Linux surpasses the Mac among Steam gamers
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win, to any degree or magnitude, because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.
Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet. Oh, no, that's no good a measure, servers are messy, let's refine it to most popular consumer operating system kernel? Oh... it, could also reasonably claim that title? No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not. Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop, that'll never trend up and thus is the perfect new-new definition of desktop linu--wait hold up, I'm getting word this is, not possible, its actually SteamOS? Nope, kill it, that's not desktop linux either, kill it.
There are many kind of linux users, and many reason to use linux. We don't all agree on the why and the how, which is one of the reason there are so many linux based OSes/distros.
And that is fine.
As to your latter point, you're just muddying the topic. Marketshare/netshare metrics are subdivided as they are because most people viewing those reports don't care what their web server, handwatch, video game console, etc use. They care what OS the computers people actually interface with runs; mostly for targeting reasons.
excuse my ignorance, but are there any major developer tools that don't support Windows? I can only imagine some internal enterprise tooling doing this.
>Ultimately compatibility layers are good because they reduce developer workload so that developers can focus on what really matters
I don't mind them as a concept, but I personally want as few points of failure between me and my software as possible. Some software is already either overly bloated or buggy (or both) as is without wondering if there's now compatibility layer issues on top of it.
At all, or well? Because git works on Windows, but it's meaningfully slow as a result of NT and unix having very different ideas about how filesystems should work.
Semgrep is one that I use at work. Nix is another. Docker¹ is a third. Many terminal emulators support multiple operating systems, but not Windows.
Windows support also often lags for new programming languages. Golang didn't run on Windows at first. Crystal is only now starting to have full-fledged Windows support. Plus there are many tools that do run on Windows but work poorly or are extremely slow or require tons of compatibility shims, like Git and Emacs.
A lot of dev tools are Unix-first. You just probably use only a few of them if you work at a Microsoft shop.
--
Not Docker itself at this point but 99.9% of all Docker containers that anyone actually uses.
You can. Idr if Docker Desktop supports it or not, but you can install Docker Engine for Windows and plug it into the Docker CLI and all that for sure.
I personally have not owned a Windows computer in the last 10 years, and even then I only used it for gaming and not for development. If my code works on Windows without a compatibility layer that’s a complete miracle.
Many Windows developers similarly have little idea how Unix works and stay in the Windows development ecosystem.
Ultimately you can only fit so much in your head and I don’t have room for Windows to live in mine too. I’m sure a lot of Windows devs feel the same way about Unix.
Git on Windows is only supported by installing a whole suite of Unix tools and a shell.
Tools like ccache/sccache treat windows (well msvc) as a second class citizen.
Go, the poster child for cross-compilation shatters that illusion when you need to use CGO.
Python, I believe things have gotten better but the last time I tried getting tensorflow up and running on Windows it was a long and painful path involving third party python distributions, native toolchains and changing drivers.
Docker on Windows is a shim for the Windows Jobs API, as Microsoft decided to offer the same experience instead of coming up with their own set of tooling.
In more recent Windows versions, there are other ways to manage containers, specially after containerd support improved.
The best way to distribute builds on Windows is via incredible and their VS integration.
Cross compilation never really quite works out, unless one can have a complete set of libraries and toolset of the host OS, otherwise there will always be corner cases.
Python has been quite alright when using distributions like ActiveState Python.
Git, well one cannot expect better from a SCM designed for the Linux kernel project in first place.
The entire Ruby ecosystem has never had great Windows DX: the most recommended Windows builds of Ruby itself come from a "second-party" group because official upstream doesn't seem to care to bundle nice installers, there's a ton of papercuts on Windows in the base libraries even in APIs you don't think would be platform-dependent, and a large number of third-party libraries and apps just kind of invariantly assume that you will never try to use them on Windows.
So it is proper Linux, as GP comment implies. Yes it's running games in Windows compatibility layers, but it is also a complete Linux system itself, with desktop. Definitely counts as running Linux.
And a decent chunk of those games are running on the Unity or Unreal runtimes. Do they count as "running on Windows"? Where are we drawing the line here?
if the developer released it as a windows build but is being played though a compatibility layer, yes. Unity and Unreal both support deploying Linux builds, but it doesn't mean making a proper Linux port is as easy as pressing the "Linux" button.
>Where are we drawing the line here?
I don't personally care for what counts or not. I just personally wish for more native support.
In the mid '10s Feral (and a to a lesser extent Aspyr), ported many AAA games to linx. Many of the ports were of quite good quality. I own a few of them, yet occasionally I have to switch to the Proton version as the native one fails to start.
OSS games are the exception of course: being able to produce a good working binary from source make them future proof.
At least that's my very limited experience with linux gaming. I started only a couple of weeks ago, but so far, everything works incredibly well.
Depends ... It can be that easy, sometimes. I was maintaining a huge Unity based VR setup the last years which had both Linux and Windows PCs (mostly for legacy reasons). Building for both platforms was done from the same bash script with the only difference being the platform identifier.
Tbf that was a very standalone application that did not interact with the OS a lot, but otoh I would assume that a lot of games are like that.
As someone who has played a lot of games with native linux "support", I want less of it.
In nearly every instance of these native ports, switching to using the windows version via Proton was a better experience, either because the Linux version was outdated, unmaintained and buggy, or it simply performed better.
Annoyingly, as far as I can tell, Steam these days doesn't make a distinction between native ports and Proton games so it's hard to tell if I'm getting served the unloved child version until something goes drastically wrong and I have to start messing around with it.
Any kind of port can be of high or low quality, though.
Sure, I can see that. My solution to that one day will hopefully be to make sure devs can keep their linux platforms updated, not give up and go around it with a windows build.
But Proton discourages that, not encourages. As you said, Steam doesn't want you to know what build you are playing, and if the audience doesn't know, then the devs won't care either.
this is fascinating..
Is it possible to install Arch linux and add the SteamOS layer and cut over and back again as desired?
