6 Months Without Windows: The Ugly Truth About Gaming On Linux

UPDATE May 2019: I’ve taken your comments to heart. Based on your feedback, I’ve started a comprehensive Linux Gaming Report at Forbes. It analyzes the setup and overall ease-of-use across 9 popular distros.

I’ve been striving to exclusively use desktop Linux for the past six months, and I’m not leaving it any time soon. The experience has been transformative, educational and downright fun at times. There’s always this air of excitement surrounding every challenge that gets conquered or every new discovery made. Most importantly, my Personal Computer truly feels personal again, and that comes with the freedom and satisfaction of using open source software to get the majority of my work done. The ability to customize my operating system any way I see fit, tailored to any need.

Lutris is one of many excellent solutions for playing Windows-exclusive games on Linux

But lest you think it’s all a sugar-coated, headache-free computing utopia, I’m here to remind you that while I consider myself a Linux advocate, I’m also a critic.

Gaming On Linux: Better Than Ever, But Never Up To Date

I’ve written repeatedly about Valve’s Proton initiative at Forbes. This lets Steam gamers on Linux play literally thousands of Windows-exclusive games without any kind of obscure setup or file tweaking. A week after it launched, more than 1000 of those Windows games were…