proton

NVIDIA’s recent hiring activity makes plain what many in the Linux-gaming community have quietly hoped for: the green team is deliberately staffing up to make Linux — and, crucially, Valve’s Proton compatibility layer — a first-class target for GPU optimization and driver engineering. Two public...

After swapping Windows for a gaming-focused Linux install on a handheld and then on a desktop, I found that Nobara — and its cousin Bazzite — can not only match Windows for many titles but in some cases deliver measurably better frame rates and lower system overhead, making a convincing case...

Linux’s moment of plausibility for mainstream PC gaming didn’t arrive as a sudden coup — it emerged from a sequence of engineering wins, commercial signals, and calendar pressure that together made gaming on Linux a realistic choice for far more players than ever before. e we were, and what...

SteamOS has moved from curiosity to contender: Valve’s Linux-based gaming OS now offers a genuine alternative to Windows for a wide swath of players, particularly those with AMD hardware and a Steam-centric library — but the switch is pragmatic, not panacea. Steam Deck Gains Proton 7.0 Support...

Linux gaming has quietly left the back room and is now sitting at the main table — not because a single miracle patch fixed everything, but because several deliberate engineering bets (and one wildly successful handheld) finally made the math add up. Valve’s Steam Deck, the maturation of Proton...

Windows‑weary PC gamers are increasingly vocal: frustrated by buggy updates, intrusive features and a desktop-first design that feels wrong on handhelds, many want an escape — and for a growing number of players the escape looks very much like Valve’s SteamOS ecosystem. Background / Overview The...

If your PC’s operating system is quietly stealing CPU cycles, injecting telemetry, and complicating handheld gaming, switching from Windows 11 to Linux for gaming is no longer a fringe experiment — it’s a proven, practical path for many players chasing smoother frame times, fewer background...

Bazzite arrived this year as a clear, gaming‑first Linux image that many enthusiasts now treat as more than an experiment — it’s a practical alternative for focused PC gaming on handhelds and midrange machines, but it is not a drop‑in replacement for Windows for everyone. Early hands‑on installs...

What if the operating system under your GPU — not the GPU itself — is the reason your favorite games stutter, spike, or feel less responsive? Recent community benchmarking focused on the Linux-based Bazzite distribution has reopened that question with concrete, repeatable examples: in several...

Valve’s SteamOS has evolved from a handheld-first curiosity into a viable desktop OS for many PC gamers — and for AMD-based rigs in particular, recent driver, Proton, and tooling updates have made the prospect of leaving Windows for SteamOS more realistic than it was two years ago. Background /...

Linux gaming has quietly crossed a new milestone: for the second month in a row the Steam Hardware & Software Survey shows Linux users climbing to a record share of the platform, reaching 3.2% of all Steam users in November 2025 — a modest fraction of the total, but a clear and sustained uptrend...

Linux’s share of active Steam clients climbed again in November 2025, hitting 3.20 percent of the platform’s reported user base — a new all‑time high and the second consecutive monthly gain after October’s breakthrough — driven largely by SteamOS installs, growth in gaming‑focused distributions...

I’ve been using Windows long enough to know how it feels when an operating system starts trying to sell you a new relationship instead of doing the job you asked it to do, and that’s the exact moment I decided to blow up a working Windows 11 install and put Linux on my personal gaming desktop...

The long, slow tedium of Windows feature creep has finally pushed a high-profile games reviewer to try something different: abandoning Windows 11 on a high-end gaming desktop and moving to an Arch‑based Linux distribution tuned for modern hardware and games. The move is symptomatic of a broader...

After years away from the Wine ecosystem, a recent community thread revived a familiar ritual: installing Wine (or Proton) on a source-driven Gentoo machine to run a GOG copy of The Outer Worlds — with the usual mix of triumph, hair-pulling, and practical workarounds that have defined...

Linux gaming’s momentum is not a rumor anymore — it’s measurable, built on real engineering (Proton, SteamOS) and hardware (Steam Deck and a growing class of handhelds), and it’s exposing strategic fractures in how Microsoft positions Windows for PC gamers. Background / Overview The debate that...

Valve’s new Steam Machine landing in the living room — a compact, SteamOS‑first mini‑PC that promises a plug‑and‑play console feel while keeping the openness of a PC — has sparked a serious reappraisal of whether Windows 11 can remain the default platform for mainstream PC gaming. Background /...

Valve’s new Steam Machine is being presented as a compact, living‑room‑friendly way to run your Steam library — built and sold by Valve, powered by SteamOS and Proton, and explicitly positioned as a reference device that Valve hopes will invite other companies, modders, and everyday PC builders...

Valve’s new Steam Machine promises console‑style convenience with PC performance, but the one‑line truth for multiplayer fans is blunt: the Steam Machine will inherit the Steam Deck’s anti‑cheat problem unless publishers, anti‑cheat vendors and Valve change course — and right now the technical...

The Steam community’s October 2025 snapshot finally pushed Linux over the psychological 3% mark on Valve’s monthly Hardware & Software Survey, a milestone that matters because it’s driven largely by Valve’s own Steam Deck ecosystem and the continuing expansion of SteamOS Holo—an outcome that...