Switch to Linux. As a big-time gamer, I did it last year and it’s been fantastic. Only issue is if you main games with root kit anticheat…but with enough momentum in Linux direction, game studios will be forced to abandon those dubious detection methods anyway.
Sadly I use way too many programs that only work on windows or Mac that Linux would handicap me. The free open source versions of yhe apps I use are no where near as capable.
My only option I can think of would be running a virtual machine of Win10 on a Linux install so I can still use those apps.
Not OP, but for another data point: recently I did quite a bit of Linux-related research on the three Adobe apps I use (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, in this order of prominence), and they are all reported as some level of broken via Wine and their Linux alternatives are missing important features and/or a pain in the arse to use :/
I’m not Tyler Bourbon, but it’s Fusion 360 for me. I sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s the only piece of software that keeps a windows install in my house
I’m not the OP but I have a similar situation. I work in multimedia design and use a wide array of software from the full Adobe suite, to in-house command line apps, to the Articulate suite and everything in between.
I’d love to be on Linux but that just isn’t a possibility for me.
I mean, sure you can do this, but you have to also sympathize with the folks that have years if not decades of experience in a program/suite, and that experience is what they use to market themselves. Like, in a perfect world, everyone could make the switch to FOSS alternatives, but it’s not so cut and dry for those who can’t spend up to years of their personal time to just get back to being as efficient as they were with the other, just to not support a scummy company. I’ve been moving pretty much entirely over to FOSS for everything I do, but it’s been years in the making, and substantial effort on my part. And I have it easy, since I work in software development. We in the FOSS community can’t expect all others to do the same.
Unfortunately, any app that needs a GPU would be difficult to work with in a VM. You have to manually set up GPU-passthru, which requires figuring out the PCI addresses and whatnot of your card, along with using a terminal. As I understand it, this process also prevents you from using that GPU outside of the VM, which is cruddy.
I was hoping to have a Linux Mint + Windows 11 VM back in January, but that didn’t work out. I am hoping that the upcoming SteamOS Desktop would make Linux friendly enough for games that aren’t native to Steam, such as my GOG collection, Window 3.1 stuff like Stars!, modding, and assorted Japanese locale games.
SteamOS isn’t going to be the “Windows killer” people think it’ll be. I’m a massive Valve and Steam fan but SteamOS isn’t any better than any of the other major distros when it comes to gaming.
I think it’ll feel like pop os. Pretty much set up for gaming right out of the box, but anything deeper and you’re forced to touch the terminal. What I do think it has going for it however is the publicity of Steam, plus a promise on Steam’s part to continue to dump a bunch of resources in to making it a better experience. I’m not expecting mass migrations, but it will likely be what gets all the folks on the fence to switch over, at least among gamers
Terminal usage is inevitable with Linux. It’s not as scary as it seems and can actually create a sense of accomplishment when you use it. Pop is a solid distro for sure but you don’t need a “gaming distro” to game on Linux these days (not that Pop is a gaming distro specifically). There’s actually a Linux Experiment video where he proves this with a thorough test. All major distros work fine for gaming.
I encourage people to not go for SteamOS unless you’re setting up a PC you want to use solely as a home console, or if you’re flashing it to a different handheld.
That, all coming from a big Valve fan. I simply don’t think it’s a good idea for people to get their hopes up over SteamOS somehow being a no-terminal, peak gaming Linux experience. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to hold off until SteamOS gets its full PC release, because most major distros today will work just as well. It’d literally only benefit people to start learning Linux now so that by the full SteamOS launch, they’ll be more informed as to whether it’ll be something they’ll find useful enough to use as a daily driver.
I understand where you’re coming from. I myself prefer using a terminal for most things, and use arch (btw) for the PC I game on. I understand that learning Linux is the best move for folks, but I don’t see that being an option, at least initially, for people on the fence.
I know that, from a Linux user’s perspective, it is the wrong move, but I have plenty of friends that want a “no terminal, gaming ready” distro before they make the move. I see it more as a first step, removing the barrier for making the switch to Linux. Once they are already there, it’s much easier to convince themselves to learn Linux a bit deeper if needed over time.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just naive and hopeful, but there are a good number of my friends that I think will make the switch to Linux that wouldn’t have without SteamOS.
