But Linus Sex Tips said linux is bad, bro! I tried Ubuntu one time like 10 years ago and it wasn’t Windows, so now I hate Linux bro
him accidentally uninstalling gnome shell in the process of installing steam was so fucking good dude
Lmfao “yes, do as I say”
You haven’t used Linux until you’ve accidentally destroyed your install. Reversible damage like uninstalling your shell or breaking your display server counts as partial credit.
I once managed to destroy my system by doing dumb shit with the partition table in cfdisk and lead to a new warning being added
I have used Linux so many times. The funniest is probably when I neglected to add a network manager on my first attempt at an Arch install.
LTT has been pretty positive about linux and recommend it a lot. Although that is more thanks to Emily than Linus.
okay… TIL that Linus Tech Tips is not by Linus Torvalds.
I’m like why tf would he not promote his own system…
A big part of the POINT of Linux is that it’s open source rather than proprietary, making it not his system nor his responsibility to promote it…
Literally what everyone tells me: I tried it 8 years ago and it sucked (used really weird distro or Ubuntu)
Is Ubuntu bad?
It’s not bad, and it used to be one of the only noob-friendly distro’s, but things have improved since then. Upstream Debian has gotten easier to install and Fedora has become the best starter distro imo.
Linus tech tips, despite having some criticisms, had a rather positive opinion of Linux as far as I can remember
It can’t even wun micwodowt owwice :(
It can’t even run [popular proprietary software]! How am I supposed to [action which can be performed with FOSS]?
I switched most of the software I used daily to FOSS cross platform alternatives that ran on Linux. It made the switch a lot easier.
Yeah, that makes it easier.
My Steam Deck plays most everything the system specs can run minus stupid anti cheat.
I’m surprised when games that run like shit on Windows like Descent 3 can run great there. Proton (+ the rest) is black magic.
That has been my experience running SteamOS on the SD and Arch on my main computer.
If it doesn’t have some trash anti cheat or weird DRM from the 2000s, it will run.
What are the names of those? I only recognize Wine (“Wine Is Not an Emulator”)
Well there is
- Vulkan (graphics API, successor to OpenGL which was used by e.g. Minecraft, CS Go i believe)
- DXVK (compatibility layer for games created with the DirectX Framework by MS)
- Lutris (game launcher for stuff you bought outside of steam, e.g. GOG, Epic, Uplay, etc.)
- Steam and maybe Proton but idk.
- the atom thing could be protondb.com, where you can look up if your game will run on linux and what fixes / commands are available
Thanks! protondb sounds like a very handy website
It surely is, it has also been really great to see the growing support for all those games over the last years. Sad to see some games still being borked with no valid reason (Pubg e.g., with the developers stating the game can run on linux with no problems at all, they still will block it bc they are scared of hackers or some other lame excuse).
Every problem I had playing games on Linux could be fixed by some kind stranger on there offering a command or sth. else (sometimes even stuff thats not related to linux at all lol)
Sure is! Almost every game that doesn’t run well out of the box has a fix there.
There’s also a great decky plugin that adds protondb badges and links directly to all your games on the deck. Really helps figure out any small tweaks you should use to maximize frames and will also mark games as silver/gold/platinum even if valve hasn’t marked them as supported yet.
Proton is a fork of Wine. It was created by Valve and they have done amazing work getting it to support basically everything. It’s made the steam deck and amazing machine.
Proton actually combines Wine and DXVK iirc (plus some extra bits and pieces.)
Vuncan, DXVK, and Proton are other open source projects that either make wine more capable or more user friendly. It’s still wine under the hood, though.
“Improved”
Sure if you mean almost caught up in functionality while still having maybe usability issues.
