Convinience. I’m a gamer first and foremost, and more of a hardware person than a software person at that. I have a friend who games on Linux and I’ve seen the fights he sometimes goes through to make things run. Sometimes it’s great, and it’s awesome, and others… Well, we’ll lose a night or two before finally getting in, or deciding it ultimately won’t work.
I know there are distros to ease these problems, improve capatibility, etc., but when compared to Win10, which I am comfortable on and understand, it’s just easier to stick.
That said, I have my limits, and a forced Microsoft account is a hard no-go for me.
As an aside, if you have any distros that you think would allieviate/solve my issues, feel free to link.
Maxprime’s response is a good one - I’ll just toss in mine as well as someone very similar to your situation. I switched off Microsoft after paying for a Windows 11 key and then just not being able to authenticate.
I’ve run Linux and Unix servers from command-line but had 0 experience with Linux as a Windows replacement. I’ve been using Fedora 41 KDE Plasma for 9 months now as my exclusive gaming machine and while, yes, there have been a few hiccups to overcome, once you figure out a few simple tricks, most stuff just works thanks to the work put into Proton.
My entire Steam library works using Proton Experimental, I play Blizzard and GoG games via Lutris without issue. If you are interested in figuring more stuff out, the community is there to help guide you through your own exploration but if you just want answers, it’s easy to find those too.
Biggest issue I ran into is when Space Marine 2 came out. Played fine the first day then a patch dropped and I couldn’t play it. Found quickly that adding a command line argument in Steam to tell Space Marine 2 that it was running a Steam Deck fixed the issue until the dev could patch it.
I definitely urge people who are at all interested in Linux and not just saying “I’m a gamer, so I can’t use Linux” as a more polite way to say “I don’t want the hassle of switching from Windows” (which is perfectly valid and you do you), check out Ventoy (simple tutorial: https://www.linuxfordevices.com/tutorials/linux/ventoy-tutorial) - Install it on a USB stick, drop an ISO onto it and boot from the USB stick to select a temporary OS to play around in. Doesn’t have to be permanent, don’t need to lose any data, and you can get your own experience with a distro to decide if making the jump from Windows is right for you.
Convinience. I’m a gamer first and foremost, and more of a hardware person than a software person at that. I have a friend who games on Linux and I’ve seen the fights he sometimes goes through to make things run. Sometimes it’s great, and it’s awesome, and others… Well, we’ll lose a night or two before finally getting in, or deciding it ultimately won’t work.
I know there are distros to ease these problems, improve capatibility, etc., but when compared to Win10, which I am comfortable on and understand, it’s just easier to stick.
That said, I have my limits, and a forced Microsoft account is a hard no-go for me.
As an aside, if you have any distros that you think would allieviate/solve my issues, feel free to link.
Maxprime’s response is a good one - I’ll just toss in mine as well as someone very similar to your situation. I switched off Microsoft after paying for a Windows 11 key and then just not being able to authenticate.
I’ve run Linux and Unix servers from command-line but had 0 experience with Linux as a Windows replacement. I’ve been using Fedora 41 KDE Plasma for 9 months now as my exclusive gaming machine and while, yes, there have been a few hiccups to overcome, once you figure out a few simple tricks, most stuff just works thanks to the work put into Proton.
My entire Steam library works using Proton Experimental, I play Blizzard and GoG games via Lutris without issue. If you are interested in figuring more stuff out, the community is there to help guide you through your own exploration but if you just want answers, it’s easy to find those too.
Biggest issue I ran into is when Space Marine 2 came out. Played fine the first day then a patch dropped and I couldn’t play it. Found quickly that adding a command line argument in Steam to tell Space Marine 2 that it was running a Steam Deck fixed the issue until the dev could patch it.
I definitely urge people who are at all interested in Linux and not just saying “I’m a gamer, so I can’t use Linux” as a more polite way to say “I don’t want the hassle of switching from Windows” (which is perfectly valid and you do you), check out Ventoy (simple tutorial: https://www.linuxfordevices.com/tutorials/linux/ventoy-tutorial) - Install it on a USB stick, drop an ISO onto it and boot from the USB stick to select a temporary OS to play around in. Doesn’t have to be permanent, don’t need to lose any data, and you can get your own experience with a distro to decide if making the jump from Windows is right for you.
Have fun gaming, friend!
Check out Bazzite: https://bazzite.gg/
I’d recommend dual booting with a separate hard drive while you see how things work for you.