The more people hop onto Linux the faster and better funded support for Linux development becomes. If you’re a single player gamer or play Valve multiplayer games primarily, make the jump to Linux. Get on Mint, get on Fedora, Ubuntu, etc and get off Microsoft’s shitboat. You already took off from Reddit. Wean off all these other money/data leeches
I’m on Mint and have been for 2-3 years now and I’ve never had any problems with non-valve multiplayer. I don’t use any VMs and just run everything through proton and have never struggled.
Battlebit, Helldivers, Lethal Company (+mods), Risk of Rain 2, Rocket League, Minecraft, and Split Fiction to name a few. I guarantee there are others I’ve played, but I can’t remember.
Switch to Linux. As a big-time gamer, I did it last year and it’s been fantastic. Only issue is if you main games with root kit anticheat…but with enough momentum in Linux direction, game studios will be forced to abandon those dubious detection methods anyway.
Sadly I use way too many programs that only work on windows or Mac that Linux would handicap me. The free open source versions of yhe apps I use are no where near as capable.
My only option I can think of would be running a virtual machine of Win10 on a Linux install so I can still use those apps.
Would you mind sharing a couple of the names of the programs that only work on Windows for you? I’m a bit curious.
Not OP, but for another data point: recently I did quite a bit of Linux-related research on the three Adobe apps I use (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, in this order of prominence), and they are all reported as some level of broken via Wine and their Linux alternatives are missing important features and/or a pain in the arse to use :/
I’ve been hard at trying to get games i like to work in mint. It takes a lit of time but it’s going ok. Like you said though kind of sucks for multi-player. I can’t even get diabolical multi-player to work (after I looked up how to fix the instant crashing audio driver issue) . It’s also a lot of qork getting any racing game to work with my DFGT…even though linux does see the axis and buttons, the force feedback is all messed up. Wish I knew how to code so I could fix these issues! But I don’t have 12 hours a day to ever learn that
Use Bazzite. It is a distro dedicated to gaming and user friendly for beginners. It still has some limitations but it is better compared to others when it comes to gaming. You don’t really require more tweaking unlike other distros to make games work.
This is the advice I came here looking for. I’m intimidated by the switch and have no time, but if there’s a distro that’s easy to get going, I’m there for it. I’ll check it out!
I just wasn’t sure fedora based (bazzite) would be as easy to troubleshoot as mint (Debian based) since arguably debian/Ubuntu are the most popular distro.
Another distro that’s easy to get going for gaming is Garuda.
Also, the easiest way to switch to any distro is to get a USB drive and install a program called Ventoy. Then you throw your install iso onto the Ventoy drive, boot from USB, and you’re good to go.
As a tip, pick up an external drive large enough for your Steam library. Then in Steam, you right click on each game and select Manage/Back up game files.
Doing it this way will save you days of downloading.
Another big component that makes it hard to switch for some is also the fact that many programs and web apps won’t work on Linux.
As an example , if you use peacock on your browser to watch things like wrestling PLEs, peacock(and other services) straight up block Linux users.
It’s annoying when the product will work but it’s being gatekept by these greedy fucking companies.
Why Gates in the picture tough?
He stepped down as a chairman over 10 years ago and didint he leave the microsoft board like 5 years ago?
He was the face of Microsoft for most of OP’s life.
Let us not forget the single most impressive feat of athleticism in the 20th century.
Starting to plan my next build and will likely go full Linux
Same. I just gotta figure out what distro I want to run. Nobara, Bazzite, Mint, Zorin, Kubuntu, idk. I get analysis paralysis. I’ve run Ubuntu, Fedora, and even tried Arch once, but it’s been a long while since I’ve been full Linux. I’m definitely done with Windows tho (at least outside of work, but I can’t control that).
Linux is fine. Ive been using it since before ubuntu was invented. But Windows has the most goddamn computer games.
The vast majority of which now run fine on linux with proton.
I play only on Linux, and it works great. Come on over!
I switched to linux full time almost a year ago.
I have been thus far entirely unsuccessful in convincing anyone else to make the jump. Normal people do not give a fuck, will not lift a finger to improve their digital lives. I’ve been telling friends and family about adblockers for YEARS, and not a single one ever bothered to do it of their own volition. If I don’t do it for them, then they just sit through ads like complacent sheep. None of them are going to change operating systems if they can’t even install a browser extension.
I really just don’t understand this. Folks will not lift a finger or a brain cell to figure out tech.
