Today, I switched the last of my Windows machines to Linux: my gaming PC. I’ve been using Linux on servers for many years but was a bit apprehensive for gaming.
Turns out it just… works. Just installed steam and turned proton on, have zero performance or other issues. I’m using Ubuntu 25.04 for the 6.14 kernels NT emulation performance tweaks. Aside from there not being a catalyst driver for it and so I can’t undervolt my card everything is great.
24.04 doesn’t have 6.14: https://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_6.14#NT_synchronization_primitive_driver_for_faster_games
You made the right call, for your situation.
They’re just letting you know that you will want to apply each annual upgrade when they come out, to ensure your system stays secure.
This may contrast with any Ubuntu-running friends you may have, who may not be applying updates annually.
Once you’ve upgraded to 28 (in ~ 2028) you can safely skip the next four years of updates, if you feel like it, because 28 will (probably) be the next Long Term Support (LTS) release.
Assuming you’re playing games through Proton rather than vanilla Wine, kernels before 6.14 already have fsync which is used by Proton and effectively does the same thing as ntsync.
I don’t think either has ntsync support enabled by default, but it’s supposed to have better accuracy or performance, thanks to putting the needed APIs directly in the kernel, right?
I’m running Fedora and since kernel 6.11 my laptop can’t wake from sleep, so I keep the kernel back to 6.10, where everything works.
But at the same time I have quite heavy troubles with wine/proton. Probably 80% of the games I tried either don’t run at all or only run at <3 FPS. And I’m talking about 10+yo games on a Nvidia 4070 Mobile.
Could it be that the issues come from Wine/Proton expecting ntsync and not having that available?
Good info, but I guess I just upgrade my way to 2604
Don’t get too hung up on it. It was an fyi not a “stop what you’re doing you newb!”
We need people to test the latest, bleeding edge. So you’re helping with that! But since you’re new to Linux I wanted to make sure you knew what you were getting yourself into.
It’s not that odd numbers are less stable. It’s more that they aren’t supported for long term. Many of the lessons learned are pushed to the next version though so either way you’re doing good.
I’m not a PC gamer so for me stamina and longevity matter more to me than bleeding edge technology.