As strange as it sounds, I think Valve is extremely well-positioned to ship what becomes one of the first true Linux desktop experiences. There's a huge demand for gaming x ai development, both of which have similar hardware requirements, and Valve is already polishing their linux experience with Steam Deck. If they launch their own desktop with a properly managed OS and hardware, I think it would legitimately become a contender among a very wide range of users.
Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
231–240 of 560 posts
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#232It's weird how Steam doesn't automatically set the toggle that lets you play most Windows games through Proton instead of having that be an opt-in you need to know about. It really is extremely stable and polished these days.
I just wish they had to toggle to use proton by default for all games, regardless of if a Linux version exists. There have been several games where I ended up with the buggy abandoned Linux version (Rocket League is a particularly egregious example of this) instead of the much better supported Windows + Proton version.
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#233Guys, we can do it!
LET'S GO FOR BROKE!!!
LET'S BREAK THE 3.5% BARRIER BEFORE GNU HURD WINS NEXT YEAR!!!!
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#234IMO the biggest barrier to linux is disappearing - the requirement to know how to use the command line. You still have to use it, but you don't have to know how to use it anymore with the introduction of LLMs. I also have switched my primary desktop from Windows to Linux, and now when I have an issue, I just ask an LLM. I play pretty fast and loose with just chucking commands it gives me into the command line. I'm pr…
You don't really have to use it. Not for most of the things that a typical desktop user would need to do. It helps though.
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#235I made the switch more than a year ago and it's been basically problem free. Almost all modern games work flawlessly through proton and I get better compatibility for really old stuff through lutris than I ever did on windows (I used to have to run a win 3.1/95/98 vm to play certain older games, now I just use lutris/wine). The only stuff that doesn't work is multiplayer games with unsupported anticheat - it's always…
When I was younger I also was like that.
As I got older, my interests in games decreased. That and also because I am too dumb to make wine work with games nowadays; it was easier in the 32bit era. :\
But the real problem is lack of time. There are so many things to do and so little time. Today's games are also not as interesting IMO. Most of them are just "who has the better 3D engine".
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#236Biggest hurdle for me to do this is just multiplayer games. I wish Linux would offer a solution to that. No idea what it would look like though. Contrary to most Linux advocates I’m a big believer in giving studios the tools they need to defeat cheaters and I don’t care much about system integrity if it means fairer games.
The anticheats themselves typically do support Linux, it's the devs that don't choose to use them
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#237I am a big fan of gaming on Linux, but I've been running into weird bugs with some of my favorite games. For example, a couple months ago, my install of TW:WH3 started to crash after 20-30 seconds in the main game. I think it started happening after a minor patch. Another example is Battle Brothers. The game ran flawlessly. Then I installed and played a copy on a Windows laptop using the same Steam account. After tha…
The frustrating thing is that it's very difficult to figure out why a game is crashing unless you run Steam from a terminal. The logs are hard to find otherwise - at least if you're using the Flatpak version of Steam.
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Everything I’ve seen suggests that Microsoft has entered the metaphorical private equity phase of investment in Windows. They’ve already given up any expectation of it being a viable competitor long-term and are purely focused on milking as much short-term revenue from the product as possible before it dies. I’m sure windows will continue to exist and maybe be relevant for at least a decade. But it will be in zombie/…
My tech friends always joke that pretty soon we’re going to see “the year of the Linux Windows”, where windows will just be an OS on top of the Linux kernel. I think we’re only half joking though, I could see it happening.
> "My tech friends always joke that pretty soon we’re going to see “the year of the Linux Windows”, where windows will just be an OS on top of the Linux kernel."
There's no need because the Year Of Linux On The Desktop™ already happened and it's called WSL2. Meanwhile, the opposite has also already actually happened: SteamOS + Proton is a distro whose main purpose is to be a launcher for Windows apps on a Linux kernel.
Jokes aside, this chest-thumping is incredibly ironic for those of us who lived through the 1990s-2000s. First it was, "FOSS will eliminate all proprietary software and M$ (sic) will be crushed and Bill Gates will go to the poorhouse. Hooray!" Later, it became "Well, we haven't killed proprietary software but at least Linux / LAMP and Firefox are succeeding at taking down Windows and Internet Explorer. Hooray!" Now it's "Maybe Microsoft will consider switching its kernel to Windows. Probably. Someday. Hooray?" What's the backpedaling of the 2030s going to be?
Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
Goodness the file save dialog(s) on Windows - it makes it so hard to save a file into my personal space. It's unintuitive and you need to click through, I think a couple of dialog boxes before you get to 'Your Documents'.
In what application is it like this? I don’t find this true at all. It’s a completely customizable sidebar.
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Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark
#240Biggest hurdle for me to do this is just multiplayer games. I wish Linux would offer a solution to that. No idea what it would look like though. Contrary to most Linux advocates I’m a big believer in giving studios the tools they need to defeat cheaters and I don’t care much about system integrity if it means fairer games.
The anticheats themselves typically do support Linux, it's the devs that don't choose to use them
Well EAC for example is user space only because it has to be, which some games decide is not an acceptable level of security.