im currently using windows 11 on msi gf63 laptop. if i used linux i would use ubuntu,bec it seems like the easiest thing.
i game,i use brave browser,i pirate games and software. i also like that my hoarded pirated binaries of games and software will work even years later on windows without too much effort.
i use an hp printer,and need to be able to use it on linux.
i expect to be able to use the laptop and not think about the os too much,meaning i wont distro hop or try to customize it too much. im fine with the terminal,my goal of using linux is being far from malware.
Gaming, cracks and mods would be the biggest issue. Linux gaming happens on Steam, outside of that you’re pretty much never guaranteed to get it running.
So if you have a large library of pirated games, Linux might not be for you.
There’s a number of ways to get non-steam games to run through proton or other compatibility tools.
I’m not the expert on that matter because basically everything I play is on steam, but off the top of my head Lutris comes to mind
As far as mods, I’m not a huge modder, so again I’m probably the wrong person, but the handful of mods I do use (mostly some basic quality of life/bug-fix things) I’ve been able to get running on Linux without too much drama. No, there’s not currently a nifty tool like Vortex to automate it for you and you have to manually copy files to the right place and such, but most mods tell you that information, so all you need to do is get used to the folders you’re looking for living in a slightly different place than they did on windows. YMMV if you use more complicated mods than I do of course.
You can literally add most games to Steam as a non-Steam game and it’ll work
There’s some options, but it’s not something I’d rely on to work.
In my experience, there’s about a 10% chance to get something running straight out of the box with Wine, 30% with helpers like Lutris.
With Steam it’s more like 90%, which is about the same as on Windows.
yep, this.
basically, games that need some extra dll file to get mods running, it’s generally just adding WINEDLLOVERRIDES=“nameofthedll=n,b” as env var for the game and off to modded adventures it is.
I haven’t tested this, but fairly sure you could just install vortex, mo2 or whatever other modmanager to same prefix as where the game is.
Yeah, you can use protontricks to execute any executable inside the WINE environment. You can take the command used to do that and put it in a .desktop file so you can run the program from a desktop icon or launcher.
Installing mods mostly considered a ‘problem’ by the standard of gaming on Steam where you just press play and let Proton take the wheel. If you were running games through WINE prior to Proton, it is much easier now.
Installing Vortex in the same prefix definitly works. But there is also Steam Tinker Launch that will manage varius mod managers for you if the game is at least launched through steam.
mostly, though mo2 at least has had pretty bad ui issues every time i’ve tried
granted the last time was ~6 months ago and there may be workarounds that i didn’t find for whatever reason but ymmv