I’m just so sick of Microsoft and Google. But there’s two things holding me back:
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I wanna play Steam games on my PC
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I am just an amateur hobbyist, not a tech wizard
Is there any hope for me?
I’m just so sick of Microsoft and Google. But there’s two things holding me back:
I wanna play Steam games on my PC
I am just an amateur hobbyist, not a tech wizard
Is there any hope for me?
Consider your library: most games will be able to run fine on Linux. However, if you predominantly play online multiplayer games which require anticheat you should check compatibility on ProtonDB.
Second, consider your hardware: if your GPU is AMD you’re good to go. Nvidia might have issues (not sure if this has been resolved since I last had to look into it).
Finally, choose a distro: I’d recommend Ubuntu or anything Ubuntu-based. There’s a lot of mixed answers in the Linux community and definitely a ton of hate for Ubuntu. However, as someone who has been running Linux for nearly a decade at this point, there are a few key points:
Ubuntu is debian based, so it’s extremely stable(but not as slow to update)
Ubuntu is very beginner friendly, and you won’t need to touch the terminal if you don’t want to
Everyone hates on snaps, but for you I don’t think you’ll run into an issue with it.
Personally, I steer towards debian based distros for my devices as well because I’d rather spend time messing with the software I’m running or other things NOT debugging why my config is suddenly shitting the bed
GPU is Nvidia. I’m gonna have to look up the words distro, Ubuntu, and debian and get back to you. just to demonstrate where I’m at lol
No worries :) everyone starts somewhere.
The other commenter covered the terminology so to your point about being on Nvidia:
I know we don’t like Reddit but here. Seems to be YMMV and you’ll never know if you don’t try. Also possible that the things that are buggy aren’t things you use/care about
Distro: short for distribution. Linux is not an operating system. It’s a piece of technology (specifically something called a kernel) you can use to create an OS. Those Linux based OSs are referred to as distros. We are usually not calling them “Versions” because the Linux Kernel is also frequently seeing updates and that would just cause confusion.
Debian and Ubuntu: Popular distros. Ubuntu tends to be a bit more user friendly than Debian and was the default recommendation for new user for a long time. In recent years its popularity among enthusiasts declined because of a series of unpopular decisions, mainly the adaptation of something called snaps which is not completely open source and takes a bit more time to launch apps than alternatives. Debian on the other hand really values stability. Updates arrive less frequently than on other distros but undergo really rigorose testing.
it sounds like debían is better then?
Oh boi, for gaming Ubuntu and it’s family is… Iffy at best. You tend to end up with weird problems cause of the older software frequently. Not a problem till it VERY much is.
Modern gaming basically requires you to be really close to cutting edge if you want remotely reliable performance and timely bug fixes. Which you just do not and will never get on Ubuntu.
It’s why valve choose arch for steam OS. It’s why cachyOS exists. It’s why the big popular alterative is fedora based.
Tho suggesting bazzite is iffy with how fedora likes to break things with dumb changes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
FWIW I run Ubuntu and do some gaming. Haven’t hit any issues, and I’ve run multiple AAA games on release (TLOU, Indiana Jones, Hogwarts Legacy, GoW 2018) as well as other, lighter, titles like Cities Skylines 2, Asetto Corsa, Project Cars, American Truck Simulator
I’m sure there are bugs that I haven’t experienced, and my system is probably newer/higher performance than the average person + i chose parts with Linux in mind. But based on my experience, I wouldn’t tell someone to jump into a less user friendly distro because of problems I myself haven’t run into. Much better to try one, see if you hit an issue, then jump rather than doing the hard one up front