this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.nz/post/29912814

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[–] riskable@programming.dev 202 points 2 days ago (4 children)

FYI: That's more Windows games than run in Windows!

WTF? Why? Because a lot of older games don't run in newer versions of Windows than when they were made! They still run great in Linux though 👍

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 63 points 2 days ago

There is like a good chunk of an entire decade’s worth of games that can’t be played on PC legitimately due to either expired licenses for music (e.g. EA Trax) or lack of support for older, disc-based DRM (SecuROM etc.).

That’s before factoring older titles that no longer work due to arbitrary changes to DirectX and the Windows kernel, which break backwards compatibility.

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[–] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 74 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Just made the switch, surprised how smooth the transition went so far.

[–] HollowNaught@lemmy.world 26 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Ooooh, what distro did you go with?

[–] joelfromaus@aussie.zone 55 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Can’t be Arch, else he would’ve already said that he uses Arch btw. /s

[–] bonusss@lemmy.zip 27 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I went full AMD and Fedora. Couldn’t be happier. All games I’ve tested work. It’s been a while since I’ve had a gaming pc so I don’t have a reference point, but everything is as smooth as I’d want to. Some games may need a library or so as stated in protonDB but, I’m so impressed. Now I have desktop running KDE, steam deck has KDE too and my laptop also with fedora.

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[–] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Mint, I need my emotional support windows xp.

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[–] imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.com 66 points 2 days ago (12 children)

The only ones that wouldn't work are probably the ones with kernel level anti cheat. Maybe if I would be much younger, I might have had different opinion, but, as of today, I believe that all these games that wont run on Linux due to anti-cheat are cancer anyway.

[–] Jeffool@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Kernel level anti-cheat is what's probably going to keep me on Windows for a while. I get those games aren't for everyone, but I like them well enough, and that's what my friend group plays. Warzone, DMZ, and going to try RedSec tomorrow. Kind of a shame. Otherwise I'd love to make the jump. As it is I'll probably see about dual booting when I get my next PC in a year or two.

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[–] Invisius@lemmy.world 62 points 2 days ago (2 children)

2026 will be the year of the Linux desktop!

[–] j_0t@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 2 days ago

The time is near

[–] fin@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 day ago
[–] ampy@discuss.online 54 points 1 day ago (8 children)

I am a PC gamer and I exclusively use Linux. It's completely viable for gaming, I can say for a fact.

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[–] themagzuz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 46 points 1 day ago (6 children)

i wonder how these numbers change if you weight by active players. like sure, Shooty Guns 2 (2008) running on linux is a good thing, but if it has a grand total of 5 people in the world playing it, it won't really do much for linux adoption as long as games like league of legends, apex legends and fortnite still don't work

(for the record i don't play any of those games and i've been happily daily-driving linux with no windows intervention for the last 4 year)

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[–] termaxima@slrpnk.net 43 points 1 day ago (23 children)

In my personal experience, the only games that don't work are those that explicitly choose not to :

  • Fortnite
  • PUBG
  • Roblox
  • Valorant

I'm not much into competitive games myself, so the only one that's inconvenient in this list to me is Roblox. There are a few really fun games on their platform that I wish I could play on Steam Deck, as used to be possible.

[–] usernameusername@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You can play Roblox through Sober. It runs the Android version directly so it's pretty similar to what an official port would be, in terms of performance

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[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

trying to force AI into windows 11 isnt helping MS.

[–] Aggravationstation@feddit.uk 14 points 2 days ago (5 children)

I can not understand why they made that decision.

[–] AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today 19 points 2 days ago

They think line won't go up if they don't shove it down every user's throat. They've put most of their eggs in that basket.

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[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

Linux doesnt have games that install kernel-level spyware under the guise of anti-cheat. Hopefully never will, but I don't underestimate gamers who love think spyware is a good idea. Stay away from linux if you want kernel anti cheat please, its ruining computers

[–] ohshit604@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Breaking News:

This just in new game requires sudoers access to play!

[–] dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 day ago

What's hilarious is that is par the course on windows to run Steam as an admin. In fact that fixes a ton of bugs for people, so any executable the steam process spawns, like game executables, has admin rights as well.

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[–] JPSound@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (11 children)

I'm installing Mint for the first time at this very moment. So far, it's easier than I anticipated. Fuck You Microsoft.

Edit: bro, firstly, what the fuck and where did all this performance come from?!?! I vastly underestimated how many resources windows was hogging. I downloaded Steam (easy-peasy) and then Project Zomboid just as a test. This game runs like butter now. I was having major problems with it before. To the point I basically stopped playing. I know its just one example but I haven't had my machine run this well in several years, I feel. Also, got Spotify running. Super easy. I need to figure out how to get my VPN set up (ProtonVPN) but so far, I'm kind of in shock. I can't wait to actually dig in and see what I can do with this new setup.

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[–] AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

One of the most frequently suggested beginner distros is Linux mint. It's great, it's stable, it's what I use and while it's not exactly cutting edge, or necessary the prettiest distro, it's great for beginners and will feel pretty familiar coming from windows.

