I have been daily driving Linux for over two years now and I have switched distros many times. So, when my friend bought a new laptop, I convinced him to install Linux Mint on it. I asked him if he wanted to dual boot, he said no because it would fill up all his storage. We installed Linux Mint. The other day, he wanted to play FIFA 17 on his computer. After 5 whole hours of troubleshooting we were able to get FIFA running smoothly with some issues. Next, he wanted to play Roblox. I guided him through the process of installing Waydroid and libhoudini, only to discover that Roblox would run at 10 FPS. With Minecraft, it wasn’t any better. It took us 1 hour to get it working (not skill issue, he wanted to play cracked through Prism Launcher). Now, he wants to go back to Windows 10. I have already told him about dual boot, but he has only 256GB of storage and he wants to play a lot of games. What should I do? Install Windows to his laptop, install some other Linux distro, or try to convince him more about dual boot? Thanks in advance and sorry for the essay.
UPDATE: Of course I will help him install Windows on his computer if he wants so, I don’t want to force him to use Linux after all. I just wanted him to give it a try, and maybe daily drive it, if he can.
EDIT: Because for some reason it was misunderstood, let me clarify it here. Roblox ran with poor performance on Waydroid, not Minecraft. I just said that the installation of Prism Launcher cracked was difficult. After that, Minecraft ran smoothly without any problems.
Unfortunately you chose the wrong distro for your friend - Linux Mint isn’t good for gaming - it uses an outdated kernel/drivers/other packages, which means you’ll be missing out on all the performance improvements (and fixes) found in more up-to-date distros. Gaming on Linux is a very fast moving target, the landscape is changing at a rapid pace thanks to the development efforts of Valve and the community. So for gaming, you’d generally want to be on the latest kernel+mesa+wine stack.
Also, as you’ve experienced, on Mint you’d have to manually install things like Waydroid and other gaming software, which can be a PITA for newbies.
So instead, I’d highly recommend a gaming-oriented distro such as Nobara or Bazzite. Personally, I’m a big fan of Bazzite - it has everything you’d need for gaming out-of-the-box, and you can even get a console/Steam Deck-like experience, if you install the
-deckvariant. Also, because it’s an immutable distro with atomic updates, it has a very low chance of breaking, and in the rare ocassion that an update has some issues - you can just select the previous image from the boot menu. So this would be pretty ideal for someone who’s new to Linux, likes to game, and just wants stuff to work.In saying that, getting games to run in Linux can be tricky sometimes, depending on the game. The general rule of thumb is: try running the game using Proton-GE, and if that fails, check Proton DB for any fixes/tweaks needed for that game - with this, you would never again have to spend hours on troubleshooting, unless you’re playing some niche game that no one has tested before.
I really wish people stopped recommending mint for any purpose other than reviving a 20 Yr old laptop into a chromebook.
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Unless your hardware demands it a distro with a modern de would be much better for those imo
The problem is not that games don’t run smoothly. The problem is that games don’t run at all or require major effort to run without issues. Will installing that distro fix the complicated installation of Prism Launcher cracked? I don’t think so. But I agree with you for the fact that I chose the wrong distro. I wanted something easy for beginners.
The problem is that games don’t run at all or require major effort to run without issues.
A major cause for that is the distro - when it comes to gaming, the distro makes a huge difference as I outlined previously. The second major cause is the flavor of Wine you chose (Proton-GE is the best, not sure what you used). The third major cause is checking whether or not the games are even compatible in the first place (via ProtonDB, Reddit etc) - you should do this BEFORE you recommend Linux to a gamer.
In saying all that, I’ve no idea about pirated stuff though, you’re on your own on that one - Valve and the Wine developers obviously don’t test against pirated copies, and you won’t get much support from the community either.
Seriously you’re recommending Reddit to a Lemmy user?
Bazzite also solves this, sometimes.
But you cant change if Roblox etc actively block Linux compatibility
Why did they even do that?
