Let’s not become delusional now. Linux as an overall operating system feels much better to use but only because we care to become tech savvy and to troubleshoot. There are so many headaches that come with Linux which makes it unattractive to most people.
We are probably not most people.
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Thank you for being the sane one.
I’ve recently stumbled upon a lot of people like whoever wrote the article, rampaging all over the place, going “Linux is more user-friendly than Windows”, which is just an insane thing to say.
Linux is great, I love my Garuda to bits. But games are still optimised for Windows, we still need to use compatibility layers to get them running, and even though it’s gotten MUCH easier these days, there’s still a lot of titles that require tweaking/hacking. And some just refuse to run, period.
And then you have all the hardware compatibility issues that come with manufacturers just not supporting stuff. I can’t turn my GPU’s RGB off without Windows. I had to distro-hop to get the GPU drivers working correctly (it might be a “skill issue”, but that just proves the point, I think). Even titles that are marked as Gold on ProtonDB sometimes crash or refuse to run randomly.
there’s still a lot of titles that require tweaking/hacking. And some just refuse to run, period.
run into that shit on windows, too. and theres not compatability layers to blame, there.
Even titles that are marked as Gold on ProtonDB sometimes crash or refuse to run randomly.
and shit doesnt crash on windows? All protons in the world arent going to fix a games inherent bugs that make it crash.
run into that shit on windows, too. and theres not compatability layers to blame, there.
I honestly cannot remember the last time I had trouble running anything on Windows. Probably around early Windows 7? It’s been years.
and shit doesnt crash on windows? All protons in the world arent going to fix a games inherent bugs that make it crash.
Mate, come on… If a game crashes on Windows, you know it’s the game’s or the driver’s fault.
If a game crashes on Linux, it might be the game’s fault, or the driver’s fault, or the virtualiser’s fault, or the virtualised driver’s fault, or maybe a config file somewhere has something commented for no reason, or maybe you just rebooted and forgot to re-mount the secondary drive, or maybe a billion other reasons.
Gaming on Linux is MUCH better than it used to be, but pretending that it’s anywhere near Windows’ level of “fire and forget” is just being silly.
I’m not a techy, or a sys admin, or anything.
I never wanted ot think about my OS. I just want to click things and go.
Linux did have headaches when I switched. Some from my lack of knowledge, some from shit in linux just being fuckywucky. but that was many years ago.
I wouldnt say I’m any smarter today, than i was back then… but I will say Linux is so much better today than it was back then. Its reached the “it just works” stage, even for gaming, in everything I’ve tried with it. I am back to where I was on windows all those years ago, where I dont even think about my OS. I just click things and go.
I’m not so foolish to say its all sunshine and lollipops, especially with gaming, I’m sure there will always be a problem that crops up that needs a tweak/patch/config change to fix it… but honestly? Windows had that shit too. which is why I’d say, from a usability aspect, Linux is pretty much at parity with windows at this point.
And thats for gaming and shit.
if you are just a regular PC user where entertainment/email/bills/etc are all done in the webbrowser? Fuck…Linux has been good and ready for that for over a decade. My grandparents PC has run linux for over 15 years now, without nary an issue.
If it is not the best, we will make it the best
They will know our peaceful ways, by force if necessary
Linux is now the best gaming system.
I’ll just share how my latest bout with gaming on Linux looked like, compared to Windows.
Install Anno 1800 on Windows:
- Start installation in Steam
- Ubisoft Launcher installs
- Anno 1800 starts
- Enjoy the rest of my evening
Install Anno 1800 on Linux:
- Install Anno 1800 in Steam
- Research how to start game
- Enable Proton compatibility layer
- Game fails to start due to missing Ubisoft Launcher
- Install Ubi launcher using method ‘add installer as game, set compatibility layer, install and change executable for application executable’
- Game fails to start due to missing Ubisoft Launcher
- Try with different Proton versions, fail each time
- Install Lutris and install Ubi launcher through that
- Game fails to start due to missing Ubisoft Launcher
- Give up for the evening
Next day:
- Read up some more
- Install Protontricks
- Encounter weird errors when starting it
- Try to find out what is going on
- Suppress tendency to just say ‘fuck it’ and start Windows
- Install Protontricks through Flatpack instead of system package, as the Flatpack version is slightly newer. Accept that this will result in a much larger installation due to not using system-provided libraries.
