linux+Steam, advice?

[Chronocide]

Do your windows titles carry over to linux, or do you have to buy linux versions of them to play via steam?

Other advice regarding linux+steam?

I don't have linux at the moment. Windows is doing a thing that is making my PC less functional and I'm considering switching back to ubuntu (used to run it, a long while ago, several PCs ago). Steam being compatible with linux wasn't a thing when I last had linux.

[DevaVictrix]

https://www.protondb.com/

Check your games. Every game has worked for me.

[play xenogears]

Ubuntu has declined in recent years. Using Linux Mint will be a similar experience more comparable to when Ubuntu was good.

[Zyro]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Do your windows titles carry over to linux, or do you have to buy linux versions of them to play via steam?

Both are a thing. I'm mostly into point and click and puzzling (and CRPG if I find the time) and find enough native Linux games to play. Most people use Proton. If you're into multiplayer online, not even using Porton might feed your gaming needs due to often unsupported anticheat.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by coconut enjoyer:

Ubuntu has declined in recent years. Using Linux Mint will be a similar experience more comparable to when Ubuntu was good.

Can you explain this comment in more detail? Is it that the ubuntu OS has lost it's way, or is there some other issue?

I'm thinking I probably last used it in 2007 or so. I recall hearing of mint, but I don't recall seeing it used.

[play xenogears]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Originally posted by coconut enjoyer:

Ubuntu has declined in recent years. Using Linux Mint will be a similar experience more comparable to when Ubuntu was good.

Can you explain this comment in more detail? Is it that the ubuntu OS has lost it's way, or is there some other issue?

Creeping corporatism. They're more of a business focused distro now rather than the go-to Linux newbie distro they used to be. They overcomplicate things with Snap (Mint is based on Ubuntu* but removes this) and from what I hear they do weird things like putting advertisements in your terminal. Mind you I haven't touched it since around the early 2010s myself, so this is all stuff I've heard from others. But what I can say is that Mint seems to perfectly fill the roll that Ubuntu used to.

*There's also a separate version of Mint based on Debian directly, called LMDE

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by coconut enjoyer:

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Can you explain this comment in more detail? Is it that the ubuntu OS has lost it's way, or is there some other issue?

Creeping corporatism. They're more of a business focused distro now rather than the go-to Linux newbie distro they used to be. They overcomplicate things with Snap (Mint is based on Ubuntu* but removes this) and from what I hear they do weird things like putting advertisements in your terminal. Mind you I haven't touched it since around the early 2010s myself, so this is all stuff I've heard from others. But what I can say is that Mint seems to perfectly fill the roll that Ubuntu used to.

*There's also a separate version of Mint based on Debian directly, called LMDE

Thank you very much, for explaining.

As long as I'm considering other linuxes (linuxi?) vs this "more corporate" ubuntu, is Red Hat any good? That one I've met people that used it and they liked it.

[play xenogears]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

As long as I'm considering other linuxes (linuxi?) vs this "more corporate" ubuntu, is Red Hat any good? That one I've met people that used it and they liked it.

Assuming you mean Fedora rather than RHEL. As a distro alone? I haven't used it myself, but I've heard mixed things. Some people swear by it, others seem to find it less intuitive than other distros. That seems to be a general take I see in regards to corporate distros like Fedora or and OpenSUSE. I think it depends on how you personally fit in with how they do things, and they become less pleasant to use the more you want to do things differently than how they want you to.

The most sane distro recommendations I can give in 2024 are probably something like Mint/Arch/Gentoo. Personally I didn't have the best time on Arch myself, but it seems to work for a lot of gamers and iirc the Steam Deck's distro is based on it. Mint's main version (based on Ubuntu LTS) or LMDE (based on Debian Testing) seem like the best choices to me if you're not wanting to tackle Gentoo.

[Chronocide]

Originally posted by coconut enjoyer:

Originally posted by Chronocide:

As long as I'm considering other linuxes (linuxi?) vs this "more corporate" ubuntu, is Red Hat any good? That one I've met people that used it and they liked it.

