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Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

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Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#241

Post by kroaton »

jjcm wrote: post #227

IMO 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…

Arch + Claude Code has been working amazingly well for me. I tried switching from Windows in the past and it never clicked. Now it's been great.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#242

Post by giancarlostoro »

TACIXAT wrote: post #26

I just made the switch. I had been developing on Windows for the last couple of years, mostly to get used to the ecosystem. I wanted to be able to write C and C++ like I do on Linux, without an IDE and with the native toolchain (i.e. no cygwin). On top of that, I play Overwatch every night. Windows just seems to have zero focus on performance though. React based start menu with visible lag, file Explorer (buggily) pa…

I did the same, I had jumped into POP OS instead, which is also Ubuntu based, then a year back I got into EndeavourOS an Arch based distro, and have not looked back since. I use it on everything I can put Linux on.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#243

Post by gambiting »

andoando wrote: post #62
TACIXAT wrote: post #26

I just made the switch. I had been developing on Windows for the last couple of years, mostly to get used to the ecosystem. I wanted to be able to write C and C++ like I do on Linux, without an IDE and with the native toolchain (i.e. no cygwin). On top of that, I play Overwatch every night. Windows just seems to have zero focus on performance though. React based start menu with visible lag, file Explorer (buggily) pa…

I never understood why file search is SOOO bad on windows (mac too). Its so damn slow and even feature wise I never figured out why it was so difficult to just search for files in this directory

It regressed compared to Windows 10 too - I have a folder with photos, I normally have them sorted by date taken. On windows 10 I would open the folder and they were always sorted correctly the moment I opened the folder. Maybe there was a point in time at the start there the system had to sort them for the first time but ever since they were always shown correctly the second I opened the folder. On windows 11? Every single time it opens unsorted, the photos are in some random god knows what order, and literally 10 seconds(!!!!) later they suddenly move themselves to the correct position. Every single time. That's with maybe 200 photos? On a machine with 16 cores and 64GB of ram. People coding on 16kHz chips decades ago could do this faster than whatever microsoft is doing.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#244

Post by echelon »

jjcm wrote: post #227

IMO 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…

Windows coasted on decades of entrenched users from two sources: games and Microsoft Office.

Google docs demolished one of those.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#245

Post by Jach »

wtcactus wrote: post #143

About every 3 months or so, I install some gaming Linux distro (or, if I'm in the mood, install Linux Mint from scratch and try to configure it for gaming) and get solely disappointed and return to windows. Most of the Linux hurdles in day to day work can be overcome (mostly is the lack of the apps I normally use that cause some attrition, but with some compromises and some work I can get around it). But for gaming (…

What games do you play? I really wonder about experiences like these since they differ so much to my own. The only time I mess with linux-specific things like proton versions is if a newly purchased game doesn't launch with the default proton for some reason. It's annoying, sure, but pretty rare nowadays and I usually anticipate it by checking protondb before buying a game rather than after, and it's not like it's much effort to change the version to experimental or hotfix or add a launch option. Only a handful of games have required anything more complicated like using protontricks to get extra dlls (something I've had to do on Windows for various games anyway) or the GloriousEggroll proton fork, which are easy to install with my distro's package manager. But once it's setup and working, either out of the box or after some tweaks, I don't have to mess with it ever again. I still have one game using Proton 5.0-10 from 2020 that I still play occasionally. (Current stable version is 9.0-4 from last December.) No need to change it if it's not broken.

I game a lot so there's other stuff I'll do like tweak the actual game settings to get visual/performance/control qualities I want, or use steamtinkerlaunch as a way to more easily install mods, or let my distro update my nvidia drivers (which I've found more stable than AMD's in the past on linux, but I use the proprietary ones) but that's all normal gamer stuff regardless of OS.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#246

Post by strix_varius »

dralley wrote: post #234
jjcm wrote: post #227

IMO 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.

While you don't have to use it much, if you spend a year daily driving Linux, it's a near certainty that you'll have to use the command line.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#247

Post by xrd »

gausswho wrote: post #112
xrd wrote: post #80

I was really proud that my kids (8,10,12) all have used linux for gaming for the last several years. Steam runs perfectly for most games. And, they know how to to use "flatpak update" to update the sober runtime for Roblox (I know this is not steam, but it is an example of how well other things run on linux). I'm so proud (and ashamed they play Roblox, but choose your battles). But, Fortnite. I tried to run a Windows…

Fortnite might be a battle worth choosing. I wouldn't want to carve my children's gray matter into grooves of cosmetic microtransactions of psychological warfare.

I actually totally agree. This was because a friend who lives a thousand miles away also plays it (and his parents have different views on what Fortnite means). I'm sure gaming companies optimize for peer pressure effects, because that's so powerful.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#249

Post by amiga-workbench »

I've been running Fedora at home for about a decade now, and I've been doing my gaming on it for the majority of that period.

I've been running Fedora at work for about 6-7 years now too, with few issues. Work binned Adobe XD and moved to Figma which has made it even more viable.

The one and only holdout I keep a Windows 11 install around for is VR. With Valve's new headset due to release any week now, we will hopefully have a bunch of Linux SteamVR patches on the way to sand the remaining sharp edges off.

Re: Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark

#250

Post by kbenson »

SteveNuts wrote: post #43
TACIXAT wrote: post #26

I just made the switch. I had been developing on Windows for the last couple of years, mostly to get used to the ecosystem. I wanted to be able to write C and C++ like I do on Linux, without an IDE and with the native toolchain (i.e. no cygwin). On top of that, I play Overwatch every night. Windows just seems to have zero focus on performance though. React based start menu with visible lag, file Explorer (buggily) pa…

The only thing windows has focused on has been dark patterns to force users towards cloud and figuring out more and more ways to collect data to sell ads. I’m not naive, I know a ton of huge enterprises still run huge fleets of windows “servers” but I still find it hilarious that a supposedly serious server OS would default to showing you the weather and ads in the start menu.

I wonder how much of it is to collect data and sell ads compared to just getting people to start utilizing what is now Microsoft's core resource, which is cloud services.

For them, getting you using onedrive is a (huge) step towards getting you to pay them for more storage using onedrive, and to also allowing them to use their advantage as the OS provider to get you using features that both keep you from moving away from Windows and keep you from moving to dropbox or another cloud competitor that normal consumers commonly use. For example, onedrive desktop sync tied to your Microsoft login, so you can log into a new system and have it put your preferences and files in place.

Having more data to monetize people is useful, but I would bet that they value the the lock-in of integrated services far more, as that's where they can possibly grow (by offering more services once you're less likely to leave), and growth is king.

It's the same thing Google does (and Samsung also attempts to do with their custom apps and store) with Android, but at the desktop level. Apple is able to do it for both desktop and mobile.

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