ALSA is good if you're going to be using just the basics and you are adept at creating intricate asoundrc configuration files. Pulse is more for the automated stuff with multiple sources where asoundrc and dmix just are troublesome. It can be done with dmix and ALSA but it's a lot of trial and error. Jack is not really for gaming. It's a professional level low latency sound server/client best suited for audio production work. You can use it for everything, but it's very CPU intensive compared to dmix and pulse.

Do check first about how your distribution of choice uses Pulse if offered. Most use it as a dedicated sound server and default mixer while others allow the user to start pulse as needed, or via the desktop startup if selected with ALSA's dmix as the default.

i got the sound working properly, had to go with pulse and compile pnmixer 0.6.1 into a .deb file to install so id get keyboard shortcuts, volume works fine even the keyboard controls, steams installed, graphics seem to be working, now i just need to figure out how to get some decent compositing effects as well as how i can map my controller to keystrokes like in xpadder which allowed me to do complex mappings depending on how long i press a button, how far i move an axis, set shifts, etc.. anything like that in linux?

Um... Try rejoystick or antimicro if your distribution has them available. I'm not sure how well they do for specific trigger presses, but they work with remapping well. If you're using a PS3 SixAxis, try qtsixa.

i must admit i have been out of the linux scene for a couple years and apparently some things have changed.. i noticed getting back into it that the init.d shit didnt work anymore and i had to learn and issue new systemctl commands and i didnt think much of it at first until i started researching the issue more to find out exactly what has changed and i must say i am generally confused.. i find a lot of threads most dated back to late 2014 and generally what ive been reading about what it is and what it does theres a lot of people with good reason not to like it, but mostly im INCREDIBLY cautious and even quite angry when i see a large corporation try to hijack and dictate a generally open-project like linux

this is why i absolutely cant stand ubuntu and canonical trying to essentially propietize their distro and alienate the broader open source community and it seems like the people at redhat are trying to dictate to other users and other distros how some of the more basic level processes are going to be handled

has this changed since the old 2014 rants and raves?.. why have so many distros so willfully and seemingly without hesitation adopted it?.. it has me STRONGLY considering hopping to a distro that doesnt support these changes such as gentoo or slackware

also im reading more about git which i never had much experience with or knowledge of in the past which if my understanding is correct has become essentially an open-source repository of most linux based software.. if this is true, have any distros taken advantage of this and developed a primarily git source-based type of package management system?.. i guess theres a lot of new stuff in the broader linux world that ive been missing out on in my abense and i simply wont feel confident sticking with any distro at this point until i figure out exactly whats been going on recently

The answer to that is pretty simple. Those distro developers that have switched to systemd deem systemd to be a good thing, those that have not switched don't think it is a good thing, and some distros give you the choice to use it or not.
Please keep in mind that this is still a somewhat loaded topic, if you want more information, there are several threads on this topic already, so please go through them first before starting another discussion about systemd.

Infact, if you wanna play games you would like to have lastest packages. It's so important if you want a flawless game performance. For example, there is a huge performance difference between ubuntu 12.04 and 14.04. I guess I could explain why. Of course, desktop enviroment doesn't make so big differences on "your" machine. Because you have a "monster", if you compare with my pc But, if you use xfce you will have more space on your ram and it will be beneficial for virtual machines and games. I've found ubuntu a bit painful. There is a lot of bloatware. You don't even want to install them but it just installs. Sometimes you can damage your system while removing a software like;

I've found pacman the best package manager but I also found arch really unstable and undependable. I gave a try to manjaro and I loved it. I guess you should give a try it too If you wanna give a try to manjaro I suggest you to try xfce edition because if someone would asked me to say a good xfce distro I would say manjaro without hesitate

Also, if you take a look at this you can have a more minimalistic operating system;

https://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php?t...Edition_0.8.10

Also, manjaro has harware detection tools. I'm sure you will love it. Just give it a chance

Just like any business, the marketshare is the main driver for any decision of what they choose to proprietize. Canonical and Red Hat are businesses and both want to dominate their fields. Just because free exists doesn't mean someone isn't able to or unwilling to use free as a basis for a business model and profiteer off that platform. Not all distributions of GNU/Linux are free and completely open source. Sometimes these choices benefit the whole playing field of GNU/Linux and other times it just becomes a headache.

Git is just a different type of version control just like cvs, svn, and mercurial. Some find it to be more flexible than other version control systems, and others find it easier to use.

