Been a windows user for 20 years, I use my PC mostly for gaming never felt like I had much choice, so I will probably have to update when the time comes, Cant wait for something to break during the upgrade process and having to reformat everything again....

I have been wanting to try linux for a while now, been researching about it this past year, I hear gaming is very feasible there..

Was planning of making a thread but since I am here, any linux gamers out there how true is this? Any regrets? or favorite games you can't play? Are mods still feasible? Which distro is best for games? I keep hearing Manjaro is great for playing the latest games or Linux mint is also great for newcomers. I don't play online games, most of my library is here on GOG and steam for leftovers.

If GOG supported Linux more I would have made the switch years ago though.

Nope. Not planning to update. Not even planning to start using Windows at home, to be honest.

If my work machine ever gets the update, I guess I'll have to take it. But I'll be grumpy about it, especially if my stuff stops working for a while.

You should probably make your own thread about this, that's right - you'd be surprised how many Linux users there are here, who also try and help out. Suffice to say, Linux gaming alone is really good these days, nevermind linux on desktop otherwise. STrong recommendation, and it doesn't hurt to try in a dual boot or live USB to see if you like it.

1) Any regrets? None. Anything resembling a regret can be quashed easily by reading about the lack of control everyone has over Windows these days. I can zip zap zoom into whatever desktop environment I dang well please. It's been nice to have my computer back.

2) It depends on the depth of kajiggering you're willing to go to in order to get them to run. I've got the Sims 3 running, and that took some kajoling, but some things like Deus EX: GMDX just will run practically out of the box. Some games, won't run or will run erroneously, like Creatures 1. On the other hand, you'll be able to access all the 16 bit games you want. And Dos is a freebie.

3) Yes, mods are feasible. I've got Caveman2Cosmos installed on Civ IV. Most games don't care what they're running on as long as the files are in the right place.

4) Which distro is best is simply the wrong question to ask. What do you want your distro to do; that is a better question. Do you want to enjoy bleeding edge technology? How do you like your update cycles? Do you want to be treated like an absolute child? What games do you plan to play? I myself use Fedora. So I'm an outlier among outliers; but I didn't go with the mainline Gnome Workstation. Thankfully, burning a live USB is free so you can try as many as you want until you get a feel for which you want.

5) Ey, fair enough. Lutris is the main interface via how I manage my games. (I just wish they weren't using a GNOME component to paint the interface.)

nah , it is not even close to be a viable alternative ,maybe in 3-4 years
maybe 20% of games work as intended

you can try out and then will ask yourself , why do i waste my time with this when everything works in win10

there are way too many distros , forget most , if you really want to try out linux go with manjaro or popos the others are tha same just use older versions of the apps and look uglier
there are too many desktop envs too , just use kde forget the rest they are not faster or anything

Honestly given how cheap HD is (at least was, it's starting to no longer be the case thanks to some stupid new crypto currency) I would say if you consider switching to Linux do it for your main desktop but keep a Windows partition and dual boot for gaming.

Thank you all for the advice! Don't want to derail the thread so I'll probably make one for more opinions.

I use Linux for practically everything and I don't have much problems.

I use Windows as a glorified gaming box. Realistically, if I spent the time looking at some of the tools in the ecosystem (ex: Wine, PlayonLinux, etc) I'd probably be able to make 90%+ of my catalog on Linux. I'm just to busy with my career to bother right now.

When things wind down with my career or if I end up having to support ageing installers myself (ie, if GOG goes out of business or becomes drmed), then I'll probably spend more time looking into the Linux ecosystem to run Windows stuff. Ironically, I believe the extended Linux community will do a better job at supporting ageing Windows applications than Microsoft so it will be the future if you want to support legacy stuff.

Yes. Totally. The system is faster than that wonky Win10 and looks better. I'm sure those 10-12 games, that don't work on Win7, gonna run fine on 11.

Windows 10 was pushed aggressively by Microsoft, with the help of its cult followers on forums, up to the point that 8 year old PSVita port of 12yo PS2 game (Persona 4) doesn't work properly on Win7. So I don't have some nostalgic love sentiments towards 10 like many others.

