My honest Linux experience as a gamedev

I've been using Windows my whole life,

probably like most people. Even at

school, we were taught Axel and Word on

Windows machine. And I think the first

time I was confronted with Linux was at

university where I started learning

programming and embedded software

development. But this was never a

choice. It was the default. Windows

comes pre-installed and so that's what

you're using. It somewhat works and it's

also kind of the only OS for gaming. So

for most of my life, I just used what

came with my computer. This changed a

few months back. I got fed up with

Windows over the years and the Windows

10 end of life was the final nail in the

coffin. So, I decided to move to Linux

and make it my main OS. It was easier

than I thought, but also super

frustrating at the same time. Before I

talk about my Linux experience, I need

to talk a little bit about myself so you

understand what I do with my computer.

I'm a solo indie game dev using GDO and

I also make content here on YouTube, on

my second channel, and also on Twitch.

This means I have specific needs that

might be different from someone just

doing media consumption or gaming or

even just gamedev. As I said, for

gamedev, I use GDAU, the open source

game engine. And I use mostly Affinity

Designer for vector art. I sometimes do

3D using Blender and I also use VS Code

for programming outside of GDAU and to

use Git. Rarely I need to use a specific

version of GDO to dev for the Switch for

example and also some of the tools

provided by Nintendo. I like Affinity

because it's a one-time purchase and a

native app, so it's pretty fast. This is

changing, by the way, with the Canva

acquisition and the release of the

unified Affinity app, but we'll talk

about that later. For content creation,

I stream and record using OBS. I have a

stream deck to control my live stream.

My camera is captured with a cheap

generic HDMI capture card, and I have a

microphone connected through USB. I edit

my videos using Da Vinci Resolve Studio

Version, and sometimes I use Photoshop.

I could be using something else, but I'm

just defaulting to it because I know how

it works. And Tom's companies send you

PSDs, uh, such as Steam, for example,

for events. I also use Figma for

different things, like making simple

visuals fast or to design UI for my

games. I use a bunch of organization and

productivity tools, but they're all

cloud-based or living in the browser, so

that's not a problem. I recently

switched to Infoomaniac for my cloud, so

I'm using K Drive. And finally, for

gaming, I use Steam, sometimes itch, and

the Xbox Game Pass. And I play using an

Xbox controller or keyboard and mouse.

That's about it. That's a lot of

information, but we'll go through

everything again. Before moving on, I

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the video. Let's get back to Linux.

Before we start talking about my Switch,

I have to admit I lied a little bit.

It's not my first time using Linux.

Actually, I used it a lot in the past

and I even daily drove it multiple

times. When I started learning

programming at university, I discovered

the world of microcontrollers. This led

me to the Raspberry Pi and I think it's

when I really started using Linux more.

Around the same time, I started putting

Ubuntu on old computers to turn them

into servers. For a few years, I ran a

web server for my personal website/blog,

and I used it for a bunch of small

projects like an admin interface, a URL

shortener, a computer vision assisted

sudoku solver, stuff like that. It made

a lot of sense to use Linux for those

projects because it was free. It ran

pretty well even on an old computer. And

I don't know, it it makes sense to use

it for server stuff. It feels like it's

made for it. During that time, I owned a

laptop running Windows because I wanted

to game mostly and I was into online

games that kind of required Windows. But

after building my own tower, I finally

decided to give Linux a go as a daily

driver. I think I tried at least three

times. The main pain points were gaming.

At the time on my laptop, it was messy

drivers and missing features like

fingerprint scanner, specific function

keys, Wi-Fi, etc. And the last time I

tried on my desktop, I ended up going

back to Windows after a few months

because some of my needs were not met

and it was just too much work to try to

replace the tools I was using.

Throughout the years, I've really

enjoyed using Linux. I think I saw an

incredible potential and I just love the

open- source aspect, feeling like I

really own my computer and the OS is

made for people who love computer and

not just to please shareholders. Coming

back to the present moment, the same

problems are kind of still here, but

we'll dive a bit more into it. This time

I went with Mint uh because I wanted a

simple DRO that just worked. I'm

familiar with Ubuntu based dros, so this

allows me to be up and ready quite fast.

Cinnamon as a desktop environment is

also pretty simple and with a bit of

customization, but nothing crazy. Let's

start with the good stuff. Overall, it

just worked really well. I installed

everything pretty fast. The OS feels

responsive and most of what I need is

there. Of course, GDAU, VS Code, OBS,

Discord, Steam, Blender, they all work

and most often than not faster than on

Windows. I don't know if it's just a

feeling, but it gives the impression to

be just more reactive. The OS reacts

fast whenever you boot or come back from

sleep and something stupid, but

switching the OS to dark mode is pretty

fast and it doesn't lag. On Windows 10,

every time a computer goes into dark

mode, everything is unresponsive and

kind of frozen for a few seconds. Note

that my Windows install is on a fast

NVME drive, while my Linux partition is

on a cheap SATA SSD that is mostly full,

and yet it feels faster. This feeling is

particularly noticeable when browsing

files. The default file browser is just

good and has a bunch of built-in

features I like such as tabs or jun

panel views. I think this is something

that Windows 11 now has. But come on,

Windows had a shitty explorer for years.

Apart from the performance, I like how

everything seems customizable, even if

Mint and Cinnamon are not known for

their great customization. I still can

modify most things easily. There are

lots of small tools built in to change

the shortcuts on your mouse or script

your file browser. One example is the

Nemo actions. When I discovered that, my

mind was blown. It allows you to simply

define a new action on the right click

by creating a little script. For

example, I have actions to convert files

to different formats or get the full

path of a file. Those were made by other

people and shared as Nemo actions.

Honestly, it's so cool to have a feature

like that. And it sounds crazy to me

that it's not a built-in feature on

Windows, for example. I was using open

with plus+ to do the same thing over

there. On top of the community shared

actions, I also made my own. And one of

them is a little video cutting app. When

I record stuff for socials, I often need

to cut the beginning and the end of

videos before sharing it. Opening

Resolve just for that as a pain. And

using ffmpeg through the command line is

just not a good experience, especially

for something so visual where I need to

see what I'm cutting. So I built a small

wrapper in Python using QT for the UI.

And now I can rightclick a video, cut,

and have a small interface to precisely

cut what I want. Of course, you can

totally do that without the Nemo action,

but the convenience is awesome when I'm

using an OS with my mouse. I want things

to be accessible with the mouse. I don't

necessarily want to call a script, find

the path to my file, etc. On the gaming

side, I didn't see any major issues. I

stopped playing online games a while

ago, so most of the game I play either

work well through Proton or have a

native Linux build. It's still not

entirely perfect, but it's getting

there. With the Steam Deck and the

future Steam machines, I think even more

devs are going to care about Linux or at

least care about running well enough

through Proton. By default, my graphics

card, USB mic, uh, generic capture card

were all recognized, so I could download

OBS and redo my setup. Some bits were

missing. For example, I was using an old

Snap Camera Windows app to apply filters

on my cam for channel points.

Oh no. And of course, it's not

supported. To be honest, I didn't even

try to run it through Wine. It was a

very poorly optimized app, so the Switch

was a reason to ditch it. OBS runs fine.

Some features are missing, like the VC

playlist, for example. But I think you

can fix them with plugins. My mouse and

keyboards are Logitech devices, and some

of the features only works with the

shitty proprietary software. Thankfully,

someone made a replacement for it. While

the UI is very lacking, the functions

are actually better, so that's not

really a loss. And the stupid Logitech

built-in AI is definitely not going to

be missed. Well, actually, I switched

from my MXM to a cheap generic vertical

mouse as the MX was dying and the

vertical is better for my wrists. While

I'm missing the amazing scroll wheel of

the MXM, I found this generic mouse to

be pretty cool, and it works without any

additional drivers. I was even able to

configure the side buttons with the

built-in tools in Linux. Don't remember

the name. I'll try to find it and put it

over there. On Windows, I used fancy

zones to snap windows to custom

predefined zones. This is especially

useful because I have an ultra wide

screen and I stream only a part of it.

So, I need to be able to snap my windows

to the right part as fast as possible.

