It’s truly ridiculous how much Linux gaming leapfrogged with the Steam Deck. I’m contemplating installing a debian partition for my main PC since I don’t really play a lot of games that need anti-cheat.
It’s a very general advice, but for gaming rolling release distros are usually best. Gaming community on Linux usually favors Fedora or Arch-based distros.
I installed Fedora on a seperate SSD, and I now dual-boot alongside Windows 11. It took a bit of time and tweaking until I felt comfortable with using Fedora as my daily driver, but it’s been great.
Everything is smooth and fast, and I have all the apps I need. Well, almost. I subscribe to Game Pass, and have a couple of Steam games that don’t run on Linux, so I have to boot into Windows when I want to play those games. Other than that, it’s all great.
Is really just:
1 - Install any Linux Distro
2 - See if you have the drivers for your hardware already installed
3 - Install Steam
4 - Change the setting for Enable Steam Play on Steam
5 - Download the game and play it.
Of course, like in windows, something could go wrong and you need to tinker a little bit to fix it but for the vast majority is just like that.
Just adding: if you have an AMD GPU, the drivers are now included in the Linux kernel, so there is no manual install needed for those. For nvidia, you do still have to jump through some install hoops.
The easiest way is to install Steam on your Linux distribution of choice. Next you activate steam play in the steam settings to use the proton compability tool which allows playing windows games on Linux. You can check ProtonDB to see how well your game should work and see if tinkering or additional settings might be needed. A lot of steam games will just work. If you don’t want to use steam, you can also try Lutris or Wine directly, but this approach will need ALOT more setting up and tinkering.
Linux gaming will sometimes cost you more effort but I think it’s worth it to get away from Microsoft and have my freedom to set up my system how I like. Feel free to ask if you have more questions.
Been a Linux-only gamer for a year now. The hype is real and PC gaming has changed forever. Most people just hesitate to actually leave Windows behind, but the grass on the other side is much, much greener.
I made the switch and everything I want to play works. Some of it needed a bit of tweaking, though. Luckily instructions exist, and some began working with new Proton updates. It’s a good time to be a gamer on Linux.
I just hope feature parity happens before MS make their move to reduce windows pcs to literally zero clients that simply stream ´your´ OS to your screen from the cloud.
Don’t need a pc for much but god damn if I don’t want to play my games on my pic when I want. Online, offline, whatever.
It’s pretty much at parity. The only straggler I am aware of is ray tracing on the AMD side (supported on their driver package, but not yet with the driver included in the Linux kernel). I never use it anyway because I have a 6600 XT and don’t want to play a slideshow.
The more steam deck and proton get games working on linux, the less need I have for this bloated windows.
It’s truly ridiculous how much Linux gaming leapfrogged with the Steam Deck. I’m contemplating installing a debian partition for my main PC since I don’t really play a lot of games that need anti-cheat.
The madlads really did it.
It’s a very general advice, but for gaming rolling release distros are usually best. Gaming community on Linux usually favors Fedora or Arch-based distros.
I installed Fedora on a seperate SSD, and I now dual-boot alongside Windows 11. It took a bit of time and tweaking until I felt comfortable with using Fedora as my daily driver, but it’s been great.
Everything is smooth and fast, and I have all the apps I need. Well, almost. I subscribe to Game Pass, and have a couple of Steam games that don’t run on Linux, so I have to boot into Windows when I want to play those games. Other than that, it’s all great.
Yeah gamers are 95% good to switch.
Gamers and microshit have incompetiable values.
If devs started making anticheat for Linux it would get closer.
If they stopped making launchers it would be easier too.
how do i game on linux without a steam deck? (for windows games)
Is really just: 1 - Install any Linux Distro 2 - See if you have the drivers for your hardware already installed 3 - Install Steam 4 - Change the setting for Enable Steam Play on Steam 5 - Download the game and play it.
Of course, like in windows, something could go wrong and you need to tinker a little bit to fix it but for the vast majority is just like that.
Just adding: if you have an AMD GPU, the drivers are now included in the Linux kernel, so there is no manual install needed for those. For nvidia, you do still have to jump through some install hoops.
The easiest way is to install Steam on your Linux distribution of choice. Next you activate steam play in the steam settings to use the proton compability tool which allows playing windows games on Linux. You can check ProtonDB to see how well your game should work and see if tinkering or additional settings might be needed. A lot of steam games will just work. If you don’t want to use steam, you can also try Lutris or Wine directly, but this approach will need ALOT more setting up and tinkering.
Linux gaming will sometimes cost you more effort but I think it’s worth it to get away from Microsoft and have my freedom to set up my system how I like. Feel free to ask if you have more questions.
Been a Linux-only gamer for a year now. The hype is real and PC gaming has changed forever. Most people just hesitate to actually leave Windows behind, but the grass on the other side is much, much greener.
I made the switch and everything I want to play works. Some of it needed a bit of tweaking, though. Luckily instructions exist, and some began working with new Proton updates. It’s a good time to be a gamer on Linux.
I just hope feature parity happens before MS make their move to reduce windows pcs to literally zero clients that simply stream ´your´ OS to your screen from the cloud.
Don’t need a pc for much but god damn if I don’t want to play my games on my pic when I want. Online, offline, whatever.
It’s pretty much at parity. The only straggler I am aware of is ray tracing on the AMD side (supported on their driver package, but not yet with the driver included in the Linux kernel). I never use it anyway because I have a 6600 XT and don’t want to play a slideshow.