You can also just go to the normal KDE Plasma environment from the steam menu and use it like normal Linux - or even install let's say emulators from Arch repos and add them to Steam then run them from SteamOS interface.
I've only run SteamOS on my Deck, but afaik if you install it on something else then you can still flip it between the gaming mode and the desktop mode. In desktop mode it behaves exactly like you'd expect an Arch Linux install to behave, and you can mess around with it as much as you'd like. In gaming mode it's like a console and really only plays games (but isn't limited to Steam games - people have got it running emulators and all sorts of other stuff too).
There are a couple of other game launchers, like Heroic, which handles both Epic and GOG games, which also works great.
But what's even better, is that if a GOG game doesn't quite run perfectly on Heroic because it lacks some of the latest refinements from Proton, you can import that game into Steam and taie advantage of Valve's nice work on Proton anyway.
I might do that; Cyberpunk on Heroic doesn't support raytracing or DLSS, and as I understand it, those do work if I were to run it on Steam. So that's a very nice option to have.
put it this way: I have the expenses and know how to simply have 2 native platforms if I need it. If I need to emulate something but don't feel like spinning a second boot, it's usually for a few niche programs I need very occasionally. Otherwise, I can just get that OS ready.
That's how I see the Steam Deck. I simply have a portable windows machine that has Steam on it, so I don't see the incremental value of having these games run through Proton while having a linux machine. Because I have "running windows games" covered. If it was running Linux games natively, I may in fact buy it simply to help say to developers that I want more native games on Linux. But if devs just keep focusing on Windows, I have that set already.
And To be honest I'm not a huge fan of the form factor nor screen to begin with, so it'd be a bigger compromise choosing to play on a Steam Deck than if I could choose other machines.
It is what it is. I would say they will never focus on Linux but it's not so clear anymore. A lot of things are changing fast.
> And To be honest I'm not a huge fan of the form factor nor screen to begin with, so it'd be a bigger compromise choosing to play on a Steam Deck than if I could choose other machines.
Luckily even better handhelds seem to be coming out. Asus ROG Ally (windows) is worth a look, as is Ayn Odin 2 (android..Now we have this too as a potential gaming platform to consider. Maybe not today, but who knows.). I recommend ETA PRIME's youtube channel to keep an eye on these things.
Excel was acknowledged as a better software pretty early on, and could always import Lotus spreadsheets, but it really started gaining adoption once it was able to export to Lotus files.
Counter-intuitively, the ability to stay within the Lotus ecosystem (and switch back at any time) is what enabled a lot of people on the fence to try Excel out. Only once Excel became dominant did people actually switch to XLS files.
I used Excel on Windows 2 from its release but I would be an outlier.
The other is that the notion of a 'proper port' here doesn't really matter. Source ports are rare and don't necessarily turn out better than compatibility layer ports. If the goal is to have playable games, or for Linux to become usable as a desktop OS for gamers, what kinds of ports we get doesn't come into it.
That said, source ports are nice and it'd be nice if they were common some day. It would also better secure desktop Linux's position here.
It does to me, but I'm not a stranger to being part of an underrepresented niche. I have windows machines to make games playable if I want to play a windows platform game.
I simply prefer control where possible, and leaving something to a compatibility layers makes me rely on two separate platforms being maintained and contributed to (and/or not enshittified) in order to not be SO, be it now or in a future. 3 if you count Steam's contributions on Proton and choosing to carry whatever game you want to play. There can still be bugs in the game proper, but a native port eliminated points of failure for me to investigate.
SteamOS solved the chicken-and-egg problem and is demonstrating that Linux-based gaming is viable. 2% isn't a massive number, but it might just be enough for a game developer to justify compiling a Linux-native version too.
sure, Microsoft used a compatability layer to translate microsoft's API to an API Microsoft also maintains to an open source API. As far as I see it, it doesn't introduce any further points of failure that I don't already have by relying on Microsoft.
an open source compatibility layer relying on Microsoft's API... It unfortunately isn't a communicative property here.
>SteamOS solved the chicken-and-egg problem and is demonstrating that Linux-based gaming is viable.
Sure, just not in a way I feel is productive for the long term. But again, to each their own.
>2% isn't a massive number, but it might just be enough for a game developer to justify compiling a Linux-native version too.
In my mind, it reduces the need because why not just rely on Valve to do the hard "porting" work for you? It's a win-win for a dev who simply wants to launch a game. I hope your vision is the correct one, but I'm not so optimistic.
Not a personal win for someone who wants less leverage from large corporations.
That won't be for a while, though. But im the mean time, Wine/Proton/DXVK means that the Linux experience is excellent even without explicit developer support, so the Linux user base can grow beyond just the handful of die hards. Anyone can easily game on Linux now.
That is how Steam solves the chicken/egg problem.
The only reason why SteamOS might conceivably not count, is because the users didn't explicitly, knowingly choose Linux. They chose Steam. Valve pushes the Steam deck to its users, and those users buy it, possibly not even caring that it's running Linux rather than Windows.
Doesn't matter though. It's still Linux, even if the users may not be aware of it.
Deep seated.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/deep-seated-deep-see...
I thought it was relevant information and could predict it was probably steam deck.
The newer generations of users are not computer literate, they use user friendly computers. It was not a conscious decision based on the OS it runs on.
The people that care about OS - specifically linux - dominance are not those users.
Probably the reason it can never “win” is because it’s an operating system kernel. It’s software.
You know what can win? People. Companies. In competition with each other. The Linux Foundation wins all the time when it gets contributions of code, money and capital. Valve wins all the time when people buy Steam Decks. Microsoft wins all the time when someone spins up a Linux server instance on Azure. Users when all the time when their Linux systems do the things they want it to.
But yeah, Linux never wins. Never can, never will. The same is true for Windows and Mac OS X and FreeBSD though, and postulating that a piece of an operating system code base can “win” or “lose” is the linguistic trap that sniped millions of nerds for over three decades. There’s no scorekeeper in this game.
I consider 2 things to be the same OS if they can natively run the same unmodified binary files and if we look at it this way, Linux is on a losing streak: - I cannot download an app on Android and run it on Debian - I cannot compile a program on one version of the same distro and run it on another version of the same distro
The moment I will be able to compile a program that runs on both Arch and Android, we can start adding the stats up, however I doubt tis will happen anytime soon looking at the poor attempts at fixing this.
Yes you can on the android emulator. The biggest issue is compu arch in that case.
> I cannot compile a program on one version of the same distro and run it on another version of the same distro
Yes you can for the most part (unless it uses a capability provided by a newer kernel which is super rare and mostly limited to system tools, and less for "apps"). Actually that is what makes containers and flatpak possible. It even works accross different distros as long as cpu arch is the same.
If I have to go and install one, I can do that on Windows.
I can also download VirtualBox and run all Windows programs, that would mean that all Windows apps are Linux apps?
> Yes you can for the most part
You can't statically link glibc: https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/issues/3392
glibc can break stuff: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2022/08/valve-dev-understandab...
I had binaries break because the newer version if openssl was put under a slightly different name.
WINE is not even an emulator, or so its name says.
You can! You will need to have a UI wrapper around it on Android but if you compile it in the right way there’s no reason this can’t work (assuming they use the same CPU architecture of course)
Instead, I think it's that "Linux" is an overloaded term. One sense is that someone downloads and installs a "Linux" distro because they actually want to use "GNU+Linux" (wink). The other sense, what you are aluding, to is that linux is foundational to most things IT. If I subscribe to DSL the provider is probably going to send me a modem that runs linux. But that doesn't mean I chose linux. I just wanted DSL. Same for Android. Most people that use Android didn't choose a linux-based mobile operating system. They want Android or are just using whats one the phone they wanted. And indeed, I don't think many "GNU+Linux" people would tolerate the specific essense of Android in their distros.
Now, SteamOS might be the bridge between these two worlds. On the one hand, Steam Deck users also didn't chose Linux. But then, the resources that Valve can spend on enabling gaming on Linux because of the success of Steam Deck means that many more people, like me, can finally consider choosing Linux.
Having said this, the local library from my German city does run on GNU/Linux.
In some comparisons it makes sense to remove DSL modems from the equation and focusing on some more "computer-like" subset of device (otherwise no OS would ever do better than "several orders of magnitude fewer deployments than Linux"), but discounting every device where you did not actively pick the OS would make for an extremely biased comparison.
Plus, we don't care about such distinctions outside comparisons. SteamOS have already driven significant improvements for regular desktop users. Same goes for Tizen, Android and ChromeOS. Even wonky DSL firmwares have positive effects for the rest of us.
> GNU+Linux
no.
For many non tech savvy users if you give them a Linux laptop with any modern DE, they can't tell the difference.
But it seems these filters are almost always cherry picked against Linux for some reason I sincerely don't know.
And the only thing he use it for entertainment is browser (for reading novels)
If I am managed to setup all these properly on other system. I doubt him would ever notice a difference.
Non tech user just can't care about what system he is using less. All matter for him are tools that help him to finish his work.
What about dvd/cd or install some new softwares? Well, I am the in house tech support.
That was a majority use-case between 2005-2015. Now it's a niche case (yeah, even if absolute numbers are still big enough, relatively speaking it's a niche)
Most desktop computers still do, and in alternative there are USB stick variants.
Which doesn't change the fact regarding what drivers, for what set of OSes, are supported out of the box.
It is true that if you try to reuse your 2003 Office install you will fail, but such unsupported and deprecated software will also cause trouble on a modern PC. Even if it runs, using an old version of Outlook is extremely unsafe...
Common end-user hardware does not require drivers nowadays either (not even printers due to IPPAnywhere and co., even though manufacturers still ship them for some reason).
Things are always hairy outside that though - macOS no longer permit kernel extensions, and you know you are in a dark place if DKMS gets involved on Linux.
WWDC sessions on that roadmap state quite clearly that is the long term end goal, all the kernel extension mechanisms will only be available in userspace, with one year transition for each subsystem after an userspace API is made available.
I'm not sure what would make you an authoritative source on why people by Macs or where you're sourcing your thoroughly researched data, but I can tell you I purchased an MBA to run macOS and the software that runs on macOS. Or like the Intel N100 mini PC I purchased explicitly to run proxmox + OPNSense. Or like my Windows laptop to have a mobile lab.
I pick the machine based on the software I want to run. I'm sure we can find one, perhaps if we stretch it, two other people on HN who also purchase machines based off of the OS/software they need to run.
Most users do not watch WWDC and do not know what OS release notes are. They don't know what the boundary between their web browser and their OS is, and macOS just becomes "the thing that nags them to update it" - a nag that users unfortunately still ignore, as evident by my recent confrontation with Big Sur machines.
However, that doesn't mean that every non-HN user out there buys the aluminum-shell-in-the-vague-shape-of-a-laptop and doesn't make a conscious choice.
My point still stands. The GP doesn't have the data to back up the assertion.
> That does not mean that every non-HN user...
Not every - but I do believe it is still the majority. There are a lot of people out there, and the knowledge required to make the aforementioned OS choice is niche.
This is not implying stupidity, just that there are many trades and interests out there, and subscribing to ours specifically is not a given.
Which is why I made no assertion with a percentage.
> but I do believe it is still the majority
What makes you believe that? Thousands of data points? Hundreds? Tens? The handful of people around you? Certainly not statistics.
Ridiculous standards aside, I find it an extremely reasonable to assert that given more than 7 billion people across vast areas, interests, ideologies and jobs, and given the vast hi.an knowledge, expertise and culture, that any particular interest or knowledge is only shared by a small subset.
That's not at all what they said. All they're saying -- correctly -- is that you are asserting some sort of magnitude ("majority") without any data to back it up.
