Is Linux faster than windows?

[happymasksalesman happymasksalesman]

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.

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.

This is true.

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.

about Lua, I tried it with command prompt and guide to install from file itself. For some reason some files doesn't exist in tar! It freak me out and as I didn't have much time i choose to retry it later.
About modding I think it can be use to change main codes to add more stuff in old games.
For new one I think fanmade (except ds2 it must hard game to mod)
Modding tool is good which work for game itself.

 

[Goshikk]

LOTS of posts have already been made and I don't feel like reading all of them, so I apologize if I'm repeating someone else's words.

Windows is a shitshow for reasons we all know too well, but Linux is even worse. Nothing works out of the box, installing software is hell if you don't know how to use the terminal and it's just jank in general.

Linux is awesome, it's free in both ways and if you know what you're doing you're gonna feel much closer to your computer than if you use the CIA spyware that Microshit and Crapple put out. But I shan't sugar coat the truth, anything that works in a single click on windows WILL give you a headcahe in Linux.

 

[Graw]

about Lua, I tried it with command prompt and guide to install from file itself. For some reason some files doesn't exist in tar!

Did you try installing it from one of the binaries?

Lua Binaries

luabinaries.sourceforge.net

About modding I think it can be use to change main codes to add more stuff in old games.

This is equally possible with windows. Setting up a development environment on Linux can actually be a bit of a headache sometimes because of the way dependencies work on Linux. I have definitely run into situations where I've just been unable to build something without a massive amount of fucking around because the version of a library that's in my distro's software repository is a different version than the one the software uses and having both versions side by side causes problems.

For new one I think fanmade (except ds2 it must hard game to mod)
Modding tool is good which work for game itself

Honestly, a lot of modding tools are windows specific even for games with Linux builds. I attempted to get into some super metroid hacking years ago and I ended up having to setup a virtual windows install because I couldn't get any of the tools working. As much as I hate windows, if you want to mod games I'd recommend sticking with windows.

 

[diapered]

I agree with you Mint is a good starting point. I would also recommend Pop_OS! or Manjaro for people who don't want to use the command line and are learning Linux.

Manjaro is definitely the top beginner distro in my experience (I disagree with mint, see below). Pamac is hands down the best looking, robust and simple software/update manager on any linux distribution (not recommended to use on another arch distro, it's made for manjaro!). Say what you want about the manjaro team, but they did a fabulous job developing it and making sure it works flawlessly with their distro.

To determine a distro's ease of use, I like to give it the "retroarch test": does retroarch work OTB when installed with the software manager? Manjaro passes this EVERY time I have installed it on a system. You install the cores and it works no problems! Of course, not all games will work great on all cores (we all know which cores are not great and a standalone emulator should be used...), but it WORKS with no effort is my point. Garuda also passes this "test" (my current distro, but not for beginners, it's easy and I like it, but you should be a little familiar with linux).

Now for linux mint... I do not think mint is a good starting point. Why? It fails the retroarch test! While distro hopping recently, I did try mint to see if things have improved (mint was the reason I had switched to manjaro out of frustration after a few years of using mint) and gave it the retroarch test... Nope, the gui acted odd and none of the cores would even install: fubar. Could I have figured it out? I only spent ~1hr trying to figure it out... Maybe, but why bother? It works OTB on manjaro!

Is mint a good distro? Yes, I had used it for many years, but I don't think it is for a complete beginner, and I think leads to many frustrated with linux with how much it is recommended. Is it fair to judge a distro on a single program? No, and I know it is silly to do so, but in my experience, if retroarch works no problems, that pretty much tells me no other programs are going to give me problems. Again, I know it is very silly, but works for me when deciding a distro :3

 

[Graw]

Now for linux mint... I do not think mint is a good starting point. Why? It fails the retroarch test! While distro hopping recently, I did try mint to see if things have improved (mint was the reason I had switched to manjaro out of frustration after a few years of using mint) and gave it the retroarch test... Nope, the gui acted odd and none of the cores would even install: fubar. Could I have figured it out? I only spent ~1hr trying to figure it out... Maybe, but why bother? It works OTB on manjaro!

