I’m under no illusions that Linux is a viable alternative for everyone, but if you’re just using your computer as a web terminal and light gaming system, a decent Linux system + Steam makes for a very usable option these days.
I have exactly one computer in my house that has Windows on it. It was provided by my employer, and I turn it on maybe once every two weeks or so, for special-purpose activities that can’t be done on my Linux laptop. And most of the time, for most activities my Linux laptop is the clearly superior performer - it’s not even close, despite their similar hardware specs.
I don’t think everyone should - or can - switch. But if you’ve got an old beater laptop gathering dust, try popping Ubuntu or something on it, see how it performs. See if it’s something you could legitimately switch to full or part time.
Is Linux still a good option for gaming if one were to not purchase games?
Yes, you can either add the game as a non-steam game and force proton, or use Lutris or Bottles (with proton or other WINE runner). For repacks with installers, you can launch the setup.exe with Lutris or Bottles (install the game to ‘fake’ drive_c and move it), just make sure you include dependencies that require it (usually .net framework).
Source: most of my steam library on my steam deck is plundered loot
There are also repackers like jc141 e LinuxRulez that also manage the dependencies and prefix for you. LinuxRulez also gives you appropriate Wine versions if needed
yes but steam is so easy
Steam works on Linux.
yeah and it is very easy
Lutris is good for that. It can be confusing at first if you don’t know how Wine works, but it’s very easy to use and doesn’t require Steam.
I find Bottles it’s less confusing than Lutris, (though it’s not UX perfect), and a better suggestion for people starting off with gaming.
Though Steam is the number one suggestion. If all your games run through Steam then you don’t even need to worry about Bottles or Lutris.
not purchase games?
😏
Sure. I’ve run several modern … repurposed… games and it usually works through lutris.
Yes, Steam doesn’t do anything
You can just as easily use Wine/Proton as your runner as you can set up Steam to use Wine/Proton as your runner
At this point in time, I only occasionally have mild issues with newest games, because Wine is a continuously developed software, and games with an annoying anticheat, such as Destiny 2 or R6 Siege. Everything else just runs, including older games, that don’t even run on Windows, or titles you had to sail the seas for
Yeah it’s great. Bottles is the best tool imo, lutris almost feels like a relic from the early days of Linux gaming, and non-steam games in steam don’t always work exactly how you might want, and aren’t so much fun. There is also heroic games launcher now which lets you add custom games and is also a very nice option if you don’t use gnome (bottles is a gnome style app so it may look out of place elsewhere). I would put some thorough research into VPNs if you torrent though because the one I used on my Linux box (expressvpn) leaked my ip at some point and I got a letter in the mail.
Take your piracy back to the piracy sub
Take your ignorance elsewhere
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I’m a gamer. I’ve used Windows since the 95 days. I’m done with Microsoft. I was not happy with Windows 10 and the bullshit they introduced but there is no way in hell I’m signing up for Win11.
Steam has made a lot of progress with Proton. My next computer will be Linux-based.
It’s getting pretty easy to ditch Windows these days. Microsoft got too greedy and desperate, and actually using the damn platform they built is getting harder and harder, especially if you don’t want the nagging and annoyances that come from them trying to turn your computer into their subscription revenue stream. My impression is that Valve is aware of the problem, and wants to make sure that their store works regardless of which operating system you prefer.
Valve is and was aware of this problem even back then. I don’t have a reliable source on this but from what I remember it all started when Microsoft begun pushing the Microsoft Store.
Gabe Newell even said Linux is the future of gaming
And for this I have a source: https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-linux-and-open-source-are-the-future-of-gaming/
Yeah this is so true. I have a gaming laptop with Linux on it and a steam deck. If it doesn’t run on Linux, I don’t buy it. The problem is that strategy isn’t really saving me any money these days.
There’s a real sense of relief whenever I close my (work) windows laptop and open my personal Pop_OS laptop… and then start up Baldur’s Gate.
I’ve been primarily a Linux user for several years now and it seems like Windows is just getting worse and worse in terms of user experience. I fear the day that my company wants everyone to move to Win11.
