My journey to successfully game under Linux (and overcome Microsoft's Stranglehold)

[WelshBloke]

I don't use Steam at all nor do I plan to start using it. Pretty much GoG only.
That's why it's a bit hard for me to find info, as most articles are "great experience with Proton, SteamOS runs tons of games etc". The first post in this thread is like that too, LMDE fine for non-gaming and then moves on to Bazzite.

I think that GoG have their own linux launcher that runs windows games on Linux.

Edit. They don't! There are a bunch of really good third party ones though.

 

[biostud]

I'm considering moving to Linux with the new PC build.
Two usecases worry me, gaming obviously, lots of talk about things having improved, but many of them are somewhat SteamOS/Proton based, not sure what state we're in with Mint/Zorin/Ubuntu without Proton with just Wine or something, no Bazzite etc. That said, I'm not a heavy gamer, so I could probably live with whatever the state is.
The other one is that I will miss Visual Studio for pet projects, and I dont want to relearn a new IDE.

How is VR support? Like for HTC headsets, not the new Steam VR.
And for the content, though this is a general OS-agnostic question, as someone who won't use VR for gaming (nor porn), I wonder how much content there is outside those two.

Also, how's Linux and X3D dual CCD CPUs? Even Windows isn't quite PnP with these for optimal performance.

But two SSDs. First install windows, then Linux on the other. There is no shame in dual booting until you have it all figured out.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

OK... here's my scenario:

I. DO. NOT. USE. STEAM.

Or Origin. Or Epic. Or Bethesda. Or any of the web portals that function as gatekeepers for your game collection. I hate this Big Brother stuff.

It's nobody's business to see, much less control what I run on my computer, and I despise the idea behind Steam (just like I despise iTunes). I really dislike the idea of needing Internet access for gaming. I only play locally. No multiplayer. No internet. I don't do Fortnite, WoW or CoD.

Instead, I still have a rather large collection of games on CD (an entire collection of Quake, Unreal, Doom etc). And I really like to use repacks (like FitGirl and NoSteam), precisely for reasons of convenience, since they bypass all this crap.

It looks to me like all the vaunted "gaming on Linux" solutions rely on Steam or require running Windows in a virtual machine (with all the ensuing downsides).

So... Is there any honest Linux distro that can play games natively and locally, without all this crap? Yes or no?

 

[WelshBloke]

OK... here's my scenario:

I. DO. NOT. USE. STEAM.

Or Origin. Or Epic. Or Bethesda. Or any of the web portals that function as gatekeepers for your game collection. I hate this Big Brother stuff.

It's nobody's business to see, much less control what I run on my computer, and I despise the idea behind Steam (just like I despise iTunes). I really dislike the idea of needing Internet access for gaming. I only play locally. No multiplayer. No internet. I don't do Fortnite, WoW or CoD.

Instead, I still have a rather large collection of games on CD (an entire collection of Quake, Unreal, Doom etc). And I really like to use repacks (like FitGirl and NoSteam), precisely for reasons of convenience, since they bypass all this crap.

It looks to me like all the vaunted "gaming on Linux" solutions rely on Steam or require running Windows in a virtual machine (with all the ensuing downsides).

So... Is there any honest Linux distro that can play games natively and locally, without all this crap? Yes or no?

Short answer. Yes you can play your pirated games on Linux.

 

[quikah]

I'm considering moving to Linux with the new PC build.
Two usecases worry me, gaming obviously, lots of talk about things having improved, but many of them are somewhat SteamOS/Proton based, not sure what state we're in with Mint/Zorin/Ubuntu without Proton with just Wine or something, no Bazzite etc. That said, I'm not a heavy gamer, so I could probably live with whatever the state is.
The other one is that I will miss Visual Studio for pet projects, and I dont want to relearn a new IDE.

See if you can transition to VS Code + some extensions. Depending on how much of VS you actually use it might be doable.

 

[Zepp]

OK... here's my scenario:

.........

I still have a rather large collection of games on CD (an entire collection of Quake, Unreal, Doom etc). And I really like to use repacks (like FitGirl and NoSteam), precisely for reasons of convenience, since they bypass all this crap.

