Nvidia just works unless you have a some weird obscure hardware combo. It’s been like this for over a decade. Nvidia’s reputation is because their code is shit, their processes are shit, and they lack feature parity from windows that their competitors have shown isn’t an environment limitation (like changing the amount shared dram used as vram).
Tips:
Your distro maintaindr already did the hard part, get the driver from them instead of nvidia (unless you’re on Debian, then you’re on your own).
If you are on debian (or any of the other rare distros that don’t package the nvidia driver for you) and using xorg, back up your xorg.conf because the nvidia installer will modify it and the new one may not work. If you’re not comfortable using the terminal, make sure you take note of the location of your xorg.conf to minimize time spent there, you will need it though.
If you’re on a normal distro, it’s usually just sudo <PackageManager><installflag> nvidia or sudo <PackageManager><installflag> nvidia-open
I know nothing about Gamepass, but Mint runs Steam games on my 2080 just fine. It worked out of the box. I was a little surprised. To keep Steam from forcing me to update FO4, I bought it off GOG and installed it through heroic, with zero issues. It just worked.
But, no, it’s not easy-peasy to switch, you do need to be motivated to make the effort. Of course, there is a learning curve. Feel free to stay on Windows, that was always allowed.
Are NVIDIA drivers still an absolute bitch to get working correctly? Is there still no way to run games off Gamepass?
Ok cool, so it’s NOT just easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to switch.
Nvidia just works unless you have a some weird obscure hardware combo. It’s been like this for over a decade. Nvidia’s reputation is because their code is shit, their processes are shit, and they lack feature parity from windows that their competitors have shown isn’t an environment limitation (like changing the amount shared dram used as vram).
Tips: Your distro maintaindr already did the hard part, get the driver from them instead of nvidia (unless you’re on Debian, then you’re on your own).
If you are on debian (or any of the other rare distros that don’t package the nvidia driver for you) and using xorg, back up your xorg.conf because the nvidia installer will modify it and the new one may not work. If you’re not comfortable using the terminal, make sure you take note of the location of your xorg.conf to minimize time spent there, you will need it though.
If you’re on a normal distro, it’s usually just
sudo <PackageManager> <install flag> nvidiaorsudo <PackageManager> <install flag> nvidia-openI know nothing about Gamepass, but Mint runs Steam games on my 2080 just fine. It worked out of the box. I was a little surprised. To keep Steam from forcing me to update FO4, I bought it off GOG and installed it through heroic, with zero issues. It just worked.
But, no, it’s not easy-peasy to switch, you do need to be motivated to make the effort. Of course, there is a learning curve. Feel free to stay on Windows, that was always allowed.
No, on popular distros they are preinstalled, or only require you to check a checkbox in system settings.