Give me GOG Galaxy and Path of Exile on Linux and I would install it now. Last time I wanted to switch, I installed everything I needed, went to download GOG and remembered why I switch back last time. :(
I haven’t tried installing gog but I do play path of exile on Linux, with a controller. Flawless ( my distro off choice is nobara)
Nice, I will have to look into that.
I use Lutris to install my GOG games, Battle.NET, EA launcher, and Ubisoft Play. It’s a very simple solution.
I use heroic launcher, works perfectly for me
How or why does Linux have a higher performance for you?
not OP but similar situation. My Linux desktop is just more snappy, despite being 5 years old (and the work Win11 laptop brand new). I already have customized with my shortcuts and apps. I don’t have to listen to the fan spinning up every time I open a new window (exaggerating a bit, but not much). Also I am not tied to work filters. If I want to read the news online for 5 minutes in a coffee break I don’t risk being monitored and potentially evaluated. But really, I’ve been a Windows and Linux user for 20-odd years. I’ve always found that Linux installed on the same hardware of Windows is just smoother and faster. Windows is getting so much bloatware (from MS or enterprise apps) that it doesn’t even have a fighting chance.
My comment isn’t really a viable argument but I’ve been thinking about how an advert for Linux would be:
“The top 500 supercomputers in the world run Linux, don’t you want to feel like having a supercomputer at home? Why wait? Get your Linux for free today!”
Not really to be taken seriously, but if you want a real argument and example:
My laptop is really laggy with windows 10, and it came preinstalled with it. Recently I tried dual-booting Linux and Windows, and Windows was simply too slow. I am so accustomed with Linux’s speed that I wiped Windows off it. Never again.
Memory management and file IO is far more efficient in Linux. So much so that I even got better performance in Windows running Debian in a VM for some very file-intensive stuff. And by better performance I mean a factor of about 10.
Most desktop environments are really efficient at what they do and minimize the background resources they take. Just checked my system and GNOME takes ~350MBs RAM (~700MB including gnome-software) and literally 0.0% CPU, it’s insane. I looked up Windows 11 and it seems like it can use up to 4 GBs (!) of RAM all by itself.
Probably just down to less stuff running in the background using up CPU cycles. I can’t imagine it makes a huge difference, but more than nothing.
Depending on the situation, it actually can make huge differences.  For instance, I built my computer in 2010 it’s 13yrs old now. it can’t run windows 11 and while it can run windows 10 it runs like complete shit. Start up would take forever even on a fresh install, half the time Windows freezes just trying to get to the desktop after a fresh reboot. at idle background processes from windows would leave me running over 50% CPU usage just idling and opening anything like Firefox and Discord at the same time would jump to 100% CPU usage.
On Linux it runs just as good as the day I built it. Startup takes around 30 seconds and I can actually start working the moment I’m on the desktop, no freezing or waiting for background startup processes to finish. I currently at this moment have around 20 workspaces (aka virtual desktops) open across three monitors, within those work spaces is hundreds of tabs open in Firefox, simultaneously playing RuneScape and dwarf fortress. A bunch of terminals, SSH sessions, and other miscellaneous work stuff running. a ton of docker containers running, I also have both discord with a call going and Spotify playing in the background and I am setting at 30% CPU usage with the occasional spike to 50%. I can actually use my computer to do a ton of stuff and have power left over while windows would max out and freeze up just the start up, even on fresh installs. And it’s not just this one old computer, I can consistently see rather large performance differences going from Windows to Linux across the number of different computers. 
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I’m on Fedora 38 with I3 WM and a few kde apps, originally installed as 35 and just upgraded since. Before that was arch briefly and before that was debian.  I went with Fedora because I need my computer to work without issue when it’s time to work and on arch I spent more time tinkering and getting things working then actually working. I still think just plain Debian a solid choice and I use it on a lot of servers but as a desktop, I felt like I ran into a lot of outdated packages. With Fedora I’m getting up-to-date packages yet I have never had an update break the system.  I also prefer DNF and their repository over apt and deb files. It’s all just personal preference though. You just gotta try them all and see what you like!