It looks to me like all the vaunted "gaming on Linux" solutions rely on Steam or require running Windows in a virtual machine (with all the ensuing downsides).

So... Is there any honest Linux distro that can play games natively and locally, without all this crap? Yes or no?

Repacks can definitely be installed on linux through wine. You can search around and find guides and advice on installing them. As with many windows binaries on linux though, the installation success rate can vary from app to app.
However I often hear that older PC games from the windows 7 era or before are actually easier to run on linux/WINE than on windows 10/11.

 

[WelshBloke]

However I often hear that older PC games from the windows 7 era or before are actually easier to run on linux/WINE than on windows 10/11.

I installed syndicate wars the other day. It worked perfectly, which was a surprise. It was a bit tricky to get it running under windows last time I tried.

 

[iCyborg]

But two SSDs. First install windows, then Linux on the other. There is no shame in dual booting until you have it all figured out.

Nah, SSDs also getting pricey lately, and I can only have one Gen5 NVME so I'd still need to pick a favourite. And I hate rebooting.
Besides, I have a Win11 laptop, and my current desktop will still be around for a bit, so I have fallbacks in place. I'll give it a week or two and then either stick with it, or go back to Win.
Computers are my career and while I have a passion for certain areas, endless tinkering and experimenting with Linux distros and window managers is not something I want to spend time on. I have other hobbies lol.

As much as I hate the aggressive push of AI, ads, subscriptions, telemetry etc, the main deal breaker is forced MS account which can still be worked around. Though it's starting to look like it's a matter of time when they close all the loopholes, so I'm thinking now's as good time as any to make a clean cut.

 

[iCyborg]

See if you can transition to VS Code + some extensions. Depending on how much of VS you actually use it might be doable.

Yes, it is an option, especially since due to AI push, they are soft-forcing us to use it at work so I have some experience with it. Not a big fan of it so far.

 

[Indus]

OK... here's my scenario:

I. DO. NOT. USE. STEAM.

Or Origin. Or Epic. Or Bethesda. Or any of the web portals that function as gatekeepers for your game collection. I hate this Big Brother stuff.

It's nobody's business to see, much less control what I run on my computer, and I despise the idea behind Steam (just like I despise iTunes). I really dislike the idea of needing Internet access for gaming. I only play locally. No multiplayer. No internet. I don't do Fortnite, WoW or CoD.

Instead, I still have a rather large collection of games on CD (an entire collection of Quake, Unreal, Doom etc). And I really like to use repacks (like FitGirl and NoSteam), precisely for reasons of convenience, since they bypass all this crap.

It looks to me like all the vaunted "gaming on Linux" solutions rely on Steam or require running Windows in a virtual machine (with all the ensuing downsides).

So... Is there any honest Linux distro that can play games natively and locally, without all this crap? Yes or no?

Don't take this the wrong way.. but if the games are older like say Morrowind (I still have the CD), wouldn't it be better under say Windows 7 on a different partition?

Since it was natively made for that and you don't even need to hook it up to the internet for updates and crap.. just play on it.

Personally I like things to be simple..

Spoiler

There a label printing program that wouldn't work for me in windows 10 so I kept 2 hard drives on my printing computer.. one with 7 and 10.

And on my current pc just because photoshop is sometimes needed, I have a dual boot with windows 10 and Debian.

No point overcomplicating it.

But times are changing so even though the games may not be currently compatible without Steam/ Epic/ Lutris/ Wine.. we may arrive at a point where game developers make a native option for linux.

Honestly though I thought I would hate steam with all games being dependent on it, but I actually ended up liking it especially as it's not subscription based.

I look upon it like using youtube.. watch/ play whatever you like and don't pay a penny.

Though I did pick up cyberpunk 2077 and elder scrolls skyrim/ morrowind/ oblivion during the christmas discounts sales. Now's actually a good time to pick up some titles.

 

[Indus]

Started having some strange problems with my HTPC where Windows would randomly completely freeze.

I tried setting up a dual boot but it's so big.. wouldn't fit both windows 10 and debian on the 256GB drive.. so I went with debian.

Strangely enough it was still freezing and I don't know what the problem was.. but I had an NVIDIA GTX 1080 spare and I put it in there to replace the GTX 660 and did a reformat and reinstall of debian.

Seems to be running smoothly and running better with 1 weird irk.. the left speaker seems louder than the right.

I can equalize it but I wonder what the problem is.. loose cable or something??


BTW currently on the 3 pc's I own..

Main: Debian 13 with windows 10 dual boot available
Wife: LMDE 7
HTPC: Debian 13

I'm really happy to have replaced Microsoft.

 

[Zepp]

the last time I had a randomly freezing PC both on windows and linux it turned out to be bad RAM related. In my case it was the dimm slot that went bad. as long as no stick was in that slot, the laptop worked normally.

 

[iCyborg]

Don't take this the wrong way.. but if the games are older like say Morrowind (I still have the CD), wouldn't it be better under say Windows 7 on a different partition?

Since it was natively made for that and you don't even need to hook it up to the internet for updates and crap.. just play on it.

It may be an option for older HW, but installing Win 7 on NVME, Ryzen, any GPU in the last 4-5 years, it's gonna be challenging if not outright impossible.
Not to mention activation.

I too still have Morrowind on CD, it came with my GF Ti4200! I have Oblivion on CD too, and I re-bought both on GoG. I have a couple more examples like that where I bought the same game twice.

 

[Indus]

It may be an option for older HW, but installing Win 7 on NVME, Ryzen, any GPU in the last 4-5 years, it's gonna be challenging if not outright impossible.
Not to mention activation.

I too still have Morrowind on CD, it came with my GF Ti4200! I have Oblivion on CD too, and I re-bought both on GoG. I have a couple more examples like that where I bought the same game twice.

Same with Crysis (actually bought the remastered version) but waited on a sale.

My main point was Steam makes things easier to move to linux but without Steam linux gaming was really hard if not impossible.

That's why my wife has been on LMDE since 2021 but I waited till 2025 to fully switch and even now I still have a dual boot with windows 10.

Hopefully we're approaching a point where game dev's actually look to code their game for linux rather than windows which will give us all a lot more freedom.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Don't take this the wrong way.. but if the games are older like say Morrowind (I still have the CD), wouldn't it be better under say Windows 7 on a different partition?

I was sure I described here in detail the rather arduous procedure to install Windows 7 on a Ryzen 2600X gaming computer, just before the pandemic. I can't seem to find it the forum archives, but it required using a non-USB keyboard and mouse, injecting the USB3 drivers into the installation, and bypassing a couple of smaller hurdles. But it worked, and I wouldn't be afraid to do it again.

The biggest problem with Windows 7 - and what really convinced me to move away from it - remains the poor handling of 4K. 1080p was perfect on Win7, but any attempt to use 4K on the desktop was marred by poor scaling and a buggy interface...

 

[Indus]

I was sure I described here in detail the rather arduous procedure to install Windows 7 on a Ryzen 2600X gaming computer, just before the pandemic. I can't seem to find it the forum archives, but it required using a non-USB keyboard and mouse, injecting the USB3 drivers into the installation, and bypassing a couple of smaller hurdles. But it worked, and I wouldn't be afraid to do it again.

The biggest problem with Windows 7 - and what really convinced me to move away from it - remains the poor handling of 4K. 1080p was perfect on Win7, but any attempt to use 4K on the desktop was marred by poor scaling and a buggy interface...

I know exactly what you're talking about and that's why we have only 1080p TV's in our house.

4k causes more problems than it solves.

The wife uses a 32" lg 1080p monitor which I picked up for cheap last year.

Probably not the solution you're looking for but I've made it work for us. You could probably pick up one of those old dell/ hp inspiron desktops with i5/ i7 2nd-6th gen cpu's and they'd be a lot more friendly to Windows 7 too!

Quite a few on ebay or ewaste sites

 

[AnitaPeterson]

I have a Windows 7 machine kept frozen in time, so to speak. It's got a 3770K paired with a GTX970, 32 GB of DDR3, a Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum and a multi-format optical drive. As long as I don't try 4K on it, it's perfectly serviceable. But it won't play games that are more recent or poorly optimized (like Cyberpunk 2077 or STALKER).

