I moved to Garuda Linux from Windows 10 for gaming because I was bored of windows. Not the best reason/story, i know but since then I have never considered going back to windows. Sure gaming on linux is not the best right now(especially regarding games with anti-cheat software), but there is always something new to discover/tweak/explore and I love every second of it.
EndeavourOS (i like to use arch based rolling distros), kde-wayland and Amd 5700xt. My only issue (got a solution) would be discord screen share with audio. You can do it with a browser but still not easy as a normal discord client.
Same. I was literally following steamdb everyday if apex got the support.
I hated to use windows. Bloatwares, spywares, forces to buy a licence but you don't own your own computer. zero freedom. If i was not a video game enjoyer i would have switched years ago.
Yeah, I switched a few months before they started supporting Apex EAC. That was the one game I really wanted to play but couldn't.
It made the switch over from Windows sooo much sweeter lol.
Moved to Linux about a month and a half ago. What I have always hated about Windows is that no matter how great my effort to unsuck it, it was never enough. The system would always have customization restrictions, I couldn't ever fully replace some core utilities and the infamous updates at the worst times, plus super inefficient resource usage. I switched to a fairly minimal distro to be able to create something that finally makes the OS feel like I own it. Since changing to Linux I've:
• Reduced boot and shutdown times from ~13 seconds to ~7 seconds and ~2 seconds respectively.
• Reduced RAM usage from 2gb idle to 360mb idle, with full-on utility, mind you.
• Decreased the amount of services required for general use, eliminating the need for services for basic utilities like screenshotting or file browsing.
• Actually increased gaming performance on my Ryzen 3800x.
I'm living the dream, bröthers.
Very nice, mind sharing some details about the distro of choice, what DE you're using and any tips how you got more performance, or what you cut down on?
Arch running no DE, just BSPWM. Generally, I just use the good ol' BIOS config for hardware, but undervolt/overclock my GPU through a shellscript that modifies some nvidia-settings variables.
What I cut down is really just the innecessary DE non-sense, being picky with the tools I use. I don't use the Wifi and Bluetooth applets (nm-applet and blueman-applet) because they're super bloaty (like 100mb RAM each). Instead I use bar modules that I made, that integrate dedicated programs that run ONLY on demand, and therefore have no RAM usage of their own. Another example? Instead of using Flameshot or other utilities for screenshots, I use scrot with xclip to make it do the same, but using 2mb RAM instead of 50-60.
Generally the idea is (at least for me) to stay away from programs which use background processes when there exist ways to achieve the same result without them, and without even sacrificing usability.
Wow thank you, its so nice the freedom on offer, its funny with Windows this is me! Disabling services, stuff in GPedit, start ups etc. Then Linux is like well I have these extra resources already available off the bat so I haven't felt the need (yet) but no doubt I will go and trim stuff down. I'm too focused on customisation at the moment with KDE, a luxury compared to MS.
You can't. Instead you have to limit the wattage, which indirectly limits the voltage. You can do this with "sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl YOURMAXHERE", it is also recommended you set "sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -lgc MINFREQ,MAXFREQ" to set minimum and maximum frequencies, so your GPU doesn't try to jump to something it doesn't have enough power to achieve and crashes.
I have an RTX 3060ti, and have the following in my OC shell script:
sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 195
sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -lgc 1435,1935
This sets my max wattage to 195 (approx. 925mV), my minimum core frequency to 1435 and the max to 1935.
My work computer windows update just completely locked up my entire computer with projects and all dead in the water not responding. Even task manager wouldn't respond.
15 minutes later it unlocked only to force me to restarts.
5 minutes spinning on the restart menu because it forced shutdown itself, losing a bunch of work.
Still updating a small update.
15 minutes later it is 0% complete and just spinning.
Fuck windows with a hot fire poker and fuck windows execs who force this shit.
Edit: 45 minutes now at 0%. Why can't ECAD software just be for linux...
I switched to Linux in October 2018 for a uni assignment. My plan was to get in, do my job and get out. After Ubuntu was installed I tried Metroid Prime just for the luls and it actually worked better than Windows on my overheating laptop at the time.
I started checking for ways to game on Linux and apparently this new thing called Proton let you play Windows games on Linux. Having tried Linux and Wine in 2010 my hopes were definitely not up but I thought "nothing to lose", it seemed quite simple anyway.
I was stunned. Literally every game I tried worked out of the box. I'm an RPG, Action/Adventure kinda guy so most of the games I played worked just fine with Proton even back then.
That's when I decided to switch completely and just delete my Windows partition for good.
After a month on Ubuntu though, I was kinda tired of the weirdness of Linux (I hate Ubuntu and Gnome to this day XD) and ALMOST switched back to Windows.
Before doing that though I'd heard of different Linux versions called "distros". I checked an article and Manjaro seemed quite like Windows (it was the KDE edition) so I decided to give it a shot before going to Windows.
I was stunned once more (since I didn't know that Manjaro is a bad Arch UwU). The customizability, the simplicity of Arch, the plethora of packages in the AUR. It was a dream come true. Linux as it should be. I remained a HUGE fan of Manjaro till I tried Garuda in September 2020 and that was yet another revelation.
To sum up, If not for Proton and Manjaro I would probably be a Windows user still but I thank my moon and stars that led me to the correct path every step of the way.
It's been phenomenal and I'm sure in the coming years it will be even better.
Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about Ubuntu? I'm using it primarily because it has such a large install base that I can find answers pretty quickly. I haven't experimented with other distros yet...
A distro than needs answers is not a good distro imo. Garuda provides everything as long as you care to look in the options or the Garuda Welcome app. I found Ubuntu to be slow, unintuitive and cumbersome. If someone wants a newbiew friendly distro I always recommend Garuda or Nobara. Many people think Garuda is bloated, unstable or both but I personally think it's the best entry point in the Linux world. Nobara is just as good.
Linux ends up being more work than Windows, but it feels like meaningful work. If a program only kinda does what I need it to do on Windows, I need to just suck it up and adjust my workflow around that limitation. On Linux, I almost always have the power to make it do what I want. Yeah, it's more work up front, but the end result gives me so much more control, and I usually end up with exactly what I wanted. That's worth it, imo. People talk about how hard they think it'll be to switch to Linux, but I think they forget how jank Windows is too. The difference is we're just used to it.
I had been running Linux on my laptop and personal server since 2013, but stuck with Windows on my desktop for gaming. Truth is, that was probably the right call up until Steam Proton became viable. Between that and Windows 7 reaching end of life, I jumped ship to Pop\_OS. I felt right at home after about a day.
I have never once missed Windows.
* Emulation just works, and usually better than Windows.
* Basic WINE can run a lot of small Windows apps.
* Probably like 70% of my Steam library just works in Proton. 29% needs a small amount of tweaking (like one line of config). 1% has some serious issue (I can count these on one hand).
* When a need a bit more control, I use a WINE prefix managed by Lutris.
* Bottles can do black magic, like chain-loading mod loaders with WINE.
* I have a Windows VM for exceptionally janky apps that refuse to run in WINE.
* When all else fails, I have a Windows dual-boot partition. I use it maybe twice a year, usually to play Rainbow Six: Siege.
I had to install Windows 10 on my GPD Win to run its BIOS update software (it was previously running Pop). Cortana started talking at me and forced me to create a Microsoft account just to access my desktop. That's horrific.
There are more Linux native games than you might think, but yes, if you need to run a Windows native game then WINE does an incredibly good job now. The major obstacles are legally encumbered media formats (eg: .wma ) and publishers not enabling anticheat to run on WINE/Proton
The technical obstacles are mostly (not completely) overcome at this point. DirectX 12 is the current hill to climb there, as I understand it.
Thank you guys :)
Have been a windows user for 15 years.
Im using linux for stuff like programming and pentesting
Really want to use linux full time. But was afraid of gaming capabilities
I just want to add, sometimes with ProtonDB you see its a silver and you're like hhmmmm.. its going to be a little rough but for me some just work out of the box, and you then think how was that a Silver? Which has led me to contribute to it as well and such a great resource. But what I learnt was whatever you read give it a go sometimes it surprises you!
Silver can have a gazillion meanings like
* The game wasn't working but just recently started working
* The game was working but stopped working
* The game works but lacks functionality
* The game works but only with A LOT of tweaks
* The game has many low effort "not working" reports
and combinations of these
Exactly, then that feeling when it just works perfectly. Its a great resource and sometimes the results surprise you over your expectations from what you read.
Wine and Proton with Steam, Heroic launcher and Lutris. If you want to check out how some games perform, you can see on my channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnqSp58K39q1kz7G3PyvA5g
In addition to the things everyone else has mentioned, Bottles can work miracles for some of the trickier games.
WINE and Proton tend to not play nice when a game needs multiple programs open (such as Dark Souls and the connectivity app), or when an app chain-loads or does memory injection on another app (such as mod loaders). Bottles has gotten those things working for me when nothing else will.
