Close to switching to a Linux distro full time.

With the advances in gaming on Linux in recent years, it is so tempting to switch full time. I would absolutely love to, but I am a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber and it is where I play a lot of my games on PC. I know you can use the cloud version, but I cannot stomach streaming games in their current state, so it is a no go. A large portion of my Steam library is compatible, but anytime I have done an install I end up giving in and going back to Windows for games.

anthoniix,

You can always dual boot and use Linux for whatever you like it for. Sadly Windows is still the go to thing for gaming, since it's the target platform for 99.99% of software and especially games.

ookees,

I just use moonlight and sunshine. My network is good enough and I just stream from my Windows PC. I use either Linux or Mac for my day to day and stream from PC when I'm gaming, depending on the game. Some games I just need to play in front of the PC.

Recently been streaming Diablo 4 to my Xbox and or laptop. Works great. I play most of my games at 1440p.

thegibs,

For people who use Linux full time, how is VR support on it? Is ALVR a viable alternative to Virtual Desktop/Link? And do VR games run well or at all through Proton?

asexualchangeling,

I haven't tried it in a long while so I'd also like to know how ALVR is these days, I haven't tried it in a while and have heard it's gotten some big updates lately

Last time I tried it though (close to a year ago) it had quite a ways to go

Squiddles,

I have an Index and it was seamless for me. Everything runs fine in Proton, and I didn't have any performance issues with my 2070 super. Tried the same games in Windows and it was the same experience, plus a couple of FPS (I assume because it wasn't going through DXVK). Can't speak to your other questions, though--those are outside of my experience.

luckless,
@luckless@beehaw.org avatar

Just remember what distro you pick for gaming doesn't matter as much as the effort you're willing to put into learning its ins and outs. Use of distro wikis and protondb are key. Also dual-booting is honestly the way to go when starting up, just in case.

Skyhighatrist,

Also dual-booting is honestly the way to go when starting up, just in case.

I generally agree, but I always found when I did that, that I would never take the time to resolve issues I encounter and just jumped back into Windows. It wasn't until I went full immersion that the switch stuck. It's been a few years now, and I'm glad I did.

luckless,
@luckless@beehaw.org avatar

I'm totally with you, I only suggest what I did if the person has tried linux before but ended up going back to windows. Not having to pick one or the other can help some people stick with their linux install.

Brock,

I'm in the same boat. I'm ready to move over to Linux Mint, but I don't want to have to download my entire game and program library again because NTFS won't play nice with Linux.

shadowintheday,

If you choose Arch/Arch based, or choose to install one of its supported kernels, NTFS support is integrated into the mainline kernel since version 5.15

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NTFS

So you'd be able to use your already existing disk/partitions that have NTFS. Of course you'd still need to install the OS in another partition.

I tried to keep NTFS around when I switched, but ext4 is much better for spinning disks and support for whole disk encryption (LUKS) is also another pro that made me switch everything after a while

SanityFM,

NTFS is fine with Linux, but any new OS tends to need you to install things again. There used to be a way to zip all of your Steam downloads for a new install, but I can't seem to find any instructions that still work.

GhostMagician,

I think the option is under Steam > Backup and Restore Games. I successfully backed and restored some back ups I had made about a year ago with that method.

SanityFM,

I think you're right. I've used this before as well, but I was thrown because my Linux Steam only has "Restore Game Backup" as an option in the menu. I wasn't sure whether something had changed, or if this is a Steam for Linux peculiarity.

oishiiburger,

If you don't mind doing it one at a time, and you've got a different drive besides the NTFS one (i.e. you're not just looking to just reformat the NTFS volume), this currently works:

  • Format the new drive with whatever, likely Ext4 or Btrfs
  • Install Steam and make a fresh library on the new drive
  • Copy the contents of the NTFS steamapps/common into the new steamapps/common (or copy the individual folders of whatever games you don't want to redownload).
  • Go into Steam, and act like you want to do a fresh install of whatever games you just copied over. Steam will act like it's going to start from scratch, but you'll get "discovering local files" before any downloads start.
  • Steam will either show the game as installed as-is or will update the delta to the current version.

I use this method also for restoring backups of games to an SSD that live on a mechanical drive.

Squiddles,

NTFS is fine in Linux. I have a dual-boot setup for when I need to run or test something in Windows, and I use my Windows install drive as a Steam library in both. When I swap back and forth Steam occasionally does a file integrity check, but I don't typically have to redownload anything as far as I can remember. The only caveat is that if a game has both a Windows version and a Linux version I have to set my Linux library to use Proton for the game instead of the native Linux version, otherwise, yeah it'll see the files are wrong when I switch and redownload.

Valliac,

As someone who's been throwing the idea around putting Mint or another distro on my main desktop, is it a good idea for a main gaming computer? I use my laptop for DJing and stuff, but my desktop is primarily for games and videos.