 

[biostud]

I had Debian or rather KDE have fatal crash, as my music kept playing but the desktop completely froze.

 

[Indus]

I have a Windows 7 machine kept frozen in time, so to speak. It's got a 3770K paired with a GTX970, 32 GB of DDR3, a Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum and a multi-format optical drive. As long as I don't try 4K on it, it's perfectly serviceable. But it won't play games that are more recent or poorly optimized (like Cyberpunk 2077 or STALKER).

BTW on your new computer that you try debian on.. I suggest you experiment with steam since it's free.

You may like it and you can play games in offline mode too once they've been downloaded.

Either way you're not really going to find out if linux/ steam is for you or not for you till you try it!

I don't think there's a way to get Cyberpunk 2077 without one of the main platforms either.

 

[iCyborg]

My main point was Steam makes things easier to move to linux but without Steam linux gaming was really hard if not impossible.

That's what I was afraid of, I've been playing with Linux Mint for a couple days and I'm back to Win today.
Valve's efforts on Linux gaming are commendable, but it's coupled with their Steam platform, which while understandable, is a no-go for me.
My main worry is VR, I looked up HTC Vive on Linux and literally everything I found starts with "Let's install SteamVR which needs Steam client" and I can close the browser tab.

Kinda sad because Mint (Cinnamon edition) ain't bad, I really dig the general look & feel, very clean and organized, no annoying widgets to remove, advertising IDs or notification spam, low on resources, the initial experience is head and shoulders over Windows, I'm gonna miss that.
There's stuff I didn't like in the few days I used it:
- Firefox can only be updated via UpdateManager (this can be "fixed", though it took me like an hour, as a bonus I get the normal FF icon too), the whole concept of UpdateManager isn't sitting well with me
- no HDR support?
- File picker in apps suc*s, allegedly better in KDE, but I'm not switching DE every time I hit a bump. Something so elemental shouldn't look like GUI made for a school project. And this despite longstanding complaints, see first reply in https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=452030
- "File Explorer" in Mint, if I try to copy stuff over some size, progress bar disappears. Can't even stop it from GUI, what the heck. As I have to copy like 800GB from my NAS backup, I'd have to do it piecemeal. Also appears to be a known issue. I had to restart my NAS to stop the copying, I couldn't find the process easily to kill it.
- many apps don't remember last position/size of their windows, most notably "File Explorer".

In all fairness, plenty annoying things in Win too, so it's mostly down to gaming & VR, even moderate gaming appears to be only sensible/practical for Steam users and I don't see that changing in the near future. I know Steam ecosystem works for many/most people, but for me Win11+local account+GoG is the more palatable option.
I did try one game, Crusader Kings 2, it's old because my previous PC couldn't run anything newer, so I don't own anything modern lol. No hiccups using just Wine, even the all-important-to-me alt-tabbing in&out of the game was a breeze. Supposedly there's a native Linux version of this game, but I don't see it on GoG.
Also, MB has Wi-Fi, on Win 11 I first had to connect by ethernet so I could DL drivers for wifi. On Linux it worked out of the box, so kudos there. BT also worked out of the box on Linux, not so much on Win.

Anyway, it was a fun experiment, at least I have an idea where things are - if MS makes Win too annoying, I will come back, the downside is I'll have to abandon gaming & VR, or rather limit it to replaying old games.

 

[biostud]

That's what I was afraid of, I've been playing with Linux Mint for a couple days and I'm back to Win today.
Valve's efforts on Linux gaming are commendable, but it's coupled with their Steam platform, which while understandable, is a no-go for me.
My main worry is VR, I looked up HTC Vive on Linux and literally everything I found starts with "Let's install SteamVR which needs Steam client" and I can close the browser tab.

