A few months ago, I did something radical. For radical, picture me skateboarding ungainly while installing Linux – or, to be more precise CachyOS – on my PC.
Windows 11 had just been bugging me too much. On top of Microsoft’s forced AI implementation growing ever more obscene, I was starting to get unexplained slowdown; something that would usually just prompt a Windows reinstall, as I’ve done countless times all the way back to Windows Vista. However, prompted by my good friend (and writer at cheery RPS fanzine PC Gamer) Joshua Wolens deciding to boldly try out Linux, this time, I would not-so-boldly join him. What I’ve found is a genuinely fantastic OS: a real, viable alternative to Windows, and one that’s far more accessible than it was just a few years ago.
On that note, let’s roll the clock back to 2020. Apologies to anyone that’s just retraumatised, but it’s the last time I tried Linux. I had an ailing and frankly crap old Windows 10 laptop that audibly chunked its way through games like a steam engine. I therefore installed Linux Mint, the Linux distribution that, by its reputation, is one of the friendliest to newcomers. Sadly, while my laptop ran far better on Linux than it ever could under Windows, my Steam account was no longer a bounteous land of games: it’d been picked clean by compatibility issues hovering like vultures. Scouring the store for games that could run natively on Linux was grim, and setting up the Wine compatibility layer for each game was something I couldn’t get to grips with.
The gaming side of Linux has changed much since then, not least thanks to the popularity of the Steam Deck. SteamOS’s Proton, a nascent tool way back in 2020, has become very, very good at running Windows games, with less of the jank that Wine (on which Proton is built) struggled with back in the day. It’s not limited to SteamOS handhelds, either: a fully matured Proton will, as I’ve since learned, help a Linux desktop run almost anything.
If you, too, are thinking of jumping ship from Windows, now is a fine time to do it. And the first step, in any Linux migration, is choosing the right distribution.
Part I: Picking a distro
Choosing a disto – that’s the specific Linux-based OS you’ll be using – probably looks quite tricky. There are literally thousands of them, all aimed at doing slightly different things and sporting slightly different features, though hang around a Linux enthusiast for long enough and you’ll likely hear of the ones best suited for games: Bazzite, SteamOS, Fedora, CachyOS, Arch, and of course, good old Linux Mint. You can roughly divide these into operating systems that are very specifically based around gaming, and those that can game just fine, thank you very much, but that can also adequately serve non-gaming purposes. Like, say, writing about Linux distributions for RPS.
Bazzite is one of the former, and a particularly popular choice at that. It’s designed for those with no knowledge of Linux and no real desire to learn more, with out-of-the-box support for Steam as well as key compatibility tools like Heroic Games Launcher and Lutris. It bundles in proprietary Nvidia GPU drivers, too. It even offers support for the Steam Deck, letting you seamlessly install it on Valve’s handheld to replace SteamOS. It’s got a deserved reputation for ease of use, and it’s based on Fedora, another distribution that is famed for its stability, so it shouldn’t break in any catastrophic ways. If you just want a Linux machine to play games on, it’s hard to argue against, and as it’s very likely that SteamOS will see much more adoption as a desktop OS when the new Steam Machine rolls out, you can expect Bazzite to see further tweaks and improvements to compete with SteamOS there as well.
SteamOS itself has become something of a Linux gaming grandmaster. You may already be familiar with this from your Steam Decks and Lenovo Legion Go S handhelds, and it’s a strong operating system, if heavily skewed towards its thumbstick-optimised, Big Picture Mode-style view. Reboot into Desktop Mode and you’ll find a usable (yet hardly revolutionary) desktop environment where you can browse the internet or, if you’re so inclined, install LibreOffice and get to typing. It also happens to be based on Arch, perhaps the sweatiest and grognardiest of the mainstream Linux distributions – though thankfully, SteamOS has smoothed out a lot of Arch’s jagged edges.
In addition to acting as parent OSs to Bazzite and SteamOS, vanilla Fedora and Arch are both widely used in their own right. Fedora is by far the friendlier of the two, and definitively the most stable. While Arch is powerful and customisable in the code-calloused hands of an experienced user, its rolling release schedule means that updates are constant, and if one breaks something in your PC, you’re basically stuffed, and will have to restore a snapshot. Still, if you do opt for the more DIY-minded Arch, you won’t missed out on the unmatched documentation (thrilling, I’m sure you’ll agree) of the Archwiki.
It’s CachyOS, though, where I landed myself – and where I’d recommend you start for a balance of gaming and desktop chops. It’s Arch-based, but is far more user-friendly than its parent, with an easy installer, bundled programmes, and a pre-made package of tools for game-playing purposes. It’s focused around performance and comes with some really intense optimisation baked into it, while still providing a reliable enough desktop environment for me to get work done. It never feels that it’s designed around gaming exclusively, unlike Bazzite or SteamOS. Plus, as it’s based on Arch, you can usually find solutions to your problems in the Archwiki (though this is also true of SteamOS, to be fair).
