I'm simple. I don't use steam. I launched a windows game from bottles. I installed bottles from flatpak/flathub. bottles is a wine launcher that allows you to configure individual environments for each game or program.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
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bottles is OK with windows app, but heroic launcher seems better suited to games (you can add external exe to it)
Steam works pretty well. Most games can run on the included proton. Problems I've seen are with 3rd party launchers on older games. Some Mods that require windows. Seperate partition / drive for the games on linux. You can't just point them to the windows files.
Linux likes AMD better than Nvidia. Though AMD doesn't support Adrenaline on Linux, but their drivers are native to many Linux distros and updated frequently.
Core Cntl is a must to prevent the card running at 100% when a game launches. MangoHUD for FPS and GPU/CPU stats.
Mint is user friendly. I've heard Pop_OS! is good but not experienced it. Down the line SteamOS is going to be deployed as main consumer but it's not ready and basically Alpha/ Beta stage.
I have little memory of linux text line commands, but if you need something many sites include the line command instructions you can copy/paste.
You might need to adjust screen scaling if they have a high resolution 4K+ monitor.
I have been gaming on Linux for almost a year now and happy. The system is quite stable. Because of the Open Source nature it gets frequent updates that just need approval. I think I had to roll back the Kernel one time because the update flubbed something, but it was pretty painless to do.
Since you mentioned Bazzite, take a look at their docs, they are explaining a lot about gaming on linux and have useful links at the bottom.
The main tools I use are Steam, Heroic Launcher, and Lutris, for Steam, Epic, and pirated games respectively. ProtonUp-Qt is also very useful to have installed to add more proton versions for those to use, because different games work best in different proton versions. I have an all AMD system so drivers are a complete nonissue for me.
Proton experimental, and the latest ge-proton compatibility layer, then get a list of games they want to play and run them by protondb(dot)com to see if anyone has posted the perfect tuning specs for the game.
Heard, ill look into all of these, ty!
Without getting into the nitty gritty since im a novice in Linux. If you have a game on steam in 9 out of 10 cases gaming on Linux is as simple as using proton to make the game run on Linux. Its really that simple.... it will usally download some shaders and then you are ready to go. Now if the game is not on steam there are other services like lutris, heroic games launcher etc that I havent looked into yet or just not needed since all my games have been on steam so far. Steam games for the most part are pretty much plug and play in that regard.
Out of the distros you recommended I would probably recommend bazzite for someone very new who wants to mostly game on Linux (I use Fedora btw)
Ok! I got bazzite set up for another friend who just wants to play stardew, so im familiar with the process (although the partitioner in the install program was hell lol).