Gaming on Linux 2021 | A GNU Era of Gaming

[Deleted member 1849]

Some updates:

- The improvements to the Steam Beta branch (Steam play for non-Steam games, fixed 0 byte downloads, etc) are now in the main branch.
- Lutris 0.5 has been released. This version includes GOG integration features, Lutris.net launcher searching, and a complete UI change. https://github.com/lutris/lutris/releases/tag/v0.5.0 The website has also had a fairly significant update: https://lutris.net/

 

[bmfrosty]

Finally got one!

 

[Deleted member 1849]

My Ubuntu laptop got the Lutris 0.5 update via the repo this morning. If that's how you get updates you might want to check it out.

 

[Inugami]

So I finally took the plunge last night. I've been using Linux on and off for years, but game performance and the hassle of dual booting has always been a hard sell to me, and a non-starter for the rest of the family.

It's still not a 'just works' situation and I don't envy future me having to worry about a major upgrade or reinstall... but at least I can get in game. The stutters so far in games like Heroes of the Storm are off putting, but I get that it's shader generation and will get better with time. After a couple matches it's mostly playable now. Too early to claim I'll make a complete switch, BUT it's at least looking promising.

(EDIT) Had my first "Oh Shit! It just works!" moment. Tried .hack//collection and everything just worked as it should right out of the box.

Running on Mint 19.1 btw because I didn't want to make anything too easy on myself...

 

[Deleted member 1849]

^ Mint is a pretty great distro. Welcome!

I find that Proton is "Oh Shit! It just works!" like maybe 50% of the time. The rest of the time it's often not too hard to get something running. It's pretty great.

Unrelated:

I just wrote a custom Lutris script! It's actually not as hard as I was expecting. I just used a couple of existing scripts as examples.

It's the GOG version of Shogo running in Wine. I know Shogo used to have a Linux version, but I can't for the life of me find anywhere that still sells it. It's unfortunate that GOG/Steam never made it available again with fixes, because it's known to still work on modern systems.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

DUSK now has a Linux version: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/artic...ing-build-up-out-for-everyone-next-week.13496

Testing build available now, official full release next week.

 

[Crayon]

I want Dusk :0
...

The dreams beta on playstation is so fun. But when i think of making something serious, i think why not do it on my favorite platform, desktop linux. The scripting in dreams is nuts, and as clever as it is, I'd rather type that shit in.

So what's anyone think of godot engine? I did a basic 3d game tutorial awhile ago and i only have two little thoughts on it: it seems a lot better than when i last tried it 2 or 3 years ago. And having briefly used unity briefly, i think they seem similar.

Seems like a pretty good engine but i figure it must be significantly behind unity in some way. Reasoning being that there's alot of business around unity and i imagine it's development is full steam ahead. But i don't know if that's actually true or exactly how godot would fall short.

If I'm talking about hobbyist development that includes launching small games (ubermosh-hyperlight small) on steam, would choosing open source godot fuck me up in any way? Does the experience significantly cross over into unity anyhow? I guess im also asking if you think it will get up there with blender and krita as a long-tern dependable open source toolkit.

Anyhow any thoughts appreciated. :>

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Crayon If we are talking Linux gamedev there are 2 main engines I like:

Godot - mature, stable, plenty of features. Scene structure is really powerful and nice to work with.

Armory3D - Tight Blender integration, visual scripting very similar to Unreal Blueprints, Haxe is a pretty great programming language, super cross platform, unfortunately a lot less stable than Godot right now (it's only on version 0.5 so that shouldn't be surprising), and the frankensteined Blender/Gamedev workflow can feel really weird.

I don't consider Godot to be behind Unity. Not significantly so anyway. The community is a bit smaller, the 3D performance is very slightly worse but improving, and there are not as many existing examples to work from (but still quite a lot!), on the other hand scenes are better than prefabs, its 2D tools are amazing, and the cross platform editor is better. If the last time you tried it was a couple of years ago you probably tried it back in the 2.x era, Godot 3 changed a lot and it has been improving rapidly since.