On Linux, I initially struggled to find

a replacement, but I ended up finding G

tile that has both shortcuts and a small

UI. It's actually pretty powerful

because it allows you to define a grid

or even multiple grids, I believe, and

then you can decide how much space the

window should take on that specific

grid. I had some issues with it after

coming back to sleep, but I was able to

add a little script that reloads it

whenever the computer wakes up. I

mentioned earlier I switched to

Infoomaniac's K Drive for the cloud and

it was a combination of reasons. One, I

wanted to go away from Google for some

stuff. Two, the offer was actually

better and they also have options for

cheap VPS which I decided to rent at the

same time. And finally, they have a real

native Linux app. I'm using my cloud a

lot and I want a real local copy. I

don't like how Google Drive is mounted

as a remote drive by default. I want

real two-way synchronization with the

files available locally. This is

especially important for me as I use my

Affinity files a lot and I sync a lot of

videos too. I tried other tools before

with Google Drive but it never felt

proper. So having this native Linux app

that just works is awesome.

All of that is pretty cool but

unfortunately there are a bunch of

problems that arise when you start daily

driving Linux. uh some of them can be

fixed quite easily and some others might

unfortunately never be fixable. Let's

run through some of the problems. As

we've seen with the mouse, some of the

device are just not supported by the

companies on Linux. This is the case

with my Stream Deck and without software

to control it, the thing is basically

dead. I found some open source

alternatives, but unfortunately they're

just not there yet in terms of features.

For example, nested buttons inside of

folders are difficult or kind of

impossible to set up and multi actions

also sometimes break for no reason.

Overall, it's sometimes a bit janky. Um,

it's been a pain using the Stream Deck

and I left it in a semiconfigured way.

To be fair, it's not the developers

fault. Uh, they're doing it for free on

their free time. Honestly, props to them

for doing that. I just hate that

companies don't make the effort to

support their device on Linux. I

understand the economics don't make

sense, but it's just sad. There are

plenty of small software I was using

that don't exist. For example, beef text

for text macros or even some screenshot

software. To be frank, you can find

replacements and sometimes they're

actually better than their Windows

counterpart. It's not the biggest pain

point as open source devs are really

talented and these small apps exist.

Most of the time the UI or UX is lacking

though, so be prepared. On a side note,

I found flat packs to be both amazing

and awful at the same time. They're

often way more up-to-date and can be

browsed easily using the right tool, but

I don't enjoy how they bloat the system

with hundreds of mags, even for tiny

apps. Also, the sandboxing makes

customizing them painful, and I only

learned that the hard way with OBS. Some

apps are just better installed through

the package manager. One last problem or

problems with an S uh is random issues.

Uh, for example, my audio has been buggy

for a while when the computer comes back

to sleep. Uh, I think I've fixed it by

switching to Pipe Wire as an audio back

end, but Bluetooth is still awful unless

I'm doing something wrong. Very often,

my headphones just won't connect. They

keep connecting and disconnecting on the

loop. The only solution seems to unpair

them and repair them, which is

incredibly painful. On Windows, I would

just quick open the Bluetooth tab,

select my headphone, and that was it. I

would put the handphone into pairing

mode just before connecting sometimes

just to force the connection, otherwise

they'd stay connected to my phone, but

that was it. If you know how to fix

these Bluetooth issues, please let me

know. I also have some random bugs when

using Mint. Uh, rarely my monitors get

disconnected and the entire desktop is

rearranged as if I was missing a

monitor. Uh, one time Mint actually

broke my boot partition. Uh, usually

it's Windows that does this, but this

time it was Mint. I was really

surprised. It decided to overwrite the

boot partition, but not even the one I'm

using for Mint. It went out of its way

to overwrite a separate boot partition

I'm using for Windows. I'm dual booting,

but with two different boot partitions

on two different drives, specifically to

avoid OS overwriting the bootloader and

breaking my configuration. This happened

once when updating Mint and never

happened ever again. So, I guess it's

fine now. Not related to my main

desktop, but I'm daily driving Popo OS

on my laptop, and the battery management

is kind of awful. Don't get me wrong,

Windows is not known for handling that

very well. But seeing how my Steam Deck

can go to sleep fast and stay in sleep

mode for days without losing that much

battery is insane. Why is my laptop

struggling with this? And why do I have

to tinker with obscure config files to

fix it? I have yet to find a proper

solution. And while it may exist as I

verified my system was capable of deep

sleep, I just don't want to spend time

doing that. It seems like such a basic

feature. I close the lid, I walk away,

and when I pick up my laptop the next

day, it should not be at 0%. It's really

a shame, and I don't know why it's not

something that works flawlessly. It's

probably the only time I understand

Apple people. The way Mac OS handles

sleep on their laptop seems to be

incredibly well done. A come on, it's

2026. They feed us their AI

but my laptop battery is dead after a

night when the lid is closed. I'm sorry,

but it's just annoying to see where the

money is going into tech. Drives me mad.

