I fully second the sentiment that there is no good reason to switch distribution once you have found one that you like.

However, if your goal is to learn something new, and you don’t care about having to nuke the install and start over, then you could go the crazy route and install Linux From Scratch. It is unlikely to yield a maintainable result at first try, but if learning is your goal, this is your best shot at it.

Or you could go the not-that-crazy route and use Gentoo, which is basically Linux From Scratch, but automated. Setting it up is way quicker (couple of hours - except if you configure the kernel by hand), and you will with near certainty get a maintainable system on first try, but it is also far less educational, given that the automation does most of the work for you. (I have switched from Debian to Gentoo 10 years ago, after trying it on my netbook for some time, and I could not be happier. It only does what it should, is rolling release, and only very rarely has issues.)

I would only recommend those two approaches on a second PC though, without immediately switching the main PC over. Linux From Scratch is, as said, unlikely to yield a maintainable installation on first try, so you will likely nuke the install again. Gentoo, while perfectly usable as a daily driver, is certainly not everyone’s beer, and you might simply want to switch away again because you don’t like it.

I guess this was being sarcastic, but just in case it wasn’t:

If you launch the game through Steam that probably won’t matter, because Steam brings along its own libraries for games to use. That collection of libraries is called “Steam Runtime”, and if the game only uses libraries from the Steam Runtime, it will run on any distribution that the Steam Runtime is compatible with (what afaik means basically all distributions).

There are some exceptions though. Graphics drivers for instance are not bundled in the Steam Runtime.

And last, but not least: Even if you don’t run the game through Steam, it’s probably just a bunch of libraries that need to be installed. They only need to be the same or a newer version than those used on the developers’ build server.

You have Debian experience? Then stick to it. It may be boring, but boring is good. That means it doesn’t need much maintenance, and that it just works.

They have done that already. It’s called Kylin.

I don’t know if this applies to CLAW, but many games back then had their audio stored as CD Audio Tracks. If that is the case, you might want to actually emulate a CDROM drive instead of just extracting the files. There is a CDROM emulator for Linux, called CDEmu, which can read CUE/BIN CD Images.

Oh, and that game seems to have an ancient 16-bit installer, which might not work on modern systems. However, according to WineHQ Appdb one can just copy the files from the CD and it works.

In addition to LibreOffice I often use standalone tools.

If I want a high quality document, I use LaTeX. Same for presentation slides. However, writing stuff in LaTeX is only worth the effort if the quality is needed. For non-important stuff I just use LibreOffice.

For calculations it depends on what I want to have in the end. If I just want to play with the data a bit, then LibreOffice Calc it is. However, if it is for something serious, I tend to write script files, or even full programs, that do the processing. That way computation and data is in separate files, and the used formulas are clearly visible and easy to debug.

I have been a user since the 90s. Back then it was still called StarOffice.

Its feature set differs from that of MS Office, and its performance could be (a lot!) better, but I strongly prefer the LibreOffice user interface, and the features that matter to me (like CSV import) are way better in LibreOffice. However, LibreOffice does not have all the features of MS Office, and some are notably worse (for instance auto-fill in spreadsheets, where Excel is way better at guessing the next value).

Sadly it’s not only a matter of preference, because file exchange between different office suites is not flawless. MS Office and LibreOffice don’t agree 100% on how to load each other’s files…

Yep, innoextract just unpacks the files, and I then place them into a folder in the home dir. Before I knew about innoextract I also just used WINE to run the installers, and then copied the installed files around. (btw, the apple pkg installers can also be unpacked by a combination of 7z and cpio - in case you just want to unpack one of the many GoG Dosbox games and don’t have innoextract or WINE available)

I have a folder named ~/Games - and the individual games in subfolders there. In Steam’s “add non-steam game” dialogue there’s a “browse” button, and in that one I then select the .exe file of the game. That adds it to the library, and allows selecting Proton as compatibility tool in the preferences.

I am pretty sure the Steam Client reports which games you play to Steam’s “presence” service, such that your Steam Friends can see what you are playing. I don’t know if Valve gathers that data for other purposes (but would assume they do unless told otherwise). Also, some games that ship with Steam integration in their GoG installer (e.g. Loop Hero) will even track as you playing the Steam version - even if you don’t own it there.

