Is Linux faster than windows?

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Hello!
Since my laptop broke I've been saving up on a new PC. What's the difference between Linux and Windows? I prefer something more optimized I don't care if Linux is hard to navigate through.

What's best for gaming? I've seen videos claiming that Linux is better, but comments say otherwise with the man's claims. I just want something that doesn't affect the performance of my PC so that if can play games smoothly.
 
In my experience (which is somewhat limited, admittedly), yes, it tends to perform much better because of lower overheads. If you can get the compatibility sorted, you're golden. That said, I bow low to the absolute Linux mistress, @Zerpina. I would direct your questions towards her.
 
In my experience (which is somewhat limited, admittedly), yes, it tends to perform much better because of lower overheads. If you can get the compatibility sorted, you're golden. That said, I bow low to the absolute Linux mistress, @Zerpina. I would direct your questions towards her.
Ok, thanks! I'll message Zerpina later.
 
I'll just add that if you can find a lightweight distribution, you'll get even better results. What kind of gaming are you intent on doing?
 
My Steam Deck is pretty fast overall, as it runs Arch, though distros like Kali are very good as well. As long as Proton is there, any will be sufficient for normal and gaming activities
Linux has problems with anti-cheat solutions, though.
Specifically those that use EAC, although some devs did add compatibility to work even with anti-cheat
 
Although linux is pretty fantastic, you can expect to put some elbow grease to make some games run (especially older pc titles) but proton should do the job + Lutris & proton-qt to get titles outside of steam running and custom versions of proton, just to a lil research and you should be fine, been running debian on my old laptop since the whole windows 11 fiasco (never gonna turn back fuccc bill gates), Debian, Arch, Linux Mint and Bazzite are pretty good distros.
 
linux is much better overall in performance due to it low usage of pc compoment however not all steam games are compataible with linux due to anti cheat problems over all windows is the more pupolar for gaming but for more performance linux takes the win here
 
Hello!
Since my laptop broke I've been saving up on a new PC. What's the difference between Linux and Windows? I prefer something more optimized I don't care if Linux is hard to navigate through.

What's best for gaming? I've seen videos claiming that Linux is better, but comments say otherwise with the man's claims. I just want something that doesn't affect the performance of my PC so that if can play games smoothly.
The Linux use c as main language. If you know C you can (Lua language is enough) you use codes as orders to system. I think Linux doesn't known by people because they more often use windows.
I think is Linux is better if you can get your software you had on windows,on Linux. But know this Linux can be better than windows. You can optimize the Linux much more than windows.

Read this part too:
Oh I remember it now.if you use the virtual system on Linux or windows you can install any version of Linux,windows and etc! I use it to play old games like commando 3 which was good. I can say GTA vice city work good except an mouse issue I have which I call it "the dancing mouse". It make me sick a lot.
 
If you are looking to test Linux out many of the distros have flashdrive bootable versions of their builds that you can play around with without having to make any permanent decisions. In lieu of a totally open arch Steam OS I would reccomend looking at Garuda Linux they have pretty lightweight builds that are also heavily leaning towards gaming.

The KDE desktop is the same one that the steam deck uses in desktop mode. I personally like KDE quite alot.
 
On many occasions I got an old broken Windows laptop from a family member. If the issue is with the software you can easilly install Linux and suddenly it works great. It wont be playing games or anything but its a nice side device for doing pixel art or some light 3D work in Blender. Crazy how well it works after Windows is removed. My favorite is Linux Mint.

Only bad thing about Linux is sometimes it requires some extra tweaking but theres a ton of community support and with some searching you can find many questions are already answered on forums and stuff

Edit: After reading the thread I see you are looking to buy a new pc with linux. Good luck I hear it is possible to get some games working. I only have experience with Linux on old machines and I like Windows for my newest computer for gaming. Getting something like Monster Hunter Wilds to work on a Linux machine would be difficult I imagine
 
On many occasions I got an old broken Windows laptop from a family member. If the issue is with the software you can easilly install Linux and suddenly it works great. It wont be playing games or anything but its a nice side device for doing pixel art or some light 3D work in Blender. Crazy how well it works after Windows is removed. My favorite is Linux Mint.

