Hi all,

As the title states, I’m interested in making the switch from Windows to Linux. I know absolutely nothing about Linux, other than that fact that there are distros that exist under Linux, and Linux itself isn’t an OS, or so I think.

I have 2 laptops and my main home office PC, which I use for my job and gaming.

My plan is to switch one of my laptops to a Linux distro, and test it out. This laptops only purpose is web browsing, so I figure getting Linux set up to do something as simple as opening a browser is something I am capable of.

Down the road, once I’ve sort of learned on this laptop, I may work my way up to using other distros and dual booting my main PC. Who knows, maybe I’ll even switch over completely prior to Windows 11 rolling out.

I’ve heard getting games to work with Linux can sometimes be a hassle, and can require some fiddling, so I won’t be doing gaming on a Linux distro until I feel quite comfortable.

So with the above context, I’m looking for recommendations on a distro I should use, any guides that any of you may have found helpful, and generally any insight on things I may need to be aware of.

I am fairly tech savvy (probably not compared to most of you), and am not afraid of tinkering with things until they work. Any help would be muchly appreciated, and if this isn’t the correct place to post, please let me know and point me in the right direction.

  • @ArbiterXeroEnglish
    7•2 months ago

    Gaming on Linux is getting a ton better, but still requires a lot of knowledge and patience

    Start with Ubuntu, mostly because it has a big enough user base and following that there are millions of articles about every problem you could have.

    Start using ChatGPT whenever you encounter a problem as it’s really good at debugging and interpreting error messages.

    • massive_bereavement
      6•2 months ago

      TLDR: If you like massive multiplayer games, those might not work. Most of the rest will if using compatibility settings in steam.

      I would say it depends on the game and platform: most games I play in Steam are just install and play, sometimes I just need to activate the compatibility options.

      https://protondb.com is a fantastic trove of info for how to play most games. Though it might not cover them all as I was told, that hasn’t been my case.

      Lutris, on the other hand is a bit tougher as you said, and sometimes certain games require some time investment to run.

      That said, I don’t play massive multiplayer games that might require anticheat and those won’t work on linux AFAIT.

      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        3•2 months ago

        I don’t play any MMOs, and this laptop won’t have any games, other than maybe Factorio to test down the road. It’s pretty much an extra laptop I have laying around to see if I can get a Linux OS set up.

        Thanks for the link though. If I do ever set up Linux on my main gaming rig, I’ll be sure to refer to the link.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•2 months ago

          Factorio in particular actually ships a native Linux version. Someone at Wube actually tries it AFAICT. So that should be something you could try day one, probably. Besides some weird situation, I’d expect every other game to be harder to run than Factorio.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•2 months ago

        TLDR: If you like massive multiplayer games, those might not work. Most of the rest will if using compatibility settings in steam

        I didn’t try many but for what it’s worth GW2 works flawlessly through Steam or Lutris

        • massive_bereavement
          1•2 months ago

          I think a lot do, but as I don’t play them and most people complaint about anticheat being the heel in linux gaming…

          • @[email protected]English
            2•2 months ago

            I played many but that’s before I switched - so far only played GW2 and Albion Online (which has Linux client so goes without saying it works)

            Now I’m thinking I might try out a couple again just to test how some of them function.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      1•2 months ago

      Finally, a use for ChatGPT.

      Thank you friend, I appreciate the wisdom. The laptop I’m using is a Lenovo T470, so performance is poor at best. Is this going to cause issues with Ubuntu? I’d reckon no more so than Windows, but again, I’m fairly clueless here.

      • @[email protected]English
        4•2 months ago

        You have a Thinkpad? As far as i have heard their linux compatibility is fairly good. An yes, ubuntu won’t have more problems than windows with low power devices. My old 4GB ram, 1.4GHz 4 core laptop ran linux mint fine.

        Ps: linux mint is a ubuntu fork, and has a desktop interface that looks a lot like windows (example: in the bottom left there is the linux mint logo that you can click to open the start menu like on win 7).

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          1•2 months ago

          Awesome. Excited to try it out. Maybe I’ll give it a go tomorrow and see if I can get it figured out.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•2 months ago

        I have a T460 running Debian 12 with Cinnamon on it, which is Linux Mint’s desktop environment. It runs perfect, never have any issues, I just have to be patient every now and then.