Admittedly, the last time I tried it was maybe 5 years ago. I used ubuntu (can’t remember which distro) but I recall having to fiddle a lot with drivers and WINE. Is the scenario still the same today?
With the horrors of Win11 widely talked about, I’m thinking of flirting with linux once more. Is it a good idea at this time? Or is gaming on linux still niche as it once was?
What is your distro and what tips and tricks/perspectives you can share with a newbie like me :)
Arch Linux with Gnome Desktop proton-experimental and wine-staging installed just like the Steam Deck Two computers in the house both have 16gb DDR3 ram and 8gb rx 580 gpu Hogwarts Legacy plays smooth as does most modern games.
archlinux.org
Doesn’t the Steam Deck use KDE Plasma 5 instead of GNOME?
It does yes. Although it launches Steam directly as its own … “shelll”? Is that the right word? KDE is bypassed entirely unless you launch “Desktop Mode”
Anyways, I still wouldn’t recommend Arch to a new user, go with something easier and more mainstream for your first Linux experience. PopOS, Mint, Fedora, Norabora, Ubuntu/Kubuntu
Also, saying Steam Deck uses Arch isn’t wrong, but it’s a bit misleading. It uses an Arch base , curated, configured and tested by Valve, and finally periodically shipped as updates using immutable root images (on a single well defined hardware platform). If you install vanilla Arch yourself you’re responsible for all configuration and testing yourself.
Fair points. I will say I use EndeavourOS and I find that to be much more usable than vanilla Arch. I wouldn’t exactly consider myself a beginner though. Not sure how a completely new Linux user would take all that in.
Endeavour is what I recommend for people who are technical but not interested in setting up Arch from scratch. It’s about as close to Vanilla Arch as you can get while having an installer and sane defaults. It’s kind of perfect for gaming, where up to date packages can be the difference between a game working flawlessly and that same game being a choppy mess.
I set my partner up with it, and they’ve had a very easy time running all their favorite games from Elden Ring to Valheim. No headaches required!