PikaOS Linux

Reader supplied reviews for PikaOS Linux Average rating 9.0 from 46 review(s) What are your thoughts on PikaOS Linux? Please include a few pros and a few cons, along with your overall impression of the operating system. Our FAQ page has tips on writing a good mini-review. Version: -- 26.04.0425.12.20 Rating:    -- 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 out of 10 Your review (minimum 250 words): Past reviews - sort by: DateVotes Version: 26.04.04 Rating: 7 Date: 2026-07-12 Country: Czechia Votes: 2 PikaOS has some great features no other distro's has and I really wanted to give this a 9 or 10, because except the following big problem, it deserves a 9 or 10. The bluetooth driver, like seriously, who in their right mind still uses such a flaky driver which is even rated by the linux community like a 3/5 (apparently some distro's....) maybe it is just my devices, but they work fine in Nobara/Garuda (Basically all of the arch and fedora versions) and a lot ofther distro's so maybe it is a shitty debian driver. Here my devices just simply WILL NOT PAIR, even though they are visible.... This is really a shame, because this makes this distro unusable for me..... There is no perfect Linux distribution, but audio device drivers, video device drivers, high refresh rates still not being implemented properly from fresh installs, some distros not ever being installable at ALL, monitor flickering when installing budgie as a desktop environment in Fedora (another example) and on and on, are just simply unacceptable things, especially on modern Linux installs. if simple things are not tested, then don't release the final product yet..... I guess this is still one of those things why people are scattered across different distro's, if simple stuff like this STILL does not work after all these years (this goes for every distribution, mind you) then there is still a LOT of work to be done, and YES you CAN probably make everything work IF you have all the KNOW-HOW, but imagine needing to be a high end user just to use your bluetooth mouse ootb (lets be real...) Definitely not a snear towards PikaOS, just one of those things which really annoys me after trying 50 different linux flavors, 'there is almost always something' (even if you have somewhat standard hardware). Will definitely try again in the future though, love the unique features this has. 7/10 Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 26.04.04 Rating: 10 Date: 2026-07-03 Country: India Votes: 2 "The Confession" Let me start with a warning.. I am an Arch Linux user, For the past five years i have proudly worn the badge of the "Arch cultist" elite.. I built my system from the ground up, optimized every single config file, and scoffed at anything that dared to ship with an installer Then, this adorable little birdy flew into my life and completely shattered my reality. PikaOS is a gaming-focused, Debian-Based distro that actually managed to pull me away from my minimalist rolling-release cave.. "Performance & Hardware Synergy" I went into this fully expecting to miss the bleeding-edge performance of Cachy's optimized kernels... I was dead wrong... PikaOS performs on par with CachyOS. The real magic, however, was the hardware compatibility.. Setting up proprietary or Nvidia-Open drivers for my Nvidia RTX 4060 can sometimes feel like a delicate dance on Arch.. PikaOS handled it flawlessly right out of the box. No screen tearing, no Wayland headaches, just pure, unadulterated framerates. "The Cozy Factor" It's PikaOS even the name is cozy.. what more do you want ? "Final Verdict" What more can a gamer ask from an Operating System? It has the raw speed to rival the best gaming distros on the street, flawless modern GPU support, and a stress-free maintenance model. I never thought I’d say this, but PikaOS > Arch. Much love for the cute little birdy! 💛 Was this review helpful? Yes No Version: 26.04.04 Rating: 7 Date: 2026-06-02 Country: Austria Votes: 3 I gave PikaOS a try because I was interested in a Debian-based distro with a focus on gaming. **1. The Installer** First impressions: I love it. Especially the partitioning setup step. If you choose automatic partitioning, you can easily select between ext4, Btrfs, or XFS. You can also decide whether to have a separate `/home` partition or not. Another nice touch is the option to choose whether the boot manager is shown at startup, including a configurable timeout, or hidden completely. PikaOS uses rEFInd, which is a great choice. The actual installation process is super fast. **2. Desktop Environment Choices** There are plenty of desktop environments and window managers to choose from: GNOME (the flagship desktop), KDE Plasma, COSMIC, Niri, and Hyprland. **3. COSMIC** I went with COSMIC. On first boot, PikaOS launches a setup application. You create your user account, apply updates, install media codecs, and optionally install a gaming meta-package that includes Steam, Lutris, Heroic, and Faugus. However, after updating to COSMIC 1.0.13 and rebooting, I was no longer able to log in. I got stuck at the login screen. I also had another strange experience, although this seemed to be specific to COSMIC. When I used the CLI package manager, `pikman`, to uninstall the default Chromium browser, Brave was automatically installed. When I removed Brave, Chromium was installed again. **4. GNOME** I also tried GNOME. Many useful extensions are installed by default. The ArcMenu extension is enabled, and it allows you to choose from a wide range of desktop layouts and behaviors. I installed KeePassXC from the PikaOS repository, but it would not start. The Flathub version worked without any issues. **5. KDE Plasma** I also tested KDE Plasma. You can somewhat tell that the PikaOS-specific tools, such as the Setup application and Package Updater, are primarily designed with GNOME in mind. They don't look quite as polished on KDE. Another issue is that Discover does not display app icons for PikaOS packages, although icons are shown correctly for Flathub packages. **6. Wallpapers** I love the cozy background images. They give the distro a warm and welcoming feel. **7. Final Thoughts** It was fun to try PikaOS, but in the end, I returned to my beloved Solus. PikaOS definitely has a lot of potential, especially for gamers. However, there are still a few rough edges and issues here and there that need to be ironed out. Was this review helpful? 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