64bitmodels
Reverse groomer.
I've been using Windows for years and while it's never really dissatisfied me, I always liked the idea of having more control and customization over my OS, for it to truly be mine. Plus, when everyone on the internet is gushing over how good Linux is you sort of have to try it out. Not to mention that there isn't really any thread on GAF explaining whether this OS is viable, it's brought up in Windows threads every once in a blue moon but no one actually has the cajones to make a thread on if it's good or not.
So, with assistance of my Linux friend who recommended me Nobara Linux for gaming (a Fedora based OS that comes with a ton of gaming software preinstalled and is finetuned to make gaming easier. It's made by the same guy who created Proton-GE), I've now been dualbooting Windows 11 and Nobara Linux for a week now. The majority of my games and data are still located on my Windows Drives, and whether they'll migrate to Linux or stay on Windows is a coin toss depending on compatibility, ease of use, and if in general i just like the OS more or not. Me uninstalling Windows from my drives though is extremely unlikely, as I went in knowing that Linux would not be 100% compatible
One thing I must say though.. Linux gaming works best with AMD or Intel GPUs. Nvidia's proprietary drivers i've heard are missing features & perform worse than on Windows. If you own an Nvidia GPU you're better off staying on Windows until Nvidia can get their shit together and open source their for Linux users to modify and clean up. Also for AMD guys, Adrenalin Edition is not available on Linux at all. ReLive is supported though.
This is also JUST a week's worth of experience with the OS so do take everything I say here with a grain of salt. Problems I may have faced when writing this thread would have probably been fixed later down the line, not to mention that this thread is exclusive to gaming and general user experience browsing, listening to music, and installing mods- productivity and creative apps are NOT considered here. Linux is evolving and changing like all operating systems.
I will return to this thread months down the line to give an update on this whole Linux thing BTW, to evaluate changes
I'm also color coding all my thoughts, green is positive, yellow is mixed, red is negative.
Don't use Ubuntu. If you want to, use an offshoot like Mint or Pop_OS. Ubuntu has become extremely greedy and now makes major attempts to lock people into their ecosystem and force them into their inferior package distribution software called snap. Not to mention they're inheriting a lot of the greedy practices in Microsoft. It's bad.
TLDR at the end, i list off the pros and cons
Finally, if you're using a wifi card or adapter you're going to have a terrible first installation. Many distros don't come with wifi drivers and out of the box only support ethernet. You'll have to hook your PC up to the router or your phone to connect to the internet and install drivers. Whether or not this is different for mobos that have built in Wifi, it's certainly something to look out for.
Anyways....
I spent most of my time getting shit set up and installing a couple games to test shit out with, mainly on Steam. Every Steam game I've tested works flawlessly granted you're not installing it on an NTFS drive which Linux cannot read.
BeamNG ran about as decently as it did on Windows (so like trash, LOL) And while I had some problems installing BeamMP it eventually installed and I was able to play the game online and partake in some destruction derbies.
Risk of Rain 2 had some scaling issues when I put stuff at fullscreen (I was using Wayland scaling, Xorg apparently is far more developed so I switched to that) but afterwards the game ran perfectly
Titanfall 2 Northstar also works well, and installing it was easier than BeamMP, There's a version of Proton configured exclusively for Titanfall 2 Northstar. You install it, configure the compatibilty tool to run Northstar, and then you win. The game runs.
I accidentally installed Arkham Asylum onto my Windows Drives but once I migrated it to Linux and ran it ran perfectly. Even mods worked as well, added one that changed the perspective from over the shoulder to just middle of the screen third person.
Elden Ring is a standout case since while the Windows version is home to stutters and low performance thanks to the terrible port and DX12 kind of sucking, DXVK manages to significantly improve the performance to the point where on Windows @ 1440p high settings i'd hover from 40-60 fps, on Linux it's a locked 60 with almost 0 framedips- the game overall objectively performs better on Linux.