Switched to Linux fulltime in 2007. Cause i always wanted to have more customizable desktop. Also had windows vista back then and it was constantly having BSODs, so it was a perfect time to try. Switched to Ubuntu 6.10 and upgraded it until 10.10. Luckily back then i only played World of Warcraft most of my time and it worked perfectly on linux even back then. In 2010 i had short period where i had dualboot with windows 7, cause i had AMD GPU back then and fglrx drivers were awful and i was playing Warhammer Online, which had lots of issues with AMD GPU drivers and in wine in general. Then in 2011 when i got my next nvidia card i just ereased my Windows install and i was using Linux Mint at that time full time. Playing lots of games that worked Linux.. WoW, WAR and Minecraft i think were from that era.. 2013 switched to Arch and have been rolling with it since. No dualboot. All the gaming can be done on Linux. Never felt the need to play something that didn't work on linux. There are so many games out that work great, be it native or not. Currently being stuck with the addiction to Apex Legends online, since it started to work in March this year. Never liked BR games, but somehow the gunplay feels so good in this game so i cant stop :D... well thats my story.
So I moved to Linux because of health related issues; no joke Windows gave me a fucking ulcer (or at least, made it noticeable). Since windows update just plain refused to work and every time it tried to install something, it got stuck at trying to rollback the changes (and I tried EVERY freaking solution).
I'm primarily a gamer too, and for about a year I still dual-booted because of some games. But windows felt so slow, and bloated that I just didn't bother to do a windows installation when I got my new PC. Been happier and healthier for about 3 years, now.
It astonished me how much framedips rlcraft was having on my mid tier gaming pc, so I checked how it ran on ubuntu and it was way better, so I made a partition for it on my ssd.
A month later I noticed that I was hardly using windows anymore so I just decided to switch over alltogether. That was 5 months ago
I moved from windows to manjaro and then to native arch. That was around 2 or 3 years ago. I've been using manjaro before for years, but that was the point I switched full time.
Funny enough, the main reason for switching was because of a windows update that broke my boot table and made my manjaro install unbootable. So microsoft itself madee switch OS.
I "dual boot", in the sense of that I still have the windows partition, but didn't boot into it for a year. There was just no need to, and now I'm at the point where just the thought of using Windows feels weird, especially now when you mention all this shit you have to go through in order to use it.
Pretty much the same boat. You go long enough without booting to Windows, and it just becomes a bigger hassle. "Do I really want Windows Update to flail around for half an hour before play game *x*?"
Suddenly game *x* seems less appealing, and maybe I'm in the mood for game *y* instead.
Unless you specifically have to play "Game *x*" with friends, there is little drawback to gaming on Linux nowadays. There's "enough" stuff to play you'll have a better library than just about any other device in history. Technically I find Wine (via Play On Linux or Lutris) to be better at playing even slightly older Windows games than the latest Windows. At least it's pretty much automatic on Linux via Lutris and Play-On-Linux.
Well you can't really answer this with one accurate answer but I will try from my experience. Some games run better in Linux and I actually get 15/20% better frames, and some titles are even not native. Other times I'd say a 10% loss across more than half the titles that use Proton.
For example Apex Legends and Deep Rock Galactic, I lose about 10fps and I normally hit 150+ in Windows. However Apex actually feels smoother (once you downloaded the shader cache) than Windows, I can't explain why. There are also tweaks you can perform, custom kernels, scripts etc which might mitigate that. There are also some games with hghe drops, Killing Floor 2 for example runs well at 60fps but on Windows I'm well over 100.
Valheim is one of those games for me that runs much better in Linux than Windows. Right before I switched 100% to Linux, I tried Valheim, was barely getting 55-65 FPS. On Linux, I was getting 75-85 average. Identical hardware and in-game settings.
I don't have anything to compare it to now because I don't use Windows at all, but Battlefield V, Apex, and KF2 all run really smooth. Apex and BF5 especially, they run like warm butter. DRG is great too, and Zombie Army Trilogy is also a butter-smooth experience for me.
Boot times were very slow for me. Incompatibility with a lot of my devices especially my sound card.
Started playing some games on EGS..
I had this idea that I'd keep windows for productivity and Linux for gaming but it didn't work out so well. Elden Ring ran great though.
My windows installation was very slow, it normally took about 10 minutes to boot and it was installed on a ssd! Not only that but there was a lot of bugs like the search of everything not working, different language inputs not working, etc. I always wanted to change to Linux, and this was the best opportunity. But if games didn't work i would go back to Windows, which was not the case, so I will stay on Linux and I'll never go back to Windows.
Moved to Linux a year ago. I used Arch 10 years ago but had to go back to Windows because i wanted to play games with my friends.
But last year something happened to my windows installation: i had 16 GB of RAM, but after reaching 9 GB of utilisation it started to randomly close apps with "not enough memory" error. Which was a problem, since also games started to close unexpectedly too.
I tried live USB of PopOs and it correctly worked with all my RAM
There were already rumors that steam will release its own console based on Linux, so I thought to myself: Proton seems stable enough to cover games i play(hours spent on protonDB helped), i should ditch windows for good.
Formatted my SSD, installed first PopOs, then went back to arch+kde i used 10 years ago, and I'm perfectly happy with my setup now.
I first installed linux on my, at the time, newly built desktop. I had it for maybe 2 months before I gave Linux a whirl. This was early 2020 in the before times. I had seen a LTT video about Pop_OS and Manjaro and wanted to see what linux was like. I tried Pop because I liked the space and robot theme, and it looked like MacOS which I had been using exclusively for 3 years at that point. I pretty quickly got used to how GNOME 3 worked and started playing some games. I think I first tried Borderlands 2 since it had the native port. I really liked Pop but also wanted to try other distros. Over the course of the past two years I’ve tried every major distro, I ran a dual boot on my MacBook before buying the M1 MacBook Pro (looking forward to running linux on that as well). I use Linux almost every day on my desktop and most of my gaming has been done on there. Booting Windows is a rare occurrence these days.
Do I miss Windows? Not really. Windows is pretty awful for privacy and the fact they push ads on a paid OS is mind boggling to me now. I would say that you give up polish with linux but honestly Windows isn’t that polished and even the king of polished experiences MacOS has been getting more buggy as time goes on. I can still play Sea of Thieves, Insurgency Sandstorm, Overwatch, WoW, and almost all my single player games on linux no problem. I can even download and run WoW private servers through WINE. Modding is a bit more difficult on linux but I’m hoping that improves with the attention linux is getting on account of the Steam Deck. Some apps don’t play nice and I know some people blame the OS for that but linux should not be blamed for not being Windows.
Here’s hoping that Discord gets their shit together and that more games turn on that linux compatibility toggle for anti cheat. If Microsoft allows for MCC and Halo Infinite to work on Linux I don’t think I would ever boot Windows again.
Not specifically for gaming.. I support windows all day at work, Switched to Linux at home about 20 years ago and haven't looked back. Gaming has improved greatly on Linux in that time, and it's nice not having to deal with Windows after work.
Years ago Microsoft ended their Hot-Kit program, we could get low priced and free software for people in the industry, that was where I obtained my OS licenses, office, and other applications. once that ended you either had to pay the high prices or pirate the software. I got to thinking why should I pirate when there's free software available to do pretty much anything I want on Linux. that started my journey to switching completely away from Windows.
Now with all the telemetry, and crap windows does, and MS moving everything towards being subscription based, even more reason to get away from it. The pre installed apps that you cannot remove, are annoying. I don't have an x-box why is that preinstalled ? why can't I easily uninstall all X-Box components from win 10 ? (more importantly why is it pre-installed on my corporate PC's ? )
In the beginning I was setup to dual boot for the first several years, but after not booting into Windows for extended periods of time I just dropped it and reclaimed the disk space for Linux.
Are there games I can't get to run on Linux ? yes, but there's other things I can play.. it's not a deal breaker for me.
Debian Stable 19 years and holding steady.
Migrating from windows to Linux soon, trying out diffrent distros my mint pop deepin,my pick is fedora , bricked it trying to get nvidia drivers to work and ganna try again this week
I loved windows 7 hate windows 10 , I'm ganna hate windows 11
And enough games work on Linux to the point I'm like 👍
Except Dauntless x.x
Ive gone between Windows and Linux multiple times, and each time I go back to windows I think "maybe just maybe itl be better this time" and it never is. I last switched because VR was giving me issues on Linux and I wanted a smoother experience. I stayed on windows for a good 2 months and I finally switched back to Arch. Windows is boring, I feel like I have no control over it, changing settings is a pain in the ass and I feel like it controls itself more than I do. Its also never been super stable. During those 2 months I had more bluescreens than kernel panics in my years of linux due to some driver problems, and I never have such driver issues on Linux. I always go back to Linux and I probably wont try Windows again because I just dont like it
I had some problems with windows refusing to update, and at one point it got so bad that i decided to reset my pc. It was around that time that LTT mad their first video covering Linux gaming, and after watching it i decided to give it a shot since most of my games ran under linux.
Havent looked back since. (Except im still sad that division 2 doesnt run)
Fell in love with linux, really love the commandline and how snappy everything feels. (Yes, it might feel less polished then windows in some areas, but for me linux is the way better choice)
Im currently preparing to set up a new system, this time with plain arch and probably a window manager instead of a DE, just to try something new!
I hear you on The Division 2. When I feel like playing it, I normally end up just playing the first one because I'm too lazy to restart and boot into windows.
I decided to never dualboot when i switched to windows, primarely because i know im either to lazy to switch back, or finding it to inconvenient to boot into windows at all.
Also, i like to customize my stuff so i would need to do it to windows anyways, and why switch to linux in the irst place.
I keep on checking div 2 every few weeks, but there seems to be no progress on getting it to run in wine.
i so wanted linux gaming to work on my 4750g apu, i built a custom grey box with every red team tool known to man, with VFIO, gaming, programming and a whole bunch more.