“SeCuRiTy”
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There’s no way to completely avoid cheaters and I really don’t get why there’s so many windows games that want Kernelmode access. You could still read the memory and emulate inputs based on that or draw something on the screen. It’s probably just causing the cheaters who want to download something and win to get more viruses (which most probably deserve assuming the viruses aren’t too bad), while the game company gets closer to being indistinguishable from a virus itself.
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Oh wow, I’m curious how they detect spoofed hardware.
Thanks I’m going to give this a try.
In the case that mint is the problem perhaps a different distro that is still stable and has a large user base would be good as it makes it easier to get support. I think that’s also why those distros aren’t recommended to newbies. I started with Ubuntu which worked fine. I think I could’ve started with most gnome/KDE distros though if they were similarly stable (preferably more). I think having the settings available in a gui was important for my first time.
Sounds like your friend is absolutely not the target audience for a linux-based operating system. If he wants to play Windows games and use software designed for Windows, then he should be using a Windows OS. Anything else would be providing a suboptimal experience for him.
Personally, I’ve been using various Linux-based systems since 2004, as a software developer I use a lot of command-line utilities, and many tools and applications designed for Linux. If I were using predominantly tools and applications designed for Windows, then I would be using Windows. No need to make life more difficult for yourself and others.
This right here. I know lemmy is all “LINUX IS FOR EVERYONE!” But it isn’t.
I know this would go against Google’s self interest but they are best poised to make Linux mainstream. Chrome OS can play android games natively. But it’s all close source.
It wouldn’t take much to make the ecosystem for general Linux. I don’t know if the other android-based OSes are working on this but anything we can do to push gaming into Linux would help it to become a better everyday OS
anything we can do to push gaming into Linux would help it to become a better everyday OS
I feel like the SteamDeck and SteamOS have already done more for Linux gaming than ChromeOS ever had the potential for.
You know what makes my Linux distribution perfect? My windows partition that I can switch to quickly.
Lol, nice. And accurate.
People keep pushing Linux everything.
I run Linux as Proxmox, VM’s, containers, etc. Great stuff.
I have Mint on a laptop… What an awful experience. It’s tremendously better than it was in 2000, but holy cow the issues and incompatibilities.
Right up front two major issues with Linux:
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No standard UI - it’s different on every system
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No standard tools - you can’t rely on the same tools being on every machine
Right up front two major issues with Linux:
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No standard UI - it’s different on every system
-
No standard tools - you can’t rely on the same tools being on every machine
These seem like pretty fundamental traits, since Linux is only the kernel. I think a better way to compare other OSs to Linux would be comparing them to specific Linux distros, since those often do have standardized installs.
But there’s not really a great answer for which distro or distros should be used to represent the whole linux ecosystem… and that fragmentation has both pros and cons.
Like, I really love my Arch desktop, but it took lots of time to learn and configure. And it often breaks with updates— it’s not something most users would want. However, I get cutting-edge updates and features, and I have specialized my entire OS to best work for my workflows.
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I have fedora on my laptop personally. Upsides vs windows: More than 5 FPS on the desktop. Boots 95% of the time (the 5% are usually in summer when it likes to overheat if it’s vents aren’t completely unobstructed), starts in 1 minute rather than five and uses 1-1.5gib of ram leaving me 1.5-2gib (+4gib swap) for apps rather than the 0.5gib or so on windows.
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I have been using Linux for years, but I don’t insist anyone to use it, because when they encounter a problem, they blame you.
Let them drown in their filth.
My friend doesn’t blame me. He blames Linux, which also isn’t nice. Of course, it isn’t Linux’s fault that the Roblox developers patched their game so it cannot be ran with wine, but in his eyes, and the eyes of the non tech-savvy people, if it runs on Windows and not on Linux, Linux is doing something wrong.
I would never try to convince anyone to use Linux. If they’re happy with Windows, let them use Windows.
I only suggest Linux if they complain about Windows. The only thing gushing about Linux unprompted and unwanted does is sour the waters.
