With the advances in gaming on Linux in recent years, it is so tempting to switch full time. I would absolutely love to, but I am a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber and it is where I play a lot of my games on PC. I know you can use the cloud version, but I cannot stomach streaming games in their current state, so it is a no go. A large portion of my Steam library is compatible, but anytime I have done an install I end up giving in and going back to Windows for games.
This is why I just dual-boot. Keep Windows on a short leash and basically just have it for the rare instances where there’s something I really want to play and somehow can’t on Linux.
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Yes, this has happened to me twice. It’s easy enough to fix, but terrifying the first time it happens.
I just did, not for the gaming capabilities as I’m not a big gamer myself but because WSL malfunctions pissed me off. Moving to Pop!_OS after considering Nobara.
You can always dual boot and use Linux for whatever you like it for. Sadly Windows is still the go to thing for gaming, since it’s the target platform for 99.99% of software and especially games.
Proton/Valve has made a lot of headway here. Mostly I’m seeing mmos/Destiny 2 being the only big holdouts anymore, but the niches I am in have tended to have good Linux support for quite some time.
As someone who’s been throwing the idea around putting Mint or another distro on my main desktop, is it a good idea for a main gaming computer? I use my laptop for DJing and stuff, but my desktop is primarily for games and videos.
Would that work out with Steam’s linux compatibility or is there a better distro that could work?
Its probably a mixed bag and dependant on what games you play (and your GPU).
I just dual boot. I use Ubuntu (currently 22.04) for most things like work etc. Using it now. And when I want to play games I use Windows.
That said, i Do have a mac as well, for recording music. I have considered moving to something like Renoise on Linux. Definitely wont be on windows.
All told, im not a evangleist for an OS. I just stick to what works for the task at hand.
Proton CAN play a lot of games. I believe its how the steam deck works too. So its probably more feasible than ever to run a gaming rig on linux. But ive been down that road before, and its been a fools errand for me.
Gaming works well for most Steam games, but if you go out of Steam it can be less nice. I’ve been linux-only for around two years now, and there’s been only a handful of games that I wanted to play that wouldn’t run on linux (but there’s only a handful of online games I play so ymmv)
After owning a steam deck I put mint on my pc and windows still in there I open once in a blue moon.
I haven’t had any issues gaming wise on Mint. Everything works. The OS is snappy and not in your face. I have a Mac for work which I use most of the day. I wouldn’t be able to run Linux as my daily driver. But it’s a great gaming pc option.
I’ve been maining Linux on my gaming rig for about a decade. It’s way better now with modern Proton/Steam. Most games run great. Some have weird issues that will take some extra work or need a special version of Proton. A few are completely incompatible, like Destiny 2 (requires some gnarly security software that Bungie isn’t willing to support on Linux).
You can check the ProtonDB site for the games you want to play to get an idea of what to expect. I notice about a 5% performance drop in Linux compared to Windows for most games, but that may have to do with the extra stuff I have running in the background on Linux for work/dev.
I love Linux and advocate its use, but if Windows is meeting your needs don’t feel like you have to change. If you do try it, it’s a good idea to start with a dual boot and jump back to Windows if a game you want to play doesn’t work in Linux. Or if you hit an issue you just don’t want to deal with right then. Computers can sense when it’s been a long day and you only have 20 minutes to play.
For people who use Linux full time, how is VR support on it? Is ALVR a viable alternative to Virtual Desktop/Link? And do VR games run well or at all through Proton?
I have an Index and it was seamless for me. Everything runs fine in Proton, and I didn’t have any performance issues with my 2070 super. Tried the same games in Windows and it was the same experience, plus a couple of FPS (I assume because it wasn’t going through DXVK). Can’t speak to your other questions, though–those are outside of my experience.
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I’m in the same boat. I’m ready to move over to Linux Mint, but I don’t want to have to download my entire game and program library again because NTFS won’t play nice with Linux.
NTFS is fine in Linux. I have a dual-boot setup for when I need to run or test something in Windows, and I use my Windows install drive as a Steam library in both. When I swap back and forth Steam occasionally does a file integrity check, but I don’t typically have to redownload anything as far as I can remember. The only caveat is that if a game has both a Windows version and a Linux version I have to set my Linux library to use Proton for the game instead of the native Linux version, otherwise, yeah it’ll see the files are wrong when I switch and redownload.
If you choose Arch/Arch based, or choose to install one of its supported kernels, NTFS support is integrated into the mainline kernel since version 5.15
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS
So you’d be able to use your already existing disk/partitions that have NTFS. Of course you’d still need to install the OS in another partition.