- Add Ubi launcher through protontricks, ignoring out-of-date instructions on the Internet
- Start game
- Cry at slideshow performance
- Give up for the evening
Next day:
- Research possible causes of performance issues
- Try multiple ways of enabling Nvidia GPU instead of integrated graphics
- Fail each time
- Turn off Secure Boot
- Correct GPU now available
- Better performance, although still not great
- Feel no enjoyment anymore at getting it to run or while playing
As much as I want to like it, this experience makes me feel that Linux is not fully ready for the masses yet.
Steam is supposed to handle installing the Ubisoft launcher during the first-time setup, it sounds like for whatever reason it failed to do that. It’s very likely that verifying the game files would’ve fixed the issue easily, as it re-runs the first time setup. If that didn’t work, deleting the compatibility files would probably have been the next step. I’d be very surprised if one of these didn’t fix it.
The rest of the troubleshooting steps you took until the GPU stuff were unnecessary, as they were basically Windows troubleshooting steps, not Linux ones. It’s completely expected to have to relearn how to troubleshoot stuff on a different OS and I’d really recommend asking in a Linux gaming community when you run into issues like that, until you’ve gotten the troubleshooting steps down.
Install Ubi launcher using method ‘add installer as game, set compatibility layer, install and change executable for application executable’ … Install Lutris and install Ubi launcher through that
Wine/Proton games are run in their own individual “prefixes”, which are essentially individual Windows instances. Both of these steps just installed Ubisoft launcher in a different instance. This would be a fine fix on Windows, but this is a different OS. The correct fix isn’t necessarily harder either, just different.
Install Protontricks through Flatpack instead of system package, as the Flatpack version is slightly newer. Accept that this will result in a much larger installation due to not using system-provided libraries.
“much larger” is relative, software is pretty small in general, especially compared to any modern games. It’s really not much space, and the flatpak runtimes will be reused for other flatpaks you install.
As much as I want to like it, this experience makes me feel that Linux is not fully ready for the masses yet.
I don’t even entirely disagree, but also don’t think the issues you faced completely demonstrate that. The Ubisoft installation issue was most likely a Steam client bug. First-time installations failing is 100% something that has happened on Windows, that’s why verifying game files is often the first recommended step when troubleshooting a game. Most distros that get recommended now have features to easily install Nvidia drivers. My personal recommendation for gaming, Bazzite, has an Nvidia ISO, which would’ve had them set up from the beginning.
Do you mind sharing what distro you were using? It sounds like whatever it is has bad instructions for setting up Nvidia drivers, I’d like to avoid recommending it.
Edit: Just read this back and wanted to add that I wasn’t trying to be rude or condescending at any point, or blaming you for the issues. I don’t think gaming on Linux is difficult, but I think people do need to do a better job preparing new users when they recommend it. It isn’t, and never will or even should be, the exact same as Windows. You have to learn the differences to be able to troubleshoot effectively, which just takes some time. Nobody knows how to troubleshoot correctly the first time they use Windows either.
I’m a bit strapped for time, so I won’t be able to touch on everything you said. But here goes:
It’s very likely that verifying the game files would’ve fixed the issue easily, as it re-runs the first time setup. If that didn’t work, deleting the compatibility files would probably have been the next step. I’d be very surprised if one of these didn’t fix it.
Of course I had to condense the experience a bit for readability and I don’t remember every step, but validating the game files, doing a reinstall and trying different Proton versions were parts of my troubleshooting steps. They absolutely didn’t work. I didn’t try removing the compatibility files afaik, but switching versions should basically have had the same result as that did trigger an first-time setup each time. The Ubisoft installer wasn’t part of that install for as far as I could see, or failed for each proton version without any visible signs.
The rest of the troubleshooting steps you took until the GPU stuff were unnecessary, as they were basically Windows troubleshooting steps, not Linux ones. It’s completely expected to have to relearn how to troubleshoot stuff on a different OS and I’d really recommend asking in a Linux gaming community when you run into issues like that, until you’ve gotten the troubleshooting steps down.
