I use a Windows and Arch dualboot, but I’m looking to escape Microsoft. I’ve heard good things about both Fedora and Pop!_OS. I’m your average Arch user; I play video games and code. Are Windows VMs suitable for games like Call of Duty on such distros ?
Have you considered Mint? I tried PopOS but found the support wasn’t great. Mint is also based on Ubuntu but adds extra functionality and skips some of the dumb stuff Canonical is pushing (i.e. snaps for everything).
As far as games: VM’s are not really a good bet unless maybe you’ve got multiple video chips and are willing to invest time in getting GPU passthrough working (and then you really haven’t escaped Microsoft so why not just dual-boot).
I’ve found that games on Linux (particularly Steam games) with Proton are pretty damn good and only getting better over time. Valve has put a lot of work into that with the Steam Deck (which also runs on Linux) and the non-valve versions also sometimes cover stuff that can’t (like certain copy protections).
Your can see the rating for games on Linux with Proton here
Just reaffirming that my experience getting Activision/Blizzard stuff working on Linux has been mixed. I played older games that weren’t that GPU demanding, Hearthstone & Starcraft II, but the launcher would break pretty much every other update.
Mint is a great & everything works pretty much out of the box.
My understanding is that Fedora works pretty well for people gaming, GloriousEggroll, the guy that puts out the GE proton patches, contributes to Fedora, I think. Though you might want to check out NobaraLinux it is based on Feodra, but ships with additional goodies for gamers: Nvidia driver support, kernel patches, Discord, etc. https://nobaraproject.org/
Anything that you launch through Steam should also work, irrespective of your OS.
Glorious Eggroll I’m pretty sure actually works for Red Hat.
My understanding is Nobara is made by GloriousEggroll, which is why it’s so good for gaming. It worked really well for me except for the fact that some games didn’t like the hybrid Nvidia graphics on my laptop. I ended up swapping to Pop because of that, and everything works like a charm. I’d rather be on Nobara tho. I really don’t like Pop’s desktop environment.
I have an older gaming laptop with integrated graphics and a 1050 GPU, haven’t had any issues.
I love Nobara, it just worked right from the jump. Website has the hash right on the page, .iso already set to go, just create a bootable, plug it in and install.
You can probably install a different desktop environment for pop, usually it’s just a command and then there’s a menu in the corner of your login page where you can change the desktop environment.
Yeah, I know it’s possible, but I’m not a linux expert and I’d rather leave well enough alone. It works and it’s not Windows and that’s good enough for me!
Of course, whatever works best for you. I guess when you get annoyed enough just know switching desktops not as complicated as it might initially seem lol.
Thanks, I’ll definitely keep that in mind! :)