Omg are you in for a treat!
Steams work with proton, steam OS, and the steam deck means after switching my gaming pc to Linux last year, the only games out of the hundreds I have that don’t work are the ones whose launchers refuse to run on Linux.
Even Denuvo games work with a little effort
Highly recommend you give Linux another shot 😁
Gotta mention Pop_OS! as a fantastic beginner distro. My 72 year old mother refuses to use anything else. It’s simple, has automated backups and disaster recovery, and installs non-free drivers for graphics cards.
I don’t personally use it since it doesn’t yet support Wayland and my gaming rig has a HiDPI screen and X11 doesn’t support fractional scaling. Or per screen scaling.
I’m legally obligated to inform you that I run Arch.
I’d need to check into whether Linux is also viable with the software I use: I’m starting a game design degree in September, so there’s a wide variety of software, including the Adobe suite, that I’ll be tied to for at least the next three years.
It’s also worth to mention that there are options like Blender/Krita/Godot wich are quite good and don’t require tooling like Wine.
But those might not be a viable option if your courses are specific to Adobe products.
But really, check those out anyways, it’s worth it.
My plan at the moment, I think, is to wait until I have a full list of which softwares I’ll be using (which I won’t get until the course begins - the college pays for it all), and then make a decision. Based on the partial list I have, about half are compatible with Linux. I do also have the option of having Linux on my desktop and Windows on my laptop.
I’m definitely going to do some more research. The last time I looked into it, Linux wasn’t compatible with the vast majority of the software I used and games I played, and there weren’t many suitable alternatives. That situation has definitely changed by the looks of it, so I just need to research some more specific things.
Ngl, getting those tools working on Linux is going to be as marketable as working with them in the first place
Get hacking!
I feel like it’s worth keeping in mind that you’ll likely be able to continue using some iteration of locally stored Windows for quite a while. The point at which Windows 10 becomes unusable is likely well past the point at which it makes sense for most people to use Windows 11 or whatever comes next.
I’ve definitely straight up skipped Windows releases before and kept moving along just fine. Of course that depends on what you’re working on and how much control you have over your own PC in the context of whatever class or company you’re dealing with.
But even then, there’s nothing to say you can’t dual-boot or run a second machine over a network and synergy the things together.
Personally, I’ve been using Windows 10 exclusively on my own machine for quite a while now, but I don’t like much of anything that I’ve heard about 11 so far. If it came down to letting Microsoft control most of my usage of my PC or to using Linux as my primary OS, I feel like it would be worth the hassle.
Oh yeah, for sure. I’m definitely keeping that option in mind, if only because there’s inevitably going to be some software or games that just won’t work in Linux. Having Windows 10 available for when it’s needed just makes sense, and its ability to be annoying is reduced if it’s essentially quarantined on its own hard drive where I can ignore it except when I need it. I have also skipped Windows releases in the past, and I don’t think I’ve ever voluntarily gone to a new one rather than been pushed due to hardware or software requirements.
Have to agree with you on Windows 11, too. My laptop has 11. I thought when I bought it that it was shipping with 10, but it came pre-installed with 11. It’s not completely horrible in terms of actual functionality, so it’s tolerable for a device I’m using solely for college work. But there’s no denying it also gives me creepy vibes that I mostly just try not to think about. I do feel like 11 is spying on me in a way that 10 doesn’t. It might be getting a reformat once the warranty has expired, though I also have to acknowledge how irrational it sounds to say “I’m reformatting you because you creep me out.” 😀
You can always run a windows VM on your linux computer. I used to do that when I had to use citrix receiver for work.
It’s definitely an option under consideration, but one of the softwares I use that doesn’t work correctly in Linux is also very resource intensive, and VM’s are less efficient in that area. So I think in that instance, dual-booting is more suitable. But the suggestion is appreciated. 🙂
Yeah I switched in 2020, but finally deleted my Windows partition a couple months ago. Never going back now.
And anymore, I feel like niche windows software is gonna be harder to run than almost all the games. The only games that don’t work are the annoying anticheat ones.
went this route few weeks ago, went 100% pop os recently… good times.
fuck you microshit, i am gaming fine.