Spelunky 2 ran well, Pizza Tower ran well, DMCV ran well... Steam games are a hole in one for this OS and if that's all you care about the experience is virtually indistinguishable from Windows, which makes sense. The Steam Deck's launch a year ago (time flies fast, lol) means that Steam's interface and user experience on Steam has improved drastically and games are getting to the point now where they just work. If only I had that luck with non-Steam games though.
If you want to go through the displeasure of making non-Steam games work on Linux, be sure to install Lutris (if it isn't already installed) as it's a great tool for cataloging your library, installing GOG and Epic games. Also, be sure to install Proton-GE via Proton UpQT as that's a great tool for updating proton versions, and Proton-GE is also just objectively superior to regular proton in compatibility
To get this out of the way, Outrun 2006 and Sonic and the Fallen Star (a fangame based off of... well, Sonic) worked with 0 flaws and those are the 2 games from unofficial sources I can think of that work well. GOG games too like Sands of Time and Splinter Cell work out of the box as well, so long if you're installing them from Lutris and not from the GOG website as those executable installers ran through wine can have some issues.
I play quite a lot of unofficial games, fangames, cracked stuff, the works. They work like SHIT on this OS. It's a toss in the air for when you'll be able to play them or not.
Kingdom Hearts for example, I had got the games from uh... lets say, unknown sources. On Windows they work flawlessly besides a few crashes. On Linux it's hell. You try to launch the EXE only to get met with deafening silence.
EDIT: THIS IS ALL NOW FIXED. KH WORKS PERFECTLY ON LINUX NOW THANKS TO SOME TUTORIALS I FOLLOWED. EVERYTHING CAN WORK ON THIS OS IF YOU GIVE IT SOME TIME & RESEARCH
Same for Spiderman too, does not launch in Proton, Wine, Proton-GE it is impossible. Maybe Spiderman will work on Linux if you buy the games on Steam, and Kingdom Hearts probably works if you own the games on epic and Install them via Lutris... but cracked games just don't work every well on Linux.
SMBX2, an engine for developing 2d Mario games does not work either. World Select and Level Editor works, the game does not. Weird as hell too, since everyone else claims that SMBX2 works with no issues and is one of the best versions for Linux. Just goes to show YMMV.
Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition spruces up the game to the point where it's the definitive way to play the game, PS2 effects missing were restored, widescreen and modern controller support were added, the game works best this way. On Linux you can launch the EXE but it'll only give you the normal ass 2000s exe with none of the enhancements and all of the bugs. Ick. I've heard that there's a way to get it installing and running on Linux through wine, but my current Windows installation ripped directly to my Linux drive just doesn't cut it
Honestly for these types of games you either reboot to your windows installation or use a virtual machine. Compatibility is spotty at best.
As for the general UX, this is based off of Cinnamon since that's the DE I've spent the most time using Linux on. You can change the DE to another one if you're not super into what is given by default, which is really fucking cool considering that most OSes pretty much stick you with what they give you. It's really good. If you're familiar with Windows, especially Windows before 8, it's practically a functional improvement on those old fashioned desktop environment interfaces. You can customize shortcuts, set hot corners for the edges of the screen, custom themes if you don't like the default, customize sounds, everything about the GUI can be tuned exactly to your liking. I made my installation look like Windows XP, and I dubbed it LinuXP.
UI wise it's the direction Windows long should have gone in the 2010s.
This is when you're able to use the GUI and avoid the terminal. When you have to get into the terminal.... It's actually really fucking cool! Downloading stuff from the net is shockingly fast and responsive. Errors will happen but they can be fixed, updating packages and stuff is really useful, it's a beautiful blend of the command line interfaces of yesteryear and the GUIs that dominate the 21st century. I can see why quite a lot of the community obsesses over the terminal when it's this fast and responsive... when you know the commands, at least.
