I am and always was a casual gamer, I like playing puzzles, strategy and builder games, sometimes I play with friends some 7 days to die or AoE2. I am on Linux Mint for more than a year now and was surprised how easy gaming was. From time to time I had problems with weird DirectX error messages, but all in all everything just worked.
My setup:
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600
- GeForce GTX 1660 Super
- 32 GB DDR4 RAM
So last week my girlfriend worked on my computer (we are not living together), she wrote some bills for customers and did some table stuff in calc. When I asked her at the end of the day how it was to work on Linux, she shrugged and said “Oh I didn’t notice” lol (using Cinnamon as DE btw).
Today she bought Until Dawn the remake on Steam while she is here and because she really wanted to play she downloaded it to my PC. She just started to play and everything was great. I wondered again if I should say something like “you see how great you can game in Linux”, but then it came to my mind - she doesn’t care and she didn’t even question it! The Linux Desktop got so mature, that non-tech people just don’t notice!
I think the biggest “problem” with Linux adoption is that it does not come preinstalled on computers, and this kind of proves my point I guess.
Yeah that’s all, I just wanted to share this with you guys.
P.S.: There were some bugs btw. but it turned out they have nothing to do with the OS.
The different file system was the biggest adaptive hurdle for me. Just the default knowledge of how windows worked from the MS-DOS era took a bit to adapt to. I think knowing Windows actually made it harder to switch compared to someone who wouldn’t know much more than opening the internet browser.
But for gaming: more than anything navigating all the compatability files being used by WINE and Steam can be a nightmare.
I’ve been on Linux for a few years now, and never had issues on my old AMD build (5900x, 5700xt.) Things still worked great when I put a 4070 in there. Things did not work so great when I had to sell the old computer, and buy a laptop. My p14s gen 2 (Intel) with an Nvidia t500 simply does not play nice with any of the distros I tried. Mint, Debian, fedora, all three had serious performance problems. Back on w11 for the time being… hopeful that we get some alternative GPU and memory options from China in the near future so I can build another machine.
it is a shame some of my apps and games just dont work flawlessly with WINE.
If you’re explicitly using WINE to open games in 2026, then you’re doing it wrong. Launch the games through Steam and enable Proton in the compatibility settings.
That, or get a more lightweight launcher like Faugus, and select Proton (GE or Cachy flavors might work slightly better for some games)
i know, i’ve tried. some essential stuff breaks which keeps me from using it. for now i’ll use the web version
Games should work in Steam with “Steam Play for all titles” enabled. What are the apps?
zalo (vietnamese messaging app), polytoria (not sure if that has a linux client)
ntlite but also a painless way to flash windows 10 usb that does NOT INVOLVE WOEUSB-NG CLI
Yeah Linux’s biggest problem now is “oups, your application / driver isn’t available”
Not user friendlyness.
Yeah, other than photoshop/outlook, the day to day is fine for just about everyone.
The days of a kernel update screwing over a video driver aren’t quite gone yet. When things go sideways, they are much harder to fix for the average person, and the people with the necessary skill sets are still a bit scarce. Not every family has a cousin Jimmy capable of reading dmesg and screwing with kernel modules.
That said, most of the big ai’s are totally capable of walking a non-techie through fixing a pretty screwed up linux box.
I’m getting a new PC for my elderly mom and installing Linux on it. It’s just that easy for day-to-day stuff
Great use-case.
99% of the population just needs a good web browser.
But even outlook you can use in the browser for most functionality now which is nice.
What drivers are you missing?
AMD drivers are so smooth on Linux!
The GPU is actually NVIDIA! But planning an upgrade to an AMD card soon.
I’m dumb, I mixed with CPU…
…but AMD drivers are still smooth !!!
AoE2DE never worked online for me. It always resulted in a desync error a few minutes in. I read between the lines that that’s been fixed?
Is this a known bug? I never had that problem to be honest.
I play with some friends on the other side of the world once a week. I’m on Bazzite (previously on Mint), one of them is on Mac, the other two are on Windows.
I suggested a friend to try out Bazzite (KDE desktop). He told me it felt like he was playing on a console because everything works from the get go. He didn’t have to tweak or install anything.
I’ve also had a great experience with Nobara. I did try Bazzite, but the immutable nature of it stopped me from doing the things I’m used on Linux. However, I’ve got my partner on Nobara as well, and she’s verrry much not techy and still having a great experience.
