I have been using Arch Linux with i3wm for around 5 years for work, on my ThinkPad. I am fairly comfortable with pacman and setting up a distro. I have previously tried Mint, Manjaro, KDE Neon, Elementary, and MX Linux, all for the same use case (Work: where I need a browser, Slack, and a MongoDB GUI).
However, I have been using Windows on my desktop that I use for gaming and the Adobe suite (photoshop and illustrator mainly). With the increasing enshittification of Win11, I want to migrate full time to a Linux system on desktop as well. I prefer a more stable experience on this machine so I chose Pop OS (other suggestions are welcome. I like Plasma). I need some help getting started (I did some preliminary trials on a VM where I was able to run a small game off GOG, but the part I need help with needs some trickery wrt different disks).
PC specs:
- Ryzen 3 3300X
- 16 GB DDR4
- 1 NVMe boot drive, 1 SATA SSD for games, 1 HDD
- RX 570 8 GB
My copies of Photoshop and some of my games are pirated. I’m planning to run a Tiny10 VM for the Adobe stuff but the games will need to run on bare metal linux, off the NTFS formatted game drive. Edit : Most importantly, Content Manager and mods for Assetto Corsa need to work (not pirated), with my Thrustmaster T128
I would be grateful for a guide for this.
Two mentions of Lutris, it works, but personally I think it’s over-complicated, ugly and unreliable.
Bottles is the better alternative, IMO. Simpler UI, still with access to advanced options if you need them, wine bottle version control, etc.
For games I find Lutris more comfortable than bottles.
Why?
Bottles can add executables to steam, same as lutris, and configuring games in lutris is supposed to be easy, but that’s never really been my experience.
If I’m going to have to fiddle with wine versions and prefixes, I’d rather do it with the app that has a vastly more navigable UI.
With Heroic for GOG and Epic, and Bottles for the odd other game, whats the use case for lutris?
It has more granular settings aimed at games, like having antimicro and mangohud toggles (for antimicro you can select a map to use). Gives many versions of wine to use (even custom ones like GE). Plus, I can use it to launch other games which does not need wine, like emulators or native ones.
To me it gives no hussle and UI is not that bad.
Bottles seems more aimed at software.
The idea of using lutris as a launcher is appalling to me. I have a library of thousands of games, the thought of setting them all up in lutris, is anxiety inducing. Its library management and browsing features, do not exist.
It is not. Though it can still do that, too.
I’ve not found a single thing only lutris could do. It’s a single app that tries to do everything, but IMO the result is that it does none of it well. Least of all function as an attractive and functional everyday way to access my games library.
Bottles gets my game installed and running, and then added to steam, which actually does have tags and categories, as well as various other management tools, as well as a good-looking UI.
We’re in the same boat. I’ve had no luck with pirated games and bottles, and zero issues on Lutris (other than they do take considerably longer to install than on bottles).