ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
The main Linux hurdle are the drivers. Especially for streaming.
Sort that out, and Windows for gamers is as good as dead.
Sort that out, and Windows for gamers is as good as dead.
Linux is the future of gaming if Microsoft do not do something
- Thread starter OverHeat
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Bojanglez
The Amiga Brotherhood
Yeah, I would think more kids use ChromeOS or Android (both Linux kernal based) than Windows nowadays. I bet in under 16s Windows falls behind these and all iOS variants in usage.
*Satya Nadella crying while sticking a gun is his mouth*
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
polybius80
Member
its a typo, you mean bigger right?, or you honestly think the horizon os in switch is based on windows?
and of course all that is without counting android, macOS and iOS all of them unix based
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Kacho
Gold Member
For sure but all my kids want gaming PCs and those will almost certainly be Windows unless some crazy shift happens.
Hero_Select
Member
Simplifying the myriad of issues with Linux down to just "drivers" is just pure nonsense.
There are too many distros. "Install this one if you want X, install this one with you want Y"
A good number of software just being unavailable to Linux
Installing something (which should be the simplest thing in the world) can be complicated and can require workarounds
Good luck trying to troubleshoot, you'll need to learn command-lines and search for your specific problem on your specific distro with your specific hardware.
jshackles
Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
There was a time when Microsoft also had 99% of the browser market share with Internet Explorer, and everyone just assumed it would continue that way forever (even though everyone hated it and knew it sucked and was slow). Why would webmasters make websites compliant with non-IE browsers when only a small percentage of people used Netscape or Mozilla? Google came along and released Chrome in 2008 - it was faster, had better tab management, was more standards compliant, and (ironically) used less RAM than IE. And it was free.
Even after a year, it still only had about 5% of the market share - but word of mouth (and Microsoft's stubborn refusal to actually improve IE while Chrome came with regular feature updates) meant it became more and more mainstream. It took about 4 years before it hit a tipping point where it overtook IE as the most popular web browser in 2012. Since then, it's continued to absolutely dominate the landscape - currently used by about 78% of desktop users. Microsoft Edge, which again ironically uses the open source Chromium engine, has managed to claw back a meager 8.5%.
It feels similar to the situation we find ourselves in today with SteamOS / Linux being used for gaming. We have two competing "free" (I say free because most end users don't actually feel the cost of the Windows license, it comes "free" with their PC) operating systems, both have corporate backing, but one has a massive lead in market share dominance while the other is slowly clawing away at it. The Microsoft option is getting objectively worse all the time, while the competing option is trying to push open standards while releasing new features at a breakneck speed. It does feel like we'll inevitably hit the point where the market share will be too big to ignore. Eventually Rockstar and others using anti-cheat won't want to lose out on that many users and will adjust their anti-cheat systems to work with Linux.
And, yeah, if Microsoft does nothing - they're probably going to lose this segment of their user base again.
Neo_game
Member
Yes, I do think if it get good support it will perform faster than Windows. Moreover older hardware usually works well as well.
ShaiKhulud1989
Gold Member
A lot of that could be said about modern Windows, where you need a very specific build to be able to play without perf degradation and with stable explorer/task manager.
I'm just sitting on my Win 10 and waiting for Bazitte to evolve, my work-realted tasks are MacOS-only already.
GHG
Gold Member
Let them be complacent while defending being exploited by the shit Microsoft is shoveling down their throats.
Just sit back and see how it ends for them.
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Crazy clickbait aside, you have to wonder how many of the 3% Linux users on Steam are actually Linux only users.
Everyone I personally know with a Steam deck for instance (which is like 5-6 people) still uses Windows on their desktops and laptops.
Everyone I personally know with a Steam deck for instance (which is like 5-6 people) still uses Windows on their desktops and laptops.
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I will believe this when I see it. I had an obnoxious acquaintance who worked in IT who swore up an down that Windows was dead and Linux will rule in 5 years or so...25 years or so ago. He was one of those "everyone is a sheep" unless they know PCs inside out and used Linux. Honestly, and probably unfairly, it really lowered my opinion of Linux bros.
