Even though I’ve always run Linux in some capacity, I always kept a Windows gaming PC.
Fully made the jump to Linux gaming about 1.5 years ago, and haven’t looked back. Thanks to the awesome progress on Proton, I can play just about everything I care about. The primary problems come from games with specific anti-cheat engines, but I find those are the kinds of games I don’t really play.
Also finally switched from X11 to Wayland/Niri, and Wayland is finally stable enough. Better gaming performance than X11 as well.
Valve still needs to cut their dependency on Windows ecosystem, Proton exists while Microsoft Games/XBox decides it isn't something hurting their bottom line.
I made the switch from Windows to Linux around 2008. But I've always kept around a dual-boot partition (or more recently, a dedicated Windows PC) for gaming.
With all the weird stuff around Windows 11 I'm thinking I may just switch to Linux for gaming too. I've had good experiences with Wine in the past. And I've heard the Steam Deck has "encouraged" game devs to have better Linux support.
Windows XP was by far the best Windows version. In 2025 I would gladly pay money for Windows XP with modern 3D graphics support and up-to-date security patches.
Given Valve’s failures with AAA multiplayer games rejecting Linux due to the ease of undetectable cheating that unsecured Linux presents, once Steam Linux gains enough market foothold they’ll be able to ship attested secure boot for Linux; at which point games will start opting in to require you to be booting Valve’s anti-cheat Linux that requires TPM 2.0 to deny you kernel modding, debugging other processes, and so on. This is why Windows 11, specific enterprise versions of Windows 10, and any Apple operating system released since the T2 chip all require a TPM: preventing users with admin rights from patching kernel space stops cheating and malware, and is a ten-year lead held by Apple and Xbox over PCs and Steam Deck.
It would be deeply ironic if they licensed Microsoft’s Xbox Proton TPM, which AMD ships Windows 11 drivers for, to a new Steam Deck that support dual secure-booting attested Windows 11 and attested Linux :)
And I think it's a cat-and-mouse battle the anti-cheat folks are doomed to lose. If you have good reverse engineering chops, it seems like it would be fairly trivial to patch the "Am I running on a TPM?" check out of a game binary.
You should give Proton a try. It is not perfect by any means, but it's surprising how many games work flawlessly out of the box. You can look up games on the site 'protondb' to get an idea or some possible fixes.
I looked up a TPM for my Win10 desktop and one review said the Win11 checker still didn't like it. It also has a 6th gen cpu which I think is too old. Seems more likely that using one of the solutions to bypass the checks would work if I want to upgrade.
I have an Intel NUC from 2018. It has tpm 2.0, 16gb of ram but a cpu deemed too old. It’s faster than my sisters surface 2 laptop that I just upgraded for her that was released in the same year. I guess some cpus are more equal than others. The amount of e-waste from this blockage is going to be incredible.
I'm already committed to leaving for Linux after 25 or so years of Windows as my usual desktop OS, mostly to run Steam
Even though I’ve always run Linux in some capacity, I always kept a Windows gaming PC.
Fully made the jump to Linux gaming about 1.5 years ago, and haven’t looked back. Thanks to the awesome progress on Proton, I can play just about everything I care about. The primary problems come from games with specific anti-cheat engines, but I find those are the kinds of games I don’t really play.
Also finally switched from X11 to Wayland/Niri, and Wayland is finally stable enough. Better gaming performance than X11 as well.
Valve still needs to cut their dependency on Windows ecosystem, Proton exists while Microsoft Games/XBox decides it isn't something hurting their bottom line.
I made the switch from Windows to Linux around 2008. But I've always kept around a dual-boot partition (or more recently, a dedicated Windows PC) for gaming.
With all the weird stuff around Windows 11 I'm thinking I may just switch to Linux for gaming too. I've had good experiences with Wine in the past. And I've heard the Steam Deck has "encouraged" game devs to have better Linux support.
Windows XP was by far the best Windows version. In 2025 I would gladly pay money for Windows XP with modern 3D graphics support and up-to-date security patches.
Linux is only a temporary panacea at best.
Given Valve’s failures with AAA multiplayer games rejecting Linux due to the ease of undetectable cheating that unsecured Linux presents, once Steam Linux gains enough market foothold they’ll be able to ship attested secure boot for Linux; at which point games will start opting in to require you to be booting Valve’s anti-cheat Linux that requires TPM 2.0 to deny you kernel modding, debugging other processes, and so on. This is why Windows 11, specific enterprise versions of Windows 10, and any Apple operating system released since the T2 chip all require a TPM: preventing users with admin rights from patching kernel space stops cheating and malware, and is a ten-year lead held by Apple and Xbox over PCs and Steam Deck.
It would be deeply ironic if they licensed Microsoft’s Xbox Proton TPM, which AMD ships Windows 11 drivers for, to a new Steam Deck that support dual secure-booting attested Windows 11 and attested Linux :)
I'd personally avoid such games.
And I think it's a cat-and-mouse battle the anti-cheat folks are doomed to lose. If you have good reverse engineering chops, it seems like it would be fairly trivial to patch the "Am I running on a TPM?" check out of a game binary.
You should give Proton a try. It is not perfect by any means, but it's surprising how many games work flawlessly out of the box. You can look up games on the site 'protondb' to get an idea or some possible fixes.
While I might prefer Windows as my laptop OS, and have come to enjoy Windows 11, this is something I am fully against.
It is nothing more than planned obsoletence, throwing away perfectly working computers for Microsoft's profit.
I looked up a TPM for my Win10 desktop and one review said the Win11 checker still didn't like it. It also has a 6th gen cpu which I think is too old. Seems more likely that using one of the solutions to bypass the checks would work if I want to upgrade.
I have an Intel NUC from 2018. It has tpm 2.0, 16gb of ram but a cpu deemed too old. It’s faster than my sisters surface 2 laptop that I just upgraded for her that was released in the same year. I guess some cpus are more equal than others. The amount of e-waste from this blockage is going to be incredible.
You can still bypass the checks.
* we'll drag you into basic modern security hygiene if it kills us
Suspicious.
The more I read the article the more I feel they try to persuade me to wear cufflinks like
John Wayne Gacy