Another small pain point that is not

often talked about when switching to

Linux is that you have to redo all of

your tweaks, configs, and things you've

set up along the way. A game save file

that is not in the cloud, a software

configuration you forgot about. It's

super difficult to think about all of

them and sometimes you can't just copy

and paste your new install. For example,

many OBS plugins come with installers as

they require dependencies and they'll

install everything automatically. I'm

now making a list of frustrations that I

encounter on the daily and whenever I

have time or the mental energy, I try to

fix them. It's not realistic to want to

fix everything at once. So, I feel like

this way I should be able to tackle the

problems without burning myself just

doing that instead of actually using my

computer. A solution for device support,

I guess, is when buying new parts, you

can check for support. It's

unfortunately not possible if you

already own stuff and you just want to

switch to Linux. But yeah, be aware of

that because having an alternative

software for your device doesn't mean

it's going to cover all your needs,

especially if you have complex workflow.

I think you have to be ready to fix some

small issues and even maybe script some

things so they work the way you want or

even to fix bugs. I feel like this is

less the case with Windows. Apart from

extending the functionalities, I rarely

feel like I need to do that.

All right, I still have two main

problems which makes the full switch

difficult or kind of impossible for now.

Resolve is the first one. While the

studio version has support for H.264 and

H.265, 265 while the free version

doesn't because of licensing issues. It

doesn't come with AAC support for audio

which is used very often. This is a huge

pain as it means you need to convert

your files first. It's an extra step. It

takes time and space and it's

frustrating. Small frictions like these

cannot be put under the carpet as you're

going to face them all the time.

Thankfully, this can be easily automated

with a small script and ffmpeg, but

still it's not ideal. Also, the initial

installation was a hurdle for me. I was

constantly missing libraries. I don't

know if it's a mint related issue or

not, but after that it was it went

pretty smooth. So, I consider Resolve to

be kind of solved. The other big problem

is Affinity Designer. We talked a little

bit about it earlier. It's important to

separate Affinity Designer 2, the

standalone app that I bought a while

ago, and the newly unified Affinity app

that was released for free when Kenva

acquired SIF. I tried to install

designer on Linux and the experience was

just not great. Uh, one of the simplest

way you can do it is using windboat but

because of the lack of GPU acceleration,

the app feels clunky and when you use

the app a lot, it's awful. Now, people

have made scripts to install the unified

Affinity app uh, which I guess is using

Wine behind the scene and I've tried it.

The experience is better, but still not

on the same level as on Windows. Also, I

have a pretty big problem with this new

app. When you open a project with it, it

wants to convert to a dot affinity and I

just don't trust a company. I paid for

designer because I liked the idea of

owning the software knowing I could open

my project in the future as long as the

computer could install the app. With

Affinity and Canva behind it, I can't

trust I will be able to access all of

the features I want without paying a

subscription in the future. Right now,

only a small portion of AI features are

behind a pay wall, and I don't care

about that. But we've seen that premium

model enough to know it will become

at some point. I don't know if I will be

able to convert my Affinity files to

Designer. So, I just want to avoid the

app for now. On top of that, I've been

pretty disappointed with the app as I

used it more. I often use Figma for

quick editing and UI work and the

features and UX are just so much better.

On top of that, they recently added more

drawing capabilities like pattern,

variable brush strokes, etc. So, it

seems like a much better fit for what I

do. Of course, Figma is still a

proprietary software that runs on a

subscription if you want more features,

of course, otherwise it's free. So,

that's a big risk. The alternatives are

not there yet. Graphite is a vector

editing software that looks really cool

and I want them to succeed. Mainly,

their procedural generation tools looks

amazing, but again, some core features

are missing. It's a free and open-

source software, which I like. So, I'm

supporting them financially in the hope

that they'll become better. maybe like

the GDAU or Blender of vector editing.

