Microsoft Flight Simulator – Paul's Tech Talk

Windows 10 was End of Life – So I decided to go to Linux Mint using ChatGPT!

PaulNovember 9, 2025

A fun illustration of a person stepping off a sinking ship with the Windows 10 logo on its sail, onto a bright, stable island with the Linux Mint logo. Bright colors, cartoonish but clean, eye-catching.

Windows 10 = End of Life updates

We knew this was coming a mile a way. It’s been advertised by Microsoft for years now and I just didn’t like Windows 11 and how they were wanting everyone to have an account to be able to use Windows 11. I shouldn’t need to link my account and that is one reason I “Jumped Ship” to Linux Mint. Don’t get me wrong, I use Windows 11 at work and I have no problem with it in my organization but Microsoft has very little information from my work life to my personal life and I am going to keep it that way. Since Microsoft is wanting to prevent users from making local accounts, I0 decided it was time to go check out some other operating systems like Linux Mint.

Using ChatGPT to help Installation!

I knew with my own built system, I built this desktop from mother board to GPU and Intel cpu. I knew I would have some issues with the installation of Mint to this system because it isn’t a prebuilt or one that is built by any companies. Let me be clear my system was built by me 3 years ago and it has been solid ever since the real issue is that the Mint is a lot of time developed for prebuilt systems, Asus, Dell, HP, and even Microsoft computers. It’s not something that will be a lot of issue for most because if you have a laptop or desktop that is pre-built then it most likely will install without a problem but my system has some special needs. I need it to do Video editing, Gaming, and even word processing from time to time. That’s where ChatGPT was really helpful. I didn’t have to go searching Google or Bing for how to solve issues like my video drivers and my KeyChron Keyboard which is AWESOME with this setup. Don’t get me started on Getting Resolve Video editing to be able to work with Linux but Chat GPT walked me through how to setup all the things I needed for me to be able to do what I needed. It even suggested ways to install the software from

Apt-get update to Apt-get Install
Or from the
Software Manager

First Impression of Linux Mint

It’s really not bad and I have a Good Geoforce RTX 3050 that is working just fine with the video drivers that I installed using ChatGPT. Gaming on it might be a bit different but most of my games including Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 are working just fine using Steam and Proton. They’ve really did do a good job with that and making it more available to the Linux Community is strangely getting better and better every day. I’ve used ChatGPT to help install Microsoft Flight Simulator even though there is people who have talked about how to get it to run on ProtonDB but it would of been harder to do without using ChatGPT to help install and get the game running smoother than it would have in previous years. The graphics for the game are top notch even now using the Graphics drivers and it even has seen some better FPS on MINT than Windows 10. So I can’t say I am looking at this without saying it is getting better.

Final Thoughts on Mint

If you’re staring down the “End of Life” message on Windows 10 and wondering what to do next, Linux Mint is absolutely worth trying. The learning curve is real, especially on custom-built hardware like mine, but ChatGPT made every step from Nvidia drivers to DaVinci Resolve, way easier than digging through old forum posts. What surprised me most is that not only does everything I need actually work, but in many cases it works better. My games run smoother, Resolve is stable, and my Keychron keyboard feels like it was built for Mint. If you’re on the fence about switching, let me just say this: I wish I had done it sooner.

In my opinion I’d say give a few Linux Operating systems a try and decide which one is best for your situation and know that at the end of the day. Your data is kept away from Microsoft now that you are using a free operating system.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – Not recommended (Day 5)

PaulNovember 24, 2024

Microsoft Messed up this game!

I honestly think Microsoft really did work hard at getting this Flight Simulator out before the end of the year and this is the results of their determination to release. Some of the things people are having the problems with this game is suddenly returning to desktop and other issues with the game if you are using playing on the desktop. I haven’t heard as much of problems on the XBOX gaming systems but I suspect that was how Microsoft wanted it. However, I do think the Cloud idea was an idea and wasn’t the best idea. I much preferred to download the game blob like I did with MSFS 2020 but they want to do it from cloud. I have yet to get any good playable graphics like they show on the movies.

Career Mode

Great Idea and I love the idea of learning what it really takes to become a commercial pilot and to PPL(Private Pilots License). I am glad to actually see how you would do it and the walking around the plane is good for the first few missions but is it required for the rest of the missions and flying? I don’t know it is a necessary thing if you are truly flying the plane to check the plane before you fly it. So I get the idea and how it is something a real pilot will do. Doing all the things you learn from becoming a pilot may help you in actually becoming a pilot. So I can’t say this isn’t a bad idea or part of the game.

World Photographer

Great way to explore the sites around the world and are a combinations of the MSFS 2020 and probably some new places in MSFS 2024. So it is great resource for those who want to fly a plane and see these places. You can probably walk around the explore them on foot in if you know how to do it. However this isn’t anything new because it was somewhat available on the MSFS 2020 and was free for all to download. I still don’t like the idea of using being maps to create the terrain on MSFS 2024 and I have yet to explore the idea of switching to something that has newer terrain images like Google or some other provider.

