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Linux gamers? If so, what games?
Curious how many of you use Linux as your main gaming OS? I started 3 years ago and switched to Arch about a year and a half ago.
I play a lot of total war (mainly historical). Recently got into Isonzo which has been a lot of fun.
I have switched to Linux almost 15 years ago. It was rough to play games at first. I used Wine for some, I found open source ports of other (shout out Jagged Alliance 2 Stracciatella!) or played native games like Spring RTS (Total Annihilation style).
Then Steam for Linux came out and I have bought a few Linux games to show support, but my first really big one was Metro: Last Light in 2013 or 14 I believe. Since then I bought a game here and there and kinda got into playing on Linux.
Then Proton came and I can play whatever I want! I prefer singleplayer games, so I'm not bothered by anti-cheat not working...
Then Steam Deck came with SteamOS built on top of Arch and here we are today - linux gaming on the rise.
I don't use Arch, btw! I'm Gentoo masochist! Well, I guess I use Arch on Steam Deck, though.
EDIT: I have switched to Linux because my notebook at the time has damaged HDD connector and Windows XP couldn't run from USB HDD while Linux could. I have never looked back.
Ha! I switched to linux full time just a few years earlier than you and went through the same experience. I grew up playing games. Monkey Island, Populous, Prince Of Persia, Age Of Empires, HL, CS and others. When I went full linux that was all gone so I'd try to find any games I could play at all. I'd enjoy crap games just because I appreciated the developers supporting us.
Oh so much Spring RTS. Do you remember how there was hundreds of games from that engine, new ones each week. Almost all of them were absolutely awful and broken. But there was a few that were really creative and amazing.
Lots of time on Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Spending hours practicing on Warsow, just to be left in awe at bunnyhop experts.
I had accepted that refusing to use windows and only linux meant that I couldn't play mainstream games and I had made my peace with that. When Valve started releasing linux versions as part of Steam Machines I couldn't believe it. I can play games... on linux???
Now with the massive progress in wine, GPU drivers and proton. Suddenly I can play all the games. I still haven't lost that feeling of wonderment having thought only using linux meant I would never play such games again.
The main reason in the past that I never moved to Linux full-time was because Windows always had the gaming support.
With the Steam Deck, I'm hoping that the viability of Linux as a gaming platform stays strong. I'm just always worried about something like modding Elden Ring being broken on Linux and being shit out of luck. So I'm kind of curious how that's been for you, if you've been into more niche gaming choices like Total War.
All the recent Total War games work great. Rome 2 is tricky, but I created a pull request for proton fixes for glorious egg rolls proton ge. So that applies fixed that work. Some people still have crashes. You can recompile dxvk to add more vram and that should solve most of it.
Medieval 2 and the original Rome work as well.
I use Linux Mint as my daily driver, and honestly I am able to play almost any Windows game thanks to Proton. It has come a long way in the past few years, and Steam Deck holds a lot of promise to expand it even further. Games I've been playing recently include Factorio, Satisfactory, Cities Skylines, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla (though this one has been tricky, as usual for a lot of AAA games and Linux)
I'm not a huge gamer, but I haven't run into anything I couldn't play with Proton yet. It's been fantastic and now I only boot into Windows for VR, which is annoying. For some reason, my OG Vive just doesn't want to work in Linux. :(
How's Mint these days for gaming? I tried it some time ago and with X4 Foundations, which has a native build, it ran quite choppy. Switched to Kubuntu and it worked pretty well. Guess I had unlucky moment with Mesa drivers or something, since I use AMD GPU and CPU.
Made the switch to Linux, specifically Pop_OS!, full time back in February of this year and it's honestly been painless! Thanks to the work done by Valve on Proton, I've been able to play most of my Steam library with minimal issues. It honestly amazes me that my games are able to run as well as they are. For the games I've tried, which are mainly just GTA V, No Man's Sky and BeamNG, they run just as well as they do under Windows.
I use endeavour OS as my main distro with kde plasma as the DE. I play guild wars 2 mainly at the moment and I did some testing between my Linux and Windows installs, and on Linux I get roughly 5-10fps more than on Windows when using the Zen 2 kernel and setting CPU governors to performance. It's really hard too even consider going back to Windows, I really don't want to lose that slight performance increase. For anything I can't play, like games with anti cheat, I've found there's usually some crossplay capability, like Fortnite or smite and I just play those on consoles.
