this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2026
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Linux Gaming
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Some of y'all are showing your bubble side; outside of our communities here, Linux very much is obscure. That said, there really does seem to be a leak in the mainstream and it's nice to see it mentioned in a publication. Even if just a little gain, thanks in large part to Steam raising awareness for gamers, US decline in Europe and Canada, and Windows 11 blunders with security.
I've gone from people being completely oblivious when I mention Linux, to going "oh, like steam deck?" but there's still plenty of others who still are oblivious. Then again, mentioning file extensions goes over the heads of 95% of who I talk to, so I wouldn't have too high hopes.
To paraphrase Bill Hicks about drugs...
:3 Well, that nearly worked. n_n
(I had intended to add a "they[servers]'re all running linux" meme... but failed to find... instead, this'll do nicely too...)
https://images3.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED455/6859360c6abcc.jpeg
I'd say it worked. Bravo. Haha
Wish I didn't cave in and bought an NVidia card back in 2022. But well now we're served with severe shortage of PC hardware all thanks to fucking AI and I'm stuck with a 500GB main SSD and an almost full 2TB spinning disk with a 3050 and I'm sick of MS getting slower by the day it's ridiculous; I'm still on 10 and not actually paid MS for it ;), but still.
The plan was to get a new 2TB SSD and install a distro, but see above fuckery because of AI.
I'm going to check if I moved all my installed Steam games to the spinning disk will Steam on Linux be able to read it. Because I'm sure as hell am not downloading the game files again if I can help it. If the answer is yes, I'll just nuke the current SSD to install a distro. I'll figure how to move installs again later in 2029 or something when SSD prices have gone down again and I can get 2 or 4TB SSD for less than 2 kidneys.
Fuck Microsoft. Fuck NVidia.
If I were in that situation, one thing I'd consider trying.... get 2 USB pendrives, one to put a Live/Installer distro on (Devuan, or AntiX being the two friendliest of my likely candidate distros (or VoidLinux, Artix or Gentoo if feeling a little more bold)), and a bigger one to install the distro to, just like it's a HD or SSD, to see if "everything works". Then can decide from there if wanting to just carry on from there living like that, or, move to the main SSD.
M$ Windoze gets slower by the day, by design. Just one of many anti-features abusing the ~~user~~ used. Planned obsolescence, actively engaged, to encourage you that you need to buy the new version, and new hardware. Stick a GNU+Linux or a BSD on it, and then surprisingly the hardware's nippy again, for over a decade more, sparing your kindeys.
Ooh, I've never seen installing on a pendrive being suggested before, I think. I certainly do have a couple pendrives. I'll give that a shot, since I also have a gaming wheel I'd like to test.
When I first set up my current gaming PC, I had Kubuntu running from a 1Gb external SSD, just to check all the hardware was good before wiping the main internal SSD.
Used it that way for weeks before figuring that I needed to get around to setting it up on the internal drive. At no point did it feel like a problem. Games were running from a 2Tb HDD, and were playing just fine.
Also had it installed on a 64Gb thumb drive, so I could boot some of the Windows machines at work into Kubuntu for hardware testing.
It really is extraordinary how flexible Linux can be.
I advise against trying to use the same library for windows and linux, but if you just want to migrate, it should be possible to use Steam's backup feature.
Thanks. I have a feeling that might be the case. I'll have to research properly.
Just to add, since I recently started to switch. Steam will find the game if I mount the "old" NTFS drive and point my steam library to it. It will be able to download missing files and appears to launch the game. The game doesn't start though. After adding a EXT4 partition, I was able to add a library there and use the "move installation folder" in game settings. Then it works.
thanks for the tip.
so I can't use the files if my 2TB HDD is NTFS as is. the main drive currently with windows and a few games that I'll move to the HDD, I'll be converting to a distro I haven't yet decide.
so I'm guessing after I get Steam running on the linux drive, install any game then move the games installed from the old windows install…?
I'm not sure I follow the question. I'll try to list the steps.
