JohnnyThunder

Hi everyone!

I'm a gamer whose built my own computers for over a decade and I wanna tell you all my story about switching to Linux. There are a lot of things I've learned in the last year and a half that I think will help if you are considering the move to Linux instead of going the Windows 10 rout.
 
The first thing I would like to get out of the way is that new Linux is not old Linux, I had been working up to switching to Linux for decades, my dad was a big OSS guy who used Linux in the 90s, and that convinced me to try Linux and make the full switch in 2009. Old Linux legit sucked, and the majority of people using Linux at the time seemed to be fanatics who would never admit Linux was anything less then perfect. I was glad to go back to Windows shortly there after, it gave me a deeper respect for the hard work Microsoft has done to make a superior product in Windows (not considering your paying for that service of course.)

Windows 10 however made me realize the good times on Windows were going to end, as Windows is no longer about being a superior product, it's about chasing tech trends. I just want my computer to work, and work well. A lot of tech trends are dumb in this regard. So when I leaned about DXVK from LTT I decided to switch again in late 2018, before Proton was announced.

As you can imagine, my initial jump was great at first. I distro hopped for the first month then settled on Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop environment. I learned more and more about Linux, studying how the file system is structured (something I feel is a necessity at this point) how to mess around with wine prefexs using Lutris, etc. It was almost comical how my first big issue was "Man, I really hate running two version of Steam for Linux games and Windows games, sure wish I could use just one..." and like almost the next day Valve announces Proton. All I could think was, wow this is wayy different from 2009, like I didn't even need to say anything and BAM! Customer Service!
 
As time went on the hyped died down a bit around Linux. I started to settle in. In terms of gaming, sacrifices had to be made. No Arma 3 multiplayer for me, but the majority of the rest of the games I wanted to play at the time worked. I decide to buy Crossover; This was a good choice, Crossover saves you time not messing around with Wine Prefexs. Getting the same job done in Play on Linux can take hours or even days trying to find all the right system packages and versions you need, Crossover can do all this for you in minutes. Defiantly worth the money in my view.

As time went on I started to get dismayed with the games I couldn't play. Space Engineers worked but was too laggy to be playable. Frycry 5 worked for others, but not me. Skyrim SE didn't have working sound, forcing me to play regular Skyrim. Some of my flight Sims like IL2 BOS I feared would never work because of their reliance on visual studio libs and their low level of interest from Linux gamers.

At this point early 2019 or so, I was starting to feel the desire to go back to Windows. I really wanted to play Space Engineers, I ended up playing the game anyways with terrible frame rates for a few days. Playing with low frames like that made me really question what the hell I was doing staying on Linux, questioning how long was I going to need to make this compromise.
 
Then on the 3rd day it happened again. Somebody did it, they figured out the right configuration to fix space engineers and BOOM, native performance.

It's almost like I have psychic tech support or something! The people who work on this stuff all around the world for free, I really can't thank you enough. You are the best technical support I've ever had, and I never even needed to contact any of you once, yet you've made my life so much easier so quickly, I almost feel like I have one of those multi-million dollar support contracts for free.

Soon enough, Skyrim SE was working with sound, Frycry 5 now works right out of the box in Proton with Uplay and all. And the other day I tried IL2 BOS and it works right out of the box on steam proton now with Wine's open source implementation of the VSStudio redistributable. It really is just getting better and better, and I'm having less and less trouble with Linux at a very rapid pace. Every little problem is getting fixed over time, and the only real thing that's still left undone for me personally is Arma 3, which even that now works with battleye for 15 minutes before you get kicked. Only a matter of time.

I don't want you to think this will be easy however, it's not. Learning how to use Linux just take time and hard work, but it's so very, very worth it. And in a few years that may no longer be true as well, but in a way that means if your interested in learning this stuff, then now it the best time to attempt to switch, if you wait too long Linux will become too good and the opportunity open to you now to learn new things will dry up. Then again, maybe you need some program that only works on Windows, in which case, I'm not going to try and push you, you're probably better off on Windows for now.

But if you can take the risk and make the sacrifice, then I think It's never been better time. I'm happier with my computing experience then I've ever been. No slowdowns over time, no malware, no crap Microsoft installs on my PC to try and sell me something I don't need. I'm learning more about computers then I ever have, and I'm having more fun with my computing experience then I ever have, as Linux is simply providing me the best computing experience on the market right now, maybe it will for you to.

Thank you.

