Basically the forced shift to the enshittified Windows 11 in october has me eyeing the fence a lot. But all I know about Linux is 1: it’s a cantankerous beast that can smell your fear and lack of computer skills and 2: that’s apparently not true any more? Making the change has slowly become a more real possibility for me, though I’m pretty much a fairly casual PC-user, I don’t do much more than play games. So I wrote down some questions I had about Linux.
Will my ability to play games be significantly affected compared to Windows?
Can I mod games as freely and as easily as I do on Windows?
If a program has no Linux version, is it unusable, or are there workarounds?
Can Linux run programs that rely on frameworks like .NET or other Windows-specific libraries?
How do OS updates work in Linux? Is there a “Linux Update” program like what Windows has?
How does digital security work on Linux? Is it more vulnerable due to being open source? Is there integrated antivirus software, or will I have to source that myself?
Are GPU drivers reliable on Linux?
Can Linux (in the case of a misconfiguration or serious failure) potentially damage hardware?
And also, what distro might be best for me?
Really depends on the games. For the vast majority, probably not. If you play competitive multiplayer games, then it’s 50/50.
Check out protondb to see if the games you play the most work well.
Also semi-depends on hardware. Old Nvidia cards may struggle. AMD is def king in the Linux world, but it’s getting better for Nvidia
But as you are probably aware, the steam deck has been pretty successful. That wouldn’t happen if Linux gaming was all bad.
Hit or miss. Sometimes the mod tools have to use wine and don’t work. Sometimes they use wine and work. Sometimes they don’t use wine and work.
I have just done some modding of Monster Hunter Wilds, and it was about 50/50
When it works, it’s just as easy as Windows.
WINE or a Virtual Machine
.NET is cross platform as of several years ago.
It depends on the distro. Typically you just run a command in the terminal to “update all packages” or click a button in a store front.
It’s way easier than on Windows and is never forced.
Genuinely one of if not the best thing about Linux is how software management works.
Less vulnerable due to being open source. You have all the security experts in the world, including Microsoft’s, able to view and fix any vulnerabilities as soon as they appear. Thousands of people getting their eyes on it.
There’s a reason that Linux is the back bone of the internet and nearly every server runs it.
And FYI, you don’t use antivirus on Linux.
If it works, it will always work.
Whether it works is dependent on your GPU.
Like I said, AMD is basically perfect, Nvidia can have problems, but these days that’s less and less true (I use a GTX 3080 w/ out issue).
Mostly if you have an old, less-supported nvidia card (like pre-GTX) you may have issues.
I’ve never heard of something like that happening.
For beginners the correct option is almost always Linux Mint