Kinda sad because Mint (Cinnamon edition) ain't bad, I really dig the general look & feel, very clean and organized, no annoying widgets to remove, advertising IDs or notification spam, low on resources, the initial experience is head and shoulders over Windows, I'm gonna miss that.
There's stuff I didn't like in the few days I used it:
- Firefox can only be updated via UpdateManager (this can be "fixed", though it took me like an hour, as a bonus I get the normal FF icon too), the whole concept of UpdateManager isn't sitting well with me
- no HDR support?
- File picker in apps suc*s, allegedly better in KDE, but I'm not switching DE every time I hit a bump. Something so elemental shouldn't look like GUI made for a school project. And this despite longstanding complaints, see first reply in https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=452030
- "File Explorer" in Mint, if I try to copy stuff over some size, progress bar disappears. Can't even stop it from GUI, what the heck. As I have to copy like 800GB from my NAS backup, I'd have to do it piecemeal. Also appears to be a known issue. I had to restart my NAS to stop the copying, I couldn't find the process easily to kill it.
- many apps don't remember last position/size of their windows, most notably "File Explorer".

In all fairness, plenty annoying things in Win too, so it's mostly down to gaming & VR, even moderate gaming appears to be only sensible/practical for Steam users and I don't see that changing in the near future. I know Steam ecosystem works for many/most people, but for me Win11+local account+GoG is the more palatable option.
I did try one game, Crusader Kings 2, it's old because my previous PC couldn't run anything newer, so I don't own anything modern lol. No hiccups using just Wine, even the all-important-to-me alt-tabbing in&out of the game was a breeze. Supposedly there's a native Linux version of this game, but I don't see it on GoG.
Also, MB has Wi-Fi, on Win 11 I first had to connect by ethernet so I could DL drivers for wifi. On Linux it worked out of the box, so kudos there. BT also worked out of the box on Linux, not so much on Win.

Anyway, it was a fun experiment, at least I have an idea where things are - if MS makes Win too annoying, I will come back, the downside is I'll have to abandon gaming & VR, or rather limit it to replaying old games.

Is there a reason the steam platform is a no go for you?

 

[iCyborg]

Is there a reason the steam platform is a no go for you?

Yes, a number of reasons.
I don't like needing Steam client to launch games, running in the background, restricting which folder I can put games into, auto updates that AFAIK cannot be completely disabled, tracking what games I play and time spent, achievements, ads for new games. I don't want a centralized "library" with an integrated chat client, don't care about community/social features, yes, some of these I could ignore, but they are at the very least bloat. I could go on.
One example: I am moving from a Win 7 PC. AFAIK, Steam dropped Win 7 support a couple years ago. Can you still run Steam games on Win 7? I'm guessing not officially if at all. I would've been pi**ed if they told me to move from Win 7 to keep playing games that work perfectly fine on Win 7.

 

[biostud]

I just went down another rabbit hole, and found out about backports for Debian, which means I just updated to the latest Linux Kernel on Debian 13 and updated the Mesa driver as well. It only resulted in a single black screen while booting, and I found the problem and fixed it.

Linux 7800X3D 6.17.8+deb13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.17.8-1~bpo13+1 (2025-11-23) x86_64 GNU/Linux

apiVersion = 1.4.318
driverVersion = 25.2.6
vendorID = 0x1002
deviceID = 0x73bf
deviceType = PHYSICAL_DEVICE_TYPE_DISCRETE_GPU
deviceName = AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT (RADV NAVI21)
driverID = DRIVER_ID_MESA_RADV
driverName = radv
driverInfo = Mesa 25.2.6-1~bpo13+1
conformanceVersion = 1.4.0.0
deviceUUID = 00000000-0300-0000-0000-000000000000
driverUUID = 414d442d-4d45-5341-2d44-525600000000

I guess this was about how long I could keep my meddling fingers out of a stable OS

 

[biostud]

I just canceled my M365 family subscription.

I've been a subscriber since it was called "skydrive", I've switched to filen.io for online storage/backup and Proton Mail for my primary mail account.

I've been running both since the summer and the renewal for my M365 was up and I had a decision to make, and so I did.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Fallout 4 with all the updates they have done, runs much better on Bazzite than 11 pro. I've been spending more and more time away from windows. I think today I will start out the new year by trying CachyOS on either an all Intel or All AMD box.