Year of the Linux desktop 👌👍
It’s not so much Linux catching up as it is making games compatible (and in most cases run just as well as native Linux games) that weren’t made for Linux in the first place. And that’s pretty insane. Thank you Valve 🙏😔
Right? All of these comments are like “it’s just as easy as gaming on Windows. I just have to make sure I run these specific commands in my terminal or my PC bricks, nothing runs as well as on Windows unless you have 20 years of experience with Linux, and you still need to keep a dual boot of Windows for those pesky games that aren’t Linux-friendly (re: 99.9% of games). I’m so much happier on Linux and will never look back!
please shoot me in the face now and end my painI’m so happy!”Like whatever lies you guys need to tell yourselves lol. I’ll stick with Windows until it’s as easy as hitting play. Also would be nice if the UI didn’t look straight out of 1995.
You’re in the wrong thready, buddy. Absolutely no one is saying that.
99% of games run out of the box with no more issues than on Windows.
Get Nobara os if you want a plug-and-play experience. Valve is doing an amazing job pushing Linux gaming
And I dunno where you’re getting the ui thing from; most distros look and feel much better than windows even by default these days lol
Mint was the most recent distro I tried and it looked like a potato, but sadly didn’t taste as good.
With Nobara, can I install any and all applications and games I’m currently running on my PC, with zero additional steps, and does this OS get driver updates for my 4080 on the same frequency as Windows? Can I install Steam and play any game in my library with zero additional steps? If that’s the case, I’ll make the switch right here, right now.
Mint looks amazing though imo, better than windows by default I dare say
You could just change the theming and stuff if you didn’t like the default look. Linux is basically infinitely customizable after all. Distros and desktop environments just make it much easier.
With Nobara, can I install any and all applications and games I’m currently running on my PC, with zero additional steps
It’s not zero additional steps on windows either though; on windows you’d still need to download and install directx, opengl, vulkan, etc and find and install the correct .net framework versions for many tasks. I remember windows having its own fair share of hassle while I was on it until a few months ago, even aside from how slow and bloated it is.
Nobara basically takes care of similar setup on Linux for you, making some additional improvements like proton GE (modified version of Valve’s proton to further increase compatibility and performance) and I’m pretty sure the drivers are just a modified version of the latest official ones. You could ask in the discord server for more info.
And you don’t need to ‘switch’! You could set up dual-booting instead; some invasive anti-cheats are only made for windows right now so some of those games don’t work yet.
Have you even used windows recently?? Mint doesn’t look bad but it’s nowhere as good or even better than windows. (I use arch btw, not a windows user)
Yup. Was dual-booting up until a few months ago. I much prefer the default aesthetics of mint/cinnamon and gnome over it, though I did change mine around to fit my tastes better (which I tried and failed to do on windows)
All the useful menus in windows 11 are buried inside the new ones and they still use the old windows xp style menus; they didn’t even bother integrating them with the new design. Even the default file explorer doesn’t use the accent colors you set lmao
All the useful menus in windows 11 are buried inside the new ones
That’s UX; not UI
And the not using accent colours is either intentional or a bug; if it is a bug then you can’t blame windows for it, because this side also has it’s fair share of bugs. And windows’ design philosophy isn’t customisablility, but rather ease-of-use, right? (even though it fails a lot at that)
But yeah, Linux can definitely look cooler than windows with a little effort.
Even the default file explorer doesn’t use the accent colors you set lmao
That’s just an outright lie.
Source: I’m looking at my lime green default file explorer right now.
Mint just looks like a fake OS that someone designed for a movie set or something. I can’t quit put my finger on it, but it looks cheap and basic as hell. Windows 11 is very aesthetically pleasing and IMO looks nicer than OSX these days.
With Windows, I can install Steam. Once that’s installed, I just install the games right from Steam. As far as my GPU goes, I just download GeForce Experience and then it pushes updated drivers to me on a regular basis that I can choose to install or not.
DirectX gets pushed out to every Windows computer with no need to manually install it, as does the .NET framework. If you need a different version of .NET, any software you install will typically warn you during installation, and even give the option to install right then and there.
I built my most recent PC about a year ago. I installed Windows and ran updates. Then I installed GeForce Experience and updated my GPU drivers. Then I installed Steam, and then installed my games of choice. No more, no less, and I was playing games in 4k 120+ FPS with zero issues or messiness.