That said, I kind of hope this is true, I would like to ditch Windows for something open source and privacy focused, but it *has* to play my older media, that is non negotiable. Btw, Linux sucked ass 25 years ago, dude was so blatantly biased and unwilling to be fair in his views (which is where he stands now on politics with the evil orange man).
That said, I kind of hope this is true, I would like to ditch Windows for something open source and privacy focused, but it *has* to play my older media, that is non negotiable. Btw, Linux sucked ass 25 years ago, dude was so blatantly biased and unwilling to be fair in his views (which is where he stands now on politics with the evil orange man).
darrylgorn
Member
Wolzard
Member
Switch 1 and 2 also use a variation of FreeBSD.
I did a test last weekend, I took the PC that's in the office and plugged it into the TV. It has an RX 7600. The TV identified 4K120 with HDR and it's an LG C4. I didn't see any degradation in the image. I tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider and The Witcher 1 and found the image quality to be very good, KDE apparently does the job of AutoHDR.
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Kacho
Gold Member
Extremely likely scenario vs people ditching Windows completely for Linux.
Mister Wolf
Member
Bojanglez
The Amiga Brotherhood
Yeah, to be fair mine haven't got to that age yet, but I will be building them a Linux one of they do
Codiox
Member
lol
I will say this:
If you already have the cartridges, dont need color, and only need 2 action buttons for gaming, I really think you should give the Game Boy a try.
nani17
are in a big trouble
This is the list of major titles currently unplayable or unsupported, often due to this anti-cheat barrier:
Grand Theft Auto V Online (Blocked due to BattlEye not enabled for Proton) which will include gta 6
Destiny 2
Valorant (Blocked due to the proprietary Vanguard anti-cheat)
Fortnite (Epic Games has not enabled EAC support for Linux)
Call of Duty (Modern Titles) (Blocked by the kernel-level RICOCHET anti-cheat)
Apex Legends
Battlefield 2042/ 6 (Blocked by EA's custom anti-cheat)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
PUBG: Battlegrounds
These games average around 300 million players combined. It doesn't matter if you don't play them it matters to the 300 million that do. I say this because every time I mentioned these things people would say well I don't play Call of duties who cares.
Linux hopefully one day will give Microsoft competition but fixing the above would be obviously a good start. Some of these games I've listed at a top most played games on Steam.
Grand Theft Auto V Online (Blocked due to BattlEye not enabled for Proton) which will include gta 6
Destiny 2
Valorant (Blocked due to the proprietary Vanguard anti-cheat)
Fortnite (Epic Games has not enabled EAC support for Linux)
Call of Duty (Modern Titles) (Blocked by the kernel-level RICOCHET anti-cheat)
Apex Legends
Battlefield 2042/ 6 (Blocked by EA's custom anti-cheat)
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege
PUBG: Battlegrounds
These games average around 300 million players combined. It doesn't matter if you don't play them it matters to the 300 million that do. I say this because every time I mentioned these things people would say well I don't play Call of duties who cares.
Linux hopefully one day will give Microsoft competition but fixing the above would be obviously a good start. Some of these games I've listed at a top most played games on Steam.
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ReBurn
Gold Member
I used OS/2 Warp back in the day to compile 16-bit apps written in C to alsorun under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 because the compilers were faster. Kind of makes me miss the days of triple boot towers with DOS, Windows 95 and OS/2 partitions.
dcx4610
Member
It will never happen because Microsoft makes its money from spying on you and AI now but... I'd love a true "Pro" version of Windows that is bloat free and catered towards professionals, gamers and power users. Give people what they want. Windows isn't currently a one size fits all solution. It's catered to if someone just bought a PC for the first time and needs their hand held. I welcome Linux eating their lunch at this point.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Most people don't need a "main PC" anymore. They use their phone or a tablet, you can do everything you need to do outside of specialized applications.
if Linux is better for gaming, and the primary reason I have a PC for gaming, why wouldn't I use Linux? I thought thre Steam Deck experience was just so far superior to what Windows offers in terms of gaming and I suspect the same will be true of the Steam Machine.
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bender
What time is it?
I only used it in high school as it was the platform that ran our Lotus Notes.
alabtrosMyster
Member
alabtrosMyster
Member
You are 100% correct with this.
