I do doubt Windows didn’t work out of the box, as with the thousands of installations I’ve done, I have had ZERO issues since Win7. Very few to none in Vista. The issues were prevalent in XP and before but that was the before times when the similar Linux issues were 10000x worse.
The only gripe I have is moving people to online accounts. Just run the oobe command from the installer to limit network requirements and voila, local accounts created.
All that extra bloat can be removed but who cares. The stuff that sits there barely affects anything, like you saw the frame rate is the same.
If Windows works for you, as it does for 90% of consumers, then use it. If you want to tinker forever with Linux, then do so. Some find that fun. I’ve moved into the “my OS is an appliance” phase of life.
Nobara is specifically customized for gaming, created by Glorious Eggroll (from Proton-GE) himself, with specific packages which he tells you not to install as flatpak so you don’t lose the optimizations he made.
OP only has to force the dGPU to be used, and that’s it for Linux. For the azerty issue, the solution is usually to install qwerty as keyboard 1 and azerty as keyboard 2 and always use keyboard 2. I do that with Dvorak and most games work without needing remaps (though I’ll occasionally need to fiddle).
On Windows, OP needed to install drivers, which can be a massive pain, esp for Wi-Fi drivers. Also, most software needs to be installed individually, which can take a while vs Linux’s package manager. For me, a typical install of Linux takes about 30-45 min from installation media to having all my software installed, whereas on Windows it’s like 1-2 hours because I have to go track down every installer I need, find drivers, disable a bunch of privacy-violating stuff, etc.
So the net result was:
azerty issue - easy fix
rendering issue - imo, sounds minor, and it’s probably just that game; maybe fixable by tweaking in game settings
Not bad for running a Windows game on a completely different platform.
Installing WiFi drivers on Windows is actually very weird. I’ve never had to do that. Not with a dongle, not with a brand new motherboard with built-in WiFi.
Really? I’ve had to do it pretty much every time I’ve installed Windows. Sometimes I have more luck with a dongle, so I keep a couple around so I can get Internet to go find the proper driver. Sometimes its not recognized, sometimes it just doesn’t connect.
To be clear, I’m talking about installing from an ISO, not using whatever the factory installed. And almost every time I’ve done it, on board Wi-Fi doesn’t work until I find an installer. Sometimes dongles work (I think they have installers on the card?), and I think Intel NICs work, but I really haven’t had good luck.
Once I have Internet, it’s just a matter of tracking down whatever drivers Windows update can’t find (usually 3-5 of them). And Windows is really helpful here, and I have to search by hardware ID.
On Linux, it usually works fine, unless I’m using a really crappy card or something, though better drivers can help with stability. My system setup time is like 30 min from installer to using the system on Linux, and on Windows it’s like 1-2 hours. I’ll probably need to install random things on Linux here and here, but it’s just a package manager command away.
All my PCs are hand built by me since 1990-s. All Windows installations are from ISO. I haven’t installed a single network or WiFi driver since Windows 7. XP - yes, nothing worked out of the box. But W7 and above the only drivers I install are NVIDIA drivers (it works without them, but the default driver doesn’t have all game optimisations) and printer drivers. Even Bluetooth works out of the box. You don’t even need ADB driver for your Android phone anymore, everything just works out of the box.
I’m also not sure what you’re installing for 1-2 hours, it takes about 10 minutes or so over here. It might be dependent on how fast your storage is though.
This was Windows 10, and it’s mostly drivers and utilities. I had a ton of trouble getting my wife’s mic working, which apparently needed some user space utility to be configured, and this was just a simple 3.5mm mic (AMD audio card apparently). And then there was random stuff in Device Manager that didn’t have drivers that I needed to track down (motherboard level stuff, not accessories). I spent like 30 minutes messing with a weird flickering issue (only happened in games), and it was solved by switching which monitor was primary (she apparently can’t use her 144hz monitor as primary, but whatever).
The actual Windows installation process was quick (she has an NVMe drive), it’s just all the nonsense afterward to get stuff running correctly. And that doesn’t include installing applications (she handled most of that, I hate tracking down SW on Windows), this is just to get the hardware to work properly.
On Linux, I just install the system, install packages from the package manager, and I’m done. No googling anything, no configuration, I just install the handful of packages I need that don’t come with the base system and I’m done. I had more trouble in the past (muted audio, Wi-Fi cards that need to be force enabled, etc), but the last time I had anything like that was something like 10 years ago. I do pick my hardware carefully which certainly helps, but surely Windows should provide a better experience since that’s what manufacturers target.
It did for me on my last few installs, though I picked Linux compatible hardware from the start (Lenovo laptops, desktops with Intel WiFi and decent sound cards, etc). YMMV of course, especially if you’re trying to install on some random, cheap laptop with bottom of the barrel components.
Just going to ask this just in case: have you tried doing a full update and reboot? If you updated and have not rebooted, sometimes drivers get messed up.
