Just use PikaOs if you want a gaming oriented debian base. It's essentially cachyOS on debian rather than arch
this post was submitted on 24 May 2026
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Yeah it looks alright
I also use Debian. And it is awsome. very stable with KDE + wayland.
I wrote a script to do post OS installation: https://github.com/LuceusXylian/debian-desktop-setup/blob/master/debian_desktop_setup.sh
You do not need the stuff after # Focusrite Config
Nice!! I'll check it out!
I recently ditched Manjaro for Debian and it’s amazing. I installed Nvidia drivers as desceibed on Debian’s wiki and have never had to read the wiki since then. Games work fine, system doesn’t break after update, always wakes up from sleep (it was a gamble on Manjaro but mostly didn’t work) and shuts down properly (Manjaro tended to freeze with black screen once it exited DE).
I used to be reluctant about switching to Debian and its derivatives because i read so much about the outdated packages and haven’t had the best experience with pop os but Debian just works and it’s amazing.
Thanks for your feedback.
I think I might stick with Debian after all. Tumbleweed is nice and all, but I quickly ran into some issues for finding third party proprietary software packages. There isn't as big a user base either. So finding help when things go bad is a bit more difficult. Otherwise I think it's a great distro. Much better than arch anyway as far as rolling releases go. And a lot easier to use.
Debian might require a bit more manual work, but I'm pretty used to that distro. So it won't be a big challenge. And I don't mind my software being a little behind if it means I get to use my desktop instead of troubleshooting.
Please don't run scripts that a random person uploaded to Github if you don't know what you're doing. I didn't see anything malicious here, but most of the stuff is useless and some of it is even detrimental (e.g. the LLM "thought" the outdated Ubuntu Nvidia ppa was a good idea).
If you want to game on Debian, you can do that just fine. Installing Steam and Nvidia drivers (if applicable) should be sufficient for most people. IMO, the main issue with gaming on Debian are the very old GPU drivers (Nvidia 550, Mesa 25.0). This can be fine on older hardware, but is the reason why I wouldn't recommend Debian for gaming in general. The script you linked doesn't help with this at all.
If you really want these "gaming optimizations", for the limited benefits they provide, I would recommend that you just use one of the distros that ships them. CachyOS, Bazzite, Nobara, Pop OS, or PikaOS all seem like a better choice than these scripts. At the very least the maintainers of those distros will integrate everything and perform some level of QA for you.
Just to add, finding good wayland support can be more important for gaming depending on your hardware. You get HDR, variable refresh rate, fractional scaling for monitors and other goodies.
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This thing has like 2 commits by 1 person 2 months ago without any review
I wouldn't really trust this repo at all.
It's literally a couple of shell scripts. It's some dude's personal project.
And the code is right there for you to read.
This is the personal project of some LLM.
It even has the common "phase" numbering and long em dashes.
Ah I see. Man I hate how things have become now thanks to AI.
Even YouTube videos now are made by AI with a virtual author and full AI generated animations. It's crazy.
The worst part is seeing my colleagues work and deliver code that they don't even know themselves what it does because they got it from GitHub Copilot. It's insane. I have to sit down with them to review the code so THEY know what their code does.
I hate how people use it.
I am a dev with 15+ years of experience and I just vibecoded some little summarization service that uses a small LLM model because I needed it and couldn't be bothered with the python stuff for the AI part. It's only 3 files that I double checked line by line. I posted it on github as a backup and on docker hub so I can pull it easily from wherever I want. I have not advertised it anywhere and the first three words of the readme are literally "I vibecoded this" with a note that if somebody thinks it's useful I can start maintaining it without AI, cause I fucking can. I could have written the thing myself, and that's the most important thing somebody should be able to do before having AI do it for them.
I looked trough the script you posted as it might have had some interesting ideas that I could research further. It installs irqbalance which I hadn't heard of yet. Upon further research it seems to be only good for servers and might even have negative impact on desktop installations, especially ones with 8GB RAM and lower. Nowhere does it mention anything about it.
Interesting. Maybe it has some good stuff but i really should go through everything and double check.
my experience with these kinds of hobby scripts, is that they often don't work, and it's more work troubleshooting it than just installing things manually
-
Most of the script isnt applicable to any 1 setup
-
I ain't reading all that
If I wanna install something Ill just install it, not run some giant monolithic script.
✅ What It Does
- Installs XanMod kernel with BORE scheduler (smoother frames, less stutter)
- Sets up a weekly auto-update pipeline to stay cutting edge
Just use Fedora/Bazzite or Arch/Cachy at this point?
You can game just fine on Debian based systems but if you want the latest and greatest from your recently launched hardware, running these scripts that installs a custom kernel and does a lot of tinkering, is of not much use.
This script is like buying a family hatchback car and then making a ton of changes to make it run like a sports car.
- Sets up EAC + BattlEye anti-cheat (Battlefield, Fortnite, GTA 5, Apex)
Seems LLM Generated as well. Because I don't think Fortnite works well (if at all) on Linux. This just seems an LLM reassuring the Dev that it works? IDK.
Seems LLM Generated as well. Because I don’t think Fortnite works well (if at all) on Linux. This just seems an LLM reassuring the Dev that it works? IDK.
Yeah, it's for sure AI slop.
Or if they really want specifically Debian for gaming, use PikaOS instead because it is gaming optimized Debian. CachyOS or Bazzite is stilk a better choice IMO though.
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True. The readme claims Battlefield 2142 is supported, but on Protondb it's still botched, because of EA's Javelin anti cheat.
I run Debian and have done nothing special to game on it. All native games I've installed run fine. Only non native game I play is WoW, and it runs fine. Though requires a GE proton update every now and then.
I have an AMD 6600 gpu.
Just switch to Debian, I haven't used a script like this (or heard of it). Get Wine from WineHQ to run Windows apps, they have the instructions on how to install it, and look up how to install the drivers for your GPU, and it'll work fantastic. That's all you'll need provided the rest of the system is working, I don't even have shit like certain launchers.
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