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Is Linux gaming on Steam actually competitive in performance and availability to what you'll get on Windows? I'm looking into building a gaming computer I'm surprised to hear I could roll with Linux for it.

Essentially, the only games that doesn't work nowadays are the ones that intentionally break it by adding Linux-incompatible anti-cheat. This is common among the big AAA-games that are multiplayer (think Fortnite).

Riot games did this on purpose too. League worked perfectly fine on Linux for years until they decided that kernel level spying on users was absolutely necessary to play a moba. For some reason my one friend thinks I'll run windows just for one game.

I'd sooner get a console, personally. The only legitimate use case I have for a console (nintendo notwithstanding) is to sandbox invasive anticheat in multiplayer games. I don't really have a ton of free time or friend group into multiplayer video games, so it's not happening for me. Smart console makers would lean into this.

Yup, I've also gone with a console for all my gaming needs, and keep my computer as just a productivity machine. As a result I don't need nearly as beefy machine and don't need to grind my teeth in bitterness using Windows.

> ones that intentionally break it by adding Linux-incompatible anti-cheat.

That's an interesting way to phrase it. It's like you're implying the company intentionally did not want to run it on anything but Windows (aka software is incompatible with non-Windows OSes) rather than trying to implement an effective anti-cheat (arguable) that works for their customers.

Pre-Wine, would you have argued that a software vendor is intentionally preventing their software from running on any non-Windows OS?

Or was it just that their audience wasn't on said non-Windows OS?


> That's an interesting way to phrase it. It's like you're implying the company intentionally did not want to run it on anything but Windows (aka software is incompatible with non-Windows OSes) rather than trying to implement an effective anti-cheat (arguable) that works for their customers.

Not OP, but this is true depending on the game. For instance, when Rockstar added BattlEye to GTA V Online, they broke Linux support, and blatantly lied about Linux not supporting BattleEye, when that's just not true - they just needed to enable that option, but they just straight up lied saying BattlEye doesn't support Linux.

See: https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/31046...

> BattlEye on Proton integration has reached a point where all a developer needs to do is reach out BattlEye to enable it for their title. No additional work is required by the developer besides that communication.

So all Rockstar had to do was reach out to BattlEye to enable it, but they couldn't be bothered to do so. Their anti-Linux stance here is pretty obvious.

Rockstar aside, there are other studios/publishers that have been openly hostile against Linux, like Epic for instance - Tim Sweeny has made scathing remarks against Linux, so it's clear where he/Epic stands on that front.


Is BattlEye equally as effective on Linux as it is on Windows, i.e. is it a 1:1 drop-in? If not, I could see why they wouldn't want to enable it.

I’m using Bazzite now for about 8 months, and I have a dual boot Windows drive. I haven’t used the Windows drive once. Windows was my daily driver for 3 decades.

Performance wise, there’s no degradation. I can run games at 4k or bonkers FPS just like I did on Windows, no input lag, etc.

Bazzite also has a very active discord for support with issues. I highly recommend.


It's unbelievable just how unclear Bazzite's website is.

They don't spell out clearly what Bazzite is. Is it a distro? A layer on top of Steam? Something else? No idea from the first page.

Still on par with Linux UX, I'm afraid :(


Bazzite -> Community & Docs -> FAQ

https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/FAQ/#what-is-the-difference-...

> Bazzite originally was developed for the Steam Deck targeting users who used their Steam Deck as their primary PC. Bazzite is a collection of custom Fedora Atomic Desktop images built with Universal Blue's tooling (with the power of OCI) as opposed to using an Arch Linux base with A/B updates utilizing RAUC. The main advantages of Bazzite versus SteamOS is receiving system packages in updates at a much faster rate and a choice of an alternative desktop environment.

It is a Linux distribution, that aims to compete with Valve's SteamOS Linux distribution supplied with the Steam Deck (which itself is based on Arch Linux). Like SteamOS, it can be used on a regular desktop PC as well... but they are mainly aiming to run on the Steam Deck:

https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/FAQ/#is-this-another-fringe-...