I would guess, though, from my personal experience, that you are probably right that a majority of people just get whatever laptop with whatever OS they're used to because that's what their parents/school/employer gave them to use, and when it's time for a new machine, they just get whatever they had before. But I don't think this is a very large majority.
> I find it an extremely reasonable to assert that given more than 7 billion people [...] that any particular interest or knowledge is only shared by a small subset.
Probably true, but also remember that OS choice isn't always driven by interest. A macOS user may get frustrated with the state of gaming on the Mac, and decide to switch to Windows. Or a Windows user might really want or need to use an application only available on macOS (though I expect this sort of thing doesn't happen as often anymore, since more and more of people's computer use ends up being through a web browser). A Windows user might also buy an iPhone or iPad and get into the Apple ecosystem enough that they decide to switch to macOS.
Certainly some people who do switch OSes don't do so because they've made an independent choice; they do so because they switch employers, and something else is the only thing available, or a friend evangelizes another OS to them to the point they want to give it a try, and end up liking it.
Regardless, many people these days don't even have a laptop or desktop computer, and do all their computing on their phone or tablet. I think that 7 billion number gets a lot smaller when you consider that. (Also, as an aside, the current world population is estimated to be a bit over 8 billion now, not 7.)
Your response is more reasonable, and is also more out in the open about the alternate belief (of course equally without data). Nothing wrong with disagreeing - only about making up unbalanced burdens of proof in casual discussions.
For good reason. Running those updates requires restarting the computer, which in turn means you have to get your working state setup again after each update. People use computers to get things done, and running updates often has the opposite effect.
Even if things continue to work, updates may come with UI changes that disrupt the user's workflow (and the trend tends to be to remove or hide functionality and make things less useful/information dense as time goes by). Unless there's something you specifically want, modern software updates tend to be high risk low reward from the user's perspective.
Incidentally this is why I prefer desktop Linux. With the exception of Firefox turning into Chrome over the years, FOSS software tends to be remarkably stable. My home computer feels like it hasn't changed at all in almost a decade. I never have to fiddle with it.
My biggest issue with Windows was the forced reboots.
Exactly. The thing many users are referring to as MacOS, is in fact, Darwin/MacOS, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Darwin plus MacOS. MacOS is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning operating system made useful by the BSD corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by the Single Unix Specification v3.
I don't see why. I really like macOS. More than any other environment it's uncluttered, well organised, it gets out of the way. It abstracts a lot of unnecessary technical detail but still allows diving into that, if I'm inclined. And most of all, I like well integrated system-wide features instead of palming it off to developers. Sure the hardware is good too, but I don't know where you get that idea from.
It's VERY EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to "teach the controversy" of GNU+Linux. It's not at all important to actually use the term.
In that case 99.9% of windows users fall in the same category. They are just using the OS that came on the device they bought. How many people actually bought a separate license, and downloaded a Windows installer because they specifically wanted to install Windows on their device?
Pretty much the entire (DIY) PC gaming market? Granted they may not buy Windows but they are certainly making the choice to download and use it over linux.
Sure there is a pre-built market for desktop PCs but I would think the PC Gaming market skews to DIY though I have no stats.
Note: I run arch btw.
Just a few weeks ago, I tried playing a Japanese game that I was interested in, but it didn't even get past the start menu. Not a big deal for me as I'm not an avid gamer, I just moved on.
But imagine telling a hardcore gamer that no, you can't play that new game released an hour ago. Maybe it'll become compatible a few months later, maybe not.
Or tell a professional artist that no, they can't use that art software anymore, they have to retrain their entire skillset with an entirely different software.
Now that's a show-stopper. For most people, it's 100% compatibility or bust.
Professional artists are also an interesting choice. If they are in a major art studio, they are probably having to use custom tooling there already. And Wacom is very well supported on linux.
I have a game that works fine with proton on one machine, but doesn't on another machine. But works fine with windows on both machines.
I tried for hours to get it to work on the other machine, since it clearly can. No luck.
In the end with proprietary software, it's always a black box.
This is also an odd rabbit hole to fight about. I've had so many windows boxes that couldn't play games throughout the years that I've basically accepted that games programming is hard. :D
No difference of being a nice package for something like MAME.
If Linux wins in that category as well, could we finally stop moving the goalposts?
A modem's application is the one thing it does and the interface is an abstraction layer standardised enough that the modem could be replaced in a shoe closet without anyone even noticing.
Linux "won" the server. Linux has not "won" the consumer desktop/laptop gaming market.
SteamOS is super interesting. Does it count as Linux? Yes and no? Depends on your goalpost! If I were shipping a game today I would 100% support SteamDeck and SteamOS. I'd maybe provide support via Win32 emulation, or maybe native. I'd probably stick to Win32 and only do native if needed for performance.
But I would 1000% NOT claim to support "Linux". I would support SteamDeck and that's it. If any user reported a bug or issue on other Linux distros then I would close the bug as "not supported". If it works, cool. If it doesn't, that's cool too. You're entirely on your own.
Supporting one Linux distro on one piece of hardware is pretty easy. Supporting all the Linux flavors on all possible hardware configurations is a bloody nightmare. And it's radically harder than supporting Windows across all hardware configurations. And it's definitely not worth it to increase sales by ~0.5% or so.
Take from that what you will.
Not at all.
Funnily enough these goalposts were actively moved by Linux proponents themselves. Because whenever there's a criticism of Linux, it turns out that the system in question is not a true Linux... because reasons.
> Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet.
It is. I don't think anyone is denying that.
> No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not.
This has been the argument of Linux proponents (many of them) for years.
> Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop
I've seen multiple claims that Ubuntu is not the true Linux. From people using Arch, or Gentoo, or...
I'm not overly optimistic given that the biggest barrier to supporting Linux has always been how much variance there is in terms of what's out there, but it's still a good thing for Linux.
In terms of perceptions of desktop Linux I don't really think it matters. Linux isn't going anywhere and as software probably has more penetration right now than any other operating system ever has.