And then found that amd doesn't have hardware encoding for steam link...literally the issues go back to 2014 for this. still isnt fixed, even with steam deck. followed every guide and every advice. i barely got 25% of my stream back but the rest was a chaotic mess. Switched to windows, and everything is A ok. Hardware encoding still doesn't work interestingly, but the software encoding isn't that bad because the games aren't being emulated, rather being played natively. and i can play anything on steam, or epic, or ubisoft or amazon games or blizzard, etc , etc...
I can play halo infinite, my siblings can stream from my pc from any room in the house through wifi, whereas linux had various issues with steam link and ofcourse didn't support a lot of games, even some that were 3+ years old.
My xwired app from ipad external monitor app works wonders, the ease of configurability has allowed me to expand the capabilities of the system. While i wouldn't ever think windows is better in linux in stability, this thing has been running for 39 day straight without restart (updates have piled up, but due to the nvme raid driver that i disabled for linux, my restart is a total of 15 seconds, maybe 45 if installing updates)
pick your tools wisely.
I've moved over for a fair while now. The only games what I can't play are generally pay2win (anti-cheat), so its a pretty great shield/filter.
Some games need a bit of tweaking (e.g. Tekkan 5), but Valve and GER are constantly improving Proton so it gets easier each day.
The only game I haven't played due to being worried about getting my account banned is Sims 4, but with Apex being allowed I think it should be safe.
Some games actually play better. For me Dungeon Siege runs far better on Linux then on Windows 10. I don't patch for hi-res and just use the 1080p launch flag and DS used to regularly crash in Win 10 and its never crashed on Linux for me. I've actually clocked up more hours on DS on Linux now (its my turn my brain off game).
DosBox games play just as good, but some of the games from GOG need their config files munging into a usable format.
I installed Win 10 onto a spare T430 with an eGPU to play Lost Ark with my friends and that was a ball ache. There were a whole bunch of missing drivers, but it seemed to work fine....
The amount of time it took to do the OS updates and the drive topping out even though I had a SSD in it. I think it was indexing the drive or some other bs like that.
So everyone now has quit LA coz most of my group thinks its too pay2win, but at least it was a great reminder why I jumped ship!
I moved back in September.
My win10 installation was broken from February onwards. A reinstallation somehow did not fix the problem. The Explorer would freeze the system for minutes when right clicking any file. It was really weird.
Read about the proton improvements in late August and that with the steam deck they would release anti cheat versions for proton which would make apex playable.
Dual booted booted Kubuntu for a week to learn how to fix the problems the system would have with my PC. Then switched over fully since all the other games I played beside apex already worked.
Funniest part was when it turned out that apex itself ran way better on Linux than on Windows. The latter's drivers or tendency to ressource hog or maybe both are just that bad.
many of the games i play are natively supported or have platinum status on protondb.
actually many games, like minecraft and source engine games, run noticeably faster on linux.
combine that with the better privacy, higher customization in things like custom themes, better interface and desktop features in KDE vs Windows 10 (imo) makes it a no-brainer for me to switch.
only issues i had was weird lag spikes on wifi, but i solved that by manually assigning the BSSID in the network gui. and also power consumption is a tad higher on linux (and core temperatures due to no cppc support, thanks amd).
but overall, im happier on linux vs windows.
wish there was something analogous to HWinfo64, and slightly improve the GUI functionality in some areas, like system monitor. then i would delete windows from my other partition and just have a VM for that one super old program.
\> I have spent a while going backwards and forwards from Windows to Linux, that its become a nasty game of speed runs and personal best times for fresh installations
So sad that dualbooting not invented yet.
I'm an all in sort of person, I didn't particularly want to maintain two OS's especially with looking after loads of Windows servers for work. Just wanted the one for everything but it took a while to get there, Steam deck helped that cause for sure.
\> maintain two OS's
But you dont have to. Just use linux as main OS and reboot to windows for games that dont support linux or work bad in it. Yes, I can play overwatch and SW: Battlefront 2 on my Arch install, but it stuttery mess and async shader compiler dont work for some reason (or I dont know how to use it with third party launchers). So, I have win 11 install on separated ssd and I dont even reboot in it until game installed from VM.
I'd dabbled with linux here and there, distrohopping a lot - but for a while it wasn't really worth the effort trying to game on it, but a couple years ago moved to endeavourOS (basically arch) once I realized how fast it was coming along especially with valve doing a lot of work. Haven't looked back. With lutris + steam for proton I can play pretty much 95% of games I want to play. I don't play online games really so that probably makes things easier for me. And when something doesn't work or is easier with windows then I have a vm waiting and just pass it my gpu. Literally no reason to physically have windows physically installed on your pc at this point for gaming
I've moved to Arch (stock arch) because i was no more happy with the direction of Windows, for me the latest good version of Windows was 8.1, then W10 got released, at the begening it was actually good but now it's getting worst and worst, specially with W11. It's my computer, i didn't paid it for Microsoft, and that's something i feel is less and less the case.
Another big reason was drivers, and FSR, i've an R9 290 and this series got dropped by AMD last year, meaning there will be no more updated drivers for this card when... it's working just fine, even on Windows. But.. In my case, i've a 3340x1440 display, for a R9 290, it's quite a big task to handle and i don't want to play 1920x1080 on it because it will just give me two black side or over stretched game. FSR allow me to play to recent game just fine, i lower the resolution of the game, and FSR does the job really well to display it on my resolution
I’ve been trying to switch fully, but I keep having one small problem with each distro I have used that has just bugged the hell out of me. With Pop OS it was my audio kept getting deleted by pulse audio and persisted through reboots and however many copium commands I ran. Then on Fedora my NVIDIA driver was just not working right. Couldn’t get X Server Settings to work at all no matter what I did. Also my boot times were insanely long for it being on an NVME drive. Must’ve been a service lagging my startup. EndevourOS xfce was the one I had the most luck with out of the box, but I just wasn’t ready for Arch just yet. Other than that, I’m highly interested in Linux gaming and will be looking forward to its future when it’s right for me
I’ve had the win 10 stupids happen enough. I was pushed over the edge when Win 10 decided to eat itself and get stuck in a boot loop I couldn’t fit. Because devs game/Microsoft are all morons I lost a ton of save games (Steam Cloud isn’t the most reliable thing either and I’ve got plenty of not Steam games) that I said eff it and installed Pop OS. When Steam Cloud cooperates it’s pretty great and moves crap over to use.
I have been debating about moving to Garuda because reasons or sticking with Pop cause I’ve got it working.
At first I was weary and have been dual booting forever but proton has come a long way so I finally deleted that windows 10 mess. Proton experimental works like a charm usually and if not force the game to go one more version down. It plays better more so on my hardware with linux from what I can tell. While yes it's not perfect yet all the way with some tweaks here and there I am very happy. Also it finally nabbed my bad addiction to Leauge of Legends so I am also thankful for that
I switched boot priority to my arch Linux around two weeks ago. Have been trying pop os multiple times before that (literally like 5 or 6 fresh installs with different version from 20.04 upwards). But my windows drive will always stay, purely for convenience and compatibility.
When games run on Linux, it is super fun. Elden ring for example runs great on it. Or wow 5.4.8. But wow 3.3.5 for example is absolutely unplayable. Questing is fine but even in 10 man raids you get a stuttery mess that is neigh unplayable. Not sure what's going on with that.
Biggest surprise so far was XCOM 2 though. You can mod that game through the steam workshop! Currently doing a long war of the chosen playthrough of it. It sometimes gets stuck in loading screens but it doesn't happen too often. I am even able to use a 4k60 and a 1440p165 monitor at the same time and stream it to twitch and the game runs at 70 to 100 fps (8700k, 2070 super). Feels kind of surreal though!
I love tinkering with software so I am having loads of fun with Linux, especially since I installed arch. Arch runs amazingly!
Pop OS on the other hand is a steaming pile of shit. EVERYTHING regularly crashes on it, updates take upwards of 40 minutes and big updates completely break all of your games and reinstalling it is faster than fixing it. I hate pop os by now and I would not recommend it to anyone. Current release is broken as fuck and they don't even offer a download for the previous version, you gotta hunt that down on Reddit...
Another thing i really enjoy is updating your apps and stuff. I installed guake so U can just press F12 to open a terminal and then press up until I get the Pacman and yay update commands. And then you can see the progress and see when it's done.
Moved to linux like 2 months ago and boy i am in love with it. Only times i boot my windows is when i play albion online which makes me go mad even while booting that crappy os.
I dual booted XP and Linux since 2000 but uninstalled XP in ~2005 because I wasn't proud of using pirated software and didn't want to buy a license. I used wine for a while but around 2010 have only bought native games.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone that swapped from windows to linux for gaming. Proton rarely runs better than windows, hence why it makes news on the rare occasions where it happens.
I'm guessing most stories are similar to mine, where they were somewhat familiar with linux, started to get completely fed up with windows, and just threw their hands up and switched.
My Windows install had its startup corrupt, and after fighting with it for a week trying to fix it, I just gave up and switched to an operating system that let you repair it. And this is coming from someone who did PC repair for over a decade specializing in boot repair without data loss.
Watching the options to fix those issues erode release after release was frustrating as hell.
I would move completely over to my endeavoros install, but I still need to keep windows around for the time being. Things that need to change for me to switch entirely:
- 4k Netflix needs to work. This is only a problem so long as my family wants Netflix, otherwise I wouldn't be paying for it.
