cujo

Yeah, that's fair. Linux has been my daily driver for like... 8 years now? And I dabbled with it for some time before that. I've gotten to a point where I'm MUCH more comfortable doing things the Linux way than I am doing things the Windows way. I also have to admit I don't do much modding for my games, and the little bit that I do is often either a.) Supported/managed by the game itself, or b.) Because I still install the majority of my mods by hand rather than through a mod manager.

As someone who dailied Linux for years and years and whose primary use of my PC is to game... I have to disagree with you. The only title in my entire Steam library that doesn't work is Halo: Infinite, and that only because I'm using an Intel ARC card which has a known issue running Infinite on Linux due to an incompatibility between a specific set of DirectX 12 calls and Vulkan. If I had chosen to upgrade to a new AMD card instead, I'd still be running Linux. But I wanted to support Intel, so here we are. When I'm done playing around on Infinite, I'll switch back and never think about Windows again.

Hell, some of my library runs BETTER on Linux than on Windows with the ARC card. The only game that runs better on Windows is Halo: Infinite, and that's only because it literally doesn't run at all on Linux. 😂

I switched to TIDAL. Same price, and they pay the artists better per stream.

My typical recommendation for anyone new to Linux looking to get their feet wet would be Linux Mint. As long as you keep the system updated, it should be a decent choice for gaming.

The following is not to discourage you, but to help keep expectations in check. Gaming on Linux is not perfect. It's not comparable to gaming on Windows. A LOT of games (with the assistance of Steam's Proton) "just work," but things are not to a point where that's ever a guarantee. I would recommend looking up your staple games on to review Linux compatibility, if the games run or need additional run options.

I say all this as someone who runs exclusively Linux, and is a gamer and occasionally streams. It's perfectly doable, but expect to have to get your hands dirty at some point in the venture. And don't be afraid to ask questions!

Glad I'm not the only one with this question. Feels like it's difficult to find up-to-date information on the performance of these Arc cards on Linux; I'd like to support Intel's move into this space but it's hard without knowing how drastically it's going to affect my gaming performance. 😅

I'm glad to hear the situation seems to be rapidly improving. I may pick up an A770 yet.

Much better! Less aggressive. Your initial comment had a sense of reprimanding the OP for not posting in the "right place," and I'm certain you didn't mean to come off that way, just that you thought they might get a better, more specific answer from a more specific community, is that right?

I appreciate the civility and willingness to discuss. :)

The down votes are because you suggested that Gaming is not the correct community to ask about Gaming hardware, and it's hardly a barrage. There's nothing wrong with the advice you're giving, especially since you seem to have regionally appropriate knowledge that many others don't have. This is still the appropriate place to ask their question. Likely it's because, whether you intended for it to be so or not, your opening statement comes across... abrasive.

I mean... if they're asking for advice about a gaming rig, the gaming community seems like a pretty relevant place to ask.

This is wonderful news.

Wait, they defederated from us? I thought I was noticing less of their... uh... content around.

... what are your biases against me? 😅

It's interesting to see this in open discussion, as it's something I hadn't realized I did, but I do.

. You can't go wrong whichever "edition" you download, but I'd recommend Cinnamon. It's delightfully easy to setup, beginner friendly, has GUI utilities for most of the settings you'll need to tweak, and leaves room to grow as you learn more about Linux. For YouTube and Google Docs, it'll be more than performant enough.