If I were to install Nobara right now, can I just go through that exact simple process? If not, I’m not interested lol, and I’m a “techie.” Good luck trying to convert your average user.
You guys always claim how great Linux is and how you’re never going back to Windows, yet still dual boot with Windows. You know what I don’t do with my Windows install? Dual boot to any other OS lmao.
I daily drive Debian 12 on my desktop. In my massive library of steam games, I’ve yet to come across more than 3 that I haven’t been able to get to work, and the rest run remarkably better than on windows. Controller support has been more seamless than it was on windows, and I’ve gotten older games to work that never worked on windows 10. I’m not sure what experience you’re basing this on, maybe Optimus has some issues for laptops, but every desktop I’ve built in the last ~4 years has worked fine (and with nvidia GPUs, too)
Been gaming on Linux for years, currently I use Play On Linux and Steam.
I remember the days you had to compile your own wine to get something working.
And those wine fixme in the console, it felt like the game was being held together with string.
Linus gaming got simple when steam dropped steamOS as a stand alone operating system. I went from windows 7 to steamOS. First was the steam piston, now I have a steam machine (Alienware / dell) and a steam deck. It’s as easy as console gaming but with all the flexibility of PC gaming.
And before I get shit for prebuilts, sometimes you just want to play, and shit just works. Also am poor.
am poor
own Alienware PC and Steam deck
Yeah… that’s not what being poor is.
I mean if you want to be pandantic owning a computer for gaming excludes you from being poor. Otherwise, if we’re doing cost relative to performance, you can pick up an alienware alpha for cost of the graphics card.
Depends on what you mean by “computer for gaming”. You pretty much need a computer at home for school work, printing and sending documents, maybe even some work from home. A lot of this can be done with a phone or tablet nowadays, but that wasn’t the case 5 years ago, which is why lots of people have an old-ish computer. And yes, this computer can be used to play games, not all the newer ones, but still plenty of games.
If you have a dedicated, modern and expensive computer only for games (and note that this includes consoles), yeah that definitely does exclude you from being poor.
Are they still making new steam machines?
YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT TRAINS?
no?
ok sorry
Wine alone improved so much. All proprietary games I run on it alone.
Yo does anyone have like a “let’s download linux” guide aimed at bimbo girlies like me
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Download Nobara OS (Linux distro optimized for gaming by default)
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Set up dual boot with both Linux/Nobara and Windows so you can boot into either.
You can just delete windows entirely later if you find yourself not using it. That’s what I ended up doing after a few months of dual booting.
Ty! Haven’t looked at the links yet; to save my old shit do I need to get a hard drive or will everything just be normal?
The point of the dual boot is that you still have everything from before. When you turn on the computer, it’ll ask if you want your old Windows or your new Linux.
Dope! I’ll try your guides then; that was my main concern with the switch over
Like the others said, dual-booting means you’ll keep windows and your files… But you should still always be backing up at least your important files regardless tbh
This is duel booting so you don’t need to backup anything
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I made the switch to Linux a year ago, and I haven’t looked back since. Of course, I still keep a dual boot for those pesky games that use Ring0 anticheat or are simply incompatible with Linux, like Fortnite or PUBG. But honestly, I don’t find myself playing them as often anymore. My current actual go-to games include Dota 2, CS:GO, Elden Ring, Sea of Thieves, Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6, Dead Cells, and Isaac.
Hmm I find that the performance gain on games like D4 and Elden Ring are significant enough for me to boot over to my windows disk (much to my chagrin). Do you have any specific tweaks for those games. The performance isn’t always terrible for those games on my Linux system but it’s enough to affect gameplay occasionally.