Only bad thing about Linux is sometimes it requires some extra tweaking but theres a ton of community support and with some searching you can find many questions are already answered on forums and stuff
I know what you mean. I use old version of blender like 2.76.
I use windows but I think I will turn it to Linux.
In fact I have a bad problem with DirectX 9.0 I think Linux is much better.
 
The Linux use c as main language. If you know C you can (Lua language is enough) you use codes as orders to system
Most Linux shells use bash as a scripting language not C. C is a low level programming language. The linux kernel is mostly written in C. You can write software in most programming languages and compile a Linux binary. There's not really any time where you will be writing C code as 'orders to the system' as part of normal Linux usage.
 
Hello!
Since my laptop broke I've been saving up on a new PC. What's the difference between Linux and Windows? I prefer something more optimized I don't care if Linux is hard to navigate through.

What's best for gaming? I've seen videos claiming that Linux is better, but comments say otherwise with the man's claims. I just want something that doesn't affect the performance of my PC so that if can play games smoothly.
YES! 100% faster depending on distro and your experience. If you can git gud at bash, and system kernal programming, even more so. Linux is less "convenient" but allot has been done to make it easier to use.

(depending on distro)

Pros:
No AI spying on you, mining and scraping your data (cough co-pilot, cough apple intelligence, etc), meaning more power to your device, and more energy efficiency over all.
When it works, it just works, and there is no tie in or ransoming of functions for your to pay a subscription.
It for the most part is free.

Cons:
When things brake, you have to work on sorting it out
Some compatibility issues in gaming, but thanks to steam wine has been getting a lot better, meaning more games on Linux.
Your favorite apps may not be comparable, but there are alternatives, that are so good, that even windows put a Linux sub system on.

My personal recommendations:

Arch Linux,
Parrot OS,

If you like simplicity then may be Ubuntu is to your taste, but there is some spying going on there.
Post automatically merged:

The Linux use c as main language. If you know C you can (Lua language is enough) you use codes as orders to system. I think Linux doesn't known by people because they more often use windows.
I think is Linux is better if you can get your software you had on windows,on Linux. But know this Linux can be better than windows. You can optimize the Linux much more than windows.

Read this part too:
Oh I remember it now.if you use the virtual system on Linux or windows you can install any version of Linux,windows and etc! I use it to play old games like commando 3 which was good. I can say GTA vice city work good except an mouse issue I have which I call it "the dancing mouse". It make me sick a lot.
While i agree C is main language, Bash is generally the programmable interface of most Linux distro.
 
My personal recommendations:

Arch Linux,
Parrot OS,

If you like simplicity then may be Ubuntu is to your taste, but there is some spying going on there.
Post automatically merged:
What a wonderful overview!
wouldn't Arch be a bit much for someone just venturing out, though? I speak as one that only had casual contact with Linux and Arch seems to be a powerful distro but one that expects you to know your way around the block.
 
Linux gaming has come a long way over the years, but even in Uni I managed to live with a very basic Linux distro PC.

The key difference will be how much work it takes to actually run games, as even native ports require tweaking, and using wrappers to run non-supported titles is fiddly AF. At the end of the day, though, it's not anywhere near as bad as some people make it out to be, especially if your focus is on slightly older titles.

The actual OS experience is great and highly customizable. Plus, you can choose how involved you wanna be. If you just want a Distro that works out the box, you can aim at stuff like Ubuntu or Linux Lite, with that last one being great for running on a lower-powered system or just cus you want good efficiency from your OS.

There's also the option of Arch (which I'm pretty sure was mentioned above) which is hyper customizable but will require you to get reeeeeeal comfy using terminal commands and downloading your own dependencies for apps, etc.

On the modern Internet Linux is chocked full of advantages when compared to the stuff going on with Windows and MacOS right now.
 
Well Yes But Actually No GIF by walter_

Still depends on your rig.
 