I generally avoid using packages from the Ubuntu repository if I can help it. They tend to be out of date a lot. I also tend to agree Ubuntu based distros in general aren't great for beginners. It's very easy to break things by updating and the instinct is to rely on apt and the Ubuntu repositories for software and you'll end up finding quite a few broken packages. Either that or you start adding a bunch of repositories and your whole system starts to feel like it's duct taped together. I'm not sure why so many people recommend Ubuntu based distros for linux noobies. Every problem I've ever had with Linux was directly related to the Ubuntu stuff and not actually Linux itself.

 

[Mopeybloke]

You can see some benchmarks on Youtube. Usually Windows is faster if you are not using an Arch Linux variant. Or so is my impression. You want the latest kernel versions for the performance improvements. I ain't going to make a recommendation to you, but take a look at some tube results.

 

[kuroninneko]

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.

Im hoping one day Linux will become the standard. Every new version of windows seems more and more like a hustle. Just bought my gaming pc 2 years ago and Microsoft is trying to tell me my pc does not meet the windows 11 requirements and they are trying to convince me to sell or donate my computer for a new win11 machine.

 

[diapered]

I generally avoid using packages from the Ubuntu repository if I can help it. They tend to be out of date a lot. I also tend to agree Ubuntu based distros in general aren't great for beginners. It's very easy to break things by updating and the instinct is to rely on apt and the Ubuntu repositories for software and you'll end up finding quite a few broken packages. Either that or you start adding a bunch of repositories and your whole system starts to feel like it's duct taped together. I'm not sure why so many people recommend Ubuntu based distros for linux noobies. Every problem I've ever had with Linux was directly related to the Ubuntu stuff and not actually Linux itself.

Exactly! Thank you! I always thought I was crazy because ubuntu/mint is so often recommended to newbies, but I really think anything debian based is not for newbies: you are going to NEED the cl at some point because you need to navigate some of the issues you mentioned and I don't think any gui software manager is going to help with that. Package management requires extra care on a distro like that which newbies won't understand. I highly doubt anyone here that has used debian/ubuntu/mint has not ever had to fix something using apt at the cl...

That's why I recommend manjaro for newbies. I don't know what crazy magic they are working over there at manjaro to make an arch based distro so newbie friendly, but it works. Yes, it is arch with training wheels (I wouldn't use AUR in practice on manjaro even though you can enable pamac support for it, but you still got flatpaks >_>) So Arch based newbie friendly is definitely manjaro.

As for redhat derivatives, mandriva was not newbie friendly, imo, but that was the only one I used for a bit. I know fedora is popular, but I don't know how newbie friendly it is, I think @NatalieZaki uses fedora from the other linux thread, so might have an opinion on that.

 

[Graw]

Exactly! Thank you! I always thought I was crazy because ubuntu/mint is so often recommended to newbies,

Back when I first switched to Linux ubuntu probably was the best distro for noobs. There wasn't really a lot of user friendly distros the way there is now. I think it's maybe just outdated advice based on old information.

 

[Varyag]

I don't have anything much to add to this thread that hasn't already been said, or that would take me over 40 minutes to type a wall of text for. I'll just say that yes, Linux is much more efficient at using your system resources, and you can get most games that you wish working on it with some effort. I salvaged my old Windows 8.1 laptop from 2013 with Arch Linux and it's literally working better now than the Lenovo shitbox I bought in 2019.

Go distrohop for a bit, install some different distros and see what you like! They're all different but similar, and they all work on the same base. My persona favorites and recommendations, for various different reasons are:
Linux Mint (Debian Edition), MX Linux, Fedora (or some alternate flavor like Bazzite or Nobara) and the trendy and venerable Arch Linux (also could use Endeavour if you don't want the trouble of setting it up... but then you won't learn how things work when you need to fix it)

the greatest advantage AND the greatest disavantage about Linux, is that YOU own the system and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it. you also have to fix it after you inevitably break it, lol.