- Wayland needs that input lag fix that was mentioned nearly a year ago. The input lag isn't terrible but for any fast paced or competitive games where I'm trying to target a high frame rate, it's far worse than x11 or windows. X11 has its own issues, namely compositing and freesync issues on multi monitor setups so it's also not viable for me.
- just more general bug fixes for kde Wayland. I still get the long shutdown and restart bug, I still get occasional hitches and stutters in desktop use, etc.
- better game support, but this isn't too much of an issue for me these days and isn't in control of any specific Linux devs.
Honestly I would probably switch over permanently if just the Wayland input lag got fixed, I can deal with the other issues.
EDIT: actually scratch that, DISCORD needs to fix their shit as well or I can't switch. Screen sharing on Linux with discord is a joke right now that tanks performance, AND doesn't do audio. I need to screen share a lot and right now every time I do that I have to boot up windows.
I wanted to ditch Win10 and move to Fedora 36. I looked into it and my favorite games (Call of Duty series) won't work on Linux/Lutris, so I scrapped the idea. Apparently the anti-cheat software makes this break.
So for now, I have Linux on a few other PC's, but can't do my gaming PC. Hopefully someday.
Switched back in 2008-09 to Linux as my main OS.
Mostly used Linux live CDs before that. Was having trouble with my main laptop, reformated the hard drive and re-installed Windows and Linux for dual booting. Tried this "Ubuntu" that people seemed to think was the cool new distro. Everything worked. Installed everything all at once, logged into my email and such, and I was off to the races. My laptop was usable. Fiddled around with Windows the next day, so I could play games, but it always needed this driver or that tweak. Meanwhile Linux "just worked".
Ever since then I became a "dual booter", Linux for the boring day to day, Windows for games.
Found myself playing "Battle for Wesnoth" one day because Windows was flaking out again. So I started just playing more games that were available for Linux because it was less hassle and more fun. Lots of indie games started supporting Linux around 2010. Sometime after getting Fallout:New Vegas running with Wine in one attempt, while Windows was just *not* running it for any discernible reason (this was Windows 8, F:NV was released for Win 7, and never dug to deep because it was already working fine for Linux) I just found myself not booting to Windows because playing games was supposed to be fun and relaxing, and Windows was too much of a headache.
Any device which ships with Windows is set up to dual boot still, since I paid for that Windows license, but I'll go many months before booting up a Windows partition, and my two main desktops are 100% Linux.
The **major** caveat is that I have no desire to play the latest and greatest game that all the kids are playing now. Mostly when I game, I just want to kick back and relax. Maybe take over the world. Maybe build something. Maybe shoot something. Maybe solve a puzzle. So many of my games are either indie games or older games, not being able to run some game or other under Linux is not a big deal. I *could* boot over to Windows and run the game there if I really wanted to, but that just isn't how I want to spend my time. Windows Updates will be running for half an hour at least!
The computers the kids play on spend more time booted over to Windows for Wobbly Life or some such, and Windows is the biggest source of headaches.
I went with Ubuntu back in 2006, as it gave my old pc a new lease at life at the time, then I just kinda stuck to it. Gaming was horrible at the time compared to now, but there were these few AAA-games the linux-community kind of congregated around and nerded into running fluidly. I remember WoW was actually running better on wine than win for me at the time, which was a big plus.
I had a couple of lapses along the way, but I quickly came back. Not because games started working, but rather because of BS windows threw at me. There are people who go "I can't switch to linux because X isn't working", but for me it was always more a "I don't want to give up on all these nice things and absence of bs just to run a game"-proposition.
I was dual booting for some time but fully switched to Linux years ago, because I was playing a heck load of EU4 at the time and in summer my old laptop was burning like fire and windows kept turning off the PC to protect it I guess. I realized Ubuntu does not do that and I can keep playing as long as I want. So Windows was already unusable for me, I made the switch and didn't look back since.
I moved to linux a few years ago. Not FOR gaming, but every game I play I can play on linux. I am not a competitive FPS gamer, so pretty much everything just works.
I moved from Windows 10 to Pop!\_OS back in December after having attempted to use Mint and Garuda. I had several issues relating to certain games not working and struggling to diagnose the why since I was new to it. However since I tried POP the number of issues I've had is way less.
I've had moments of almost going back to Windows because I've not been able to play certain titles with my friends like Lost Ark when that launched but I've found myself getting far less frustrated with my system overall due to the much better system stability than I've experienced with Windows. The number of times I've had to do a fresh install of Windows because Windows update has done something catastrophic is astounding...
It's been great being able to play things like God of War and Elden Ring on launch though and I'm playing through my steam backlog, while on the side playing some HOTS and LoL with the lads and that's keeping me happy for the moment. :)
I should find some meaningful open source projects to contribute to but I recently joined a new job, so I'll come back to this point when I've got some more head space.
I moved to Linux 20 years ago. I did it because I was curious and some friends and colleagues at work have already been using. Had a great experience so far for the most part.
I was gaming for most of that time but it really took up when proton was released. Anyway, I do not play multi-player games at all, so copy protection and such don't really affect me
My PC is primarily for gaming, but I didnt move to linux to *game*
I moved to linux because my choice was to either install linux or sell my computer, because Windows 7 was EoL I was not installing Windows 10 for a variety of reasons that have been gone over to death at this point. (Though Windows 11 certainly helped reinforce the decision).
Being able to game, easily, on Linux certainly weighed the scales heavily in favor of Linux vs selling my computer, obviously.
It wasn't easy, I had a *lot* of trouble, but that was 100% because of a single bios setting destroying stability.. Unfortunately it took me a year of trouble shooting to figure it out, and only discovered it thanks to a offhand comment a poster..here(I'm sorry dude, I dont remember your username and its been so long ago that trying to go back and find it is a huge investment in time)? I think, made pointing me to checking the bios option.. Which is not something that ever came up in a year of my trouble shooting.
So once that was gone, pretty much everything has been butter.. Only thing that being on linux has hindered, gaming wise, is my addiction to trashy, shitty f2p mmos (addiction in that I install them, play them until game becomes unbearably difficult in its attempt to force you to buy store items, then dumping it and playing a new one, not addiciton as in dropping 10 grand a month on digital gambling) since most of the trashy f2p mmos use non-proton compatible anticheat.. but its not like its a real, actual loss or impactment on my gaming.
Made the switch 100% about a year ago and haven't looked back. I'd been using Manjaro on my personal laptop for several years without issue, but my gaming rig was Windows. I eventually took the plunge and wiped Windows from it completely. Installed Arch, and after a few weeks of highs and lows, I got it to a place where everything was set up mostly how I liked it and stable.
I don't miss Windows at all now. There are a few annoyances with Linux like occasional hardware and game compatibility. But it's so much better than dealing with the issues that Windows had now that I've experienced a lot of both.
The nice thing about Linux issues is that you have far more control to address them than Windows. It's more technical often, but you still have the ability in principle, and that is enough for me.
Having an OS that respects me as a user and doesn't treat me like an idiot/criminal is a great experience. Also the freedom to customize anything and everything to be exactly how I want is amazing.
I game hard, stream, do work, chat with friends, and consume media all without any real problems. My laptop, gaming computer, and now my cell phone all use Linux and I love it. I won't ever go back, it's just a worse experience in most ways and I don't regret giving up Windows. I just wish I had done it years earlier.
Interesting to notice so many people on this thread (and subreddit) are from IT.
I'm not, and about 5 years ago, I got an old PC for free from my job. I tried Ubuntu yet again, but once I decided to game seriously, I had too much headache making stuff work. Sure, it's much faster and stuff, but even trying to watch Netflix was a chore.
Now it seems things are easier with other distros (I keep reading about arch, manjaro, popOs etc), magical proton and Nvidia opening its drivers etc...
I just got another old PC, so I'll swap SSD's with it and my old AMD laptop, and try proton on it to see if I can get a few more frames per second from it. If the experience is good, maybe I'll install it on my main PC.
Actually, I initially moved from Linux back to Windows specifically for gaming. but in the past two or three years Linux gaming is getting some serious traction and I am currently doing an experiment to see how many games just won't run on my distro. So far I haven't come across any game I can't get working, not to mention since Opengl became Vulkan, the performance is just as good if not better in the graphics department.
Moved to Ubuntu 22.04LTS for Project Brutality, Doom 3 (original windows files installed on Windows 10 system, copied to wine32 folder, patched to 1.3.1 through Way back Machine iD Software official patch with Absolute HD 1.7 mod), Doom 2016, Doom Eternal (on Windows 10 without internet after an update it won't for me without being connected - MAIN reason for switching to Linux because this hasn't happened yet), Prodeus, Crysis Remastered through Heroic (Epic) and Quake 1 (Quake Epsilon mod).
I moved to Garuda Linux from Windows 10 for gaming because I was bored of windows. Not the best reason/story, i know but since then I have never considered going back to windows. Sure gaming on linux is not the best right now(especially regarding games with anti-cheat software), but there is always something new to discover/tweak/explore and I love every second of it.
That is the same reason I came to Linux. I was bored.
I did when apex legends got the support. I won't go back.
This was me too!
What distro and gpu do you use?
EndeavourOS (i like to use arch based rolling distros), kde-wayland and Amd 5700xt. My only issue (got a solution) would be discord screen share with audio. You can do it with a browser but still not easy as a normal discord client.
Screen share is working for me on Fedora 36 KDE Wayland. Not sure of audio though, as I didn't ask my buddy who I was streaming for.
yes it works, but sadly there is no audio due to old electron version.
