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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

- "The vast majority of applications exist only for Windows, and speaking of games, Linux hasn't seen any AAA titles for many years now,"

The vast majority of AAA titles run seamlessly on Linux. Per protondb[0], ≥80% of the top 10, top 100, and top 1000 are rated "platinum" or "gold" for Linux functioning (by users).

[0] https://www.protondb.com/

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> Also, despite millions of players, it's hard to call CS2 an AAA title because it's based on Direct3D 11 (which is now more than a decade old) and lacks modern lighting techniques like ray tracing.

Some of the quotes from the OP's page border on parody. So, CS2 doesn't count as a AAA title because it's based on DX11 and doesn't have realtime ray tracing. But apparently this same person is oblivious to the fact that both real-time RT and DX12 translation have been completely usable on Linux for years now. Nvidia helped ship native RT to Linux clients in Wolfenstein: Youngblood, and Proton has supported the majority of DX12 games with RT since before the Steam Deck existed.

Kinda makes you glad that this is the final edition, if that's the sort of due diligence being exercised.

I got halfway through it before realizing that it’s just a clickbait article.

Yes, look up the author's name.

Look at their contributions to the Linux kernel, GCC, KDE, Wine, and many other projects.

A total clickbait for sure.

I don't think that will convince many people. Appealing to authority is one third of rhetoric, Aristotle would say that you need emotion or logic to convince me completely.

Speaking for myself, I'm mostly surprised that someone with such an intimate knowledge of Linux has ignored it's developments to this extent. This entire thread is mostly at the consensus that you have tortured many of the talking points in this article beyond taking seriously.

Many in this thread have also identified that MacOS and Windows are deficient in several of the criteria you listed. So what even is a desktop, really? An ideal, or a thing people use?

> has ignored it's developments to this extent

What have I ignored precisely?

Bugs? Regressions? Missing features? Lack of funding?

Xorg being deprecated, Wayland being all the rage while being usable only in Gnome and KDE?

> Many in this thread have also identified that MacOS and Windows are deficient in several of the criteria you listed.

Windows: 2 billion users with no technical background.

Linux: 40 million users most of whom are geeks.

End of story.

The X.Org project is not deprecated. It handles both the X.Org X11 server and Wayland.

That said, Linux has more users than Windows:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/

Android Linux is at 46%, while Windows is at 26%. Other Linux versions have 1%.

Not a single Windows MacOS iOS Android user knows what their display server is and how it works.

Xorg is being deprecated and replaced with semi-broken something where tons of functions only work in KDE and Gnome. That's all you need to know about Linux.

You are calling the Xorg X11 server Xorg, which is wrong. As someone who has “contributed” to so many projects, you should know that. In any case, it is odd you are whining about this considering that the article’s author is a well known X11 hater and you seem to agree with everything he says.

By the way, “Not a single Windows MacOS iOS Android user knows what their display server is and how it works” is both a non-sequitur and untrue. The guys who wrote the display servers used on those are users of those systems.

> You are calling the Xorg X11 Xorg, which is wrong

Xorg has been the de-facto X11 implementation on Linux for the past 25 years.

First XFree86, then it was superseded by Xorg.

You're being nit picky only that's not a counter argument. That's ad hominem.

> the article’s author is a well known X11 hater and you seem to agree with everything he says.

I'm the author of the article and I'm not a hater. Understanding the limitations of something is not "hatred". I guess the entire world is black or white to you, either I have to be deeply in love with Linux or "You're a hater" which is another ad hominem.

See you've stopped arguing and now switched to discussing me personally. I knew it would happen given how you never had any counter arguments in the first place, the problem is I've been here for over 25 years and know Linux inside out and EVERYTHING that is "claimed" in the article is the common truth.

> By the way, “Not a single Windows MacOS iOS Android user knows what their display server is and how it works” is both a non-sequitur and untrue.

Yet another "counter argument" that lacks any validity because it's empty.

> The guys who wrote the display servers used on those are users of those systems.

This is an article about Linux _USERS_.

You still don't bloody understand that. I don't care about software engineers that can make anything work given enough time. I don't care who wrote Quartz or Surface Flinger. They are not end users.

