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I’ve been wanting to do this for years on an old (and severely underpowered) MacBook Pro which I use with Windows exclusively for Games. Do you have any recomm

by latexr 1y ago

I’ve been wanting to do this for years on an old (and severely underpowered) MacBook Pro which I use with Windows exclusively for Games. Do you have any recommendation for an extremely lightweight Linus distro which installs and runs Steam fine? It would be used exclusively for that, so it shouldn’t run a ton of background stuff.

tomrod 1y ago
Depends on your view of lightweight, but probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) will serve you great. Full featured without a ton of bloat, historically.
- latexr 1y ago
  > Depends on your view of lightweight Basically, what I care is that as I’m running the game, the system is consuming as few resources as possible. It’s an outdated machine, so every bit matters. > probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) Thank you. Will check it out.
  - tomrod 1y ago
    I'm a big fan of Linux. My small business and personal life run on it. You can download XFCE/Ubuntu spin at https://xubuntu.org/download/ https://xubuntu.org/download/. If you develop on your Apple system, it will be pretty similar except - App Installation via repositories is more common than single program installs. No DMG files. There is a similar concept to DMG with "snap" installs. Steam should probably be installed via a snap. You trust the producer (Valve). But most software and security should come through repos (in CLI, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade) - Home directory is /home/<username> Much of the rest is similar -- Apple's BSD and Linux share a common Unix design progenitor. Linux is way open to rewipe, just pay attention that you don't lose files. My first day on Linux in the mid 2000s, I somehow overwrite the file system allocation table with the content of an MP3. It was recoverable! Good luck, and have fun!
delecti 1y ago
Check out Bazzite. It started as a way to approximate SteamOS for general hardware. Or if you have an AMD GPU, you could even try SteamOS itself, though it's intended for handhelds.
- latexr 1y ago
  I thought about SteamOS but didn’t seem viable for that Mac. Bazzite looks to be the next best thing. Probably what I’m looking for. Thank you.
ac29 1y ago
You can login directly to steam big picture mode using gamescope if you have no need for a traditional desktop: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from_a_display_manager https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from...

by latexr 1y ago

tomrod 1y ago

Depends on your view of lightweight, but probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) will serve you great. Full featured without a ton of bloat, historically.

latexr 1y ago
> Depends on your view of lightweight Basically, what I care is that as I’m running the game, the system is consuming as few resources as possible. It’s an outdated machine, so every bit matters. > probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) Thank you. Will check it out.
- tomrod 1y ago
  I'm a big fan of Linux. My small business and personal life run on it. You can download XFCE/Ubuntu spin at https://xubuntu.org/download/ https://xubuntu.org/download/. If you develop on your Apple system, it will be pretty similar except - App Installation via repositories is more common than single program installs. No DMG files. There is a similar concept to DMG with "snap" installs. Steam should probably be installed via a snap. You trust the producer (Valve). But most software and security should come through repos (in CLI, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade) - Home directory is /home/<username> Much of the rest is similar -- Apple's BSD and Linux share a common Unix design progenitor. Linux is way open to rewipe, just pay attention that you don't lose files. My first day on Linux in the mid 2000s, I somehow overwrite the file system allocation table with the content of an MP3. It was recoverable! Good luck, and have fun!

delecti 1y ago

Check out Bazzite. It started as a way to approximate SteamOS for general hardware. Or if you have an AMD GPU, you could even try SteamOS itself, though it's intended for handhelds.

latexr 1y ago
I thought about SteamOS but didn’t seem viable for that Mac. Bazzite looks to be the next best thing. Probably what I’m looking for. Thank you.

ac29 1y ago

You can login directly to steam big picture mode using gamescope if you have no need for a traditional desktop: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from_a_display_manager https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from...