Is switching a good idea?
Is switching a good idea?
Eeeeh not really, especially if we are talking about competitive and online stuff - linux players may be barred because of (invasive, unnecessary, spyware-y) anticheat incompatibility. But most do, indeed. Games from GOG or free seas and such can be ran using Heroic launcher relatively easy as with Steam, but you'll need to press a few buttons to set up. Performance wise it depends on the GPU. AMD cards work around the same as they do on windows, Nvidia cards have big troubles with DX12 titles specifically and mostly ok in others. Agree with the guys here - if you are curious, try dualbooting. For the peace of mind try to have a small separate drive for it. There will be no need to reinstall all the games, you can just import the existing steam library from your windows drive. I guarantee you that it will not be a 100% smooth experience but its worth it. Just take your time and don't rush yourself, poke around it, get familiar, with time you will feel more comfortable and them maybe get ready for the move.
However, I believe claiming Linux has a problem with gaming is incorrect information.
Steam OS is primarily designed for the Steam Deck and isn't fully optimized for other devices yet. While development continues, it still has limitations. POPOS leans more toward gaming and runs on Ubuntu, which explains its focus. @ewitte has a valid observation—some anti-cheat tools won't function well on Linux, potentially affecting gameplay. Be prepared for minor issues. Remember, you'll need to interact with the terminal at some stage, so familiarize yourself with command-line operations.
Another consideration, though likely just a matter of ease, is that occasionally during a single drive configuration, the main bootloader can be set to Linux rather than Windows. If you later choose to switch to a different Linux distribution, this might feel somewhat inconvenient. Probably the dual-drive setup offers a bit more flexibility when getting things up and running.
This shouldn't really concern you since it's related to setup. The simplest way is to adjust the EFI boot sequence in the BIOS so that "Windows Boot Manager" appears first, allowing any Linux kernel or other bootloader to take a lower priority. It can also be managed through the command line using efibootmgr. If you're employing GRUB or another Linux-booted system and wish to alter the default choice within its menu, this is typically adjustable—for example, setting GRUB_DEFAULT to 3 for the third option in the menu, or GRUB_DEFAULT to match the title of a specific entry (GRUB_DEFAULT="Windows Boot Manager"), which may not be advised.
Fair point, but it seems having two drives doesn't automatically improve the experience. You'd still need to decide which drive to use for booting whenever you switch to a different operating system. At that stage, you'd have all the available EFI entries to pick from, and I think options like "Windows Boot Manager" or "X Linux Boot Loader" are more intuitive than picking between specific EFI entries for different drives—especially if the drives are nearly identical except for their serial numbers. Maybe this is just my perspective. I could also be indifferent since I'm used to this situation and might not be seeing it clearly from a beginner's view.