For tools, Blender and Krita are amazing. Gimp also works for some quick texture work but I don't think it's that great. The Substance suite (not FOSS) runs on Linux (painter, designer), and there's ArmorPaint improving rapidly if you are worried about Substance Painter going away now they are owned by Adobe or want a FOSS alternative.

If you want to do pixel art, you've also got Aseprite and a few others.

IMO, it's totally doable to be a Linux gamedev.

EDIT:

As an extra, I just want to point out that I've donated to both Godot Engine and Armory3D. I donate more to Armory3D now because I really want it to improve. I'm really happy that Godot has grown, as I think having good FOSS solutions for gamedev is really important. Armory3D also had an awful experience with Patreon, where they were getting around $1600 a month and then Patreon just wiped their account because of a case of mistaken identity, said "oops we made a mistake too bad, but we can't undo it. Feel free to start a new Patreon from scratch.". I felt super bad for them. They now raise their money by selling builds on Gumroad: https://armory3d.org/fund.html and are back to earning something near what they were earning before. Everything is still FOSS (zlib license).

 

[Arkanius]

I'm impressed that Resident Evil 2 Remake works flawless after the Media DLL is patched
Too bad Bungie has me by the balls with Destiny 2, otherwise I would jump in an heartbeat.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Dave Oshry

Thank you.

(This is my laptop, won't actually play it like this and just wanted to test it. Can't wait to play it on my Manjaro PC later)

 

[Alvis]

Dave Oshry

Thank you.

(This is my laptop, won't actually play it like this and just wanted to test it. Can't wait to play it on my Manjaro PC later)

Click to shrink...

What distro / DE is that?

 

[Deleted member 1849]

What distro / DE is that?

Click to shrink...

Ubuntu Budgie. I use the pixel saver and global menu addons to put more things in the Budgie panel and save screen space. Adapta-Eta theme also helps.

I've been playing around with Solus in a VM recently and have been pretty impressed, but I use this machine for work (I even have Codeblocks and a couple of work tabs open in this screenshot) and don't want to mess about with my setup too much right now.

I've changed it around a bit now, but I used to run a similar setup on my desktop. Here's what it looks like there:

 

[Inugami]

A couple days playing Heroes of the Storm and predictably performance has improved since it's built up a decent shader cache. Still an occasional stutter or frame drop. But at least it's fully playable now!

I don't plan on buying a single new game this year (partly monetarily wise, partly because I thought it'd be a fun challenge) so having an excuse to go back and test games with proton has been a bonus. Today was Atelier Sophie which pleasantly just worked, next I'm going to try Valkyrie Chronicles as that was a game I've wanted to invest serious time into at some point.

It's kind of like being a kid in a candy store. I've been trying to ditch windows for over a decade. Every time I've tried I've hit some hard stumbling blocks and jumped back and forth on dual boot before just giving up on it. This is the first time I've gotten everything up and running and I haven't yet flipped back to windows even once. True, it's only been 3 days so far but that is still a pretty big accomplishment since I haven't even had the urge to go back once in that time. Going to be a fun month.

(edit) Valkyrie Chronicles works perfectly except for sound effects which are played super delayed, if at all. Everything else is beautiful... will have to look into what if anything can be done on that front.

(edit 2) and a quick check of Proton DB gives me the solution and now it works perfect. Lovely!

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Steam Lunar New Year Sale has started! What is LinuxEra planning on buying?

A couple days playing Heroes of the Storm and predictably performance has improved since it's built up a decent shader cache. Still an occasional stutter or frame drop. But at least it's fully playable now!

I don't plan on buying a single new game this year (partly monetarily wise, partly because I thought it'd be a fun challenge) so having an excuse to go back and test games with proton has been a bonus. Today was Atelier Sophie which pleasantly just worked, next I'm going to try Valkyrie Chronicles as that was a game I've wanted to invest serious time into at some point.

It's kind of like being a kid in a candy store. I've been trying to ditch windows for over a decade. Every time I've tried I've hit some hard stumbling blocks and jumped back and forth on dual boot before just giving up on it. This is the first time I've gotten everything up and running and I haven't yet flipped back to windows even once. True, it's only been 3 days so far but that is still a pretty big accomplishment since I haven't even had the urge to go back once in that time. Going to be a fun month.