There's so many advantages to Linux these days I just can't go back, just little things like choosing the DE or being able to install the whole marathon trilogy from the AUR with a single command, nothing in Windows really compares. Even Microsoft knows Windows is terrible, they just released azure Linux for containerization of applications because no one wants to containerize a Windows application.
Simply put, when I use Linux I feel like my computer is mine and I have choices on how I want it configured, with Windows I feel like my computer is Microsoft's and I've been given the privilege to use it.
Linux is my only OS, and I have been running Debian for the last ~5 years or so. It also happens to be the OS running on my handheld emulator devices.
I am not much of a gamer, don't really care for AAA titles, and use decade-old laptops to boot: what games I play tend to be casual and light on resources. Mostly, that boils down to either indie titles - Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, Loop Hero, Darkest Dungeon, Terraria - roguelikes - Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - or old, early-2000 titles like Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind.
Linux is my main OS for everything, on desktop (KDE Neon), laptop (Arch), and Steam Deck.
I play a lot of Dota 2 (well, less right now, but hoping to get back to it), and it's native with great support. I recently played through God of War on Deck which ran great through Proton.
These days most of what I play are Windows games via Proton, and it's very rare to run into one that gives me trouble.
When I had less money, I also played a lot of the base KDE games, especially Konquest and KJumpingCube. I also played a lot of Globulation, OpenLieroX, and Star Control/Ur Quan Masters. I highly recommend UQM if you're into open world procgen space adventure.
Running Kubuntu here
A lot of Payday 2--however you have to run it through Proton now, as they killed off their linux build in the most recent update. The Windows version ran better anyway, so I always recommend that people use it regardless.
Path of Exile is another one, as well as Spelunky and Spelunky 2, along with a lot of modded Minecraft.
Thankfully, ProtonDB has a ton of games and will show compatibility, as well as any tweaks needed to get a game to run well.
I've been gaming on Linux for 20+ years now, it may still have a few rough spots but overall it's fairly painless compared to the tinkering required years ago. The success of the Steam Deck has also garnered a lot of developer support (at least to make sure their products work even when not native) which is miles above the shrugs we used to get trying to get everything working on our own. Hopefully as that trend continues we'll get better native integration and 3rd party support going forward.
I haven't used my Windows laptop since I got my steam deck at launch. It just works well, without all the extra crud that Microsoft would have packed in. For my laptops, they run either Arch or MacOS.
The only game I had to give up in the move was Overwatch, and I hear that it works fine now (though I lack the motivation to get into it). Most of the time I play either mod Skyrim or roguelites like Hades and Dead Cells.
How has your experience been with modding Skyrim on the Deck? The last time I looked (years ago) most of the mod tooling ecosystem was very windows focused, and I was having trouble getting mods, loaders, and games to play nice together.
Is it relatively point-and-click these days?
It's not as easy as windows, but still fairly simple. There's a script you can use to install MO2 for the mod management. You can't link nexus mods to the manager, because it's sandboxed, but you can still download them via the browser and drag them over. Once it's running, the experience is basically the same as windows #^o^#
I'm on a desktop and not Steam Deck, so this avenue may not be available there. That said, recently I got the itch to play modded Skyrim again, but I'm in a position right now where I very much have to pick right now between playing "Let's Mod Skyrim" and playing Skyrim itself, so my hope was to get Wabbajack working.
I wound up doing that by using VirtualBox to spin up a Windows 10 VM and mount
/as an external drive onto which Skyrim was installed (I used win-btrfs to let Windows read the hard drive). From there I could use Wabbajack in the VM to install mods into a folder outside the VM.Once that was done I installed steamtinkerlaunch and used it to get MO2 installed. Finally, I went into the c_drive used by Skyrim and deleted the MO2 folder steamtinkerlaunch had created, replacing it with a symlink to the folder I had Wabbajack install to.
I had to do a little cleanup afterward disabling a handful of mods that only work for Skyrim VR, but overall this process went much faster than installing 400+ mods manually would have.
DIsclaimer: that's the gist of what I did and I think I hit all the main steps but I'm typing this from memory so I might've missed some minor fixes needed to make Wabbajack's MO2 folder play nice.
