Last I tried it was maybe 3 years ago. I had an old laptop I tried Mint on. Still had to go through the whole bullshit of not having the right wifi drivers, so I had to go on another computer and track down the linux version and the whole "oh if you have the 171.bgi.90x then you need to get firmware v1.21.98, but if you have the 171.bgh.90c you need to make sure you only get firmware v1.21.93 and never update it", put it on a thumb drive (oh and make sure it's formatted in a way that you can move the linux drives onto it from windows but still read it from linix) and then finally getting wifi working and then trying to get the keyboard backlight to work, and then trying to get the non-standard function keys to work, and then having to create a script that changes the boot order of services so that bluetooth is turned on at the right time so my mouse would work, and on and on. It is technically doable most of the time, and I get that some people love that shit and really get a kick out of it. I'm not one of them. I don't want being able to turn my laptop on to be some epic quest I have to vanquish. It's not rewarding to me, it's just a headache.
If I have to create a profile on Stackexchange and spend a week tracking down 11year old posts that sound similar to my problem to be able to get my laptop to get online and watch videos on Locals, I'm not interested. So far, at least in my experience, Linux aint there yet.
I simply typed in "usb wifi linux" on Amazon and bought the first result for like $20 and it worked immediately with no installation as soon as I plugged it in. Don't see why you'd have to pretend something basic like wifi is still as difficult as it might have been a decade ago.
It’s improved a lot since hardware standards have gotten to be a lot better. Wi-Fi kept me away my first go around with Linux nearly a decade ago, but with hardware all from the last five years, it’s a non factor.
I’m not lying to sell Linux as much, as I would like to. I totally expected my Linux gaming experiment to be a disaster. With rare exceptions I mentioned in another post, it’s just fucking worked.
Mine is a decade old PC that I repurposed into a medis system after an upgrade that didn't have any built in wifi, I just plugged the D-Link wifi thing into a USB port and it worked. Can't stand guys who made Linux Hater part of their personality and fixated on "my sound card drivers don't work" from 15-20 years ago.
I'm on Mint and for 90% of games Proton just works, for 8% there's maybe 15-20 minutes of figuring out which version it works for and two clicks to change it and maybe 2% just don't work, but those games are usually stuck on Game Pass which is locked down like an entire nunnery.
Mint has a windows skin over everything including a start menu and software manager, like half of the windows specific keyboard shortcuts work, but there's a few quirks.
Bazzite. It's really just Fedora with default Steam Game Mode built in. It gets Fedora updates and all. It wasn't my intention to go that way, but I started looking in how to put SteamOS on any old PC and it kept coming up.
So essentially, it boots up just like a Steam Deck into a console-like space. All the Steam stuff works fine in there and if you're all Steam you could fairly easily just use it as a Steam console at that point.
I have much more from GOG, so I go into desktop mode, basically just a Linux desktop and into Lutris, where I can install GOG games. I've done quite a few with a lot of success so far. I even installed an Epic Store freebie game, and while a bit more cumbersome it actually works, and they way it works, EGS runs inside it's own walled garden and only when the game is running. Lutris will link the games to your Steam, so in general all of my gameplay is via the Steam console-like interface. This works with emulators too, but I haven't really tweaked those yet.
I left a Windows 11 dual boot for games that have issues. That was really 75% of the work getting it set up was getting the dual boot right. The only things I've needed that for so far are games that require Xbox app (e.g. the Forza games) and one EA game that I think could be made to work with more effort, I spent a full 10mins on it tops. I've heard the usual suspects for kernel anticheat, like Valorant, won't work in Linux--because Linux doesn't allow kernel access.
Have you tried it recently? I was extremely surprised. I basically have a Steam Deck now.
Last I tried it was maybe 3 years ago. I had an old laptop I tried Mint on. Still had to go through the whole bullshit of not having the right wifi drivers, so I had to go on another computer and track down the linux version and the whole "oh if you have the 171.bgi.90x then you need to get firmware v1.21.98, but if you have the 171.bgh.90c you need to make sure you only get firmware v1.21.93 and never update it", put it on a thumb drive (oh and make sure it's formatted in a way that you can move the linux drives onto it from windows but still read it from linix) and then finally getting wifi working and then trying to get the keyboard backlight to work, and then trying to get the non-standard function keys to work, and then having to create a script that changes the boot order of services so that bluetooth is turned on at the right time so my mouse would work, and on and on. It is technically doable most of the time, and I get that some people love that shit and really get a kick out of it. I'm not one of them. I don't want being able to turn my laptop on to be some epic quest I have to vanquish. It's not rewarding to me, it's just a headache.
If I have to create a profile on Stackexchange and spend a week tracking down 11year old posts that sound similar to my problem to be able to get my laptop to get online and watch videos on Locals, I'm not interested. So far, at least in my experience, Linux aint there yet.
I simply typed in "usb wifi linux" on Amazon and bought the first result for like $20 and it worked immediately with no installation as soon as I plugged it in. Don't see why you'd have to pretend something basic like wifi is still as difficult as it might have been a decade ago.
It’s improved a lot since hardware standards have gotten to be a lot better. Wi-Fi kept me away my first go around with Linux nearly a decade ago, but with hardware all from the last five years, it’s a non factor.
I’m not lying to sell Linux as much, as I would like to. I totally expected my Linux gaming experiment to be a disaster. With rare exceptions I mentioned in another post, it’s just fucking worked.
Mine is a decade old PC that I repurposed into a medis system after an upgrade that didn't have any built in wifi, I just plugged the D-Link wifi thing into a USB port and it worked. Can't stand guys who made Linux Hater part of their personality and fixated on "my sound card drivers don't work" from 15-20 years ago.
What distro are you running?
I'm on Mint and for 90% of games Proton just works, for 8% there's maybe 15-20 minutes of figuring out which version it works for and two clicks to change it and maybe 2% just don't work, but those games are usually stuck on Game Pass which is locked down like an entire nunnery.
Nice, nice.
I've had a few suggestions on here about Linux distros to install, so I'm contemplating what to go with.
Mint has a windows skin over everything including a start menu and software manager, like half of the windows specific keyboard shortcuts work, but there's a few quirks.
Bazzite. It's really just Fedora with default Steam Game Mode built in. It gets Fedora updates and all. It wasn't my intention to go that way, but I started looking in how to put SteamOS on any old PC and it kept coming up.
So essentially, it boots up just like a Steam Deck into a console-like space. All the Steam stuff works fine in there and if you're all Steam you could fairly easily just use it as a Steam console at that point.
I have much more from GOG, so I go into desktop mode, basically just a Linux desktop and into Lutris, where I can install GOG games. I've done quite a few with a lot of success so far. I even installed an Epic Store freebie game, and while a bit more cumbersome it actually works, and they way it works, EGS runs inside it's own walled garden and only when the game is running. Lutris will link the games to your Steam, so in general all of my gameplay is via the Steam console-like interface. This works with emulators too, but I haven't really tweaked those yet.
I left a Windows 11 dual boot for games that have issues. That was really 75% of the work getting it set up was getting the dual boot right. The only things I've needed that for so far are games that require Xbox app (e.g. the Forza games) and one EA game that I think could be made to work with more effort, I spent a full 10mins on it tops. I've heard the usual suspects for kernel anticheat, like Valorant, won't work in Linux--because Linux doesn't allow kernel access.
Awesome. Are you using an AMD or Nvidia card?
I haven't decided about whether I want to fresh install on my current rig or just by a new gaming rig altogether and make it a dedicated Linux build.
AMD. I’ve heard Nvidia doesn’t work as well particularly with a lot of the features develop for Steam Deck. I think still okay with games though.