Like perhaps many others I am debating what to do with my PC at the end of support for windows 10 later this year. I have read a lot of discussions here about switching to Linux, and a lot of commentary that though it has gotten a lot more plug and play it maybe still has some weaknesses. I just want to know what those are, and if it can support what I currently do with my computer.

Basically my computer is just for gaming. I play a plethora of games both major titles and small indy games. I also use mods on my games sometimes. Beyond gaming it’s just basic web browsing.

More specific questions:

  1. I think I need to pick a “distro”, right? Based on the above, which distro may work best for me?

  2. what am I most likely to NOT be able to do, if anything? I have heard modding in particular can be challenging with Linux. Like Skyrim mods that use a script extender or rely on various Windows programs. Is that true? Are there some smaller indy games that don’t have Linux support (thinking back to the early mac days)?

  3. I would rate my computer technical ability at like… A 4/10. I haven’t done anything too crazy but can Google most issues and willing to learn. Is this realistically enough to get me up and running with Linux? I don’t have any programming experience or anything of the sort.

  4. if the final answer here involves running a windows partition, is it possible to safely still use a windows 10 partition, even after the end of support? Or does it need to be a windows 11 partition? Best case is no partition, but curious if it comes to that.

  5. anything else I might run into that I’m not expecting? Words of encouragement?

  • jwiggler@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    I second this – I think installing linux on another hard drive is best. It can be frustrating to jump straight into linux and realize a particular thing doesnt work, not knowing why, and realizing you can’t play games at all before doing work to fix things. Saying this as a linux sysadmin.

    For a long time I had a dual boot setup for this reason. I wasn’t sure why Ubuntu always felt so sluggish gaming (especially Rocket League, which requires a very low amount of input lag)

    Eventually I found two things that massively MASSIVELY improved my perception of the performance. First, the kernel I was running. Switching to the liquorix kernel with my NVIDIA card made a huge difference in my perceived input latency (please, if someone could correct my verbiage here. Input latency may not be technically correct.) Secondly but almost as important – my desktop compositor. I switched to KDE Plasma so I could manually turn it off and make sure that it was off. I never was certain with Gnome, even though I am more comfortable in that environment. Smooth sailing since then. But it was important for me to be able to reboot into Windows if I wanted to play with friends without running into technical difficulties.

    Now, I’m fully off of Windows for gaming and, well, everything. It’s sick.