 

[happymasksalesman happymasksalesman]

Im hoping one day Linux will become the standard. Every new version of windows seems more and more like a hustle. Just bought my gaming pc 2 years ago and Microsoft is trying to tell me my pc does not meet the windows 11 requirements and they are trying to convince me to sell or donate my computer for a new win11 machine.

I can even imagine update my windows. I know windows 11 maybe have new features but i must think about the DirectX. I still don't know if I have DirectX 12!

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Exactly! Thank you! I always thought I was crazy because ubuntu/mint is so often recommended to newbies, but I really think anything debian based is not for newbies: you are going to NEED the cl at some point because you need to navigate some of the issues you mentioned and I don't think any gui software manager is going to help with that. Package management requires extra care on a distro like that which newbies won't understand. I highly doubt anyone here that has used debian/ubuntu/mint has not ever had to fix something using apt at the cl...

That's why I recommend manjaro for newbies. I don't know what crazy magic they are working over there at manjaro to make an arch based distro so newbie friendly, but it works. Yes, it is arch with training wheels (I wouldn't use AUR in practice on manjaro even though you can enable pamac support for it, but you still got flatpaks >_>) So Arch based newbie friendly is definitely manjaro.

As for redhat derivatives, mandriva was not newbie friendly, imo, but that was the only one I used for a bit. I know fedora is popular, but I don't know how newbie friendly it is, I think @NatalieZaki uses fedora from the other linux thread, so might have an opinion on that.

Debian based is still fine for beginners. You dont get the latest git package but sometimes that's better. It was never the goal of Ubuntu or Mint to be the bleeding edge nightly build of stuffs.

And adding PPAs or using AURs is in essence the same. Just like PPAs, you'll have to do with AURs at some points in your journey. Just trying to play 3DO on Retroarch with the Arch Libretro packages for example.

So all in all the post I was replying to is still good advice, and it also talks about Lutris which is IMO more interesting than discussing distro flavors ad nauseam. There's no bad choice for beginners in what was proposed so far, as with anything, in the beginning it's just a matter of picking something and sticking with it, at least for a bit.

 

[NatalieZaki]

Exactly! Thank you! I always thought I was crazy because ubuntu/mint is so often recommended to newbies, but I really think anything debian based is not for newbies: you are going to NEED the cl at some point because you need to navigate some of the issues you mentioned and I don't think any gui software manager is going to help with that. Package management requires extra care on a distro like that which newbies won't understand. I highly doubt anyone here that has used debian/ubuntu/mint has not ever had to fix something using apt at the cl...

That's why I recommend manjaro for newbies. I don't know what crazy magic they are working over there at manjaro to make an arch based distro so newbie friendly, but it works. Yes, it is arch with training wheels (I wouldn't use AUR in practice on manjaro even though you can enable pamac support for it, but you still got flatpaks >_>) So Arch based newbie friendly is definitely manjaro.

As for redhat derivatives, mandriva was not newbie friendly, imo, but that was the only one I used for a bit. I know fedora is popular, but I don't know how newbie friendly it is, I think @NatalieZaki uses fedora from the other linux thread, so might have an opinion on that.

im on arch now

 

[nexy]

Use like 1/4 of the ram Windows needs with a fancy window manager.
A light linux like Antix can use like 400mb or ram and thats all.

 

[diapered]

I don't have anything much to add to this thread that hasn't already been said, or that would take me over 40 minutes to type a wall of text for.

Go for it! We will read it :3

So all in all the post I was replying to is still good advice, and it also talks about Lutris which is IMO more interesting than discussing distro flavors ad nauseam.

It is not my intention to start a distro war >_> as I agree those have been done to death, but my recent experience with garuda is making me think this is an interesting discussion, as far as what is best for beginners: it seems the arch based distros are killing it. I was plenty happy with manjaro (had been using for years) and then @Leon recommends garuda, and I try it on a whim, and I am in love with it. And it is a fairly young distro! At the same time, I did give mint (I had used before manjaro) and suse a try during this recent distro hopping, but some things required setup while it worked otb for manjaro or garuda... Are arch based distros the way of the future for newbie friendly and easy to use linux?

im on arch now

And arch converts another one!