The issue is that you gotta learn a lot of commands and new terminology. At times it can be finnicky since you're operating on commands which really don't have any room for error. Make a minor mistake and the terminal will spit out that it can't find the command or the directory. You are learning a brand new OS without training wheels and the adjustment period is going to have a lot of errors and compatibility issues. Just deal with it, it gets better once you become more experienced with Linux.
Not to mention that the file structure of everything contained in the OS is uh.... complicated.
Whereas on Windows, you can easily find your installed programs in program files, app data and save files in Appdata or Documents, and the actual Registry and OS in the Windows folder, Linux does not care about that sort of simplicity and familiarity. The file structure is weird.
You'll find program files sometimes in usr/bin, sometimes in usr/local, usr/app, shit is not consistent and you will be confused. The folders are heavily abbreviated and aren't easy to understand at a glance, and they're usually filled with a bunch of essential stuff that's powering the OS which means any wrong move could easily fuck up a package in your installation, or even the entire OS itself.
This, combined with the fact that Wine's prefixes create a sort of microcosm of the Windows directories to ensure the games work correctly, means that installing mods that don't just come from the Steam workshop and configuring files in your save files, game directories, etc is kind of hell. It's a bunch of stuff you WILL have to learn about Linux before you get the true hang of it, but it can be confusing as fuck. That being said, once you DO get it working, it works, and you can expect the OS not to break stuff since it's at your beck and command. There are times where Windows has broken some drivers like AMD ReLive due to Windows Update being a bitch, meanwhile nothing on Linux has broke. Everything that changes on Linux is a result of YOUR actions and not what Microsoft sneakily does to your PC while it's off.
The OS also does not use up many resources like Windows does, too. Windows at idle can use up to 4.6 gb of my 16gb ram
whereas Linux on idle uses....3.
It uses up to 6 gb of ram with 5 tabs of Firefox, Discord and Steam in the background.
Windows uses that same amount with 2 tabs of Firefox, Discord and Steam on in the background.
Speaking of, while it can take forever for Discord and Steam to turn on and start working, on Linux.... they open before you can even blink. And they run quite fast. Meanwhile Steam can freeze whenever you launch a game on Windows
On startup, my computer WHIRRS and BLOWS like a jet engine on Windows. on Linux.... Silence. shit turns on and then you're left with pure SILENCE. It's a very efficiently optimized OS and it's no wonder that it was used over Windows for the Steam Deck. To be fair, this is a 11 month old Windows install going up against a 1 week old Linux install so do take these with a grain of salt.. but i said what i said. it's real nice
So in summary, here are the pros and cons of Linux.
Pros:
Efficiently optimized, no TPM requirement and has low system requirements
Cinnamon has a great UI that's well fit for desktop environments, but if you want to use something else the choice is readily available for you
Most desktop environments are extremely customizable, you can truly personalize your PC
Compatibility has gotten significantly better since the Steam Deck and most Steam games just run
Games run like butter and can sometimes run better than Windows depending on the API
Terminal makes installing packages and software safe and fast
Lower risk of viruses due to Linux being less popular
A lot of windows's proprietary software has FOSS alternatives on Linux that are more community driven and in touch
Cons:
Many things that were set up out of the box for Windows are missing on Linux
Not EVERYTHING works like how it is on Windows
weird file structure that makes finding directories to stuff confusing
Terminal can be daunting and unfamiliar to people who've been doing this GUI thing for years
Not everything works and it's usually the obscure stuff so prepare to use a VM at times
bad support for Nvidia GPUs
There we go. I've been making this gargantuan post for a week now and I'm glad it's done.
Will I (FULLY) switch? No, not now. I've still got a lot of stuff on Windows and for as many issues that OS has, it's pretty convenient and set up out of the box. With Linux, you can only attain that convenience once you've tinkered and modified the OS quite a bit to the point where everything's in place and shit just works. And you also need to gain knowledge of how the OS works, that's a big un too.
