Valve's plan to bring SteamOS to more devices is a promising sign if you want to stop gaming on Windows
Valve's plan to bring SteamOS to more devices is a promising sign if you want to stop gaming on Windows
The recent news that SteamOS may soon be shipped with third-party devices could be particularly important for Linux gaming on desktops.
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Like it or not, this is the easiest way to get Linux further into the mainstream. I've had Linux on my laptop for about a year or so and have been loving it, but I've still been wary about switching my gaming PC. I think the biggest issue with most people hesitant to switch is ease of use. From the outside Linux looks cryptic and kinda scary for most people. I mean you have to do research just to find out which distro to use and even then might not even find one you like on the first try. With Windows... You just install Windows and you can already do everything you need to do.
One could argue it's been mainstream for a while. We just don't call it Linux. We call it android, game consoles, TVs etc... for consumers they look at hardware and software as one in the same.
If I were to guess, if steam os takes off, we will have another word other than Linux for these machines.
Honestly Linux market share doesn't matter much.
With that being said Linux can be used however you see fit as long as you aren't violating licensing
Unless your game bans you from playing because you're on Linux, then market share matters a ton
I want to move to Linux but the value proposition for game pass is too damn good, I haven't bought games the last 3 years because the last 5 games that I bought all got into game pass. It's like they have this one executive that has the same taste as me.
I'll stick with windows for gaming (sadly) until my financial situation improves ಥ‿ಥ
My daughter uses game pass on Linux. I think she streams it though.
Gaming has nothing to do with Linux. I wish that we could just move on from that. It isn't the fault of Linux or anyone in the community that some companies choose to ban from you to running there software. Market share is unlikely to cause major changes.
If it was 50% market share, nobody would ignore Linux
I don't think that's ever going to happen.
But even if it did, do you seriously think legacy companies would want to support it? Linux encourages knowledge, tinkering and vendor independence which is not what these companies want. They want a locked down platform that keeps the companies safe.
Valve wants a platform that they don't need to pay fees on
Honestly that's a valid reason. However, a lot of companies don't like Linux for one reason or another.
@possiblylinux127 @iopq
in reality, gaming on Linux became since a long time way better than on winlol, and Mesa & CodeWeavers are actively working to make it better every day, the problem comes from developers, mainly kernel-level anticheat, according to members on the fediverse or one of the communities I follow on fb, it all comes down to a simple checkbox if you want the game to allow running on Linux or nay, so the blame falls down to stupid devs not the OS
The biggest hurdle by far is that you need to compile the software you want to use from source more often that is acceptable for the average user. There is also a serious lack of proper hardware driver support.
Linux is way too fragmented and trying to get up and running with basic apps requires way too much technical skill.
I really do hope that SteamOS will finally solve these problems by having the backing of a foundation (company) that has years of UX experience (with multiple failures and successes under their belt) that targets a wide range of audiences. This should give hardware manufacturers confidence that developing drivers for that OS will not be a waste of time.
Wtf, I use Linux and have never compiled anything.
That doesn't mean that others don't have to. I installed Debian on a partition and couldn't get the WiFi USB stick to work. The manufacturers drivers couldn't be installed because they were ancient, and installing a generic one for the chip didn't work. Had to give up. In windows it's plug and play.
I had the same experience with an old printer: Linux recognized it directly whereas Windows didn't. I wouldn't say that Linux has a strong disadvantage at these things.
Dude, your wifi dongle manufacturer obviously inbox'd their driver with MSFT and didn't mainline their driver into the Linux kernel. When drivers are inboxed, MSFT will maintain them for as long as they are able to. Linux kernel maintainers will do the same when drivers are mainlined into the Linux Kernel. Your dongle manufacturer is the one to blame. Things aren't plug and play because it's "Windows". That's like a Mac enthusiast saying, "My Mac, It just works". It better "just work", there is only handful of devices that are even compatible with Mac. There are plenty of Windows compatible devices that don't have inbox drivers for Win11 and Win10 and guess what, they don't "Plug and Play".
The solution was to just buy a Linux compatible device for the newer kernel you were running. Or, downgrade to a kernel that has support for your device. If it's Windows that doesn't have the inbox driver, you'd have to downgrade the entire OS. Most people don't do that, they just buy a newer device that's compatible with the newer Windows version they are using. Why would things be any different for Linux. Or Mac for that matter. And really, you couldn't just buy a 15 dollar USB Wifi dongle that was compatible with the OS you were using???
If a Windows user buys a Mac, they will just assume they have to buy Mac devices and Mac software. If a Windows user installs Linux, suddenly everything had better work out of the box or the entire Linux eco system is a failure for everyone in the world.
compile the software you want to use from source more often that is acceptable for the average user.
Wut? I've been using Linux in some form or another for years and that is greatly exaggerated even for back then
Linux is way too fragmented and trying to get up and running with basic apps requires way too much technical skill.
Um. WHAT. most distros are just some flavor of one of the handful of major ones, like Debian (Even Ubuntu is based on Debian). If it's a Linux application, it'll probably work on your distro. There's some other cases, like FreeBSD which isn't a Linux kernel, so things differ there, but it's unlikely you'll be running it at home unless you're venturing out of "average user" domain, like Arch for Linux.
Things have never been easier
The majority of users won't even touch the command line if they're on a noob friendly distro. Been that way for a long time. Only Gentoo users are compiling from source, and even then, not that frequently
The biggest hurdle by far is that you need to compile the software you want to use from source more often that is acceptable for the average user.
I've been using Linux as my main OS since 2007 and not had to do that once.
Linux is way too fragmented and trying to get up and running with basic apps requires way too much technical skill.
> open app store
> search
> install any flatpak you like
If anything Windows is the complicated one in this regard.
@TheGrandNagus @Shirasho I remember doing that in high school in 2018 but I forgot all about it because I never again after class did that
The 90's called and want their specious cliché back.
I've already been down voted and commented on. No need to start being a snarky asshole. If there is one thing that hasn't changed since the 90s it is how obnoxious and pretentious Linux users are.
Quit your crying. You got back the same energy you gave out. You've had 30 years to change your trope.