I installed Debian + KDE on my mom’s laptop. She hasn’t had a complaint since. How tech-savvy is she, you ask? I’m sitting with her right now, so out of politeness she put on headphones to watch her favorite soap opera. Mind you, the headphones weren’t plugged into the laptop. She was sitting there, headphones on her head, sound coming through the speakers, watching her soaps like this is how it’s meant to be done.
She was sitting there, headphones on her head, sound coming through the speakers, watching her soaps like this is how it’s meant to be done.
So we have to never do this to be considered tech savvy? Asking for a friend…
Mine too, since approx. 10 years already. No real complaints and overall tech-support work-load has been massively reduced. Only the nagging of Zoom to install an app has been a bit of a headache; it exists for Linux but isn’t auto-updated from the repositories, and in general using Zoom in the browser works fine, but this option is quite hidden as a dark-pattern. Yeah, I wish her various online-conferences would use something else, but here we are…
My dad doesn’t seem to know the difference between left and right clicking, but I installed Lubuntu to give new life to his old 2-in-1 laptop and he was pretty happy with it.
The only downside I’ve seen is that it doesn’t do “tablet mode” anymore, and the touchscreen is much less functional.
My dad uses NixOS. My dad knows precisely nothing about computers; just ask him, he’ll tell you. I figure, since he’s gonna call me for free tech support no matter what operating system he has, anyway, I might as well make everything as reproducible as possible for my own sake. I tried putting Debian testing on his computer, and honestly, that was actually pretty good except that I had to update it for him at least once a week in order to keep everything running smoothly, lol.
How does Linux handle steam and games?
Personally, a solid 8/10. Steam is probably the best experience if you are playing Steam games but there are also other third party launches that can handle Epic games and GOG and others.
Some games run natively but most will be using Wine, or Steam’s implementation Proton. If you have issues, you can check out tinker steps on https://www.protondb.com (and also check there before buying a game to see if others have been running it fine).
The vast majority of games work out of the box, some need some tweaks, and I don’t think I’ve come across any that I wanted to play that don’t work at all.
Steam Deck and Steam’s investment in linux has really been a game changer in this space.
No joke. I’ve been blown away by what my old used Steam Deck is capable of to the point that I’ve already decided that I’m done with Windows. I’ll probably build a new PC soon (my 2015 laptop is only about as powerful as the Steam Deck) and I’m currently favoring Nobara as my replacement OS when I pull the trigger on parts and get started building. As somebody else pointed out, some games like Call of Duty use kernel based anticheat so only Windows will work for those games, but the only competitive online multiplayer game I ever play is Rocket League and that works pretty well on my Steam Deck as is. If you’re already a PC gamer, you’re used to having to do some troubleshooting here and there, and it seems like it’s maybe 1-5% more work to troubleshoot those occasional issues when you’re running Linux. I’m not a computer whiz or anything, just semi decent at eventually figuring out logic. If you can figure out how to get a Lemmy account and use an app for it on your phone, you can figure out gaming on Linux.
I don’t think I’ve come across any that I wanted to play that don’t work at all.
The main ones that don’t work are the ones with kernel-level Anticheat. The one exception is Easy Anticheat. They made a way for that one to work.
So that will mostly be multiplayer games like COD, Destiny 2, Overwatch, etc. And EA is making a push to switch their games to their proprietary anticheat which doesn’t work on Linux. So I think Battlefield is now on that list as well.
If those games aren’t the types of games you play, then you should be mostly fine.
I normally buy games without even looking whether they support Linux. On the extremely rare occasion that a Steam game doesn’t run on Debian, I’ll just get a refund. Sometimes I feel like I should stick to Linux native games on Steam, to send a message that Linux gamers exist - but then there’s sure to be something that I just can’t live without on the Windows side.
It’s fantastic. I’ve been 100% Linux for gaming for 2 years now.
A favorite story of mine is the Elden Ring release. On Linux, the PC version didn’t have the microstutters it had on Windows, and it was entirely due to shader precaching on Steam/Proton. There are other times where performance is better on Linux also (and this is for Windows versions of games), not the least of which being lower overhead.
Mind you, nvidia does still lead to some driver issues for some. AMD is kind of where you want to be for easy Linux gaming.
Really well. I’ve been playing Cyberpunk 2077 in Linux on my PC without issue, and plenty of other games on it, my Steam Deck and now a living room mini PC.
A combination of steam (and Proton), Wine and Heroic launcher (for GOG, Epic and toeht stores), plus tech like Vulkan, makes most PC gaming viable in Linux.
There remain some games that don’t work but generally they get tweaked into working with a newer version of Proton. Windows-reliant anticheat software seems to be an issue though if you like competitive fps type games.
Depends, if you want to play online, tough luck. Most anticheats refuse to work with Linux, the smaller games probably work fine, but if it’s somewhat mainstream (fortnite, valorant, cod, rainbow six, etc) it probably won’t work. ProtonDB has a great list.
Interesting…I play online literally all the time, including Elden Ring and Armored Core 6, both of which have EAC. No Man’s Sky’s multiplayer has worked BETTER for me on Linux than it did on Windows. So what is this “tough luck”? What distro do you use? I use Fedora 39 (KDE Plasma spin) and I have ZERO issues. But that’s because I use the Fedora package from Discovery, not the flatpak version of Steam. Flatpak has serious issues with EAC because of the sandboxing.
I can’t speak for other distros, but I use Fedora (KDE Plasma spin) and it has worked flawlessly with my entire Steam library, which includes quite a few very old, never-going-to-be-optimized-for-Steam-Deck titles. The only “issue” I have had is that if I put my system to Sleep, I have to unplug and re-plug my controller (I use wired for low latency and a stable connection/no batteries dying) for it to function again. It’s probably just a setting I’ve been too lazy to locate, though.
HOWEVER, I will tell you that you may have difficulty getting Steam going, simply because only one person, buried in the reviews on Discovery has given proper instructions on how to get it going. It’s really stupid, too, because it’s the easiest thing in the world (simply untick the box for accelerated graphics in the advanced app settings of the Steam app). If you do go with Fedora KDE Plasma, DO NOT use the flatpak, use the Fedora distributed app that’s in Discovery. The flatpak version has issues with Easy Anti Cheat and recognizing controllers, and while there supposedly are fixes/workarounds, why piss around with something when there’s a version that works much better and more easily?
Anyway, just do it. I was quite apprehensive about fully switching (I can’t afford a new computer if I fuck this one up), but I ended up HAVING to switch (Windows is a fucking piece of shit) and man, it was the best thing I ever did. Just try a few distros before you settle in, see how you like the way they work and what they can do. There are countless communities, forums, discords, blogs, videos, etc., out there, so you won’t be alone in your quest for a good computer system.