The way I see the root kit anticheat situation is that because Valve has their own Linux based OS, these companies making anticheat are probably going to end up tailoring it to whatever kernel Valve (or whatever the biggest/most widely used distro made by a large game corporation) uses to ensure people aren’t cheating.
With a kernel that can be swapped out for another with varying degrees of difficulty, why wouldn’t they just tailor their work to whatever the biggest corporate game company supporter of Linux is using? If SteamOS (or any other distro made by maybe someone like EA, heaven forbid) ends up becoming what these anticheat devs see as the defacto Linux distro for gaming, I guarantee they’ll probably just focus all their efforts on making sure SteamOS (or whatever it ends up being) works as best they can and hanging out everyone else to dry.
A real “Wanna run the latest CoD (or something similar) on your device? Make sure you use the kernel we say you have to use!” kinda situation is what I foresee happening.
There’s also an OpenBSD song with a few lines of lyrics that I think could sum up what could (and sadly most likely will) happen, in metaphorical Odyssey kind of way:
Corporate monsters, many closing passages\ Tempting harpies\ 13 years of treachery
Though it’s definitely going to be more than 13 years.
I’ve been hard at trying to get games i like to work in mint. It takes a lit of time but it’s going ok. Like you said though kind of sucks for multi-player. I can’t even get diabolical multi-player to work (after I looked up how to fix the instant crashing audio driver issue) . It’s also a lot of qork getting any racing game to work with my DFGT…even though linux does see the axis and buttons, the force feedback is all messed up. Wish I knew how to code so I could fix these issues! But I don’t have 12 hours a day to ever learn that
Use Bazzite. It is a distro dedicated to gaming and user friendly for beginners. It still has some limitations but it is better compared to others when it comes to gaming. You don’t really require more tweaking unlike other distros to make games work.
This is the advice I came here looking for. I’m intimidated by the switch and have no time, but if there’s a distro that’s easy to get going, I’m there for it. I’ll check it out!
I just wasn’t sure fedora based (bazzite) would be as easy to troubleshoot as mint (Debian based) since arguably debian/Ubuntu are the most popular distro.
Another distro that’s easy to get going for gaming is Garuda.
Also, the easiest way to switch to any distro is to get a USB drive and install a program called Ventoy. Then you throw your install iso onto the Ventoy drive, boot from USB, and you’re good to go.
As a tip, pick up an external drive large enough for your Steam library. Then in Steam, you right click on each game and select Manage/Back up game files.
Doing it this way will save you days of downloading.
I keep recommending BazziteOS but Jorge Castro over at the universal Blue project has a really good point “Most people don’t install their operating systems” and that plain fact is what stops people from moving to Linux.
Valve has momentum because they are selling you a system with the OS already on it. Sell more gaming PCs with pre installed Linux on it and the support will follow. Valve’s first attempt at getting Linux based gaming hardware out there failed but that didn’t stop them and the real push is coming this time.
If you do install your OS (most people here have once or twice), try Bazzite out. I’m running it on the minisforum Bd790i with a radeon 7800xt and it works great!
Just bought a laptop and put bazzite on it to try it out and figure out if I can do all the things I want to do on it. If that all works out I’ll be switching my desktop over.
if you’re on Linux mint, check to see if mint itself is out of date. When I installed mint, the only install media I could find was 2 versions behind. Getting to the current version fixed my warframe problems.
Yeah I remember thr same thing. Everything else was suppose to be a package update.
But back-end technology and usage expectations change, and there’s a limit to what front-end changes an existing user tolerates. That was never a promise they could keep.
It has lasted a really long time, though. I don’t decry 11 existing. I’m upset they’re sunsetting 10 without giving us a chance to wait for 11 to get better, let alone for ‘oops we fixed the fuckups’ W12.
Can’t upgrade because my 4 years old mobo is apparently too old (haven’t checked out the workarounds yet). Installed Linux Mint to give it a try and I am positively surprised so far.