(edit) Valkyrie Chronicles works perfectly except for sound effects which are played super delayed, if at all. Everything else is beautiful... will have to look into what if anything can be done on that front.

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Does setting PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command% in the launch options help? Seems like that's a common recommended fix for VC4.

I recommend https://www.protondb.com/ to see what people say about Proton compatibility.

 

[Inugami]

Steam Lunar New Year Sale has started! What is LinuxEra planning on buying?


Does setting PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 %command% in the launch options help? Seems like that's a common recommended fix for VC4.

I recommend https://www.protondb.com/ to see what people say about Proton compatibility.

Click to shrink...

Hah, I actually just checked and tried that and tried to edit my post in time. Thank you.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Picked up a few small native games (Bleed 2, Induction), and Tokyo Xanadu EX+ which has a platinum Proton rating. Crosscode sure looks tempting too, as does Pathfinder Kingmaker.

Thinking of buying some Feral games to support their Tux work, but I already own most of their games, ahaha.

Hah, I actually just checked and tried that and tried to edit my post in time. Thank you.

Click to shrink...

Aha, no problem. Glad to see it worked.

EDIT:

I just noticed that Blender is tagged "Free To Play". I mean, I guess it's technically correct, but lol.

 

[discotrigger]

Well, since you asked, I'm grabbing King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match, King of Fighters XIII, and probably a couple more like Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 when I can decide. As a fighting game fan, Proton has been very generous to me and I'm going to take full advantage of that now. Of course, there are plenty of newer action games with fully-fledged PBR renderers and high end graphics which are Proton-compatible (and native for that matter), but I have plenty of those already and this is just better bang for my buck.

By the way, CrossCode is well worth full price if you're into that kind of game. The story is a bit deeper than I expected it to be, which was a nice change of pace, and while I haven't quite finished the game yet the combat and puzzle solving are both engaging and fun.

 

[Akelisrain]

I bought cross code at launch, but have had nothing but issues with controller. I had to refund it, really want to play it. Anyway to correct the ps3 pad issues.

 

[nded]

So RE2 works fine on Proton with a bit of fiddling? I'm starting to regret buying my RX 580 before the free game promo hit.

Edit: To cheer myself up, I've decided to clear out some of my redundant Steam keys here. They're either native Linux or have Gold+ ratings on ProtonDB. PM me the name of the game you want and I will try to not to screw things up too badly.

First up some 2D platformers:

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I already have all those games, but thank you for the giveaway. There are some good games in there. Really need to get around to finishing Shantae at some point.

I actually really like the idea of LinuxERA giveaways, so here's one that people might like.

Seems like Giftbot doesn't work, so the way I'll do it is this: Anyone who contributes to this thread and signals they want to be entered into the draw (either by stating so in their post, or by PM) between now and 12pm GMT on Friday will get allocated a random number, which I'll draw with https://www.random.org/. The only rule is that you can't just post a single number/word like "In!" to guarantee an entry. It's got to be on topic for this thread.

Depending on how this goes, I might also do other giveaways with whatever I have available. If other people want to do giveaways feel free as well.

Remember, please signal that you want it in addition to your post. Even just sending me a PM is fine.

 

[Akelisrain]

I played a bit of Apex Legends, it works decently for me. It did stutter a couple times, but it did go away.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

I stumbled on this through Reddit and thought it was awesome: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Steam/Game-specific_troubleshooting

The Arch Wiki has a page for common problems with 146 different games, and common fixes.

 

[Alexandros]

I stumbled on this through Reddit and thought it was awesome: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Steam/Game-specific_troubleshooting

The Arch Wiki has a page for common problems with 146 different games, and common fixes.

Click to shrink...

Nice, I love community resources like that.

 

[Inugami]

I'm sure people will get tired of my gushing... but it's hard not to keep going on and on about this voodoo since I've literally been trying for over a decade to get a setup that works this well. Hitman 2 is probably the newest game I own, and it's another "holy shit it just works!" moment. All of the graphic options, good frame rate, and only the occasional rare stutter from shader caching that was already disappearing after just a half hour or so of playing.

