Hi,
I recently built a new gaming computer and have been contemplating about the OS.
I prefer to move away from windows given obvious reasons and do like using Linux, but my experience with my steam deck has taught me that pirating games in Linux is hit or miss.
I played around with windows LTSC and honestly, seems like windows without the bloatware.
So question is, how is game pirating on Linux (in a desktop, not steam deck).
Is it as smooth as windows or should I just say fuck it and accept that my gaming computer has to stay windows for another generation?
Where do you get installation media for Windows LTSC?
From Microsoft. They actually provide ISO downloads for the 11 LTSC versions, so there’s not really any reason to go grab some random one off totally-legit-software-and-totatlly-not-malware.com or whatever.
Imagine I’m an idiot, do you have a link or description for where to find those? I looked for them some time ago and found nothing. 🥹
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-11-iot-enterprise-ltsc
Keep in mind, though, that you’ll still have to do some activation and KMS hackery to make them usable, but you can at least use an installer that’s going to be clean.
Thank you!
In my experience, there is nearly no difference between windows and linux when it comes to piracy. There are a few games that linux can’t run (anticheat), but generally that shouldn’t be an issue for games that you would typically pirate. Linux does have a standard learning curve though, and you’ll need to get familiar with Lutris or some other Wine prefix manager to manage your games. If you’re dedicated to moving to linux, game piracy should not be a deciding factor.
So I tried to get a couple games working on my steam deck that didn’t work at all. I do remember trying to run thing with wine, but just gave up and installed the game on a windows computer.
So would I just google Lutris and go from there?
Did you try Desktop Mode on the Deck? Makes things a lot easier. Haven’t had much issue with things like this with my Steam Deck, but on Linux PC, I’ve had none. Ever. Try Bazzite, it’s built for gaming.
I would just Google, “using bottles/lutris to install game on Linux” and I imagine you could find people walking through it.
The steam deck is kinda inconvenient when any level of tinkering is required due to switching between game and desktop mode and the input if you dont attach a keyboard and mouse. Non-deck distros lose the quick settings which I really like.
Try bottles too. you may or may not find it easier than lutris. I find the dependencies easier to install. After checking if anyone has already documented what dependencies are needed (directx, dotnet, etc.), I usually start with the default wine bottles uses, then try wine-ge and tkg at least before giving up. I have yet to find a game that cant be made to work but other software can be very finicky especially once dotnet is involved.
Not sure what quick settings you mean, but have you tried Bazzite yet? I’ve been using it on my laptop for several months now, and it’s been fantastic. Built for gaming, and it seems to already have a ton of shit set up correctly that id normally need to do myself on Arch