> The purpose of Bazzite is to be Fedora Linux, but provide a great gaming experience out of the box while also being an alternative operating system for the Steam Deck and other handheld devices.

Effectively they have taken Fedora Linux, and added to it the same sort of setup and programs that you get out-of-the-box with SteamOS as well.

For the most part, it is not the people offering Bazzite that are doing the hard job of providing security updates, etc., they are hoping that being based on Fedora will provide that assurance. They merely supply and configure some extras on top (e.g. the Steam client software)


What I meant is not "I can't find what it is", but that the landing page of Bazzite says this: "The next generation of Linux gaming - Bazzite makes gaming and everyday use smoother and simpler across desktop PCs, handhelds, tablets, and home theater PCs.

Play your favorite games - Bazzite is designed for Linux newcomers and enthusiasts alike with Steam pre-installed, HDR & VRR support, improved CPU schedulers for responsive gameplay, and numerous community-developed tools and tweaks to streamline your gaming and streaming experience."

In the first 5 words after the 1st title there should be mentioned "Linux distribution". It's not even in the 2nd paragraph, now.

If this is the clarity of the landing page, I suspect documentation is equally user-hostile/inaccessible, which is why 2025 is still not the year of the Linux desktop... in the Linux world there's still an abundance of great developers, and a terrible lack of HCI/UX expertise.


I agree with you that it's vague text... but I don't think this website is alone in having nothing but sizzle on its landing page.

Not only is it competitive, it's actually superior in many instances.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/06/games-run-faster-on-s...

Basically the only games that don't work are those which include anticheat which intentionally borks Linux. Check https://www.protondb.com/ for any game you're interested in to see if it'll run or not.


Yes. Nearly every game is compatible. Checkout protondb.com and check the games you play.

Anything that has a kernel level anti check (Valorant) will always be a resounding No. But besides from that, everything is pretty damn nice.


>Anything that has a kernel level anti check (Valorant) will always be a resounding No.

Please stop repeating this long outdated information. The two most widely used kernel anti cheat provider easyanticheat and battle eye support linux with a user space component which needs to be enabled by the developer and has been in many games.

https://areweanticheatyet.com/breakdown


That is... a bit of an oversimplifciation.

Tools like Battle eye and EAC are not just one tool that gives a binary answer, they are tools that detect a huge range of heuristics about the device and how easy it is to interfere with the memory.

While they have been ported to Linux, an awful lot of those bits of telemetry simply don't give the desired answer, or even any answer at all, because that is very hard to so when there aren't proprietary drivers signed down to the hardware root of trust by a third party (and certainly the average Linux user on HN wouldn't want there to be!).

It's really not a matter of "enabled by the developer", it's entirely dependent on what your threat model is.


None of this is relevant to the original point of "kernel anti cheats don't work" when yes the two most widely used ACs do work despite being kernel level.

>It's really not a matter of "enabled by the developer", it's entirely dependent on what your threat model is.

Again irrelevant to the original point


Pretty much none of the kernel level features work.

Irrelevant. They work so you can play a game and it's supported by the devs despite it using kernel level anti cheat.

Yes, it works great, actually. But you have to have specific hardware, for example AMD gpu instead of Nvidia.

Also, nearly anything with anti-cheat (many online games, esp shooters) won't work.


Nvidia works great, and has since this summer. So long as you’re on a recent release you shouldn’t have issues.

Nvidia on a machine with an AMD iGPU requires you to blacklist the amdgpu module.


Nobody tell my machine that. I have a 5080 paired with an 9800X3D, no blacklisting of kernel modules necessary (for me at least).

I should have added “sometimes”. It worked fine that way with most games (I have the same CPU), but Cyberpunk 2099 in particular really doesn’t like that configuration.

Depends on what you like to play. Some games are heavily encumbered with either copy protection like denuvo or anti-cheat and those either don't support linux or flat out try to sniff out linux and refuse to run on anything but windows. Otherwise its great, you can check protondb and winehq for reports of compatibilty.