I could write a non-fiction novel on my attempts to switch over the years, heck I even tried when Proton first got announced and I still had nothing but issues so it's not even like my last attempt was that long ago! I think the thing I'm most impressed with is how far AMD open source drivers/MESA has come along since I inevitably always had to go to using the closed source drivers in previous attempts, and those always had some basic feature borked (like video decoding, or screwing up basic window effects). DXVK and Proton are of course amazing as well, it's just like the perfect storm and still not an instant setup like it needs to be I think before we see any decent amount of people ditching windows... but I only spent maybe a half hour and didn't run into any issues requiring more than following a couple of easily found wikis.

Compared to something like installing homebrew on my 3DS back in the day, this was an absolute cakewalk.

 

[Kudo]

How is Denuvo on Linux?
I know that Dark Souls 1-3 all work to some degree on Proton, so in case Sekiro has Denuvo just want to be ready for that as my friend is already using Proton/Steam on Linux as his main gaming platform.

 

[Inugami]

How is Denuvo on Linux?
I know that Dark Souls 1-3 all work to some degree on Proton, so in case Sekiro has Denuvo just want to be ready for that as my friend is already using Proton/Steam on Linux as his main gaming platform.

Click to shrink...

It seems to be pretty hit and miss. Resident Evil 2, for instance, uses the latest Denuvo and works. There are other Denuvo titles that don't work... but that's not necessarily saying Denuvo is the reason why they don't work or not since some titles are just butt regardless.

So it's kind of a "we won't know till a game is released if it will work or not." but just because a title has Denuvo doesn't necessarily mean it won't work.

 

[Kudo]

It seems to be pretty hit and miss. Resident Evil 2, for instance, uses the latest Denuvo and works. There are other Denuvo titles that don't work... but that's not necessarily saying Denuvo is the reason why they don't work or not since some titles are just butt regardless.

So it's kind of a "we won't know till a game is released if it will work or not." but just because a title has Denuvo doesn't necessarily mean it won't work.

Click to shrink...

Alright, that helps.
Also here's hoping Sekiro doesn't have it at all since DS3 doesn't, DS3 performance on Proton seems pretty good so he should have good experience too as I assume they're using same engine.

 

[Deleted member 13645]

I've been thinking of playing around with Linux lately. Learning a new OS is fun, and I could use to get more familiar with Linux. A question I have though is how does HDR work on Linux atm? One of my main usages of my gaming PC at the moment is streaming to my Nvidia Shield so I can play in 4k and HDR on my TV. Would that be possible on Linux using Proton?

 

[discotrigger]

To be clear, Denuvo is the reason many games don't work, such as Final Fantasy XV for example. It's the particular version of Denuvo used that seems to be at issue in these scenarios as some work while others do not. Apparently upstream devs don't know why this happens, so broadening Denuvo support intentionally seems unlikely in the near future. We can only hope the amount of publishers that remove Denuvo after a certain amount of time increases.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

God Eater 2 is another game which specifically doesn't work because of Denuvo.

I've been thinking of playing around with Linux lately. Learning a new OS is fun, and I could use to get more familiar with Linux. A question I have though is how does HDR work on Linux atm? One of my main usages of my gaming PC at the moment is streaming to my Nvidia Shield so I can play in 4k and HDR on my TV. Would that be possible on Linux using Proton?

Click to shrink...

I don't have a HDR display, so what I say might be incorrect or out of date, but as I understand it HDR on Linux is still very much a WIP. There have been various patches to Xorg, Wayland, and Mesa to make it possible. Nvidia, AMD, and Intel are all working on it in their own way, but "true" HDR still isn't really publicly usable yet. For now it's just fake HDR and if you want true HDR right now, Windows is probably still your best bet.

With any luck this changes this year.

 

[Inugami]

Was going to try Apex Legends... but looking into it, apparently they added a new version of their anti-cheat which broke compatibility with wine.