I tried to keep NTFS around when I switched, but ext4 is much better for spinning disks and support for whole disk encryption (LUKS) is also another pro that made me switch everything after a while
If you don’t mind doing it one at a time, and you’ve got a different drive besides the NTFS one (i.e. you’re not just looking to just reformat the NTFS volume), this currently works:
- Format the new drive with whatever, likely Ext4 or Btrfs
- Install Steam and make a fresh library on the new drive
- Copy the contents of the NTFS steamapps/common into the new steamapps/common (or copy the individual folders of whatever games you don’t want to redownload).
- Go into Steam, and act like you want to do a fresh install of whatever games you just copied over. Steam will act like it’s going to start from scratch, but you’ll get “discovering local files” before any downloads start.
- Steam will either show the game as installed as-is or will update the delta to the current version.
I use this method also for restoring backups of games to an SSD that live on a mechanical drive.
NTFS is fine with Linux, but any new OS tends to need you to install things again. There used to be a way to zip all of your Steam downloads for a new install, but I can’t seem to find any instructions that still work.
I think the option is under Steam > Backup and Restore Games. I successfully backed and restored some back ups I had made about a year ago with that method.
I think you’re right. I’ve used this before as well, but I was thrown because my Linux Steam only has “Restore Game Backup” as an option in the menu. I wasn’t sure whether something had changed, or if this is a Steam for Linux peculiarity.
I’m currently on mac because I have always and will always despise windows, but now that mac’s gone to ARM (which don’t get me wrong they run amazingly) its pretty bad for games. Ideally I’d have a work computer on mac and a linux desktop. I’d say just go for linux as majority of games should work fine on it but I’d check each game case by case.
What kind of setup do you have? There’s a few issues you may come across with an Nvidia GPU, but it’s largely smooth sailing for everyone else with their Mesa drivers.
My biggest gripe with nvidia is the total number of gpu options. You have mesa, nouveau, and even the dedicated proprietary gpu, but then also specific kernel builds with said gpu drivers.
Personally I use the nvidia kernel module drivers. They are good, even for my wonky egpu+dgpu+onboard graphics setup. I have to reboot to connect/disconnect the egpu, and had to copy my x11 config over to the gdm login manager but otherwise it works great (with x11).
Wayland and other dwm…will have different results.
The only reasons I still have Windows on a drive is for my work but I only boot it up like once a month to update it these days. I use VMware for most of my windows related tasks now so maybe it’s time I format that drive and use it for something else.
I’ve been Linux fulltime for years, settled on Pop!_OS for it’s excellent NVIDIA graphics integration. As far as game compatibility goes, check your games on ProtonDB. Even if they don’t have a Linux native version, the Proton Compatibility Layer may let you play your “windows only” games on Linux without streaming.
After about a month of contemplating going back to Linux, I’ve finally found my usb drive and I’m going to download Linux Mint.
The only thing keeping me from going back was the fact that Clip Studio Paint and some of my games didn’t play nicely with it. But to be honest, the only game I play these days can also be played on my phone, so… Back to Linux it is.
Just remember what distro you pick for gaming doesn’t matter as much as the effort you’re willing to put into learning its ins and outs. Use of distro wikis and protondb are key. Also dual-booting is honestly the way to go when starting up, just in case.
Also dual-booting is honestly the way to go when starting up, just in case.
I generally agree, but I always found when I did that, that I would never take the time to resolve issues I encounter and just jumped back into Windows. It wasn’t until I went full immersion that the switch stuck. It’s been a few years now, and I’m glad I did.
I’m totally with you, I only suggest what I did if the person has tried linux before but ended up going back to windows. Not having to pick one or the other can help some people stick with their linux install.
I tried Pop!OS and I liked it a lot, but I wasn’t big on the built-in store for downloading apps as it felt a bit clunky to me. Still, it’s a solid option. Kubuntu was a pretty decent one too that I tried.
For me I found myself going back to Windows because of hardware incompatibility. I know that of course you either need to be really good at building compatibility yourself or scouring the Internet for a solution someone else already found, but unfortunately it was one of those cases where searching ended up with those results where it was from several years ago and they just said “I figured it out” without added context.
Are Ubuntu-based distros still the king of gaming on Linux?
I’ve been hopping between distros (and windows) for what feels like the past 6 months. Honestly it doesn’t make too much of a difference but my preference for games is fedora or arch base and wayland. The biggest difference is the default kernel version really (AMD drivers in my case) but you can also add a newer kernel to any distro. I’d recommend just choosing a distro based on the package manager you like to use and stick with that.
I honestly don’t think the distro matters too much if you just use steam. I use Arch and haven’t had any issues with steam or proton that I can recall. SteamOS is itself Arch-based as well
I just use moonlight and sunshine. My network is good enough and I just stream from my Windows PC. I use either Linux or Mac for my day to day and stream from PC when I’m gaming, depending on the game. Some games I just need to play in front of the PC.
Recently been streaming Diablo 4 to my Xbox and or laptop. Works great. I play most of my games at 1440p.