When I come across a profound excerpt or cool quote I stash it in my Random Excerpts section of my note taking app.

It's a pleasure to go back and read the cool things I've totally forgotten about.


My gripe with Youtube Music is that the bitrate quality of their music is lower than Tidal or even Spotify. YTM audio files that are actually on Youtube will only stream in 128kbps.


I’m surprised to hear that. I just switched from Spotify to Youtube Music and found the audio quality to be way better, even though I had Spotify set to high.


The other useful Youtube Premium feature is the ability to offline download videos to your device. Useful for long plane rides and elsewhere where internet is limited or nonexistent.


When I was young I had a weird cognitive bias where I would think that if something tasted curious or different, that it must be good for you in some way.

E.g. the odd taste of licorice. Must mean that it was healthy or good right? Turns out licorice really isn't good for you. https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/10/28/black-licorice-is-a...


How to know that an article about licorice is from the US: they include the "black" qualifier. As if there were any other kind! To me (Swedish) the normal/expected qualifier is "sweet" (yes please) or "salty" (oh yes indeed thank you very much).

The concept of "red licorice" [1] is simply ... foreign. :) It's also fun and interesting as a word/food, since it focuses on the texture of a food and re-uses the word, even though the word is tightly coupled to the flavor.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquorice_(confectionery)#Red_...


We do have those funny coloured "licorices" in Spain, but anybody with have a brain knows that the real one is black, and the others just happen to share the same shape xD

Having said that, my favourite is that salty stuff you guys have up there in the North.


My rule is that if other human beings eat something for pleasure (and not out of desperation, a dare, or to show off), then I should at least try it a few times as long as I don’t have ethical qualms about it.


I never understood why prisoners shouldn't at least have read-only access to the internet.

This is going to become a bigger issue as more and more people think and understand the world through Google searches and LLMs. One reason people who post bail end up with vastly better outcomes in court is because they can prepare for their cases so much better than those stuck in jail waiting for trial.


How does one setup a read-only access to the internet?


One doesn't "setup a read-only access to the internet". But for information access, I imagine something like Kiwix[1] or El Paquete Seminal (without the piracy of course)[2] would be useful to a lot of people

Another option would be to mitm all web requests from a custom web-browser (install a root cert on all devices) and drop all POST, PUT, and DELETE requests. Prohibit the browser from storing cookies or localStorage, and perhaps maintain an allow-list of sites which can be accessed.

This is obviously not foolproof, but it'd certainly make real-world "request smuggling" much more difficult.

Of course, a better question is if there's really even value to providing read-only internet access in the first place? I understand that for some inmates there might be concerns of them contributing to illicit operations in the outside world, but the rationale I usually hear for why inmates are prevented from computer/internet access has more to do with the "dangerous" information they might access (how to commit crimes in the future, avoid getting caught, etc). And I think both of these arguments are worth our skepticism.

[1]: https://kiwix.org/en/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paquete_Semanal


It’s Semanal, not Seminal. Seminal amusingly translates to “related to semen”. Even more amusing when Paquete can also mean “crotch”.


Because their friends on the outside can give them information or instructions.

Killings of rival gangs in prisons for rewards etc


This happens anyways, though. And I have to imagine it is already fairly easy to tell someone in prison to do something of this nature, it's not a ton of information to convey, exactly.


I agree wholeheartedly. What none of the review sites have figured out is how to adjust TV show user scores so that they don't score so much higher than movies.


Rotten Tomatoes is the First Past the Post of movie reviews. Incredibly distorted and unreliable in capturing the sentiment of the majority.


Weirdly I often find films with an RT score in the range of 40% to 60% with high-ish IMDB scores to be the most interesting.

Whereas an RT 90%+ score without IMDB/Metacritic consensus the film is good typically means its mass-produced common denominator Hollywood slop.


I appreciate the sentiment, but time in life is limited. Streaming is 95% slop so it really does pay to let others curate you the best films, with tolerance for a lower rating if it's a genre you particularly like.


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