 

[Akelisrain]

Was going to try Apex Legends... but looking into it, apparently they added a new version of their anti-cheat which broke compatibility with wine.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Really breaks my heart. I enjoyed the time I had.

 

[nded]

One nice thing about Steam Input is just how in-depth the advanced settings are. Not only can I play Dead Space on Linux, I can use the anti-deadzone setting to counterract the PC port's mile-wide joystick deadzones and play it with actual good, responsive movement and camera controls.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Yeah, with any luck EA notice the complaints and use a version of EAC which supports Linux. Seems like a lot of people are complaining.

I don't have major hopes. But it would be nice.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Congratulations Kudo for winning the Hollow Knight giveaway. I'll be sending your key soon.

Another giveaway. This time, indie action-adventure puzzle game Figment. Same rules as before:

• Anyone who posts in this thread between now and 12pm GMT Wednesday will be entered into the raffle.
• Potential entrants must signal that they want it, either by stating so in their post, or by PM.
• Single word/number posts like "In!" just to guarantee an entry aren't allowed, it needs to be on topic for this thread.

 

[Alvis]

Ubuntu Budgie. I use the pixel saver and global menu addons to put more things in the Budgie panel and save screen space. Adapta-Eta theme also helps.

I've been playing around with Solus in a VM recently and have been pretty impressed, but I use this machine for work (I even have Codeblocks and a couple of work tabs open in this screenshot) and don't want to mess about with my setup too much right now.

I've changed it around a bit now, but I used to run a similar setup on my desktop. Here's what it looks like there:

Click to shrink...

Sorry for the late response, but doesn't Budgie usually have one bar at the top and another one at the bottom? How did you combine them like that? And the bar is always present instead of autohiding, right? Please teach me lol. I'm gonna install Ubuntu Budgie on my laptop if I can have it looking like that (well, or as close as its shitty 1366x768 resolution allows me to)

EDIT: Oh wow another giveaway, I want in :D Thanks!

 

[Kudo]

Congratulations Kudo for winning the Hollow Knight giveaway. I'll be sending your key soon.

Another giveaway. This time, indie action-adventure puzzle game Figment. Same rules as before:

• Anyone who posts in this thread between now and 12pm GMT Wednesday will be entered into the raffle.
• Potential entrants must signal that they want it, either by stating so in their post, or by PM.
• Single word/number posts like "In!" just to guarantee an entry aren't allowed, it needs to be on topic for this thread.

Click to shrink...

Praise be, thank you very much!

Wonder if the EAC that supports Linux is older so they can't use it (if there's hacks for it) or something? Who is the company behind EAC, maybe it would be worth it to try to bring it to their attention.

 

[discotrigger]

If I recall correctly, Budgie has defaulted to just one bar for years, along with a 'sidebar' called Raven. Xharos, you might be thinking of MATE (based on the same layout from GNOME 2) or Xfce.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Sorry for the late response, but doesn't Budgie usually have one bar at the top and another one at the bottom? How did you combine them like that? And the bar is always present instead of autohiding, right? Please teach me lol. I'm gonna install Ubuntu Budgie on my laptop if I can have it looking like that (well, or as close as its shitty 1366x768 resolution allows me to)

EDIT: Oh wow another giveaway, I want in :D Thanks!

Click to shrink...

You can configure the panel in Budgie Desktop Settings from the menu.

You can also add/remove panels from here as well.

If you don't have Adapta-Eta, you can install the Adapta budgie theme from Budgie Themes in the menu. It uses the standard thickness Adapta by default, -Eta makes things thinner and will be in the desktop settings option under "style". Pixel Saver and Global Menu can be downloaded from the Budgie Applets program.

 

[Alvis]

You can configure the panel in Budgie Desktop Settings from the menu.

You can also add/remove panels from here as well.

If you don't have Adapta-Eta, you can install the Adapta budgie theme from Budgie Themes in the menu. It uses the standard thickness Adapta by default, -Eta makes things thinner and will be in the desktop settings option under "style". Pixel Saver and Global Menu can be downloaded from the Budgie Applets program.