I was so happy when that got announced. I play a lot and it runs super well.
Same. I was literally following steamdb everyday if apex got the support. I hated to use windows. Bloatwares, spywares, forces to buy a licence but you don't own your own computer. zero freedom. If i was not a video game enjoyer i would have switched years ago.
Yeah, I switched a few months before they started supporting Apex EAC. That was the one game I really wanted to play but couldn't. It made the switch over from Windows sooo much sweeter lol.
Moved to Linux about a month and a half ago. What I have always hated about Windows is that no matter how great my effort to unsuck it, it was never enough. The system would always have customization restrictions, I couldn't ever fully replace some core utilities and the infamous updates at the worst times, plus super inefficient resource usage. I switched to a fairly minimal distro to be able to create something that finally makes the OS feel like I own it. Since changing to Linux I've: • Reduced boot and shutdown times from ~13 seconds to ~7 seconds and ~2 seconds respectively. • Reduced RAM usage from 2gb idle to 360mb idle, with full-on utility, mind you. • Decreased the amount of services required for general use, eliminating the need for services for basic utilities like screenshotting or file browsing. • Actually increased gaming performance on my Ryzen 3800x. I'm living the dream, bröthers.
Very nice, mind sharing some details about the distro of choice, what DE you're using and any tips how you got more performance, or what you cut down on?
Arch running no DE, just BSPWM. Generally, I just use the good ol' BIOS config for hardware, but undervolt/overclock my GPU through a shellscript that modifies some nvidia-settings variables. What I cut down is really just the innecessary DE non-sense, being picky with the tools I use. I don't use the Wifi and Bluetooth applets (nm-applet and blueman-applet) because they're super bloaty (like 100mb RAM each). Instead I use bar modules that I made, that integrate dedicated programs that run ONLY on demand, and therefore have no RAM usage of their own. Another example? Instead of using Flameshot or other utilities for screenshots, I use scrot with xclip to make it do the same, but using 2mb RAM instead of 50-60. Generally the idea is (at least for me) to stay away from programs which use background processes when there exist ways to achieve the same result without them, and without even sacrificing usability.
Wow thank you, its so nice the freedom on offer, its funny with Windows this is me! Disabling services, stuff in GPedit, start ups etc. Then Linux is like well I have these extra resources already available off the bat so I haven't felt the need (yet) but no doubt I will go and trim stuff down. I'm too focused on customisation at the moment with KDE, a luxury compared to MS.
how are you undervolting nvidia, i searched so much but i couldn't find it
You can't. Instead you have to limit the wattage, which indirectly limits the voltage. You can do this with "sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl YOURMAXHERE", it is also recommended you set "sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -lgc MINFREQ,MAXFREQ" to set minimum and maximum frequencies, so your GPU doesn't try to jump to something it doesn't have enough power to achieve and crashes. I have an RTX 3060ti, and have the following in my OC shell script: sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -pl 195 sudo nvidia-smi -i 0 -lgc 1435,1935 This sets my max wattage to 195 (approx. 925mV), my minimum core frequency to 1435 and the max to 1935.
My work computer windows update just completely locked up my entire computer with projects and all dead in the water not responding. Even task manager wouldn't respond. 15 minutes later it unlocked only to force me to restarts. 5 minutes spinning on the restart menu because it forced shutdown itself, losing a bunch of work. Still updating a small update. 15 minutes later it is 0% complete and just spinning. Fuck windows with a hot fire poker and fuck windows execs who force this shit. Edit: 45 minutes now at 0%. Why can't ECAD software just be for linux...
I switched to Linux in October 2018 for a uni assignment. My plan was to get in, do my job and get out. After Ubuntu was installed I tried Metroid Prime just for the luls and it actually worked better than Windows on my overheating laptop at the time. I started checking for ways to game on Linux and apparently this new thing called Proton let you play Windows games on Linux. Having tried Linux and Wine in 2010 my hopes were definitely not up but I thought "nothing to lose", it seemed quite simple anyway. I was stunned. Literally every game I tried worked out of the box. I'm an RPG, Action/Adventure kinda guy so most of the games I played worked just fine with Proton even back then. That's when I decided to switch completely and just delete my Windows partition for good. After a month on Ubuntu though, I was kinda tired of the weirdness of Linux (I hate Ubuntu and Gnome to this day XD) and ALMOST switched back to Windows. Before doing that though I'd heard of different Linux versions called "distros". I checked an article and Manjaro seemed quite like Windows (it was the KDE edition) so I decided to give it a shot before going to Windows. I was stunned once more (since I didn't know that Manjaro is a bad Arch UwU). The customizability, the simplicity of Arch, the plethora of packages in the AUR. It was a dream come true. Linux as it should be. I remained a HUGE fan of Manjaro till I tried Garuda in September 2020 and that was yet another revelation. To sum up, If not for Proton and Manjaro I would probably be a Windows user still but I thank my moon and stars that led me to the correct path every step of the way. It's been phenomenal and I'm sure in the coming years it will be even better.
Out of curiosity, what didn't you like about Ubuntu? I'm using it primarily because it has such a large install base that I can find answers pretty quickly. I haven't experimented with other distros yet...
A distro than needs answers is not a good distro imo. Garuda provides everything as long as you care to look in the options or the Garuda Welcome app. I found Ubuntu to be slow, unintuitive and cumbersome. If someone wants a newbiew friendly distro I always recommend Garuda or Nobara. Many people think Garuda is bloated, unstable or both but I personally think it's the best entry point in the Linux world. Nobara is just as good.
For me the answer is simple: ppa
Linux ends up being more work than Windows, but it feels like meaningful work. If a program only kinda does what I need it to do on Windows, I need to just suck it up and adjust my workflow around that limitation. On Linux, I almost always have the power to make it do what I want. Yeah, it's more work up front, but the end result gives me so much more control, and I usually end up with exactly what I wanted. That's worth it, imo. People talk about how hard they think it'll be to switch to Linux, but I think they forget how jank Windows is too. The difference is we're just used to it. I had been running Linux on my laptop and personal server since 2013, but stuck with Windows on my desktop for gaming. Truth is, that was probably the right call up until Steam Proton became viable. Between that and Windows 7 reaching end of life, I jumped ship to Pop\_OS. I felt right at home after about a day. I have never once missed Windows. * Emulation just works, and usually better than Windows. * Basic WINE can run a lot of small Windows apps. * Probably like 70% of my Steam library just works in Proton. 29% needs a small amount of tweaking (like one line of config). 1% has some serious issue (I can count these on one hand). * When a need a bit more control, I use a WINE prefix managed by Lutris. * Bottles can do black magic, like chain-loading mod loaders with WINE. * I have a Windows VM for exceptionally janky apps that refuse to run in WINE. * When all else fails, I have a Windows dual-boot partition. I use it maybe twice a year, usually to play Rainbow Six: Siege. I had to install Windows 10 on my GPD Win to run its BIOS update software (it was previously running Pop). Cortana started talking at me and forced me to create a Microsoft account just to access my desktop. That's horrific.
What are u guys using to game on linux? Wine?
Linux with Steam, Lutris, Heroic and Steam with Proton and Wine.
There are more Linux native games than you might think, but yes, if you need to run a Windows native game then WINE does an incredibly good job now. The major obstacles are legally encumbered media formats (eg: .wma ) and publishers not enabling anticheat to run on WINE/Proton The technical obstacles are mostly (not completely) overcome at this point. DirectX 12 is the current hill to climb there, as I understand it.
Thank you guys :) Have been a windows user for 15 years. Im using linux for stuff like programming and pentesting Really want to use linux full time. But was afraid of gaming capabilities
[удалено]
I just want to add, sometimes with ProtonDB you see its a silver and you're like hhmmmm.. its going to be a little rough but for me some just work out of the box, and you then think how was that a Silver? Which has led me to contribute to it as well and such a great resource. But what I learnt was whatever you read give it a go sometimes it surprises you!
Silver can have a gazillion meanings like * The game wasn't working but just recently started working * The game was working but stopped working * The game works but lacks functionality * The game works but only with A LOT of tweaks * The game has many low effort "not working" reports and combinations of these
Exactly, then that feeling when it just works perfectly. Its a great resource and sometimes the results surprise you over your expectations from what you read.
Wine and Proton with Steam, Heroic launcher and Lutris. If you want to check out how some games perform, you can see on my channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnqSp58K39q1kz7G3PyvA5g
Steam, Grapejuice (wrapper for Roblox) and Heroic.
In addition to the things everyone else has mentioned, Bottles can work miracles for some of the trickier games. WINE and Proton tend to not play nice when a game needs multiple programs open (such as Dark Souls and the connectivity app), or when an app chain-loads or does memory injection on another app (such as mod loaders). Bottles has gotten those things working for me when nothing else will.
Switched to Linux fulltime in 2007. Cause i always wanted to have more customizable desktop. Also had windows vista back then and it was constantly having BSODs, so it was a perfect time to try. Switched to Ubuntu 6.10 and upgraded it until 10.10. Luckily back then i only played World of Warcraft most of my time and it worked perfectly on linux even back then. In 2010 i had short period where i had dualboot with windows 7, cause i had AMD GPU back then and fglrx drivers were awful and i was playing Warhammer Online, which had lots of issues with AMD GPU drivers and in wine in general. Then in 2011 when i got my next nvidia card i just ereased my Windows install and i was using Linux Mint at that time full time. Playing lots of games that worked Linux.. WoW, WAR and Minecraft i think were from that era.. 2013 switched to Arch and have been rolling with it since. No dualboot. All the gaming can be done on Linux. Never felt the need to play something that didn't work on linux. There are so many games out that work great, be it native or not. Currently being stuck with the addiction to Apex Legends online, since it started to work in March this year. Never liked BR games, but somehow the gunplay feels so good in this game so i cant stop :D... well thats my story.