End users use Operating Systems, buy them and buy software for them. Their developers are absolutely IRRELEVANT. There have been dozens of forgotten OSes that no one uses.

There is nothing “ad hominem” in what I said. I was discussing your remarks, rather than you. However, I will now discuss you. You exhibit severe deficits in logical reasoning skills. Some of your comments exhibit signs of disorganized thoughts, which are linked to schizophrenia.

To give an example, the sudden interjection of “Not a single Windows MacOS iOS Android user knows what their display server is and how it works.” appears to be an example of disorganized thinking, since its connection to what was being discussed is superficial to an extreme. There are other comments by you that exhibit signs of disorganized thinking even more clearly.

You likely could benefit from seeing a psychiatrist.

I have commits in half the projects you mentioned and I think the article is FUD. There are technically wrong points in it, such as the claim that you cannot run old Linux binaries on modern Linux. People are able to run old binaries on Linux that are 30 years old, although it requires copies of the old libraries those binaries need. If the guy actually is involved with so many projects, he would know this.

The guy even contradicted himself:

> Linux is not an operating system

> While Linux is unrivaled on servers and has been the world's most popular operating system for over two decades, the situation on the desktop is quite bleak.

Both cannot be true.

You've not read the article at all and it explains full well what constitutes an OS.

The Linux kernel is NOT an OS.

Any given Linux distro which is not compatible with any other Linux distro or even its own earlier or later versions couldn't be called an OS. It's a software compilation for a certain time period.

An OS implies everyone runs it, anyone can compile software for it and have it run on all devices with this OS. This is impossible with Linux outside of Snap/FlatPak/AppImage which themselves are lightweight virtualization solutions.

This is what Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android are. Linux is not.

Also, please don't throw FUD around without explaining yourself. You probably don't even know/remember what it means any more.

I read the article. It did correctly say that Linux is not an OS and that the distribution is the OS. Then it said Linux is an OS. The article author and you are the ones spreading FUD here. Much of what the two of you say is factually incorrect.

Linux is not an OS and that's an indisputable fact.

An OS must have:

    * Stable API/ABIs including for the kernel  

    * Wide software compatibility  

    * Decent QA/QC  

    * Can be used with any hardware it's meant to support

Linux on desktop has none of that.

E.g. the open source AMD driver, amdgpu, has a gazillion of regressions and issues for any kernel: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues

If it works for you, that's called "anecdotal evidence". That doesn't mean suddenly Linux has become an OS.

None of that fits the definition of an OS. As per Wikipedia, “An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system

The reason Linux is not an operating system is because it is just the kernel and you need more than a kernel to fit that definition.

The only thing you said that is correct is that amdgpu has issues. Everything else you just wrote is wrong.

Oh god.

1. Is Wikipedia _page_ an authority?

2. Does Wikipedia page buy operating systems and software for them? No? That's what I thought. Where's native commercial applications for Linux aside from very few specialized ones? Where's native Linux for Linux? Oh, wait, even Indie developers have abandoned Linux because why if there's Wine + DXVK.

3. Who cares about obscure something that pretends to provide APIs? How is it relevant for adoption and usage? Oh, wait, it's not. We've had dozens of dead wanna-be OSes that provide APIs. All dead. Linux on desktop is one of them as well.

Yeah, "I'm wrong".

Linux desktop market share proves it beyond reasonable doubt. LMAO.

The fact that absolute most people shy away from Linux is another proof that it's a "great OS" and "better than Windows".

Keep on living in your fantasy world. Sadly people around you don't share your ideals. They want shit to be done. They install Windows, use it for a decade without any issues, buy a new device. All good.

You response has almost nothing to do with the comment to which you replied. There is no sense in trying to address the moving target that are your replies since you are unable to stay on topic. I will however address the one on topic thing that you said. Wikipedia’s definition of an operating system is roughly what was taught in my university when I got my CS degree and I am in full agreement with it, so regardless of whether Wikipedia is an authority, the definition Wikipedia provides is correct.

CS2 is at most AA and mostly just facilitates skin gambling. The way that CS2 was kinda clumsily dropped, replacing a game with another game in kind of an unpolished state, also doesn't suggest that it could even be "AAA". It's low key a public playtest still. Early access. But that's besides that point.

Can't argue with that. I'm still not super worried for Valve though; between Alyx, Deadlock, the Deck, and Proton, it's pretty clear that CS2 is less of a new norm and more of an outlier too popular to be announced dead and buried yet. Counter Strike has always felt like the drunk uncle of Valve's IP, it would be nice to see him clean up for once but I'm also not upset having him at a holiday party or out at the bar with friends.

I would be worried for Valve if even with their infinite resources they cannot manage to do right by their most popular game on Steam. There's enough multiplayer shooter games from Valve that are also neglected (tf2, l4d, both have huge issues with bots and hackers) to suggest that it is the norm for them, be it due do disinterest, incompetence, or both.

Steam Deck wouldn't be a thing if Steam/Windows games didn't run well on Proton/Linux.

Wine/proton work so well at this point it may as well just be considered just another runtime environment (like Java or the .Net vm).

Best stable ABI for linux :/ (somehow win32 is indeed best stable runtime for linux)

Sadly true.

Somehow people think bundling half of /usr/lib is the solution.

I'm seeing a lot of endorsement of Wine ITT, which is strange to me because the Linux Mint forums constantly seem to trash it whenever it comes up. (I'm not particularly interested in any programs that would need it.)

You are probably seeing endorsements of proton rather than vanilla wine. Proton is more than just wine (although wine is the most importantly part) and it works much better than vanilla wine.

The one thing that fucks up games for linux is some specific anticheat software, and seeing how e.g. Valorant anticheat works, I'm glad it doesn't.

Just played Red Dead Redemtion 2 on Kubuntu 24. Doesn't get any more AAA than that.

Because those are ratings are based on consolidated user ratings, some of them are outdated and still marked Gold. Grand Theft Auto V is Gold, but online doesn't work anymore. Yet users are still giving it a thumbs up because singleplayer works. Apex Legends is also still Gold, and completely no longer works since there's no singleplayer

So it's not really ≥80% for top 10 at least.

…and, ironically, that’s because they are based on stable Windows APIs.

I've only accidentally (via a GeForce Now trial before I gave Steam Remote Play another try) played a video game on a Windows computer in the past two years.

The only games that routinely cause problems are those with ridiculous kernel-level anticheat, and I am not interested in those games.

Anecdotal, but I've had maybe a 60% success rate running platinum-rated games under Proton, with an unremarkable Ryzen 3900/RTX 2070 desktop. I suspect the further you are from Steam Deck hardware the more trouble you're likely to have.

The M4 Mac mini finally convinced me to give up on a Linux desktop for now; the combination of native Mac games, Whisky, and Windows via VMWare works at least as well as Proton for me, and everything else including development is much more convenient, including running Linux VMs when useful.

Steam also runs on Chromebook; which is easily showing that this is a very shallow victory for Linux on the desktop as a platform.

If you can survive with Proton, LibreOffice, and GIMP; you can much more comfortably survive with Proton on ChromeOS, Google Docs, and Photopea. Just hating Windows is not enough of a reason to be a Linux user, and as long as that is the case, Linux will remain niche.

Just hating Windows and wanting to use a beefy dedicated GPU/CPU (not a flimsy feeling Chromebook) is more than enough reason

I don't even bother to check now before buying games.

DirectX and Win32 are Windows APIs.

Are you saying Linux has "games" because it excels at ... emulating them?

What's the point of using/running Linux then when you have a much higher chance of running games successfully natively? What about dozens if not hundreds of games that use a kernel level anticheat? Pretty much none of them work in Linux.

What's the point of native Linux APIs then?

That's weird.

Wine + DXVK are so good, Linux is GREAT.

No, it shows how horrible Linux is when not a single vendor outside of Valve wants to touch it. And everyone who tried to port games to Linux went bankrupt.

Proton does such a good job that it is difficult to justify the cost of porting games when they already run on Linux in Proton. That said, Feral Interactive is still porting games to Linux and they have not gone bankrupt:

https://www.feralinteractive.com/en/news/?platform=linux

Proton often runs games better than the native ports, so there is not much of a loss if there are fewer native ports. Furthermore, in a number of cases, Windows games actually run better on Linux in Proton than on Windows.