And yeah, there is no GoG Galaxy emulation in Steam of course, but I honestly don’t care much about achievements. The lack of cloud support in non-Steam games is annoying though, as I also have a Steam Deck and those saves don’t automatically synch…

I usually just download the installers from their website. It’s not like I would need to install or update games on a day to day basis…

If the installer is only available for Windows (or if I am using my ARM laptop) I use innoextract to extract the files without needing to run the installer.

For Windows games I found that the easiest way to deal with them is to add them to the Steam Library as a non-steam-game, and to force Proton on them…

Yeah. Super annoying…

AppImage: It solves the problem of too many dependencies by introducing more dependencies.

Does anyone know how to report bugs for this? Because the Linux build is linked against libcurl-gnutls, but libcurl-gnutls is not included in the appimage…

I had to unpack the appimage, and manually create a symlink to my system’s libcurl to get it to run.

Yep. With Kingmaker it was extra annoying, because the game has Steam Deck Verified rating, and the Steam Deck defaults to the Linux build.

Thing is, you can play through the whole first chapter of the game with a gamepad without issues… However, once you unlock the Kingdom Management screen, you run into the bug, which is a soft-lock once you open said screen. The UI doesn’t properly initialize, all text fields remain at their default value, and you cannot make any inputs any more. Luckily the ESC-Menu still works, so you can save your progress…

If it weren’t for the Steam Deck, I guess very few people would have run into this bug, if any at all. Kingmaker has a different UI if played with a gamepad, and even though Kingmaker’s gamepad-UI is done really well, it is clear that it is meant for playing the game on a TV screen (think: consoles). If you are sitting right in front of your screen (PC), the UI you see when playing with mouse and keyboard is superior in each and every aspect.

There is a Wikipedia article about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games

It is, however, vastly incomplete, as entries without “reliable sources” get deleted. Mind that linking the source code repository, the steam page, the license file and news about a game going open source are not enough to count as “reliable source”.

I’ll go with “less than 100 reviews”, as with “less than 1000” my list would get really, really long. This leaves two titles in my Steam Library which I think deserve way more attention than they got:

• ComPressure: It’s a Zachtronics-like game, where you build analogue and logic circuits using steam pipes and valves instead of wires and transistors. Its UI is a bit unwieldy, but the game itself is amazing, and it really is a shame that it hasn’t gotten more attention. Also, while there is a paid version on Steam, the game’s source code is available.
• Crown of Pain: It’s a match-3 with RPG elements. That’s basically all that is to it, but it’s a lot of fun.

My top answers are of course Kerbal Space Program, Dwarf Fortress and Stellaris.

However, all those have been mentioned already, so, to add something new to the list: Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It is currently my favourite cRPG.

Edit: Since you mentioned “Great Linux ports”: Kingmaker has a game-breaking bug in the Linux version regarding Gamepad input. However, as long as you play it with mouse and keyboard (as the gods intended - insert PC Master Race meme), the Linux version is working perfectly fine. However, if you plan on playing it on the Steam Deck, you might want to play the Windows build.

This. I had written a similar last paragraph in my answer below, but decided to delete it before submitting.

I have to suffer Windows at work. No way on earth this sad excuse for an operating system gets anywhere near my gaming PC. I want my gaming PC to be for fun stuff, not use it to torture myself.

First things first: This hasn’t happened to me in ages. I even stopped looking at ProtonDB. Stuff just runs.

However, if a game I buy really wouldn’t run on Linux, I would just refund it (if possible) and play something else. I have a pile of shame that could fill a hundred lifetimes, I really don’t need to play this one particular game.

I’m not sure what problem you are encountering exactly, but switching to another virtual terminal might still work. By default, the virtual terminals are linked to the F1-F8 keys, and the combo to switch from a graphical session usually is CTRL+ALT+Fx.

On that other virtual terminal, you might be able to kill KWin.

While gaming performance with the nVidia drivers is often better (I’m talking about FPS alone, not taking into account the card price), the interaction with the desktop environments is way better for AMD, because their drivers are fully maintained as part of open source projects. What I mean are the tools to configure display resolution, and if you are using multiple monitors, their relative positioning. Everything just works. This alone is reason enough for me to strongly recommend AMD over nVidia.

The main issue with btrfs is the RAID 5/6 write hole. If you aren’t planning to use RAID 5/6, it’s fine.

There are some other problems too, but those don’t affect data integrity. The most annoying one currently is that defragmenting breaks reflinks, such that snapshots get turned into full copies, potentially wasting a lot of space. (I have honestly no idea how noticeable fragmentation is on SSDs, and if defragmenting is even worth it nowadays.)