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Also, the file system. For the longest time windows used NTFS exclusively, which is (or was) slower than Ext4 (the most widely used on Linux).
I think MS is moving away from NTFS and are going to use a different file system in the near future (maybe even now, I don’t know anymore)
I don’t think NTFS is the actual problem, but the Windows VFS layer (or whatever it’s called over there).
Running windirstat (or similar programs) is dog-slow on Windows, k4dirstat eats through the same partition quite a bit faster. Getting metadata to sort a directory with what 5000 files by modification time can take minutes in explorer, with Linux it’s pretty much instant. minutes. That’s not just non-optimised that’s abysmal.
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I’m gonna ride out Windows 10 since I’ve got it behaving and I’m lazy. But if Windows 12 is just like Windows 11, or worse, I’m switching to Linux and figuring out how to get a vGPU VM up and running for when I have to run something on Windows for one reason or another. I messed with a vGPU in Hyper-V on Windows and was amazed by how seamless the performance was compared to other VM GPU acceleration options. I found a project to do something similar on Linux, so I’m gonna mess with that. If I can get it running as well as I’ve seen in some videos, I won’t need a bare metal Windows install anymore.
You should probably just go ahead and switch now. It’s not going to get any better, at least not over one iteration. Maybe Windows 14…
Yeah same. When they do eventually kill 10 then im bailing for Firefox and Linux. I do also have it behaving but sometimes it tries the odd bullshit about edge.
Running AAA games with kernel level anti-cheat (aka malware) would be an example.
Windows-exclusive software like some ERP client, specific hardware drivers etc. Also, there’s no real alternative for Excel, unfortunately (LibreOffice isn’t good enough).
And you can put windows in a virtual machine for edge cases for most use cases. Use Linux for everything else.
I would switch tomorrow if I didn’t play competitive CS that requires third-party anti-cheat like Faceit/ ESEA.
Which version of CS? Many of them work fine now.
For most things I fully agree, unless it’s for windows specific applications that don’t exist in other platforms.
What about Nvidia drivers for games?
Nvidia drivers work fine, they always have (I’m using a 4090 on my fedora workstation). This is a common misconception.
Nvidia’s drivers are a problem because they are not open source. This creates headaches for developers and the community at large. But for end users, they work just fine. Nvidia doesn’t just dump untested code on the internet and call it a day, they have full time staff dedicated to building and testing linux drivers.
One recent problem is that the current latest driver is not compatible with Starfield. This is a common occurrence even on windows, and is why Nvidia and AMD regularly release “game ready” drivers before a major game launch. On Windows, Starfield crashed with the latest AMD driver for the same reason.
Since it isn’t open source, our only option is to wait for Nvidia to release a new version. If it was open source, the community could fix the issue immediately without having to wait.
Nvidia drivers also don’t support a lot of features that other drivers do
I see thanks for the info.
Next computer I would consider to go full Linux instead of getting windows 11 dual booting
got a citation there bud? running a 4080 on endeavour OS and have same issue :(
I think you misinterpreted my comment. Starfield is currently broken, and we need to wait for a fix from Nvidia.
Ah yeah sorry, when nvidia does when / how would I update driver, would it be a normal os update like yay -Syu I’m new and don’t understand it all yet
Use X11 and you are fine
Actually, these days you can use Wayland and be fine, too. It’s my daily driver now.
Well it depends on your DE. If you run Gnome, you will probably be fine. If you run Plasma you can run into problems but supposedly Plasma 6.0 is going to release with full Wayland support at the end of this year (or beginning of next one) so lets hold our thumbs for that.
I’ve been using wayland via Plasma for at least a year now and it’s been rock-solid. Granted, I have an AMD card and KDE is NixOS’ primary DE.
If you run Gnome you’ll run into compatibility issues as Gnome devs have a “our way or the highway” kind of attitude. Like steadfastly refusing to implement server-side decorations. They want to use CSD for their stuff, that’s not an issue, but it’s another issue to not allow random programs to say “hey, server, I don’t care about my decorations, paint something suitable”. Especially for programs like mpv which don’t have a toolkit that could do such a thing for them, and mpv is not going to start linking to qt or gtk just to draw a title bar.