well, im doing some distro hopping right now, ive determined that i dont have the patience to deal with something i have to do a lot of extra work to perform the same tasks just for the sake of doing more work.. so im going to stick with something that "works" out of the box so i can spend more time doing other stuff on my PC than configuring it.. im taking this opportunity to try out some popular distros that i have yet to ever use, including fedora, opensuse, an pclinuxos (probably the three biggest rpm based distros) as well as a couple others set up to work out of the box.. even downloaded ghostbsd that im going to try out, and other versions of manjaro (like their fluxbox openrc version from their community builds) and see how a window manager based "easy" distro works out

and as someone just mentioned above, try manjaro with xfce, i already have and i like it a lot,may switch to it over arch simply because i can spend less time doing work or playing with it than i do just getting stuff to work right, also, besides the fluxbox edition of manjaro that i just downloaded, every other distro im downloading i will default to the xfce desktop (if i can) to keep things as similar as possible so i can more easily notice the differences

for all of these i will perform a few basic tasks, install a few basic pieces of software that i use and evaluate how well they perform at different tasks, in order ill probably go opensuse, fedora, pclinuxos, ghostbsd, and then see if there are any others i like to try after that

well, opensuse failed miserably, no official AMD drivers in their repository, their unofficial repository links were broken, and trying to install an RPM directly failed.. going beyond this goes beyond the realm of working out of the box, on top of it i felt its setup, installation, was just way too lame, like oversimplified to the point that it was akward just finding where to set up the wifi networking.. i wont be using this distro or recommending it to anyone else for linux gaming

wow, now on fedora i couldnt get steam to install.. its official repositories had errors too which would have lead me to take steps (probably from the CLI) to resolve and at that point these distros are no easier than manjaro or debian.. i fail to see how people call these "easy" when half their shit doesnt even seem to work and theyre overbloated to boot.. and heck the shutdown time took me like 10x longer than with arch (no wonder they wanted systemd so bad)... whatever, im disregarding all RPM based distros at this point and not going to waste anymore time with them.. theyre seemingly all overbloated crap that in many aspects seem to be less beginner friendly than stuff reputed as not being so

Before you write them off completely did you try different mirrors, if available, for the repositories for those distributions? I know I have had some problems in the past with Debian and, I think, Ubuntu when the network mirrors I picked were, for some reason, down or out of date or just not reachable by me personally. It happens to the best of them so I wouldn't say it's a reason to write a distro off.

well i used the only download options they gave me for the drivers and the errors with fedora went beyond that.. and basically the way im judging it is that these are supposed to be "easy" distros so if it took as much work to get simple things like a catalyst driver installed then it pretty much defeats the purpose of said easiness and at that point its not worth dealing with the absolutely enormous amount of bloat that comes with those distros.. so trying them out just reaffirms my stance against using, or sugesting anything based on ubuntu or any of the RPM stuff (though my pclinuxos ISO wouldnt boot off USB so i didnt get a chance to try that one)

i also tried sparky game on edition but steam wouldnt even work for it (so much for gaming with that) and well, then i went to try the fluxbox openrc edition of manjaro, and the openbox edition and i must say im even more impressed with manjaro.. not only are they incredibly lightweight, but already configured, ready to go window manager based distros and their little driver manager works well to install and maintain proprietary AMD drivers which will be important for gaming purposes

so in my opinion manjaro is lightweight, stable, easy to install, easy to use meaning less time wasted simply on setting it up, support for the drivers and software i need so after trying MULTIPLE versions of it both official and community builds i can say with confidence that id will continue to recommend manjaro to beginners and use it for friends and family.. as for myself, i dont even need an install guide to install archlinux but with manjaro being that much quicker without adding any bloat i fail to see the reasons as to why id go through the extra labor.. so i think ill give manjaro fluxbox openrc a much more in depth look

after using manjaro fluxbox, theres really nothing here i couldnt just do myself and probably couldnt also find a better way of doing, i mean if they want a complete desktop environment based on fluxbox, they need to auto-generate the menus like they do on antix.. so im still toying with the idea of just building my own desktop environment for gaming PC.. though, im not sure i can configure fluxbox toolbar/slit the way it needs to be (i need to read up more about it)

if i was to omit fluxbox slit/toolbar and use something else instead, should i just load fluxbox without the slit/toolbar or just go with a window manager that doesnt have them (like openbox?) as the more i start thinking about things like toolbars and system trays and window lists and that the more they just seem like some hangover from windows

Just a mild suggestion, but try Xubuntu. It comes with Xfce and Xfce is, in general, a fairly balanced desktop. Otherwise, you could be distro hopping forever.

As far as the AMD drivers... To be perfectly honest, the proprietary AMD drivers are of very questionable quality compared to the Xorg AMD free drivers. The free drivers work well, but do require firmware. Mesa-11 includes OpenGL 4.x extensions, you can get add-on s3tc support, and driconf works wonderfully as a driver tweaking tool.

If push comes to shove, and you aren't afraid of getting dirty, there are ways of bending Slackware into shape as a gaming OS. Slackware with AlienBOBs multilib, plus sbotools and OpenRC make for a good solution if you aren't fearful of a little dirt, elbow grease, and mud.

I did a quick read-through and didn't see anyone mention the Ultimate Edition Gamers. It is a highlighted distro this week (Sept 2015) and is up to version 4.6. I used an older one and liked it a lot, but the latest one took two installs before it would boot, and some of it just wouldn't work (like the package manager!) and user manager. I finally gave up and went back to Mint, but you might be luckier than me.

It is loaded with games, wine used to be good, and it should be Steam ready.

You mentioned you have used mint in the past but have you tried the latest versions such as 17.2 or 17.3? If not then I highly recommend it. Huge improvement compared to the older ones. (not that the older ones are bad) I meant the latest are even better!