The weird thing is, for me personally, is that of all the games I collected over there years when I did Windows gaming, many of them are now Apple Silicon native. Sure, the big ones like Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises aren't there, but many others are. Even the brand-new Baldur's Gate 3 is on Apple Silicon. No Man's Sky is now too.
I'm not a big gamer anymore, but it's just interesting to see.
The pros of deciding your own runtime environment allows you to customize the system more and even run Linux on machine that has very strict resource limit.
The cons is that it is almost impossible to run a software everywhere without bundle literally anything you use into own binary. The steam itself do it(steam runtime), but I don't know if it is even close to a complete resolution because it don't really solve the problem for softwares outside of steam.
Nope. The biggest barrier is the FUD around there being so much variance. 99% of desktop Linux is glibc-based. Beyond that, binary compatibility is no harder than Windows. Differrent yes, meaning devs used to Windows have some learning to do, but not drastically different even.
That is, this is likely easily solvable, but it is most easily solvable at the beginning of a project by choice of base libraries. I can understand not wanting to change things after the fact for a presumably small user base.
They claimed that they'd need a different implementation per distribution. Which makes no sense. It's just open()/ioctl_tty()/read()/write(), all of which are in the libc of every distribution that has ever existed since the 90s.
That said, I think most of us, except for the die hard purists, are fine with Proton compatibility being the main target for companies. As long as a game runs as well as it does elsewhere without restrictions or inconvenience, most of us are happy and don't care about the technical details of how it's running.
If we talk ABI's not API's, it's not a joke https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/
It's funny because it's true. Valve took advantage of Microsoft API stability guarantees and executed with an overnight success 10 years in the making.
It's actually a great thing, too. You build a game once and it's more stable than any distro packaging could ever make it be.
So less avoiding Windows licences and more avoinding getting cut out by MS.
[1] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/671A-4453-E8D2-32...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/12sgnw7/what_do_...
You could probably get away without the mouse if you're ok with touchpad usage. But YMMV.
Stop imagining. I'm quite literally mooching around in bed posting this from Firefox on a Steam Deck in desktop mode docked to my bedroom TV. This[1] isn't your father's Oldsmobile.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck/#SaleSection_24468
Sure, some might dip into desktop mode to do a bit of browsing, or set up emulators, but nobody is saying "hey, I'll just use this as my daily driver now".
Seriously, the hubris[1][2][3][4][5] of it all.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/12sgnw7/what_do_...
[2] https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/12sgnw7/what_do_...
[3] https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/12sgnw7/what_do_...
[4] https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/12sgnw7/what_do_...
[5] https://old.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/12sgnw7/what_do_...
But it's simply not relevant. Linux is a success in its own right. So much better than Windows on a server. And the desktop is losing relevance (but it might bounce back when you least expect it).
It's likely the only thing everyone can agree is Linux is whatever Linus has on his machine.
What if he has more than one computer and doesn't have the same setup on all of them?
There was a working, officially supported Miracast app on the Xbox One for a while and I used that for a screen extender of a Windows 10 Phone and a laptop for a few years before the app stopped working. I think it stopped working only because no one was using it.
This is in reference to the "Year of the Linux Desktop" meme. I don't consider Steam Deck to be a general-purpose desktop computer.
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/671A-4453-E8D2-32...
I'm doing exactly that with a Steam Deck. I'll be going out of town for the next few week and instead of carrying a laptop to WFH, I'm just taking my SD and a keyboard with me.
[1] https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-use-desktop-m...
It's not "vanilla", but so isn't Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora Sericea, or whatever else. The underlying stack is the same, there's just customizations on top.
If FreeBSD got substantial market share that would be a victory. ChromeOS gaining market share, and especially being used in education, is a defeat.
Or is it? Whether or not we have come close to TYOLOTD depends on how you define "The Desktop". If "The Desktop" is a metaphor for "the hands of the non-specialist user who doesn't even call their device 'a computer" then yeah, it's doing great. The Deck is a major step forwards in that, it wraps up Steam's entire catalog of Windows games into a nice little bubble of virtualization that varies in seamlessness depending on how new the game is.
If you define it as a desktop computer, it's nowhere near that. Most people who sit down at a a desk with a large screen to do work that involves multiple windows and a mouse pointer are still sitting in front of a box that's running Windows or MacOS. Those two operating systems still dominate that domain, as well as the world of people popping open a laptop to do windows-and-pointer work away from their office.
Linux keeps nibbling at that domain, and the work Valve did on their fork of WINE to get fifty bazillion Windows games running on this handheld Linux device is probably going to help take some bigger bites. But what do people go buy when they want A Computer? When you answer that with "Linux", that's The Year Of Linux On The Desktop.
SteamOS is actually Archlinux which is a mere Linux. Archlinux can be considered as clean sheet Linux, they avoid patching and modifications if possible. So probably even the FSF people would accept it as GNU/Linux?
Even more. The SteamDeck is using a X86_64 CPU and RDNA2 GPU. No hidden firmware locks. So it is an IBM-PC. It counts therefore 100% as Linux. I would even say 120% because it comes pre-installed.
It shouldn't be. For the same reasons you would shorten TCP/IP to TCP, you should shorten GNU/Linux to GNU. This avoids all of the confusion about what is "really Linux", because when people say that they actually mean GNU.
There are reasons to want to talk about Linux, but it probably shouldn't be much more common than NT in day to day vocabulary.
SteamOS on the other hand is an actual GNU/Linux distribution that can be installed in any machine and any improvements that Steam does, e.g. to 3d drivers or hardware support, will benefit the entire desktop Linux ecosystem.
Linux is the dominant operating system in tech, moreso when you include a fuzzy, but reasonable, definition -- I like to say "Linux-ish."
Kids, literally everything you encounter that isn't Windows is "Linux-ish."
Apple has found ways to make their flavor of "Linux-ish" more exclusive and that has drawbacks. In fact, each company naturally tries to figure out how they can best make money for themselves and you can judge them how you want -- but the core of this is this thing called "free and open source software," where basically everyone agrees to (or it just makes more sense to) use this stuff that's shared and out there.