No complaints about Fedora KDE specifically. I’ve had it on my spare laptop since version 30 or so. Desktop is on 41 now. The only “issues” I’ve had running this full-time is lack of support for Fidelity Active Trader Pro (which kinda sucks anyway), I haven’t been able to make my bluetooth shipping label printer work yet, and I haven’t gotten my Logi MX Keys / Master S mouse working as it works in Logi Options (on windows or mac) to switch over to my work mac as intended. Otherwise, I prefer it to other distros I’ve used.
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Switch to Linux. As a big-time gamer, I did it last year and it’s been fantastic. Only issue is if you main games with root kit anticheat…but with enough momentum in Linux direction, game studios will be forced to abandon those dubious detection methods anyway.
Sadly I use way too many programs that only work on windows or Mac that Linux would handicap me. The free open source versions of yhe apps I use are no where near as capable.
My only option I can think of would be running a virtual machine of Win10 on a Linux install so I can still use those apps.
Would you mind sharing a couple of the names of the programs that only work on Windows for you? I’m a bit curious.
Not OP, but for another data point: recently I did quite a bit of Linux-related research on the three Adobe apps I use (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, in this order of prominence), and they are all reported as some level of broken via Wine and their Linux alternatives are missing important features and/or a pain in the arse to use :/
I’m not Tyler Bourbon, but it’s Fusion 360 for me. I sound like a broken record at this point, but it’s the only piece of software that keeps a windows install in my house
Hey Autodesk you should put F360 on Linux
FreeCad is getting much more capable, have you tried it?
I’m not the OP but I have a similar situation. I work in multimedia design and use a wide array of software from the full Adobe suite, to in-house command line apps, to the Articulate suite and everything in between.
I’d love to be on Linux but that just isn’t a possibility for me.
I’m a professional graphic designer that dumped Adobe years back and I’ve been able to keep working using open source design applications.
I mean, sure you can do this, but you have to also sympathize with the folks that have years if not decades of experience in a program/suite, and that experience is what they use to market themselves. Like, in a perfect world, everyone could make the switch to FOSS alternatives, but it’s not so cut and dry for those who can’t spend up to years of their personal time to just get back to being as efficient as they were with the other, just to not support a scummy company. I’ve been moving pretty much entirely over to FOSS for everything I do, but it’s been years in the making, and substantial effort on my part. And I have it easy, since I work in software development. We in the FOSS community can’t expect all others to do the same.
Unfortunately, any app that needs a GPU would be difficult to work with in a VM. You have to manually set up GPU-passthru, which requires figuring out the PCI addresses and whatnot of your card, along with using a terminal. As I understand it, this process also prevents you from using that GPU outside of the VM, which is cruddy.
I was hoping to have a Linux Mint + Windows 11 VM back in January, but that didn’t work out. I am hoping that the upcoming SteamOS Desktop would make Linux friendly enough for games that aren’t native to Steam, such as my GOG collection, Window 3.1 stuff like Stars!, modding, and assorted Japanese locale games.
SteamOS isn’t going to be the “Windows killer” people think it’ll be. I’m a massive Valve and Steam fan but SteamOS isn’t any better than any of the other major distros when it comes to gaming.
I think it’ll feel like pop os. Pretty much set up for gaming right out of the box, but anything deeper and you’re forced to touch the terminal. What I do think it has going for it however is the publicity of Steam, plus a promise on Steam’s part to continue to dump a bunch of resources in to making it a better experience. I’m not expecting mass migrations, but it will likely be what gets all the folks on the fence to switch over, at least among gamers
Terminal usage is inevitable with Linux. It’s not as scary as it seems and can actually create a sense of accomplishment when you use it. Pop is a solid distro for sure but you don’t need a “gaming distro” to game on Linux these days (not that Pop is a gaming distro specifically). There’s actually a Linux Experiment video where he proves this with a thorough test. All major distros work fine for gaming.
I encourage people to not go for SteamOS unless you’re setting up a PC you want to use solely as a home console, or if you’re flashing it to a different handheld.