Linux is far from new to me, but gaming is a whole different beast compared to what I usually do with it. The steps I took were the recommendations from Linux gaming communities I came across. Even though I already suspected that the whole ‘install the Ubisoft installer through Steam’ wouldn’t work, if it is suggested, I’m not one to ignore that.
The problem here is mostly that the information offered on various locations differs and it is a question of trial and error to find out what works and what not, especially if you’re still figuring out the gaming ecosystem.
“much larger” is relative, software is pretty small in general, especially compared to any modern games. It’s really not much space, and the flatpak runtimes will be reused for other flatpaks you install.
From the top of my head it was 3 GB vs 160 MB. Which is quite the difference, especially if you’re working with a relatively small SSD. Flatpack is a mixed blessing in that regard, it’s not meant as criticism against Flatpack, it’s just a trade-off of having sandboxed applications.
Do you mind sharing what distro you were using? It sounds like whatever it is has bad instructions for setting up Nvidia drivers, I’d like to avoid recommending it.
It was Linux Mint, on an Nvidia Prime-based laptop. Drivers were included by default, no installation required, but couldn’t load due to not being signed. Hence the ‘turned off Secure Boot’. I could have MOK’ed around and signed them, but at that point I simply couldn’t be bothered anymore and just went for the simplest solution. Not sure it were official drivers or Nouveau.
Just read this back and wanted to add that I wasn’t trying to be rude or condescending at any point, or blaming you for the issues.
No worries, even though I don’t fully agree with you on everything, I appreciate your response and the fact you are trying to help out. I already saw somebody else mentioning Bazzite, so my next attempt will be to try that distribution.
I also noticed some ‘Ubisoft is just shit’ remarks, which might be true, but telling aspiring Linux gamers “well, you shouldn’t play that part of your gaming library anyway” is simply off-putting and unhelpful. So thanks again for being constructive, that’s what this community needs.
They absolutely didn’t work. I didn’t try removing the compatibility files afaik, but switching versions should basically have had the same result as that did trigger an first-time setup each time. The Ubisoft installer wasn’t part of that install for as far as I could see, or failed for each proton version without any visible signs.
Understood, my bad for assuming! It sounds like you had some really bad luck, as I couldn’t find users with the same issues on ProtonDB.
The problem here is mostly that the information offered on various locations differs and it is a question of trial and error to find out what works and what not, especially if you’re still figuring out the gaming ecosystem.
I definitely agree that this is a big issue. ProtonDB is generally the best source, and besides that a lot of the best resources are unfortunately in difficult to search Discords. I would love to see a more organized resource for this kinda stuff. This issue extends beyond gaming on Linux, too. Looking up any Linux issues results in a ton of super outdated or just bad info.
It was Linux Mint, on an Nvidia Prime-based laptop.
Linux Mint is a great distro, but one that I personally recommend against for gaming. People recommending distros that aren’t great for some use cases is also a problem with Linux gaming. Mint’s stability means using outdated Nvidia drivers, something that I would absolutely try to avoid.
I already saw somebody else mentioning Bazzite, so my next attempt will be to try that distribution.
I do love Bazzite, it is easily the distro I recommend most to users trying Linux for gaming. The only warning I have is that if you use hardware that needs kernel drivers that aren’t upstream, and they aren’t packaged by Bazzite, you will probably run into trouble. I wanted to use a steering wheel that needed a custom driver and just had to give up on getting it working. The only solutions seemed to require a ton of knowledge about ublue and all the containerization technology they use. It’s not my main distro, so I really didn’t feel like dedicating the time to learning all that.
However, that’s the only issue I’ve ever run into with Bazzite, and otherwise it is super user-friendly and Just Works™.
Linux Mint
As someone who just ditched them, apparently here was where you went wrong. Trying to get Nvidia drivers working on Mint for gaming is bad enough that some documentation for programs I’ve wanted to run has straight up said “Don’t even try this on Mint.”
Real shame because I liked a lot about Mint, but I would like to be able to run games like Warframe and Last Epoch more. I wish they were a lot more up front about the issues the distro seems to have with Nvidia.
