this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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So honestly, which percentage of your game collection runs on Linux? Because I've looked into doing this just a few months ago, and unless the industry had some kind of mass exodus, less than 10% of my games run on Linux, and that's a generous estimate.
Not defending Windows or anything, this is just my experience.
Would "Steam Deck compatibility" be a good proxy, at least for Steam games?
I just made the switch this weekend. I have not had a single incompatibility yet. I have seen an oddity here and there in Helldivers 2, but nothing crazy.
Oddity 1: In normal windows play async issues sometimes happen where a player steps on a mine in the other person's client but not their own. They continue to play because their client doesn't mark them dead. To the other person, they appear as a person missing some number of body parts (sometimes just a floating torso). We call this torso mode.
Since switching to linux I have not seen my friend go torso mode a single time. He still sees me go torso mode.
Oddity 2: The artillery rounds are color coded for what each of them does. Since switching to linux they only appear silver for whatever reason. It's a nonissue, I just read them when I walk next to them. If anyone asks my character is colorblind.
One additional note:
If you install steam with a flatpak, you're going to have to tangle with the permissions related to a flatpak. Once you add directory permissions for an additional directory via flatseal (for example, if you want a library on each of your harddrives), you won't have to touch it again and it's great.
Maybe these issues are significant to you, maybe they aren't. Ultimately, god I love my system starting up in just a few seconds. And having true control over it.
Its a fairly safe bet that your offline games won't have much trouble, from my experience.
idk where you looked, protondb.com is a good database for this stuff, from your later reply insurgency sandstorm and hund showdown are both "gold" rated, they should be okay
but the thing is ... you could just try for yourself, for free
I had just looked at the publisher's system requirements on Steam, since my experience with Wine from over a decade ago was a dead end. I've learned a lot from this thread, though, and it seems things have improved dramatically.
What kind of games do you play? Unless a game has anticheat, it is pretty much guaranteed to run on Linux.
“Unless your game is one of the most popular games that people play, it will run on Linux”
Among my favorites with anti cheat are Insurgency: Sandstorm and Hunt: Showdown. I will reluctantly play Fortnite if friends insist!
i have just recently found out that from ps4 and xbox one up you can play fortnite and a bunch of other f2p titles, without subscription and with mouse and keyboard, with crossplay to every other platform
Should be ok:
https://www.protondb.com/app/581320
Fortnite does not work on Linux.
Most games that don't have kernel level anti-cheat tend to work.
Have you tried to play the games or did you look them up on a site? I've found that unless you are looking at a popular new game, a lot of the games listed are saying that they don't play, but we're last checked in 2023, and they do work now but no body has updated the new results.
I looked up my favorites, based on my experience in the past with unsupported games. Long ago, I tried using Wine, way back before Steam even had a native Linux client. I managed to get Steam to run through Wine but never succeeded in getting any game to run beyond a loading screen. That was ages ago, though.
Things have changed since then. Steam not only has a Linux client, but also has Proton which loads most Windows apps (it's marketed for games, but in reality it will work on Windows apps).
I'm on Garuda, every game I have tried has worked great, sometimes I just have to choose a different proton version with an easy pull down menu. The only game I have given up is Destiny 2, because they say they will ban anyone on Linux because of their anti cheat.
Multiplayer games and ones that require Uplay or Origin (can't remember their new names) have issues, but most single player stuff will run fine. You'll typically have to run them via Wine or Proton, but Steam will handle that for you.
I've never tried Proton, but I've gone down a rabbit hole of trying to use Wine for running games a few years back. I'll look into Proton, thanks for the suggestion.
Yeah Proton is definitely the way to go over using Wine directly. Valve has put a ton of work into making it seamless. I have a large steam library and have found literally only one game (Destiny 2) that doesn't work. And that's just because Bungie has gone out of their way to make sure it won't run on Linux for "anti cheating" reasons.