Ditched Windows permanently 11 months ago for Pop-OS and couldn’t be happier. I’ve been a big Linux fan for years, but would always dual boot for gaming purposes.
I’m so glad that isn’t necessary any longer. Almost feels cheating, being Microsoft free with Zero downsides and plenty of benefits.
You may already know, but a lot of times when a game isn’t listed as ‘playable’ it just means that particular game hasn’t been tested yet and will likely still work just fine*, unless it requires kernel level anti cheat ofc
Just so happens I’m boycotting that as well. If I wanted you to do shady shit to my OS, I’d have stayed on Windows.
Edit: *Check the games not listed as playable on protondb and see what that says. Since it’s a ‘crowdsourced’ platform, it’s often more up to date than Valve is.
I didn’t realize how truely frustrated I was with windows until I switched a few months ago. I realize now that most of my recent windows troubleshooting was trying to make windows stop doing things I didn’t want it to. Now most of my Linux troubleshooting is just learning how to get Linux to do things I actually want it to do, which is actually quite satisfying.
For gaming, try bazzite, cachyOS, or nobara. Mint is also good, but might not have latest and greatest drivers or kernel etc, even then it is very popular.
I switched to mint and then to nobara early last year and love it.
I tested a few on VMware in windows before taking the leap. 3 months ago I wiped my windows partition coz I hadn’t used it in yonks.
Good luck!
Anything works really. Mint, Gentoo, Fedora, Arch all work - usually just need to install Steam and done, possibly install drivers using your package manager if it doesn’t come pre-installed. Hell, you can even do SteamOS or something like Bazzite or Nobara if i remember correctly.
Those instructions are about how to reinstall SteamOS on your deck. A little further down the page it talks about how to install on other handheld PC’s like the Legion Go and ROG Ally.
Currently, expanded support includes devices with AMD hardware and an NVME drive, targeted toward handheld devices. Please note, support for all devices that is not officially ‘Powered by SteamOS’ is not final (currently anything that is not a Steam Deck or Legion Go S)
While you technically can download it and people have been able to install it on their PC’s, Valve doesn’t recommend doing so.
They probably will (hopefully) have a version targeted toward PC’s in the future, but it’s not there yet.
If you want a SteamOS style experience on desktop you would be better off using Bazzite since that is what it’s designed for.
You are correct that it is possible to do, but it’s not recommended.
I installed Mint recently but a lot of my games don’t show as playable. I’m not as tech-savvy as I was 20 years ago, so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Any advice?
A lot of times when a game isn’t listed as ‘playable’ on Steam, it simply means that particular game hasn’t been tested yet, and will probably still work just fine if you actually try and run it. The only real exceptions to that is games that require ‘kernel level anticheat’.
Edit: Check those games out on protondb and see what that says. Since it’s a ‘crowdsourced’ platform, it’s often more up to date than Valve is.
Not a problem at all. If you do end up having difficulties you might try a different distro, I’ve heard a few people complaining about Mint lately. In theory though it should work just fine.
In my personal experience every game I’ve tried to play works just as well or better than it does on Windows. Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Prey, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Outer Worlds, No Mans Sky, Pathfinder Kingmaker, Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Skyrim SE, Fallout 4 & 76 etc. Even older games like Baldur’s Gate and the Original Fallout work great* :)
In addition to what Wolf told you, here’s a few little extra tidbits:
Some games have native Linux versions. If they don’t, you typically play them through Proton, a gaming-ready version of the Wine compatibility layer. Steam directly supports this through compatibility settings (Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility for default settings or Game properties -> Compatibility for per-game settings). Sometimes specific Proton versions will be better for specific games but usually you don’t need to worry about it much.
Proton is damn good. Expect performance for most games to be within ± 5% of the performance you’d get on Windows. Yes, some games run better on Proton than on native DirectX.
Valve recently decided to enable Proton by default for games that don’t have a Linux version. You can enable it yourself in the settings if it isn’t enabled yet.
