At my new job I spend a lot of time on Linux servers. And while I used MacOS for my day to day machine, several of my colleagues use Ubuntu, Manjaro or Arch Linux for theirs and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. The other two members of my team both use Linux at home as well, and game pretty successfully.

Since the time for a rebuild is approaching this got me thinking - do I actually need to pay for Windows when the time arrives? Then Valve dropped this SteamPlay bomb and I was set.

I initially tried Manjaro, as my colleagues recommended it highly but unfortunately didn’t get on that well with it. It’s a lovely distro to use, and while I didn’t initially get on with it and tried out a couple of others, I’ve come back to it but using Cinnamon as I much prefer that to XFCE and after a fair bit of tinkering I’m very happy. The game support is much better than expected and even when running non-native games through WINE or Crossover the performance is pretty good too. And it doesn’t keep secretly installing bloody Candy Crush when I’m not looking.