Windows, Linux, and Game Libraries

[LibraryOgre]

So, my computer ****ed itself, possibly from a Windows update (iirc, one of the error messages I'm getting is mlang.dll.mui problem, but I've also been unable to install the 12/22 update), and, as always, Microsoft problems make me consider Linux. The stumbling point, as always, is my game library.

I've got a lot on Steam and GOG, and a bit on Epic and Origin, and I suspect, if I switch to Linux, all those go away. Anyone have more specific and layman oriented advice on this problem?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So, my computer ****ed itself, possibly from a Windows update (iirc, one of the error messages I'm getting is mlang.dll.mui problem, but I've also been unable to install the 12/22 update), and, as always, Microsoft problems make me consider Linux. The stumbling point, as always, is my game library.

I've got a lot on Steam and GOG, and a bit on Epic and Origin, and I suspect, if I switch to Linux, all those go away. Anyone have more specific and layman oriented advice on this problem?

No, those won't go away. You'll need to reinstall them, of course, and you'll need to use Proton (for Steam) or Wine via Lutris (for the other two) to run them, but you should be able to do so. Steam in particular is really good about Proton being able to run darn near anything that doesn't have some stupid anti-cheat BS software. As a bonus, anything saved on Steam Cloud *should* carry over as well.

The bigger question is: Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, being a Linux user for several years, I'm all for it, but I'm also aware it's kind of a big step outside people's comfort zones, and there can be complications which arise.

A larger concern than if you still can access your game libraries would be driver compatibility. Specifically, if you've got a 3000 series NVidia card, driver support on Linux can be... sketchy. The 2000 series cards are better supported, but I've heard some unpleasant things about DLSS incompatibility still on some titles where it should be working. If you've got an AMD card, then you're good to go, default Mesa drivers work out of the box preinstalled. Also, some hardware that have proprietary drivers might need a lot of working-around to get to work, if it is even possible. I'm talking about things like certain mixers, a couple of really oddball webcams, that sort of thing. Stuff that isn't plug-n-play even on Windows. If it asks you to install its drivers to get it to work, odds are you're in for a rocky road to get it to function properly.

If you're looking to try Linux, I'd suggest either Pop!_OS or Mint (with Cinnamon desktop) as two relatively low-bar beginner-friendly versions. Both are Debian based, which basically improves you odds of things working on Steam without needing to jump through as many hoops. If you have an NVidia driver, I'd honestly suggest Pop!_OS as they have a version that comes preinstalled with the latest NVidia proprietary drivers, which reduces the hassles for getting set up.

[LibraryOgre]

The bigger question is: Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, being a Linux user for several years, I'm all for it, but I'm also aware it's kind of a big step outside people's comfort zones, and there can be complications which arise.

I likely won't, being essentially very lazy, but it gets my dander up and I think about it.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I likely won't, being essentially very lazy, but it gets my dander up and I think about it.

Completely understandable. I will say it is easier to game on Linux now than it has ever been. I'd suggest setting up a dual-boot if you want to give it a test drive and see how it goes. That way in the event it doesn't go your way, you still have Winblows as a reliable fallback position instead of putting all your eggs in one relatively unknown basket.

[factotum]

To provide a bit of a counterpoint to Shneekey's very hopeful assessment: my experience is very much the opposite of his. When I experimented with Linux for gaming earlier this year, I had so, so many problems getting games to work. Even Steam Proton isn't a magic wand, unfortunately, and while the situation is certainly better than it was a few years ago, I would rather just run Windows where I know I can just install a game and it will work without needing several hours worth of messing around with Proton versions and configurations.

Plus, if you're planning on installing Linux, why not just reinstall your Windows from scratch? Seems about the same amount of effort to me and more likely to work in the long run.

