Mastodawn

TontonLEric Feb 23

My son bought a second-hand Windows 11 PC for games, and has been having BSOD issues with the graphics card since he got it. Out of desperation he tried installing Bazzite on it, which I encouraged, but was also trying not to get his hopes up, telling him that the some things might not work. But he reports that "absolutely everything works better than Windows".
I suggested he use KDE for the desktop, and he is blown away about how good everything looks, and how easy the user experience is. He has used Linux for a bit probably 7 or 8 years ago when he used a salvaged laptop at uni that had Ubuntu on it, and he remembers that being a bit janky and frustrating, but now he's decided that he'll wipe the Windows partition and stay with Linux.
So keep it up, clever people that are making Linux distros and software, you're winning.
#Linux #Bazzite #KDE #Steam

GabeMoralesVR Feb 23

@stib I have an arcade machine that runs a PC inside. For some reason, I absolutely could not install windows 10 on it years ago. Any time I would try, it would crash and bluescreen constantly. It'd even crash during the install. Then Valve realsed Steam Proton and I decided to give Ubuntu a try on it. Worked flawlessly. It's still running ubuntu to this day. I played VF5 on it just this evening. If you want to really blow his mind, get him a steam deck and show him the sleep mode on it.

there is beauty in simplicity Feb 23

@stib I have had a similar experience, and love the KDE

Carlos Solís Feb 23

Does he typically play single-player or multiplayer? If the latter, he'll probably be stuck with Windows regardless for a long time.

Martijn Vos Feb 23

Plenty of multiplayer games work fine on linux. Only the ones with rootkit-level anticheat don't.

②Ϣƛ_m②×H‹Ꮬ: nOHƛ2Þ0}“4Ϣ„41»ʀnƛkP$c[n|'.)“W∑}”Feb 23

That's patently false. There's basically a handful of games that use kernel-level anticheat that willingly break linux compat, but most of the popular multiplayer titles are compatible.

Carlos Solís Feb 23

The "handful" that don't work are unfortunately the most popular of the bunch: LOL, GTA5, COD, Valorant, Fortnite, Apex, Destiny 2, even FIFA/EAFC.

Bernie the Wordsmith Feb 23

@stib How's #Bazzite for a normal desktop usage aside from Gaming?

Chris 🦑Feb 23

@berniethewordsmith

great. #writtenfrommybazzite

It's not a "gaming os". it's an atomic fedora with strong gaming support.

@sturmsucht @berniethewordsmith After looking around for a distro that played nicely with Davinci Resolve (they suggest Rocky, but I did Not Like) I ended up using Garuda, which is a similar gamer focused distro, but Arch-based. It provided easy installation and tweaks to get everything working without too much fuss. Apart from the lurid colour scheme (think 17 year old boy's idea of cool desktop theme) it was a rock-solid desktop for $dayjob. My later installs have all been Arch from scratch but it was a good way to get into the distro.
#GarudaLinux #Arch

@berniethewordsmith @stib I'm using the Gnome version, it's a normal desktop as long as you don't set it up to boot into Steam. The only part that may feel strange to a Linux veteran is that it is atomic/immutable, for a new user I don't think it's normally an issue. Universal Blue also produce Aurora and Bluefin, which aren't gaming focussed, and they're all built on Fedora Silverblue/Kinoite.

Piranhallama Feb 23

@berniethewordsmith mostly good with the rare annoyance. I've been using Linux for fifteen years or so. On laptops I'll try a new-to-me distro every few months.

Desktop-wise on my gaming machine Bazzite on the whole just works. I think the only issue I see on a semi regular basis is being unable to interact with an in focus application until it's selected through the running applications picker or whatever it's actually called. Out of the box some Steam launches would take forever to load initially due to something like rendering shaders only it wasn't quite that. I had to add a few lines to a config file to resolve.

"Musty Bits" McGee Feb 23

@berniethewordsmith @stib there's a couple other spins that are less gaming focused - aurora and bluefin.

Don Hawkins - W7DAH Feb 23

@stib
Yee-Haa! Glad it worked and glad there is one less Windoz box out there!

leberschnitzel Feb 23

@stib pretty much how I felt when I made the switch to Nobara 2 years ago. I was worried that it would be a worse gaming experience and that many things wouldn't work, but since even on Windows I didn't want to support Kernel Level Anti Cheat Games, the switch was pretty painless.
There's still some tinkering from time to time, but the daily use experience is really really good. Much better than Windows these days.

transfem_verify

@stib but what about the invasive kernel level anti-cheats which takes just one hacker or rogue employee to ruin your entire system !!!!!!

@stib What's the graphics card out of curiosity?

@stib I'm glad your son is enjoying his Linux experience these days more than 7 years ago, the software really has progressed a lot since!

Re: the random BSODs, it *is* possible that they are due to flaky/failing GPU and/or PSU, so beware that this may be just because Linux is not hitting those spots and/or being more efficient, so it's possible random crashes will start happening under Linux too. Might be a good idea to try some stress test of the CPU, RAM and GPU, and check the PSU.

Benedikt Ritter (he/him)Feb 23

@stib parenting goals 😊

Solemarc Feb 23

@stib I had a similar experience. My 2070 super was on he way out (it was only a year old!) but it would idle at 100% GPU until, it couldn't run any games on windows. I installed popos 22.04 and squeezed another couple months out of the GPU just fine. I've never understood why this happened but my work laptop (windows) is now idling on 80% RAM usage so I guess it was just a prelude of what was to come.

régis calustris Feb 23

@stib My PC which formerly ran Windows 10 would also BSOD all the time after I changed the PSU (still no idea how that can be a thing). Then I installed Mint XFCE and it is probably the most stable computer I ever used and I am a complete newbie when it comes to Linux.

Renke Meuwese Feb 23

@stib yes! Gaming on Linux is just ludicrously easy now. I don't even know why it took me so long to make the switch myself.

CounterPillow Feb 23

@stib this has been my experience with my non-techy friends as well. They have problems with Windows and ask me about Linux, I warn them they should temper their expectations, and then they're blown away by how much better things work than either of us expected.

Negative Kelvin Feb 23

@stib A coworker, who does desktop support for Windows users and isn't a Linux person at all, installed Bazite out of the blue and is raving about it.

I was able to install a AAA title to play with some friends and it literally just worked. Zero issues.

I'm so used to occasionally booting into Windows over the past couple of decades -- now I'm just confused. I wasn't prepared at all for gaming and CAD to be fully functional.

Martijn Vos Feb 24

@NegativeK @stib

Gaming on Linux is fantastic now. I've tried linux many times in the past, but it was always gaming that brought me back. I've played Morrowind on Wine back in the Ubuntu 6 days, but lots of games didn't really work. Now, largely thanks to the excellent work at Valve l, almost everything just works, and works perfectly.

I will never go back.

@stib this is the reason I stopped dual booting windows 10 in like 2016. Windows would crash with my gpu but not Ubuntu

Aside from being forced windows at work, haven't touch a non Linux machine since

Miha Markič Feb 23

@stib he could do Windows restore first, just out of curiosity. Windows are bad but probably not like that

Eric Lawton Feb 24

I picked KDE just for the tagging file system.

Hierarchies are inadequate.

@RaymondPierreL3