Operating Systems

I've been Linux fulltime for years, settled on Pop!_OS for it's excellent NVIDIA graphics integration. As far as game compatibility goes, check your games on ProtonDB. Even if they don't have a Linux native version, the Proton Compatibility Layer may let you play your "windows only" games on Linux without streaming.

Gaming on Linux has grown leaps and bounds and it's only getting better. Game Pass Ultimate though, I'm guessing you're gonna have a rough time. That's built for Window's ecosystem. So more than likely that's going to be a very sore point. The streaming Game Pass can and does work on Linux, but if you're against that then Linux might not be for you.

Steam has gotten to the point on Linux where it's basically just install and run, as long as you have compatibility for all games turned on. Very very very few games haven't worked for me or even require little tinkering anymore. That being say I pretty much really only play Indie games.

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.

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.

I actually used Pop as my daily driver for a while. It is probably what I would go back to Linux full time.

I'm also an avid gamer and have to say, Linux has come a long way. There's so many options that help with running Windows native games that work out of the box. I've made the switch a while ago and even though I still have dual boot, I hardly ever boot Windows anymore. And I'm playing a wide range of games not only on Steam but also on the EA App, Epic Games, GOG etc. I see no performance issues (the games I previously played on Windows run just like there) and most games work without any tinkering. I cannot speak about Game Pass though.

Only thing keeping me from Linux full time is music production. Just not their yet unfortunately. Until I can run ableton and plug-ins natively it's a no go. That being said gaming is great thanks to Valve at this point.

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.

I have an Adobe creative suite login through my work , plus gaming - but if I ever left the company I may switch too especially if windows adds ads to the start menu - or charges for upgrades

I have the first ever aluminium MacBook from 2008 running linux (new SSD , new battery , added ram )

What distro speaks to you the most?

I'm in the same case, I really tried using Linux as my primary OS but I always go back to Windows for some games.

Honestly I don't think that local Gamepass will come to Linux ever.

For other games it will work mostly, except some multiplayer games that use anti cheat, some games will work with anti cheat but it's on a per game basis, so it depends which multiplayer game you want to play.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

I exclusively use Linux on my PC, including for gaming, and have so for ten years.

It's... A mixed bag. Getting to use Linux instead of Windows is the great part about it. The totally different philosophy, a convenient way to install apps, no mess with device drivers, easy distro-hopping and reinstallation, a way to free yourself from the vendor lock-in. If you haven't tried it, but think you'd enjoy it, I'd strongly encourage you to try it.

Gaming works but isn't pain-free. I can enjoy a lot of games, and SteamPlay is fantastic. But there's moments like when I have to redownload all 20GB of Transport Fever 2 on GOG after an update was released, because there is no GOG Galaxy on Linux. Last week I was trying to get Trackmania 2020 running with a friend. The gameplay worked fine, but the Ubisoft Connect overlay was totally bugged. Whenever I opened the overlay, the game would then refuse all keyboard and controller inputs until I restarted it. Since the party system uses this overlay, I couldn't play with my friend because of this bug. And our entire evening was wasted reading through forums and ProtonDB to try to fix the problem to no avail.

I encourage you to take a look and see for yourself and try it, I will never go back to Windows, and it's free so you're not losing anything by trying. A passion for fixing things yourself helps. And it's not all sunshine and roses. But good luck, and we'll do our best to help you if you need it.

If you must have Game Pass Ultimate to play games on PC, and must not use streaming, switching to Linux full time will probably never be possible.

I think that if you want to switch entirely, you will either have to accept that you can't use Game Pass or get an Xbox to play those games. The more practical approach is probably to use Linux as much as you can, and reboot into Windows when there is a game you really want to play which isn't available otherwise.

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.

After about a month of contemplating going back to Linux, I've finally found my usb drive and I'm going to download Linux Mint.

The only thing keeping me from going back was the fact that Clip Studio Paint and some of my games didn't play nicely with it. But to be honest, the only game I play these days can also be played on my phone, so.. Back to Linux it is.

The only reasons I still have Windows on a drive is for my work but I only boot it up like once a month to update it these days. I use VMware for most of my windows related tasks now so maybe it's time I format that drive and use it for something else.

I have looked into this myself recently. Still a few blockers for me, one of the big ones being VR. The Steam Deck and its OS have really pushed gaming forward on Linux though.

I know you can use the cloud version, but I cannot stomach streaming games in their current state, so it is a no

Why is that so? Do you have a slow internet connection or something? Just curious because I stream games from XCloud and it's been a good experience so far.

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.

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