My computer has been torn down for a while due to a move and renovations, but as soon as I set it up again, the first order of business is to migrate it to mint.
It’s scary and disorienting, but imo it’s worth it.
I can now say anecdotally I have more friends that have tried Linux and are happier on it, than I have friends who went back to Windows.
Most of the people who went back went back for edge cases, weird hardware or that “one game” that has kernel level anticheat and doesn’t run on Proton.
Are we thanking the Steam Deck or are we thanking Microsoft for ending Windows 10?
Either way, congratulations to those of you who never stopped believing.
There’s a graph on the linked page, but I’m not quite sure what to make of it. According to the overall trend “SteamOS Holo 64 bit” seems to be decreasing but “Arch-based” (which is also what SteamOS is) seems to be the one that is going up the most. Fedora has only recently started being tracked, but they probably came under “Other” before.
Could be a mix of Catchy and other Arch-derivatives, since they are known for good gaming performance (at least before Bazzite hit the mainstream). I would also imagine Valve wants to keep HoloISO separate so developers don’t only target Steam Deck hardware and prevent other distro support (the infamous steamdeck=1 requirement).
CachyOS is what I installed a couple of months ago and it’s been great. The only major challenge I’ve had so far have been with my Windows 11 VM which I need for work. For anyone who doesn’t need Windows-exclusive software to work (Excel 2024, in my case), Linux is easier to use than Windows… But it does have a bit of a learning curve if you need to install specific things.
Another example: Omada Controller is needed for my wifi mesh network. Took me a while to figure out that I need to use Podman or Docker for it (after several failed attempts at installing different versions from AUR.) But once I figured that out, it was easier to get running than the official software was on Windows. I think 1 app to install from Cachy Hello (Podman) and 2 commands in the terminal to get and run the container in Podman. (I even ignored the instructions to use Docker and it worked 100% smoothly on Podman on the first try.)
All my hardware just works without manually installing drivers. Updating almost everything on the system took 1 GUI command a few minutes to run, then less than a minute to reboot. It mounts my old Windows drive no problem.
And it’s so fast. No random slowdowns for Windows search indexing, antimalware executable, “System”. No hours spent needing to debloat and reconfigure Windows 11 to hide all the bullshit… It took me longer to configure Windows 11 in my VM than it did to set up everything in CachyOS.
That said, I’d only suggest CachyOS to someone who can tinker and wants/needs cutting edge (gaming stability/performance improvements, in my case). I’m leaning towards an immutable distro for my wife’s laptop—old hardware, and won’t be used for gaming. Maybe Fedora Kinoite? Windows 10 runs like shit on it, now, even though it used to be plenty fast.
I would say the next biggest hurdle that Linux gaming has to overcome besides market saturation is the compatibility with Triple-A multiplayer games and getting major developers on board. Franchises like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Rainbow Six Siege make up a large percentage of the hard-core video game player base and are incompatible with Linux due to their Windows level cornel anti-cheat or similar issues.
Yup. Some are doing well (like Microsoft with Halo, surprisingly…), others are actively denying doing anti-cheat on Linux. Here’s the website to track them:
