I got a gaming computer a few months ago and installed Pop OS on it. No particular reason for this distro-choice. When I buy a computer, I run with the first distro that installs easily.
I was gonna dual-boot with Windows, but well why assume Linux won’t work and pre-empt. Let’s try monobooting first.
The computer is basically offline. I connect to the internet when I need to download a driver or something like that. Was thinking of making the computer 100% offline, but that introduces headaches with certain uploads and installs. So all one-player-games, the way I like, might be hard for the amongus generation to relate.
I download games from Fitgirl to a Raspberry Pi and external drive. It’s more energy-efficient anyway to leave my Pi running than a gaming computer. Then I transfer the games to the big computer.
I don’t use Steam, not even sure what that is. I have never seen a microtransaction, online multiplayer, or ads. My games come with all DLCs bundled.
Do I have tech trouble making games work on Linux?
Sometimes. Standard operating procedure is run the installer on Bottles (https://usebottles.com/) and then run the game with wine game.exe
The more games you install, the more likely it is to be an error you’ve seen before, so gaming on Linux becomes easier over time. I keep a .txt file of how I got each game working so I can re-try solutions.
Two important tricks to save the headache of troubleshooting –
- go to Plan B. If the Fitgirl repack didn’t work, try the Dodi Repack. Or a different version number. No point wasting your time dealing with tech problems.
- a gaming computer is the same thing as an AI computer. I run Qwen locally and show it the error messages, tell it to fix it, then come back after a few hours. This works great. Culture warriors will be like “oooh AI bad”… mate it just figured out my game was using Wine D3D instead of DXVK and the wrong card, and autonomously changed the settings. I don’t care if you think “AI bad”, I put in two minutes of effort instead of two hours and the problem got fixed.
Why don’t you connect your computer to the internet, if you don’t mind me asking? Most people I know are basically online all the time. Except maybe if they bring their laptop to the library or the café.
I suppose “Fitgirl” is something shady or connected to piracy, and that’s a reason to keep it off the internet??
I can’t speak for OP, but one reason to keep a gaming machine offline is to prevent data collection by nosy companies, and another is to reduce attack surface in today’s age of automated exploits.
This computer is for playing games (and a bit of generative AI), not for surfing the web
I can get that kinda, though the big nicety about computers is that they’re universal tools for doing all sorts of things. What do you browse the web on?
I’m on a small laptop manufactured in 2012 rn
It wouldn’t be powerful enough for games much beyond 2005