Vote with your $ and get a gaming PC. Don’t let people who remember the 1990s tell you it will be a sweaty experience, install Steam and it won’t be. There are like 15 exclusive games for the PS5, what’s the point?
Bazzite has been the most hands off linux distro I've ever used. I put it on my desktop and I only use it with an xbox controller at the TV. I've never had to plug in a keyboard or use a terminal. I don't even bother checking proton compatibility anymore, everything has just worked.
Linux works quite well for gaming these days. I have a desktop that used to run Windows 11, which is EOL, so I was faced with either upgrading to Windows 12 or trying out Linux on desktop.
So far there have been zero games that have had issues. Granted I've only really had time to play 5 or so games, but I am genuinely impressed with how far it's come.
Can confirm. Have been playing games on Linux for years now and with proton, the vast majority of games just work. And there's protondb to fix up the rest.
The one game I couldn't actually get working was Escape from Tarkhov because it has some windows-only anticheat. I.e. the developers chose to make it not work, not an accident.
I just click "Install" and then "Play" in Steam on my non-Windows machine. I guess you can't play Fortnight or whatever, but it works great for me.
Immutability has been the greatest improvement on the linux desktop in a long time. I'd never recommend a traditional distro to someone who can't fix or install linux themselves because mutable distros tend to grow warts over time, and diverge from a clean state. Eventually requiring a reinstall to fix.
But immutable distros stay in a clean state, updates become trivial and safe, and can roll back in case of a failure.
Playing 20 or so games on my Steam Deck I had to edit one only .INI. The Steam Deck is the only device I've ever seen that pairs perfectly with AirPods every time, it beats Apple devices.
I also have a big gaming PC/AI development with a NVIDIA GPU and, yeah, NVIDIA's app to maintain drivers is a little skeezy but I just download games on Steam and they "just work" though I am not really a day one kind of gamer unless it is a new Dynasty Warriors or Fate game.
I'll grant that kernel anti-cheat sucks, if you play that kind of game and cheating bothers you well then... Maybe a locked down environment like the PS5 is a feature and not a bug.
You kind of undermine your own argument here. The Steam Deck is more a console than a PC, with lots of "just works" baked in either directly or through community support that makes it simple.
In 2026 I still have to mess with game settings, driver issues, and DRM garbage behavior as a primarily PC gamer. PC gaming is still a long way from "just works" and I think you probably just take for granted a lot of things you have to do to make it work vs a typical console experience.
Look, in the 1990s I was horrified of PC gaming because I was always dealing with kids who thought they were having fun with their PC whereas they were really fighting with an ugly plastic oversized joystick that fell apart two times during a level and had to be recalibrated three times. Or that it was a sweaty battle with the keyboard and mouse that reprises the sweaty battle with the keyboard and mouse I have at work and with my productive hobbies.
I got into console gaming in the late 00's and had a few portables and an Xbox 360 and a PS 3 just after they became obsolete and played through the libraries. My favorite games were games for the PS Vita from Japanese publishers like Altus, Idea Factory and Acquire. When Sony and the publishers quit investing in the Vita those games went right to Steam. And my experience with Steam is, "click on the Steam icon", pair the Xbox controller, use the controller to pick a game, and sit back. Like yeah, there still are sweaty keyboard-and-mouse games and I might even play one once in a while, but I'd say my experience on the big machine is "console like" with the condition that the kind of games I play are "console like" games.
I haven't had a driver issue other than 'you didn't upgrade your drivers lately' on a gaming PC in years and years. The problem now with pc gaming is the cost to enter the market with the GPU, RAM and storage prices.
In what sense is the steam deck more console than pc? I agree that there's convenience in it being a single target for people to work on, but it lets you run anything you want even on the stock operating system, and you can trivially replace that at will
The line between console and blurred significantly lately. Consoles became X86 machines running PC OSs but locked down. PCs gained options for console hardware with the same OSs.
These days the only difference between PC and Console is having a locked down OS. Which makes consoles seem purely a worse product, but the difference used to be a lot more.
SteamOS is basically just a Linux distro with Steam preinstalled and set to autorun in Big Picture mode at boot. Everything you are describing is available in the plain Steam client because SteamOS runs the same client. You can just set your PC to boot into Steam and get 99% the same experience.
The deck is a standard configuration they can test for, the “works with Steam Deck” badge sells product, game publishers covet it. Problems with Proton get worked out.
you'll be voting with a lot of dollars, look at the 4090 pricing these days? hell even the 4070 is north of a grand, JUST FOR THE GPU, now check the DDR5 prices...
I paid 400e for my PS5 in 2023. For the same budget, I'd need to hunt down used deals for hardware and then suffer through using Windows (if the hardware I buy ends up even working at all) because the only game I play requires annoying workarounds to work on Linux that technically break the ToS (since they bypass the kernel level anticheat) and could potentially end up in my account getting banned. I'd rather just put my PS5 on a VLAN and enjoy hassle free gaming with some downsides like not being able to stream my game to my friends on Discord once half a year. Don't get me started on DRMs and questionable PC ports where the 60 FPS targets in system requirements are under assumption of framegen and upscaling.
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So far there have been zero games that have had issues. Granted I've only really had time to play 5 or so games, but I am genuinely impressed with how far it's come.
ball_of_lint · · focus · HN ↗
The one game I couldn't actually get working was Escape from Tarkhov because it has some windows-only anticheat. I.e. the developers chose to make it not work, not an accident.
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But immutable distros stay in a clean state, updates become trivial and safe, and can roll back in case of a failure.
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PaulHoule · · focus · HN ↗
I also have a big gaming PC/AI development with a NVIDIA GPU and, yeah, NVIDIA's app to maintain drivers is a little skeezy but I just download games on Steam and they "just work" though I am not really a day one kind of gamer unless it is a new Dynasty Warriors or Fate game.
I'll grant that kernel anti-cheat sucks, if you play that kind of game and cheating bothers you well then... Maybe a locked down environment like the PS5 is a feature and not a bug.
jameslars · · focus · HN ↗
In 2026 I still have to mess with game settings, driver issues, and DRM garbage behavior as a primarily PC gamer. PC gaming is still a long way from "just works" and I think you probably just take for granted a lot of things you have to do to make it work vs a typical console experience.
PaulHoule · · focus · HN ↗
I got into console gaming in the late 00's and had a few portables and an Xbox 360 and a PS 3 just after they became obsolete and played through the libraries. My favorite games were games for the PS Vita from Japanese publishers like Altus, Idea Factory and Acquire. When Sony and the publishers quit investing in the Vita those games went right to Steam. And my experience with Steam is, "click on the Steam icon", pair the Xbox controller, use the controller to pick a game, and sit back. Like yeah, there still are sweaty keyboard-and-mouse games and I might even play one once in a while, but I'd say my experience on the big machine is "console like" with the condition that the kind of games I play are "console like" games.
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These days the only difference between PC and Console is having a locked down OS. Which makes consoles seem purely a worse product, but the difference used to be a lot more.
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I think that was the point?
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