| I've used linux as my desktop for 2+ years. The games I play like CSGO work very well*, you have a steamdeck so you know how game support especially with anti cheat is. However, I've had many bugs.
Nvidia on linux is painful. Just linux things - I get a bar at the top of the game when starting sometimes and have to change my resolution back and forth to fix it, I've had to restart pipewire to get my audio to reappear, I've had to replace pulse with pipewire (mid game). Linux is not smooth, ESPECIALLY with nvidia. If the games you play are well supported, use AMD graphics, and doesn't tinker with their system at all, on a very stable OS - maybe you could call it stable? Also if you want smooth - for the love of god don't use a rolling distro. If you check the arch wiki you'll see various nvidia/steam/wine/proton issues occur every few weeks. Many completely break playing games for several days unless you downgrade packages. tl;dr - I would not recommend linux as a desktop to anyone who doesn't mind having their nose in their terminal desperately trying to figure out why you have no audio while your friends grow tired waiting for you. The steamdeck specifically is very well managed by valve and I'm incredibly impressed that they made it work so well. |
I've had a better experience since I switched from arch to ubuntu. For example steam remote play works w/ my Apple TV upstairs. Under arch I couldn't ever get it to work.
I've had mixed experience with AMD vs Nvidia. I bought a 5700xt which was way less reliable than my old nvidia 980ti, which never once crashed under linux. I upgraded to a 6700xt last year and that's been smooth. I'd originally bought the AMD card hoping to run Wayland but am still on X11.
I'm mostly playing single player games.