So, as you can see, I don't really have

a solution for this problem. I think

I'll just have to settle for something

else than Affinity while I need to use

it often. I'll just switch to my Windows

partition and hopefully at some point

I'll have a real replacement. So, if we

take a look at the situation, most of my

needs are met and some things are

actually way more enjoyable under Linux.

This is honestly incredible and I'm

truly amazed by the amazing works that

the Linux community has done. I feel

like Linux is incredibly mature

nowadays. It feels like most people

should be able to switch without that

much trouble, especially if what they do

is simple media consumption, gaming or

office work. The main issue is software

and device support. And unfortunately,

this will only change if companies sees

Linux as an OS they have to support,

which is probably not the case right

now. While I said most people should be

able to switch, the truth is probably

most people won't care about switching.

And for a lot of them, they won't even

be able to technically do it. Flashing a

USB drive, going into the BIOS,

installing Linux alongside Windows or

even replacing it is way too technical

for many users. Even if they were able

to do it, there are still some issues

that require editing config files or

using the terminal. And again, most

people don't want to do that or are not

capable of doing that. It doesn't mean

that Windows or Mac OS don't have

issues, but it's still a bit more

userfriendly, or at least it appears.

So, it's a shame that a missing piece is

specific software, as Linux makes a lot

of sense for people with technical

skills and specific requirements. The

nature of open- source allowing a lot of

customization and modifications makes it

perfect for technical people. But

unfortunately, we also have specific

needs compared to normies, if I can say.

Weirdly enough, my girlfriend has been

rocking Elementary OS on her laptop for

2 years without any particular issues,

but she's also only using a browser

really, and she's using Linux because I

decided to put Linux on her machine.

Otherwise, she would still be using

Windows and she would have probably

switched to Windows 11 when she was

forced to. While I would love to only

daily drive Linux and I would benefit

greatly from all it can offer, I'm also

held back by specific software and

companies not caring about Linux, the

reality is that switching to a new OS

can be a lot of work. And when you use

your computer as a tool to make stuff

for work, switching is just more work

that prevents you from doing what you

actually want. I can totally imagine why

some people like to dro hop, kind of

like as a hobby. But what I want from my

computer and my tools is stability. I

don't want to spend time fighting bugs

or reconfiguring things over and over. I

think it's partly why it's so hard to

motivate people from switching to

Windows. While it has tons of flaws,

you're used to them, and you might even

have workarounds. You also have years of

habits, tools, and configurations that

are already in place. Again, the more

technical you are, the more specific

your work is, the harder it's going to

switch. You have more tools to replace,

more configurations to redo, and you

can't simply just switch to Inkscape or

It's just not a good replacement.

With all of that said, I still want to

use Linux as much as possible. Recently,

I had some tight deadlines and I just

found myself using Windows all the time

to keep access to some tools, mostly

Affinity Designer, but after my current

game, Lexis Bell will be released, I

should be able to breathe a bit more,

and I'll definitely go back to using

Linux more. This means I have to make

choices and find ways to replace

Affinity, for example. By the way, when

you're watching this, my game Lexis

Spell probably has a demo or maybe is

already released. It's a cool rogike

word game with a physics twist, so check

it out on Steam or itch if you're

interested. I still daily drive Linux on

my laptop, my Steam Deck, my servers,

both my VPS and my Jellifin local

server. But also, I'm not doing anything

very specific with them. It's mostly

gaming, light gaming, and media

consumption. And as I said previously,

this is a perfect use case for that.

That being said, I'm pretty sure I'll

just keep my Windows installation on the

side just because I still have an

ongoing Xbox Game Pass subscription that

only works on Windows and for specific

tools that are configured for Windows,

maybe not even available for Linux, like

the Nintendo Switch SDK stuff. But to be

honest, I didn't look that much into it,

so maybe it could work. I'd love to hear

your experience with Linux. And if you

have suggestions, tools I can use,

configs, whatever, please don't hesitate

to leave them in the comments. If you

haven't made the switch yet, I greatly

encourage you to give it a try. You're

probably going to be incredibly

surprised and there are tons of dros to

discover, so I'm sure there will be

something for you out there. If you want

to support me, my games are on Steam and

check out Lexusbell, which has a demo. I

also have a Patreon if you want to

donate or just follow me there for free.

Thanks again to boot.dev for sponsoring

the video. Check it out using the link

in the description. I'll see you in the

next one, hopefully using Linux. Bye.