Games

Been Linux exclusively for 20 years. Win 11 sure isn't going to change that

I'll keep using linux on my main pcs and I'll still keep using windows 10 on my secondary laptop

I upgraded to Windows 11.

I tried Linux but but so much stuff isn't supported so I got rid of it.

Just moved my Win10 machine to Pop OS. No issues at all. Haven’t tried Steam VR on it yet.

My gaming PC is on Win 11 because it's recent and I'm lazy and it's convenient. My laptop runs Win 10 so it'll be Linux I guess. Not really looking forward to finding a distro and reinstalling and whatnot but what can you do. It's been a good few years since I last had a Linux box so I'm pretty rusty and not up to date on the recent best distros.

I think I will switch to Linux, possibly dual boot with Win 11 just in case there are games I can't play on Linux.

Made the jump to Linux. No issues so far, very happy with the switch

Can anyone recommend a distro (and desktop environment?) that's going to be almost the same as desktop mode on the Steam deck? I'm getting more comfortable in that than I expected to be in any Linux, and to my surprise and delight I haven't had to delve into the command line at all yet.

I have 11, so not directly affected. But with "no more security updates" being the only real reason one needs to change, the obvious question here is if there is 3rd party software that can protect a Windows 10 system?

I remember when anti-virus software was in common use.

No way I'm switching to Linux yet, multi monitors support with mixed resolutions and vrr on nvidia still kinda sucks. As soon as someone makes that work I'll try it out on a separate partition. Buy last time I tried my other monitors had all kinds of issues when I had games open with gysnc

Already transitioning. Been half doing it for ages. This'll just be the last bit.

I tried out going 100% Linux a year ago. Unfortunately I was playing one of the very few games that has Linux issues. 100% CPU all the time was bugging me. It's not the fault of Linux. Anyway, that's how it played out. I may be tempted to try again soon.

I'm planning on it.

I tried a rest run with Kubuntu on an old laptop I had, and it runs 95% flawlessly. My biggest issue is my new Brother printer that I'm trying to install connected to Wi-Fi. The system sems to know it's there, but then doesn't seem to install the drivers. My Android phone prints there just fine.

I jumped ship to Linux Mint almost a year ago. No Microsoft products live here anymore. No regrets.

I would love some advice, personally. How big of an issue is this really? Like....do I really have to care if there aren't system updates anymore? How big of a security risk is it actually?

Upgrade tool says my hardware isn't supported, seems like I can enable TPM on my motherboard but it doesn't work right for some reason I think I managed to install Windows 10 without secure boot or something, not sure if those two are even related. I was thinking maybe I'd have to reinstall windows 10 with those modules enabled in order to upgrade to windows 11... Has anyone else encountered something similar?

Went to Linux a couple months ago, its freaking awesome, you'll never look back. And it is way easier to use than people make it out to be. Also my PC has never been faster thanks to having zero bloat.

Just waiting for daddy gabon to release steamos. If not I swear I'm going to just use the most windowsxp distro available. I thought I was being simple by going with mint and KDE. Dare me.

How do I even get started? Do I just install Mint and figure it out from there? Linux seems so complicated but it's been a decade since I last tried. Nowadays, I feel old and this seems like it needs too much research

How to give it a go:

• Get a 256GB SSD and install it on your computer alongside the existing drives.
• Install a gaming-oriented Linux distro such as Pop!OS, Bazzite, SteamOS or similar, on that drive (don't let it touch any other drive - those things generally have an install mode were you just tell it "install in this drive" which will ignore all other drives)
• Unless your machine is 10 years old or older, during boot you can press a key (generally F8) and the BIOS will pop-up a boot menu that lets you choose which OS you want start booting (do it again at a later date if you want to change it back). If your machine is old you might actually have to go into the BIOS and change the boot EFI (or if even older, boot drive) it boots from in the boot section of the BIOS.
• Use launchers such as Steam and a Lutris since they come with per-game install scripts that make sure Proton/Wine is properly configured, so that for most game you don't have to do any tweaking at all for them to run - it's just install and launch. In my experience you still have to tweak about 1 game in every 10.
• If it all works fine and you're satisfied with it, get a bigger SSD and install it alongside the rest. Make one big partition in it and mount you home directory there (at this point you will have to go down to the CLI to copy over your home directory). You'll need this drive because of all the space you'll be using for games, especially modern ones and launchers like Steam and Lutris will install the games in your home directory so having that in it's own partition is the easiest way to add storage space for games.

As long as you give a dedicated drive to Linux and (if on an old machine before EFI) do not let it install a boot sector anywhere else but that drive, the risk exposure is limited to having spent 20 or 30 bucks on a 256GB SSD and then it turns out Linux is still not good enough for you.

When NOT to do it:

• If you don't know what a BIOS is or that you can press a key at the start of boot to get into it.
• If you don't know how to install a new drive on your machine (or even what kind of drive format it takes) and don't have somebody who can do it for you.
• If you don't actually have the free slot for the new drive (for example, notebooks generally only have 2 slots, sometimes only 1).

Considering I'm unemployed and job hunting, and Windows says I can't upgrade my current (old) PC, and I regularly play Warzone with friends? No, probably not any time soon.

Maybe if I get a job with a six digit salary in a city with a reasonable cost of living (or remote) so I can jump out of debt before 6 months? But I'm not holding my breath.

My plan is to use my Linux box as my main PC with Steam installed so that I can remote play from my Windows gaming PC since not all titles natively work on Linux for me. That way, the only activity being performed on my Windows machine is gaming and everything else will live in Linux Mint

Linux is the way

I am on Fedora. But i still have Windows dual boot left. But I dont use Windows 10 that often - I don't see the need. I just have it as a backup OS. I have free enough diskspace on my SSD so currently not doing anything.

Unpopular opinion but I'm just using 11. I deal with enough problems with Linux at work and as hard as it is to believe, Windows just work and fits my workflow too well. Linux works great on my Steam Deck but the occasional weird quirks it has with certain games/launchers means I can't use it as my main gaming platform, it's only fine on the Deck because it has advantages for the form factor.

Linux for gaming and most other use cases, Windows for the one proprietary application I use. Although I suppose I might go IoT LTSC.

Windows is a weapons contractor that is entangled in the domestic markets. Linux is not. Windows is spyware and anti consumer. It is time to at least be familar with Linux. Try it on a old laptop or something. Linux is free.