It’s not to put down any distro, but the only things I’ve been hearing about Ubuntu for years are negative, even from people who don’t use it for gaming but for native stuff and other tasks. Poor performance, broken things… To the point that many of the rants you see about “Linux” being bad are actually negative reviews that come after using Ubuntu specifically. Of course, this is just what I’ve come across reading online, I don’t actually know if it really works thaaaat badly. That said, in my case, every game I’ve tried on my distro (including repacks) has worked without issues, except for old games. StuntGP is still the only title that won’t run no matter what I do lol.
The process of installing repacks also isn’t very different from Windows, honestly. You open the installer with Wine, install the content, and that’s it. Keep in mind there are launchers that are much simpler to use than popular options like Lutris or Heroic. Personally, Faugus is the only one I like and the only one that has worked well in my experience.
In short, the overall state of gaming is pretty good, in my opinion, and it keeps improving. I recommend checking ProtonDB to get a better idea of which titles work well and which ones don’t.
Software on the other hand, specially cracked… Well, that’s a different story. It might be a huge skill issue from me, but I ended giving up on most software I used on Windows precisely because it always ran like crap on Linux (assuming it ran on the first place). I replaced everything with FOSS alternatives years ago, but there are gaps you just can’t fill in that regard.
Yes, I’ve heard the same and confirmed from experience everything that’s been said haha. I do like Debian and derivatives, but it’s true that more often than not, the libraries that games require are always outdated there (even using sid) which means a lot of stuff not even launching… The small scene from Linux repacks also relies on the latest libs, I remember LinuxRulez telling a lot of people to ditch Debian and use Arch instead if users wanted to use their repacks without any issues. Time flies, I miss that dude.
The general argument I’ve read in the gaming community is that many run their games through Wine anyway, so playing everything natively takes a backseat and isn’t a priority, which I suppose works too I guess… Personally I would always prefer native builds when available, but to each their own. 😅