this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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Linux Gaming

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I am and always was a casual gamer, I like playing puzzles, strategy and builder games, sometimes I play with friends some 7 days to die or AoE2. I am on Linux Mint for more than a year now and was surprised how easy gaming was. From time to time I had problems with weird DirectX error messages, but all in all everything just worked.

My setup:

  • AMD Ryzen 5 3600
  • GeForce GTX 1660 Super
  • 32 GB DDR4 RAM

So last week my girlfriend worked on my computer (we are not living together), she wrote some bills for customers and did some table stuff in calc. When I asked her at the end of the day how it was to work on Linux, she shrugged and said "Oh I didn't notice" lol (using Cinnamon as DE btw).

Today she bought Until Dawn the remake on Steam while she is here and because she really wanted to play she downloaded it to my PC. She just started to play and everything was great. I wondered again if I should say something like "you see how great you can game in Linux", but then it came to my mind - she doesn't care and she didn't even question it! The Linux Desktop got so mature, that non-tech people just don't notice!

I think the biggest "problem" with Linux adoption is that it does not come preinstalled on computers, and this kind of proves my point I guess.

Yeah that's all, I just wanted to share this with you guys.

P.S.: There were some bugs btw. but it turned out they have nothing to do with the OS.

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[–] MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 124 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I have friends who says "I still run Windows because I don't want to do any tinkering," but don't realize they'd do less tinkering if they switched haha. It's not 2015 anymore.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

It's wild. "I don't want to have to tinker," then go on to talk about the 10 different debloating softwares they need to run every time it updates.

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

$sudo apt install realtek-firmware-nonfree

"NOOOOOO SO USER UNFRIENDLY!!!"

"On windows all i have to do is go to regedit, then HKEY/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/classes/someObscureSetting, then select DWORD and change the value to 0x0011111, then save and reboot. SO EASY AND USER FRIENDLY!! Thanks microslop!!!"

[–] kevin2107@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

never have to tinker more in my life than on windows. its even worse with the batshit things Claude will do. On Linux shit just works

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 111 points 1 day ago (3 children)

"Windows doesn't require any tinkering, just run this to make a local account, decline 100 requests to use OneDrive and Office 365, get these debloaters, uninstall all these things, and make sure you always tell Windows to not restart your computer while you're using it every time it updates. And when it does update, you'll need to run the debloaters again."

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I've been using Linux for 3 years, Mint then LMDE and the not tinkering is bullshit

On my laptop the boot drive is forever filling up with Linux Kernel updates and i need to delete them. i have a 1GB partition, there's no simple way to. do that, there's a bunch of commands i need to use in Terminal, it's bullshit that I even need to do it

On my desktop just installing Signal was a drama (no official flatpak) the command line given on the Signal site is not just copy paste and it's Debian.

then lets not even talk of Davinci Resolve.

i have zero intention of going back to Windows and my needs are quite simple but there is a fair bit of tinkering even then.

[–] FG_3479@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago

There is a setting in the update manager which deletes the kernels for you. Regular Mint is also the better option because of the Ubuntu base.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

i have a 1GB partition

Uh, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is probably your main issue.

I didn't even know you could run Linux on a 1GB partition.

That said, you should be able to increase the size of that partition with something like gparted. I had to do it recently for my Bazzite install as I didn't make the OS partition big enough at first.

It was a little confusing at first because you have to actually move partitions around and make it so the blank space that you want to add to the partition is right next to the OS partition on the table before it will let you make it bigger.

[–] TotallyWorthLife@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago

Out of three issues, two are just "app isn't made to be easily installed on Linux", which isn't on Linux itself, but the ones making the app. still, valid issues.

[–] Nurgus@lemmy.world 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The boot drive filling up is REALLY annoying because on modern systems there's no need for it to even BE a dedicated partition.

Even with encryption and BTRFS, boot can live in your root partiotion just fine. Only EFI needs a partition and that never fills up.

Distros need to change this default!

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 1 points 18 hours ago

I don't think Kubuntu makes partitions by default, I just have a single large partition aside from the EFI

[–] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 31 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I mean, you don't really have to do these stuff. I doubt the comment's author's friend cares about debloating and privacy.

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 41 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yes, in the same way that you don't typically need to tinker with Linux

In the end they're not so different, except Windows intentionally does anti-consumer things that make people want to tinker.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

No joke my linux laptop hardest part was the initial install. Steam made gaming seemless. No ms account login, no asking for ai, no drivers. Just install and boom im playing my games. Its so nice.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 18 hours ago

And the initial install has gotten so easy

[–] TotallyWorthLife@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Literally, my Linux Mint came with the drivers for the wifi, meanwhile Windows always needed me to put them there...

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I put Windows on my laptop last year-ish, same exact one with Linux on it now. Took around 2.5x slower to start it up. Win 11 at the time. Fresh off a new image.

Linux takes less than 10 sec. And thats without any optimization and a "heavy" distro like PopOS.

Mint is a good option too :)

[–] TotallyWorthLife@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I prefer Mint Cinnamon because it's the closest I have to my long time experience with Windows. It feels closer to it, more intuitive even if vastly different.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Its good to have choice. Ive seen experienced users use Mint to the reasons you stated. I know a lot of people recommend it as a "beginner" linux, but if you can install stuff without issues, then its just as advanced as the other stuff.

I like Pop because it feels as stable as Debian while keeping up with the packages like other distros.

Ive tried Gentoo and Arch for a bit there and got the custom OS itch out. But I still respect people that do that kind of work for the rest of us. Stability for all.

[–] TotallyWorthLife@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

True, having different choices with different people to cater to is very good

[–] MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

There's what Die4Ever said, but there's also Windows 11 incompatibility with games that otherwise just work with Proton. Around when I got my Steam Deck, I also had a Windows PC that was, to my initial surprise, way more of a hassle for games, so I pretty quickly switched to Linux Mint, and later Fedora.

I used Ubuntu way back when on secondary PCs mostly for fun, but Linux has only outpaced Windows imo in the past five years.

[–] aksdb@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

And if some obscure error code shows up, the first five points in the knowledge base are powershell commands.

[–] Dvixen@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

Absolutely this. I was spending 2-3 hours a week making my Win11 box stable.

Once a month I had to redo all the sound drivers, as with each reboot sound would get quieter and quieter until I was running a lottery of which program wouldn't be affected any given day and suddenly have it's volume loud enough to shake the house.

I upgraded CPU/MB after the MB failed, MS cancelled my Win11 licence. I realized I still was spending stupid amounts of time keeping things working, and I am very against all the AI being shoved into every Windows book and cranny.

The first week of ditching Win11, I was tinkering everything because New Shiny, but now things were working I'm not even sure I've spent 3 hours in the last two months tinkering.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Even in 2015 I was doing more setup on Windows than Linux… honestly even in 2005 too.

[–] MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's interesting. I was definitely a Linux noob in 2015, so that might have been a me problem. Like I know Lutris was a thing even back then.

[–] atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

I was kinda thinking about it from the other direction, like I’ve never had to deal with printers on Linux like I have on Windows and don’t remember ever needing to install hours worth of Service Packs on Linux with a fresh install. That being said, I’ve been using Linux since the Caldera days (late 90s) so I might be being one of the geologists in the XKCD cartoon right now too.