linux mint is easy and one of the most stable and robust distro
linux i always faster than windows since you have no junk program running in the background

linux mint is easy to use you do not need to download all your things using terminal command which make it more user friendly since not all people know what they are doing in terminal command
you can install programs using the program manager but not all the programs there are the latest versions unless its flatpak since flatpak is always the latest version


no problem setting up emulators
playing steam games on it or old and new pc games

note
you need to enable the fierwall manually its the first thing to do after install linux mint


linus mint its a learning process it took me a while to know how to make things work in linux mint
but once you have learn it its the best program

as for old windows games use lutris flatpak with latest version of wine and winetricks to make the games run



easy setup lutris
1 donwload lutris 2 from winehq download latest version of wine
3 lutris setting enable dgvoodoo and choose the latest version of wine

setup lutris andvance my way of doing it
1 donwload lutris
2 download latest wine from the official webside winehq
3 download lutris
4 in terminal comand update lutris you can see how to do it on winehq
4 open winetricks download the dll component you need to run your games
5 in winetricks open wine config to choose what version of windows to use windows 7 or 10
6 open lutris setting choose the latest version of wine version so its using the linux systems wine
7 in lutris enable dgvoodoo2 since some old games need it to run
8 in lutris choose what gpu to use

note
1 sometines i need to install a game in wine by using wine than add it to lutris since lutris refuse to install it directly

2 some old visula novel game i had problem to run in lutris
but no problem to run and play them using wine

3 if lutris do not detect you gpu in setting its because you have wrong driver install
in linux mint the recommended driver is always for the latest gpu
so in my linux mint right now the recommended driver is 550 but sine i have a older gpu i need to install driver 535 in order to have my gpu workin optimally and be detected by lutris
 
What a wonderful overview!
wouldn't Arch be a bit much for someone just venturing out, though? I speak as one that only had casual contact with Linux and Arch seems to be a powerful distro but one that expects you to know your way around the block.
Mileage may vary. Arch is as you say is a bit much, but i would argue, that if you can get the basics of it down, you are golden for Linux sys admin at surface level, and all the better if you want to feel confident with Linux, and the DIY mindset. And arch and most maintained distros have documentation to help.

For me, if you get too comfortable with Linux, expect to get frustrated, so with that in mind, the sooner one gets their hands dirty, the sooner you git gud, and can feel confident over comfortable.

But again, mileage may vary
 
Most Linux shells use bash as a scripting language not C. C is a low level programming language. The linux kernel is mostly written in C. You can write software in most programming languages and compile a Linux binary. There's not really any time where you will be writing C code as 'orders to the system' as part of normal Linux usage.
Sorry you are right. I actually tried to use Lua language on windows and it turn to a chaos.
Linux is good for modding games and optimizing system.
I think use Linux is great idea, in fact I think with Linux system you can even control your hardware.
 
Sorry you are right. I actually tried to use Lua language on windows and it turn to a chaos.
What went wrong when you tried to use lua with windows? The process of using lua in windows and Linux is pretty much the same.
Linux is good for modding games
Can you explain this one? It's not very good for this. A good example would be Neverwinter Nights. I bought it thinking I would get to use the Aurora toolset to make campaigns. I couldn't get the Aurora toolkit to run with wine or proton. This was a few years ago so maybe it works now but I'd say overall almost any gaming related thing will be harder with Linux.
and optimizing system.
This is true.
I think use Linux is great idea, in fact I think with Linux system you can even control your hardware.
I also agree with this. I switched to Linux over 10 years ago when windows randomly decided to kill the master boot record on my harddrive one day. I installed a light Ubuntu distro partitioned across a bunch of usb flash drives and was able to go in and rescue the harddrive. I wiped windows, installed Linux onto the harddrive and never looked back.
 
Well Yes But Actually No GIF by walter_

Still depends on your rig.
@Yousef is right. Yes, linux will typically be faster, and is 100% guaranteed to on older hardware. This is for many technical reasons (I don't understand kernel stuff too well), but one that comes to mind that might be enlightening for windows vs linux is the file system philosophy: linux stores the files in a more sensible way. This is why you do not need to defragmentate a linux file system on a hdd, and you do for windows. Since ssd are common now, I don't know how much of a difference this makes anymore, but I'm just giving a quick example.

Now that does not mean linux will always win. If your hardware requires a bunch of proprietary drivers that do not talk to your linux kernel version and there is no wrapper or fix you can find, then you are going to have a bad time. However, this is becoming less of an issue nowadays. Back in the day, it was a major pain to even get wifi working sometimes.
 
I would assume so because Linux uses way less resources than Windows, and with Linux, you can make an OS be as small as a couple megabytes! I don't exactly which Kernel I'm referring to but I recently remember one that was very small and can even run flawlessly on a machine from the early 2000s, haha.

But you also have to account for the versions of software that you use. Some might run better on Windows, Some might run better on MacOS, or Linux!
 

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