Not denying you’ve had trouble, but my experience of Linux Mint gaming was
- Install Mint
- Install Steam.deb
- Install Nvidia driver
- Install games
- Play games
Only game that didn’t work first time was Star Wars: The Souls-like One With the Ginger Jedi. Tried a few months/updates later and it worked
lmao I thought that i was the only sisyphus here
Huh… I just installed and played Anno 1800 on my Bazzite PC a month or two ago with no issue whatsoever. Played great.
Yeah, the secret here is Bazzite honestly. If a game will run on Linux, then it’ll run with minimal setup on Bazzite.
Nobara too.
I cant remember the last time I had to futz with anything to get a game to work, been well over a year. The games just work. Only extra step compared to windows is the one time effort upon installing steam to enable steam play and set the default proton version to experimental. Experimental has run everything for me, flawlessly, for like a year now.
I’m sure theres still the occasional, rare game that might need some tweaking/setup/patch/whatever to get going… but thats something you run into on windows from time to time as well, so its hardly a ding against linux.
Thanks, I’ll give Bazzite a try. Hadn’t heard of it before and it didn’t come up in my search results when trying to find out what gaming in Linux entails these days. Back in the days Linux gaming was done straight in Wine or, if you wanted to fork over some money, WineX (later Cedega).
Bazzite, and Proton over Wine (like 99% of the time). Pretty much everything works. Check Protondb.com for instructions for individual games if any of them are giving you trouble. Sometimes you just need to add a command to your Steam launch option or something. But that’s pretty rare.
I also keep up with the most recent version of GE-Proton as it’ll usually work if the regular version doesn’t. Every now and then (usually older Windows games), Wine might work better. Or something like Lutris or Bottles.
But the overwhelming majority of games “just work” through Steam with Bazzite.
Ubisoft games that use their launcher can be annoying, but these days they usually work no problem. I don’t think there was anything specific I needed to do for Anno 1800. I don’t even think I logged in? Unless I’m thinking of a different game, I’m pretty sure I skipped the ubisoft login and it still let me play the game?
I’m not just willing to never play another ubisoft game, I’m eager to. The games that don’t work are typically exploitative investment vehicles moreso than games.
And if you play simulator games, especially any that use extra peripherals, it’s not even worth trying.
Same. Bought a new gaming laptop sans OS with the intention of switching to Linux full time. After 3 weeks climbing the walls trying to get the thing to run properly, I submitted and installed windows. Everything is designed to work with windows, Linux is redesigned to run windows stuff, we are not the same. Once Linux has caught up I will make the leap, but today is not that day.
I had a similar experience but when i installed lutris everything worked so in total it only took like 20 mins to get everything up and running. Tho i do have a huge bias because i started using linux first(more than 10 years ago) and only started playing pc games a few months ago. Also if its a proper game without 20 launchers its really easy to get working, usually works outa the box.
On the one hand, there absolutely are some places where Linux has so dramatically improved it’s insane. Apps like Lutris have really blown me away, it’s incredible how some popular multiplayer titles like World of Warcraft which used to take me hours to get running back in high school can now practically run out of the box.
On the other hand, one of the major gpu manufacturer’s still has terrible driver support. Systems like Proton are imperfect, and seem to be depressing interest in making native Linux clients. Even though some things work out of the box, you can just as easily spend months failing to get a modern title running. To argue it’s the best gaming system is just laughable. In some respects, it hasn’t progressed at all in the last decade. When it gets to a point where users can run literally any game out of the box without any additional hassle, then it will be the best gaming system. Until then, this is a gross exaggeration at best.
But it’s not like Windows is necessarily better! I’ve spent far longer trying to get some games to work on there than I do on Linux. I’ve spent more time on random driver issues in Windows than I do on Linux. I’m quite technical, and Windows has been far more frustrating in the bad cases - especially when talking about older games.
When it gets to a point where users can run literally any game out of the box without any additional hassle, then it will be the best gaming system. Until then, this is a gross exaggeration at best.
No, that’s ridiculous. It will be the best gaming system when it can run more games out of the box without any additional hassle than Windows can. I’m not sure we’ve reached that point, but we’re damn close - since I switched to Linux full-time, there’s been a handful of games that I’ve had trouble getting to work, but all of them were niche (or modded) games. All the big titles have worked flawlessly, and better than on Windows (since all the additional crap like launchers, background services etc. are contained to when the game is running).