However if you want to use it to replace Windows 10/11 for gaming, go for it dude. It works, performs better, doesn't ask much from your system (no TPM bullshit either), doesn't spy on you, and is overall a great alternative. It's come a long way these days and a lot of stuff does work out of the box.
Like I said, I'll be coming back here in a couple months to see if this Linux thing really stuck with me or not. By then I'd have far more experience with the OS and its inner workings
Happy Gaming, GAF!
So, with assistance of my Linux friend who recommended me Nobara Linux for gaming (a Fedora based OS that comes with a ton of gaming software preinstalled and is finetuned to make gaming easier. It's made by the same guy who created Proton-GE), I've now been dualbooting Windows 11 and Nobara Linux for a week now. The majority of my games and data are still located on my Windows Drives, and whether they'll migrate to Linux or stay on Windows is a coin toss depending on compatibility, ease of use, and if in general i just like the OS more or not. Me uninstalling Windows from my drives though is extremely unlikely, as I went in knowing that Linux would not be 100% compatible
One thing I must say though.. Linux gaming works best with AMD or Intel GPUs. Nvidia's proprietary drivers i've heard are missing features & perform worse than on Windows. If you own an Nvidia GPU you're better off staying on Windows until Nvidia can get their shit together and open source their for Linux users to modify and clean up. Also for AMD guys, Adrenalin Edition is not available on Linux at all. ReLive is supported though.
This is also JUST a week's worth of experience with the OS so do take everything I say here with a grain of salt. Problems I may have faced when writing this thread would have probably been fixed later down the line, not to mention that this thread is exclusive to gaming and general user experience browsing, listening to music, and installing mods- productivity and creative apps are NOT considered here. Linux is evolving and changing like all operating systems.
I will return to this thread months down the line to give an update on this whole Linux thing BTW, to evaluate changes
I'm also color coding all my thoughts, green is positive, yellow is mixed, red is negative.
Don't use Ubuntu. If you want to, use an offshoot like Mint or Pop_OS. Ubuntu has become extremely greedy and now makes major attempts to lock people into their ecosystem and force them into their inferior package distribution software called snap. Not to mention they're inheriting a lot of the greedy practices in Microsoft. It's bad.
TLDR at the end, i list off the pros and cons
Finally, if you're using a wifi card or adapter you're going to have a terrible first installation. Many distros don't come with wifi drivers and out of the box only support ethernet. You'll have to hook your PC up to the router or your phone to connect to the internet and install drivers. Whether or not this is different for mobos that have built in Wifi, it's certainly something to look out for.
Anyways....
I spent most of my time getting shit set up and installing a couple games to test shit out with, mainly on Steam. Every Steam game I've tested works flawlessly granted you're not installing it on an NTFS drive which Linux cannot read.
BeamNG ran about as decently as it did on Windows (so like trash, LOL) And while I had some problems installing BeamMP it eventually installed and I was able to play the game online and partake in some destruction derbies.
Risk of Rain 2 had some scaling issues when I put stuff at fullscreen (I was using Wayland scaling, Xorg apparently is far more developed so I switched to that) but afterwards the game ran perfectly
Titanfall 2 Northstar also works well, and installing it was easier than BeamMP, There's a version of Proton configured exclusively for Titanfall 2 Northstar. You install it, configure the compatibilty tool to run Northstar, and then you win. The game runs.
I accidentally installed Arkham Asylum onto my Windows Drives but once I migrated it to Linux and ran it ran perfectly. Even mods worked as well, added one that changed the perspective from over the shoulder to just middle of the screen third person.
Elden Ring is a standout case since while the Windows version is home to stutters and low performance thanks to the terrible port and DX12 kind of sucking, DXVK manages to significantly improve the performance to the point where on Windows @ 1440p high settings i'd hover from 40-60 fps, on Linux it's a locked 60 with almost 0 framedips- the game overall objectively performs better on Linux.
