Thinking of switching my gaming desktop to linux. Should I?
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I have had ONLY NVidia cards since my first ever own PC in 2000 when I started college.
I've used Mandrake Linux for a while then switched to Ubuntu when it came out in 2004 and have used that ever since.
I've NEVER encountered any problems whatsoever. In fact, it made using an NVidia card easier because of its built-in third party driver installation tool that takes care of everything.
If something doesn't work, it's very probable that it's because the user messed around with something and caused it to happen.
Yeah back then I was in elementary school. I chased single percent performance gains from bleeding edge because I couldn't just buy better hardware. If you wanted the latest versions of anything ubuntu couldn't do it without iffy unofficial repos and dependency hell. I did it anyway and it sucked.
If you compiled the kernel but forgot to rebuild the graphics modules you had to live cd in, because a 64mb usb stick was like 300 bucks back then and booting off usb wasn't really a thing yet. Then next would be some janky terminal instructions off someones blog printed at the library because phones weren't even moto razr and arch wiki didnt exist yet, then pray it worked and that there was enough time left in the day to do whatever stupid homework needed the computer.
I never liked the nvidia installer and it's control panel that seemingly needed root then somehow fucked up the monitor config while not even applying the driver config, but it was all I knew as I never had a radeon until after the amd acquisition of ati. I also have no idea if the driver was always in kernel or if that was more recent but being able to compile a kernel with some silly buzzword feature that probably only situationally added 2fps to maybe one or two games and not risk graphics related boot failure was a game changer to my broke ass in the early days of working.
Anyway that was peak ubuntu era as I remember it. I mainly used ubuntu with spots of opensuse and some others here and there until whenever the r9 280 came out and then primarily used arch until the the early immutable distros showed up. Now even my dad and grandparents are on bazzite and my mom on aurora and its literally the best thing ever because they actually don't fuck it up anymore and I don't spend every waking hour on call for tech support.
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If you have to ask someone else whether you should switch then you should not switch.
I am asking if my hardware will enable me to have a good experience since I know nvidia has issues on linux.
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Didn't try it but FYI maybe PhotoGIMP could make GIMP usable for you!
Peobably what I heard of before. Thanks for the link, will take a look.
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I already installed fedora but games just don't get stable framerates. might have to do a clean install and try again.
I switched to CachyOS on a 5700X3D/3060 combo 6 months ago and have had zero issues gaming. CachyOS has a custom fork of proton and it has worked like a dream. Lutris and Steam have been rock solid after some mild setup and my framerate has been as good as/better than it ever was on Windows. I've run a couple VMs to test and also had no problems there. Definitely check ProtonDB for the minor tweaks necessary for some games to run but most have just worked out of the box once setting steam to use compatibilty.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
Coming from a Steam Deck, I was really happy when I learned about Bazzite. I tried installing it and stuck with it for a few months now and I'm excited to have gotten rid of Windows. It's fast and works well out of the box. Plus I have the SteamOS experience without fuss.
Bonus points for you, it's Fedora based and easy to install on top if Fedora.
Notably I had tried Ubuntu before this and had issues with VRR and a couple of other things. Bazzite is built for this, and it works well.
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If you have to ask someone else whether you should switch then you should not switch.
They're asking based on their specs whether Linux will run fine for them. Not whether they should switch based on usability. Having to ask if your specs can run Linux fine is not a reason not to switch.
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Garuda dragonized gaming will get you everything out of the box and you can change the theme after. It will walk you through a lot with assistants, which is nice to learn things on an arch based distro. Its an easy switch from windows, plus, now I can use fish konsole htop and paru alright.
wrote last edited by [email protected]My husband built me a gaming computer and wanted to install the OS. Told him he probably wouldn't be able to as I had picked out an arch based distro. I'd never installed arch myself. He'd never installed any linux. He had no problem putting dragonized garuda on there. It's been nearly 3 years now and I still haven't changed the theme tho.
Edited to add: I ain't got any nvidia anything in that PC, so can't speak to that.
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Coming from a Steam Deck, I was really happy when I learned about Bazzite. I tried installing it and stuck with it for a few months now and I'm excited to have gotten rid of Windows. It's fast and works well out of the box. Plus I have the SteamOS experience without fuss.
Bonus points for you, it's Fedora based and easy to install on top if Fedora.
