I like your definition of "mess". It clarifies but is still subjective. :) The answer in my opinion is "develop for Ubuntu LTS". Non-LTS changes too fast. In c

I like your definition of "mess". It clarifies but is still subjective. :) The answer in my opinion is "develop for Ubuntu LTS". Non-LTS changes too fast. In contrast to Debian, you can assume proprietary nVidia/ATI drivers. If it works on Ubuntu, it (usually) also works for Debian and Mint, although you don't have to explicitly support them. Arch users are probably used to and savvy enough to port stuff from Ubuntu. It implicitly means GTK/Gnome/Unity, although games probably just use SDL and OpenGL.