I became a Linux gamer around 1998/1999. The last Windows OS that I used was 98. I started my computing life on Amiga. I been doing everything on Linux since the summer of 2000 when I finally got rid of my last Windows 98 rig. My job is also all on Linux from desktop to server.

I have no regret outside of not trying Linux sooner. I loved my computing experience on Amiga. I moved to Windows 95 due to the games and it was fun for a few months until the back to back issues of IRQ errors and randoms blue screen cropped up. I think I tolerated it for too long because I always had my Amiga to fall back on when I got fed up. I attended a LUG (Linux User Group) LAN gaming event and that was it for me. I got hooked since.

My most favorite game to play is UT99 and Xonotic. Outside of the fighting games I own it has the most "hours" since I've been playing it since it's debut. As for mods, I don't mess with many of the big names or big games that are prevalent in the computer scene due to my disdain for DRM on my hardware. I do have a ton of mods for UT99, Quake and Doom (1993) and my wife and I still make maps and models for UT99.

I do a mix of DRM FREE Linux native gaming (SP + Local MP) and cloud gaming (For ONLINE ONLY games).

My current favorite games to play right now are Tom Clancy's The Division 2 (Stadia), Invisigun Reloaded (itch.io), The King of Fighters 2002/The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match (Fightcade/HB/GOG) and Streets of Rage 4 (GOG).

When it comes to distros, I usually recommend Ubuntu and it's derivatives. It's what most stores that sell Linux binaries have listed as supported. It's also the easiest to get up and running for gaming and work related task. You can pick what you like as distros towards gaming means very little since all distros can game. Just stay aware from niche distros designed for specific task like KaliLinux which is made for pen testing and such.

As for GOG's support, they can do more but not sure in what direction. I do launch less gaming so for me just give me the game is fine. However, I started getting back into modern online gaming in 2019 to now and there are too many games gimped on GOG that require Galaxy for online play which to me is the bad move. So if a Linux native drm free game has online play outside of a launcher, I pick it up on itch.io.

Here are some tools to assist you:

https://www.winehq.org/ <- For all of your non-Steam games. You can see their rating with Linux. Platinum is ideal since it will be click and play often. Anything else under that requires work

https://www.protondb.com/ <- For all of your Steam related games. Same as above in terms of warning but Steam also has a whitelist which means it works with their Steamplay tools

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/adamhms_linux_wine_wrappers_news_faq_discussion/page1 <- Wrapper scripts that will help you install Windows based games with ease. Wonderful person doing wonderful work for ppl with Windows based games they still want to play on Linux.

https://www.dotslashplay.it/en/start <- Another site to help you install Linux native games and/or games with Linux native binaries that are no longer shipped with Windows based games due to age.

https://lutris.net/ <- Another tool to get you up and running.

The whole Windows 11 thing comes down to a simple, yes or no. If you want to try it, have at it. If you don't, do what you need to do to secure your computing lifestyle. As for me, I'm not interested in it outside of how it will affect my professional life.

Oh look, another windows thread totally derailed by the Linux fan boys.

depends on pricing, if it subscription based only, i might pass it.

I have not had any prpblems with w10 so far, much more stable so far then any other windows i have used, and it runs both fast and don't really have that much footrpint that I can see. i also did not really have any compatability issues going from w7 and w8 (i had laptops with both OS's) to w10 those years ago. so if MS manage a smiliar transition, then I don't really see any reason why not.

Will wait a few months after release, though, to see how it is and the first major bugs get sorted.

edit - anyway, just need to wait and see. there is realy no confirmed info about w11 yet, not even when it is released. MS is goinf to showcase 'something' on the 24'th, but wheter this is the release date or not is not confirmed. So not really any info yet for another 3 days, everything else is speculations.

I'm not planning to upgrade any computers to Windows 11, but when PC hardware becomes affordable again in a couple of years' time, I'll most likely buy a new PC with Windows 11 preinstalled... so long as it doesn't require a subscription, a Microsoft account, or need to be connected to the internet to work, which rules out buying software on the Microsoft Store unless it can be downloaded and installed offline.

