So I’ve been using Linux as my main operating system for the past week, and I wanted to share my experience with it, as it has the potential to become the better gaming OS for most people. I would like to add that I didn’t dual-boot or use a VM as a backup in case something didn’t work as I wanted it to.

My reason for trying Linux was mainly to try something new. Unlike many PC users, I’ve had a mostly positive experience with Windows. I’ve used 8.1 and 10 on my Acer laptop and 10 on my old gaming machine and never had any real problems. I have only had one blue screen in my entire life and have never suffered from a buggy update or anything like that. I also really like Windows 11 as an operating system. There are definitely some valid criticisms, but most of them also apply to Windows 10, so I find it hard to understand why some people want to switch to Linux now, when Windows 10 was already problematic.

So I didn’t have any other incentive than my curiosity to try Linux…at least it used to be like that.

In preparation, I wanted to quickly check something on my 2nd Win 11 installation, which was running on a separate NVME drive. Unfortunately, Windows 11 managed to destroy both of them with an update. I was able to recover the 2nd one, but the one with my games on it was corrupted. I was only able to recover some photos and that’s it. This is not the first time this has happened, but I thought it was something to do with my broken GPU.
So yeah, I guess I might as well try Linux without any sort of backup drive.

I chose Nobara Linux as my OS. It has a lot of gaming utilities preinstalled and is based on Fedora. I like to add that most of my hardware plays in Linux’s favor.
My specs are :

• RX 7900xtx
• Ryzen 7 7800x3D
• 1080p 144 hz monitor with a tn panel (no freesync, only G-Sync)
• 32 GB of 6000Mhz Ram
• 980 pro nvme
• NZXT Kraken AIO

Most of my components do not use any kind of RGB, nor do I use any kind of peripheral that requires me to use proprietary software or uses a feature that is not properly supported like HDR, and of course I have never had to install any kind of GPU drivers.

So create my live usb and I already ran into my first issue. I keep getting this error called: ldm_parse_tockblock(): Cannot find TOCBLOCK, database may be corrupt

After formatting my drive, trying different USBs and distros, I finally managed to install Nobara on my SSD.

I tried using the modified GNOME DE version that came with the ISO but I quickly switched to KDE Plasma Wayland due to video playback issues with Firefox.

So here is my experince with it:

Steam:

• Resident Evil 4 ran wonderfully. Right out of the bot with great performance. I didn’t even had to enable Steamplay for other titles
• Ready or Not ran also really good. It’s an early access so it’s hard to tell if the OS or the game is at fault whenever I encountered a bug
• Apex didn’t start at first but after a proton update it did launch. However I had this bug where the game would snap down whenever I openend any kind of menu. I tried fixing it but it resulted in the game not launching anymore. And for some reason it uses the us keyboard layout.
• Forza and Insurgency Sandstorm ran to my surprise out of the box even though they both have a silver rating on protondb
• CS2 same here, ran perfectly fine
• L4D2 had some stuttering issues and mods wouldn’t install at first but it worked next day without changing anything
• Sifu had some issues connecting my xbox controller but that’s it
• Uno and Jedi Fallen Order didn’t even launch, because both of them require a third-party launcher and I wasn’t able to install them correctly via Lutris

Speaking of Lutris: Lutris is an absolute nightmare to use. The games usually run fine, but the launcher kept crashing, freezing, third party launcher and games disappearing after installation and it kept forgetting my login. I had to tweak a few settings to get it to work properly. And I noticed that Lutris would start acting up whenever I switched between Wayland and X11.

As soon as you leave the Steam Ecosystem Linux gaming becomes a real pain to use, at least for me.

Then there is Wayland and X11:

Wayland worked much better for me than X11. X11 rendered everything at 60hz unless I disconnected my second display, although it did detect the refresh rate. I tried tinkering with xrandr, but I couldn’t run both monitors at two different refresh rates. So why not use Wayland? Well, I did most of the time, until I found that video files wouldn’t run at 60fps and I couldn’t stream my desktop to Discord when Wayland was enabled.

Linux gaming has been a wild ride. There’s a lot I like about Linux and its community, but sadly I’m going back to Windows 11. Some games like Fortnite are a requirement for me and others didn’t deliver a satisfying performance like bfv, which ran really well at first but now keeps having horrible frame drops, or Jedi Survivor, which is 10-20 FPS behind.

However, I do believe that Linux Gaming Market Share will see a growth in the foreseeable future.