 

[BunnyLain]

How much time do you want to spend problem solving? lol

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Go for it! We will read it :3

It is not my intention to start a distro war >_> as I agree those have been done to death, but my recent experience with garuda is making me think this is an interesting discussion, as far as what is best for beginners: it seems the arch based distros are killing it. I was plenty happy with manjaro (had been using for years) and then @Leon recommends garuda, and I try it on a whim, and I am in love with it. And it is a fairly young distro! At the same time, I did give mint (I had used before manjaro) and suse a try during this recent distro hopping, but some things required setup while it worked otb for manjaro or garuda... Are arch based distros the way of the future for newbie friendly and easy to use linux?

And arch converts another one!

I just noticed how you skipped the part about trying to run 3DO games on Retroarch with the Arch packages. They require the use of AURs so it's not OOTB (to my surprise, as after all 3DO games are often talked about and emulators are mature). Funnily I use Arch for the opposite of what you seek. AUR is the biggest selling point for me, having nightly git projects in AUR packages to experiment with.

If you just partially quote me without addressing what I said, there's not even a discussion here to begin with, really. I would advise for beginners to avoid distro hopping and just start to dual boot, the sooner the better, so they can test them all and dont get weirdly fixated on one single distro. Keep Win10 as well, it's still a good OS when kept offline after all... The best thing about Linux is to get an OS from a worldwide community and not start to rely heavily on one company or team of developer.

So "Arch converts". No. Arch doesnt convert. It's not a cult. It's a free linux distro. People should try to be the most OS agnostic they could be, and have their work, files and games ready to migrate on any OS. Free software for free people and all that jazz.

 

[diapered]

I just noticed how you skipped the part about trying to run 3DO games on Retroarch with the Arch packages. They require the use of AURs so it's not OOTB (to my surprise, as after all 3DO games are often talked about and emulators are mature).

I didn't skip over it, I read anything anyone writes in these linux threads ^_^ I love to learn more from those with more experience and since we are all here for gaming, I rather talk here than elsewhere ^_^ I just didn't have anything to say: I am not interested in 3DO emulation and so I don't have any input :( I guess I could see if garuda has those packages in the chaotic-aur and 3DO emulation works otb... I just never looked into it, and the thought didn't occur to me when I read that. What's a good 3DO game that will motivate me to try it out?

If you just partially quote me without addressing what I said, there's not even a discussion here to begin with

Sorry! That's just how I reply. It is hard for me to organize my thoughts otherwise. I hope you don't think I was "cherry picking" or taking you out of context . If I don't address some things, it is because I don't understand, or know how to respond right then.

So "Arch converts". No. Arch doesnt convert. It's not a cult. It's a free linux distro. People should try to be the most OS agnostic they could be, and have their work, files and games ready to migrate on any OS. Free software for free people and all that jazz.

Agreed, something better for your needs could always come out tomorrow. I was just making a silly comment about how @NatalieZaki switched from fedora to arch because I hadn't seen them in these threads for awhile ^_^

 

[HyperTurboFox]

In my experience, Yes

Post automatically merged: Apr 5, 2025

Linux is AWESOME ^w^

 

[Deleted member 210]

In terms of performances, as someone here said already "depends on your rig". With Linux you may very well end up not having the required drivers to handle your graphic card for instance, or even the network card if it's an obscure/weird one... For bleeding edge hardware, the missing drivers when it comes to the graphic card might very well happen, which won't happen with windows.... And in that case you'll be forced to use default drivers and performance will be shitty compared to windows.


That being said, you don't have to settle for one or the other you can have both at the same time, some applications require windows, not everything runs through Wine

Wine is a free and open-source compatibility layer that allows Windows applications to run on Unix-like operating systems, including Linux. It does not emulate a Windows environment but instead translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, enabling Windows applications to run directly on Linux without the need for a virtual machine or emulator.

while a lot of thing do.

