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Linux is now the best gaming system. ｜ fernvenue's Blog
blog.fernvenue.comWhen it comes to gaming on Linux, many many many people’s understanding stil remains in the Jurassic era. For the past few years, I’ve been using Linux as my main operating system for both work and gaming. From my personal experience, the gaming experience on Linux is far superior to that of macOS and Windows. I know I know…whenever I mention this, there are always some old-school individuals who come out to say that Linux’s driver configuration is complex, its game support is not rich enough, and its compatibility issues are significant, among other problems. In this article, I will directly address these issues and let everyone understand how much the gaming experience on Linux has developed by 2025.
But it’s not like Windows is necessarily better! I’ve spent far longer trying to get some games to work on there than I do on Linux. I’ve spent more time on random driver issues in Windows than I do on Linux. I’m quite technical, and Windows has been far more frustrating in the bad cases - especially when talking about older games.
No, that’s ridiculous. It will be the best gaming system when it can run more games out of the box without any additional hassle than Windows can. I’m not sure we’ve reached that point, but we’re damn close - since I switched to Linux full-time, there’s been a handful of games that I’ve had trouble getting to work, but all of them were niche (or modded) games. All the big titles have worked flawlessly, and better than on Windows (since all the additional crap like launchers, background services etc. are contained to when the game is running).
I’d honestly be interesting to hear why this is, because it’s the exact opposite for me. I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve experienced driver issues on Windows. Now, I typically only use stable updates, so I generally avoid the dreaded “new update breaking driver compatibility” or “new driver incompatible with old version” issues, but compared to working with Nvidia drivers on Linux? literal night and day difference. even trying to stick to the stable 535 drivers on Ubuntu 22.04 has been a huge nightmare, and many of my favorite titles are still unplayable after weeks of tinkering.
On Windows, I’ve had countless instances where a game wouldn’t start after updating NVidia drivers (updates recommended by Geforce Now, to simplify/streamline the process). I’ve also had cases where game A wouldn’t start with driver X, and game B wouldn’t start with driver Y, so I had to uninstall & reinstall when I wanted to play either. This has also bricked Windows installs before.
Compared to that I haven’t had any NVidia driver issues on Linux, apart from (and since) the Wayland sync issues last year. But I also chose a distro that handles it all for me (first Fedora Kinoite through Ublue, later Aurora). It just works, especially since I’m not doing any driver installs or anything myself. It’s just handled for me, I get a new image, and everything works.
The worst I’ve had were issues that were solved by doing a Flatpak update.
It’s so wild, it’s like we’re in different mirror universes. That being said, I’ve never used either of the two distros you mentioned, which might honestly be my biggest issue; saying you have a problem with Linux, or trying to claim Linux as the best gaming system, is such a meaningless sentence because of the variety of distros available. I can absolutely believe that you’ve never had an issue with the distros you listed, but you have to also understand I’ve persistently experienced issues every time I’ve tried Mint and Ubuntu.
Oh, I definitely believe you regarding Mint/Ubuntu. I’ve had plenty of issues with Ubuntu (not with gaming, but regular applications). Inevitably, every install turns into a Frankenstein monster of deviations and abnormalities, especially after updates. While I’ve had good experiences with Debian, I’m still scared every time there’s a big system update.
That’s why I immediately jumped on the Atomic Fedora train when I first heard of it, and I couldn’t be happier. That’s because it actually fixes the issue by ensuring everyone has the same system. My Aurora install is pretty much exactly the same as anyone elses (except for 2-3 packages I’ve layered on top). That’s because it’s literally the same Docker image running on everyones PC, with the system itself being immutable. All my actual dev stuff, my application-specific things and everything non-default is running nicely contained inside distrobox containers, so my system isn’t different from anyone elses install. It dramatically cuts down on the possible incompatibilities.
And if there’s an issue, I just boot into an earlier version. That works even when there’s been a major version update. It’s amazing, I can’t recommend it enough if you want stability.
I’m planning on looking into them now, thanks. Will probably test both Aurora and Bazzite this week based on the recommendations I’m seeing, hopefully I’ll have more success with one of them.
Good luck! Bazzite is basically a different version of Aurora, they build on the same basis and just include different software (and are developed by the same organisation, Ublue). You can even switch between the two with a couple of commands: https://docs.bazzite.gg/Installing_and_Managing_Software/Updates_Rollbacks_and_Rebasing/rebase_guide/
But I’d recommend trying one and sticking with it if it works for you, not sure if there’s some possible incompatibilities when doing the rebasing.
If you have questions or issues, feel free to hit me up. I’m no expert, but I’ve used Atomic Fedora for more than a year, so I have some idea how things go.