Discussion
Why am I even using Linux and the accompanying inconveniences when gaming when with all the slop in the kernel and elsewhere in the stack I might as well just cut out the middleman and run Windows?
I hate that I'm asking myself this question, but here we are.
@thomholwerda Valid question. I moved into the Apple ecosystem this week, and picked up a Macbook Air. If everything is slop, might as well have the convenience and battery life of a Mac. I'm not even a purist, but the slop and fascism adjacent personalities in free software have finally turned me off.
@thomholwerda could be worse, you could be a Mac gamer. 
Anywhere I'm not playing games I can move to OpenBSD (hardware support willing), but on my gaming PC, that's not an option.
@thomholwerda hang on isn't open BSD getting slop too?
Does your PC have an AMD GPU? Then you could slap the gaming distro on an external drive (SSD for proper throughout recommended) and run OpenBSD as the main thing. But this is just a hypothetical option.
If you have "the other GPU vendor" then you are really out of luck. No bueno with the Puffster.
Basically how I have my gaming rig fixed. No way jose that I am letting systemd-osd anywhere real data that isn't a savegame.
@h3artbl33d That's basically what I'm doing though with my dedicated OpenBSD machine connected to the same monitor/keyboard/mouse through a KVM. I really like being able to press one hardware button and be in a nice, comfy, solid OpenBSD/Xfce4 environment.
@thomholwerda
The slop is there but the AI features (Copilot etc) and data collection are not, so you're still better off.
And that's a durable statement, because, well, it's FOSS. Anything like that gets added, it can be stripped right back out, VSCodium style.
Also, AI isn't the only reason to not use Windows.
But yes, moving to BSD or something would be ideal, especially long-term.