Click to shrink...

But how do you get to show the programs in the bottom panel instead of in the separate dock? I'm trying to mimic your settings on a VM. Sorry, I'm super dumb.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

But how do you get to show the programs in the bottom panel instead of in the separate dock? I'm trying to mimic your settings on a VM. Sorry, I'm super dumb.

Click to shrink...

Click add an applet (Agregar Applet for you), and add the "Icon Task List" applet.

The side panel is actually just Plank. I closed that and removed it from my session. It's probably fine to full on uninstall it, but I don't think I ever bothered.

 

[Alvis]

Click add an applet (Agregar Applet for you), and add the "Icon Task List" applet.

The side panel is actually just Plank. I closed that and removed it from my session. It's probably fine to full on uninstall it, but I don't think I ever bothered.

Click to shrink...

OH MY GOD this is so much better! I thought the stupid dock was an essential part of Budgie. Thanks!!!

 

[Deleted member 1849]

OH MY GOD this is so much better! I thought the stupid dock was an essential part of Budgie. Thanks!!!

Click to shrink...

What's interesting, is all these changes actually bring you closer to the "default" Budgie layout, the one which Solus uses.

I much prefer the Solus layout than the Ubuntu one, lol.

 

[discotrigger]

It's weird that they customize the Budgie session in such a needless way- I thought the whole point was to recreate the user experience from Solus, but I guess not. Now I'm really curious as to the reasoning here, I should do some research.

On the topic of Linux gaming, I wonder when the next Proton release is coming down the pipe. I imagine rebasing their work on WINE 4.0 explains some of the extra time, but I wonder if there are any other goodies waiting for us aside from new versions of DXVK, FAudio, and WINE.

 

[Bradford]

Man people really weren't lying when they said Budgie was beautiful, haha.

 

[ListeningGarden]

I was so impressed by Solus and Budgie that I made it my default Linux testing environment and spend a lot of time in it. Haven't felt the need to distro hop much or even test new releases in VMs nearly as often because Solus is just clean. I do wish they were slightly less strict about the packages they provide through their package manager, but that's been about the only complaint I've had outside of general Linux-y problems.

 

[Crayon]

Crayon If we are talking Linux gamedev there are 2 main engines I like:

Godot - mature, stable, plenty of features. Scene structure is really powerful and nice to work with.

Armory3D - Tight Blender integration, visual scripting very similar to Unreal Blueprints, Haxe is a pretty great programming language, super cross platform, unfortunately a lot less stable than Godot right now (it's only on version 0.5 so that shouldn't be surprising), and the frankensteined Blender/Gamedev workflow can feel really weird.

I don't consider Godot to be behind Unity. Not significantly so anyway. The community is a bit smaller, the 3D performance is very slightly worse but improving, and there are not as many existing examples to work from (but still quite a lot!), on the other hand scenes are better than prefabs, its 2D tools are amazing, and the cross platform editor is better. If the last time you tried it was a couple of years ago you probably tried it back in the 2.x era, Godot 3 changed a lot and it has been improving rapidly since.

For tools, Blender and Krita are amazing. Gimp also works for some quick texture work but I don't think it's that great. The Substance suite (not FOSS) runs on Linux (painter, designer), and there's ArmorPaint improving rapidly if you are worried about Substance Painter going away now they are owned by Adobe or want a FOSS alternative.

If you want to do pixel art, you've also got Aseprite and a few others.

IMO, it's totally doable to be a Linux gamedev.

EDIT:

As an extra, I just want to point out that I've donated to both Godot Engine and Armory3D. I donate more to Armory3D now because I really want it to improve. I'm really happy that Godot has grown, as I think having good FOSS solutions for gamedev is really important. Armory3D also had an awful experience with Patreon, where they were getting around $1600 a month and then Patreon just wiped their account because of a case of mistaken identity, said "oops we made a mistake too bad, but we can't undo it. Feel free to start a new Patreon from scratch.". I felt super bad for them. They now raise their money by selling builds on Gumroad: https://armory3d.org/fund.html and are back to earning something near what they were earning before. Everything is still FOSS (zlib license).

