Gaming is more than viable on a Linux PC these days.
I'm using CachyOS with a PS2 controller or mouse and keyboard. I had to do virtually zero tinkering.
I'm using CachyOS with a PS2 controller or mouse and keyboard. I had to do virtually zero tinkering.
I wish you were right, though
And those games are easily ignored, as they should be.
*unless the developers explicitly enabled linux userspace support which some do
Note that this is a much less robust form of anti-cheat, which is why many developers do not enable it.
Sure Linux also works with a lot of games nowadays, and you can ignore whatever doesn't. I use a Mac and accept that it'll run even fewer games. Not my priority.
But, especially for children, a lot of these games are a big part of their social lives. Paragraphs could be expended on the vices of these games, but I disagree with considering them easily ignored.
As others have noted though, a surprising lot of these games with anticheat do work on Linux. It's not even rareOverwatch, Halo, and Helldivers to name a few.
This is out of the question on Linux, where there's probably 100,000 distro kernel binaries floating around, plus the ability to build your own with whatever modules you wish.
The only plausible solution is to force everyone to use the same kernel image. "To run Valorant, please apt install linux-vanguard-botnet-bin!"
Unfortunately this is a plausable enough outcome, and those games are so absurdly popular, that people will do it, especially given that having support for these games will likely drive new users to Linux.
If enough people do it, this opens the door for other software to latch onto it and start requiring a "verified kernel", so I'd rather just never see these games on Linux.
And then games that wish for anticheat start a separate VM in hypervisor with complete secure boot chain of trust. Would require GPUs to support SR-IOV though.
Of course this all is based on the assumption that the local AI can do this fast enough with enough precision.
Also cheat HUD elements can be simply rendered outside of game window (or even on another device like smartphone).
But as you say if it is local then you can essentially run anything on the computer and modify what is ran on it. That basically means it is impossible to make an anti-cheat that is 100% bulletproof aside from something strange like buying a locked-in camera which you need to place behind you as it records everything you do on the PC and then the AI thing happens as I explained.
Maybe for pro play and tournaments that would be acceptable but not for the average player.
Would be hilarious, if all gaming ultimately settles on a hardware independent console platform running on a locked-down linux! This would really please and piss off every faction at the same time. But honestly, not the worst compromise IMO.