I put four lean and mean operating systems head-to-head to see which one delivers the best gaming performance. From stripped-down Windows 11 LTSC to a no-nonsense Arch + Openbox setup, and from standard Windows 11 Pro to Bazzite— we’re testing them against 5 of the most popular games. Tested Operating Systems: Windows 11 Pro (stock) Windows 11 LTSC (minimal, no bloat) Arch Linux + Openbox (barebones custom) Bazzite (Fedora-based Steam Deck-like OS) Benchmarked Games: Cyberpunk 2077 The Last of Us Part II Ghost of Tsushima Counter-Strike 2 Oblivion Remastered Hardware Used: RX 6650 XT Ryzen 5 5600 Gigabyte Aorus Elite V2 B550 M/B 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 Gen4 SSDs (4700GB/s+ Read) All footage captured using an Elgato 4K X capture device on a separate PC running Intel i5 12600K, 32GB DDR5-6000 RAM, RTX 4070 Super GPU. 00:00 - Introduction to the OSes tested, drivers, kernels, etc. 06:39 - Cyberpunk 2077 07:38 - Counter-Strike 2 08:10 - Oblivion Remastered 11:18 - The Last of Us Part 2 12:14 - Ghost of Tsushima 13:37 - Summary Charts and My Thoughts