That, all coming from a big Valve fan. I simply don’t think it’s a good idea for people to get their hopes up over SteamOS somehow being a no-terminal, peak gaming Linux experience. I also don’t think it’s a good idea to hold off until SteamOS gets its full PC release, because most major distros today will work just as well. It’d literally only benefit people to start learning Linux now so that by the full SteamOS launch, they’ll be more informed as to whether it’ll be something they’ll find useful enough to use as a daily driver.
I understand where you’re coming from. I myself prefer using a terminal for most things, and use arch (btw) for the PC I game on. I understand that learning Linux is the best move for folks, but I don’t see that being an option, at least initially, for people on the fence.
I know that, from a Linux user’s perspective, it is the wrong move, but I have plenty of friends that want a “no terminal, gaming ready” distro before they make the move. I see it more as a first step, removing the barrier for making the switch to Linux. Once they are already there, it’s much easier to convince themselves to learn Linux a bit deeper if needed over time.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just naive and hopeful, but there are a good number of my friends that I think will make the switch to Linux that wouldn’t have without SteamOS.
I get that, I just hope they don’t end up disappointed and go back to Winblows.
The way I see the root kit anticheat situation is that because Valve has their own Linux based OS, these companies making anticheat are probably going to end up tailoring it to whatever kernel Valve (or whatever the biggest/most widely used distro made by a large game corporation) uses to ensure people aren’t cheating.
With a kernel that can be swapped out for another with varying degrees of difficulty, why wouldn’t they just tailor their work to whatever the biggest corporate game company supporter of Linux is using? If SteamOS (or any other distro made by maybe someone like EA, heaven forbid) ends up becoming what these anticheat devs see as the defacto Linux distro for gaming, I guarantee they’ll probably just focus all their efforts on making sure SteamOS (or whatever it ends up being) works as best they can and hanging out everyone else to dry.
A real “Wanna run the latest CoD (or something similar) on your device? Make sure you use the kernel we say you have to use!” kinda situation is what I foresee happening.
There’s also an OpenBSD song with a few lines of lyrics that I think could sum up what could (and sadly most likely will) happen, in metaphorical Odyssey kind of way:
Though it’s definitely going to be more than 13 years.
Another big component that makes it hard to switch for some is also the fact that many programs and web apps won’t work on Linux.
As an example , if you use peacock on your browser to watch things like wrestling PLEs, peacock(and other services) straight up block Linux users.
It’s annoying when the product will work but it’s being gatekept by these greedy fucking companies.
This is likely easily remedied with an extension to tell Peacock you’re on a supported system. Artificial incompatibility.
It doesn’t work. I tried everything. User agent switching, etc.
Are they somehow able to detect the OS by something other than the user agent headers or have you tried changing your user agent?
I have no idea how they do it. I did try some addons to change my user agent but that doesn’t work. At least it with peacock.
Run a browser on wine, they are likely detecting from widevine itself. Or try this tutorial: https://thebrokenrail.com/2022/12/31/xfinity-stream-on-linux.html
I’ve been hard at trying to get games i like to work in mint. It takes a lit of time but it’s going ok. Like you said though kind of sucks for multi-player. I can’t even get diabolical multi-player to work (after I looked up how to fix the instant crashing audio driver issue) . It’s also a lot of qork getting any racing game to work with my DFGT…even though linux does see the axis and buttons, the force feedback is all messed up. Wish I knew how to code so I could fix these issues! But I don’t have 12 hours a day to ever learn that
Use Bazzite. It is a distro dedicated to gaming and user friendly for beginners. It still has some limitations but it is better compared to others when it comes to gaming. You don’t really require more tweaking unlike other distros to make games work.
This is the advice I came here looking for. I’m intimidated by the switch and have no time, but if there’s a distro that’s easy to get going, I’m there for it. I’ll check it out!
I just wasn’t sure fedora based (bazzite) would be as easy to troubleshoot as mint (Debian based) since arguably debian/Ubuntu are the most popular distro.
Another distro that’s easy to get going for gaming is Garuda.
Also, the easiest way to switch to any distro is to get a USB drive and install a program called Ventoy. Then you throw your install iso onto the Ventoy drive, boot from USB, and you’re good to go.