Spelunky 2 ran well, Pizza Tower ran well, DMCV ran well... Steam games are a hole in one for this OS and if that's all you care about the experience is virtually indistinguishable from Windows, which makes sense. The Steam Deck's launch a year ago (time flies fast, lol) means that Steam's interface and user experience on Steam has improved drastically and games are getting to the point now where they just work. If only I had that luck with non-Steam games though.
If you want to go through the displeasure of making non-Steam games work on Linux, be sure to install Lutris (if it isn't already installed) as it's a great tool for cataloging your library, installing GOG and Epic games. Also, be sure to install Proton-GE via Proton UpQT as that's a great tool for updating proton versions, and Proton-GE is also just objectively superior to regular proton in compatibility
To get this out of the way, Outrun 2006 and Sonic and the Fallen Star (a fangame based off of... well, Sonic) worked with 0 flaws and those are the 2 games from unofficial sources I can think of that work well. GOG games too like Sands of Time and Splinter Cell work out of the box as well, so long if you're installing them from Lutris and not from the GOG website as those executable installers ran through wine can have some issues.
I play quite a lot of unofficial games, fangames, cracked stuff, the works. They work like SHIT on this OS. It's a toss in the air for when you'll be able to play them or not.
EDIT: THIS IS ALL NOW FIXED. KH WORKS PERFECTLY ON LINUX NOW THANKS TO SOME TUTORIALS I FOLLOWED. EVERYTHING CAN WORK ON THIS OS IF YOU GIVE IT SOME TIME & RESEARCH
Same for Spiderman too, does not launch in Proton, Wine, Proton-GE it is impossible. Maybe Spiderman will work on Linux if you buy the games on Steam, and Kingdom Hearts probably works if you own the games on epic and Install them via Lutris... but cracked games just don't work every well on Linux.
SMBX2, an engine for developing 2d Mario games does not work either. World Select and Level Editor works, the game does not. Weird as hell too, since everyone else claims that SMBX2 works with no issues and is one of the best versions for Linux. Just goes to show YMMV.
Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition spruces up the game to the point where it's the definitive way to play the game, PS2 effects missing were restored, widescreen and modern controller support were added, the game works best this way. On Linux you can launch the EXE but it'll only give you the normal ass 2000s exe with none of the enhancements and all of the bugs. Ick. I've heard that there's a way to get it installing and running on Linux through wine, but my current Windows installation ripped directly to my Linux drive just doesn't cut it
Honestly for these types of games you either reboot to your windows installation or use a virtual machine. Compatibility is spotty at best.
As for the general UX, this is based off of Cinnamon since that's the DE I've spent the most time using Linux on. You can change the DE to another one if you're not super into what is given by default, which is really fucking cool considering that most OSes pretty much stick you with what they give you. It's really good. If you're familiar with Windows, especially Windows before 8, it's practically a functional improvement on those old fashioned desktop environment interfaces. You can customize shortcuts, set hot corners for the edges of the screen, custom themes if you don't like the default, customize sounds, everything about the GUI can be tuned exactly to your liking. I made my installation look like Windows XP, and I dubbed it LinuXP.
UI wise it's the direction Windows long should have gone in the 2010s.
This is when you're able to use the GUI and avoid the terminal. When you have to get into the terminal.... It's actually really fucking cool! Downloading stuff from the net is shockingly fast and responsive. Errors will happen but they can be fixed, updating packages and stuff is really useful, it's a beautiful blend of the command line interfaces of yesteryear and the GUIs that dominate the 21st century. I can see why quite a lot of the community obsesses over the terminal when it's this fast and responsive... when you know the commands, at least.
The issue is that you gotta learn a lot of commands and new terminology. At times it can be finnicky since you're operating on commands which really don't have any room for error. Make a minor mistake and the terminal will spit out that it can't find the command or the directory. You are learning a brand new OS without training wheels and the adjustment period is going to have a lot of errors and compatibility issues. Just deal with it, it gets better once you become more experienced with Linux.
Not to mention that the file structure of everything contained in the OS is uh.... complicated.
