• Been wondering about jumping ship to Linux after I got some hands on experience through the Steam Deck, but I hear that they don’t have the same wide compatibility with various Hardware, plus there are a lot of programs you can’t get.

    If I want Clip Studio Paint, be able to play games with anti cheat AND be able to stream comfortably with OBS and the XLR microphones I have… Can I reasonably expect to be able to do all these things without a hitch?

    • Have been trying Linux Mint on a spare laptop as a complete N00b. Can’t get a huion screen tablet to work, nor an older xp non-screen one. Only option I’ve found for software is Krita (which isn’t bad, actually), but no CSP.

      Couldn’t get a controller to work properly either without having to install some stuff via command line / terminal, which I wasn’t comfortable doing (I commented about having to do this on another post elsewhere and some guy was like super aggressive about how I didn’t need to, and was lying apparently… 🤷 )

      Other than that, it’s a been a pretty smooth experience. That’s not sarcasm, its genuinely been interesting experience poking about and giving it a go. May just not be ready for my use case yet.

    • Since most people don’t use Linux, drivers and software aren’t usually developed for it. Although, a reasonable company would develop just in case or help you get a solution, it’s unusual. Most computers are supported, but there is very specific hardware that may not have support or you’ll find bugs.

      I’d recommend you to search (and test with an USB in Live mode) about your hardware and ask in communities about this specific topics. There are music communities, movies, math, streaming, etc.

      And no, I don’t think you’ll find anticheat support because most Linux users don’t want closed shady software modifying their kernel (but there are solutions being worked on).

      • drivers and software aren’t usually developed for [Linux].

        This is not very accurate. Despite having a small user base, kernel developers add hundreds of drivers every new version, and the number of end user programs developed by communities (such as KDE and GNOME) and independent teams, has ballooned in recent years.

        • You’re right, I should specify that it’s mostly for niche hardware. But even though there are developers trying, sometimes those devices are barely usable or have bugs and/or vulnerabilities.

          • Sure. So the catalogue of natively supported software is large and growing fast all the time. There some more devices that need specific drivers supplied by the provider, and some are not supported at all. It just means you factor one more thing when buying hardware: Is there support under Linux? And that is not one half as hard as it used to be.

    • You generally need to get software and hardware that is compatible with your operating system and processor architecture. It’s true that the most used platforms will have the best support, but you have that problem with any OS.

      And it’s also not like games with anti cheat generally don’t work with Linux. Proton+Steam does support Valve Anti-Cheat, Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye. It’s just that developers have to explicitly enable Linux support for EAC and BattlEye.