Hogwarts Legacy wasnt able to start because an error with the automatic backup of the savegames. When starting steam from terminal it showd some errors and so i tried to move the backup folder away from there and after this it worked again
But mangohud still shows that gamemode isnt running. So i searched a bit and it seems that gamemode IS running but mangohud just shows a wrong stat. With gamemoded -s i get the info that it os running. How can i get mangohud to work again correctly?
I’ve been using arch and manjaro for the past 3 years with awesomewm and gnome (can’t get awesomewm to behave with second monitor while gaming so I switch to gnome when using the second monitor, using laptop) and this has pretty much been my experience. Windows is bloated and it never"just works".
I have to agree. I love Linux but Windows really does just work. Especially when it comes to gaming. I applaud anyone that enjoys Linux gaming but don’t act like it’s anywhere near as simple as on windows.
For me it has been that simple, but to get to that simplicity took a lot of work. I’ve tried Windows 11 and it just sucked for gaming. Stuttered like mad on Cyberpunk and Bluetooth had major latency problems, and neither occurred on Linux.
Yeah. In all the time I’ve been using windows I never had a problem that people constantly report; even BSOD happened quite rarely. I never got my pc to randomly shut down and update either…
Like, I switched to Linux cause i saw it as cool, wanted to try it out and liked how customisable it was and mostly to spite the megacorp
I’m creating my own desktop environment and deal with bugs here and there that I fix on my own since it’s my own product. It’s designed with my needs in mind created by someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time.
There are absolutely awesome products like gnome and kde that just work. You can use them to get a stable environment that are designed to work in multitude of situations for general public. Windows never just works, you just learn to ignore its shortcomings. Like updating in the background even when you need the bandwidth, lack of central update station for your apps, dealing with lengthy custom install processes trying to impose bloatware you didn’t ask for, uninstall processes begging you not to uninstall the sweet sweet spyware.
You just learn not to let these problems bother you. And that’s not anything personal against you, it’s just how a bad product with good marketing works. Linux is objectively better.
You may want a few products that are built for Windows and are not available on Linux and you wouldn’t want to try an alternative that may even work better objectively and that is absolutely your choice and is respectable. You may not want to learn a new environment and stay in your safe zone and that’s respectable. But you can’t use your safe zone to decide what’s better. A free product that provides better hardware support, faster communication bus, easier user experience with much faster bug fix and release cycle, tons and tons of choice is objectively better. You are free not to try it.
Those things aren’t it not working. They’re just things you don’t like. They all work.
The vast majority of users don’t give a shit about manual os updates and just want it done. You can absolutely pause updates. I think by default it gives you two weeks before it starts complaining. So you just need to do your updates manually at a time that suits you.
Winget allows you to install a huge amount of software. It works as your central update location.
You can normally run uninstalls silently.
The default configuration is for an average user. It’s can be customized quite a bit.
I find Linux users complaining about the default configuration funny.
Same can be said about Windows users. The default is what defines the just works statement. The default is shit, you just learn to ignore it or find ways to make a bad product sort of work for you. You need to do basic stuff the hard way and still believe the product is alright. “you can pause updates for two weeks” translates to “the product is designed to assume you own it for up to two weeks”. It’s not a feature mate, it’s not a skill to circumvent it, it’s bending over backwards and paying money to do so.
Nearly always something random breaks for me on windows, and it’s a huge pain to fix it. I hate dealing with windows, Linux is easier, because it isn’t a black box.
My parents can’t use windows but they can use Linux - their windows was covered in “you need to update” and OEM thingies asking them to consider the premium package and shutting down against the user’s will and adverts for onedrive and that ridiculous universal search feature that can find things on Bing but not your My Documents folder and the antivirus showing distressing messages about how your PC is dangerous unless you pay for the deluxe service. Not all of that is “Windows” it’s true but it’s partially Windows fault that uninstalling things is so difficult - some things are on the “add and remove software”, some aren’t. All of that is standard part of the Windows experience on the Windows ecosystem, even if it’s not all intrinsically Windows. So I put Linux on their laptop and GNOME just lets them easily use their browser, email and files without needing to dig through settings to disable tracking, without shutting down against your will, without saying you have to buy new hardware to update versions.
So there are points on both sides but don’t say that Windows is unarguably easier.
Edit: not to mention that using a package manger’s GUI is clearly easier - and easier to do safely - than getting software by surfing the internet for MSIs and EXEs.
Believe it or not, but since I switched fully to linux things have been running a lot more smoothly to me. The biggest issue, if anything, being bad support for the operating system from some applications, but that excuse doesn’t work for windows.
On Windows I get pop-ups for unknown reasons, I have no control over what software is on my PC or what it is doing, trying to fix that usually breaks other things. I can use a controller for just about everything I need. I can boot it up and load up a game in about 10 seconds. I can change the volume, change the speakers, adjust game settings, adjust the HUD, all without leaving the game. Exiting games is a generally laborious process full of menus and loading screens, where on GamepadUI you just hit “exit game”. My internet connection seems more stable for reasons unknown. I could go on…
When first switching to Linux I tried Pop!_os and it was awful was a headache to get anything to work … switched to Ubuntu and all my problems went away , I don’t recommend using pop .
