Not me! I switched in 2017, right around the time Windows 10 "telemetry" (read: spyware) was getting backported to Windows 7.

It was a rough first couple of years, gaming-wise, but I managed to get by playing mostly Linux-native games and using PlayOnLinux with pre-Proton WINE for the one or two games important enough to justify the hassle.

(INB4 "weird flex but OK")

I gotta admit, I was pretty conflicted about Proton when it was first announced, since there was a lot of fear that it would reduce developer impetus to make proper Linux-native games. I'm not actually sure whether that came to pass or not, but I feel like the issue is a lot less important than it seemed at the time.

Samsies. Steam Deck showed me it was possible. Made the switch a little after that (waited for Hell Let Loose to turn on EAC for Linux).

Same here.

Windows 7 EOL is why I switched to linux.

proton is why I've stayed on linux.

I only have windows on my laptop atm, and thats only because of sheer laziness and the fact i dont use it much anymore... will be putting linux on it eventually, though.

Me too, soon I guess. I have a Steam Deck, and now using Windows on my laptop is kind of like torture, so the Deck has been my main PC.

I'm getting back into PC gaming after being consult exclusive for a while. I'm assuming anything with kernel anti-cheat is still not trying to work which is a problem because it means I either have to buy a windows licence or mess around with a cracked one which has its own security concerns.

I think my plan is to dual boot and use Windows as little as often.

A sidestory to this is that Flatpak and AppImage have been miraculous boosts to Linux OS machines. After I figured out that ya gotta throw the --user flag into your flatpak installs so they don't jam up your / tree, and also throwing flatpak override --user xyz.app onto a few apps that benefit from universal access, things have been fine and dandy.

I continue to be happy with how awesome Linux has gotten just over the past 5 years.

This is why I have used flatpak steam. It's a lot easier to manage drivers in it vs the shitshow that is doing it natively with adding custom driver specific repos and whatnot.

Hoping the new PC I just ordered (with an AMD GPU) will be better with the native app.

I've been using mint exclusively for like 3 months and have been using a hearty blend of terminal installs and the program manager app.

It seems to not have caused any problems YET, but I've been assured it will. I see flatpack conversations a lot and don't fully understand the differences (apart from the install method).

Is it worth understanding and committing to a single system or can I just be a low-power user for a while?

So, my middle aged ass plays the microtransaction-laden bullshit known as Roblox because my 3rd grader and all his friends love it.

It doesn't even have a Linux version but thanks to the project "sober" it plays absolutely fantastically on Linux. I think they claim 2x the performance of the windows version. I just know I have a powerful but old system (8c/8t 9700k cpu and gtx1080 gpu) and I can lock it at 144fps at 1440p and it uses like 20% of my system resources. Not that it's a visually demanding game, lol.

Going all-in on my switch to Linux (my win10 partition for dual booting lasted less than two weeks) has had zero negative impact on my ability to play the games I want. In fact, it has led to me using my PC a lot more and my phone a lot less. Feels good.

Get it to run Office and you've a game changer.

Yes, yes I know Libre/Open Office but try telling Shelly in Accounting who still struggles with Excel after 36 years of experience.

It's built on Wine, any general improvements to compatibility will generally support desktop programs using the same APIs

I'd argue kernel-based anticheats are one of the areas gaming on Linux excels. Video game developers should not have that level of permissions over consumers' machines, certainly with how little your average gamer understands the potential consequences of these rootkits. So the fact that all of the ones I know of can't be installed under Linux is more than acceptable, it's ideal.

Are they working on a fix for the kernel anti cheat? Is it possible?

Building momentum for the year of the Linux.

You know, the one we've been reading about for 20 years.

Proton upstreams to Wine a lot. You can tell by the number of patches they have keeps fluctuating

Connect to protondb.com and you can filter by games with issues - the community is also great there for posting tricks to resolve those issues. I have a gargantuan library of 250 games including tons of recent big games and everything runs without any problems for me (Linux Mint). The only thing you need to worry about is the big multiplayer competitive games like fortnight or COD because they use really invasive anti-cheat systems which don't work on Linux (mostly). I'm not a fan of that type of game so for me it isn't a concern, but it might be for you. I would be extremely surprised given my experience with it if you ran into difficulties beyond that!

It's not that the companies should be boycotted, it's that they chose this themselves, the publishers choose these types of drm and anticheats when they could have included decency, neither the players, developers or elitists need to take any heat it's just a greedfaced choice for a publisher that carefully weighs gold against reputation and outrage, because they're a parasite on Earth, a made up elaborate middle man professional scam that; just like hedge funds provide heavy negative benefit to the human race, actively ruining our chances as a species to survive, a bloated boil about to burst and provide nothing but pox on everything they touch