Whereas on Windows, you can easily find your installed programs in program files, app data and save files in Appdata or Documents, and the actual Registry and OS in the Windows folder, Linux does not care about that sort of simplicity and familiarity. The file structure is weird.
You'll find program files sometimes in usr/bin, sometimes in usr/local, usr/app, shit is not consistent and you will be confused. The folders are heavily abbreviated and aren't easy to understand at a glance, and they're usually filled with a bunch of essential stuff that's powering the OS which means any wrong move could easily fuck up a package in your installation, or even the entire OS itself.
This, combined with the fact that Wine's prefixes create a sort of microcosm of the Windows directories to ensure the games work correctly, means that installing mods that don't just come from the Steam workshop and configuring files in your save files, game directories, etc is kind of hell. It's a bunch of stuff you WILL have to learn about Linux before you get the true hang of it, but it can be confusing as fuck. That being said, once you DO get it working, it works, and you can expect the OS not to break stuff since it's at your beck and command. There are times where Windows has broken some drivers like AMD ReLive due to Windows Update being a bitch, meanwhile nothing on Linux has broke. Everything that changes on Linux is a result of YOUR actions and not what Microsoft sneakily does to your PC while it's off.
The OS also does not use up many resources like Windows does, too. Windows at idle can use up to 4.6 gb of my 16gb ram
whereas Linux on idle uses....3.
It uses up to 6 gb of ram with 5 tabs of Firefox, Discord and Steam in the background.
Windows uses that same amount with 2 tabs of Firefox, Discord and Steam on in the background.
Speaking of, while it can take forever for Discord and Steam to turn on and start working, on Linux.... they open before you can even blink. And they run quite fast. Meanwhile Steam can freeze whenever you launch a game on Windows
On startup, my computer WHIRRS and BLOWS like a jet engine on Windows. on Linux.... Silence. shit turns on and then you're left with pure SILENCE. It's a very efficiently optimized OS and it's no wonder that it was used over Windows for the Steam Deck. To be fair, this is a 11 month old Windows install going up against a 1 week old Linux install so do take these with a grain of salt.. but i said what i said. it's real nice
So in summary, here are the pros and cons of Linux.
Pros:
Efficiently optimized, no TPM requirement and has low system requirements
Cinnamon has a great UI that's well fit for desktop environments, but if you want to use something else the choice is readily available for you
Most desktop environments are extremely customizable, you can truly personalize your PC
Compatibility has gotten significantly better since the Steam Deck and most Steam games just run
Games run like butter and can sometimes run better than Windows depending on the API
Terminal makes installing packages and software safe and fast
Lower risk of viruses due to Linux being less popular
A lot of windows's proprietary software has FOSS alternatives on Linux that are more community driven and in touch
Cons:
Many things that were set up out of the box for Windows are missing on Linux
Not EVERYTHING works like how it is on Windows
weird file structure that makes finding directories to stuff confusing
Terminal can be daunting and unfamiliar to people who've been doing this GUI thing for years
Not everything works and it's usually the obscure stuff so prepare to use a VM at times
bad support for Nvidia GPUs
There we go. I've been making this gargantuan post for a week now and I'm glad it's done.
Will I (FULLY) switch? No, not now. I've still got a lot of stuff on Windows and for as many issues that OS has, it's pretty convenient and set up out of the box. With Linux, you can only attain that convenience once you've tinkered and modified the OS quite a bit to the point where everything's in place and shit just works. And you also need to gain knowledge of how the OS works, that's a big un too.
However if you want to use it to replace Windows 10/11 for gaming, go for it dude. It works, performs better, doesn't ask much from your system (no TPM bullshit either), doesn't spy on you, and is overall a great alternative. It's come a long way these days and a lot of stuff does work out of the box.
Like I said, I'll be coming back here in a couple months to see if this Linux thing really stuck with me or not. By then I'd have far more experience with the OS and its inner workings
Happy Gaming, GAF!
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