Dang, that's some dedication to your skyrim setup #^-^#
TBH, with how most Wabbajack setups are rather power intensive, I prefer to pick my own mods (almost entirely functionality rather than appearance ones), because I don't want to thrash the battery life.
I admire the lengths you went to to get the tool you wanted working though!
I'm not using a ton of mods for Skyrim, but it runs fine via Steam and the handful of mods I subscribed to work just fine.
I get stuttering and some low FPS points, but I honestly don't play it enough to care... Honestly the few times I've attempted to look into it I got distracted and started something else heh
I'm 100% Linux these days, on gaming desktops, laptops, and my Deck. Currently run Fedora or Fedora Silverblue on most things. I might be switching to Vanilla OS once the debian rebase happens, or OpenSuse Aeon. I'm getting fed up with SELinux.
I usually play MMOs, WoW, New World, etc. Recently going through some backlog and playing rogue lites and guilty gear strive.
Also playing Diablo 4. Blizzard games detect the deck and actually show Deck icons for UI buttons. And D4 morphs the UI to a console friendly one for the deck, probably just a "using controller? Using console UI" type code.
So far everything I want to play on the deck just works, which translates to the desktop, where I play the more demanding games. The only thing I used to enjoy is destiny 2, but Bungie decided Linux gamers suck.
I'm also a person where 30-40fps on medium on a 720p doesn't bother me.
While I notice the smoothness difference that happens at high fps, I can go down to 20-25 fps and it won't bother me. But I make sure I'm at least over 30 on any game I play for comfort.
I use endeavourOS with XFCE on a ThinkPad E495. Mostly I play indie stuff either from with Proton from Steam or native Linux running stuff from itch.io. I'm not "gamer" but I enjoy a diversion. I've spent some time with Final Fantasy XIV which runs without any problem through Steam. Boyfriend Dungeon and Cult of the Lamb worked perfectly too and I logged a fair few hours with those and never had an issue. I had to mod Guilty Gear Strive, but that was my hardware, not that it wouldn't run on Linux with Proton.
I too tend to gravitate toward indie games these days, although that's more a product of me blacklisting more and more AAA game companies... not that many of them put any care in Linux support anyway. FTL: Faster Than Light and The Binding of Isaac are two of the ones I'm currently into.
Although I don't actually game that much and mostly play Old School RuneScape anyway, with Steam / Proton getting so good there literally hasn't been anything that I've wanted to play with my husband that I've been unable to, it's superb!
I use openSUSE if that matters.
How do you like openSUSE?
It's superb and has actually made me stop distro-hopping.
I like the fact that it isn't a derivative like Ubuntu, Pop!_OS, or such and that there's an actual company behind it that need to make sure that their desktop OS actually works properly, which in turns means stability even for a rolling release like Tumbleweed.
YaST is an incredible piece of software to manage everything, especially finicky things that someone might not be super comfortable with in the CLI. And although I prefer Gnome, SUSE's implementation of KDE is fantastic, but that's personal preference of course.
There is actually quite a handy "Why?" on their website if that's of any interest, although obviously it's written by SUSE themselves so keep bias in mind. :)
I switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed couple days ago, I really like it! I think my game perf. jumped up from my Fedora 38 KDE setup, too.
Glad to hear it!
As you've been on Fedora, did you ever look into Nobara by any chance?
I didn't never test it, but it seemed nice enough distro. However I like it when there's a strong backing behind the distro I use.
With smaller distros, you never know what happens. But I think Nobara is well worth a try if you want to do gaming with least hassle. And it still has Fedora packages behind it.
Thank you :). It was one of the distros I was interested in. I've been on Arch for quite some time. Really like the rolling release and AUR. I have a preference for KDE personally, but do have Gnome on my laptop.
I switched to Linux OS about 3 years ago..? I can't remember. But I've been playing pretty much the exact same games as I did on Windows. Yesterday I switched to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and it's brilliant! I used Fedora 38 KDE before that and it was also really good, but I wanted to try something new.
Here's some games I've been playing this year:
And a loooot more.
I am really happy on the Linux OS side and if most games I are playing would suddenly stop, I wouldn't switch back I think. I wouldn't have switched to Linux if games didn't work.. But now they do, and I ended up being a contributor to KDE thanks to switching. :) Basically found my calling from the penquin land, and I'm so happy about it!
