Hello, everyone. Currently I'm using Debian 12 as a gaming computer distro, however I'm not satisfied with the constant issues I've been getting from wine among other minor issues.

I'm looking for a distro that has stability overall and is great for gaming, including having support for both 32 and 64 bit gaming as many of the games I like to play are older Windows games from the 90's. I'm also looking to get away from using Thunar as it's miserable to use at the best of times. Having a distro that can satisfy both of these would be great.

I always see Mint recommended and I've heard good things about pop too. I'm just not 100% sure which to choose. I can't switch right this minute as I'm waiting to upgrade some of the hard drives I have, so until then I'd be happy to hear some suggestions.

Look into ChimeraOS as it supports most classic games (GOG, Steam, etc but not sure about Wine).
You might have a look at Sparky Linux: Game Over Edition. (Wine, Steam, DOSEmu/DOSBOX, etc)
You might consider one of the MintDE gamer loads. Mint itself is Ubuntu based with all that implies, so I would go with MinitDE.

Most distributions (Like Mint/MintDE) are not gamer editions, but can be loaded to be a game server nicely. There are a few with a strong gamer focus that come preloaded with tools. The GameOver edition of Sparky Linux is one Debian based one I like, but you might find others.

Have you browsed on Distrowatch?

Try another distro if you want, but it won't change anything. Any wine issues you have will be similar and solutions will be the same, things like trying wine-hq versions or glorious eggroll versions, or disabling directx, etc etc. Nothing to do with your distro.

If you want to use another file manager, Debian has *lots* of other choices besides thunar. Off the top of my head, there's nemo, nautilus, dolphin, pcmanfm, spacefm, and caja for gui based ones, mc and ranger for tui, and surely lots more. You'll have the exact same choices in any debian based distro, including Mint, and pretty much any other distro with decent sized repository.

That being said, installing a new drive is a good time to install clean OS, so good time to try another distro if you want.

Instead of changing distro, I have two suggestions for you:

First suggestion: For 32 bit Windows games, I'd suggest using Conty.sh: https://github.com/Kron4ek/Conty

It's a no-mess, no-fuss solution for wine, steam, lutris, etc. on Linux. It's statically compiled and doesn't need multi-lib. You just download it & run it. You don't need admin privileges, it'll run from your user account. I use it to play games like Starcraft and Warcraft III. I've written a blog entry about getting Starcraft running, since it's a bit of a process: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...kware64-38602/. Warcraft III installs and runs without any special hackery required.

For DOS games, you can use DOSBox: https://www.dosbox.com/ or ScummVM: https://www.scummvm.org/

Second suggestion: Install KDE. It has a superior file manager to Thunar, and is probably the most "complete" (for want of a better word) desktop for Linux.

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And while I agree with the above, your repository contains a LOT of other file managers that you can use instead of or along side any of the others! Your choice of desktop does NOT force your choice of software tools for anything other than the desktop itself!
And while there may be "issues" with Debian, it still has the most comprehensive package heavy repo system in the world! You have choices!

PS. For some games running with the RT kernel helps. It is overall slightly slower, but avoids certain kinds of irregular delays. This behavior can hurt some games, but make others run far better.

FWIW, I was going to suggest what I use, but what I use is ... uhh ... Debian Stable and XFCE4 (with default file manager - Thunar).

So that wouldn't have been useful.

But in the past, I've used PCManFM, which is a bit less minimalistic than Thunar. It has tabs, for example.

Currently I run a lot of my games through Lutris which usually either run very smoothly or don't run at all. Learning wine has been one of the biggest curveballs for me since I started using Linux a year ago. I'm only now starting to get a moderate grasp of it but it's not perfect. I still deal with issues regarding wine too involving things like runtime errors and being spammed with gecko/mono installations when it shouldn't be necessary. I'm hoping that if I do wipe out and start over, I can eliminate any odd things I did when I first set this machine up. It's just a question of can I do it with Deb 12 or do I switch over to something a bit more flexible, especially since it would be nice to play some of the more online games, most of which have anti-cheats that just don't work with Linux while also being compatible enough to run older games too.

I used to run Wine a lot, but quit. I run a lot of DOS games (mostly under DOSBOX), and the rest are Linux native, Steam, or old console emulation games: none of which require Wine. (Okay, let me correct that. I HAVE a lot of those games on my machine, I rarely make time to actually PLAY any of them! Life happens. )

A better question to my original request. Which of the distros is easiest to use for someone who isn't quite experience with Linux, while also being gaming compatible and stable? Things are starting to break in ways I can't explain now so regardless of whether I switch over or not, a wipe is now required to start from scratch for me.

P.S: Also, something that has access to the latest version of wine.

Mint is great for that use case, and a new drive is always a good time for a clean install anyway.

All of the GAMING distributions, although often based on solid parents, are a little closer to the 'cutting edge' because you NEED that for good gaming when Windows games on Linux are involved. It always helps to understand the system better when you are doing edge cases like these.

Mint and MintDE are excellent distributions, and CAN be configured for gaming. Doing so can make them slightly less stable, but they are excellent options. Mint is Ubuntu based, while MintDE is Debian based: made by the same team to the same standards. (Good people!)

I still suggest not settling on a single distribution without giving a few of the best options a try to see how you like them. It is really nice that the teams maintaining gamers specific distributions have done a lot of the hard work FOR you.

Thank you everyone for being so patient with me. I'm sure it's frustrating dealing with the inexperienced trying to tinker around. I've been struggling to get answers to linux based situations for a while so it's nice to have a place that's patient and able to answer questions. I will be considering bouncing between many of the suggestions here. Apparently though, I'll be waiting a while longer on hardware because I thought it had gotten ordered and was forgotten instead. XD So it will be a wait before I can toy with that. I'll leave the thread open to other suggestions but I will likely not check in for a bit.

Again, everyone here. Thank you so much for your time and patience. It means the world to me.

I'd also suggest the Bottles flatpak for Wine stuff. Solved nearly every issue Wine gave me on Debian. And it's trivial to install other wine versions / runners with the gui so you can find the precise one you need for whatever it is you're running. Doing just fine with my minor gaming on ElementaryOS 7 at the moment.

Did you try Conty.sh as I suggested earlier? It is by far the cleanest & easiest method of deploying wine.

I'm sure it works well for you, but you're suggesting a user new to linux install something that isn't even part of their distro, some random script nobody has heard of. Another person suggesting use flatpak to install botles, good gracious!

@OP There are many solutions for managing wine and I'm sure their users all they all think they're the best solution too. But at least Steam, Lutris, and PlayOnLinux are available to install from debian repos if you don't want to manage wine yourself, and I suggest use something from your distro before looking outside.