You can use this as your desktop too, if you like. Here's how.
Win what? It’s wildly popular in some environments, and it’s getting more popular in others. I think it’s a waste your energy to get worked up over who’s giving Linux “proper recognition”…
If Linux is only popular on Android, Chromebooks, SteamOS, servers, embedded devices it strongly suggests to me that people are perfectly content with using Linux as long as they don't have to use the Linux desktop. (I know it's available on the Deck, but it's not the primary UI for it).
The Steam Linux numbers used to be indicative of Linux desktop popularity. If their large rise now is in large part due to the Steam Deck, that doesn't quite mean that the Linux desktop is getting popular. So it seems this is a totally fair nuance to me?
There seems to be a rising sentiment of discontent with Windows 11 and the general direction Windows is heading. There's been positive coverage of SteamDeck and the new SteamOS that is driving previously skeptical people towards being open to trying out Linux for gaming and as a general desktop OS.
Frankly I just don't see it as an interesting metric. "More Steam games are played on Steam Deck (+ desktop Linux) than on macOS." So what? Even though the Steam Deck blurs the lines a bit, I don't consider desktop gaming and console/handheld gaming to be directly comparable. Or at least, I don't consider comparing them in this way to be interesting.
Just as I don't think "Linux is the most used OS kernel on the planet" to be all that interesting. Ok, it's interesting in a certain, narrow way. Obviously its use in mobile/embedded devices and servers dwarfs its use on the desktop. If we want to compare "OS choice on servers" or "OS choice on mobile devices", that's notable.
But when we're talking about gaming, and we want to compare "desktop macOS gamers" to other things, the only other things I think are relevant are "desktop Windows gamers" and "desktop Linux gamers".
If Steam-using desktop Linux gamers were surpassing Steam-using desktop macOS gamers, that would be huge, important news! But a bunch of people buying a Steam Deck and raising the number of people gaming on the Linux kernel is, to me, no more interesting than saying there are a ton of people playing games on the Linux kernel because there are a ton of people who game on Android phones. Whoop-de-do, film at 11.
(Full disclosure: I'm a desktop Linux user, and have been for over 20 years.)
Mac was actually doing pretty decently for game a few years back. A pretty big chunk of the games on Steam, including many of the high profile games, were available on OSX. Dropping 32-bit support set things back immensely, however. With that one decision, Apple made the number of games available to OSX users a small fraction of the amount that was available before.
I didn't have a Windows machine so I stopped using Steam completely for a few years until the Deck came out.
PowerPC binaries are no longer usable, x86 binaries are no longer usable, I don't see why they wouldn't do it again in the name of streamlining the platform.
What do you mean by this? Rosetta 2 is very fast and it runs a lot of x86 apps well.
Catalina ended support for 32-bit binaries even on Intel Macs, and Rosetta2 could never run 32-bit code.
I feel for you lmao. Technology naming conventions are a shitshow, and CPU architecture is no exception.
And Apple is working as hard as possible to remove it as soon as possible.
If it ain't on steam, I don't play it, and they don't get my money.
Games don’t need to be on Steam to be good.
There are some other launchers for epic games and gog (heroic game launcher I’ve used). It worked for me for a the couple games I tried (gloomhaven and disco elysium) but I’m using the proton wine I which I think was put out there by valve/steam.
> says that very few of those bugs were specific to Linux, being clear that "This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone."
You're welcome.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/qeqn3b/despite_hav...
I understand their work on Unreal Engine (UE) since Fortnite is built on top of UE, but I don't understand the rest of their ecosystem and why Epic game store even exists.
But the store seems to exist because they don’t want to use steam or anything else cos they won’t want to lose the 30% cut on game sales or in-game micro transactions.
Yet they happily pay Sony and MS…
And if they created their store and opened it up to others and says oh yeah our fees are less. It would be fine. Gamers have choice. Developers have choice.
But buying games already on steam, or paying to get exclusives is bad. Especially when Tim lies so much.
They should compete by having a better product, service, experience. But they lie cheat and steal to grow.
based on their webstore and their butting with Apple/Google, they want to be the one stop shop for desktop and mobile. desktop was the obvious first step, but the aspect of a premium mobile game store is an interesting premise. And probably overly optimistic. I'm sure they will simply bend to the f2p GAAS model as much as Apple/Google did and simply want that platform cut.
There's also the matter of its own Unreal ecosystem it's building. It's letting kids use real (but watered down) UE tools to mod fortnite, which leads to future devs that make games in UE, which they can then publish to the EGS. Short of actual hardware, they seem to want full vertical integration of the game development process. And if Fornite money keeps flowing, I can see a 5+ year plan where they cover the hardware aspect as well.
Media production. Many (most?) of their recent improvements ti Unreal have been geared towards film and tv production.
In what way is he openly hostile to gamers in general?
Same with Gabe? Neither are running charities. They made tools that helped enable creators. But always keep in mind that it's money first, and creativity second.
>Epic game store is probably the worst store to exist.
Given all the PC platforms that have come and gone I always find this to be an odd take. EGS makes the grave sin of uhh...
- exclusivity windows which may or may not be permanent (which every store does)
- they don't make features fast enough for the power users
Like... am I missing something here? Or am I just much better versed in what Origin, the Ubi Store, Rockstar's store, and Window's own game store's negative aspects?
So you could argue valve cares about gamers more.
This is also evident in the fact that exclusives are often more expensive than games on steam that are available elsewhere because of actual competition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Sweeney_(game_developer)
Founder and CEO of Epic games.
He has a history of whinging about Windows, and when suggestions of supporting Linux come up, since it's what Valve is doing to ensure they aren't trapped in a mono-system, Tim is argumentative in a bad faith way.
Previous discussions about Epics anti-Linux behaviour, but unfortunately the Tweets have since been deleted.
https://www.protondb.com/explore
Some games on the list are kind of old, sure. But they're the most played nevertheless.