I think Linux Mint is what people recommend for non-techy people to try. The UI is similar to Windows in many ways and for most people it just works out of the box. Ubuntu would be another one you could try (Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu), the UI would be kinda different though.
Not sure, but if does in-browser it should.
I hate to say this as an absolute zealot, but running Linux is going to require tinkering and tweaking and fixing at some point. Linux is really good for people who just need browsers, and power users. The middle ground is a bit muddier.
However, your best bet is probably still Ubuntu or a derivative like Mint. If you're getting random blackscreens, you probably need more graphics driver setup (especially if intel/nvidia hybrid), and possibly need yo use X11 instead of Wayland.
My last real issue was dealing with a lack of proprietary linux drivers for a wifi chip on a new laptop (fuck you realtek) and it didn't have an ethernet port.
Before that it was pulse audio, and the occasional internet manager crash ~10 years ago.
YMMV, but in my experience; Ubuntu is solid af.
I've been using SteamOS on Ubuntu since... well since it came out. Right now, basically the only obstacle is developers not allowing anti-cheat to work with proton, which basically means any online AAA game will not work (there are ways to get it to work, but it's not worth it for most people).
I've never not used Ubuntu, and it's been solid af, especially these last few years. I haven't had to do any tinkering apart from switching to the proprietary NVidia driver when I first installed it. I suggest it.
I use an Nvidia card on my gaming PC running POP!_OS, I've had some issues with drivers, but they were easily fixed, so I would say that in general GeForce works on POP, at least.
What really grinds my gears is apparently it's only a matter of checking a box to get ac's working on proton, but developers don't because... I don't know why. Political reasons?
Is Factorio easy to pick up? So many people seem to play that one.
iirc there's a free version you can download that is basically a tutorial. Try that out, but be careful and keep track of the time; it'll suck you in. The first time I played it sucked up ~6 hours and I only realised because I was hungry.
Ha that's awesome. I'll have to check it out.
I was lost in the demo. I bought it hoping for more explanation but then returned it. I actually discovered Mindustry because I really wanted to like Factorio. I still do, but I found the learning curve non-intuitive and difficult.
As others have mentioned, Linux is my only OS (Pop!_OS for laptops and desktops, Ubuntu for servers).
I haven't played games recently, but with Steam/Proton, I've been able to play Age of Empires II (HD/DE), Bloons TD 6, Moonlighter, Wizard of Legend, Kingdom Rush... so non-AAA games without much trouble.
My son also uses Linux on his laptop, and usually plays Minecraft (Java), Kerbal Space Program, Kingdoms and Castles, and up until recently... Roblox (RIP).
For the most part, gaming on Linux works... but I wouldn't say it's always smooth or reliable. It's much better now than say a decade ago (or even 5 years ago)... but it's very dependent on your game library or what you are interested in.
Been running linux exclusively for about 8 years now, never looked back. I dont play mutch AAA stuff, so everything I do play either works natively or works perfectly with proton. In general, you only have to worry about compatability if it uses a kernel-based anticheat, and you can always check out protondb to see how it runs before you buy.
I specifically play a ton of Kerbal Space Program, Deep Rock Galactic, Rimworld, and Factorio.
Manjaro KDE over here. Using it exclusively these days, Windows is behind me for the foreseeable future.
On my main PC I've been playing mainly Hunt: Showdown, it's easily my most played game and when they allowed Linux machines with EAC a couple of months ago that was what got me to switch as it was my last Windows holdout.
Other games recently have been the system shock remake and before that System Shock 2. Picked up Friends vs Friends recently which has been a blast. And I've always got Gungeon and Slay the spire as my filler games for when I want to kill time.
I also got a Steam Deck back in Feb and on that I've been playing Brotato which is great for killing time, Slay the Spire again because of course, Fallout 4 for longer sessions and sonic all stars racing transformed.
Honestly Linux is in a surprisingly amazing place when it comes to gaming these days. Feels like we've got single player games more or less figured out. The main stumbling block now is multiplayer games with anti cheat.
My long term plan is to build a low-mid spec machine for my living room to use as a console. I like steam OS and holo-iso will be perfect for controller oriented use. Just something that can handle games at 1080p+ better than the steam deck can.
