Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.
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Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.
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I had one the other day too, playing Heavenly Bodies. Ran the game on my Kubuntu laptop (Nvidia GPU) , using steam in-house game streaming to my (old underpowered) Ubuntu desktop connected to the Big screen TV, and with 2 wireless Xbox360 controllers connected to the Ubuntu desktop
It Just Worked.
Gaming on Linux has gone from being a pipedream, to a niche, to being viable, and now to even being good
Awesome.
In my mind Linux is something I use on servers, but on my desktop I'm far too used to Windows. And since everything I want "just works" on Windows I haven't really found the motivation to try / switch over to Linux for my desktop.
I've been running Linux on my laptop for years but not on my PC because I thought I needed Windows for whatever it is that I was doing. In December I challenged myself to switch to Linux for a month and I never really went back. I still have dual boot Windows for when I want to play some Valorant since that doesn't work on Linux sadly.
Awesome that it worked for you! I don't have the motivation to do that yet, maybe some day Windows becomes so bad that I actually want to switch.
My experience with Ubuntu was that it took me about as long to get it installed and set up the way I wanted as it would for a Windows installation. To get it up and running barebones is about the same as well, but Windows has so much bloatware and advertising that I refuse to allow on my computer. It also forcibly reinstalls software at every update that I removed previously because I just don't need/want it there.
I can respect the lack of motivation to commit to learning to use a new OS though. It does take some adjustment, and sometimes there's no alternative to specific software that you may need. For the most part though, it's a pretty seamless transition nowadays.
Gaming on Linux and even general use on Linux has come a LONG way the last few years. The number of "it just works" scenarios go up, and cases requiring some tinkering are getting fewer and fewer. All without license keys, ads in the start menu, forced updates at inopportune moments, and general enshitification
That said, I wouldn't say gaming is "better" in Linux, but in many cases it's on par with Windows. Probably the two most notably weak points are VR support, and certain AAA games anti-cheat not allowing Linux/Proton (even though it's technically capable of running)
Yea like I said it isn't really that I think that Linux is way worse or anything, but nothing is really motivating to switch.
I have all the applications I use figured out, some of them have no direct Linux counterpart (For one I really like the MS Office Suite and no Open Source alternative is as good in my opinion). And with WSL I have a lovely Linux terminal that I can use in Windows.
And I have to say I have never found Windows Updates to be a problem, I shut down my PC every day, and when there is a update to install I install it. Windows never forced me to install an update while I was using my PC.
The only thing that is really annoying me in Windows is the start menu, but using it as just a "search" to start applications and using Everything from voidtools to have all my other search needs on Windows met.
If I would switch so Linux I for me personally don't see any large enough benefits that convince me to invest that time, I much rather use the time to tinker with my servers that are running Linux.
But I'm really glad Linux is an alternative that only gets better with time, so once Windows gets too annoying for people like me there is a good alternative.