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Apropos, running Steam on my Archlinux Desktop with Windows compatibility turned on works really, really well. Much better than what I remembered from the bad old days of trying to get stuff running in Wine.

I second that, everything "just works" as you'd expect it to.

If StreamOS can get widespread and they start to introduce desktop apps to the store, I think they can take some market share.

Wine and it's alternatives have greatly profited from valve going this route and as a result all software runs better. It's a gradual improvement over time and we are past the early stages. I'm still running a gaming PC on windows but that is going to end quite soon if Microsoft keeps doing these things.

Linux Mint with Lutris and Wine.

I completely removed Windows from all of my personal notebooks and workstations.

Valve started with win8, almost 15 years ago now.

Imo just works is an understatement. Many games work better than ever.

On low power hardware many games run better because they not strangled by windows bloat.

I still have a Windows computer for a single reason: PUBG on Steam.

If that worked on Linux, I would not longer need Windows at all...

How bloated is Windows actually?

Idles at 50% CPU usage running background tasks on a dual core. For steam deck, enough to be noticeable in FPS.

I game using Steam on Pop_OS![1] with a home-built AMD machine and, while I know there are some background processes (Proton) that run to establish and maintain a compatibility layer, it's nearly seamless to me as a user. The most I really see is a progress bar that appears before some games where Vulcan shaders have to be pre-rendered. In my experience everything needed for Windows-native games to run on Linux is handled automatically, without any configuration, runtime flags, or anything else.

Early on I consulted ProtonDB to see if my games would run, but honestly now I don't even look at it any more. While YMMV depending on the games you play, I haven't encountered really any major bugs and zero crashes. The most I found was some strange shadow texture rendering artifacting in Baldur's Gate 3, but it was contained to a particular part of a particular map.

A decade ago it was kind of rough, but now? I am never going back to Windows for gaming. Playing games on Linux is light-years better than what it used to be. If you're curious but haven't tried it because you had bad experiences in the past, I'd encourage anyone to give it another go.

1: https://system76.com/pop/

> everything "just works"

Just a note to readers who are interested in this: some games in your Steam library may still not work with Proton, but the ones that do work should have rather few issues. (I play exclusively on a Steam Deck so “should” is in reference to the variance in hardware among bespoke machines.)

Stream actually paid for contributions to Wine if I understand correctly.

I too planning to use a gaming centric distro for my next gaming PC build. The horseshit they've been pushing at me on 10 has been atrocious. The lie that 10 would be the last. Injecting pages into Chrome. Windows acts more and more like literal malware.

PUBG - the game that must have tried every different AC at some point. Plus layering multiple at the same time.

I am glad they've added bots years ago which made me stop playing so I do not miss it.

Yes, steam contracts CodeWeavers which is the main company that supports the development of wine.

> I too planning to use a gaming centric distro for my next gaming PC build.

I don't find that the distribution makes that much of a difference?

I just use Arch Linux, and install all the programs (gaming centric or otherwise) that I need when I need them. I guess I'm lucky, because the Steam Deck's distribution is based on Arch Linux, but I used it before it was cool.

I suspect the main differences between the distributions is what you get by default, and that can be a huge factor in terms of convenience?

Is that 50% CPU usage across all cores? That's impressive (as in impressively bad).

I haven't used Windows in a few years, but I was actually fairly happy with Windows 10 as a casual user.

Yeah and good on you for using Arch but gaming distros are designed to support dummies, meaning people like me that don't really want to build the OS from the ground up get to coast. We just want to use it.

I know a fair bit about OS internals but especially when I'm gaming I want to play rather than read and follow technical docs.

Sorry, not sorry.

One core, broadwell generation.

Devs don't test on low spec machines and MS fired the team that maintained the testing PC zoo a decade ago.

I have a 9950X3D and doing nothing Windows still lights up a core 5-20% every few seconds doing god knows what.

Linux on the same hardware does not.