That was exactly my experience with that same distro + flavor. One of my happiest moments of the past year has been buying a new prebuilt gaming PC with Windows preinstalled and immediately wiping Windows in favor of Bazzite.
(Because I know someone will wonder: I bought prebuilt because, for a brief time, a store near me still had pre-RAMpocalypse prebuilts for their original price. They had already increased the build-to-order and individual part price to account for higher RAM cost, so for that brief time I was able to get a reasonably-priced, decently-spec’d prebuilt gaming PC for cheaper than building my own. It had Windows preinstalled, and having them remove it for me would’ve saved me like $10 on the license, but made the machine into a build-to-order, which would’ve ballooned the RAM price by like $300. Plus, holding Windows’ head under the water until the bubbles stopped was unexpectedly awesome.)
It is indeed quite satisfying to get a new machine and never let the pre-installed Windows boot even once.
I’m usually frantically pressing del, f2, and f10 when I turn it on to make sure I can set the boot priority to the usb stick so the virgin machine is never tainted.
I have friends who says “I still run Windows because I don’t want to do any tinkering,” but don’t realize they’d do less tinkering if they switched haha. It’s not 2015 anymore.
It’s wild. “I don’t want to have to tinker,” then go on to talk about the 10 different debloating softwares they need to run every time it updates.
never have to tinker more in my life than on windows. its even worse with the batshit things Claude will do. On Linux shit just works
N00b or liar?
claude on Linux? it works.
Too bad Linux users don’t.
they don’t work?
It’s pretty obvious that they’re generally anti-work, and have all day to spend online extolling the virtues of GPL/ Linux. Commies don’t tend to know the reality that it only works at gunpoint. And they’re not intelligent enough to simply make enough money doing just 1-2 hours of work a day. The stereo type of ‘mom’s basement dweller’ is real. Also explains why we don’t run into LiGNUts in public.
So you are just a troll. Took a minute to figure that out.
I shouldn’t feed you, but its been so long.
what a complete cluster fuck of wildly inaccurate generalisations. this reads like ai-slop from a microsoft-hired bot farm using free tier AI
Absolutely this. I was spending 2-3 hours a week making my Win11 box stable.
Once a month I had to redo all the sound drivers, as with each reboot sound would get quieter and quieter until I was running a lottery of which program wouldn’t be affected any given day and suddenly have it’s volume loud enough to shake the house.
I upgraded CPU/MB after the MB failed, MS cancelled my Win11 licence. I realized I still was spending stupid amounts of time keeping things working, and I am very against all the AI being shoved into every Windows book and cranny.
The first week of ditching Win11, I was tinkering everything because New Shiny, but now things were working I’m not even sure I’ve spent 3 hours in the last two months tinkering.
“Windows doesn’t require any tinkering, just run this to make a local account, decline 100 requests to use OneDrive and Office 365, get these debloaters, uninstall all these things, and make sure you always tell Windows to not restart your computer while you’re using it every time it updates. And when it does update, you’ll need to run the debloaters again.”
I’ve been using Linux for 3 years, Mint then LMDE and the not tinkering is bullshit
On my laptop the boot drive is forever filling up with Linux Kernel updates and i need to delete them. i have a 1GB partition, there’s no simple way to. do that, there’s a bunch of commands i need to use in Terminal, it’s bullshit that I even need to do it
On my desktop just installing Signal was a drama (no official flatpak) the command line given on the Signal site is not just copy paste and it’s Debian.
then lets not even talk of Davinci Resolve.
i have zero intention of going back to Windows and my needs are quite simple but there is a fair bit of tinkering even then.
There is a setting in the update manager which deletes the kernels for you. Regular Mint is also the better option because of the Ubuntu base.
i have a 1GB partition
Uh, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this is probably your main issue.
I didn’t even know you could run Linux on a 1GB partition.
That said, you should be able to increase the size of that partition with something like gparted. I had to do it recently for my Bazzite install as I didn’t make the OS partition big enough at first.
It was a little confusing at first because you have to actually move partitions around and make it so the blank space that you want to add to the partition is right next to the OS partition on the table before it will let you make it bigger.
Out of three issues, two are just “app isn’t made to be easily installed on Linux”, which isn’t on Linux itself, but the ones making the app. still, valid issues.
The boot drive filling up is REALLY annoying because on modern systems there’s no need for it to even BE a dedicated partition.