You can even force games with a native Linux version to use Proton by setting it in the game’s compatibility settings. In that case Steam will download the Windows version.
Steam doesn’t have non-Linux games enabled by default. In the settings, you’ll find a compatibility tab. From there, enable the setting “Enable Steam Play for all other titles”
That’s what lets it use Proton for everything by default.
Seconded, with caveats. Garuda is basically a gaming-ready Arch with a few of the rough edges filed off (and a 1337 G4M3R desktop theme preinstalled). I quite like their convenience stuff but in the end it’s still Arch.
Pros: It’s easy to set up and conveniently comes with everything you need to start gaming. It defaults to the KDE desktop, which will feel fairly familiar to Windows expats. It allows you to do whatever you want to do, in true Linux fashion.
Cons: It’s still Arch-based so you will be living at the bleeding edge. A certain amount of occasional instability is to be expected. The default theme might put you off if you’re not into the whole gamer aesthetic but it’s easy to change.
I also see people recommending Bazzite and similar immutable distros and honestly, I can see the appeal. They’re harder to break and Discover (or whichever Flathub frontend you use) is very welcoming and convenient for managing your installed apps.
Pros: You’re less involved with the OS’s technical underpinnings than with an Arch-based distro. Immutables are designed to be robust. The Flatpak-centric workflow feels slicker than a traditional package manager.
Cons: The design restricts your freedom to a certain degree. Flatpak has a few caveats compared to native software packages.
In the end I’d say that Garuda is great if you’re interested in learning more about how Linux works and want to be able to tinker with the system. There’s a ton of resources on technical stuff in Arch and all of them apply to Garuda as well. On the other hand, an immutable like Bazzite is great if you’Re not interested in Linux internals and just want something that works and is hard to break.
Linux gaming is really hot right now. Out of my 575 games on steam I can play 568 of them.
Ditched Windows permanently 11 months ago for Pop-OS and couldn’t be happier. I’ve been a big Linux fan for years, but would always dual boot for gaming purposes.
I’m so glad that isn’t necessary any longer. Almost feels cheating, being Microsoft free with Zero downsides and plenty of benefits.
You may already know, but a lot of times when a game isn’t listed as ‘playable’ it just means that particular game hasn’t been tested yet and will likely still work just fine*, unless it requires kernel level anti cheat ofc
Just so happens I’m boycotting that as well. If I wanted you to do shady shit to my OS, I’d have stayed on Windows.
Edit: *Check the games not listed as playable on protondb and see what that says. Since it’s a ‘crowdsourced’ platform, it’s often more up to date than Valve is.
I didn’t realize how truely frustrated I was with windows until I switched a few months ago. I realize now that most of my recent windows troubleshooting was trying to make windows stop doing things I didn’t want it to. Now most of my Linux troubleshooting is just learning how to get Linux to do things I actually want it to do, which is actually quite satisfying.
Do you have a recommended flavor of Linux for gaming?
For gaming, try bazzite, cachyOS, or nobara. Mint is also good, but might not have latest and greatest drivers or kernel etc, even then it is very popular. I switched to mint and then to nobara early last year and love it. I tested a few on VMware in windows before taking the leap. 3 months ago I wiped my windows partition coz I hadn’t used it in yonks. Good luck!
Anything works really. Mint, Gentoo, Fedora, Arch all work - usually just need to install Steam and done, possibly install drivers using your package manager if it doesn’t come pre-installed. Hell, you can even do SteamOS or something like Bazzite or Nobara if i remember correctly.
SteamOS isn’t out for download if I remember correctly but you are correct about Bazzite and Novato being similar and great gaming specific distros.
Bazzite is modeled off of Steam OS
Good news, it actually is and had been for a few months! https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/1B71-EDF2-EB6D-2BB3#reimage
Those instructions are about how to reinstall SteamOS on your deck. A little further down the page it talks about how to install on other handheld PC’s like the Legion Go and ROG Ally.
While you technically can download it and people have been able to install it on their PC’s, Valve doesn’t recommend doing so.
