I'm mostly playing MtG: Arena and it works like a charm.

I could even install Steam via the package manager.

A good deal of VSTs run in Wine already, Ableton works, Bitwig works...

I tried various Linux flavours. Starting with Ubuntu. From memory, I tried Mint, Fedora, Slackware, Manjaro, etc. I cannot remember when I last tried a Distro. It likely ended by 2010. Since I have just stuck with Debain.. for both client and server installs.

I said goodbye to Windows a few weeks ago.. fully. While Windows has served my purpose in certain ways, I have always been critical of Microsoft and their practices. I would agree that Windows 11 is a solid OS.. its the "features" added on top that slows it down.

This time, I have the latest version of Debian. No dual-boots.. nothing else! Despite being aware of Steam's Linux support for some time, now.. I actually gave it a shot and suprised how easy it was. I then tried Heoric (Epic) Launcher and just as easy!

It probably helped that my laptop is an AMD. I normally hear effort and difficulty with nVidia but I did not have much trouble 10 odd years ago. Not sure what its like to properly work today.

So far I have tried 4 games. 2 modern games, and two 90's games. All of the worked! Whiles the 90's games had their issues at times.. this mostly refers to using a gamepad.

The 2 new games (sure this is not a good experiment for all games) have worked flawlessly!

Honestly.. in my opinion.. installing Debian appears exactly the same as it was back in 2010.. maybe more. I rarely had issues. It's just this time I am able to play Steam and Epic games and installing dotnet is easy on Linux.

Let's not forget the work Steam are doing. We have a new Steam Machine. While being marketed as a new games console it's still a PC... and new users will try it out. For the younger generation, it might increase the Linux skills and spread wider adoption.

The only thing Linux has against it is time. Time is something humans lack... we lack patience! I knew that one day Linux would get better games support. It was possible even back in 2008. I managed to get GTA3:ViceCity working through Wine.

Mark my words. Linux will gain marketshare. The only part I am concerned about is infiltration of corporations jumping all in. It's not the kernel I am concerned about as it's protected by the GPL.. it's the larger corporations selling their products which the average user adopts and eventually becomes "required" software in most distributions.

The best way to understand this is, in an alternate universe, Microsoft drops Windows and encourages everyone to use Linux. How do you think they would get involved. Just think about that.

Just you're kind of SOL if you want to play anything that isn't based on some flavour of Quake or Unreal engine.

Well, that's different now. See? Told you. Faster, smoother, less crashy.

Oh, you want Microsoft Office? Yeah well you're probably using Office 365 these days anyway. Everything's in a browser. No, it looks just the same. Edge? It's less crashy in Linux, weirdly.

AutoCAD? Nah. Still SOL.

take one of the most popular ea sports title. it does not run:

- on linux via proton, because of anti-cheat

- inside a windows vm (in linux), because of anti-cheat

- via cloud streaming (technically perhaps because of the previous reason)

still got people exploiting and just a horrible experience in competitive mode. so much so that devs refuse to allow a universal marketplace. the console folks disable crossplay to avoid any trouble in competitive modes.

the same publisher went out of their way to support nintendo switch with crossplay, but steam deck does not seem to be big enough to go through with the actual work in making things work right. these titles print money and have the most means to make this possible from their end.

so if you want to play mainstream online experiences, or with simulator accessories, you are mostly on your own or dedicated community efforts. maybe a few more years in the oven?

Since I am a software person I have become the person that my parents call for IT help, and increasingly I have grown pretty frustrated with Windows. I have been trying to convince them to move to Zorin or Mint or something or to buy a Mac, and they will not yield.

In a bit of fairness to them, the biggest issue is MS Office; they did recently try LibreOffice and the MS Office online, and they had shortcomings with both. Since I have been wholly unsuccessful at getting any modern Office to work on Linux (without virtualization), so now I don’t have a case for them to move.

Which is annoying, because I really hate having to deal with it.