I know that there are probably better places to ask this question, but I know that there are many Linux users that participate in these forums, and I respect their opinions. Linux forums can sometimes be all unicorns and rainbows.

I have read a lot of info on that question and I am wondering if anyone has any first hand experience running games that don't have a Linux version. How well do the games really work, how well does GPU Virtualization work in a virtual machine, and what distro would you recommend?

I've dual booted Linux and Windows in the past, and I currently have an old laptop that I am triple booting Windows 8, Windows 10, and Sparky Linux on, so the technical part of it shouldn't be a problem. The laptop is too old and too under-powered to run much of anything, so I would have to set up a dual boot on my main PC. I'm not sure that I want to put in the effort unless I hear some encouraging real-life results.

LOL! Yeah, some of them certainly fit that description perfectly. But a lot can also be very helpful, without any fluff.

Now straight off, where gaming is concerned I'm afraid I can't speak from first hand experience. I'm no kind of gamer and actually hate games. However, I have 3 friends who have gone over to Linux in the last couple of years and who are heavy gamers. And they are very happy with what is available including of course Steam, and running on middle of the road PCs about 3-4 years old, with Nvidia cards, 1 with AMD Ryzen 7 and the others with Intel i5 and i7 respectively. As for their distros, one swears by Debian, 1 by openSUSE, and 1 by Ubuntu Mate.

Personally, my recommendation would be to steer clear of minor/smaller distros, esp. those that are 2 steps or more downstream branches, and stick with the most up to date major distros - my own favourite is vanilla flavour Ubuntu, followed by Fedora, and finally, Debian. However, how good each is for games I couldn't possibly say of course.

Dual or more booting's a doddle really. And most distros are an equal doddle to install and configure. Anyway, I hope you get a few first hand replies that are more helpful.

Thanks for your reply Nexter. I was pretty sure that I would at least hear from you.

I mostly play older games. I am in my late 60's and it sometimes can be a challenge to keep up with newer games. My eyes and brain seem to be getting older. A lot of the newer games have Linux versions, but the games I enjoy can be difficult to get, and keep running on Linux. I had the same problem years ago with Wine. Just when I got things working, an update to Wine would come along and I would be back where I started, with nothing working. From what I have read it seems to be the same story with Steam Play and ProtonDB. Also if you do get the games working there often seems to be some type of drawback.

GPU Virtualization in a virtual machine is possible on Linux and my hardware appears to support it. From what I have read it is a rather involved process with no guarantee of the results. I'm not sure I have the ambition to give it a try.

I seem to remember you mentioned somewhere that you wanted to give Ubuntu Mate a try. Did you ever get it installed? I am playing around with Sparky Linux Mate on a very old laptop, and I am really enjoying it. It reminds me of Windows XP.

This article on Windows XP 2024 Edition is the stuff dreams are made of.

https://betanews.com/2024/01/21/windows ... 4-edition/

Alas, lethargy, apathy, and indifference seem to 'rule' these days, and not just here either. Still, your post has attracted quite a bit of interest so far, so maybe there's hope yet. There certainly seem to be a good few Linux users around here.

Join the club. We're pretty much in the same age group then.

Wine used to be a bit shaky generally years ago. Certainly as far as the apps that I use with it are concerned I've never had any problems in at least the last 5 or 6 years.

Yeah, it's running in a small partition on one of my machines. It's OK, but it's so old-fashioned/backward looking, being based on old Gnome 2.x. Reminds me a bit of that other 'oldie' DE of (amongst others) Mint - i forget the name of the DE - although at least it isn't quite as bad and ultra-conservative as the latter. And yes, it's almost as ugly as XP's Fisher-Price look. (I instantly switched to the 'Classic Windows' options and then configured the hell out of that. )

Hmm, pipedreams perhaps? Or even nightmares! To be honest, looks even worse than the old Fisher-Price to me. Interesting, all the same. I'm thinking of putting XP back on one (older) machine, as it would run at least one or two apps better than W10, despite the limit on RAM.