And from the ones that are not native, many of them run well on Proton.
Those are the games they would try to get working first. I am not saying this as a counterpoint but a different reading of the same thing.
If you figure out how to make that happen, let us know.
Perhaps it's time to think of Windows as another VM...
Vernor Vinge extrapolated this to layers upon layers of emulation if humanity evolves (survives?) a couple more hundred thousand years.
If the developers have a native Linux version that I can buy directly from their site, I might do that as well to show my support (but still buy it on steam since it's just too convenient).
In my experience 99% of the games work out of the box with wine-staging, DXVK and VKD3D-Proton (which works with wine-staging just fine). No need to mess around with anything, just install wine-string, install DXVK and VKD3D-Proton and you are ready to run pretty much everything with "wine installername.exe" or "wine gamebinary.exe".
I never had to use winetricks, lutris or anything of the sort.
I also play games on Steam and even got a Steam Deck (on which i also play games i got outside from Steam), so it isn't like i am Valve-free, but you certainly do not have to tie yourself on Steam if you are gaming on Linux nor your experience will be any worse.
That sounds like a fair bit of domain-specific knowledge driven steps that could quickly got awry and lead a novice deep into frustration.
Compared to... Clicking the Play button in the Steam launcher, ideally from your Steam Deck.
It's miles apart.
It isn't something i'd recommend to some random gamer (though judging from what i've seen people do with their Steam Decks i wouldn't underestimate gamers' technical abilities).
[0] like, say, me :-P. In 2020 i used Windows as my main OS after trying to switch to Linux as my main OS in 2018 but having some issues with games, but then i ended up having some visual glitches in a game that were fixed by throwing in DXVK. At that point i thought that this might actually be a sign that gaming on Linux now works fine - and indeed it did and since then i've being using it as my practically only OS because i can both work and game on it without feeling like i'm missing anything.
If it is buggy, they play something else. There is a wide enough offer for this strategy to work really well.
Being driven to install tools to get it to run is an exceptional behaviour and a lot of hassle for anyone, windows or Linux. Nearly noone does that.
I don't know what most people do as i am not most people, but i already addressed my expectations and assumptions on the first paragraph of the comment you replied to.
I didn't know we got to the point where installing 3 packages was domain specific knowledge, especially for Linux users. I guess it explains why I feel s out of touch with people welcoming walled gardens with open arms.
It's interesting, I hate walled gardens due to their restrictions, but I feel no restrictions regarding Steam. If anything, it enables me to enjoy my purchases more, not less.
I'd never use an iPhone because I hate the restrictiveness of their app store and how you cannot use whatever browser engine you want. I dislike consoles for the same reasons, I hate that I need to buy a switch and play on it (with it's inferior hardware) to enjoy Nintendo exclusives (yes, I am aware I can emulate their games and get a better experience). I hate Discord because they force you to use their client and still use mumble/IRC. There are probably examples of things I avoid because I don't want to support them.
I find Valve a completely different story. They've probably done more for Linux gaming than any other company. I am personally not inconvenienced by any of their restrictions. Like I previously said, in my mind, they add value to my game purchases, not remove it. I will gladly keep giving them my money, it's probably one of the few companies that I have strong positive feelings for.
Granted, I do remember being pissed off when they forced me to install Steam to play Half-life 2 back in 2004. Back then, it was a shit walled garden that provided no value. But since then, things have changed drastically.
experiences are different. I play/read a lot of VN's and Valve's policies for approving those are like throwing darts on a board. I simply got tired of reading one VN and having its sequel mysteriously rejected a few years later. That's frustrating to both me as a gamer and the developers. I don't feel like picking up a pitchfork everytime and simply will avoid Steam whenever possible.
and on a very personal note, I find the Wine workaround as just that. another flimsy point of failure waiting until Microsoft does what it is historically known to do. It doesn't encourage much linux gaming for me nor does it make me feel like I'm supporting linux gaming by using it, because it's at the mercy of yet another conglomerate.
You had to go to WineHQ, look at the open issues and workarounds, and often troubleshoot issues yourself.
Lutris made the process a bit easier and then Proton made it absurdly easier.
The problem with Proton is that Steam Input is not well implemented.
I very quickly gave up and just used Lutris, copied someones settings/versions from Reddit and it worked, but I wasn't too happy. I _really_ wanted to try Diablo4, so I put up with it, but normally my patience for such things is pretty low.
I am not averse to messing around with things, I've got a pretty good idea of how things work in Linux. I've written my own .so files to fix bugs in closed source software using LD_PRELOAD. I just don't want to deal with that when gaming.
There's more to Steam than just the pre-configured proton. Their controller support stuff is top notch and so is the stream link/stream stuff. Not using steam would definitely make my experience worse.
The game companies need the reform. Not valve.
Also, what do you mean gamers complain about the price of games? Console, sure, with the new standard MSRP. But what does that have to do with Steam? Games are cheaper than they've ever been. One of the arguably best RPGs of recent times launched at 60 Euros with no microtransactions.
What exactly are you expecting? Do you want Valve to be a charity?
If you want, you can stick a static page onlinr and hook up stripe, and sell steam keys yourself. Valve offers a service; a marketplace, discovery, and a merchant system. Youre more than welcome to handle that yourself and see whether that "significant tax" is worth it.
On the consumer side too, steam makes things pretty frictionless. I can't say literally all of my budget on games is through steam, but it's over 95%. I was also happy that their steam deck I got recently, in addition to helping the linux ecosystem in theory, is actually not a piece of junk like the librem phone I finally got delivered this year and so helps it in reality too. (Though in the librem case that was expected even at pre-order time.)
I found their customer support appalling.
I lost everything, including the games I used to have on CD but which had migrated to Steam.
To quote Akbar : "it's a trap!"
And prefer not having to haul a library of physical media with me everywhere at the minuscule risk of losing access to said games.