As a tip, pick up an external drive large enough for your Steam library. Then in Steam, you right click on each game and select Manage/Back up game files.
Doing it this way will save you days of downloading.
As somebody who’s been running it for about a year now, please look into Bazzite
Bazzite refused to boot for me…I stuck with mint as it’s always ran pretty good. Old amd fx 8 core and a Radeon rx580
I don’t know. If more devs start to support Linux, I probably will.
Neither.
I keep recommending BazziteOS but Jorge Castro over at the universal Blue project has a really good point “Most people don’t install their operating systems” and that plain fact is what stops people from moving to Linux.
Valve has momentum because they are selling you a system with the OS already on it. Sell more gaming PCs with pre installed Linux on it and the support will follow. Valve’s first attempt at getting Linux based gaming hardware out there failed but that didn’t stop them and the real push is coming this time.
If you do install your OS (most people here have once or twice), try Bazzite out. I’m running it on the minisforum Bd790i with a radeon 7800xt and it works great!
Bazzite ftw Bazzite
I am on Linux and won’t change to W11 for sure.
I too choose your path of not being tempted away from Linux by the lure of an ad-riddled Microsoft-account-locked expensive “upgrade” to Windows 11.
Never again, bye Microsoft Windows 😁 Hi GNU/Linux my new friend.
43% of Steam is still on Windows
10 with support…
Seems not so many.
And if they are ending in 7 month why bother.
Just put the lin
e break right, the
n it’s understanda
ble.
I got ahead of the game a little bit by switching to Linux in 2008.
Ah yes, back when Windows Vista and KDE 3 were the hot shit… laggy shit, but still hot…
Just bought a laptop and put bazzite on it to try it out and figure out if I can do all the things I want to do on it. If that all works out I’ll be switching my desktop over.
I’m using 10+ years old hardware, Microsoft has already told me I can’t upgrade, followed by several messages asking me to upgrade…
In other news, Linux Mint works nice and I just need to check Protondb to get Warframe running at frames per second and not seconds per frame
if you’re on Linux mint, check to see if mint itself is out of date. When I installed mint, the only install media I could find was 2 versions behind. Getting to the current version fixed my warframe problems.
Ill bet right before the deadline, they will magically make TPM optional, even though they said they wouldn’t.
I thought I read some time ago that Windoze 10 would be the last version of Windoze ever…
Well, it can be the last version of Windows for you. 🙂
Ubuntu is nice. I use it daily. Others in my family too. And there are other options too. I hear Mint is nice though I haven’t used it much.
Give it some thought. 🙂
Yeah I remember thr same thing. Everything else was suppose to be a package update.
But back-end technology and usage expectations change, and there’s a limit to what front-end changes an existing user tolerates. That was never a promise they could keep.
It has lasted a really long time, though. I don’t decry 11 existing. I’m upset they’re sunsetting 10 without giving us a chance to wait for 11 to get better, let alone for ‘oops we fixed the fuckups’ W12.
i remember it as “the last version of windows you’ll ever need” and they were absolutely correct.
Gonna have to.
I don’t mind it, just using w10 for simplicity’s sake.
Upgrade to win11 or change to Linux?
Linux of course.
Then all I can do is welcome you and wish for you to have a nice journey
Can’t upgrade because my 4 years old mobo is apparently too old (haven’t checked out the workarounds yet). Installed Linux Mint to give it a try and I am positively surprised so far.
I run Fedora KDE now, but I’m going to keep my Windows 10 install on Windows 10.
How are you finding it?
No complaints about Fedora KDE specifically. I’ve had it on my spare laptop since version 30 or so. Desktop is on 41 now. The only “issues” I’ve had running this full-time is lack of support for Fidelity Active Trader Pro (which kinda sucks anyway), I haven’t been able to make my bluetooth shipping label printer work yet, and I haven’t gotten my Logi MX Keys / Master S mouse working as it works in Logi Options (on windows or mac) to switch over to my work mac as intended. Otherwise, I prefer it to other distros I’ve used.
Thanks for the feedback - currently weighing up disros (was thinking mint, but a few folks have praised fedora KDE based distros now).