Even with encryption and BTRFS, boot can live in your root partiotion just fine. Only EFI needs a partition and that never fills up.
Distros need to change this default!
I don’t think Kubuntu makes partitions by default, I just have a single large partition aside from the EFI
I mean, you don’t really have to do these stuff. I doubt the comment’s author’s friend cares about debloating and privacy.
Yes, in the same way that you don’t typically need to tinker with Linux
In the end they’re not so different, except Windows intentionally does anti-consumer things that make people want to tinker.
No joke my linux laptop hardest part was the initial install. Steam made gaming seemless. No ms account login, no asking for ai, no drivers. Just install and boom im playing my games. Its so nice.
And the initial install has gotten so easy
Literally, my Linux Mint came with the drivers for the wifi, meanwhile Windows always needed me to put them there…
I put Windows on my laptop last year-ish, same exact one with Linux on it now. Took around 2.5x slower to start it up. Win 11 at the time. Fresh off a new image.
Linux takes less than 10 sec. And thats without any optimization and a “heavy” distro like PopOS.
Mint is a good option too :)
I prefer Mint Cinnamon because it’s the closest I have to my long time experience with Windows. It feels closer to it, more intuitive even if vastly different.
There’s what Die4Ever said, but there’s also Windows 11 incompatibility with games that otherwise just work with Proton. Around when I got my Steam Deck, I also had a Windows PC that was, to my initial surprise, way more of a hassle for games, so I pretty quickly switched to Linux Mint, and later Fedora.
I used Ubuntu way back when on secondary PCs mostly for fun, but Linux has only outpaced Windows imo in the past five years.
And if some obscure error code shows up, the first five points in the knowledge base are powershell commands.
Even in 2015 I was doing more setup on Windows than Linux… honestly even in 2005 too.
That’s interesting. I was definitely a Linux noob in 2015, so that might have been a me problem. Like I know Lutris was a thing even back then.
I was kinda thinking about it from the other direction, like I’ve never had to deal with printers on Linux like I have on Windows and don’t remember ever needing to install hours worth of Service Packs on Linux with a fresh install. That being said, I’ve been using Linux since the Caldera days (late 90s) so I might be being one of the geologists in the XKCD cartoon right now too.
I almost broached the topic with my mother (60s) the other day about moving to Linux. She’s got a computer that sucks, and my other brother got windows 11 on there so it’s exceptionally slow. I was helping her with some documents and printing and whatnot so I started asking a couple of the questions you would ask, like what she uses the pc for. She uses this tax software and “needs” it installed (as opposed to the browser version) so I didn’t continue down that road but I’m pretty sure it’d blow her mind how much better this thing would run with mint. And other than that tax software, it’d be nearly identical for her, open a browser and go to the thing.
My mom was running slackware for a couple of years in the early 2000s. She kept downloading viruses on her computer and I was tired of her having her ship it across the country so I could fix it. I installed slackware on her computer and shipped it back, and walked her through setting up a port forward on her router for ssh access. She had no idea she was running Linux the entire time until she went to Walmart to buy Peachtree Accounting software. She couldn’t get it to install, so she called and asked for help. I got in with SSH and installed KMyMoney for her and she used that for a year.
It lasted up until she bought a laptop, one that came with Windows 7 I think. I stopped helping her after that because I didn’t really remember how to use Windows anymore. Windows had a subscription antivirus at that point, before Defender days, and she just paid for that.
if you can, get a 2nd hdd/ssd and install linux in parallel
i actually have mint on two older pcs with hdds and while it takes some time to boot, once it’s up, it’s quick, unlike windowsI got my mom (about the same age as your mom) setup on Linux for her new laptop about a year ago. She’s been using it fine, and was even excited to tell me how she figures stuff out without me.
Honestly, I’ve had to do less work on her machines since I switched her over. Package management makes it easy for my mom to add or remove apps.
I mean, if you have Windows like DE’s it’s really not THAT hard for a Windows user to use Linux. The issue is when you have Gnome and others installed.
But yes I agree with you. I definitely think we’ve come a long way from having to use the terminal for everything.
Linux Mint Cinnamon has been a blessing to me tbh
How so? If I’m not reading some blanket / feel good /empty statement like this about it, it’s bitching left and right about specific issues and actual experiences. There’s no karma system here, so why make karma farming posts?