Make sure the machine you buy is Linux compatible, that's the most important part. Then you can make install a dual boot set up; partition the the drive, install windows and linux side by side, in that order, and then you'll be prompted with a message at boot asking you on which system you want to boot every time you start your computer.

Example

Me I'm on Linux since decades now, I wouldn't recommend Arch unless you really want to build your system from scratch and you're quite familiar with the the command line, in the case of a DIY arcade machine for instance with an OS that only features what you really need to run the game(s) (no printer drivers, no desktop, etc, just the roms and the emulators and everything else is automated and in the dark, command line style). And even then you could install Batocera instead.

For everyday use I have Linux Mint (Cinnamon), it's the better Ubuntu, no hassle, it's great.

Linux is more a system for developers than a system for gamers, while ultimately, coding a game or anything else, becomes the game.

 

[Darkelft]

I am writting this from my linux, special my xubuntu with xfce, I'm user linux from 10 year or more, I use linux like normal user, on my linux I learned many things. sorry for my english. My native languaje is spanish.

 

[wscp]

As another longtime linux (arch btw) user, a lot has changed, and most things (especially steam games) are quite likely to work ootb. If you have an amd gpu, things are dead simple, just install something like pop!_os (I recommend it especially for nvidia), and you'll be good to go. If you'd like something more "windows" like, maybe try something like bazzite or nobara.

The biggest problem you're going to face is multiplayer games. I don't play any that aren't supported by linux, so I don't suffer from that problem. So keep a windows install on hand to handle that eventuality. Maybe one day you'll be able to completely transition.

 

[diapered]

xubuntu with xfce

I also love xfce <3 But some are saying KDE can be as fast as xfce to the point the difference is negligible. Doesn't surprise me, KDE has a lot of development behind it and so it is probably optimized to be as lightweight as xfce nowadays. idk, I still like the simple layout of xfce ;_;

 

[nobitakun]

I use Linux daily, and I recommend to first get one lightweight distro with XFCE, which is in my opinnion a very light and robust desktop environment. The most important thing is to never use Nvidia, or you will get lots of headaches.

And also have Mesa drivers up to date with its repository.

The rest is just installing the required packages to run everything you need. If you have quite new hardware make sure to use the newest stable kernel.

As SteamOS runs under Arch Linux that one can seem to be the best one to run Steam, but the truth is that any Linux distro with a solid community can be a very good option :)

Btw, I've read about Mandriva, I didn't know there was still some interest in that distro. I started with Mandrake (I'm kind of old) and I had the worst experience in my life, no wonder it died more than 10 years ago lol. After that I went to Suse before OpenSuSe was born and it was night and day. I continued using it and moved to OpenSuSe after a while and my experience was kind of "lacky" because the transition of all the SUSE tools took more than expected, so I jumped to Archlinux and I didn't understand a thing, but even so I learned a lot from it using it only for a year. After Archlinux I transitioned to one of my favourite Linux distros ever, Slackware. It was so clean and solid that it was fantastic, even though it was also a difficult one but thanks to Arch Linux I enjoyed it to the point of becoming one of my favourites of all times. But after a couple of years I wanted to try something different, then I found my holy grial: Debian. And since then, I've been using it for serious work at home and Xubuntu for machines to have fun (or Armbian for ARM machines). I can't be more happy with it, but I admit that I don't game a lot on PC, I am more a console player, but I've ran old PC stuff and after tweaking all of them ran just fine.

One last thing, I don't recommend RedHat and derivates, I use them at work and they are just "bad". Maybe someone here had a different experience, but working with them for almost 4 years I only can say avoid them lol.

 

[Darkelft]

I also love xfce <3 But some are saying KDE can be as fast as xfce to the point the difference is negligible. Doesn't surprise me, KDE has a lot of development behind it and so it is probably optimized to be as lightweight as xfce nowadays. idk, I still like the simple layout of xfce ;_;

Before my firts os kubuntu with kde but I change for xubuntu with xfce, if you get ram like 16GB, I recomend you kde plasma but if you have less like 8GB its better xfce. The CPU usage with XFCE is less.