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.
  • BananaTrifleViolin@piefed.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 hours ago

    I think it’s harder than it needs to be because of your internet habits, but otherwise a decent set up in my opinion.

    I can understand not using Steam (I find it hard to believe you don’t know what it is) but you’re presumably using Proton via Bottles. Protondb.com is also a very useful resource with other users experiences getting games working. And tools like Heroic and Lutris are more than just frontends for storefronts - they can be a good way to organise your own library of games.

    I think the use of local AI is interesting; I’ve tinkered with it on a few things but haven’t really used it for the chatbot side of things. Interesting that its working well albeit slow?

    I’m not a big fan of the Fitgirl stuff - are you saying you exclusively pirate games? I would suggest at least buying some games to support the devs? gog.com is a good place to buy DRM free versions of games. But each to their own I guess.

    But otherwise, this seems like a good set up. I also have a raspberry pi as a home server and it makes absolute sense not to use your desktop PC for that kind of thing. Presumably you use things like pi-hole to help reduce internet tracking / ads? I also use Syncthing across my PC, Laptop, living room PC and Raspberry Pi. The Pi acts as an always on hub for my syncthing folders which works well.