If I have to use some third party launcher to make up for what it lacks, I might as well use steam
And launch the exe directly from Windows desktop or start menu.
There are a few games that allow this, for example Cyberpunk 2077 and Control.
I sometimes refund games if they are obnoxious with letting me launch them from the start menu.
Devil's advocate: Epic allows you to use third party FOSS clients, Valve never did.
In Steam's terms, they make clear that they will do everything they can to maintain your access to your games, even if they close shop. Of course, that may not be much, but I think Valve cares more about the customer than any other company listed above.
I've seen enough of the dark side of Valve to not trust that notion any more than any of Epic's promise. They haven't won that goodwill of "trust me" from me.
Besides, private companies scare me a tiny bit more in the grand scheme of things. A large company is evil, but boring. It's really hard for any new CEO to radically change the direction of a company in the short term. But Gabe won't live forever, and who knows who/what takes over later. taking action against a private company as a consumer is much harder than a public company that at least needs to care a bit about shareholders when making unpopular moves.
It's almost like, sometimes the company itself has some amount of influence on your choice.
A. General Content and Services License
Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
Could you point me to these DRM free Steam games? I have the impression that games from Steam doesnt work without actually Steam.
Here's a list of some of those games: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
For those games Steam acts as a download/update manager and nothing more. You can run them even without the Steam client.
They have an actual "Games for Linux" section (https://www.gog.com/en/games/linux). I guess that should mean anything more than just "this may work on Linux if you compile this kernel and use this version of wine with these patches".
i’m exactly the same, but with nintendo, sony and xbox :)
I switched to Linux because Windows Filesystem was too unreliable with OneDrive hijacking it. (Also Cortana, auto open edge links, ads/ragebait news in the start menu)
But I needed something reliable, and Microsoft is no longer reliable.
Previously, you could only play on desktop Macs with a discrete graphics card. But now there is a M1 Macbook with powerful graphics out of the box. And the install base is pretty big.
But it only will happen with the help from Apple. We already see the first attempts - Death Stranding will be available natively on M1 Macs.
We see those first steps every year, Apple always has some big developer showing a game running on the Mac and then nothing relevant actually happens beyond that.
At least Vulkan is a first-class citizen on Linux, so the aforementioned issues are even less headache-filled.
Also the Nintendo Switch supports Vulkan.
This is a good table for Vulkan support across platforms: https://www.ravbug.com/graphics/
And on Linux your best bet is to run DirectX through compatibility software like what SteamDeck does.
It took a few hours of messing around until I finally decided to follow the Asus-Linux tutorial, which worked flawlessly. My suggestion for anyone looking to make the jump, follow a tutorial. (I thought my tech skills would be enough, but there are some gotchas)
Anyway I installed Steam last night! (And ran into an issue playing Dwarf Fortress, classic Linux... but at least I don't have to worry about M$ hijacking my filesystem anymore!)
That's great there was a tutorial that got everything working well, especially for your specific setup! I'm also now running Linux as my only operating system on my gaming desktop machine (I run Arch, btw ;D ). Steam/Proton and Lutris make gaming a relative cinch now, and I've been hoping for this since I first started with Linux in 1999.
Edit>> Words are hard.
It strikes me that with all the progress on getting Linux working on the M1, getting Steam going there should also be doable and I think it already partially works.
But of course Valve could double down on getting proton working on mac os as well. I don't think that there are many fundamental blockers for that beyond the dealing with metal instead of vulkan and intel vs arm. And they could fall back to using e.g. qemu.
It's probably a bit of work but it's also a rich market of people used to spending money on expensive hardware that might be tempted to buy lots of Steam games if it becomes easy enough. And of course they have an insane catalog of older games that aren't that demanding that probably run fine even in an emulator. I bet this would piss Apple off a lot though but I'm not sure they'd be able to do much about it.
Don't be fooled by the numbers, while we advanced a lot, Windows compatibility is a wild animal and Wine/Proton is still broken for a lot of things. I'm not sure if we will ever get full compatibility, but concurrent MacOS support looks like a great undertaking. It might be possible though.
Not all have this view and nor most will.
Hard-core gamer will most likely keeping on Windows unless developers and distributors change their ways.
Some people buy a computer because of the OS it is running and they need select applications to run. Most only need a web browser and it does not matter what OS they run, often it is the least expensive laptop. Something that has a bigger screen than a smart-phone.
Windows backwards capability is also limited. Gaming: never was able to get Slave Zero running on a Windows XP box, only Win98. Development: had to ignore the input event system Microsoft designed for WinForms and WPF, using Win32 message pump directly, because of faulty drivers and new features breaking backward capability.
And 42% of that is Steam Deck...
It's a little bit disappointing, to be honest.
It's just an application launcher, a glorified Start menu. I would never choose to use it, it's forced on me because of the Steam store.
Apple's marketing does not define these terms.
I got a gaming laptop back in 2022 for $550. Literally endless free games, and for $20 a year, you can get 4 old GOTY games from steam during a sale.
Not to mention endless mods.
PC gaming is infinite entertainment.
I'm personally using Debian testing with KDE, but as long as Steam works, you should be fine. Zorin is also a nice out of the box experience.
Now that you can run iOS apps on it.
Mobile gaming is nearly double the rest of gaming market combined.
However, it looks like Android gets more money there: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/mobile-games-revenue/
I suspect mobile gaming is dominated by a long tail of whales, but what do I know. Gaming on phones never really appealed to me.
When my laptop motherboard died, I extracted the SSD, and I now boot it up on my deck, on the same docking station. It's snappier than before!
Of course, it's less portable. The SD desperately needs a second USB port for that kind of setup. I'd also need a Bluetooth keyboard for portability.
Even the standard "desktop mode" interface is serviceable. I've got some real work™ done with it.
Also while we at it, imma include Android into the fold and curb stomp every other OS.
>Android doesn't count as deskt-
Pair it with keyboard and mouse, plug an external monitor, use [Smart Dock](https://github.com/axel358/smartdock) if you need to, Voilà!