I’ve spent more time on random driver issues in Windows than I do on Linux.
I’d honestly be interesting to hear why this is, because it’s the exact opposite for me. I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve experienced driver issues on Windows. Now, I typically only use stable updates, so I generally avoid the dreaded “new update breaking driver compatibility” or “new driver incompatible with old version” issues, but compared to working with Nvidia drivers on Linux? literal night and day difference. even trying to stick to the stable 535 drivers on Ubuntu 22.04 has been a huge nightmare, and many of my favorite titles are still unplayable after weeks of tinkering.
On Windows, I’ve had countless instances where a game wouldn’t start after updating NVidia drivers (updates recommended by Geforce Now, to simplify/streamline the process). I’ve also had cases where game A wouldn’t start with driver X, and game B wouldn’t start with driver Y, so I had to uninstall & reinstall when I wanted to play either. This has also bricked Windows installs before.
Compared to that I haven’t had any NVidia driver issues on Linux, apart from (and since) the Wayland sync issues last year. But I also chose a distro that handles it all for me (first Fedora Kinoite through Ublue, later Aurora). It just works, especially since I’m not doing any driver installs or anything myself. It’s just handled for me, I get a new image, and everything works.
The worst I’ve had were issues that were solved by doing a Flatpak update.
It’s so wild, it’s like we’re in different mirror universes. That being said, I’ve never used either of the two distros you mentioned, which might honestly be my biggest issue; saying you have a problem with Linux, or trying to claim Linux as the best gaming system, is such a meaningless sentence because of the variety of distros available. I can absolutely believe that you’ve never had an issue with the distros you listed, but you have to also understand I’ve persistently experienced issues every time I’ve tried Mint and Ubuntu.
Oh, I definitely believe you regarding Mint/Ubuntu. I’ve had plenty of issues with Ubuntu (not with gaming, but regular applications). Inevitably, every install turns into a Frankenstein monster of deviations and abnormalities, especially after updates. While I’ve had good experiences with Debian, I’m still scared every time there’s a big system update.
That’s why I immediately jumped on the Atomic Fedora train when I first heard of it, and I couldn’t be happier. That’s because it actually fixes the issue by ensuring everyone has the same system. My Aurora install is pretty much exactly the same as anyone elses (except for 2-3 packages I’ve layered on top). That’s because it’s literally the same Docker image running on everyones PC, with the system itself being immutable. All my actual dev stuff, my application-specific things and everything non-default is running nicely contained inside distrobox containers, so my system isn’t different from anyone elses install. It dramatically cuts down on the possible incompatibilities.
And if there’s an issue, I just boot into an earlier version. That works even when there’s been a major version update. It’s amazing, I can’t recommend it enough if you want stability.
I’m planning on looking into them now, thanks. Will probably test both Aurora and Bazzite this week based on the recommendations I’m seeing, hopefully I’ll have more success with one of them.
Good luck! Bazzite is basically a different version of Aurora, they build on the same basis and just include different software (and are developed by the same organisation, Ublue). You can even switch between the two with a couple of commands: https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/Updates_Rollbacks_and_Rebasing/rebase_guide/
But I’d recommend trying one and sticking with it if it works for you, not sure if there’s some possible incompatibilities when doing the rebasing.
If you have questions or issues, feel free to hit me up. I’m no expert, but I’ve used Atomic Fedora for more than a year, so I have some idea how things go.
On the other hand, one of the major gpu manufacturer’s still has terrible driver support.
Major PC GPU manufacturers and their drivers:
Intel AMD noVideo Perfect Good They hate opensource Major phone GPU developers and their drivers:
ARM PowerVR Qualcomm Great Looks promising Looks good
I just installed bazzite on a spare drive this week, trying to get off win11.
So far generally pretty impressed but hardware support is eh for some lesser known devices. For example my headset (Lucidsound LS50) detects the dongle but can’t find drivers for the dedicated wireless channel and Bluetooth is patchy at best.
It’s friction points like that that make migration from a lifetime of windows challenging.
Hopefully I’ll figure out a solution that doesn’t involve replacing the headset!
Not sure. Usually having BlueZ(Linux bluetooth audio stack) and glue in audio server or bluez-alsa should be enough.
