I can speak to a few of your questions. I’ve been fully on Linux, both my laptop and gaming PC for two years now.
- Gaming - I use Steam for all of my games, and have had few issues. Steam uses Proton to allow non-native games to run, and it happens all within the Steam client. New Proton versions update within Steam just like your games. I’ve run across a few games that wouldn’t launch or would CTD, but those are few and far between and similar to my experience in Windows.
Sample of games I’ve played without issue:
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
- Horizon: Forbidden West
- Helldivers 2
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Dwarf Fortress
- Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
- Fallout: New Vegas
- Deep Rock Galactic
- Sea of Stars
- Factorio
I have an Nvidia 3080Ti and use the proprietary Nvidia drivers. From what I recall, the install was painless and I haven’t had driver issues.
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OpenOffice - I use LibreOffice, because to my understanding it is actively maintained unlike OpenOffice, and I haven’t had any issues casually using it to view documents.
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I use Thunderbird for my mail client and haven’t had any issues setting it up or using basic functionality. It works just as well as it did under Windows.
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I installed VS Code or one of the foss alternatives, can’t remember which, and haven’t had issues with it.
TL;DR that’s really my experience with everything in Linux. Some things are a learning curve, but most stuff just works. I’m also not a tinkerer. I just wanted an OS that works and stays out of my way and Linux has been great for that.
For anyone, like me, who doesn’t know about the meaning of the Black Sun