie projects is a good start so I don't have to deal with the extra updates that come with a fork or even a fork of a fork. I have considered LMDE but thought it would be a better idea to just go with regular Debian for my professional use cases.

[Eigenvektor]

7 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

VLC Media Player, Steam, and VS Code?

The first two should be available in the Debian repository, so a simply "sudo apt install vlc" or "sudo apt install steam" should suffice

• https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-debian.html
• https://wiki.debian.org/Steam#Installation
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux

The Steam page above also contains info about drivers

 

That said, Debian isn't necessarily the best for gaming and/or development, since it is mostly concerned with system stability and as such tends to come with fairly old packages (it is more geared towards servers, not desktops). You might want to go with a distribution that features more up-to-date packages.

[MC.Morrado]

16 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

The first two should be available in the Debian repository, so a simply "sudo apt install vlc" or "sudo apt install steam" should suffice

• https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-debian.html
• https://wiki.debian.org/Steam#Installation
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux

The Steam page above also contains info about drivers

 

That said, Debian isn't necessarily the best for gaming and/or development, since it is mostly concerned with system stability and as such tends to come with fairly old packages (it is more geared towards servers, not desktops). You might want to go with a distribution that features more up-to-date packages.

The latest isn't really much of a concern. I'll be fine of it works.

[Mark Kaine]

11 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

The latest isn't really much of a concern. I'll be fine of it works.

yes. but they're saying it might not - as games and steam gets updates regularly and they aren't "optional" in many cases. ie. steam just won't even start if u don't update it.

 

30 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

The first two should be available in the Debian repository, so a simply "sudo apt install vlc" or "sudo apt install steam" should suffice

• https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-debian.html
• https://wiki.debian.org/Steam#Installation
• https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux

The Steam page above also contains info about drivers

 

That said, Debian isn't necessarily the best for gaming and/or development, since it is mostly concerned with system stability and as such tends to come with fairly old packages (it is more geared towards servers, not desktops). You might want to go with a distribution that features more up-to-date packages.

what would be a good option for op then, bazzite or mint... im guessing!? (bazzite ain't a serious suggestion, even though i think its fairly up-to-date) 

[Eigenvektor]

14 minutes ago, MC.Morrado said:

The latest isn't really much of a concern. I'll be fine of it works.

Just saying, games generally work better with more recent packages, because hardware support tends to get better with newer kernels, mesa packages and so on. Likewise, at least for AMD where you have open source drivers, you want a recent kernel to get current drivers for more current hardware.

 

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

what would be a good option for op then, bazzite or mint... im guessing!? (bazzite ain't a serious suggestion, even though i think its fairly up-to-date) 

Haven't used either in a long time. My personal system has been running on Manjaro the past couple of years and my experience has been good (same for development with Intellij/Android Studio). But I know other people here in the forum have a more troubled history with it, so I'm kind of conflicted recommending it, especially to people who might be less familiar with Linux.

[Mark Kaine]

4 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Just saying, games generally work better with more recent packages, because hardware support tends to get better with newer kernels, mesa packages and so on. Likewise, at least for AMD where you have open source drivers, you want a recent kernel to get current drivers for more current hardware.

 

Haven't used either in a long time. My personal system has been running on Manjaro the past couple of years and my experience has been good (same for development with Intellij/Android Studio). But I know other people here in the forum have a more troubled history with it, so I'm kind of conflicted recommending it, especially to people who might be less familiar with Linux.

i see... that's why i was saying mint cause it seems one of the easiest for newcomers and bazzite since its specialized also gets updates often...

 

i mean that's what im gonna try whenever i find the time (and get yet another 2TB ssd) to give this Linux thing a go.  (last time i tried was yellow dog or something, and it was frankly a disaster  )

[MC.Morrado]

I'm wanting to make it work on Debian. I'll install the latest packages when needed: sudo apt-get update + sudo apt-get upgrade

[Kilrah]

The point is that gets you the latest packages the debian maintainers have selected so that they work with the rest of the distro, which may be far behind what the application/package developers are at.

[BoomerDutch]

Bazzite is far up to date and stable in my experience.

 

If I'm correct on welcome screen they give you choices to install programs.

Like browser choice and vscode and probably vlc.

 

That's all i need and if I want something it's usually app image or flatpak.

 

Sure there are some extra's in bazzite but not actually bloat they are managers like protonup and gears and flathub and distrobox managers thats about it.

 

And apps for easy use like webapp I'd make one for youtube and set favorite browser to it then pin to task bar.

 

I'd use gears to manage app images.

 

That's about it, nothing notorious big just managers and webapp that you can make yourself and gaming support.

 

And update is a single application that automatically update everything without issue except if you manually configured os-tree.

 

There is ujust command for extras in case you need assist in anything for example distrobox you don't know how but ujust distrobox assemble gives you menu to select OS you want and it prepares for you.

[MC.Morrado]

7 hours ago, BoomerDutch said:

Bazzite is far up to date and stable in my experience.

 

If I'm correct on welcome screen they give you choices to install programs.

Like browser choice and vscode and probably vlc.

 

That's all i need and if I want something it's usually app image or flatpak.

 

Sure there are some extra's in bazzite but not actually bloat they are managers like protonup and gears and flathub and distrobox managers thats about it.

 

And apps for easy use like webapp I'd make one for youtube and set favorite browser to it then pin to task bar.

 

I'd use gears to manage app images.

 

That's about it, nothing notorious big just managers and webapp that you can make yourself and gaming support.

 

And update is a single application that automatically update everything without issue except if you manually configured os-tree.

 

There is ujust command for extras in case you need assist in anything for example distrobox you don't know how but ujust distrobox assemble gives you menu to select OS you want and it prepares for you.

Noted, I'll give Bazzite a try as well. Thanks.