Linux needs a Chrome OS type thing but FOSS with steam and it’ll be the best version for most users, and if it’s configurable unlike Chrome OS it’ll even serve power users
(Chrome OS was actually really good imo, especially with their container method of running Android and Linux apps, but they moved it to VM, and it’s not as good functionally for some reason)
God bless EU
Nah thanks, we’re lucky to be mostly secular.
You can have both. For instance Denmark is among the least religious countries in the world, and at the same time among of the most blessed.
That’s a fine arrangement we’ve got IMO.
Most blessed how? It sucks here.
Most blessed how?
High living standard, low on threats like naturtal disasters and plenty food including Bacon and Beer. Low crime, high on all kinds of life quality/satisfaction indexes that I know of, among the lowest on corruption and poverty. One of the highest ranking on democracy and freedom of speech.
It sucks here.
Maybe for you, for the majority obviously not.
People only like it here because they are mindless drones that blindly worship the system and hold the opinions that the government wants them to. It’s lame.
Funny you are saying that, at a time where the government is more unpopular than it has been in a long time. It’s unpopular on both the left and right, and even among members of the government parties. Sorry if it offends, but you sound a bit like maybe you’re in a dark place. Or maybe you are just trolling IDK.
it sucks more everywhere else
Microsoft Edge is the true religion
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“Microsoft forced to stop forcing Windows 11 users into Edge in EU countries”, would be a more descriptive title.
But the multinational hyper-conglomerates are our friends and the most efficient use of capital!
Can they do the same for Google recommending Chrome?
At least google sites recommending Chrome are free to use. Microsoft is forcing is it’s useless browser to an audience via an OS. Which they paid for. Two huge no-no’s.
MS should just quit the facade and make it free.
I mean it more or less already is. I’m running an unregistered W10 Pro and the “activate license” thing only comes up occasionally.
This. Current title is misleading.
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It’s not perfect by any means, but I’m glad to have it and can’t think of any other political organisation doing more “good”.
The huge difference between FTC and EC in terms of the mandate of their operation. Whereas the Sherman Law and FTC are operating with aim to protect customers’ rights or something like that, EC anti-monopoly law is oriented just on that: fighting anti-competitive behaviour. The problem is IMHO that “customer rights” is so flexible term, that (with good support in the campaign contributions, I am sure) it is easy to persuade FTC that almost anything you do is perfectly nice. EC’s anti-monopoly mandate is on the other hand rather strict and inflexible.
Especially when you hire a former Verizon lawyer as head of the FTC, and they do their best to dismantle it from the inside, and then the next person you hire needs to spend a bunch of their time rebuilding what was torn down.
In a case like this, I think they’re mainly worried that the dominance of [insert company] from [insert country] is getting too big.
But they was slapping apple for usb C too. They’re doing something right over there.
EU does seem to be on the forefront when it comes to user rights. It’s always nice to see them not just grazing over the issues
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Hard to say but in the end my life quality is waaaaaay better after EU accession.
confirmed
now do the rest of the world.
What setting can I put in to make Windows think its in the EU?
I have the hilarious image in my head that Microsoft checks their stats and has more EU users than the EU has population.
lmfao.
This may or may not help you, I don’t have a Windows 11 install to try: https://www.elevenforum.com/t/change-country-or-region-geographic-location-geoid-in-windows-11.4034/
how to move out of america for free
pay and find a job, profit
That’s nice for the EU folks, elsewhere Microsoft has doubled down on this practice.
If I were on a court or jury, I would rule that repeatedly showing an annoying pop up until you press Agree, doesn’t count as actual acceptance of the terms, I don’t care what the rules are but fuck that practice.
I’ve just doubled down on not using Microsoft tbh. I shouldn’t have to spend so much time and effort cleaning a clean install of an OS. And have updates change things so they don’t work the same or at all any more, or you just can’t find them. Fuck that.
Didn’t this all get decided legally like two decades ago when Microsoft tried to do the same kind of thing with internet Explorer?
In America, software owns you
Pretty sure USA has it the worst when it comes to MS shennenigans.