Would that work out with Steam's linux compatibility or is there a better distro that could work?

mtizim,

Gaming works well for most Steam games, but if you go out of Steam it can be less nice. I've been linux-only for around two years now, and there's been only a handful of games that I wanted to play that wouldn't run on linux (but there's only a handful of online games I play so ymmv)

fred,

Its probably a mixed bag and dependant on what games you play (and your GPU).

I just dual boot. I use Ubuntu (currently 22.04) for most things like work etc. Using it now. And when I want to play games I use Windows.

That said, i Do have a mac as well, for recording music. I have considered moving to something like Renoise on Linux. Definitely wont be on windows.

All told, im not a evangleist for an OS. I just stick to what works for the task at hand.

Proton CAN play a lot of games. I believe its how the steam deck works too. So its probably more feasible than ever to run a gaming rig on linux. But ive been down that road before, and its been a fools errand for me.

Squiddles,

I've been maining Linux on my gaming rig for about a decade. It's way better now with modern Proton/Steam. Most games run great. Some have weird issues that will take some extra work or need a special version of Proton. A few are completely incompatible, like Destiny 2 (requires some gnarly security software that Bungie isn't willing to support on Linux).

You can check the ProtonDB site for the games you want to play to get an idea of what to expect. I notice about a 5% performance drop in Linux compared to Windows for most games, but that may have to do with the extra stuff I have running in the background on Linux for work/dev.

I love Linux and advocate its use, but if Windows is meeting your needs don't feel like you have to change. If you do try it, it's a good idea to start with a dual boot and jump back to Windows if a game you want to play doesn't work in Linux. Or if you hit an issue you just don't want to deal with right then. Computers can sense when it's been a long day and you only have 20 minutes to play.

johnthedoe,

After owning a steam deck I put mint on my pc and windows still in there I open once in a blue moon.

I haven’t had any issues gaming wise on Mint. Everything works. The OS is snappy and not in your face. I have a Mac for work which I use most of the day. I wouldn’t be able to run Linux as my daily driver. But it’s a great gaming pc option.

gale,

I just did, not for the gaming capabilities as I'm not a big gamer myself but because WSL malfunctions pissed me off. Moving to Pop!_OS after considering Nobara.

anormalusername,

I tried Pop!OS and I liked it a lot, but I wasn't big on the built-in store for downloading apps as it felt a bit clunky to me. Still, it's a solid option. Kubuntu was a pretty decent one too that I tried.

For me I found myself going back to Windows because of hardware incompatibility. I know that of course you either need to be really good at building compatibility yourself or scouring the Internet for a solution someone else already found, but unfortunately it was one of those cases where searching ended up with those results where it was from several years ago and they just said "I figured it out" without added context.

chaNcharge,

I'm currently on mac because I have always and will always despise windows, but now that mac's gone to ARM (which don't get me wrong they run amazingly) its pretty bad for games. Ideally I'd have a work computer on mac and a linux desktop. I'd say just go for linux as majority of games should work fine on it but I'd check each game case by case.

OneRedFox,
@OneRedFox@beehaw.org avatar

Are Ubuntu-based distros still the king of gaming on Linux?

flying_gerbil,

I honestly don't think the distro matters too much if you just use steam. I use Arch and haven't had any issues with steam or proton that I can recall. SteamOS is itself Arch-based as well

zonaston,

I've been hopping between distros (and windows) for what feels like the past 6 months. Honestly it doesn't make too much of a difference but my preference for games is fedora or arch base and wayland. The biggest difference is the default kernel version really (AMD drivers in my case) but you can also add a newer kernel to any distro. I'd recommend just choosing a distro based on the package manager you like to use and stick with that.

Lowbird,

It's possible to get gamepass and steam (and epic and ubisoft and itch.io) to both integrate with Playnite launcher.

This would still require you be able to run the xbox launcher, but it makes Playnite the interface you use and the other launchers are just opened in the background mostly, except for updates.

Anyway Playnite is a very customizable and lightweight open source launcher and maybe you might like it even though it doesn't actually solve the problem you're talking about here.

Edit: Playnite works on both windows and linux.

mtizim,

I'd recomment Lutris over this, as it often does contain custom install scripts with workarounds.

CDN,
@CDN@beehaw.org avatar

What kind of setup do you have? There's a few issues you may come across with an Nvidia GPU, but it's largely smooth sailing for everyone else with their Mesa drivers.

fred,

My biggest gripe with nvidia is the total number of gpu options. You have mesa, nouveau, and even the dedicated proprietary gpu, but then also specific kernel builds with said gpu drivers.

Personally I use the nvidia kernel module drivers. They are good, even for my wonky egpu+dgpu+onboard graphics setup. I have to reboot to connect/disconnect the egpu, and had to copy my x11 config over to the gdm login manager but otherwise it works great (with x11).

Wayland and other dwm…will have different results.

Mummelpuffin,
@Mummelpuffin@beehaw.org avatar

This is why I just dual-boot. Keep Windows on a short leash and basically just have it for the rare instances where there's something I really want to play and somehow can't on Linux.