Hi everyone!

I'm a gamer whose built my own computers for over a decade and I wanna tell you all my story about switching to Linux. There are a lot of things I've learned in the last year and a half that I think will help if you are considering the move to Linux instead of going the Windows 10 rout.
 
The first thing I would like to get out of the way is that new Linux is not old Linux, I had been working up to switching to Linux for decades, my dad was a big OSS guy who used Linux in the 90s, and that convinced me to try Linux and make the full switch in 2009. Old Linux legit sucked, and the majority of people using Linux at the time seemed to be fanatics who would never admit Linux was anything less then perfect. I was glad to go back to Windows shortly there after, it gave me a deeper respect for the hard work Microsoft has done to make a superior product in Windows (not considering your paying for that service of course.)

Windows 10 however made me realize the good times on Windows were going to end, as Windows is no longer about being a superior product, it's about chasing tech trends. I just want my computer to work, and work well. A lot of tech trends are dumb in this regard. So when I leaned about DXVK from LTT I decided to switch again in late 2018, before Proton was announced.

As you can imagine, my initial jump was great at first. I distro hopped for the first month then settled on Mint with the Cinnamon Desktop environment. I learned more and more about Linux, studying how the file system is structured (something I feel is a necessity at this point) how to mess around with wine prefexs using Lutris, etc. It was almost comical how my first big issue was "Man, I really hate running two version of Steam for Linux games and Windows games, sure wish I could use just one..." and like almost the next day Valve announces Proton. All I could think was, wow this is wayy different from 2009, like I didn't even need to say anything and BAM! Customer Service!
 
As time went on the hyped died down a bit around Linux. I started to settle in. In terms of gaming, sacrifices had to be made. No Arma 3 multiplayer for me, but the majority of the rest of the games I wanted to play at the time worked. I decide to buy Crossover; This was a good choice, Crossover saves you time not messing around with Wine Prefexs. Getting the same job done in Play on Linux can take hours or even days trying to find all the right system packages and versions you need, Crossover can do all this for you in minutes. Defiantly worth the money in my view.

As time went on I started to get dismayed with the games I couldn't play. Space Engineers worked but was too laggy to be playable. Frycry 5 worked for others, but not me. Skyrim SE didn't have working sound, forcing me to play regular Skyrim. Some of my flight Sims like IL2 BOS I feared would never work because of their reliance on visual studio libs and their low level of interest from Linux gamers.

At this point early 2019 or so, I was starting to feel the desire to go back to Windows. I really wanted to play Space Engineers, I ended up playing the game anyways with terrible frame rates for a few days. Playing with low frames like that made me really question what the hell I was doing staying on Linux, questioning how long was I going to need to make this compromise.
 
Then on the 3rd day it happened again. Somebody did it, they figured out the right configuration to fix space engineers and BOOM, native performance.

It's almost like I have psychic tech support or something! The people who work on this stuff all around the world for free, I really can't thank you enough. You are the best technical support I've ever had, and I never even needed to contact any of you once, yet you've made my life so much easier so quickly, I almost feel like I have one of those multi-million dollar support contracts for free.

Soon enough, Skyrim SE was working with sound, Frycry 5 now works right out of the box in Proton with Uplay and all. And the other day I tried IL2 BOS and it works right out of the box on steam proton now with Wine's open source implementation of the VSStudio redistributable. It really is just getting better and better, and I'm having less and less trouble with Linux at a very rapid pace. Every little problem is getting fixed over time, and the only real thing that's still left undone for me personally is Arma 3, which even that now works with battleye for 15 minutes before you get kicked. Only a matter of time.

I don't want you to think this will be easy however, it's not. Learning how to use Linux just take time and hard work, but it's so very, very worth it. And in a few years that may no longer be true as well, but in a way that means if your interested in learning this stuff, then now it the best time to attempt to switch, if you wait too long Linux will become too good and the opportunity open to you now to learn new things will dry up. Then again, maybe you need some program that only works on Windows, in which case, I'm not going to try and push you, you're probably better off on Windows for now.

But if you can take the risk and make the sacrifice, then I think It's never been better time. I'm happier with my computing experience then I've ever been. No slowdowns over time, no malware, no crap Microsoft installs on my PC to try and sell me something I don't need. I'm learning more about computers then I ever have, and I'm having more fun with my computing experience then I ever have, as Linux is simply providing me the best computing experience on the market right now, maybe it will for you to.

Thank you.