[J-H]

I've tried Ubuntu twice in the last 4 years. Both times, "Get something to work" often ends up being "search for the problem, find where somebody on a Q&A board suggested typing a specific string into terminal, then copy that and hope it works." Very few of the problems I ran into actually had explanations of what caused them or why typing the specific magic words would fix them. I found this very frustrating as a problem might be fixed, but my understanding of the system would not increase at all from this.

The file-handling always seemed very wonky and un-intuitive, where one program doesn't see another program and there's no way to link it unless you nest them into the same set of folders. That may just be a user error.

[Aeson]

I have to agree with factotum and J-H. I put Ubuntu 20.04 on my laptop about a year and a half ago, after the Windows install corrupted and I discovered my recovery disks didn't work, and while I have been able to get a lot of the programs that I want to run to work on it, a lot of the time it hasn't been as straight forward as just installing the program and telling Wine to run it, or Steam to run it with Proton. It may also be worth mentioning that while many games can be run on a Linux machine through Steam Proton, it is not necessarily the case that they run well on Linux through Steam Proton; I additionally haven't been able to run a couple of games that theoretically natively support Linux - AI War 2 refuses to launch despite everything I've tried, and while the Shogun Total War 2 Linux port runs I find it so unstable as to be effectively unplayable (on the other hand, I also have at least two games - Cities: Skylines and Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna - that are nominally Windows-only and yet run better on my laptop under Ubuntu (the former with Steam Proton, the latter with Wine) than they did on the same computer under Windows, so I guess you win some and you lose some). I have also run into issues with file permissions after extracting archives when using the right-click menu option often enough that I now almost always use the command line to extract archives despite finding this to be generally significantly less convenient.

Generally speaking, my feeling is that Linux is a serviceable OS, but not one that's particularly user-friendly, and as with J-H I tend to find that issue resolution is often "search for the problem online and hope that someone posted a solution that works for you" - especially for games, where it's hard to justify spending a lot of time digging through documentation and trying various things that you think (or someone says) might work when you could just go play something else that does run.

[JNAProductions]

I was on Linux Mint for a while. Some games worked fine. Some did not. Not being a computer whiz, I had to get a lot of support from forums, Google, Discord servers... So if you're a big gamer, try sticking to Windows. Linux CAN work... But it ain't super easy.

[LibraryOgre]

Well, now I am playing "make an ISO file", because the recovery disk didn't work.

[JNAProductions]

Well, now I am playing "make an ISO file", because the recovery disk didn't work.

Good luck! Hope it works for you. :)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Ouch, sorry to hear that man.

Going back to the topic of gaming on linux, at least for Steam games, there's ProtonDB which provides support for Linux gamers. Looking up your specific game you're trying to get to work will bring up other users experiences, what versions of Proton worked for them, what other workarounds they had to use to get it to work (such as using various Launch Option flags), and generally how well it works as compared to a Windows experience.

The big reason I point this out is because it is sorted by date, so if something updates and fixes (or breaks) compatibility, that should also generally be available on ProtonDB. This saves hours of forum diving to find a solution that was from three years ago that got patched a year and a half ago and no longer relevant. In short, if you're trying to get a game to work on Steam and having issues with it, ProtonDB should be your first resource to check.

The next resource I'd suggest is Lutris. Lutris itself is not a compatibility later, that would be WINE. However, Lutris is a GUI interface that can run user-created scripts other people have used to install the necessary WINE flags to run a given game smoothly, and in its own separate WINE bottle. As a good example, I used Lutris to install Blizzard's Battle.net app and use it regularly to play D3 and SC2.

As with any user-created experience, quality may vary, and not all scripts are written equally. The big problem is that there are so many distros of linux that it is nigh impossible to support them all, what might work on one system might not work on another. In other words, linux-based distros are *too* customizable to have a one-size-fits-all plug and play experience. But it is a solid resource for those trying to game on Linux outside of Steam. It isn't perfect by any means, but it's sure better than a kick in the head. Other launchers such as the Epic or Origin launcher also have Lutris scripts for installation, although getting games to run from there might be independent challenges as they will all be running in the same WINE bottle.