If you want a non immutable distro, I switched to Garuda after Bazzite and it has been great for gaming.
I’m new to Linux, sorry if this a dumb question butwhy would I want a non immutable distro? How would it help solve the hardware issue I described?
Non immutable just means that your system isn’t locked down to make sure you don’t accidentally break something. Some people have a strong preference for it one way or another.
As to why it might help, every distro comes with a custom mix of software and tweaks. Bazzite is fedora based while Garuda is Arch based. Some things may work better or worse with less tweaking.
So if you are frustrated enough to consider something else and aren’t committed to an immutable distro, it might be worth experimenting with.
Well, at least you got that far. Imagine if you tried migrating to MacOS.
Drivers
Linux has no problem with them. Unlike only one manufacturer, that breaks all drivers without holy blessing since late Maxwell era.
The author lost me when they showed the terminal command to install Nvidia drivers on Debian. Yes, it’s one sentence. That’s still extremely daunting to the vast majority of computer users. It undermines the author’s own thesis.
Linux is a better gaming OS for some (myself included) but there is still a small learning curve. It’s nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be, but it’s not nothing.
I’d have softened the title and focused on the ways Linux shines as a gaming OS: compatibility with older games (1990-2010 in my experience) that dont work on modern Windows, the ability to get more performace out of older hardware, consistent behavior, and a much more pleasant desktop experience.
Windows is a better choice for many people, but Linux is just as good for many and a better choice for some.
I agree with your comment…except for the part about a small learning curve. The learning curve is steep and difficult. You’ve got to be willing to jump in as an enthusiast and not a casual user. This is not the choice for the vast majority of normies (as you rightly conclude). The saving grace for Linux will be pre-installed systems with extremely polished UI’s (like the Steam Deck).
I’m highly motivated to stay on Linux, but there’s still a list of open issues for me (this is a year and a half after adoption…I’m just living with these limitations now, and there are a couple more I’ve added to my list of unsolvable problems since).
That’s still a five year old stance. Just install bazzite and have a steam deck like experience on any PC without ever touching a terminal. It even does nvidia drivers out of the box for you. The curve is not steep at all. It’s still there, but it’s getting much easier very fast.
Until you need to install something that isnt on Flatpak. Then the flat learning curve suddenly becomes a vertical cliff :)
At least the climbing gear is FOSS though!
I kid, but I’m guessing Bazzite has something like openSUSE Aeon’s
distrobox, which let’s you install anything you want inside of a container and expose it as an app. If not, they should consider adding it.distrobox
It has exactly this. And comes with BoxBuddy pre-installed if you want gui.
They absolutely do, but i’m sure you’d agree it’s a bit technical for most people
Edit: By technical i mean obscure, not difficult.
It would be interesting for that to be the default shell and silently “just work” for installing stuff. They could even handle debs or rpms in the correct container. So you could pull a PPA, AUR package, etc and could just work.
Bazzite uses boxbuddy for distro box automation. It’s literally two buttons on a gui, then the app is just another icon in your start menu. It even works well with autostart and desktop integration. It updates on its own. It has an extensive but easy to understand documentation. I’ve seen literal children do this without issue.
vertical cliff
Massive exaggeration.
Agreed. There are tons of random papercuts that a lot of us just ignore or workaround without thinking about it.
I absolutely think Linux is the bees knees, but I always list a bunch of caveats whenever I recommend it. If you go in with modest expectations, you’ll be pleasantly surprised, and that’s much better than being disappointed.
Why do we treat people as if they’re too stupid for this. This is nauseating.
Im treating them as too lazy and not willing and not as too stupid. And both lazyness and not willing to put in extra effort are completely valid reasons to not do something.
They arent stupid. The information is opaque unless you are an enthusiast.
99% of people have no interest in installing an operating system. They have no interest in learning about different types of software installation. That’s not stupidity, it’s just preference.
As a happy and satisfied Linux gamer I disagree.
Linux is the best OS overall, at least for me, but not the best for gaming for most people. Not yet.
Emulators Xenia (xbox 360 emulator) was not mentioned, because it is Windows only. There is no Xbox 360 emulator for Linux.
Game compatibility 80% are platinum or gold on ProtonDB https://www.protondb.com/
This is impressive, but you can’t claim that a system that can’t play up to 20% of game titles is better. Not to mention that some of the other titles might need some tinkering as well.