And also double check whether their use case actually works on Linux, all the improvements in recent years are nice but there are still enough edge cases that checking beforehand is a good idea
The only time I forced Linux on anyone was when I gave my youngest brother a free laptop a couple years ago. It’s the laptop I had in college in 2011. It has a Sandy Bridge mobile Core i7. It’s too slow to run modern Windows. I told him he’s free to install Windows, but I don’t have a license to give him. For checking emails and web surfing, though, it was enough, and running Linux wasn’t going to give him trouble with that. To my knowledge (and to his credit), he still runs Linux on it.
I do the same but I recommend starting with dual boot and most people are stubborn and still don’t. Two of my friends are interested, one is waiting until they get a new machine. With the other Bitlocker got in the way the first time but now on an older laptop we’re going to try arch (it was their request) so I’m excited to give that a try. They are mostly interested because of security reasons, while the other is annoyed with the windows c compilers. It just shows how many reasons there are to use Linux and how difficult it can be in other cases.
Its our fault for making him use Linux. Why does it matter what OS people use? Chill my man.
Your friend plays only the games that are a pain to make work on Linux, or straight up don’t work. What else does he want to play, fortnite? Maybe some destiny? Lol Let them be. Windows is for them, Linux isn’t, and that’s ok.
Ooh ooh! Genshin for good measure! That one even absolutely REFUSES to play in a VM or emulator!
I’ve been playing genshin on Linux for almost a year now. Hint, Heroic games launcher ;)
If that works I’m de installing Windows
It may seem petty, but I actually really like Genshin (and Honkai: Star Rail for that matter), and I had Windows already there, anyway
EDIT AreWeAntiCheatYet confirms Genshin should work:
Though they confirm Honkai: Star Rail is broken:
Guys, search for “an anime team” on github. You don’t even need to configure Heroic/Lutris/Bottles.
Do you guys really believe that the Linux community will not find a way to play with waifus?
Honkai won’t work, only genshin.
Guys, search for “an anime team” on github. You don’t even need to configure Heroic/Lutris/Bottles.
Do you guys really believe that the Linux community will not find a way to play with waifus?
Oh I know about that some launcher thingy. It’s available for both, but very iffy. It worked for honkai for a while then just quit out of nowhere. And it never worked for genshin
I played Genshin with it for about 6 months before I quit and it worked pretty well, the downside is that when the game is updated the launcher has to be updated too and that takes some time. I never missed the dailies though.
And Genshin’s launcher needs to be told to install under C:\Program Files instead of that Z: drive, it’s installing!
Too bad about Star Rail, though.
I guess the 60 GiB monolith of a Windows installation has exactly one function, now.
The honkai one stopped working for good for me and the genshin one just refuses to work from the start.
Okay, happily Genshin is working fine for me! Honkai SR doesn’t, indeed.
What should I do?
Let them do what they want.
You skipped a few steps. Before you install Linux for your friend, you should first ask him what he uses the PC for, and if he plays games, what games does he play.
What should I do?
Install Windows on his laptop, or better yet let him do it and sit besides him for guidance, so that he can learn to reinstall in case something breaks badly.
It’s nice to showcase your favourite OS and make people curious but don’t abuse your friends with your Linux preference by forcing it onto them.
(Also, if you fix everything for them all the time, how will they learn?)
I am trying to make him learn something by explaining what the commands do. For example, I say to them “run
cd Documentswhich changes your current directory to Documents.”. But I agree with you, I will tell him a little more about dual boot, and if he doesn’t want to dual boot, I will help them install Windows.
Maybe you should have considered the stuff he wanted to do before convincing him to use linux. I could have told you he’d have problems with that stuff. If he said he mainly plays steam games then sure, but not literally the most finicky, cumbersome games to get going in existence. Also out of curiosity because I haven’t even thought about Roblox in like 8 years. I thought that was a browser game?
Minecraft runs fine for me, surely FIFA runs fine with proton (protondb says 2019 -2022 work)? I don’t even get why people use Roblox from what I’ve heard so I have no idea about that.