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the insights. I've been having a pretty good time with Godot. It's stable, seems to be a complete package, and community support is ample. I haven't heard of armory3d but I'll have to keep an eye on it.

I'm happy to hear your high opinion of godot. I like the idea of having a unity like tool, but open source. I was prepared to hear that it was well behind unity somehow but it sounds like it's pretty capable and getting better right now. I find it pleasant to use, as well.

I'm sure people will get tired of my gushing... but it's hard not to keep going on and on about this voodoo since I've literally been trying for over a decade to get a setup that works this well. Hitman 2 is probably the newest game I own, and it's another "holy shit it just works!" moment. All of the graphic options, good frame rate, and only the occasional rare stutter from shader caching that was already disappearing after just a half hour or so of playing.

I could write a non-fiction novel on my attempts to switch over the years, heck I even tried when Proton first got announced and I still had nothing but issues so it's not even like my last attempt was that long ago! I think the thing I'm most impressed with is how far AMD open source drivers/MESA has come along since I inevitably always had to go to using the closed source drivers in previous attempts, and those always had some basic feature borked (like video decoding, or screwing up basic window effects). DXVK and Proton are of course amazing as well, it's just like the perfect storm and still not an instant setup like it needs to be I think before we see any decent amount of people ditching windows... but I only spent maybe a half hour and didn't run into any issues requiring more than following a couple of easily found wikis.

Compared to something like installing homebrew on my 3DS back in the day, this was an absolute cakewalk.

Click to shrink...

I totally feel the same way!

I did switch to Linux cold turkey about 5 years ago. I've had a cursory familiarity with dash for a long time, but I had tried twice and failed to switch to Linux in the past. The first time was in the late 90s and I absolutely could not hack it. The install by itself was dizzying and once it was up I can hardly figure out how to do anything. For daily use, it was a non-starter. But I tried.

The second time was more like 10 years ago. That was better and I used Linux daily for months. But practically only for browsing and email. I switched back to Windows but not begrudgingly. I have had a good time with Linux this time around. I just eventually needed windows.

So I guess I was trying once every 5 years. Before this last time, I tried a Mac. Woof. Anyhow, Windows XP eol is coming so I try Ubuntu. Installation is a breeze. Desktop is beautiful. Useful applications abound. Chrome is full-featured. Steam for Linux is just rolling out. And I'm still comfortable with a command line so I can sort out all the little shit without much effort.

So last time it's stuck and I've been on Linux full-time. Love it. I've been pleased with the selection of games on Linux thus far as I use a PlayStation to play many of the bigger games that didn't get ported. With smaller games, strategy games, and crpgs abounding native on Linux, I was happy with the growing library and continued support.

I felt like I had to be subdued and patient as gaming on Linux developed. But now bam proton. Like you said. Kid in a candy store. Floodgates are open, I'm so excited. I can use the PlayStation laess and I can use Linux more.

It's been months since proton came out and I still have hype aftershocks because it's such an enormous leap forward. It's miraculous that it even happened. So I totally understand.

 

[Bradford]

I hopped to Ubuntu Budgie and all of those issues I posted about where my keyboard and backlight didn't work?

Suddenly gone. Drivers worked out of the box and nothing required tinkering. I'm not complaining, and I am LOVING Budgie so far, but I'm surprised that there is this much variance in basic functionality between base Ubuntu flavors.

Budgie freaking rules, though. I think I found where I'll be staying for the next good while.

 

[Deleted member 1849]

Yeah, there's a huge amount of difference between the different desktop environments. These days I'm undecided if I like Budgie or KDE more. Budgie has better defaults and I can get it to how I like it much quicker, but KDE is a bit lighter and has way more options.

Not a huge fan of Kubuntu though. Every time I've tried it, it has been a buggy mess. My Manjaro install with KDE has been great though.

I don't distro hop much now, but I occasionally throw up new distros in VM's just to experiment without risk of screwing with my base system.

 

[Alvis]

Budgie is the fucking best thing ever made once you get rid of the dumb dock and I won't hear otherwise