Well, it’s not GONE. There are still plenty of games that won’t run well on Linux, or they won’t allow online multiplayer because their anti-cheat software is restricted to Windows. But that number is getting smaller every day.
Thats why I specified that, for me, that was enough to switch. I agree that proton isnt there yet and 100% compatibility, and we will probably never get to that. But there are enough games on the market for me to do 90% of my gaming on Linux these days.
Yeah and it’s getting closer all the time. I don’t think we’re that far from a “tipping point” where Windows gets so shitty, and simultaneously Linux gets so good (for gaming specifically) that it would be silly not to switch.
I'm really not convinced that even if linux, at some point, does become a better platform for gaming than windows, that windows users will swap over. Mainstream gamers probably have never installed an OS before, it's intimidating for people.
In its current state I would stick with Windows. But if they make it shittier and shittier… theoretically there is a point where gamers would start switching en masse. Whether or not it will get that bad is debatable.
Ubuntu 23.10 is the first mainstream Linux desktop distro that I think could be good enough for many windows users. Windows really needs to fumble for this to happen though.
I guess it kind of depends on what you mean by “mainstream.” For instance, I would consider Firefox somewhat mainstream. They have enough of the browser market to warrant attention even as modest as it is, but beyond market share, everybody knows that it exists. That in and of itself is incredibly valuable when you have flash in the pan moments where groups of people shift over to other services. If they think nothing exists, they are less likely to do it.
All of this is to say Linux is not going to dominate 80% of the market any day. But if they carve out 10% and become a household name, that is good enough for me. And with things like the steam deck that seems a lot more possible than it did five years ago.
Definitely agree it is not plug-and-play and that is going to be difficult for a lot of people, especially as tech literacy declines with Gen Z. But I don’t think it’s hopeless by any stretch of the imagination.
All I really mean is that most people have never installed an OS before, and that's a big barrier of entry. I've been gaming on linux for a long time and there's a lot of people I know who would just rather deal with the issues new versions of windows have, than deal with the issues I deal with playing games on linux.
Meh. I don’t play multiplayer games at all other than FFXIV and that I haven’t played in over a year. The only thing that would deter me is some visual novels I play are windows only but I could probably just run them in a virtual machine as they’re not demanding.
Games like that just reinforce that a large segment of the gaming population will prioritize Windows, and developers go where the players are. I used to dual boot windows but now run windows as a VM with a VFIO gpu. Works great but it’s annoying to need that for just a few applications.
I'm still on windows because I multibox my main game and the tools to do it don't work, alt tab is a goddamn mess, minimize window on focus loss is a fucking nightmare, and multiple instances of proton just chew up system resources until the game starts lagging so hard I need to quit every client and try again.
it's an edge case but that's quite a lot to deal with when windows just works.
Look at your usecase, if it really requires adobe suite, you are out of luck i’m afraid. Perhaps you could research running a VM or wine, but I havent tried any of that myself.
If you conclude that you dont need features exclusive to adobe you might be able to find a foss alternative.
It works very well, especially if you pass through your GPU and storage. I can even use this setup for Gaming, no significant performance loss compared to Windows. It’s awesome.
About a month ago Windows 11 started forcing ads for apps and services I didn’t need. Immediately installed a popular Linux distribution to have some peace of mind. There’s every flavor of desktop out there. I picked one for work and games (pop_os). It’s out of my way most of the time and it’s not trying to sell me anything. I recommend it, specially, if you’re someone that doesn’t fiddle with settings too much, it just work.
I spent the last ~10 days “playing” with many distros, including testing some current games, and I am literally right now backing up my files and about to reformat my main PC to linux (full drive, no dual). This is after only having experience with copy-paste Raspberry PI guides for my pi-hole.
Don’t totally believe “oh it’s so easy, nothing to configure” - those people are lying, especially if you’ve not used Linux before. But several flavors of Ubuntu are quite pleasant, and I appear to have found a home with PopOS. I can’t find anything that “doesn’t work”, and the worst fixes were just quick searches for help. PopOS won due to nvidia compatibility and a nice, snappy desktop. It also was the fastest in overall reformat cycle time. My wife’s computer is still Windows, if I do have any microsoft emergencies.
It’s “easy” - but that is very subjective, depending on how much you’ve down outside “turning Windows on”. You DO need to make sure your router allows assigning a DNS ip address. Some ISP-supplied units are rather locked down.
I recommend a “kit” from somewhere like CanaKit (amazon has them), to make sure you get the parts you need. It can run on smaller/cheaper kits, but I say get a Pi3 or 4 variant.
Then following the link above, there is great documentation on install. Install “Putty” on windows, which will log into your Pi and allow remote command line, and then the entire process is copy-paste from guides.