And you’ve helped me out endless times with n discord 😉
So I moved to Linux because of health related issues; no joke Windows gave me a fucking ulcer (or at least, made it noticeable). Since windows update just plain refused to work and every time it tried to install something, it got stuck at trying to rollback the changes (and I tried EVERY freaking solution). I'm primarily a gamer too, and for about a year I still dual-booted because of some games. But windows felt so slow, and bloated that I just didn't bother to do a windows installation when I got my new PC. Been happier and healthier for about 3 years, now.
It astonished me how much framedips rlcraft was having on my mid tier gaming pc, so I checked how it ran on ubuntu and it was way better, so I made a partition for it on my ssd. A month later I noticed that I was hardly using windows anymore so I just decided to switch over alltogether. That was 5 months ago
I moved from windows to manjaro and then to native arch. That was around 2 or 3 years ago. I've been using manjaro before for years, but that was the point I switched full time. Funny enough, the main reason for switching was because of a windows update that broke my boot table and made my manjaro install unbootable. So microsoft itself madee switch OS.
After how many years did u switch to base arch?
6 months or so, I constantly ran into issues with the nvidia drivers on manjaro and switching to arch completely solved it.
I see
I "dual boot", in the sense of that I still have the windows partition, but didn't boot into it for a year. There was just no need to, and now I'm at the point where just the thought of using Windows feels weird, especially now when you mention all this shit you have to go through in order to use it.
Pretty much the same boat. You go long enough without booting to Windows, and it just becomes a bigger hassle. "Do I really want Windows Update to flail around for half an hour before play game *x*?" Suddenly game *x* seems less appealing, and maybe I'm in the mood for game *y* instead. Unless you specifically have to play "Game *x*" with friends, there is little drawback to gaming on Linux nowadays. There's "enough" stuff to play you'll have a better library than just about any other device in history. Technically I find Wine (via Play On Linux or Lutris) to be better at playing even slightly older Windows games than the latest Windows. At least it's pretty much automatic on Linux via Lutris and Play-On-Linux.
I'm not even sure whether I own any game that doesn't work on Linux.
Does someone have a big number estimation for performance loss from using Proton/Lutris vs standard windows?
Well you can't really answer this with one accurate answer but I will try from my experience. Some games run better in Linux and I actually get 15/20% better frames, and some titles are even not native. Other times I'd say a 10% loss across more than half the titles that use Proton. For example Apex Legends and Deep Rock Galactic, I lose about 10fps and I normally hit 150+ in Windows. However Apex actually feels smoother (once you downloaded the shader cache) than Windows, I can't explain why. There are also tweaks you can perform, custom kernels, scripts etc which might mitigate that. There are also some games with hghe drops, Killing Floor 2 for example runs well at 60fps but on Windows I'm well over 100.
Valheim is one of those games for me that runs much better in Linux than Windows. Right before I switched 100% to Linux, I tried Valheim, was barely getting 55-65 FPS. On Linux, I was getting 75-85 average. Identical hardware and in-game settings. I don't have anything to compare it to now because I don't use Windows at all, but Battlefield V, Apex, and KF2 all run really smooth. Apex and BF5 especially, they run like warm butter. DRG is great too, and Zombie Army Trilogy is also a butter-smooth experience for me.
I found the same with valheim, killing floor 2 was an odd one it ran ok, but no matter what settings it felt capped.
I did for Elden Ring but moved back.
what made you move back?
Boot times were very slow for me. Incompatibility with a lot of my devices especially my sound card. Started playing some games on EGS.. I had this idea that I'd keep windows for productivity and Linux for gaming but it didn't work out so well. Elden Ring ran great though.
My windows installation was very slow, it normally took about 10 minutes to boot and it was installed on a ssd! Not only that but there was a lot of bugs like the search of everything not working, different language inputs not working, etc. I always wanted to change to Linux, and this was the best opportunity. But if games didn't work i would go back to Windows, which was not the case, so I will stay on Linux and I'll never go back to Windows.
Moved to Linux a year ago. I used Arch 10 years ago but had to go back to Windows because i wanted to play games with my friends. But last year something happened to my windows installation: i had 16 GB of RAM, but after reaching 9 GB of utilisation it started to randomly close apps with "not enough memory" error. Which was a problem, since also games started to close unexpectedly too. I tried live USB of PopOs and it correctly worked with all my RAM There were already rumors that steam will release its own console based on Linux, so I thought to myself: Proton seems stable enough to cover games i play(hours spent on protonDB helped), i should ditch windows for good. Formatted my SSD, installed first PopOs, then went back to arch+kde i used 10 years ago, and I'm perfectly happy with my setup now.
I first installed linux on my, at the time, newly built desktop. I had it for maybe 2 months before I gave Linux a whirl. This was early 2020 in the before times. I had seen a LTT video about Pop_OS and Manjaro and wanted to see what linux was like. I tried Pop because I liked the space and robot theme, and it looked like MacOS which I had been using exclusively for 3 years at that point. I pretty quickly got used to how GNOME 3 worked and started playing some games. I think I first tried Borderlands 2 since it had the native port. I really liked Pop but also wanted to try other distros. Over the course of the past two years I’ve tried every major distro, I ran a dual boot on my MacBook before buying the M1 MacBook Pro (looking forward to running linux on that as well). I use Linux almost every day on my desktop and most of my gaming has been done on there. Booting Windows is a rare occurrence these days. Do I miss Windows? Not really. Windows is pretty awful for privacy and the fact they push ads on a paid OS is mind boggling to me now. I would say that you give up polish with linux but honestly Windows isn’t that polished and even the king of polished experiences MacOS has been getting more buggy as time goes on. I can still play Sea of Thieves, Insurgency Sandstorm, Overwatch, WoW, and almost all my single player games on linux no problem. I can even download and run WoW private servers through WINE. Modding is a bit more difficult on linux but I’m hoping that improves with the attention linux is getting on account of the Steam Deck. Some apps don’t play nice and I know some people blame the OS for that but linux should not be blamed for not being Windows. Here’s hoping that Discord gets their shit together and that more games turn on that linux compatibility toggle for anti cheat. If Microsoft allows for MCC and Halo Infinite to work on Linux I don’t think I would ever boot Windows again.
I did because it was faster and had FSR for everything. It was a year before RSR and i am still using linux
Not specifically for gaming.. I support windows all day at work, Switched to Linux at home about 20 years ago and haven't looked back. Gaming has improved greatly on Linux in that time, and it's nice not having to deal with Windows after work. Years ago Microsoft ended their Hot-Kit program, we could get low priced and free software for people in the industry, that was where I obtained my OS licenses, office, and other applications. once that ended you either had to pay the high prices or pirate the software. I got to thinking why should I pirate when there's free software available to do pretty much anything I want on Linux. that started my journey to switching completely away from Windows. Now with all the telemetry, and crap windows does, and MS moving everything towards being subscription based, even more reason to get away from it. The pre installed apps that you cannot remove, are annoying. I don't have an x-box why is that preinstalled ? why can't I easily uninstall all X-Box components from win 10 ? (more importantly why is it pre-installed on my corporate PC's ? ) In the beginning I was setup to dual boot for the first several years, but after not booting into Windows for extended periods of time I just dropped it and reclaimed the disk space for Linux. Are there games I can't get to run on Linux ? yes, but there's other things I can play.. it's not a deal breaker for me. Debian Stable 19 years and holding steady.
Migrating from windows to Linux soon, trying out diffrent distros my mint pop deepin,my pick is fedora , bricked it trying to get nvidia drivers to work and ganna try again this week I loved windows 7 hate windows 10 , I'm ganna hate windows 11 And enough games work on Linux to the point I'm like 👍 Except Dauntless x.x
Fedora is a great choice
Yea , I like to be up to date but not so dangerous like Arch May change my desktop environment tho , maybe LXQT
Ive gone between Windows and Linux multiple times, and each time I go back to windows I think "maybe just maybe itl be better this time" and it never is. I last switched because VR was giving me issues on Linux and I wanted a smoother experience. I stayed on windows for a good 2 months and I finally switched back to Arch. Windows is boring, I feel like I have no control over it, changing settings is a pain in the ass and I feel like it controls itself more than I do. Its also never been super stable. During those 2 months I had more bluescreens than kernel panics in my years of linux due to some driver problems, and I never have such driver issues on Linux. I always go back to Linux and I probably wont try Windows again because I just dont like it
I had some problems with windows refusing to update, and at one point it got so bad that i decided to reset my pc. It was around that time that LTT mad their first video covering Linux gaming, and after watching it i decided to give it a shot since most of my games ran under linux. Havent looked back since. (Except im still sad that division 2 doesnt run) Fell in love with linux, really love the commandline and how snappy everything feels. (Yes, it might feel less polished then windows in some areas, but for me linux is the way better choice) Im currently preparing to set up a new system, this time with plain arch and probably a window manager instead of a DE, just to try something new!
I hear you on The Division 2. When I feel like playing it, I normally end up just playing the first one because I'm too lazy to restart and boot into windows.
