Recently, I’ve started playing computer games on Fedora, instead of Windows. It’s quite a nice experience.

Reasons to switch (Windows bad)

My main reasons for switching to Linux was that Windows feels bloated and hostile. There’s just so much going on - there are apps that I would never use installed, windows lack consistency. I don’t really feel like I can use my system in any way I’d like to - every now and then I have to decline a popup prompting me to sign up with my Microsoft account.

One issue that is particularly frustrating, is that Windows reboots twice or three times when updating, but my PC automatically launches Linux. So I can’t just leave my computer to perform the update on its own, I have to sit there, and manually make it boot Windows every few minutes.

Given all that, Fedora, with Gnome installed, feels so polished and smooth.

I’m using Windows 10 - maybe they fixed those issues in 11. I can’t install it though, due to lacking TPM, and I don’t really feel like figuring it out at the moment

The good

Everything just works. I’m playing all the modern games: Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk, Apex Legends, Armored Core 6, Ace Combat, Nier Replican, etc - and it all works perfectly fine. Everything runs smoothly, the graphics look amazing. It was a bit surprising that Apex can be played - I’ve heard online that the anti-cheat, required to launch it, sometimes doesn’t work on Linux. Luckily, it turned out not to be the case.

Even though Steam says that some games do not support my controller on Linux, I’m still able to use it in every title I’m playing.

Proton - a compatibility layer from Valve - works great. If a game wasn’t released on Linux, I can just toggle that feature on, and the game can be launched without any problems.

The not so good

I had a few problems with my GPU drivers at fist. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t fix in 5 minutes, but it wasn’t a smooth start either. I haven’t encountered any more issues really, only that the Discord app wouldn’t work on my laptop.

Conclusion

I can definitely recommend gaming on Fedora. I wish I was able to ditch Windows completely, and run Linux only. There’s only one program that’s keeping me from doing that - FL Studio still runs better on Windows.