They probably will (hopefully) have a version targeted toward PC’s in the future, but it’s not there yet.
If you want a SteamOS style experience on desktop you would be better off using Bazzite since that is what it’s designed for.
You are correct that it is possible to do, but it’s not recommended.
I installed Mint recently but a lot of my games don’t show as playable. I’m not as tech-savvy as I was 20 years ago, so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Any advice?
A lot of times when a game isn’t listed as ‘playable’ on Steam, it simply means that particular game hasn’t been tested yet, and will probably still work just fine if you actually try and run it. The only real exceptions to that is games that require ‘kernel level anticheat’.
Edit: Check those games out on protondb and see what that says. Since it’s a ‘crowdsourced’ platform, it’s often more up to date than Valve is.
Thank you so much, I was worried I’d have to scale back my gaming significantly
Not a problem at all. If you do end up having difficulties you might try a different distro, I’ve heard a few people complaining about Mint lately. In theory though it should work just fine.
In my personal experience every game I’ve tried to play works just as well or better than it does on Windows. Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3, Prey, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Outer Worlds, No Mans Sky, Pathfinder Kingmaker, Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, Skyrim SE, Fallout 4 & 76 etc. Even older games like Baldur’s Gate and the Original Fallout work great* :)
Edit: *The GOG versions, which I use the Heroic Games Launcher to play.
Depends, the best source for running games is https://www.protondb.com/
For games that are not on Steam, you can try Lutris.
In addition to what Wolf told you, here’s a few little extra tidbits:
Some games have native Linux versions. If they don’t, you typically play them through Proton, a gaming-ready version of the Wine compatibility layer. Steam directly supports this through compatibility settings (Steam -> Settings -> Compatibility for default settings or Game properties -> Compatibility for per-game settings). Sometimes specific Proton versions will be better for specific games but usually you don’t need to worry about it much.
Proton is damn good. Expect performance for most games to be within ± 5% of the performance you’d get on Windows. Yes, some games run better on Proton than on native DirectX.
Valve recently decided to enable Proton by default for games that don’t have a Linux version. You can enable it yourself in the settings if it isn’t enabled yet.
You can even force games with a native Linux version to use Proton by setting it in the game’s compatibility settings. In that case Steam will download the Windows version.
Steam doesn’t have non-Linux games enabled by default. In the settings, you’ll find a compatibility tab. From there, enable the setting “Enable Steam Play for all other titles”
That’s what lets it use Proton for everything by default.
That used to be the case, it is enabled by default now.
Almost any is fine, but if you want a distro optimized for gaming, Garuda has been treating me quite well.
Seconded, with caveats. Garuda is basically a gaming-ready Arch with a few of the rough edges filed off (and a 1337 G4M3R desktop theme preinstalled). I quite like their convenience stuff but in the end it’s still Arch.
Pros: It’s easy to set up and conveniently comes with everything you need to start gaming. It defaults to the KDE desktop, which will feel fairly familiar to Windows expats. It allows you to do whatever you want to do, in true Linux fashion. Cons: It’s still Arch-based so you will be living at the bleeding edge. A certain amount of occasional instability is to be expected. The default theme might put you off if you’re not into the whole gamer aesthetic but it’s easy to change.
I also see people recommending Bazzite and similar immutable distros and honestly, I can see the appeal. They’re harder to break and Discover (or whichever Flathub frontend you use) is very welcoming and convenient for managing your installed apps.
Pros: You’re less involved with the OS’s technical underpinnings than with an Arch-based distro. Immutables are designed to be robust. The Flatpak-centric workflow feels slicker than a traditional package manager. Cons: The design restricts your freedom to a certain degree. Flatpak has a few caveats compared to native software packages.
In the end I’d say that Garuda is great if you’re interested in learning more about how Linux works and want to be able to tinker with the system. There’s a ton of resources on technical stuff in Arch and all of them apply to Garuda as well. On the other hand, an immutable like Bazzite is great if you’Re not interested in Linux internals and just want something that works and is hard to break.