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.
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
Not to necro this thread, but lets say someone I know has gotten copy of a repack and when they try to install it with Lutris it says they don’t have enough disk space to run the installer, is it possible to create the wine bottle and specify the size of it before launching the installer?
I think that for most people linux is the most simple OS to use, switched my parents and sister computer to Linux Mint and they don’t ask me to help them with windows changing their browser or moving their icons every two weeks.
Though if you are trying to do anything more than web browsing, document editing and listening to music, you will have to learn how some of the os works.
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.
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
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. :(
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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!
I appreciate you taking the time to describe why you chose Fedora; now I’m tempted to try it, lol. I’m downloading the 38 Budgie spin now and adding it to the list. (It’ll run like shit with apps until I upgrade the RAM on my Macbook, but the minimum hardware reqs are met and I can still look at it and see what it does out of the box.) Thanks!
Good luck on your Linux journey! I’ve never tried the Bungie spin, but Fedora is a very solid distro and I bet it’ll work great. Those MacBooks with Linux are so nice! I ran a 2011 MBP with a mix of plain Debian and Ubuntu for awhile and the battery life on that thing was amazing!
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.
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.
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).
For me, there are a few work-specific tasks that require our Windows-only VPN client in order to perform them. Fortunately, the bulk of my job isn’t like that.
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
Not to necro this thread, but lets say someone I know has gotten copy of a repack and when they try to install it with Lutris it says they don’t have enough disk space to run the installer, is it possible to create the wine bottle and specify the size of it before launching the installer?
Are you installing it to the C drive? There’s directory called drive_c, which will look like a windows C drive.
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.
😏
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
Sure. I’ve run several modern … repurposed… games and it usually works through lutris.
yes but steam is so easy
Steam works on Linux.
yeah and it is very easy
Yes, but it will take some learning time
You could say this for almost any linux usability question lol
I think that for most people linux is the most simple OS to use, switched my parents and sister computer to Linux Mint and they don’t ask me to help them with windows changing their browser or moving their icons every two weeks. Though if you are trying to do anything more than web browsing, document editing and listening to music, you will have to learn how some of the os works.
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/
You’ll be just fine. So long as they fix the issues with anticheat software at some point. Gaming on linux is great these days in most cases though.
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.
I’m just hoping 12 is better… somehow… and soon? I loathe 11.
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.
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.
It can and will if you let it
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.
Also, MORE FILE SYSTEMS! NTFS is crap
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. 
If I may ask, what distro did you settle on? I’m trying out a handful myself right now.
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!
I appreciate you taking the time to describe why you chose Fedora; now I’m tempted to try it, lol. I’m downloading the 38 Budgie spin now and adding it to the list. (It’ll run like shit with apps until I upgrade the RAM on my Macbook, but the minimum hardware reqs are met and I can still look at it and see what it does out of the box.) Thanks!
Good luck on your Linux journey! I’ve never tried the Bungie spin, but Fedora is a very solid distro and I bet it’ll work great. Those MacBooks with Linux are so nice! I ran a 2011 MBP with a mix of plain Debian and Ubuntu for awhile and the battery life on that thing was amazing!
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.
@kescusay Just out of interest, what are the “special-purpose activities that can’t be done on my Linux laptop” if you don’t mind sharing?
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).
For me, there are a few work-specific tasks that require our Windows-only VPN client in order to perform them. Fortunately, the bulk of my job isn’t like that.
Ironically enough, some of the Linux certification exams only work on Windows and macOS.
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.
CSGO. all those anti cheat clients are kernel level and only work on windows AFAIK