Notably I had tried Ubuntu before this and had issues with VRR and a couple of other things. Bazzite is built for this, and it works well.
I just went straight with a bazzite install since fedora literally did not want to work on my pc
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I loved bazzite, it was my first out of the box success with Linux gaming, but if you plan to do anything outside of gaming installing stuff can get a little difficult. It was invaluable for teaching moments, but I've moved on to cachyOS and it has been just as seamless and less difficulty installing things after installing yay
My 2c
This is why I personally think Bazzite should only be installed on devices you intend to only game on, especially if you have any intention of learning any more about Linux than the absolute basics. It'll be fine for a while for beginners, but you're bound to bump into some things that are a hassle to install and/or keep updated. Perfect examples being for consolafying a PC for playing on a living room TV, or installing it on a handheld PC (Steam Deck etc.)
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Coming from a Steam Deck, I was really happy when I learned about Bazzite. I tried installing it and stuck with it for a few months now and I'm excited to have gotten rid of Windows. It's fast and works well out of the box. Plus I have the SteamOS experience without fuss.
Bonus points for you, it's Fedora based and easy to install on top if Fedora.
Notably I had tried Ubuntu before this and had issues with VRR and a couple of other things. Bazzite is built for this, and it works well.
Does the rockstar launcher run? I’d like to move over but always wonder about losing access to quite a few games in the process
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Does the rockstar launcher run? I’d like to move over but always wonder about losing access to quite a few games in the process
From my experience on SteamOS, I’m launching RDR2 through the steam app but I own RDR2 on Rockstar game launcher.
I used these steps to get it running: https://expertbeacon.com/can-steam-deck-run-red-dead-redemption-2/I can only assume it’s similar on Bazzite but I haven’t tried.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
I see bazzite mentioned a lot here, but wasn't there a post here a while ago saying that it might stop existing if fedora pushes through with the decision to ditch 32bit support? Did they decide not to do it after all?
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I am asking if my hardware will enable me to have a good experience since I know nvidia has issues on linux.
Your post doesn't ask that.
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They're asking based on their specs whether Linux will run fine for them. Not whether they should switch based on usability. Having to ask if your specs can run Linux fine is not a reason not to switch.
They're asking based on their specs whether Linux will run fine for them.
The post does not ask that.
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Your post doesn't ask that.
The main text kinda does. Maybe I worded it a bid badly.
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I see bazzite mentioned a lot here, but wasn't there a post here a while ago saying that it might stop existing if fedora pushes through with the decision to ditch 32bit support? Did they decide not to do it after all?
I think they decided not to, with some (IMO fairly) snarky comment on how that was just a proposal and people were getting needlesely outraged.
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This is why I personally think Bazzite should only be installed on devices you intend to only game on, especially if you have any intention of learning any more about Linux than the absolute basics. It'll be fine for a while for beginners, but you're bound to bump into some things that are a hassle to install and/or keep updated. Perfect examples being for consolafying a PC for playing on a living room TV, or installing it on a handheld PC (Steam Deck etc.)
Yeah, it forced me to figure out why, which was a net positive, but definitely just not feasible in the long run outside of gaming, at least not yet.
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I am asking if my hardware will enable me to have a good experience since I know nvidia has issues on linux.
NVIDIA hardware is developed to run on Linux
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My husband built me a gaming computer and wanted to install the OS. Told him he probably wouldn't be able to as I had picked out an arch based distro. I'd never installed arch myself. He'd never installed any linux. He had no problem putting dragonized garuda on there. It's been nearly 3 years now and I still haven't changed the theme tho.
Edited to add: I ain't got any nvidia anything in that PC, so can't speak to that.
Ah I have two nvidia GPU laptops running it right now and its great!! A 2070S and one even older tho. Nothing considered modern by todays standard.
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So I was thinking of switching my desktop to linux. I have been running fedora on my laptop for 3 years and I really like it. My main question now is just what distro works best for gaming (considering my specs) and can I use VMs in any of the gaming oriented ones (mostly because I don't wanna keep dual booting).
Edit: I have gone with Bazzite for now and it seems to be working fine. Some games don't rrally work acceptably (I expected that) so I will keep dual booting for a while.
The only thing that kept me booting windows for gaming was destiny 2, which choses not to support running on linux.
The current expansion "edge of fate" is terrible though, so it's full time linux gaming for me.