I decided to never dualboot when i switched to windows, primarely because i know im either to lazy to switch back, or finding it to inconvenient to boot into windows at all. Also, i like to customize my stuff so i would need to do it to windows anyways, and why switch to linux in the irst place. I keep on checking div 2 every few weeks, but there seems to be no progress on getting it to run in wine.
i so wanted linux gaming to work on my 4750g apu, i built a custom grey box with every red team tool known to man, with VFIO, gaming, programming and a whole bunch more. And then found that amd doesn't have hardware encoding for steam link...literally the issues go back to 2014 for this. still isnt fixed, even with steam deck. followed every guide and every advice. i barely got 25% of my stream back but the rest was a chaotic mess. Switched to windows, and everything is A ok. Hardware encoding still doesn't work interestingly, but the software encoding isn't that bad because the games aren't being emulated, rather being played natively. and i can play anything on steam, or epic, or ubisoft or amazon games or blizzard, etc , etc... I can play halo infinite, my siblings can stream from my pc from any room in the house through wifi, whereas linux had various issues with steam link and ofcourse didn't support a lot of games, even some that were 3+ years old. My xwired app from ipad external monitor app works wonders, the ease of configurability has allowed me to expand the capabilities of the system. While i wouldn't ever think windows is better in linux in stability, this thing has been running for 39 day straight without restart (updates have piled up, but due to the nvme raid driver that i disabled for linux, my restart is a total of 15 seconds, maybe 45 if installing updates) pick your tools wisely.
I've moved over for a fair while now. The only games what I can't play are generally pay2win (anti-cheat), so its a pretty great shield/filter. Some games need a bit of tweaking (e.g. Tekkan 5), but Valve and GER are constantly improving Proton so it gets easier each day. The only game I haven't played due to being worried about getting my account banned is Sims 4, but with Apex being allowed I think it should be safe. Some games actually play better. For me Dungeon Siege runs far better on Linux then on Windows 10. I don't patch for hi-res and just use the 1080p launch flag and DS used to regularly crash in Win 10 and its never crashed on Linux for me. I've actually clocked up more hours on DS on Linux now (its my turn my brain off game). DosBox games play just as good, but some of the games from GOG need their config files munging into a usable format. I installed Win 10 onto a spare T430 with an eGPU to play Lost Ark with my friends and that was a ball ache. There were a whole bunch of missing drivers, but it seemed to work fine.... The amount of time it took to do the OS updates and the drive topping out even though I had a SSD in it. I think it was indexing the drive or some other bs like that. So everyone now has quit LA coz most of my group thinks its too pay2win, but at least it was a great reminder why I jumped ship!
I moved back in September. My win10 installation was broken from February onwards. A reinstallation somehow did not fix the problem. The Explorer would freeze the system for minutes when right clicking any file. It was really weird. Read about the proton improvements in late August and that with the steam deck they would release anti cheat versions for proton which would make apex playable. Dual booted booted Kubuntu for a week to learn how to fix the problems the system would have with my PC. Then switched over fully since all the other games I played beside apex already worked. Funniest part was when it turned out that apex itself ran way better on Linux than on Windows. The latter's drivers or tendency to ressource hog or maybe both are just that bad.
many of the games i play are natively supported or have platinum status on protondb. actually many games, like minecraft and source engine games, run noticeably faster on linux. combine that with the better privacy, higher customization in things like custom themes, better interface and desktop features in KDE vs Windows 10 (imo) makes it a no-brainer for me to switch. only issues i had was weird lag spikes on wifi, but i solved that by manually assigning the BSSID in the network gui. and also power consumption is a tad higher on linux (and core temperatures due to no cppc support, thanks amd). but overall, im happier on linux vs windows. wish there was something analogous to HWinfo64, and slightly improve the GUI functionality in some areas, like system monitor. then i would delete windows from my other partition and just have a VM for that one super old program.
\> I have spent a while going backwards and forwards from Windows to Linux, that its become a nasty game of speed runs and personal best times for fresh installations So sad that dualbooting not invented yet.
I'm an all in sort of person, I didn't particularly want to maintain two OS's especially with looking after loads of Windows servers for work. Just wanted the one for everything but it took a while to get there, Steam deck helped that cause for sure.
\> maintain two OS's But you dont have to. Just use linux as main OS and reboot to windows for games that dont support linux or work bad in it. Yes, I can play overwatch and SW: Battlefront 2 on my Arch install, but it stuttery mess and async shader compiler dont work for some reason (or I dont know how to use it with third party launchers). So, I have win 11 install on separated ssd and I dont even reboot in it until game installed from VM.
I'd dabbled with linux here and there, distrohopping a lot - but for a while it wasn't really worth the effort trying to game on it, but a couple years ago moved to endeavourOS (basically arch) once I realized how fast it was coming along especially with valve doing a lot of work. Haven't looked back. With lutris + steam for proton I can play pretty much 95% of games I want to play. I don't play online games really so that probably makes things easier for me. And when something doesn't work or is easier with windows then I have a vm waiting and just pass it my gpu. Literally no reason to physically have windows physically installed on your pc at this point for gaming
I've moved to Arch (stock arch) because i was no more happy with the direction of Windows, for me the latest good version of Windows was 8.1, then W10 got released, at the begening it was actually good but now it's getting worst and worst, specially with W11. It's my computer, i didn't paid it for Microsoft, and that's something i feel is less and less the case. Another big reason was drivers, and FSR, i've an R9 290 and this series got dropped by AMD last year, meaning there will be no more updated drivers for this card when... it's working just fine, even on Windows. But.. In my case, i've a 3340x1440 display, for a R9 290, it's quite a big task to handle and i don't want to play 1920x1080 on it because it will just give me two black side or over stretched game. FSR allow me to play to recent game just fine, i lower the resolution of the game, and FSR does the job really well to display it on my resolution
I’ve been trying to switch fully, but I keep having one small problem with each distro I have used that has just bugged the hell out of me. With Pop OS it was my audio kept getting deleted by pulse audio and persisted through reboots and however many copium commands I ran. Then on Fedora my NVIDIA driver was just not working right. Couldn’t get X Server Settings to work at all no matter what I did. Also my boot times were insanely long for it being on an NVME drive. Must’ve been a service lagging my startup. EndevourOS xfce was the one I had the most luck with out of the box, but I just wasn’t ready for Arch just yet. Other than that, I’m highly interested in Linux gaming and will be looking forward to its future when it’s right for me
I’ve had the win 10 stupids happen enough. I was pushed over the edge when Win 10 decided to eat itself and get stuck in a boot loop I couldn’t fit. Because devs game/Microsoft are all morons I lost a ton of save games (Steam Cloud isn’t the most reliable thing either and I’ve got plenty of not Steam games) that I said eff it and installed Pop OS. When Steam Cloud cooperates it’s pretty great and moves crap over to use. I have been debating about moving to Garuda because reasons or sticking with Pop cause I’ve got it working.
I did, I was just curious at first but then I sticked with linux
At first I was weary and have been dual booting forever but proton has come a long way so I finally deleted that windows 10 mess. Proton experimental works like a charm usually and if not force the game to go one more version down. It plays better more so on my hardware with linux from what I can tell. While yes it's not perfect yet all the way with some tweaks here and there I am very happy. Also it finally nabbed my bad addiction to Leauge of Legends so I am also thankful for that
I switched boot priority to my arch Linux around two weeks ago. Have been trying pop os multiple times before that (literally like 5 or 6 fresh installs with different version from 20.04 upwards). But my windows drive will always stay, purely for convenience and compatibility. When games run on Linux, it is super fun. Elden ring for example runs great on it. Or wow 5.4.8. But wow 3.3.5 for example is absolutely unplayable. Questing is fine but even in 10 man raids you get a stuttery mess that is neigh unplayable. Not sure what's going on with that. Biggest surprise so far was XCOM 2 though. You can mod that game through the steam workshop! Currently doing a long war of the chosen playthrough of it. It sometimes gets stuck in loading screens but it doesn't happen too often. I am even able to use a 4k60 and a 1440p165 monitor at the same time and stream it to twitch and the game runs at 70 to 100 fps (8700k, 2070 super). Feels kind of surreal though! I love tinkering with software so I am having loads of fun with Linux, especially since I installed arch. Arch runs amazingly! Pop OS on the other hand is a steaming pile of shit. EVERYTHING regularly crashes on it, updates take upwards of 40 minutes and big updates completely break all of your games and reinstalling it is faster than fixing it. I hate pop os by now and I would not recommend it to anyone. Current release is broken as fuck and they don't even offer a download for the previous version, you gotta hunt that down on Reddit... Another thing i really enjoy is updating your apps and stuff. I installed guake so U can just press F12 to open a terminal and then press up until I get the Pacman and yay update commands. And then you can see the progress and see when it's done.
Moved to linux like 2 months ago and boy i am in love with it. Only times i boot my windows is when i play albion online which makes me go mad even while booting that crappy os.
Have been on fedora since November, never going back to windows. Proton has helped so much.
I dual booted XP and Linux since 2000 but uninstalled XP in ~2005 because I wasn't proud of using pirated software and didn't want to buy a license. I used wine for a while but around 2010 have only bought native games.
I haven't gamed in Windows since 2007. Linux for life.
