I dunno. I’ll probably get hate for this, but it’s not ready. It’s better. But Linux isn’t a good replacement for Windows yet. I love Linux. Love the customization, the *NIX filesystem makes sense, and it’s beautiful. Also no ads in my start menu!
I want to use Linux regularly, and I tried last week. It failed. Kind of miserably.
I need to pick a distro. Mint and Pop_OS were consensus recommendations.
Try mint: Installing dual boot alongside windows was beautiful. But no internet connection, says cable is unplugged (it’s not). Realize I downloaded an earlier version (20). Get the most recent version, and problem resolved. It’s kind of odd to me that even a pretty recent version wouldn’t support my adapter, but whatever. I tried to update and install Nvidia drivers: update fails because dependencies were not installed. Okay… Why not prompt me to install them? Why make me apt-get all the dependencies by hand? I don’t expect handholding, but some things should be. If I NEED something as a pre-req for what I’m trying to do, queue it up!
Fuck it. Let me try Pop_OS, instead - that has some gaming chops, right? Dual boot was more challenging to stand up, but it all worked. Nice. Fire up game: get ~20 fps drop compared to windows (108 from 130) with the same settings. I don’t want to troubleshoot the performance hit. It should just work. I want a tool not a project.
Never mind if you want HDR support. That seems to vary by distro. Variable refresh rate also seemed to be spotty from what I read in gaming distro recommendations. ALSO, do you need UEFI support? RIP. Enjoy toggling that on and off when you have to jump back and forth between Windows and Linux. Nvidia driver support I chalk up to those arseholes only now starting to open source some things.
And I don’t care that you were able to run everything fine. You had a flawless experience: great. Love that for you. I didn’t. I’m not a computer novice - I know to Google shit and how to implement it. I remember trying to fuck around with Ubuntu back in 2002.
I’m gonna continue trying to stand up Linux for everyday use because I love Linux and I want to use it, but it’s pretty clear that even as someone that wants to use Linux. I’ve been trying to switch to Linux every few years for decades. It’s still far short of being ready for average users.
This comment is tough because in its wrongness, it reveals a greater problem with Linux gaming. I think you’re right that it’s probably not ready outside of SteamOS. But it’s not correct to say it’s not ready in general. They are several distros that have all the latest features for modern gaming, the issue is you weren’t recommended even one of them. Pop_OS is currently outdated since they are working on their new desktop and mint is on the Ubuntu LTS version meaning they are both significantly behind. The community needs to take that into account when recommending things. That’s the reason I only recommend Bazzite. Cause it’s the closest to a SteamOS experience.
I appreciate your comment! I’ll take a look at Bazzite. How does it do with everyday tasks? Any other distros you’d recommend?
If what I said was so wrong, I feel even more like there’s a fragmentation issue with Linux (or something). This is especially true if some of the most well known distros have issues with gaming. It only fuels my urge to make a table of features for each distro and then evaluate pros and cons of what distro has what. But distro choice shouldn’t matter outside of UI, pre-installed programs, and maybe package management.
I was just super bummed that I didn’t have one of the perfect experiences that I had seen so many people talking about lately.
I will check out Bazzite over the weekend. Someone told me about Pop OS but this seems less of a tinkering hassle
thanks, your objective experiences are wrong too
Shouldn’t Arch be the recommended gaming distro? Not because any focus on gaming but because it is the distro SteeamOS is based on?
Hey! Sorry you had these bad experiences.
My setup is on Debian
testingand is documented on this blog post: https://blog.c10l.cc/09122023-debian-gamingI don’t have an Nvidia card but other than that, this should give you a head start, including virtual surround on headphones if that’s your thing!
I promise it’s not a lot of work and I tried to make it all easy to follow (feedback welcome though!).
If you decide to give it a go, let me know how it went!
Thanks, I’ll take a look!
…who actually says this, because it sounds like pretend anger to me
i think it’s a joke about how much Linux users talk about Linux to people who don’t care but reversed.
I might be taking it too literal.
That’s a good recipe for popular posts anywhere on the internet. Anger gets the clicks.
I’ve met enough Gamers™ at lan parties back in the day that I know this sort of unsolicited “advice” is realistic.
I know this won’t work for everyone, but I just quit playing games that don’t work or even from publishers that do shitty things and there’s still plenty of games out there. There’s a lot of shovelware out there, but there’s also a lot of good stuff out there.
This is the way. If we don’t stop buying those games the publishers will never recognize how shittu they are.
I think it’s worth advocating for quitting shitty games, though.
Out of many friends I’ve had who (used to) frequent games like PUBG, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant, Overwatch, etc., most were just having a bad time, all the time. Granted, some of these work on Linux, but the point is, those of my friends that still play Overwatch (“2”, lol) just seem to be happier and more functional when they have to quit for some period of time.
I’ve been having a much better time with my life once I went for the good old enjoyment rather than chasing rank or wins or skill, finally making time to play amazing single-player titles again or just screwing around in online games.
And curiously enough, the online games I actually want to play and have fun doing so are the ones that work on Linux, while the rest thankfully refuses!
The pervasive idea that games must necessarily be about conflict, competition and overcoming enemies.
It took me too long to realize that I basically just want a Star trek holodeck experience.
Well, conflict is, pretty much, the backbone of any story, narrative, or motive. Has been for long.
Still, I’m not sure it’s all that relevant and necessary for a video game, I agree. Some of them just let me do things I can’t in real life, like building my stupid base on different planets and moons, or transforming the landscape for the sake of it.
I’m thinking about getting a handheld and putting Chimera or Bazzite on it. It’s gonna replace my main gaming PC (so it needs to support egpu) once it bites it.