The “doesn’t come preinstalled” part is still huge, combined with the “doesn’t have first-party device manufacturer support”.
If you buy a PC with Windows preinstalled, that doesn’t only mean that you don’t have to install Windows, but also the whole set of hardware in there will work just fine under Windows. They don’t put a fingerprint reader in there that doesn’t have a Windows driver, or a GPU with bad Windows driver support.
And yes, most hardware natively works pretty well under Windows, but the manufacturer taking care that they only select components that work fine under Windows is a big part of why there isn’t a hardware lottery under Windows.
taking care that they only select components that work fine under Windows is a big part of why there isn’t a hardware lottery under Windows.
There isn’t a hardware lottery under Linux, either, unless you buy random hardware instead of choosing known-good components or turning to one of the system vendors who do this for you.
I find it kind of weird that people who would never take mystery medication without it being prescribed to them, and would never buy a paycheck worth of food without considering its contents against their allergies and tastes, would buy a computer without checking whether it will run the software they intend to use.
Perhaps the perceived problem would fade if we taught people that computers and operating systems are not all equal, and that just as MacOS is more likely to run on a machine made for it, Linux is more likely to run on a machine made for it. (Edit: The same is true for Windows, for what it’s worth.)
That’s a bit of a weird argument to make.
We were talking about PCs with preinstalled OSes. How often do you come across DIY-built PCs with preinstalled OS?
If you select your own components you never have a preinstalled OS.
Also, most people who switch from Windows to Linux do so on existing hardware. It’s rare for people to buy a completely new PC to try out an OS. Maybe if €1000+ is something you shell out on a whim, but not if you actually work for your money.
For existing hardware you always have the hardware lottery on Linux.
Perhaps the perceived problem would fade if we taught people that computers and operating systems are not all equal, and that just as MacOS is more likely to run on a machine made for it, Linux is more likely to run on a machine made for it. (Edit: The same is true for Windows, for what it’s worth.)
Congratulations, you just happened to get the point that I made. And for some reason you thought that was a gotcha.
My argument was that if Linux came preinstalled on machines (apart from the current selection of tiny boutique manufacturers), these machines would be configured by the manufacturer to include only components that work well with Linux, which is not the case if you use a device that doesn’t have manufacturer support for Linux.
All in all you ended up at the whole point I was making, but somehow you first had to claim that it’s all nonsense.
I get your point, although probably most people install it on whatever hardware they have on their hands. Thus the lottery.
Trying whatever hardware one already has on hand is perfectly reasonable, but it’s not a lottery.
My partner is the same way roughly. Biggest issue she’s had was her drawing tablet pen not working. Turned out she was using the wrong pen for that tablet, the correct pen worked flawlessly. An hour of my life troubleshooting I can’t get back haha.
There have been a few games that have had issues, and the updates aren’t the most intuitive on Kubuntu, but she did manage the last update just fine on her own without me even being home, so that’s good.
drawing tablet pen
Soapbox: EMR is amazing. No need for charging, effectively infinite pressure gradient, no lag, open standard (which solves your issue because any stylus works on any tablet). The fact that Apple didn’t use it for the pencil is infuriating, and the fact that some other companies are moving away from EMR too is driving me up a wall.
As anti-competitive as Wacom can be, they cooked with that technology, and I’m so happy with my e-ink EMR tablet.
Try installing opentabletdriver, it made mine work out of the box.
Hers did too without any extra software, she was trying to use the wrong pen from a different tablet.
Nice it’s always great to hear the work millions of people put into the Linux ecosystem is paying off.
This is the kind of story we should forward to Linus Torvalds, the Linux mailing sublists and other volunteers so they see how their work gets recognized ^^
Compared to when I started with Linux 21 years ago, we are absolutely spoiled with games that work well today.
Gaming on Linux wasn’t really that much worse back then. This is just reaction to Proton propaganda. Proton didn’t even fix the frame timing issues that caused rhythm games to be near unplayable or racing games with time trials to be unbeatable (imagine spending hours on an impossible to beat track). -Wine devs fixed that so very recently that many probably aren’t even on that fix yet!
And Microsoft is constantly coming out with newer technologies that Linux will never keep up with or come out with on their own from ‘volunteers’.
If you want to play modern games, there’s no reason to not use Windows. There are reasons to not use Linux.
You must be misremembering things to the extreme.
