It really has. I had always tried to use Linux in the past, but gaming was always a fight, and the OS just never felt like it behaved reliable for daily usage for me, was always some little annoyance or bug or issue I'd run into and inevitably switch back to Windows for the sake of things just working without having to spend hours and days and weeks trying to fix issues. That was 10+ years ago. I finally decided to give it a go again, using an Arch based OS. I figured it's been a while, try something other than debian or SLES that I've been used to. Honestly, I kinda don't notice much difference in overall day to day use between gaming and day to day use on Linux versus previously being on Windows just a month ago. Everything kinda just works. The one thing I do notice is I use significantly less RAM, I seldom exceed 32gb as where I was regularly 40gb+ on Windows, and everything runs much better while I do the same day to day stuff as I always have. It's not a huge performance difference, but if I'm paying attention, yeah, I do notice my games tend to run better, and everything within the OS is far more responsive.
As for all the linux a-holes out there, please STFU, I don't wanna hear "winblows sux" or "this distro is better", it's why I didn't specify what specific distro I use. That toxic fanboyism is what keeps people away from seeing it as a viable usable OS.
My rambling is really just to say: Yeah, linux has come a long way, especially for gaming and day to day use. The work Valve and others have done to make stuff just run and work is astonishing.
Gaming has improved by leaps and bounds in the last few years, but non-gaming desktop use has been solid for ages. What little annoyances and bugs and issues kept you going back to Windows?
I found Windows 10 was the first bearable Windows, that I could use without wanting to go back to Linux all the time. Not great, but bearable.
I still used Windows for gaming throughout the whole time. (Until about a year ago, when I accidentally nuked my Windows installation, and then never bothered to set it up again..)
Depending on the job I had at the time, I also used Windows at work.
> As for all the linux a-holes out there, please STFU, I don't wanna hear "winblows sux" or "this distro is better", it's why I didn't specify what specific distro I use. That toxic fanboyism is what keeps people away from seeing it as a viable usable OS.
I've mostly heard that until perhaps about 10 years ago. I'm sure these people are still out there, but it seems to be much less common these days.
I use Arch Linux for what it's worth, but almost any distro can install almost any program (and they all run the same kernels), so it mostly comes down to what package manager and configuration system you want to use, and whether you like the defaults that come with your distribution.
I'm still having some trouble with screen tearing in some games on Linux, alas. I suspect these problems have been ironed out for the more mainstream window manager setups (like whatever you get in Ubuntu by default, instead of me using XMonad), but so far I couldn't be bothered to fix it, yet.
I tried a compositor like picom and gamescope (the one the Steam Deck uses), and they help a bit with eg the modern Hitman games, but I still have trouble with eg Silksong.
I don't expect that atrocious garbage to ever get a solution on Linux. Normal games should focus on server side anti-cheats or anything that doesn't need to put stuff in the kernel.
Which is great for Linux gaming, since it removes the need to use Windows.
Windows games worked on Linux for years with different levels of success, the difference is that now they work much much better and at times better than on Windows itself :)