Assuming you mean Fedora rather than RHEL. As a distro alone? I haven't used it myself, but I've heard mixed things. Some people swear by it, others seem to find it less intuitive than other distros. That seems to be a general take I see in regards to corporate distros like Fedora or and OpenSUSE. I think it depends on how you personally fit in with how they do things, and they become less pleasant to use the more you want to do things differently than how they want you to.

The most sane distro recommendations I can give in 2024 are probably something like Mint/Arch/Gentoo. Personally I didn't have the best time on Arch myself, but it seems to work for a lot of gamers and iirc the Steam Deck's distro is based on it. Mint's main version (based on Ubuntu LTS) or LMDE (based on Debian Testing) seem like the best choices to me if you're not wanting to tackle Gentoo.

nah, I meant RHEL. Claims to be very stable, and costs...

I'd pay for windows if windows was a more stable product, but it seems to me that they go out of their way to make users upset with them. Not looking to rant here, just saying that RHEL, if it has value, would be considered.

Thanks for the reviews of the others.

[grzegorz77]

If it's your beginnings, mint or manjaro.
If you feel up to, debian or arch.
If you're advanced any (just use your favorite).


I think I've only seen one game that had a paid native version for linux.
If there is a linux version, steam just downloads it. Almost everything else works using the old Wine, which today is developed by Valve and is called Proton, it works very well. (Wine is not an emulator).
There are problems with vr, and with some games that use cheat detection.

If you plan to stay on dual-boot, it will be appropriate to use a different partition for the games than the one you have now.
It's better to have a second disk, in recent years windows has been very bad at sharing one disk with linux (Fast startup that doesn't shut down your computer, but rather "blanks the screen").

[WarnerCK]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

As long as I'm considering other linuxes (linuxi?) vs this "more corporate" ubuntu, is Red Hat any good?

LOL.

Red Hat is the corporate distro. Run by IBM and pulling in billions per year from enterprise subscriptions.

If you like Ubuntu, use Ubuntu. If you want something that Ubuntu doesn't provide, use a distro that provides that. Don't get Internet randos (including me) to pick your distro for you - it's your computer and you're the one using it.

[Sanctuary]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Do your windows titles carry over to linux, or do you have to buy linux versions of them to play via steam?

Other advice regarding linux+steam?

I don't have linux at the moment. Windows is doing a thing that is making my PC less functional and I'm considering switching back to ubuntu (used to run it, a long while ago, several PCs ago). Steam being compatible with linux wasn't a thing when I last had linux.

1. windows titles carry over to linux, no need to buy same games twice.

2. get ready to learn few new things. they aren't that difficult though.

3. well, now steam is pretty much plug and play on linux.

[play xenogears]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

nah, I meant RHEL. Claims to be very stable, and costs...

I'd pay for windows if windows was a more stable product, but it seems to me that they go out of their way to make users upset with them. Not looking to rant here, just saying that RHEL, if it has value, would be considered.

Thanks for the reviews of the others.

"Stable" in reference to Linux these days usually means "we stick with old versions of programs and don't update them for a very long time" rather than "it won't break" so I wouldn't really factor it in too hard as a decider. In reality, while you're less likely to have something new break (unless we're talking about Debian Bookworm, lol...), you're going to be stuck with packages that are buggy or broken for years at a time. RHEL is probably terrible for gaming in particular due to old graphics drivers.

[Chronocide]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm really out of the loop, especially regarding linux.

I had planned to go back to ubuntu, but sounds like they're doing weird stuff.

Seems like suggestions are Mint or Arch, with Mint being the suggested easier of the two. I'll probably end up with mint, then.

Thanks again for the help.

[DevaVictrix]

Originally posted by Chronocide:

nah, I meant RHEL. Claims to be very stable, and costs...

I'd pay for windows if windows was a more stable product, but it seems to me that they go out of their way to make users upset with them. Not looking to rant here, just saying that RHEL, if it has value, would be considered.

Thanks for the reviews of the others.

There is a way you can get it for free. You’ve got to fill in a form but…

I’ll find the link and post it later

openSUSE Leap is basically SLED if you want to look at Suse too.

[safetyF1rst]

I haven't seen windows for 11 years. does it still exist?