I haven’t tried fedora myself and at this point I don’t want to mess with what is working great for me . I did have some issues with it freezing when idle but that was fixed with a kernel update.
For me it was the reverse. Pop was the clear winner for several reasons. Plus I like System76 overall. I vigorously recommend Pop as a beginner/gaming choice.
But honestly, Ubuntu vs PopOS should not have been that different for you - they are extremely similar. Pop is cleaner with less bloat, and not beholden to Canonical.
To each their own of course, and having options is what makes switching great.
My wife’s laptop crapped out so I threw pop os (previously had arch on it) and made profiles for both of us. Lets her play the few games that she likes, and Firefox is the same. It’s made for an easy transition from windows to Linux for her. Ubuntu would probably be just as easy overall, but she likes the tiling too since it’s very helpful on a small screen (arch + bspwm is my main driver so I wasn’t going to give up tiling)
This may be a YMMV situation. I’m not a huge gamer, but Pop has worked great for me for nearly all games I’ve tried. The one glaring exception has been the Civilization series (specifically 3 and 6)… Anyone know if that’s a Linux problem, a Pop problem, or a just me problem?
(Also, sorry you’re getting downvoted for sharing your honest opinion/personal experience)
I had a bunch of issues and the more I tried to fix it the worse it got to the point that steam wouldn’t even work anymore and couldn’t get any games to launch. I’m not worried about upvotes so it’s all good lol .
And I don’t wanna be that guy that’s wants something to fail just because it’s not to my taste, but I’m glad to hear that the dev thinks KDE’s Wayland is in much better shape than GNOME’s, especially since GNOME’s pushing it really hard.
For me, personally, I won’t switch away until Plasma 6 comes out, if it’s in much better shape than Plasma 5’s Wayland, and games running through Proton work well enough in Wayland competitively.
I kinda hate this take flying around constantly. There is such a thing as a gaming distro: one that has sane defaults for gaming, has the important things pre-installed like Feral GameMode, ProtonUp and the Nvidia drivers, etc. Also having an up-to-date package manager for these essentials is vital.
Yeah, technically all distros are very similar, but most people asking for recommendations specifically want something that just works for their task, not everyone can fiddle with packages and DEs to get what they want.
Distro with preinstalled packages =/= distro with exclusive features. The same packages available on “gaming distros” are available on any other “non-gaming” distro as well.
Aside from the fact that they do have exclusive features (Nobara has a number of kernal patches and general fixes not found on Fedora), a distro is way more than exclusive features. The theming, extensions, patches, tuned package manager, etc. make up a cohesive experience.
Nobody cares that you can replicate the same thing on Debian or Arch after 20 hours of hammering things together and even more hours of research and choice paralysis. Anyone asking for a distro recommendation want something that works. Not something that needs time and effort.
Nobara has a number of kernal patches and general fixes not found on Fedora
…which can be implemented on every other distro as well. Again, it’s GNU/Linux and not Windows – “all you can see/exist in a distro you can do/implement in every other distro.”
@GustavoM@simple hmm, interesting. How do I make pacman work on ubuntu? I mean, just because it's technically possible, doesn't mean it's at all easy to do, in any stretch of the imagination
Resorting to (pure) denials won’t change facts neither prove me wrong – all GNU/Linux distros are equally good and can be tweaked/improved equally – there are nothing that makes em stand out.
To simply put: Without GSP firmware, Unreal Tournament 99 (using the fan-made Vulkan support) runs with around 30-40 FPS and without any graphical glitches; whereas with GSP firmware I get almost constant 144 FPS but using it also results in complete lockdowns at random intervals: the attempt in the video took 12 seconds after the game launch to freeze the system. I had another one in 4 seconds, and yet another in around 9 minutes or so.
shrug, I’ve been using arch and Manjaro for years and gaming in them. They are what you make them, and AUR is massive and solves a lot of problems I have in other distros so that’s why I use it.
Exactly. The only thing Arch focuses on is not focusing on anything. They ship packages as vanilla as possible, have pretty much no default configuration, etc. In short, they try to make as few assumptions as possible.
It ends up being pretty good for gaming because Linux is pretty good for gaming. They’re explicitly not doing anything special here.
That’s like saying PlayStation 5 and Switch are based on FreeBSD, so you should game on FreeBSD (well, not quite, but hopefully the point is clear). FreeBSD isn’t good for gaming, it’s just liberally licensed and easy to build on top of, hence why it’s used.
Valve has reasons to use an Arch base, and none of them have anything to do with any specific benefit regarding gaming. It’s easy to fork and maintain customized build files for since it makes so few assumptions (packages are as vanilla as possible in Arch, so it’s easier to maintain a patch set).
Valve likely has patches in SteamOS that haven’t made it to upstream Arch, and there’s likely a number of packages that are quite outdated vs upstream Arch, so installing upstream Arch will give you quite a different experience vs SteamOS.
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