Conclusion Linux gaming is now a great and viable option for most people. But it still isn’t better than Windows if you don’t care about bloatware, security or privacy, and just use your machine exclusively for gaming.
Bonus: Linux is free, so you could maybe also get slightly better hardware by selecting it over Windows.
Well, there are games you can’t play on current Windows. Like I couldn’t get Fahrenheit work on it at all. On Linux it worked first try no modifications.
Probably not as many as 20% of games, though.
Haven’t played Fahrenheit in forever (not since it was Indigo Prophecy on the US Steam release), but never had issues. Is it having problems with more modern Windows versions now?
Yep, just couldn’t make it run on Win11 last time I tried, nor Win10.
Both the normal and remastered just couldn’t run well.
Ah, bummer. Well as long as it can run on Proton, I guess there’s no loss for me anyhow. But always a bad sign when newer OSes fail to support older games.
Until recently, the only Ps4 and Ps5 emulators were linux only.
This particular point cuts both ways and has for a while. Some emulators are Windows only, some (though likely fewer) are Linux only, and the vast majority are cross-platform
Hit the nail on the head.
Linux has come so far, but windows is brain-dead easy. Linux also a non option if you play league, FC, fortnite, destiny, battlefield and more with anti cheat
Yeah like, as a keen advocate for Linux desktop use, this is a wildly dishonest take / headline to run with.
Also, platinum doesn’t mean shit. I’ve been trying to get a Platinum rated game on Proton working for the last week. the first distro I was using straight up could never run it, and I don’t think anyone using the distro I’m now on has been able to run the latest patch. So that 80% comes with the heavy asterisk of “Your personal machine may still not be able to run this.”
Not really. Linux is all about openness and choice, but going with Linux as the only OS will significantly limit what you can play. As a modder, I’m against EAC and and the like as much as the next person here, but ideally I want to be able to play anything that looks appealing, not have to skip games for no reason other than their anti-cheat solutions not being compatible with Linux. I agree that we shouldn’t support those practices, but it’s one thing to willingly boycott something and another is to not have that agency at all.
Well…it has the opportunity to be. More native integration and/or wine fixes for certain issues, and anti-cheat being allowed would definitely put it on track to be there.
Yep im waiting for windows kernel emulation or some other techniques to fool it to think it’s on windows. Honestly I want to break client side cheating to the point they have no choice but to go back to server side cheat detection.
Yup. It’s a cat and mouse game until server side can become enconomial enough to broadly deploy (computational & network constraints).
Yeah but still cheating doesn’t give game companies the right to Rootkit my computer and have ring 0 access.
I’m aligned on this. Server side ought to be the way.
Also fuck cheaters.
I want to move to Linux, I tried a few months ago with a few distros but ran into two issues. One, I’m a content creator so easy access and use of my digital tools is paramount.
Secondly I make extensive use of VR and the support for VR graphics drivers was not good. I heard many duct tape and bubble gum solutions to run virtual desktops but I can’t mess around with my operating system every day when I need my machine to run and do what I need it to do without lots of little roadblocks.
I want to move to Linux but I do not think it’s where it needs to be yet to take me off of Windows :(
Ill be honest, it probrally never will be for you
Advocate for more Linux support with VR vendors. Remember that most of the time, what halts Linux development is not technical impossibility, but lack of political will. Companies refusing to spend money on development of compatibility for their hardware or intentionally blocking open source efforts is what halts the ecosystem. It’s the same exact computer, if it works on Windows but not on Linux is because someone in a suit angrily said “no”.
While I agree, the article mostly explains how Linux is almost caught up to Windows for gaming. For me, Linux > Windows, so if Linux can play enough games to keep me occupied, it’s a better “gaming” system. This was true for me before Steam even came to Linux.
That said, this article completely ignores the fact that many of the most popular games rely on anti-cheat w/o Linux compatibility, so that right there kills Linux as a contender regardless of its many other merits.
I guess my point here is to please don’t oversell Linux. You want someone’s first impression to be positive, and if they run into game compatibility issues at the start, the experience will be far from positive. I would much rather see a section right at the top about how to check game compatibility, since that’s what most people would want to check before looking at the various other things that are awesome about Linux.
