Windows is just that bad.
Linux is good now
471–480 of 1001 posts
Re: Linux is good now
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that much. TO be honest, I have a few installed (Heroic Games Launcher for one), but the main one I wanted to avoid was Firefox - which is easily doable. It is annoying that we have yet another way of packaging apps - would have been better if they just supported Flatpack
Do you ever find it "updated" to the snap version? I have Ubuntu on my work laptop and every so often after an update Firefox will suddenly be the snap version and I'll have to reinstall it.
I recommend downloading the executable-in-a-tarball form of Firefox and running that. I personally do that with Nightly, and I find it works quite well.
Re: Linux is good now
#473Yes, it's good. Also agreed that AMD would be best GPU experience.
Re: Linux is good now
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been working on the Linux desktop for 20 years, and I've been using it on the desktop since 1999, so I lived through the infamous "Year of the Linux Desktop" era. I've not seen anything like the current level of momentum, ever, nor this level of mainstream exposure. Gaming has changed the equation, and 2026 will be wild.
I wouldn’t agree. The level of momentum feels roughly equivalent to the era of Ubuntu coming around in the mid-2000s. We have been here before.
Ah, the mid-2000s, just before Linux became the dominant user kernel on Earth.
Re: Linux is good now
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
Works well if the laptop has hardware designed to support Linux. Framework stuff is great, for instance.
I have the HP Zbook Ultra G1a. AMD 395+, 129GB RAM, 4TB 2280 SSD. Works great with Ubuntu 24.04 and the OEM kernel. Plays Steam games, runs OpenCL AI models. Only nit is it is very picky on what USB PD chargers it will actually charge on at all. UGreen has a 140W that works. Updated Mesa to the latest and the kernel too.
I’ve found Apple’s 140w charger to be sufficient for this machine under full load. Running Bazzite and Windows natively
Re: Linux is good now
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
On a similar note, performance is sometimes better. As a direct comparison, the steam version of the Lenovos Legion S handheld is significantly more performant than the windows version. Like 20% better FPS and double the battery life. Literally the only difference between the two is the OS.
Though from what I've read, Microsoft could fix that relatively quickly, if they made some tweaks to Windows (and called it a special 'handheld gaming edition' or so). For some reason, the Lenovo Legion S's Windows still comes with a lot of baggage and background services etc.
If LTT is to be believed, this is in the works
Maybe SteamOS managed to ruffle enough feathers to start moving the inertial colossus that is Microsoft, not that I have much trust on their willingness to leave a good idea remain good in the long term
Re: Linux is good now
#477I think its interesting that mainstream PC gaming press is now talking about Linux. We have the benchmark Youtube channels doing some benchmarks of it as well and plenty of reports of "it just works", which is pretty promising at least for the games that aren't intentionally excluded by DRM. For me its still controllers and equipment incompatibility due to my VR headset and sim wheel/pedals setup, I use Linux everywh…
The last remaining roadblock is kernel level anti-cheat frameworks. Pretty horrible technology, and unfortunately a good majority of the gaming industry by revenue relies on it.
I always wondered. Isn't exactly what eBPF would allow you to do?
Assuming that cheats work by reading (and modifying) the memory of the game process you can you can attach a kprobe to the sys_ptrace system call. Every time any process uses it, your eBPF program triggers. You can then capture the PID and UID of the requester and compare it against a whitelist (eg only the game engine can mess with the memory of that process). If the requester is unauthorized, the eBPF program can even override the return value to deny access before the kernel finishes the request.
Of course there are other attack vectors (like spoofing PID/process name), but eBPF covers them also.
All of this to say that Linux already has sane primitives to allow that, but that, as long as devs don't prioritize Linux, we won't see this happening.
Re: Linux is good now
#478Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are plenty. I run only Linux at home but CAD software for hobbies (Fusion 360), most games that want kernel level anti cheat, some embedded DRM-enabled media, all sort of just fail. Other things, like GPU tuning or messing with your displays/drivers are harder than they should be. My Bluetooth earbuds just don't work with my Linux machines.
How did you get Fusion 360 running? I've tried multiple times but it always gets stuck at the installer.
I don’t think he did get it running. It’s one of my main blockers as well. Last time I tried I got as far as it starting up and logging in to their identity server via the browser, but the redirect back to the application didn’t work. Such a silly thing that prevents it from working. Why does a CAD program need to online auth, anyway? (I know the reason but it’s an annoying one)
Re: Linux is good now
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont get the feeling they care. Microsoft is so lost under Satya at this point. Totally blinded by Azure and AI and stock price growth. At some point they're going to realize all the ground they've lost and it's going to be a real problem. They're repeating a lot of the same mistakes that cost them the browser and mobile market.
Yeah. MS must have been so hurt about losing to the iPhone, they really jumped the gun on AI as if to avoid a similar mistake. It's Satya's major play and I think they are already paying for that decision. xbox is hollowed out so that AI can be funded, while the pc/console hybrid project is doomed to fail because "windows everywhere" doesn't work if windows is crap. indeed, they might be left with just the cloud busi…
First they jumped the gun on tablets, listening to the tech media that was saying tablets were going to replace computers.
That resulted in Windows 8.
More recently they've freaked out about ads, app stores, and SaSS revenue, which has resulted in lots of dark patterns in the OS.
Re: Linux is good now
#480I switched all the machines at https://lanparty.house over to Linux a couple months ago. So far, we've experienced noticeably fewer problems on Linux compared to Windows. Stability and performance are better. I can't think of one game we tried that didn't work. And wow is it nice not to have all the ads and crapware in our faces anymore. (I'm aware that Battlefield series and League of Legends won't work due to draco…
league of legends is basically the only thing holding me back from switching to Linux for myself :/ really want to just swap over to linux fully. love your website + house!