2025 Might Have Been The Year For Linux Gaming, But There's Still A...

Windows, sadly, still offers some things that Linux cannot.

2025 has probably been the best year for Linux that I can remember, at least from the perspective of general PC users. It's had tons of publicity as a viable alternative to Windows, even, and perhaps especially for gaming. I switched to it myself earlier this year, but I'm back on Windows and I don't think I'll be switching back to Linux properly any time soon.

The Linux hype this time was precipitated by Valve's Linux-based operating system, SteamOS, opening up for use on other handhelds than just the Steam Deck. That had been long on the cards, but it finally started seeming close at hand early on this year.

SteamOS has shown what Linux can be capable of for gaming in large part because of Proton, the compatibility layer Valve employs to translate Windows commands into ones that Linux can understand. It's a fork of WINE tailored towards gaming, created and maintained by Valve specifically for that purpose.

Over the years, Proton has gotten so good that compatible games tend to run flawlessly. Valve has an incentive to ensure this is the case, as a great gaming experience on SteamOS via Proton makes for more Steam Deck and Steam Store sales.

The development and improvement of Proton has been a massive part of what's made Linux distros genuinely viable for gaming. And yes, I said "distros", plural, because any distro can use Proton, as it's built into Steam for Linux. It's not just a SteamOS thing.

The recent popularity of SteamOS in particular, though, was spurred by the Lenovo Legion Go S, which Valve and Lenovo had been collaborating on to make the first third-party SteamOS handheld. But even before the SteamOS version of the Legion Go S launched, some handheld gamers started manually downloading and installing the Steam Deck's recovery image of SteamOS on their own handhelds.

I tried this out myself with the initial Windows version of the Legion Go S and was very impressed. Performance is better, as is sleep/resume functionality, and of course the overall full screen UI is much nicer. There are downsides, such as lack of support for some games, but any game I've wanted to play on handheld has worked just fine, so I'm happy sticking with SteamOS for gaming on handheld.

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Then the official SteamOS version of the Legion Go S actually launched, and that's been one of the most popular choices

Source: PC Gamer