Epic Games
…
We also don’t have to worry about download speeds, as they’re even better compared to the Windows client.
Is this true? If so, it’s very surprising.
By the way, I always encountered risk control and couldn’t enter the game when playing Rogue Company on Windows. I don’t understand why the anti-cheat component considers me a threat, but after switching to Linux, I no longer faced this issue; it has been much smoother than on Windows.
Anecdotal. I doubt this is a Linux vs Windows thing, but more that they saw different OSes being used by the same account and flagged based on that.
Some of these emulators also have versions for Windows or macOS, but on Linux, we can directly download and install them from the store, without the need to worry about dependencies or version issues, making it a lot easier compared to Windows and macOS.
Good point. Package management is really nice on Linux. However, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’re in a similar camp as on Windows.
Games on the Android platform can also run on Linux. In addition to virtualization ways like Windows and macOS, Linux can run without virtualization by using namespaces. If you’re interested, you can check out my previous article on Android Application on Linux without Virtualization.
Huh, neat!
Besides Steam, we can also use cross-platform tools like Flathub: Parsec to control Windows hosts directly on Linux. This means that even games that can’t be run through the aforementioned ways can still be played on Linux, completing the last piece of the puzzle.
So you’d need a second PC? That hardly seems convenient.
Actually, I also wanna introduce some advantages of the Linux graphical interface over Windows in terms of gaming experience. For example, GNOME’s Do Not Disturb botton allows me to toggle all notification alerts with a single click.
Yeah, this is certainly neat. I’m actually surprised Windows doesn’t have something similar, but maybe each app handles notifications itself there?
Additionally, I have never encountered the issue on Linux where I can’t temporarily return to the desktop during fullscreen gaming, which is something I often face on Windows, where the taskbar pops up but returning to the desktop is impossible. On Linux, regardless of which game I’m playing, whether in fullscreen mode or borderless window mode, I can freely switch between windows.
On the flipside, I’ve had a lot of really odd problems switching applications on Linux. I don’t know if it happens on Windows too since I haven’t used Windows in a decade or so, but I’m guessing the Linux experience here is worse.
I also sometimes have games completely lock up Linux, which I’m guessing is probably the Wayland compositor crashing. That used to happen to me on Windows, but again, this is from >10 years ago, so I’m not sure if it applies today.
Can someone recommend a distro that will be used exclusively for gaming?
I’ve not used Linux in like a decade and only know I dislike Ubuntu for reasons I can’t remember (pretty sure it’s apt fucking up my system related) I’m between Mint, PopOS, and Bazzite.
Definitely bazzite
Second vote for bazzite. It’s been so great. It’s my 8 year old son’s first non-console experience and he’s loving it.
I’ve had zero problems with it. The only thing I’ve had to do is select the proton launch option using an easy-to-find gui setting. Everything else has been normal steam GUI stuff.
It’s also my first experience with an immutable distro, which has been interesting for me to learn about. Knowing about those details is completely unnecessary to run bazzite though.
Coming from someone who gamed only on a steamdeck for a few years (i.e I have no other console or PC) and then switching to a desktop with a better GPU/CPU. I can’t believe how easy Bazzite was to install use and get gaming. Simply amazing what this team is doing to make it easy for the average person to get gaming on Linux.
Bazzite 100%
Until people can click install and never have to use terminal like they can in windows for 99.9% of their games and drivers windows will stay the king of gaming…again with these bait posts…get back to reality…most teens can’t even use command prompt you think they are gonna wanna game on Linux? Hell most teens wanna game on a cell phone as is. Your target market should be the young so they grow and live with your products but Linux target market is the guys who were 20 when hackers came out in 1995.
There are distros for that. Ubuntu and derivatives have a GUI hardware detection tool that finds the right driver for you. Some distros come with Nvidia drivers out of the box. Most have a GUI tool for adding extra package repos for things like Nvidia drivers.
But it’s important to note that this isn’t a Linux problem, it’s an Nvidia problem. AMD drivers are bundled with the kernel because they’re FOSS, and Nvidia could totally do the same thing.
I’m not saying Linux is perfect, I’m saying you don’t need to use the terminal if you’re just trying to play games.
