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Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

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Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#311

Post by marcosdumay »

kube-system wrote: post #276
bregma wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still plenty of web sites that check the OS and if it's not Mac OS, Windows, or Andoid it's no service for you. Faking your UA is not always about privacy, it's about defeating stupidity.

The only websites that really do this anymore are ones that are delivering native code for those platforms or those that require DRM that only work on those platforms.

Even when that is the case (what is a minority of the time), just because I'm using Linux, it doesn't mean that I don't want to download some Windows software.

But well, I haven't had to spoof my browser's UA for a few years. If some site refuses it, I'll just move on. (Including some that started doing it after I brought thousands of dollars worth of stuff from them.)

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#312

Post by canelonesdeverd »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #75
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like yes it is Linux. But SteamDeck is a completely different beast from desktop Linux. They might as well be entirely different OS’s. It's really not; SteamOS is just another GNU/Linux, and pretty close to vanilla Arch Linux for that matter. > Especially if the SteamDeck is being used to play Win32 binaries! Proton works fine on other distros.

> SteamOS is just another GNU/Linux if you are a gamedev considering support for SteamOS and considering support for generic Linux desktop they really really really REALLY are not the same. At all.

If you are a gamedev considering native support for linux then you are using the steam runtime (i.e. a debian container) anyways.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#313

Post by foresto »

matja wrote: post #129
simmanian wrote: post #10

A few weeks ago, I installed linux (Nobara, if you're curious) on my PC and hooked it up to the living room TV to use as a gaming console. I have absolutely no regret. I did it initially because apparently playing games on a shared screen is better for my kid. But I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly Windows only games run on Linux. The whole experience has been great, and I don't think I'll ever go back. I hav…

The "Nvidia on Linux compatibility" issues are something I wonder if I have side-stepped somehow either by lucky choice of GPUs, or lucky choice of Linux distros. Was/is this a distro thing, or an actual issue? Every Nvidia I've used [1] has worked perfectly, from the change for Xfree86 to Xorg, through the Compiz desktop wobbly window craze, to the introduction of GPGPU APIs like CUDA/OpenCL and recently Vulkan. I d…

> The "Nvidia on Linux compatibility" issues are something I wonder if I have side-stepped somehow either by lucky choice of GPUs, or lucky choice of Linux distros.

It could also be lucky consequence of what games you play and what else you do with your computer.

I was a long-time Nvidia user, and had plenty of problems with their drivers. They ranged from minor annoyances when switching between virtual consoles (which some people never do) to total system freezes when playing a particular game (which some people never play). It would have been be easy for someone else to never encounter these problems.

Since switching to AMD a couple years ago, I have been much happier.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#314

Post by foresto »

nijave wrote: post #222
gchamonlive wrote: post #174

I am a long time windows pc gamer, but lately I was having to re-pair my DS4 controller every week or so. But the windows Bluetooth device manager will just refuse to remove that device. So I was periodically having to open the old school device manager, click show hidden and remove the controller there. By the fifth time I got fed up, replaced windows with Bazzite and am happy now. Good riddance.

YMMV, I've not had good luck with Bluetooth on any OS

Your computer's bluetooth module could be the source of the trouble. Some people have found that using a different dongle fixed their wireless controller problems.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#315

Post by cogman10 »

matja wrote: post #303
cogman10 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nvidia x11 support has been pretty good for quite some time. It's nvidia wayland support that has been less than stellar. That has gotten better in the last year to year and a half now. Now, I think it's no big issue so long as you are using a distro that supports up to date drivers. That should be about everyone now as I think even debian stable currently has decent drivers.

Does Nvidia need to support Wayland, or does Wayland need to support Nvidia? I.e., what is the support at the API boundary which is missing?

I'm not sure exactly what the API boundries are.

I know that Nvidia is integrated into the kernel and that wayland is talking to nvidia through the kernel. I also know that for accelerated rendering, wayland is talking directly to the nvidia drivers (bypassing the kernel? IDK).