That leaves us to the point where when Linux gains a level of market penetration (they will decide what it is, not me) someone at the office who develop these games will want to try it out, do not forget these devs are geeks too, they will want to be able to let people play their game where they are, and the numner will be big enough to take into account.
Or, Proton will gain the ability to make these games work somehow.
alabtrosMyster
Member
Up until recently Nvidia had better Linux support. I think that if you work in AI nvidia under Linux is still the better choice (no verification or actual knowledge, it's just something I suspect because nvidia's custom machines use Linux).
OGM_Madness
Member
If Valve can do for Linux what it did with Steam 25 years ago… then maybe.
Will it happen? Probably not.
Will it happen? Probably not.
Geometric-Crusher
"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
Only 3% of PCs use Linux distributions, including SteamOS from Steam Deck
Nvidia will not support a system under these conditions.
Mister Wolf
Member
Does SteamOS have access to AMD's Adrenalin software or the suite of features within it? In my time with the Legion Go SteamOS I don't remember seeing them.
diffusionx
Gold Member
Steam Deck has been the major trojan horse for Linux gaming, but all those games are not really "Steam Deck" titles. They are Steam Machine games though. If the SM is successful I bet some of these devs will start enabling their games for Linux/SteamOS.
So, if you want better Linux gaming, buy a Steam Machine.
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ChuckeRearmed
Member
I have been hearing that for ages but as long as Linux has tons of distros, tons of app formats, tons of package managers and tons of incompatibilities between each distro it won't go anywhere.
SteamOS is an attempt to do that but as long as other distros exist it will be always a mess. Not to mention as long as anti-cheat is required, a lot of games will never hit Linux due to open-source and stuff.
SteamOS is an attempt to do that but as long as other distros exist it will be always a mess. Not to mention as long as anti-cheat is required, a lot of games will never hit Linux due to open-source and stuff.
The problem is that linux penetration always boils down to "which distro bro?".
Personally I feel like if they find a way to make a real lightweight Xbox OS inspired Microsoft Windows, it would be the best.
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nani17
are in a big trouble
Anti-cheat systems struggle on Linux because they cannot achieve kernel-level access for deep monitoring, which is compounded by the open-source kernel's modifiability and the need to operate within the Proton/Wine compatibility layer.
This is why devs are ignoring Linux
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Codeblew
Member
Yup. Not to mention Chrome OS and Android which run on top of the Linux kernel. MacOS partially uses FreeBSD.
That is a security feature. Why allow game companies to install exploits into your computer.
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crackajack
Member
Main hurdle is imho a hen and egg problem, ie the market share which results in no official support. Creating drivers for everything is probably already hard enough for just any mainboard, getting things to boot.
I have no idea where it needs to be, but once it reaches a certain point, supporting your printer, gaming mouse, fingerprint sensor, wacom tablet will be important for any company. MacOS isn't really huge either, but already big enough to get more support. Probably also easy, since it's one thing.
I assume Linux needs one or two dominant distros at most and those will be supported and everyone else will need to be compatible. Kinda like "IBM compatible" was the formula back in the day for DOS.
I guess using Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP, LibreOffice, Krita, Inkscape, FreeCAD just anything even on Windows is also sending some signal and anything that becomes a viable option that is at least good enough, increases the acceptance of the whole open source system and triggers further support and money flowing towards it, improving quality, allowing more to switch etc etc. Gamers had a much harder time in the past to even consider Linux, that is now at least a lot better. And the whole forced end of Win10 while google and Win11 being a bit too much into data collecting might also push some people. Linux never had a huge chance, but right now at least some factors improved in its favor. In essence, besides the gaming part, the situation has hardly changed since decades though. I think besides actually interested IT people the choice for Linux was mostly a choice against MS and other big tech monopolies.
HerjansEagleFeeder
Member
Wrong. It's 3% for the desktop. Not "PCs". Basically 100% of the entire digital infrastructure of the world runs on Linux. Microsoft themselves use Linux a ton for their own services because they know how shitty their own OS compares. Nvidia cares a lot since these servers run the ML and AI apps people buy their GPUs for.