A honourable mention also goes to my old pal, Linux Mint: another good option for both gaming and everyday use. Based on the now fallen Linux king, Ubuntu, it’s a very easy switch for those coming from Windows: the desktop looks almost exactly the same, making it easier for first-time switchers to get to grips with. It’s also a famously lightweight OS, so it works well – as I found back in 2020 – at reinjecting some vitality into older rigs and laptops that creak under the weight of Windows.
Part II: Getting games working
Once you’ve picked a distro, next up is limboing under those Windows game compatibility limits. For a lot of Steam games, this can be as as simple as installing it and hitting launch – your distro’s default, preinstalled version of Proton will simply get the game up and running without issue.
In nine out of ten cases, that’s it. Done. That one out of ten remains problematic, though, and sometimes does need some classic PC gaming faff to fix. I, for instance, had a singularly peculiar problem in Nioh 3, where videos refused to display. I’d get the audio, but as I was playing with the Japanese VA, that didn’t help me much. The answer that I eventually discovered was to dig into one of its configuration files with a text editor, which, it should be noted, I’ve also done quite frequently with games on Windows over the past 20 years.
A more elegant solution to potential problems comes in the form of ProtonUp-QT. Using this tool, you can download different versions of Proton that you can then apply in Steam, including the deservedly much-feted Glorious Eggroll. This is my default version of Proton now, and it’s absolutely essential. If, for some reason, the default version of it doesn’t work, this will likely sort it.
ProtonUp-QT also gives you access to another handy compatibility tool, Luxtorpeda, which switches games to a Linux-native version; using it on Morrowind, for example, will install OpenMW before launching. It’s a brilliant bit of kit.
Outside of Steam, there are many more Linux-friendly game launchers than there were just a few years ago. Heroic Games Launcher is the star of the show: logging into your GOG or Epic account on here will let Heroic function as an alternative, all-in-one client, where you can download games and let the program set compatibility settings for you. I’ve played games through Heroic including Hell Let Loose, Space Rangers 2, and King of Dragon Pass. If you want to get your hands dirtier and tweak to your heart’s content, there’s Lutris, a very similar program that also works extremely well.
It’s not entirely plug-and-play, then, and there are other potential compatibility mismatches to come. But nowhere does the future of playing PC games look more OS-agnostic than when you’re firing up a Steam game, one crafted only ever with Windows in mind, and it works perfectly. In some, you might even get slightly better framerates, especially on AMD graphics cards, while the performance difference on my RTX 4070 has been fairly negligible.
Part III: Linux vs. Windows
Unfortunately for Linux, there are some problems that not even Proton can remedy: thorny issues that jab into your enjoyment like an inconsiderate thistle. The biggest and spikiest of these is the deeply mixed support for anticheat software. Any kernel-level anticheat is a no-go on Linux, which means games including Battlefield 6, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six: Siege, and Marathon are right out. If any of these games are things that you play regularly, you’re going to need to stick with Windows. (Though since kernel-level anticheat software really shouldn’t be a thing, and gives the companies that make it far too much power over your PC, you could argue it’s a feature rather than a bug.)
Some games have also required some manual tinkering, as Nioh 3 would attest, and Microsoft is playing dirty by leaving some older games – including my all-time favourite racer, Dirt 2 – tangled in Games for Windows Live software, which presents further compatibility headaches. There have been a couple of times where I’ve had to do some maintenance on CachyOS itself, too. The Arch package manager, the excellently-named Pacman, seems to frequently default to slow mirrors, which lead to updates taking far longer than necessary. To solve this, I’ve downloaded a Python script called Reflector and set it to rank mirrors for me once a week, and it seems to have stuck. I also got a little too cocky at one point and tinkered too hard, leading to a bricked OS. I was able to restore it from a Snapshot, but figuring out what went wrong was still frustrating.
Still, much of this stuff is by no means specific to Linux. I’ve had macOS and Windows updates wreak merry havoc on my machines before, and if you opt for a Linux distribution like Fedora, which doesn’t use a rolling release schedule, that’s far less likely to happen. Even that Dirt 2 issue is mirrored, its outdated DRM having left it unplayable on Windows 10 and 11 without some sneaky tweaks.
Even if it’s not perfect, then, I’d still give Linux the edge in general usability. It’s stable, has unmatched customization, and will let you play the vast majority of games, in my experience, even those that don’t officially support playing through Proton. It also doesn’t feature the same AI bollocks that you’ll find in Windows (see: Copilot in Paint). That’s not to say that’s better for everyone – even the simplest Linux distros are fiddlier, in both good and bad ways, than Windows – but then it has become vastly more acccessible for non-experts to break into.
If you’re considering switching, I’d recommend booting up something like CachyOS or Bazzite from a USB drive and having a look around in the live environment. You might just find, like I did, that it’s worth the move. Just be sure that you have the patience to Google solutions when necessary, and expect some things to require a little tinkering.