That is why third party add-ons have become required for usability since Win8. Classic shell or Startallback removes all the bullshit “improvements” and makes the system work smoothly.
The only issue I run into is the occasional “Use Edge” bullshit they push out. It’s more of an annoyance than anything else.
MS is not the only one with the shenanigans. Every tech company is pushing garbage on their customers.
I swear I spend way too much time disabling the shit that the companies want me to use, so I can use the stuff I do.
I disagree, I haven’t had to use any third party-add ons in Windows 10. And once Win 11 brings back the option to not minimise my task bar buttons I think I’ll be happy to switch. It was dumb to remove so many options in the first place though.
We get fucked on consumer protections in general.
Not even MS alone, it seems that my American colleagues are vendor locked in several different ways. It’s a bit bewildering honestly.
Yep. I remember some of my coworkers used to laugh at me saying “What bloatware? I don’t have any, nor the ads. We’ve used the same images, so it must’ve been something you’ve done yourself”.
Turns out that’s because I chose en/us during installation process and our region didn’t have preinstall deals… yet. Now, they too can enjoy self-installing candy crush and literal KGB spyware.
Too late, I already shoved Linux Mint into my new gaming laptop and I’m glad I felt forced to do it, I’m having my first serious dive into Linux and I’m thrilled about my newfound project! I was so surprised over how very little knowledge you needed to have games running these days.
If you are having battery life problems like I was I would recomend using powertop or tlp
Thanks, it feels much better already, I will check it out!
Ha I did the same and jumped to mint also. Windows got so damn laggy such a shitty OS.
Goddammit, now I’m even more disappointed in the UK doing a Brexit…
Round and round and round.
It’s the same all over again. MS got a slap on their wrists with the browser choice tool they had to introduce in Windows 7.
Then everyone forgot about it and they started forcing Edge on users. Now they get a slap on their wrist again and the same will happen in another 10 years.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s really awesome and I’m glad that EU regulations actually have a impact. But I still wish for more, more permanent and stricter anti monopoly laws.
Now do cross-platform messaging next!
According to Microsoft almost everything from Microsoft is cross platform, because it works in both Windows 10 and 11. That’s good enough for Microsoft to be cross platform. I’m not even kidding!
EU: “That still only counts as one”
OK. 😀
Here we go again, MS already lost a US federal lawsuit for the same thing but with Internet Explorer.
Sadly, they didn’t lose. They almost lost, appealed and ended up with a settlement which didn’t require removing IE from Windows or prevent tying other software to windows.
On November 2, 2001, the DOJ reached an agreement with Microsoft to settle the case. The proposed settlement required Microsoft to share its application programming interfaces with third-party companies and appoint a panel of three people who would have full access to Microsoft’s systems, records, and source code for five years in order to ensure compliance.[29] However, the DOJ did not require Microsoft to change any of its code nor did it prevent Microsoft from tying other software with Windows in the future.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp
Yeah I definitely remember that in the news as a teenager…and then I remember everybody kinda shrugged their shoulders and forgot. And now Bill Gates = zoomer jesus after 20 years of PR work to turn his image around.
Somehow, everybody forgot all the dumpster-diving Gates did to “build” Microsoft in the first place.
Crazy to think that Commodore’s BASIC was coded by Bill Gates, though. I was recently reading a programming article he wrote in Compute! magazine back in 1984, when MS ascendance was anything but guaranteed.
Not even going down that track, I’ve been messing with Linux for 15yr and happy to say about 2yr ago switched to Linux mint daily driver and not going back. Can do everything I need to:
Work (teams, prospect mail for Outlook, zoom, etc)
Gaming (Steam and Proton make playing 95% games a reality and actually works great surprisingly)
Music Production (Bitwig - truly awesome DAW very comparable to Ableton live - no BS actually is a TRUE contender and great and stable DAW, by far the best ever used in Linux)
Windows 11 can suck it
I tried to but it’s still too janky for my taste. Every bigger update breaks something (I am lucky if it doesn’t break the OS as a whole which happened few times). For gaming I have issues with alt-tabbing stuff that’s completely janky for ages and I find that function crucial to consider it as a gaming OS.
I love EU