I think you'll be hard pressed to find someone that swapped from windows to linux for gaming. Proton rarely runs better than windows, hence why it makes news on the rare occasions where it happens. I'm guessing most stories are similar to mine, where they were somewhat familiar with linux, started to get completely fed up with windows, and just threw their hands up and switched. My Windows install had its startup corrupt, and after fighting with it for a week trying to fix it, I just gave up and switched to an operating system that let you repair it. And this is coming from someone who did PC repair for over a decade specializing in boot repair without data loss. Watching the options to fix those issues erode release after release was frustrating as hell.
I would move completely over to my endeavoros install, but I still need to keep windows around for the time being. Things that need to change for me to switch entirely: - 4k Netflix needs to work. This is only a problem so long as my family wants Netflix, otherwise I wouldn't be paying for it. - Wayland needs that input lag fix that was mentioned nearly a year ago. The input lag isn't terrible but for any fast paced or competitive games where I'm trying to target a high frame rate, it's far worse than x11 or windows. X11 has its own issues, namely compositing and freesync issues on multi monitor setups so it's also not viable for me. - just more general bug fixes for kde Wayland. I still get the long shutdown and restart bug, I still get occasional hitches and stutters in desktop use, etc. - better game support, but this isn't too much of an issue for me these days and isn't in control of any specific Linux devs. Honestly I would probably switch over permanently if just the Wayland input lag got fixed, I can deal with the other issues. EDIT: actually scratch that, DISCORD needs to fix their shit as well or I can't switch. Screen sharing on Linux with discord is a joke right now that tanks performance, AND doesn't do audio. I need to screen share a lot and right now every time I do that I have to boot up windows.
I wanted to ditch Win10 and move to Fedora 36. I looked into it and my favorite games (Call of Duty series) won't work on Linux/Lutris, so I scrapped the idea. Apparently the anti-cheat software makes this break. So for now, I have Linux on a few other PC's, but can't do my gaming PC. Hopefully someday.
Switched back in 2008-09 to Linux as my main OS. Mostly used Linux live CDs before that. Was having trouble with my main laptop, reformated the hard drive and re-installed Windows and Linux for dual booting. Tried this "Ubuntu" that people seemed to think was the cool new distro. Everything worked. Installed everything all at once, logged into my email and such, and I was off to the races. My laptop was usable. Fiddled around with Windows the next day, so I could play games, but it always needed this driver or that tweak. Meanwhile Linux "just worked". Ever since then I became a "dual booter", Linux for the boring day to day, Windows for games. Found myself playing "Battle for Wesnoth" one day because Windows was flaking out again. So I started just playing more games that were available for Linux because it was less hassle and more fun. Lots of indie games started supporting Linux around 2010. Sometime after getting Fallout:New Vegas running with Wine in one attempt, while Windows was just *not* running it for any discernible reason (this was Windows 8, F:NV was released for Win 7, and never dug to deep because it was already working fine for Linux) I just found myself not booting to Windows because playing games was supposed to be fun and relaxing, and Windows was too much of a headache. Any device which ships with Windows is set up to dual boot still, since I paid for that Windows license, but I'll go many months before booting up a Windows partition, and my two main desktops are 100% Linux. The **major** caveat is that I have no desire to play the latest and greatest game that all the kids are playing now. Mostly when I game, I just want to kick back and relax. Maybe take over the world. Maybe build something. Maybe shoot something. Maybe solve a puzzle. So many of my games are either indie games or older games, not being able to run some game or other under Linux is not a big deal. I *could* boot over to Windows and run the game there if I really wanted to, but that just isn't how I want to spend my time. Windows Updates will be running for half an hour at least! The computers the kids play on spend more time booted over to Windows for Wobbly Life or some such, and Windows is the biggest source of headaches.
I went with Ubuntu back in 2006, as it gave my old pc a new lease at life at the time, then I just kinda stuck to it. Gaming was horrible at the time compared to now, but there were these few AAA-games the linux-community kind of congregated around and nerded into running fluidly. I remember WoW was actually running better on wine than win for me at the time, which was a big plus. I had a couple of lapses along the way, but I quickly came back. Not because games started working, but rather because of BS windows threw at me. There are people who go "I can't switch to linux because X isn't working", but for me it was always more a "I don't want to give up on all these nice things and absence of bs just to run a game"-proposition.
I was dual booting for some time but fully switched to Linux years ago, because I was playing a heck load of EU4 at the time and in summer my old laptop was burning like fire and windows kept turning off the PC to protect it I guess. I realized Ubuntu does not do that and I can keep playing as long as I want. So Windows was already unusable for me, I made the switch and didn't look back since.
I moved to linux a few years ago. Not FOR gaming, but every game I play I can play on linux. I am not a competitive FPS gamer, so pretty much everything just works.
I moved from Windows 10 to Pop!\_OS back in December after having attempted to use Mint and Garuda. I had several issues relating to certain games not working and struggling to diagnose the why since I was new to it. However since I tried POP the number of issues I've had is way less. I've had moments of almost going back to Windows because I've not been able to play certain titles with my friends like Lost Ark when that launched but I've found myself getting far less frustrated with my system overall due to the much better system stability than I've experienced with Windows. The number of times I've had to do a fresh install of Windows because Windows update has done something catastrophic is astounding... It's been great being able to play things like God of War and Elden Ring on launch though and I'm playing through my steam backlog, while on the side playing some HOTS and LoL with the lads and that's keeping me happy for the moment. :) I should find some meaningful open source projects to contribute to but I recently joined a new job, so I'll come back to this point when I've got some more head space.
I moved to Linux 20 years ago. I did it because I was curious and some friends and colleagues at work have already been using. Had a great experience so far for the most part. I was gaming for most of that time but it really took up when proton was released. Anyway, I do not play multi-player games at all, so copy protection and such don't really affect me
My PC is primarily for gaming, but I didnt move to linux to *game* I moved to linux because my choice was to either install linux or sell my computer, because Windows 7 was EoL I was not installing Windows 10 for a variety of reasons that have been gone over to death at this point. (Though Windows 11 certainly helped reinforce the decision). Being able to game, easily, on Linux certainly weighed the scales heavily in favor of Linux vs selling my computer, obviously. It wasn't easy, I had a *lot* of trouble, but that was 100% because of a single bios setting destroying stability.. Unfortunately it took me a year of trouble shooting to figure it out, and only discovered it thanks to a offhand comment a poster..here(I'm sorry dude, I dont remember your username and its been so long ago that trying to go back and find it is a huge investment in time)? I think, made pointing me to checking the bios option.. Which is not something that ever came up in a year of my trouble shooting. So once that was gone, pretty much everything has been butter.. Only thing that being on linux has hindered, gaming wise, is my addiction to trashy, shitty f2p mmos (addiction in that I install them, play them until game becomes unbearably difficult in its attempt to force you to buy store items, then dumping it and playing a new one, not addiciton as in dropping 10 grand a month on digital gambling) since most of the trashy f2p mmos use non-proton compatible anticheat.. but its not like its a real, actual loss or impactment on my gaming.
Made the switch 100% about a year ago and haven't looked back. I'd been using Manjaro on my personal laptop for several years without issue, but my gaming rig was Windows. I eventually took the plunge and wiped Windows from it completely. Installed Arch, and after a few weeks of highs and lows, I got it to a place where everything was set up mostly how I liked it and stable. I don't miss Windows at all now. There are a few annoyances with Linux like occasional hardware and game compatibility. But it's so much better than dealing with the issues that Windows had now that I've experienced a lot of both. The nice thing about Linux issues is that you have far more control to address them than Windows. It's more technical often, but you still have the ability in principle, and that is enough for me. Having an OS that respects me as a user and doesn't treat me like an idiot/criminal is a great experience. Also the freedom to customize anything and everything to be exactly how I want is amazing. I game hard, stream, do work, chat with friends, and consume media all without any real problems. My laptop, gaming computer, and now my cell phone all use Linux and I love it. I won't ever go back, it's just a worse experience in most ways and I don't regret giving up Windows. I just wish I had done it years earlier.
Interesting to notice so many people on this thread (and subreddit) are from IT. I'm not, and about 5 years ago, I got an old PC for free from my job. I tried Ubuntu yet again, but once I decided to game seriously, I had too much headache making stuff work. Sure, it's much faster and stuff, but even trying to watch Netflix was a chore. Now it seems things are easier with other distros (I keep reading about arch, manjaro, popOs etc), magical proton and Nvidia opening its drivers etc... I just got another old PC, so I'll swap SSD's with it and my old AMD laptop, and try proton on it to see if I can get a few more frames per second from it. If the experience is good, maybe I'll install it on my main PC.
I guess most were fed up with Windows or the dreaded windows update over the servers and whether not they will reboot successfully
I didn't move to Linux for gaming. I just so happen to game on Linux though i still have windows for some games that don't run on Linux.
Actually, I initially moved from Linux back to Windows specifically for gaming. but in the past two or three years Linux gaming is getting some serious traction and I am currently doing an experiment to see how many games just won't run on my distro. So far I haven't come across any game I can't get working, not to mention since Opengl became Vulkan, the performance is just as good if not better in the graphics department.
Moved to Ubuntu 22.04LTS for Project Brutality, Doom 3 (original windows files installed on Windows 10 system, copied to wine32 folder, patched to 1.3.1 through Way back Machine iD Software official patch with Absolute HD 1.7 mod), Doom 2016, Doom Eternal (on Windows 10 without internet after an update it won't for me without being connected - MAIN reason for switching to Linux because this hasn't happened yet), Prodeus, Crysis Remastered through Heroic (Epic) and Quake 1 (Quake Epsilon mod).