First of all, I suggest that you don't "switch" to Linux, but do e.g. a dual-boot system so that there is always your old trusty Windows to go back to, if you need to. If at some point you feel you don't need Windows anymore, fine, remove the Windows partition. Or if you feel you want to totally go back to Windows, that is fine too, delete the Linux partition.

(And then try to figure out how to get rid of the grub2 boot loader, not that it is impossible or anything, but an extra hoop anyway, when changing a dual-boot system back to a single-boot Windows system...)

My limited experience with Linux gaming so far, meaning playing Windows games with WINE on Linux (older games mostly, not e.g. DX12 games, hopefully others will fill you on how it is to play modern DX12 games on Linux, I presume there is at least a performance hit):

1. To set up WINE properly, google for "<your Linux distro> install wine".

I originally just went to the Linux Mint Software Manager and searched for "wine", but then I got a long list of different wine... installations or utilities, with no idea what exactly I was supposed to install. I just selected some that sounded legit, but I think I ended up with an incomplete installation, at least I didn't seem to get Windows games running with WINE.

So later I uninstalled that and then googled for more detailed instructions, and they worked (easy to follow instructions, but it took many things into account that you will not know by yourself; a bit like you have to know in Windows 10 how to enable DirectPlay for older games to work). At some point I also installed e.g. Lutris which makes the installation of many games effortless, but I generally prefer first trying to install (and run) the games in vanilla WINE. If I have any problems there, then I may try Lutris instead, to install (and run) it.

2. Next google for "linux how to run program wine", "linux how to uninstall program wine" etc., just to learn how to do those basic tasks. Not hard, but if you don't know, then you don't know. :)

3. Generally I have been quite pleased running older GOG games on WINE. E.g. Icewind Dale 2 Complete runs even better in WINE for me, than it does in Windows 10, even with a DxWnd wrapper (that I need in Windows 10 to fix the game). Currently playing Starcraft, Planescape Torment Enhanced Edition and Team Fortress 2 (this on Steam, not WINE-related). They all run perfectly on Linux.

One hiccup was e.g. running GOG Diablo. I first installed it with vanilla WINE but the game didn't run correctly (e.g. couldn't see the game menu etc.). Googling for it, it was obvious some extra fixes were needed to run GOG Diablo on WINE.

So I uninstalled the WINE vanilla version of GOG Diablo, and then reinstalled it with Lutris, and the game works perfectly now. I think that "playit" option also works (instead of Lutris). So, yeah, GOG Diablo is one example of a Windows game that does not run "out of the box" in WINE, but installing and running it with Lutris or playit will install the needed extra fixes to get it running.

I am using mostly Linux Mint (XFCE), Ubuntu-based.

I've been trying out Manjaro both on a virtual machine and on Raspberry Pi4 (mainly interested in it due to its rolling update model, ie no major release upgrades), but recently I've been unable to update that virtual machine Manjaro anymore, due to some dependency error... I hope that is not so common in Manjaro, it did leave a bit sour taste into my mouth. I guess I need to google how to fix that dependency error; I read before that Manjaro upgrades may become broken (= unable to update) if there is a long time since the last upgrade, but in this case there wasn't, I had updated Manjaro like a month before that.

Steam support is quite good for Linux, but my experience with it comes mainly from running Team Fortress 2, which runs just as well on Linux, as it does on Windows.

As for GOG games, I normally don't even check the Linux versions because:

a) I am unsure if the Linux version is up to date, compared to the Windows version.

b) Quite often the "Linux version" is merely the Windows version running in Wine... so what is the benefit of running that, instead of running the Windows version in WINE yourself? Case in point: Two Worlds. I was unable to get the GOG "Linux version" (= Windows version running on WINE) of it to run, there was some dependency error.

I had much more luck getting the GOG Windows version of the game running, in WINE. So e.g. in that case I consider the "Linux-version" of the game irrelevant, and even inferior.

Well, Refind. I've never tried it, but it's still getting updates.