Pop_os! And bazzite are more "gaming focused" if that's more your style, but I've never had an issue gaming with Linux mint.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter terribly much. Pick one, install it to a new drive and try it out. If you don't like it, pick another one.

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[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 28 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Meanwhile nearly 60% of Windows Games now run on Windows.

[–] avatar@lemmy.zip 25 points 2 days ago (9 children)
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 64 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Probably a somewhat popular opinion in the Linux crowd already, but I think we should be pressing companies to find better ways to manage anti-cheats than kernel-level anti-cheat anyway. I'm glad I don't play games like that because I don't like how it works at all.

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[–] Thteven@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Seems about 40% working, I personally only have one game that doesn't jive with Linux. If the game you're playing doesn't work that's the fault of the specific anti-cheat developers because it's obviously possible to do it right.

[–] avatar@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Sure, but from the end user perspective, it doesn't matter whose fault it is - the result is you can't play a game you otherwise just can in Windows. We know it's their fault.

If you never play any games with anticheat that's fine, but all it takes is one game, and then later another, and then later another, to make Linux a dealbreaker for many gamers. These are not unpopular games.

It can be the whole difference between someone sticking with Windows but itching to make the switch, and someone actually making the switch.

What good is 90% of games working if you have 3 games that you really want to play that don't work?

[–] neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What good are those 3 games you want to play if they don’t work on the OS you want to use?

It’s just a matter of priority, about 8 years ago, I just made the decision to not play a game if it doesn’t work on Linux.

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[–] racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 day ago (20 children)

And how many run on linux via a well documented way?

I've been playing around with bazzite a bit, and for sure, i can run a lot of games on it, but you often end up googling which launcher to use, which settings to use, ... And then even if you find something, it doesn't always work.

Linux is making good progress in this regard, but this title feels a bit over optimistic (or at least, users who take it at face value will quickly be disappointed when they can't get 90% of their games to work).

[–] b000rg@midwest.social 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

A lot of people have mentioned ProtonDB already, but I'll throw in Lutris as well. It's a multi-platform game launcher that supports Steam, GOG, Humble Games, Epic Games, EA, etc. but its website also lets you search for a game title, and most should have a user-created method to launch.

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[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 day ago (7 children)

I’ve been playing around with bazzite a bit, and for sure, i can run a lot of games on it, but you often end up googling which launcher to use, which settings to use, … And then even if you find something, it doesn’t always work.

Here's a step-by-step guide:

  1. Launch Steam.
  2. Install game.
  3. Hit Play.

Zero issues.

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[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 day ago

Well, I'm 90% proud of Linux!

[–] Thoven@lemdro.id 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I made the switch almost a year ago when they started announcing all the spyware coming to win11. The distro you choose matters a LOT. After several that were buggy and frustrating I landed on Garuda dragonized. Setup was easy with their assistant finding the drivers I needed and I have yet to have any system breaking updates. Better track record than windows TBH. Performance is great, and steam integrates so well with proton that my experience is honestly just as good as windows native. I should probably go make a donation to the Garuda project, now that I'm thinking about it.

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[–] julysfire@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Linux Mint here. I have had only 1 issue with a game on Linux and honestly, it was an easier fix then getting some games working on Windows which I have experienced plenty of as well. Linux really is just as easy as "Install from Steam, play".

Drivers are easy now today too, just like Windows. Honestly, if you gamed on Windows, you have all you need to game on Linux.

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[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

if i cant run something at linux i'll just do without it. Might try virtual machine if its something really crucial but might not care to even bother. Fortunately any games i know that will not run are kind of games that i wouldnt want to touch anyway.

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[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (12 children)

Tech-idiot, here, but Linux-curious and running Windows 10 with an ardent refusal to change it to 11.

I know there are a ton of different versions of Linux, 'Ubuntu' and such, but I don't know jack about any of them... which would you recommend that's best suited to someone who's only ever used Windows? Looking for the most idiot-proof option. Gaming and office style work are primary use.

Emphasis on the idiot proof. I am really anxious about switching from fear of jacking up my computer, but am so sick of Window's bullshit... probably as good a time to dive in now than any point going forward.

[–] wavebeam@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (26 children)

Tbh it actually doesn’t matter that much. There’s like a million different distros, but really there’s like 3 base distros (yes Linux nuts, this is an oversimplification) of Debian, Fedora, and Arch. Ubuntu has gotten a lot of hate lately for their choice of forced package manager, but it’s probably fine. It’ll matter way more to you what desktop environment you select. I’d recommend looking into Bazzite for gaming. It’s based on fedora and it has a bunch of gaming stuff built in, but also does great for anything else. It’s made to be the steamOS for anything not a steam deck. Go with KDE for a windows-like desktop experience.

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[–] j_0t@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 2 days ago (4 children)

In my opinion this the unique milestone linux has to achive to be declared as a total winner vs windows, in the near future I would like to see non tech industries using linux instead of microsoft spyware.

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