Linux is good now • Hacker News Board

Re: Linux is good now

#821

Post by vertnerd » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:16 PM UTC

dueyfinster wrote: post #702

vertnerd wrote: post #691

I'm solo developing a spaceflight simulator on Linux (using the Godot engine), exporting binaries in both Linux and Windows. It turns out that I really didn't need to bother with the Linux export anyway because Steam runs the Windows version on Linux without any problems. The ONLY thing I'm still having trouble with under Linux is Steam VR on the HTC Vive. It works. Barely.

Interesting, do you think game devs in future will just target windows/proton and not bother with native Linux ports?

Yes, most likely. Steam is dominant, and it's not hard to make a Windows release that works under Proton.

Though in my case, I currently offer demo/beta releases for both Windows and Linux directly from Github. If I ultimately elect to release my game under a GPL license, then supporting both Linux and Windows directly would make sense.

Re: Linux is good now

#822

Post by seanw444 » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:20 PM UTC

krzyk wrote: post #698

tyfon wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My PS5 can do 4k/120 hz with VRR support, not sure about the others.

I'm bit puzzled, isn't VRR more for low powered hardware to consume less battery (handhelds like steam deck)? How does it fit hardware that is constantly connected to power? (I assume VRR = Variable Refresh Rate)

It reduces screen tearing without adding all the latency that vsync introduces.

Re: Linux is good now

#823

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:25 PM UTC

ruszki wrote: post #696

Cort3z wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been working professionally on Linux for many years. But about once a year I have to reinstall the os because it craps out for various reasons. The same story goes for most of my team, but for some reason they seem ok with this. My issue with Linux is this: I don’t feel like a consumer, but a janitor. I don’t want this. Yes you can do whatever you want, but I don’t want to do those things. I want to write code…

> janitor Perfect analogy. I'm using Debian for a few months now on my main laptop, and everything is flawed. Seriously, everything. - Hybrid graphics simply doesn't work. The exception is when it works. Don't even try Wayland with it. - Graphics card handling is still full with race conditions. It's random when everything works as intended without manual intervention. - Switching monitors is pain. Sometimes works, s…

Same here. I recently bought one laptop that I researched to make sure it was supported in Linux, and it had a ton of issues the reviewers didn't mention. So I bought a different laptop with Linux shipped from the factory, and it's better, but still has issues.

Re: Linux is good now

#824

Post by subscribed » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

3A2D50 wrote: post #390

3A2D50 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Interstellar on 4K UltraHD Blu-ray that features HDR on the cover, Sony 4K Blu-ray player (UBP-X700) and a LG G4 OLED television. I also have an AVR (Denon AVR-S760H 7.2 Ch) connecting both the Blu-ray and a PC running Linux with a RTX 3060 12GB graphic card to the television. I've been meaning to compare HDR on Linux with the Blu-ray. I guess now better than never. I'll reply back to my post after I am done.

Television HDR mode is set to FILMMAKER, OLED brightness 100%, Energy Saving Mode is off. Connected to AVR with HDMI cable that says 8K. PC has Manjaro Linux with RTX 3060 12GB Graphic card driver: Nvidia 580.119.02 KDE Plasma Version 6.5.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 6.21.0 Qt Version: 6.10.1 Kernel Version 6.12.63-1-MANJARO Graphics Platform: Wayland Display Configuration High Dynamic Range: Enable HDR is checked There…

Thank you, this is very valuable.

Re: Linux is good now

#825

Post by MangoToupe » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:29 PM UTC

kentonv wrote: post #539

MangoToupe wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Installing the nvidia first-party drivers (downloaded from the nvidia web site) will fix a lot of things. Crazy—it used to be that nvidia drivers were by far the least stable parts of an install, and nouveau was a giant leap forward. Good to know their software reputation has improved somewhat

Nouveau has never been good for gaming. Not their fault (they had to reverse engineer everything), but it was only really ever viable for mostly 2D desktops in my experience.

Sure, but nvidia has always been seen as a liability for basic operation of the computer. Their driver quality is notoriously as bad as it gets. Nouveau fixed this.

Re: Linux is good now

#826

Post by MangoToupe » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:31 PM UTC

kentonv wrote: post #537

snvzz wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NVIDIA on Linux is a pain, either path. Whereas, AMD just works and is thus standard recommendation.

Everyone says this but it is not my experience at all. Every time I try AMD cards I run into weird problems. The Nvidia drivers are a pain to install and tend to break randomly on kernel updates, but once built properly they always just work for me...

> but once built properly they always just work for me

If you figure out how to reliably do this, you're a rich man

Re: Linux is good now

#827

Post by MangoToupe » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:32 PM UTC

bigyabai wrote: post #380

MangoToupe wrote: post #376

Only compared to windows. Sadly, we're still stuck with a PC clone for the near future.

Sounds like Darwin is finally meeting it's nominal fate.

Hey macos obviously still sucks ass, but it sucks ass less than all the other options. The userland situations for linux and windows are both horrifyingly, incomprehensibly bad. Just look at their reliance on a single fucking key "control" for all operations when that was always an inexplicably bad choice. You have so many fucking keys, why douboe dip when it defacto cripples both cli and gui contexts?

Re: Linux is good now

#828

Post by pessimizer » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

scaramanga wrote: post #290

Switched in, ooh i dunno, '98 or '99. Quality is about where it was then relatively speaking. Sure things have improved, mainly just systemd, and we got ACPI and later power management stuff for laptops. Prior to that windows was better on laptops due to having the proprietary drivers or working ACPI. But it was pretty poor quality in terms of reliability, and the main problem of the included software being incredibl…

> Every time the year of the Linux desktop arrives, I'm baffled, since not much has changed on this end.

It's Critic's Disease: When a band moves to a major label, they "suddenly" put out their critically acclaimed masterpiece, when before nobody would review a thing they did and mocked their fanatic fans.

"Now, they've matured."

Let them have it, though. People need to rationalize their past hostility to the right thing in some way in order to progress. If you want people to say that they were ever wrong, you'll die waiting. The situation became completely intolerable where they were insisting on staying no matter what because they weren't stuck-up nerds who care about stupid stuff that no one cares about. They were finally humiliated enough to move.

They'll end up moving to weird semi-commercial distributions that market specifically to them, too, and ridicule people who criticize those distributions for being stuck-up nerds who care about stupid stuff no one cares about. As long as it doesn't break Debian, I'm cool.

Re: Linux is good now

#829

Post by bsimpson » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #418

aqme28 wrote: post #409

Earlier 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.

It's called Xbox Full-Screen Experience and is marketed as Xbox PC.

It's available now, but nobody's been impressed yet. Gives you a gamepad-compatible launcher (although the gamepad PIN to login is buggy). Doesn't seem to actually save resources.

Re: Linux is good now

#830

Post by aprdm » Fri, Jan 02, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

kentonv wrote: post #242

I 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…

That's an amazing website, I just spent 30 minutes reading all of its content. Thank you for sharing ! I haven't been to a lan party in probably 20 years and made me jealous !