Hopefully that makes sense. Somewhere along the way steam will probably install Proton as well. It might work straight from NTFS too, maybe? But I didn't get it to on Linux Mint
My question is a bit confusing yes, sorry 😅
But yes thank you for getting it. This helps a lot clearing up my uncertainties on moving to Linux
It works straight from NTFS if you install the ntfs driver, but you're better off moving them to a BTRFS or EXT4 formatted drive so as to not fuck around with NTFS too much since NTFS can cause issues.
Highly recommend CachyOS for gaming too, has one click GUI installer for all gaming components out of the box.
CachyOS is on my short list to try first. But I'm gping to try installing a light distro on a pendrive first like someone suggested to me to check if my gaming wheel would work with it.
I think it's also down to windows 11 being increasingly enshitified, and unwanted AI stuff being forced on users. A lot of people are frustrated and are more open to alternatives.
Everyone acts like it's all about gaming, but people want to use Lightroom, Photoshop, Excel, their banking and tax software etc. They don't want the alternatives because they're not integrated well, they can't access their Dropbox/Apple Cloud/whatever and they gave Linux their Google password already, why does it need it again for that mail software that has some stupid bird name instead of "mail".
Yup. Although I've become a fan of things like GIMP, you do need to learn a new software and depending on who you are, it might take a while. Lucky (?) for me, I was too poor to afford it for school and since it was for official assignments, I didn't want to pirate.
That said, Microsoft integration is more a curse than a blessing at this point. Privacy and junk aside, it's dumped hundreds of GB of files onto my tiny SSD C: since it kept changing settings and ignoring my preferences. That's why Microsoft messing things up is converting people who even prefer integration, when there's an option to anyway!
A bunch of the issues you mention aren't issues anymore, thanks to fully featured web applications.
Sure. There's always an exception like graphics editing.
We talk about exceptions a lot. But being in a niche professional can lead to either early or late adoption. A job is a job, and we just use the tools we need.
But for stuff like email, banking, and various document services, the average user's experience is identical:
I do think a good file backup service is one of the big remaining challenges.
Ironically you mentioned two that are I believe are still fully Linux native (Dropbox and Google).
But to your point, people need file backups that just work, and plenty of popular cloud sync services choose not to provide Linux support.
If you're setting up an email client you're almost certainly doing work on the computer and anyone who has setup outlook can setup any other email client so that's maybe not the example to use. But you're right in the sense gaming, office environments and schools are the major groups that train window users.
Competitive gamers want edges - a better mouse, a better keyboard, a better internet connection. The latest performance metrics show linux running many games better than windows so this means a major inflow to windows is losing out to linux.
The weird part about all of this is that macbook sales are also up like 4%, suggesting overall a move away from windows. And for most of those apps you listed they also work on mac.
If linux is eating the gaming environment and the mac office experience is better than windows (due to MS enshittification)... the thing keeping windows in place is legacy software, corporate products, oem deals and like historical precedence.
Better to escape the user lock-in (and other) malicious anti-features of proprietary software, going for more of a fully Free Software system.
Idk one of my siblings who I never chalked up as a non-windows user and not particularly tech savvy sent me a screenshot of their linux install. If like the tech barriers to linux are falling then the only thing left to fall is software developers for commercial software.
Yes. 2026 was an interesting year for Linux desktop.
More of my friends installed Linux in response to Windows 11 than I imagined possible.
I think I noticed a correlation with their having a kid in the house who owned a SteamDeck. There's a generation who are learning Linux in order to mod their games.
We have a time traveller over here.
Nah. Just an ordinary typo that anyone could make on their period authentic LTE smart phone or Casio smart watch.
"Like an Android, but without Google's control."
Since Android was built off Linux, just way locked down. Might appeal to a wider range of folk since it isn't strictly to do with gaming and more people are likely to be familiar with Android than a Steam Deck.
I built a high end Steam machine in October. I haven’t played many Windows games since. There are games I can’t play, like Space Marine 2, but I have so much that I can play I’m kind of fine with it. Being able to PC game in the living room with an OS that is well formatted for TV play is wonderful.
Space Marine 2 no Linux?
It runs like butt. It’s optimized for Windows, apparently.
That's a shame. But hopefully by the time I'll buy it in 2 years or something on deep discount, it has better support or optimization.
That’s the thing about PC gaming, right? There’s always hope someone will figure it out.