this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2026
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Linux Gaming

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Title. I remember having a laptop with an intel iGPU and NVidia dGPU back in the day, and trying to use Linux on it was -- Yeah not really a thing. It meant spending a whole day trying to configure the driver, then you could do optirun command, but depending on the application, it didn't matter how hard you tried or how good you smelled, that shit just wouldn't work.

It's been a long long time. Gaming on Linux has gotten better and better, but I've been using AMD stuff exclusively since ~2018

Still, getting a laptop with an AMD dGPU is... Does anyone other than Framework even make them? Either way I tried and couldn't find any to buy in my country at all.

So I'm eyeing a laptop with an NVidia GPU and an Intel processor. .... But it worries me that I would buy it and find Linux doesn't work on it. I categorically refuse to use Windows on a personal machine ever again, so I'll just do without if NVidia+Linux is still as fuckt as it was back in the day.

In my current machines I use CachyOS, but yeah.

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[–] Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 19 hours ago

I set up my old ASUS dinosaur with NixOS a couple years back. It has an Intel CPU and an Nvidia GPU (it's a 2012-2013 model ROG laptop that my ex abandoned). I don't know how other Linux distros would play, just due to the stuff I hear about the battles between dedicated and internal graphics, but NixOS let's me just declare the GPU I want running 100% of the time, so that was an easy fix for me.

It's so old it has to use Nouveau drivers. It doesn't game all that well (at least not with Steam), even though it was a monster laptop back in it's day. I tried to play Moonring through Steam, which is just an indie, pixel-graphic roguelike and it was choppy af. Tales of Maj'eyal wouldn't run at all. However, the Nix packages for Pixel Dungeon and it's derivatives ran fine. I haven't taken the time to troubleshoot Steam yet, though.

You could backup your stuff, throw a few distro ISOs you're interested in alongside a Windows ISO on Ventoy, and just give it a whirl. Worse comes to worse it just doesn't work and you already have Windows ready to reinstall. Alternatively, it could work with some issues you'd have to troubleshoot, or best case it could just work.