I spent a couple hours trying to get Baldur’s Gate 3 running on Linux. It was rough but I got it to run at 1440 but the latency made it sort of unplayable. It runs great in Windows 10 at 4k with the default settings. I have some other windows-only software so I guess I’m going to “upgrade” all my computers that are able to do so but I don’t feel good about it. All my computers dual boot windows/linux, I would love to be linux-only.
Edit: lots of people are saying theirs runs smoothly, I’m going to have to do further testing. Thanks for the input!
In case you’re not aware, and for any uninitiated that see this comment https://www.protondb.com/app/1086940 protondb is a fantastic database of Linux compatible games and crowd sourced suggestions on getting the best performance.
Baldurs Gate 3 ran flawless for me, but everyone’s mileage may very depending on computer specs and Linux distro. Proton, and its counter part Proton-GE, work wonderfully the majority of the time. Biggest issue I run into anymore is anti cheat. Which can also be verified by https://areweanticheatyet.com/
For reference, I’m running all AMD with hardware thats a few years old now. Fedora 41 with some tweaks like feralinteractives’ gamemode installed. You can install and use ProtonUp-QT to manage the Proton-GE versions and keep them up to date. I’ve been primarily Linux at home for a couple of years and have not missed windows. I hope more people are encouraged to try Linux and see what it has to offer
I know of that site, but in many ways I can’t stomach following trial-and-error debugging steps to try to get a perfect experience. Very rarely has it been one command line option and then the game runs as perfectly as Windows.
That’s really unusual. I’ve found, if anything, most of my games run better since switching to Linux. Nothing runs so much worse and I have rarely needed to apply launch options. I wonder if your games aren’t running on your iGPU inadvertently? That’s the only thing that comes to mind that would cause that much of an issue.
Edit: I just realised you weren’t the same person who posted the top level comment, disregard
What Linux distro and version do you run? Do you have proton installed and all the drivers? It should run flawlessly.
Ubuntu 24.04, as far as I know I have all the right Proton stuff installed and the latest Nvidia drivers.
That’s really unusual. I’ve found, if anything, most of my games run better since switching to Linux. Nothing runs so much worse and I have rarely needed to apply launch options. I wonder if your games aren’t running on your iGPU inadvertently? That’s the only thing that comes to mind that would cause that much of an issue.
Have you tried running it with GE-Proton?
That’s LTSC versions, they aren’t meant for normal consumers, although you can find them if you want.
Or, of course, you can use their script to just activate it.
They are on that website, not just only the activator. They are better than retail isos because they come without bloat. I use iot LTSC permactivated with HWID on all my PCs and VMs
It has been already 2 years for me, I have no intention of looking back. It even works better than Windows at times.
Whatd you jump to?
Took some time to settle, for various reasons, but I’m currently on Fedora Silverblue.
I tried some of its derivatives (Aurora, Bazzite), as well as OpenSuse, but came back to Fedora and Gnome because of various issue with KDE and OpenSuse asking for root password everywhere.
Already switched the laptop over to Mint. Desktop to follow.
I am going to attempt to switch to Linux, I’m definitely not going to willingly use windows platforms again.
As a lifelong windows gamer I’ve just switched to cachyos and honestly it’s been fantastic. Performance seems on par (or within 5 percent) and it’s super customizable. Haven’t had any issues getting things working, including non-steam alphas. Went into it thinking I’d probably switch back, but have no need currently. You definitely need some troubleshooting skills, but nothing too crazy if you already tinker a bit in windows.
Edit: I’m also running triple monitors at 144hz and it’s been completely fine (and I’m on Nvidia).
For those of us who didn’t know, CachyOS is and Arch-based distor with performance focus and some ease of use tools.
this blog explains some difference to other Arch-based distros
I’ll stick with 10 until steam itself stops supporting it I think
The only thing stopping me from really considering Linux is because I’m a Destiny player
I just gave up on windows gaming. If the game cant be played on my steamdeck, I just find something else. Otherwise its macos and linux for anything non-professional that requires windows. And even then I fucking hate it. Oh look at that… all my documents say “Auto-recover (version 1)” because it forcibly rebooted on me.
This! A game is a game. There are often good alternatives that gives as much entertainment. If a publisher doesn’t want you to play, that’s their problem, they won’t get money from you.
Made my jump to Arch (btw) a couple of years ago and haven’t really looked back. I have Win10 as a second boot option, but that’s reserved specifically for Game Pass and VR, but it’s very rare I boot it. Don’t care to upgrade even after EOL, and I’d never recommend Arch to anyone but the most comfortable with Linux, but it’s been a great option for me.