Debian Sid / Steam Deck user here, been playing a lot of modded Project Zomboid with my friends. Right now we're trying to make it to Louisville, but it's slow going since one of the mods we're playing sets the game like 10 years after the apocalypse. The highway is choked with trees and wrecked cars. Have to take it slow and weave through cars, tow cars, cut down trees, we had to take a few days to do a little deforestation and rebuild a bridge that had disintegrated, all the while fending off wandering packs of zombies. It's been a lot of fun.
Interesting. I don't believe I've heard of that game or at least read anything about it.
It's an isometric survival game that's pretty deeply simulated. Zombies can attack individual limbs, you can lose the hood to your car crashing through zombies and get a neat concussion for your troubles, you can wire your house up to a generator for power and slap a rain catcher on your roof to get water flowing through your pipes again, it's pretty fun solo but is fantastic fun if you get a group together all trying to figure out how to not die horribly on day one.
Awesome. Thank you for the run down. Sounds very interesting.
Been using Linux since ~2009 and been full time for gaming and everything else since Proton hit. I only hop when I feel like toying around with something different, but lately I've only really been using Fedora and Arch and having a wonderful time on each.
Lately my main games have been Apex and Street Fighter 6. I've been replaying Elden Ring and going through Returnal for the first time. Very little interesting to report...what I play isn't really impacted by my OS anymore.
When I built my new primary computer last December I installed only Linux (Kubuntu 22.04) for the first time in about 20 years, no dual booting to Windows. So far it's been shockingly easy to play most Windows games, either via Steam/Proton or Lutris/Wine depending on which service I bought them on. Performance is great and reliability is too; I can even play a fairly heavily modded Skyrim SE without trouble once dependencies are installed. Even a newer early-access game like Reentry works great. Caveat: I don't do multiplayer games so I don't need to worry about cheat-prevention s/w.
I do have a smallish number of native Linux games installed, such as 0 AD (still getting used to it; the AI is fairly aggressive), GZDoom, and Angband, and emulated console games via Retroarch.
The steam deck has become my primary gaming machine, so I've been looking at things and messing with stuff so I can learn a little. I wouldn't call myself much of a linux gamer since it's more that I was given a pre-configured linux machine and am learning after the fact a bit. If we're counting the deck, then here's what I've been able to finish lately:
Tears of the Kingdom (took some fiddling, but works great now)
Armored Core (all of them, except Verdict Day and V)
Elden Ring
STALKER Anomaly (took a lot of fiddling, the most fiddling)
I do want to switch my laptop, an Asus g513qr. I haven't figured out yet which distro I'd like to try, because I can't find a lot of folks who had this exact model and also put linux on it. I don't mind putting in some work to get it going. Folks have said Arch is difficult but it comes up pretty often, I think also folks suggested either ubuntu or PopOS. I'm not familiar with those at all, so i'm just sorta stuck looking for a starting point.
Edit: I wanted to return because, thanks to this topic, I renewed my efforts and converted over to Linux Mint. So far so good! I've been playing totk and I tried Elden Ring just to make sure it worked. Only one game gave me trouble thus far - Ys8: Lacrimosa of Dana. For whatever reason, that game won't launch. Or rather it says it's launching and just stays that way forever. Not totally sure what's up there, but it works on the deck so I'm not too bothered (it's a game I like to hop into on rainy days).
Gamedev and a gamer on Fedora Silverblue.
These days I play mostly Guild Wars 2, Age of Wonders 4 and some smaller indies :) Works well for that.
I've been using Linux for years, since the 90s, went full time on it everywhere but my gaming computer a long time back, but I finally swapped for gaming because of all the Steam Deck driven improvements. I'm running Garuda on my gaming PC at the moment. Arch based is pretty much all I use anymore for daily use, but I can't be bothered to install and configure it from base anymore when there are Arch based distros as nice as Endeavour and Garuda available.
I play a lot of Warframe, Guild Wars 2, and Elder Scrolls games, also emulate BotW and TotK fairly often, but I play lots of other things, too. The majority of games just work in my experience. I do admit to welching slightly by keep a Windows partition on a separate SSD for the handful that won't, but I've only run into one or two where that wasn't because of unsupported anti-cheat implementations, so I pretty much use Linux full time unless I want to play Black Desert Online or Destiny 2.
