Close to switching to a Linux distro full time.
Close to switching to a Linux distro full time.
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.
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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.
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.
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)
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.