Linux/Ubuntu - any gamers use these OS?

I've been gaming exclusively on linux for a couple years now, with no real complaints. Of course I mostly only play Doom / TF2 / Counterstrike / Skyrim / the odd indie game, so your mileage may vary. Most windows games I've tried run well via WINE (or have linux versions), but certainly not all do. The other biggest thing to pay attention to, in my experience, is your hardware. Make sure your gpu has solid linux drivers, that'll go a long way.

If you absolutely need to play every brand new game flawlessly as soon as it comes out, then maybe stay away. (i.e. a colleague of mine is chapped that he can't play Fallout 4 on his linux box yet.) If you have a bit of patience, and don't mind learning a few new ways to do things, then I think you should take the plunge.

In my experience, '90s-2000s games will usually run at least as well via WINE as they do via the compatibility layer that modern windows uses for them. So if that's what you're into, you're probably in luck.

I can't personally vouch for any FAQs, new user setup guides, etc. I wish I could tell you the best way to start using modern linux, but I had to learn it in a (probably unnecessarily) slow + painful way from a textbook, way back in college. Given how much the 'user experience' side has become more convenient, the 'academic' way of getting started w/ linux is probably going to seem really out of touch to modern desktop users, yet that mindset is what's seared into my brain. I'm sure someone else could give you a better roadmap for what to know, how to do common tasks, how to get things set up.

What I will recommend:
-Don't be afraid to try more than one distro, especially if you're on the fence - making a few bootable USBs or live CDs is really easy these days. Give a few a no-commitment spin before installing anything permanently. If you can find a distro that MOSTLY suits you out-of-the-box, then the transition will probably be more like jumping into a hot tub, rather than an ice bath. I really like Zenwalk/Slackware, but coming from Windows, something Debian-based (i.e. Ubuntu) is probably going to be an easier adjustment.

-Once you find one you like, if you can set up your current machine to dual-boot, absolutely go for it. Even if you keep linux in its own seperate partition, you can generally install a third-party NTFS file system driver. That'll let you access files from the windows partition at will while running linux. I still have a multi-boot setup like this, and it's handy for me because I have programs that must be run natively on different versions of windows, but for manipulating their output files, I need a linux-only tool. In short, you should be able to get started with a new OS by dual-booting, and not have to worry about copying all your files over right away (i.e. not unless you want to ditch windows altogether).

-The WINE user community is generally very helpful. I don't honestly know much about WINE itself beyond a few basic config details, because info on how to run a certain program well with it tends to be widely available.

Good luck, and I hope you give it a shot!

Nice, lemme know how you find it. I've made a few small maps in Eureka, but I haven't tried Slade yet.

Good to hear everything is coming along! ZDoom wasn't the simplest for me to compile either. It took a couple tries to sort out all the dependencies and get the audio working.