Elden Ring is a fantastic example, as on day 1, it performed about 15% better on Linux in average FPS, and had substantially less stutter if I recall correctly.

World of Warcraft is another great example. It is well known to get about 20% better performance on Linux than on Windows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2_LlSaYNUo

Minecraft is another such game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytgDMgYL0eo

If you use AMD GPUs, it is more often the case that Linux will outperform Windows in games, since Valve wrote the shader compiler used for them on Linux and it is fairly amazing:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail...

Nvidia is working on improvements for the performance of Windows games running on Linux too. A recent driver release mentions a few such improvements:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/details/237587/

Not all games perform better on Linux than on Windows, although Valve has people actively working on changing this:

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/wiki/Changelog

Another fun one is AMD's Linux drivers support emulated ray tracing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT6qbcKT7YY . This game won't even start on a newer/faster GTX 1080Ti

Though speaking of a 1080Ti, that's a GPU you don't want to run on Linux because it lacks some Vulkan features for good DX12 translation: https://github.com/HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton/issues/465

Are you sure that the game will not run on a 1080 Ti? I recall Nvidia implemented Ray tracing in a compute shader for a number of 10/16 series cards:

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/ray-tracing-gtx-gpu-driver,news...

I ran Quake II RTX on Linux on a GTX 1080 Ti with RTX on back when I still had one. Of course, the performance was bad, but it ran. Some sites have benchmarks:

https://www.thefpsreview.com/2019/06/08/quake-ii-rtx-perform...

The RADV driver apparently did the same for ray tracing on Vega.

I also no longer have one to try. It's pretty easy to find a video on YouTube of someone trying to start the game and failing with a GTX GPU. The specific Vulkan extension it's asking for is VK_KHR_ray_query.

Looks like it was added to Vulkan spec in 2020, so after the Quake 2 RTX. It was implemented for GTX for about 2 versions and removed? https://vulkan.gpuinfo.org/listreports.php?extension=VK_KHR_...

From this comment that mentions downgrading to that driver version removes another required Vulkan extension for the game: https://www.reddit.com/r/vulkan/comments/kdzitt/comment/m114...

You can't claim that Linux games running on Windows counts against Linux, but ignore that Windows games also run on Linux. You can't have it both ways.

I mean it's maybe "seamless" if you use a system provided by the top DRM platform. Using wine directly it's unfortunately not very seamless. I don't really play games much but my recent experience hasn't been great.

Last week I tried to run Witcher 3 using wine and it took a while to debug. The installer runs immediately and seemlessly - but then it got messy

It involved installing `winetricks` which seems to be some service that installs a multitude of driver, libs and software through a clunky unresponsive UI. (not clear where it's being installed from, but #yolo) The necessary libraries I had to deduce from reading forum posts and the errors I got on launch. You then had to go in and make sure to launch the directx 11 version of the game (ie the .exe) buried in a hidden directory (~/.wine/)

Is this was "Platinum" means.. i don't want to image what Gold entails

You seem to be kinda confused. ProtonDB does not reflect how well Wine runs a program, it reflects how well Proton runs it. If you try to create a Wine environment with the same featureset and patches that Proton has by default, you will waste a lot of time. A lot of things (eg. Powershell, d3d/DXVK, dotnet, C++ redistributables, etc.) come pre-packaged with Proton and therefore require no extra configuration to run a compatible game.

What you want is to use a program like Lutris or Bottles to manage your runtime for you, if you're not installing it through Steam. I don't know who put you up to installing Wild Hunt on a vanilla Wine prefix but they sound like someone with a good sense of humor.

Thanks for the info!

I will take a look at Lutris/Bottles. I just assumed Wine would work directly. It's worked for me most of the time in the past

Okay, that still leaves an insane amount of applications. Games aren't the only thing that people run on their PC. Plus, I think they meant that no native port of AAA games have been published on Linux recently, not that windows games can't run on Linux with additional tooling. though I'm not sure how true that is.

Outside of some games and relatively high-end multimedia apps and maybe some dev tools, basically no one cares about the OS. I probably spend 95% in a MacBook using it as a browser.

An insane amount of applications are webapps nowadays anyway. Linux has chrome and Firefox which means you get 99% of relevant “applications”.

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