Gaming in Linux was utter shit in 2005, and improvements were only crawling forward. When we checked WineHQ for compatibility the average score was bronze “unplayable”.
Although the Play On Linux program helped a lot and came out in 2008, Linux gaming didn’t improve much until after the Steam Client for Linux was released in 2013.I dual booted Windows the first couple of years where Linux was my main OS, ONLY to be able to play games. After a few years I got tired of dual booting and ditched Windows completely. The result was that I gamed very little, and when I did, it was retro gaming.
Things improved a lot with DXVK, but that did no come out until 2018. Up until then you could almost only play games made with OpenGL, and even that was hit and miss.I haven’t seen any Proton propaganda, and fortunately a lot of progress on Proton goes back to Wine, so Wine is also a lot better today even without Proton.
So Proton does not deserve all the credit, a lot of work has been done before and outside Proton. But Proton does make it dead easy with the Steam client, but today it may not be necessary if you use other tools to mange the Wine configuration on a per game basis. Or if you are an enthusiast that like to do it manually.
But 21 years ago, even an expert had very little luck except with very few games.
Everyone’s experience is different. It’s how I remember it. -But I consulted an AI, and it agrees with you. -Thanks for the insight!
It was DXVK that really made thinks work, not Proton.
Yes, first developed by Philip “doitsujin” Rebohle. It’s a shame that Linux evangelists constantly praise Valve / Proton when the groundwork was laid out by others over decades.
It’s no wonder there’s a large history of FOSS developers quitting and selling out.
Tbf Valve definitely plays a part in simplifying the entire process. I’m sorry but without Steam even with Lutris and basic ass Wine the process of getting games to run is a fucking pain in the ass. At least Valve is what convinced people due to the nature of “Just download and run” on the Steam Deck. Plus verified games.
I don’t disagree with you but Valve does deserve some credit.
Not nearly what they’re getting. Maybe you forget when Steam was considered malware and the vocal minority was shunning it. Or overlook how they’re becoming the monopoly that they claimed to be against. Or how they’re the original ‘you will own nothing and be happy’.
Do they deserve recognition. -What Gabe has done is for himself, just like all the other corporate contributors to Linux. Even if it were charitable; it pales in comparison to decades of Wine development. -The stuff that never gets mentioned. The GNU cult is fragmenting like denominations.
I mean most of the games I’ve run in the past few months I couldn’t run at all 3 years ago which was my last attempt at Linux. And all my searching last time basically came up with other people having the same question as me and the answers always being “someday…” Well, someday is here because I’ve had no issues this go with Linux. I’ve literally never gone so long without windows until this install of mint.
Good for you, but how much playing do you do vs fiddling with the OS? I got far enough to see texture issues, frame timing issues making games unbeatable half way through, issues with rhythm games, and anti-cheat issues. The main reason to even PC game is for mods, and modding sucks on linux.
I’ve literally clicked the button for proton and that’s it. You seem like you’re just trying to invent reasons to hate Linux. Have you even used it in the last 10 years? Because everything you’re saying isn’t a thing anymore.
Anecdote
I’m glad you had much better luck than I did, because playing games with Wine always worked like shit in my experience. It was occasionally an option that made the game playable at all, and very occasionally it would work flawlessly and all would be astounded, but the vast majority of the time I had little to no success. Maybe I just sucked.
Whereas these days I hit the play button on Steam and it works 100% of the time, in my experience. I basically only ever play games with friends online, and none of them even knew that I’d switched from Windows to Linux at some point in the middle.
I think we’re different kinds of gamers, though, because you said Wine recently fixed a frame timing issue that made rhythm games and racing games playable after they’d been unplayable forever… but I don’t care about that at all. I don’t play those games, and those were never the problems I had in the dark ages, but I’m glad you’re all good now too!
very occasionally it would work flawlessly and all would be astounded,
Absolutely, any semi decent game that was playable, even if it had some glitches, was AMAZING.
Not everyone uses Steam, and Steam does a lot of stuff that Proton does not.
Proton is made by Valve for playing Windows games on Steam and Steam Deck.
It seems logical that it works best for the platform it was designed for.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(software)
Proton is designed for integration into the Steam client as “Steam Play”. It is officially distributed through the client, although third-party forks can be manually installed.
Excellent. That means it’s working as intended.
The best user interface is one that you don’t even notice. The seamless layer between you and your tool (or game in this instance).