I don’t rely on special settings; instead, I ensure that I have the latest Mesa driver installed for my 7900XTX. Additionally, I optimize my gaming experience by using a set of launch settings that work well for most of my games, with minor adjustments made to the RADV_PERFTEST environment variable. These are the launch settings I use :
VK_ICD_FILENAMES=/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.i686.json:/usr/share/vulkan/icd.d/radeon_icd.x86_64.json AMD_VULKAN_ICD=RADV RADV_PERFTEST=sam,rt,gpl,nggc,aco gamemoderun %command%
Compiling Vulkan shaders… (57%)
Its shader compilation that made elden ring at launch a better experience on linux than windows, because the windows build had a broken shader compiler causing microstutters.
about wine/proton, I want to share some advice: if anyone is struggling with installing 3rd party mods and such in Proton, try starting your installation process from ConEmu (ConEmu64.exe) (It’s a simple, open-source, portable terminal emulator for Windows) instead of pointing the Non-steam Games wizard at each installation and gaming exe individually.
I originally tried to do this with the explorer.exe built into Wine, but getting that thing to launch is a pain.
for example a lot of Windows programs will have you download an .exe that installs the program, then you need to run a different .exe to actually run the program. Steam’s non-steam game wizard in combination with Proton gets confused by this and runs the two .exe’s in separate environments, screwing with any attempts to install a mod or install the app itself.
Protontricks also helps here.
I don’t think I’ve found a game that doesn’t work with Proton. I only find ones where the property anti cheat doesn’t work.
I’m kicking myself because I wanna switch to Linux but I just bought a used Nvidia card
So? I am using linux (arch btw) with a 3090 without problems.
I am using a 1080 Ti and its meh, I sometimes have screen tearing issues, sleep/hibernate doesn’t work anymore and letting it choose the iGPU and GPU based off of the current needs also does not work, so I just run the iGPU most of the time (it doesn’t have the screen tearing issue).
I’m thinking of doing a fresh install, maybe a different distro, as the setup is quite old and bloated by now, but I’m not looking forward to reinstalling everything I actually need/use.
3080ti on fedora here and no issues either
I use a GTX 970, I can play most games just fine.
It’s not Windows performance, Cyberpunk 2077 for instance was quite more unstable for me on Arch and it took quite a bit of tweaking to be able to launch it (it’s a miracle that I can even play Cyberpunk with a 970 in both cases :P). Generally though I’ve had a pretty good experience, most games play out of the box with good performance, and I get to daily drive Linux finally
Cyberpunk can run on a 1050 Mobile. We are making the game seem a much larger beast.
It can run yeah, but it’s not a playable performance at all. A friend of mine played a bit of Cyberpunk with a 1050 on Windows, all the latest drivers and a relatively good build other than the graphics card, but he quickly got tired from running it with 20-30 FPS (all settings on low with 720p)
Didn’t find it myself as an issue. I play a LOT of older 3D titles (3D Nintendo Switch games), and most are locked at 30 or even 25.
But am I mistaken, or I remember Cyberpunk being more about CPU than GPU? I got an Intel i7-8750H
It is very CPU heavy but also made for next gen graphics cards, and 20-30 fps is way too little for a fast paced first person game
I have a Nvidia Tesla K80 and couldn’t even set it up on Windows
I use linux with nvidia hardware, and its not that bad. Just remember to click “allow proprietary software” when you install your OS.
Some software can get problematic, such as Hyprland and Sway, but games are fine.
I mean, I’d have a better experience with AMD, but even with nvidia, I’m having a better experience than windows. especially considering I don’t have to use their shitty driver downloader
Why would that be a problem?
I bought a 3060 ti for my new pc and I am going to install tumbleweed on it, Nvidia is not as hard to configure as people say
True. There are even distros that do it for you. PopOS or EndeavourOS (has a nvidia boot option when installing). I just did a fresh EndeavourOS install and it’s amazing. I have an RTX 3060 btw
But sure, AMD would be better still. Fuck Nvidia and all that 100%
TF u guys mean i just play 25 y/o games
Morrowind goes brr
Honestly, by now Gaming on Linux and macOS works without problems. Most games are published natively, and if not, it generally works fine with Wine or Proton.
