43% of you have, or will be switching to gaming on Linux this year, but more surprising than that over a quarter of you actually don't mind Windows

by adminApril 2, 2026019

Linux is something that has been on our minds, and honestly on our gaming PCs quite extensively over the past few months. Since Valve dropped it into the Steam Deck, and Proton became the way forward for gaming on Linux distros the world over, there has been increased interest in the open source operating system. Is it a viable alternative to Windows, can it actually cope with gaming on high-end hardware, will you be stuck copy and pasting random code into a terminal from here until the end of time?

Yes, yes, and probably.

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Results of Linux reader poll — (Image credit: Future)

For the hard of peeping among you, the results from that frustratingly ill-compressed image are as follows: 29% of the responders to the week’s poll said they had already made the switch over to gaming on Linux; 26% said they actually don’t mind Windows after all, and 14% said they planned to make the switch this year.

Then 10% of respondents each said they were either waiting for better multiplayer game support—Linux still suffers from being locked out of any game that has kernel-level anti-cheat support—or they were waiting for the Steam Machine to come out. Bon chance waiting on that.

Bringing up the rear, so to speak, we’ve got 6% saying that no, they don’t like change, with 5% of respdonents saying they’ve been there already and got burned. Hey, me too, and I still went back.

It is obviously worth noting that the respondents add up to a grand total of 2,333 people, so the sample size is limited. Which means it behooves you to jump into the comments and make a noise about where you stand on this great debate.

We did have another quiz running last week, too, asking the question: Could Nvidia convince you to use DLSS 5? I’ll give you the results to that soon enough, but I think you can probably guess how that one went already…

This week we want to know what resolution you game at. Are you a 4:3 Counter-Strike sicko, have you stuck resolutely to 1080p, or are you all in on ultrawides? Let us know.