Made the switch this weekend :) From Win 11 to Mint 22. Haven’t run into any real issues really. I have the occasional screen tear on some videos in firefox though. Haven’t searched around enough yet to figure that out, but otherwise all good.
Sounds like you need to turn on hardware acceleration.
Is that a per-app thing that can be done in Mint? Pretty much only get tearing in firefox when playing video, and I tried the ‘layers.acceleration.force-enabled true’ setting in about:config for firefox, but that didn’t really make a difference.
Shouldn’t have to go that far. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/performance-settings?as=u&utm_source=inproduct
Wow I feel stupid lol. That fixed it. Thank you :)
Don’t feel stupid you’re new to Linux. Welcome to freedom 😁🐧
Welcome to Linux. I run mint and had screen tearing issues as well. Turns out mint detected my monitor correctly, but it had the wrong refresh rate. Once I set that to the correct refresh rate, my screen tearing was fixed. So I suggest checking that.
I’m thinking its either nvidia on linux being nvidia on linux, or it not liking mixed resolutions and refresh rates. But really the only noticeable tearing I get is in firefox when playing video like youtube or something.
I also had screen tearing issues immediately on startup into the mint installer. Had to run the installer in safe mode to get mint going. Once mint was fully installed and rebooted to my desktop for the first time, had the same screen issues as I did with the installer not in safe mode. So mint only worked during install and only in safe mode.
Maybe our issues are similar (I’m Nvidia 1080 card), but I was never able to fix mine.
Just wait until Vanguard pulls a Falcon and we’ll never see those anticheats again. But still 4 years clean of LoL next year I get the medal.
I would never install a rootkit on my system to play a video game anyway.
“What, you don’t like retro yet proper gaming on a 1W device?”
– Me, if I were that lone guy holding a controller
I’ve switched for over a month now and did had problems with 2 games out of the 6 I tried so far (all of which were both games installed via Lutris and I found solutions to fix them both).
Funnily enough one of the games I got via Steam which did not work before in Windows now works in Linux. Further, I was running Windows 7 (yeah, I know it was a bad idea security wise), so there are AAA games whose minimum Windows version is 10 which I now can play in Linux that I couldn’t before in the Windows I was using.
All in all it has been great and I have no intention whatsoever to go back to Windows.
Even if there are games that won’t work in Linux, there are so many good games out there that can entertain me for hundreds of hours that I won’t miss the handful I cannot get to run in Linux.
I have a couple games that were Windows 98 and Windows XP games that don’t work on Windows 10/11, but work just fine on Linux. It’s funny that Linux is sometimes better at running Windows games than Windows is.
Wine and Proton manage to be better at both forward and backward compatibility with Windows than actual Windows.
VR though :(
Works on plasma Wayland. At least for the index with steamvr
Any issues setting it up? I keep reading horror stories
I don’t know if Linux Gaming would exist if it wasn’t for OpenGL and Carmack using it for Quake.
Unfortunately we are in the Glide era of VR. OpenXR exists, but someone needs to create a killer app which uses it.
Mfing world of goo 2 offers an appimage file instead of a flatpack, so I have to monkey around with the console or lutris to get it to work on steamdeck. I just want to play my puzzle game, not puzzle how to play my game. Ah well
I like linux but this is stoopid.
If it’s not open source then it’s an advertisement not an esport
If someone goes to host a tournament and they can’t choose the patch or modify it then it’s not an even playing field between organizers. Think like 2 people go to host on consecutive weekends and there’s a patch between them now the person who hosted first has an unfair advantage in game quality as the players know how to play it
Also if the studio/publisher is hosting an event it’s just an advertisement
What? So if a sports federation changes the rules all independently organized events are disadvantaged? By that logic the Olympics are just an advertisement for the sports not a competition, as the federation usually don’t change rules 6 months prior.
Nope, the leagues are allowed to have different rules
Sports are open source, for instance not every football competition has to use blue cards or a competition made a patch to use blue cards…depending how you want to view it
I haven’t had any problems running my Steam library under Linux Mint. Older games, like Deus Ex and Giants: Citizen Kabuto I can run directly in Wine.
If I could get Vortex Mod Manager working properly under Linux, I wouldn’t need Windows at all.
You can!
Add Steamtinkerlaunch to your steam proton list with protonup‐qt Then, select it under the force compatibility menu. From there, just click the run vortex mod manager button.
You can also run steamtinkerlaunch standalone, which is what I did for cyberpunk2077, but I feel like I did more manual file moving than I had to.
Edit: can’t spell today
Nexus is running Linux tests for their new mod manager RIGHT NOW. I believe its still limited to Stardew Valley for now while in alpha, but they’re making strides here! https://nexus-mods.github.io/NexusMods.App/users/GettingStarted/
Personally haven’t encountered a game that wouldn’t run, so as far as I’m concerned it runs anything. I’m not going to shed any tears over Fortnite.
It’s just too bad that Riot seems so inherently against supporting Linux. I still enjoy playing ARAMs for watching YouTube on the side and the occasional Val session. Obviously for Val I can just boot over but I do play league about daily.
Inb4 “just don’t play league, it’s bad anyway” yeah thanks, solid solution
Val was one of the reasons I still dual boot Win10 (plus VR gaming), but now that it released on PS5, I’d rather just relearn the game for controller.
The good thing about Valorant is you can just play (the better) Counter Strike instead and it doesn’t try to install a rootkit. I guess for LoL you could play one of the alternatives too, but I don’t know if any if them are good. They aren’t my thing.
Weirdly enough, the only game I tried to play that didn’t run was this random Indy game. Didn’t even have fancy graphics, it was one step up from macromedia flash games
The AAA games I’ve played are fine on Linux. Baulders Gate, No Mans Sky, Fallout 76, Cyberpunk 2077, Crusader Kings III.
