Install steam for Linux. There's enough good games that, unless you are an enthusiast, gaming on Linux only is completely acceptable. I'd recommend Civilization V, dreamfall chapters, spec ops: the line (way smarter than it looks), witcher 2, team fortress 2 and braid. Those are the kinds of games that are officially supported for Steam on Ubuntu these days. Most of the rpg classics (torment, baldur's gate etc) on gog.com also works on linux, if that's more your thing.

Here's an up to date list about great games to play on Linux right now: http://boilingsteam.com/recommended-games/

Thanks for the tip. Last time I tried steam on Linux it only supported Ubuntu and only has 32bit packages with broken i386 compatibility dependencies but that's probably changed now I'm assuming. I've actually really been enjoying Elite: Dangerous recently and they've just come out with an OSX client which is great.

I run Steam on two different 64 bit Fedora machines (one with AMD, one with nVidia). It might have installed 32 bit compatibility libraries, but I don't mind and didn't notice, if it did.

Civ V and all of the Valve games are excellent under Linux. Rust is a little flaky, but I get the impression it's a little flaky under Windows, too.

Elite: Dangerous is fantastic on the Mac. Runs better than on Bootcamp on the same machines I play in (2011 iMac, 2015 15in Macbook).

[Warmly recommended][1] game if you are into space and simulations.

[1]: http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2014/07/elite-dangerous-edu...

Edited to change 2012 to 2011 iMac.

Steam on Linux is pretty craptacular overall but it does work on my 64bit Fedora with no additional effort besides installing it. Some games even work better on Linux (e.g. Kerbal Space Program).

afaik the witcher 2 port for linux is actually really poor quality to the point of being just barely playable with a solid machine. or so i heard.

You heard something that was true when it was released but which is completely wrong now after many updates. I finished the game from A to Z on Linux and while it still have some crashes it's perfectly playable even on a medium configuration (amd excluded, but that does without saying on Linux right now)

I can't play The Witcher 2, at all. It literally kills my computer, both on Jessie and Sid. After a few seconds in the game my GPU crashes or the kernel panics. It's most likely because of radeonsi.

Yeah, as I hinted in another comment, the games using eON technology for porting do not work so well with AMD yet.

All I found is that games ported with eON technology only work with the binary nvidia driver. Do you have more information about this?

What I find strange is that the game starts and seems to render fine, and then crashes the whole machine[1].

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=788779

Edit: fixed the link

No, I think they work with the AMD binary blob driver as well, but they have some display/compatibility issues with the drivers on those. You should check the official GIthub trackers for Witcher 2 and Bioshock Infinite, some issues are reported there.

Fair enough it was a little time ago, glad to hear it's better now. However, even though I have been gaming on Linux for years, if playing a high-end title I encounter any performance problems I see no reason not to switch to Windows. You pay for the hardware and the game to have a high-end experience and then you limit that, for what?

Having said all that I have been buying lots of games from GOG and have been really impressed with the quality AND quantity of linux versions.

It's not very good, no, but it works. Many gamers don't really care that much about graphics settings and if you do then Linux gaming is not for you anyway. The graphics drivers and the game executables are more optimized on windows, and that's just the current state of the world.

That wasn't the case when I used to run Windows and I really doubt it is a supportable blanket statement that can be made now.

Well, the consoles always win on optimization. However, Windows is a lot better supported than Linux or Mac. There's no other way to see it, really.

GOG also has many Linux games, and all of them are DRM-free.

Love Linux and I even got work to allow me to work on OpenSUSE in a non-technical job, but you can do all you just said on Windows and very easily.

ssh and git: I personally use mobaXterm for git and ssh. Others like putty and other different programs.

Also Windows 7 and 8 do have a monthly update that does require the machine to reboot which is stupid, but I wouldn't say someone couldn't get work done with Windows. That is not the reason why I use Linux. I use Linux because I can set up my computer any way I like and use any kind of work flow that is best for me. It is also much easier to script and program common tasks.

While you 'can' do those things on windows - it's truly horrible and you lack all the local tools that allow me to work properly. Windows just isn't a good client for administering servers (unless they're running windows I guess?).

Have you ever tried mobaxterm? It is that good for Admin you get XForwarding and great tools.

Local tools is different, but administratively you get great ssh and well that's all you need. I go full screen and tmux and I am good as gold. If need be XForarding is available but people that install X on servers need to be put through tiny cut on a slide that ends in a pool of rubbing alcohol.

I have a Windows system with Steam Home Streaming that stream video to a Linux system. It works really well! Quality is great on a gigabit network and latency isn't noticable at all(I play a lot of DOTA2 at 4K+ rating). I can even stream third party games like Diablo 3 or applications like Microsoft Word.

This Windows system is like a server, however I need to use TightVNC as remote desktop. Regular remote desktop doesn't work.

Do you have any more info on how you set that up? I kinda want a gaming PC but I like my current laptop/monitor setup, maybe I could leave the PC sitting in the corner of the room running headless, and stream the content to my laptop?