I've been playing Path of Exile, Overwatch, and Rocket League for the most part, with bits of Terraria, DRG, whichever else sounds fun. Lutris and Steam/Proton are amazing, though depending on your distro you may need to follow some first time setup guides. There are some odd issues that come up from time to time but they're usually fixable. Admittedly, however, some of them took me a long time to figure out.
For instance, I get a weird bug with Battle.net and have to reinstall it in Lutris every time launcher itself has a software update; I can't just let it update when it asks me to, but reinstalling it to the same location from Lutris works with no issues because the latest version gets re-downloaded. I can update games (i.e. Overwatch 2) inside the launcher with no issues. Setting up Battle.net for the first time was very involved as well because I was missing about a dozen or so libraries that were under different package names than usual for my Linux distro.
On Steam, the only title I've had issues with so far is AimLabs, which refuses to work no matter what I do. Everything else has worked pretty much without issue, and ProtonDB is a great resource to see what's worked for other people.
Bear in mind I've made things harder on myself because I use a more involved distro that requires you to set up everything yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if the experience were much smoother on Mint or a similarly user-friendly distro.
Edit: reading some other comments here, I now remember I did try to install FFXIV and it just wasn't working at all, at least not through the steam launcher. I've heard that the standalone version of the game works but I'd have to re-buy the game, to my knowledge, because of how Square Enix has the game set up on different platforms
That's very good to know! I remember trying FFXIVlauncher and the app itself worked, but I had issues logging into my account and getting the game to actually launch. This was at a point where I did not have an active sub but they had a free play weekend, and that may have contributed to my problems.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the issues have better documented fixes now or 'just work', and also if I just ended up doing something dumb trying to play without a subscription on an existing account (though I haven't finished ARR yet, and I've heard but never verified that the game is now playable for free up to that point)
I use Peppermint, and tbh Steam's proton works well for my games. For those which require Windows, I just boot into a VM. However, not many people have the resources for that.
I guess I fit the bill, I only have Linux, and I have installed in my modest laptop Portal 2, Firewatch and Psyconauts. But school is in the way, and it's easier just to plug a console and play something there...
I really should play this three games. I bought them for a reason: I like them. It's just that my mind doesn't think about games when I'm in front of the computer, but homework, or videos, or reading. I have failed as a Linux gamer.
Sounds like you need a break. Try Xonotic, just turn off your brain and jump around, shooting things that move. :) Xonotic is pretty much in every distro repo due to it being a FOSS FPS.
Sometimes it feels like even playing a videogame is a chore, so I think you're right. If Xonotic can be described as a break, then I'm in, thank you.
For me super fast paced FPS games are a good way to relax: You don't have time to think! You have to act and let your instincts take over.
My friends don't understand my reasoning but works for me :'D
I have noticed now that you mention this: I love games that have a great, epic story, like an JRPG. But once the stakes are high, I feel pressure to not make a mistake, to not lose progress. It may be better to play other genre of games for me to relax then.
Ahh, check out this RPG then. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/
It has very versatile difficulty settings, you can pretty much change anything you want. It plays like Dungeons and Dragons game, where you throw dice and guide the adventurers you made, while they have their own personalities and have fun discussions with each other.
The voice acting can be a bit janky and the game is clearly made with a lower budget. But I think it's still brilliant game.
Not much of a gamer, but I do occasionally play OpenRA. It's a modern, open source version of the original Red Alert (as well as a few other C&C games). Never had any problems playing it on Linux.
I switched from Windows to Linux (PO_OS) on my gaming PC a couple of years ago. I've played several games without any problems: A Plague Tale: innocence, the new Tomb Raider games, Doom (2016), Fallout 4, Stray and others too... In early 2022 I got a cancer diagnosis and also suffered a stroke and I haven't played many games since so I don't know much about brand new titles. I did play a bit of Cyberpunk, which was quite broken at the time but I think it was broken on Windows too. These days I have a Steam Deck as well as a full size gaming PC running Linux. I have mostly used Steam with Proton but have also had great use of Heroic Launcher for my GOG and Epic Libraries
Have moved to Linux a while ago, mainly using Arch/Arch-based now. I don't play many games other than Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, BeamNG Drive... Usual suspects for simracing/racing games
However it is quite easy to get everything set up nowadays. It was a chore to get Assetto to work with mods and Content Manager in general (I plan to set up a blog post at one point detailing everything), but thanks to Proton and Winetricks, it is now actually possible and much easier than say, 10 years ago.
