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Anything aside from actually moving away from Windows, eh?
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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We reach the point, where the optimal windows install will include multiple complicated tinker steps for disabling intrusive features, while many Linux distro installs are nowadays pretty much streamlined and straightforward.
Oh how the turntables...
Gaming is and will always be the reason for majority of people. There was some incredible progress, but if I can't play everything I own on Linux, I won't switch. This comes from a guy who loves his Steam Deck.
For me, gaming was a requirement, but I had enough of Windows and switched to Bazzite (Gaming centric preloaded Fedora Linux).
It's really only kernel level anti-cheat games (Apex Legends, Valorant, Rainbow 6, etc.) that are incompatible now. If you're a co-op or single player gamer, I haven't had an issue.
Of the current 1000 top played games, 90% are playable ProtonDB. Steam's playable rating is overly cautious in it's assessment.
Proton db is straight up unreliable. Plenty of "compatible" games still require huge amounts of tinkering.
The latest fully compatible game for me PoE2 is missing 4k for me, missing HDR, vrr, and a bunch of other shit.
PoE2
Path of exile 2 just works though? It even has a vulkan renderer.
missing HDR, vrr
That depends on the compositor you're using, support is still relatively new but it works just fine on GNOME and KDE.
🤷♂️ not for me, can't even launch in deck mode, only from gnome
I don't know what "deck mode" is. I'm using gnome with proton-ge, wine-wayland and it works out of the box if that helps.
Which distro are you using?
Bazzite.
I have faith that proton development will continue to rectify these shortfalls. Windows has had dominance for decades allowing game devs and tools to work to Microsoft. Windows games used to require tinkering as well back in the beginning before and shortly after Direct X.
The ProtonDB compatible tier system helps form an assessment of any capabilities that aren't working. I would agree that running at 1080p is compatible for me. For me, those features are not show stoppers and potentially game specific. RE:Village has HDR support for example. And with the database comes a community effort to fix common issues. Example with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and the NVIDIA employee providing the command line argument to solve a driver issue.
Ultimately, proton has enabled me to drop Windows and for that I'm thankful.
Also specific proprietary software people need to use for work. If you’re a design freelancer that cannot properly edit photoshop or illustrator files, customers are likely to go with another freelancer. That’s why many people dual boot for when they have to keep windows around, but this allows them to keep the evil side of their computer at least a little less evil.
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It's bad for normal people. The Linux community is still delusional about the desktop state and it's lack of easy use and compatible hardware.
Now, here come 20 nerds to screech at me about how my issues aren't real and 10 years outdated.
Running bazzite deck/desktop (gnome) and still have multiple issues configuring displays, audio, and getting games to work correctly.
Every machine I have tried it on it works flawlessly. Actually it is Windows that now has weird driver issues with older hardware.
Que CallMeAnAI, "I am trying to play COD on 4 monitors on newly released hardware and it doesn't werk!'
🤣 I can't even get the display to work without having unplug it every time or have audio work without a pulse wire script. We're talking about day one bullshit like Bluetooth working inconsistently and with tons of latency. VRR and HDR not working in tons of games.
But I'm sure I'm just doing it wrong 🤣. This is the year of Linux desktop!
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Exactly this. I've been running Fedora for about 2 years now. I love it, but I'm NOT going to pretend it's "ready" yet. It's getting close, but there are enough edge cases it doesn't handle well that someone is very likely going to trip over at least one of them.
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Yeah, who really wants to play whack-a-mole with their own computer?
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Unfortunately I have a lot of games that are not available on Steam (dlsite, DMM etc) and it's been very hit or miss on the deck so far
Been trying to find something on this. It debloats and removes apps. What apps exactly? Does it just pick random apps you haven’t used recently or what?
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