All in All

This isn’t really a better version such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. For the most part it can take anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes to load the game because it being used in the cloud. Multiple people complaining about how bad it is or put up a negative review of it on steam. If Microsoft and Asobo wants to make this game better they will need to put out some major updates to address all the crashing and have the game utilize peoples GPU to make the game work even better and make it look like the intro videos that they show while the game loads. Don’t get me wrong they are doing it in a way to draw people into wanting to play the game but I have a pretty good system myself and I have a 30 series GPU so it should be able to do everything that video is looking like. However that isn’t the case and it will probably never look that way since the game is being played from the cloud and we aren’t able to use the graphics that they want us to use for the game. This will be like the Last of Us and the graphics will eventually get better or at least become more stable to not be a problem. However Microsoft kind of ruined the game by releasing so soon when they should of worked harder at making it a better experience with their customers. I’m going to sit back and take a waiting stance they fix all these problems that users are complaining about and then I will decide if this is better than MSFS 2020 but for right now it’s not even close. MSFS is winning in my mind because I don’t have to worry about the game loading and crashing all the time.

How to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Steam version on Linux Mint 20.1

PaulJune 30, 2021

Run Microsoft Flight Simulator

I’ve been trying to get this to work the last few days on Linux because of Windows 11 set to come out in the follow months. However, I was also wondering if this would work on Linux as it should be able to to do. As you know steam has some great ways to run windows games on it. The problem that most people have is just to figure out the right way to run it. I am here to help those who might still be having difficulty in running Msfs2020(Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) on Linux because it seems to have so many people having issues with running it. According to ProtonDB, This game should be playable with Gold standards which means it should run perfectly after some tweaks. I don’t know about the rest of you but It’s more than some tweaks but I digress.

Install wine

The First step you will need to do is check out my other post about installing Wine on Linux Mint. If you followed those instructions you are half way to getting it to run on Linux. You’ll however want to install all the Wine DB and API’s that are associated with Wine to get it to work. That includes but not limited to Q4wine, Playonlinux, Winetricks, All Wine Compatibility layers(Windows-Desktop-files also), Wine-binfmt and the API layers that is associated with Wine. I found sometimes they don’t automatically install these but they are necessary for several other games.

Install Graphics Drivers

Go to your driver manager app and make sure you have the GPU driver for your system. I currently have a NVIDIA 1660 Super and an Intel 10-850 Core. First I’d try the recommended but we’ll discuss this at the end. Always download the recommended driver on Linux Mint but if you have a different Linux and want to download the NVIDIA drivers, check out the NVIDIA Unix Drivers for them to work with your system. If you have an AMD GPU, you can visit the AMD website for your Linux Driver. Once those are installed, you will probably need to reboot your system to make sure your drivers are active when playing on Steam or other games. Each time there is an update, it will probably be a good idea to reboot just to make sure the drivers you want are being used by the system.

Install Steam

It seems Linux Mint 20.1 or some earlier version installs the Flathub version of Steam when they install Linux Mint. Uninstall that version first, I’ve found that it doesn’t do as a good as a job as the one you can get from the package manager. I also found that it won’t run some games with Proton. So that is the reason I say, just go ahead and uninstall it and install the real one. This is the easy part of the installation. Once done you are more than halfway there to be able to play your games like you want.

Download and Install Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Once you have steam, You can now go ahead and download and install MSFS2020 into steam. This will be a quick process. Steam however will not allow you to download the game until you enable proton. Go over to the Gear icon in steam and left click properties and go to Comparability tab. I’d recommend trying Proton 5.13-6 first because that is what everyone else used to get it to work on their systems according to the ProtonDB. Once you do that, you’ll be able to download MSFS20 and install it. Once installed, you’ll also want to add ‘-FastLaunch’ to the Launch options. Once done with that, hit the little “X” button and try clicking the play button and seeing if it will run.

If it doesn’t work

Sometimes each system is a little bit different. So I’ll talk about ways you can tweak it to get it to work on your system. Some things to try:

Get a New or Older version of the GPU driver
Change the Proton version to a New or Older version or try the experimental version.
Check your Wine Settings(Although I didn’t have to do much with mine just install and try to run the q4wine once that was ran. I didn’t do anything else but quit the program.)
Check the ProtoDB to see what everyone else has done to get the game to run.

I suggest making one change at a time and seeing if the game will run after the change. If it is a GPU driver change, I suggest rebooting to make sure you are using the GPU driver you want to try to run with the program. Also Don’t expect the game to run as smoothly as it does on Windows so be thoughtful when you are playing the game. Sometimes there will be crashes and other things going on. You can however try different configurations to see if you can resolve those issues also. If you like this post please consider buying something from my affiliate list to support my blog and my time in write.