After you finish, you may feel “oh that was easy!” - but there’s still some stuff to learn and get used to along the way.
Congrats on picking an awesome distro! :) Pop is really nice, and I’m really excited to see what they do with their desktop environment. I feel like we’re spoiled for choice right now on Linux.
There are always things to configure, just like on Windows. I think some people kind of forget that they had to learn to configure things on Windows at one point. xD
Ok wow… did I jinx myself with this post. Immediately after posting here, I began the install/config phase of a fresh reformat. Encountered a weirdness that the system couldn’t sleep/suspend - immediately woke up. 8 hours later… After installing 5 different distros to confirm it was ALL linux versions (even debian)…
I spent the entire day, 8 hours, searching and referencing and troubleshooting. FINALLY one very random corner of the internet, on an ARCH-LINUX forum, a small comment mentioned that my Gigabyte B550 “had a problem” with sleep. SO THEN I had to start cross-referencing those words (couldn’t “use” the Arch guide, since I was on Pop), and my dude/dudette… I was up to 1am.
Ultimately, I had to COMBINE the “solutions” of FOUR different results, across 2017-2020 (none actually on Ubuntu 22.04) to get the fix to work. Like one taught me the script, but the locations were wrong, one taught me the service I needed, but it was outdated, and then another taught how to fix a service, etc etc, cascading solutions.
SO at close to 2AM - after documenting my own guide, another raw metal install of PopOS, wrote my script & service… and… “it just works!” (pun intended). It works. It sleeps. Have to disable the Gigabyte B550M “GPP0 and GPP8” device, which are bridges to the NVMe drives.
Funny enough though, as much as this is “yup, thats Linux!” I feel like it’s not fair, and not Linux’s fault. This is a random, and really unlucky, issue with my specific board. I am typing this to you, while on my new PopOS install, and sleep/suspend still works.
remembering I started linux 9 days ago, hopefully that’s the biggest adventure I go on for awhile. I wonder if there’s some place I should post my story, but maybe it’s too specific to be wildly helpful.
There are some games that just will not work even under proton, or that have functional restrictions. It’s way fewer games than it used to be, but it’s still not an absolutely perfect solution. I would love to make Linux my gaming OS instead of my “getting shit done” OS like it currently is, I’ve been advocating for it for a few decades at this point and it’s almost there, but it’s not to a point yet where I can unreservedly recommend it to gamers. If you aren’t a gamer I’d say it’s already good enough for anything you need.
To have a logical settings layout, perform well, be stable
Be fully and easily compatible with most mainstream programs and games without having to screw around too much.
Give me back windows 7, add dx12 support, update the back end with any kernel and scheduler updates, call it windows gamer edition. Then fuck off out of my life Microsoft.
Nobody wants to “use an operating system” we want to run programs and do it efficiently, i feel the vast majority of changes Microsoft has made since windows 7 ended has been to the detriment of that.
I can only hope that now with Vulcan becoming more popular and the rise of steam os on the steam deck that we will start to see native Linux aaa games being a thing.
Seems like there’s a need for someone to create tools that strip the latest windows release down to a minimal install, convert all of the smart features back into db menus, standardize the locations of options, and give you opt-in features instead of opt-out.
I think at least the first one kind-of exists, but I haven’t tried Tiny11 so it really couldn’t say if it does; at the very least it shows that Windows ISOs can be modified.
I see lots of love for Linux in the comments which is awesome, but is there anyone considering making a hackintosh out of their machine? Is that a good route to go these days?
Windows 12 is already a failure and it hasn’t even been formally announced yet. Congrats Microsoft! You’ve successfully failed for the second time in a row to deliver a windows version that most users actually like even to the slightest bit.
I guess the actual YOTLD will finally arrive after 20 years.
Wow. I was just taking a break from an ethics assignment whether Copilot is ethical to use while developing code, and then I see this post.
I believe Copilot is mostly ethical to use in development, as a tool. This is just Microsoft trying to force Copilot into a place where it wasn’t meant to be and will lead to so much wasted electricity.
It’s like taking the MVP in Baseball and forcing him to play Tennis and expecting good results against Tennis pros. Stop shoehorning good AI tools into the wrong places that are better equipped using different tools.
Shop around with desktop and distro, but remember it’s not Windows. If you’re looking for it to be Windows, you’re never be happy with it. There is Windows things to unlearn.
Edit: typed the below is a response to someone else’s comment, but I thought it would also be good for me to say in here, to elaborate on my initial comment.
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Fedora/KDE, Steam, Bottles.
Fedora for the quality support and stability of your Linux distro, Steam for, well, Steam, and Bottles for non-Steam games, that still lets you launch those games from inside Steam.
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