I distro hopped for a bit before finally settling in Debian (because Debian was always mentioned as a distro good for servers, or stable machines that are ok with outdated software)
And while I get that Debian does have software that isn’t as up to date, I’ve never felt that the software was that outdated. Before landing on Debian, I always ran into small hiccups that caused me issues as a new Linux user - but when I finally switched over to Debian, everything just worked! Especially now with Debian 13.
So my question is: why does Debian always get dismissed as inferior for everyday drivers, and instead mint, Ubuntu, or even Zorin get recommended? Is there something I am missing, or does it really just come down to people not wanting software that isn’t “cutting edge” release?
Mesa has been the defacto standard for AMD for years. It’s always performed better than the official driver. AMD just made it their official recommendation recently.
I think Intel also uses Mesa, with Nvidia being the odd one out
Right, I get that but also :
(Source Steam Hardware & Software Survey: January 2026 )
Entire top10, then for marketshare I don’t count NVIDIA I count the rest :
AMD : ~15%
Intel : ~6%
I’m too lazy to guesstimate when it’s below 0.5% but you get the idea, at least 75% is NVIDIA.
So “odd” yes but still a big deal in terms of market share for gamers.
To be clear though I am NOT advocating for NVIDIA (especially with all their AI BS) just showing how dominating they are in that segment.