Durin
Member
Microsoft is doing something about it...just no idea if they'll execute it well enough to make up for their ambition to enshittify windows with cloud-based AI data siphoning.
If Valve actually makes Linux a real competitor, it will happen just like Steam where there is no big marketing event, but slow growth over time as they improve features. The feasible goal that matters is getting Linux to 8-10% marketshare on Steam, that is large enough to get the dev support ball rolling...until then it will be a niche that only nerds care about.
Improvements needed:
If Valve actually makes Linux a real competitor, it will happen just like Steam where there is no big marketing event, but slow growth over time as they improve features. The feasible goal that matters is getting Linux to 8-10% marketshare on Steam, that is large enough to get the dev support ball rolling...until then it will be a niche that only nerds care about.
Improvements needed:
- Nvidia driver performance
- Vulkan matching DX12 features so stuff like ray-tracing run as well or better
- An anti-cheat solution develops that can work with Linux
- More Linux apps using universal formats like Flatpaks or Appimages to just work on any distro (already happening thankfully)
- Flatpaks having a more elegant permission system like mobile apps
- Unique conveniences over Windows like the Steam Machine having a suspend-state, background downloading, etc...but working on any hardware using the OS.
- More content creation software available like the Adobe suite, or similar paid competitors (Affinity, Ableton Live, Clip Studio Paint, etc.)
- Welcome wizards that don't just let users batch-install popular apps, but also web apps of software lacking a dedicated Linux version, but work in a browser just the same.
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alabtrosMyster
Member
Nah, using Steam on Linux should be enough to tip the scale (it has already been tipped).
Other distros will always exist, this is a byproduct of the OS being open source, gamers and other demographics will stick to the one that suits their needs best (gaming is: SteamOS, Bazzite, CachyOS....)
There are Linux distros made for a single purpose like emulation boxes: Lakka, Batocera
Others made for regular desktop uses (not going to list any)
Others made for file servers, others for routers, etc.
All distros are an attempt at standardizing in some way, but in reality what's important are technologies like flatpacks that make distribution on many different distros much easier and transparent.
MS will show their cards on whatever it is they decide to call their next "xbox", I've had friends who have been waiting for a "gaming windows" since the late 1990s, so I would not bet on this specifically. What you are doing is ask MS to create a special Windows distribution that removed all the upselling techniques for their other products, with the amount of money they spend on AI they have an imperative in selling you AI that is much more important than using gaming as an excuse to shield you from being bothered by their incessant nagging.
They are ignoring Linux because it's small enough that they can ignore it, what if (no guarantees) it reaches 10% or 20% of the Steam user base in an hypothetical future? These choices will be discussed in boardrooms across the industry at this point and options will be weighted.
Some will say: well, our existing clients do not care, they use Windows
Others will see the opportunity and make other technical decisions for their products to reach the gamers they can't reach now, if it works others will follow.
What can also happen is that some title(s) that actually run on Linux eventually take over the mainstream because they are where people want to play.
These are the usual scenarios when there is a platform migration.
Back in the 1990s Amigas were power houses of video editing, neither their platform nor their tools survived the period.
None of the younger spreadsheet users remember Note 123, digicalc, etc.
Even DOS was replaced by Windows as the main PC OS, what did MS use to ease the migration? A compatibility layer that allowed us to run our DOS programs inside a Window, at first we could even reboot in DOS itself (until Win 98 I believe... Maybe ME). By the time Windows 2000 came to be the DOS presence was much less important, these days even the Windows terminal hides its old DOS roots, overtaken by PowerShell, and even allowing BASH (from the Linux world).
At first a lot of people I know used to reboot in DOS all the time to play their games, over time that went away.
There is no guarantee of Linux taking over the desktop, or even PC gaming, but it's definitely in play, much more than it has ever been, and it does not seem to want to go away.
nani17
are in a big trouble
300 million plus people do and don't care because they want to play their games.
You're right they're ignoring it because it's small, but how can Linux get bigger when the games I mentioned are not supported
They're going to need to do massive things to pull people over which would then entice these companies to do something.
I might be wrong but I can't see it hitting 20% on just a single player games and certain multiplayer games something is going to have to happen to pull people over hopefully the Steam Machine and valve themselves try and work with these companies
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