WorseDoughnut,

If you do dual boot though, it's important to keep Windows on it's own hardware if you use grub. Windows tends to cannibalize the boot manager partition during updates.

overlordror,

Yes, this has happened to me twice. It's easy enough to fix, but terrifying the first time it happens.

HrBingR,

So one thing that might be worth looking into is virtual machines.

Currently on my desktop I run a variant of Arch (Endeavor I think) where I primarily do my gaming , but for any highly incompatible games, or Game Pass games, I have a virtual machine running Windows that uses pass-through to pass my graphics card through to the virtual machine for games I can't play on Linux. I also use CPU pinning to 'pin' 10 of my 12 CPU cores to the virtual machine to reduce potential overhead.

Works really well, might be an option for you, although it's not super easy to setup. I've tried passthrough on PopOS as well before, but it wasn't as performant, and Arch Wiki provides a ridiculous amount of super useful guides for doing just about anything, including setting this up.

Edit: Otherwise in terms of daily driver, I love Fedora, and likely won't move away anytime soon on my laptop.

Powderhorn,
@Powderhorn@beehaw.org avatar

I started down the road from Windows to Linux for my main rig a couple of months back after trying out a few distros on a new mini PC for HTPC/media server. Currently running KDE Neon on the TV, and I'd really like to get away from my Win11/Kubuntu dual-boot tower situation, since Proton is handling everything I throw at it short of Cities: Skylines.

The real sticking point is that I need to be able to use InDesign on rare occasions. I've used VirtualBox in the past for old DOS games and mused that a VM would be nice for the edge cases where I need Windows but haven't gotten any further than that since it felt like the ROI wasn't there.

What's involved in setting that up in modern times? Obviously, I'm coming at this from Debian rather than Arch, but pointers on where to start looking would be appreciated.

d3Xt3r,

VirtualBox in the past for old DOS games

Why though? DOSBox is a far superior experience if you wanted to play DOS games. Better performance, better compatibility, better config options (like being able to adjust the CPU speed on the fly), plus controller support and custom config and launcher support so you can just one-click launch your favorite DOS game.

Powderhorn,
@Powderhorn@beehaw.org avatar

Sorry I was unclear. That's just the extent of my VM experience ... it's not relevant to my current needs, as I've not played DOS games since Win2K.

d3Xt3r,

Ah, well you're missing out. DOS games are still pretty fun and awesome. Having a blast paying Dangerous Dave right now, and will play Prince of Persia once I clock this.

Powderhorn,
@Powderhorn@beehaw.org avatar

I've still got quite the collection of classic DOS games that I may throw on the TV computer alongside classic console stuff ... played a lot of A-Train back in the day. Getting the tower sorted is just a far higher priority.

RichardTickler,

Are you using single GPU passthrough? I run windows for games and linux for everything else with dedicated GPUs for each. Now I'd like to be able to do some gaming on linux as well because proton has come so far, but my linux GPU is definitely not up for the task. It barely handles hardware acceleration at 1080p without dropping frames on the nvidia proprietary driver and on nouvea it isn't even worth it to try anything higher than 720p.

HrBingR,

So yes. I had a similar setup to you, passed through my Nvidia card to Windows and kept my onboard Intel card for Linux, but much like you I wanted to game with both Linux and Windows, so now my onboard Intel card is disabled and instead I have some qemu scripts that detach the Nvidia card from Linux and to the VM, and vice versa once the VM is shut down. Was a pain to get setup, but actually works really well.

RichardTickler,

I'm glad to hear that. Last time I looked into it was when I was first building a PC specifically for KVM virtualization and it wasn't working the greatest then (especially returning the card to host on VM shutdown). Now that it's working better I may make a backup then try to see if I can get single GPU passthrough working. I'm excited by far linux gaming has come and wanna give it a try myself on better hardware.

asexualchangeling,

I abandoned Windows early last year and I haven't encountered any game that I couldn't get to work in Linux, and with steam it's pretty much plug and play, so as long as you don't play anything on This list you should be good imo

Anticheat is really the last great hurdle, if you play those games anyway

Well that and stuff like Photoshop, but there are alternatives

alehel,

I've heard cutscenes can be problematic on some games. Something about the SteamDeck not supporting h264 I think 🤔. Warhammer 40,000 Boltgun is an example.

asexualchangeling,

To add context Valve can't Legally add support for h264 in proton, but GE-proton is a community project not maintained by valve

alehel,

They can't legally add it at all due to licensing restrictions, or they have chosen not to pay for a license?

asexualchangeling,

Honestly I don't know the details there, something about copyrighted code preventing a commercial solution? That's as far as I understand it anyway

asexualchangeling,

On cases like that switching to GE proton would be the way to go, easy to do you just need to click around in a program called ProtonUP-QT (easily found in the distros package manager) to install it, and then change it in the games properties

A good place to look to get help on getting games to work would be Protondb

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