Force feedback and wheel drivers suffer sometimes, but that was because of the default drivers. Once you have something like new-lg4ff set up, it works flawlessly 90% of the time.
DX->VK layers have improved massively, and I barely notice any performance drops in my 6600.
Switched to Linux on my main rig about a year ago now when my windows install corrupted randomly, and didn't have a way to recover without a full reinstall. Plus repairing windows is what I do at work, I don't want to bring my work home with me. So I decided to give Linux a try again (I'm familar with it for servers, and I've tried linux desktops in the past and always been less than impressed). I was surprised that about 90% of the games I play ran, and it only got better and better as the steam deck neared release, It's probably up to 95% now. Only real outlier is multiplayer games that have intrusive kernel-level anticheat. And until consumers rebel against that crap, access to those titles isn't going to improve. Don't think I'll ever switch back to windows.
Yeah, I love the OS compared to Windows. I like the flexibility and full control. I don't see me switching back either.
Using Steam and proton, I've been using linux as my main gaming machine for the past few years without any issues. Some triple AAA like Cyberpunk, Assassins Creed, WoW, MS Flight Simulator 2020 but also more indies like Factorio, Oxygen Not Included. I will never go back to windows. Running on Fedora.
Linux is not my main rig and I rarely game on it, but I'm aware that a lot of FOSS heads love Xonotic ; it's an open-source arena FPS, available on all platforms. It's a game I played a TON of when I was younger because it's free and very much awesome ; got back into it a bit because of some folks on Misskey and it is still the shit.
Can't really say it's my main gaming OS yet (Thanks Bungie, don't maintain your servers and my switch will be quicker), but Halo the Master Chief Collection has been my go-to on my Steam Deck. Other games I've played more than just to try have been Minecraft, Skyrim, Halo Infinite, and CoD MW2 (RIP IW4x).
Have a bunch of JRPGs installed on it I need to get to as well.
I'm a Steam Deck gamer so.... I guess everything? Haha - I am really enjoying just how much of gaming I'm able to do in a very limited time. I've also kind of drifted away from games and focused a little bit more on generating and creating art (music and writing) but I can always have a quick pick me up to destress (or in the case of Cuphead - get even more stressed...).
I finished the following games entirely on the Steam Deck (and so Linux)
There are still a few issues with it for some people. One is that it requires a GPU with a well supported vulkan implementation which excludes many cards over 8~ years old. Another is laptops with GPU switching (especially Nvidia) that need a special command to activate it. And of course there's still a percentage of games that just wont work, many due to anti-cheat but some just have obscure issues not fixed yet. You can use protondb.com to check for compatibility at least.
My total war example has been an edge case for me. I've had great success just using base proton or proton experimental.
I do agree that it can be frustrating and a lot of users tend to over simplify how easy it is. I will say it has gotten materially better in the last 3 years.
I would not recommend it for those that don't have the time or desire to do the tweaks it sometimes requires.
What games are you playing and how are you launching them?
First I'll say that I'm mainly playing indie or older games and that helps A LOT. Also, if it looks too hard to get running then I won't even try.
What I have tried (in steam) usually legit *just works*, as in click install then click play. Some games I just try different proton versions and that's all it takes. Red Dead 2 I attempted installing it 2 or 3 times before it worked but I think I messed stuff up by not being patient. Age of Empires2:DE is the only one I've actually spent more effort on getting running than an average non-linux nerd would bother with.
For GOG and Epic theres "Heroic" launcher. It is less end-user friendly in the initial setup. The big issue (and this sounds dumb) is that it doesn't just select a proton version by default. It prompts you to select a version over in the game settings and that settings screen might scare certain people off.
This is all relatively recent experience BTW. I didn't bother trying Linux gaming until around 1 year ago.
I used to play dwarf fortress over ssh back in the day. Fun stuff
I'm using Arch with Sway, I don't play that many games but the ones I've tried have worked very well. I tried Hades, works perfectly. I mostly play Arknights with Waydroid. And Punishing Gray Raven, which had a PC client released recently and it also works perfectly fine on Arch