I have no idea what is going on with that laptop.
Minecraft runs great for me as well.
Prism Launcher seems to be well support on Linux and Minecraft runs fine on Linux (for myself and others) it could be that they’re trying to run a cracked version. Or that and a combination of poor hardware specs for what they’d like to do.
I had checked and saw that FIFA 17 ran on Linux, so I told him that, and was not prepared for the troubleshooting nightmare that followed.
He obviously wants to use only proprietary Windows Software.
There is little reason to force him to use Linux. Of course Linux may have less overall tracking, annoying behaviors, better performance etc.
Win10 will be EOL veeery soon. Win11 is really bad on old hardware.
I second uBlue Bazzite and ProtonDB, check what you run first.
Respect that you even came that far lol.
I would say unless you always want to do troubleshooting for this friend just stick him with windows. At some point it is up to the individual to be able to troubleshoot these issues using the Internet as the resource, but a lot of people just don’t want to mess with that. My own time is too limited to be on call for people.
Well you get an a for effort. But if your friend wants to play windows games it’s better for them to just have windows on the machine. I give it to you and your friend for going all out on a new laptop and putting Linux on it right away.
A more convenient way for a new user to experience Linux is to do a live usb for them. That way they can boot into Linux easily but boot into windows just by removing the usb drive.
I’m really sad to see this “If he wants to play Windows games, let him use Windows” being repeated a hundred times in these comments. Mostly because it’s an echo chamber, but also because Windows games have been better and better under Proton so 80-90% of Windows games on Steam run without a problem on Linux.
I understand your frustration but if you were in this guys shoes and this was your friend calling you all day to do troubleshooting, what would you do? Spend hours of your time helping him become a Linux addict or tell them just to put his computer back to windows and be done with it?
I’m a huge Linux fan but even my main pc and laptop are windows. I use WSL (amazing btw) on the laptop with a kali install. And I’ll use powershell (also really good) on the pc for any ssh needs for my Linux servers.
First of all you should have asked what he wanted to do with the laptop, the moment he replied playing games that are not on Steam you should have let him use Windows. Secondly, a laptop with 256GB of disk is likely going to have very low amounts of RAM and an onboard GPU, performance is going to be shit on Windows as well, you should have let him use that before, I think it’s highly likely that Windows itself would run like shit on it, so after a year or two putting Linux on that laptop would have blown his socks off. But the problem is that he didn’t get to experience any of that before you touched the computer, now he will claim it’s your fault that games don’t run or Windows is slow. I’ve been there, a friend had issues with the laptop, I said I didn’t understand Windows and would only help if I could put Linux, at first everything worked great, but then the friend needed special software that wasn’t available so I had to reinstall Windows for them (and btw, you OBVIOUSLY should reinstall Windows for your friend), and then everything on that laptop was my fault, even the problems the person was having before were somewhat my fault because I had put Linux there.
It has an NVMe drive and after my friend upgraded it, 16 GB of RAM. Yes, it has an integrated Intel GPU, but I think it is pretty decent.
FIFA 17, Roblox and Minecraft? Yeah I reckon a modern integrated GPU is just fine.
But unfortunately it seems like your friend’s preferred games aren’t all that Linux friendly. Maybe get him addicted to a Steam library on Windows first and then you can win him over using Proton lol
Minecraft runs natively on Linux. What was the issue?
They were trying to run it cracked through an alternative launcher.
Oh, yeah your cracked launcher designed for Windows probably won’t work well without tinkering.
Prism runs better than the official launcher on both windows and linux, I don’t what the issue is. Java maybe?
The launcher wasn’t cracked. It’s a cross-platform open source launcher that works quite well under linux. The game itself was cracked, meaning they were trying to play without having purchased it.
Bro can’t spend €10 on a game but can spend €200 on a new Windows disc lol
Do your friend a favor and install Windows back on his laptop for him.
Roblox not runnimg is more like a feature. /s