But I also know that in the nvidia release notes, they've mentioned changes to improve support and functionality of wayland.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#316

Post by foresto »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #130
zelphirkalt wrote: post #121

I wish things were working so seamlessly for me, as people describe in the comments. There seems to be something wrong with Steam and how it works, so that in my machine (and CPU and GPU from 2019, with official Linux drivers from standard repos, running Debian KDE) it almost never manages to start a Windows game. I will click the green "Play" button, it will change to a blue "Stop" button, as if the application was…

Honestly, don't use debian for gaming, as it is too far behind. Gaming stuff needs a bit more bleeding edge packages. I use Fedora + KDE and everything just works. Fedora's packages are at most a month behind but usually get updates within a week of upstream changes. Debian can be months behind (which makes it rock solid for server workloads). So give Fedora+KDE a try, it works great. It's the one combo that solves a…

Debian Stable gamer here.

> Honestly, don't use debian for gaming, as it is too far behind. Gaming stuff needs a bit more bleeding edge packages.

Please stop spreading this misconception. There are only a tiny handful of packages that a Debian gamer might need to update, and those are generally available in Debian Backports. It's not what I would call a beginner distro for any purpose, but gaming on it is perfectly viable.

I'm having a good time in games, still getting other computing tasks done, and enjoying Debian's low-maintenance respect for my time. AMA.

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#317

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

canelonesdeverd wrote: post #312
forrestthewoods wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SteamOS is just another GNU/Linux if you are a gamedev considering support for SteamOS and considering support for generic Linux desktop they really really really REALLY are not the same. At all.

If you are a gamedev considering native support for linux then you are using the steam runtime (i.e. a debian container) anyways.

Or you just write a Windows program but explicitly target Proton. (Granted, either of those remain portable to at least any Linux with Steam installed.)

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#318

Post by tasuki »

simmanian wrote: post #10

A few weeks ago, I installed linux (Nobara, if you're curious) on my PC and hooked it up to the living room TV to use as a gaming console. I have absolutely no regret. I did it initially because apparently playing games on a shared screen is better for my kid. But I was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly Windows only games run on Linux. The whole experience has been great, and I don't think I'll ever go back. I hav…

> I did it initially because apparently playing games on a shared screen is better for my kid.

Explain please?

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#319

Post by foresto »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #121

I wish things were working so seamlessly for me, as people describe in the comments. There seems to be something wrong with Steam and how it works, so that in my machine (and CPU and GPU from 2019, with official Linux drivers from standard repos, running Debian KDE) it almost never manages to start a Windows game. I will click the green "Play" button, it will change to a blue "Stop" button, as if the application was…

> I will click the green "Play" button, it will change to a blue "Stop" button, as if the application was running, then shortly after silently switches back to the green Play button again, without any visible error and without actually starting the game.

You might want to enable Proton logging and have a look at what it says is going on.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/?tab=readme-ov-file#...

Re: Steam on Linux Use Skyrocketed Above 5% in March

#320

Post by mikkupikku »

traderj0e wrote: post #306
mikkupikku wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ubuntu on servers has always been "a choice", Debian is definitely the preferable of the two. Even on desktops, I'd sooner suggest Debian or Mint than Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a dead distro coasting on a reputation 15(+) years out of date. (And it used to be that Ubuntu was still a defensible choice for maximizing the chance of getting help online, but LLMs have effectively neutralized this advantage.)

Mint still uses Xorg, so it's outdated. I tried it recently, it wasn't working with my iGPU+dGPU (nothing exotic, just a regular PC), and all the other distros already went to Wayland so nobody was talking about this online. I feel bad for anyone who gets convinced to switch from Windows to Mint, being told it's the easy one. The fix was to just install Ubuntu. Maybe Xorg is inherently better than Wayland, but that d…

I genuinely don't think Xorg is a deal breaker for newbs and I would characterize dual-GPU as at least slightly exotic, maybe because I've never owned such a computer, but that's a fair enough point. Personally I think the polish of Cinnamon makes it the best recommendation for somebody new, and I know a whole lot of people start with that and have a sufficiently good experience that they stick with linux (while maybe moving on to other distros.)
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