the year of the Linux desktop is now
And all it cost was having a store sell DRM software.
They also sell non-DRM software. And most importantly they invest the money they make from selling those games into developing Linux so it’s better for everyone, I’ll take a corporation that uses my money to make things better for myself than one that sells “only” DRM free" games (when it’s convenient, because GoG also sells DRMd games in case you didn’t knew)
To be fair, as far as DRM is concerned Steam is pretty mild and game developers gotta eat.
Year of the Steam Deck. Linux still not ready for mainstream desktop usage :(
Linux still not ready for mainstream desktop usage
Lul
I don’t get why people find that funny, he’s absolutely right. It’s gotten better but Linux is still requiring a lot more tinkering compared to Windows, and mainstream doesn’t do tinkering. Let me give some examples as well.
I have windows and fedora dual booted. I also have 4 physical drives in the PC, 1 for windows, 1 for Linux and then 2 separate drives to keep windows data and Linux data. If I do a clean install of windows and want to play steam games all I need to do is let windows update run, install steam, direct steam to access the downloaded games on my secondary drive and the rest is “Steam magic”. If I do a clean install of Fedora and I want to play Steam I have to do system update, then manually install graphics drivers, then install steam, then mount the secondary drive then direct to steam to the secondary drive and the rest is “Steam magic”. If I don’t want to do the last two steps again, because Fedora doesn’t automount secondary drives, I need to also set up automounting by messing with the terminal and confog files. Honestly, you lost the mainstream gamer the moment they had to manually install graphics card drivers (because you need to do it through a terminal).
Another less important example, but one I still found funny, is when I wanted to make a new distro installer. I’ve used balena etcher to flash my stick on Windows, but I didn’t want to reboot into It Windows so I installed it on Fedora, downloaded the image I wanted to flash, started balena and added the file. I get some header error. I didn’t feel like troubleshooting so I reboot into Windows, download the exact same image, started balena and added the file. No errors and I could flash without any issues. Same file and (in theory) same software but it works on Windows and doesn’t work on Linux.
And of course there’s the Nvidia cards sucking thing, which is not at all suitable for mainstream considering almost 80% of steam users are using Nvidia cards. I get that’s almost entirely Nvidias fault but it’s still an issue with Linux. When your entire system black screens as KDE plasma is booting up even an above average user is not going to know how to troubleshoot that.
Linux is still requiring a lot more tinkering compared to Windows
As a long time windows user who’s just got a side install of Mint for funnies until.a faster drive I can dedicate to it arrives: lol, no. That’s why people are laughing at them.
I use fedora and have to…
Pick a less annoying distro then, babe. I installed Steam in one click (during OS setup actually) and then logged in, enabled proton, and started using it with the games on an external drive. Literally easier than windows cuz Mint installed it with the OS and I didn’t have to go to Steams website.
nVidia cards sucking thing
My 2080TI has worked flawlessly on Mint without any tinkering. Used the Nvidia driver manager thing and boom, running games. They even run at a bigger fps on average (about 10%).
Sounds like you used a specific distro and think those problems exist with every version of Linux. They do not, and there’s a reason why Mint is most often the recommended distro for those unwilling to tinker
And I’m not even gonna pretend that Mint is perfect, it’s not! For example my sound card just doesn’t work in it despite the OS being aware of literally every aspect of it. But the issues I’ve had daily driving it have been LESS than daily driving windows 10 even after said win 10 install has already had years of customization and tweaking done to it.
My computer illiterate mother in law that has been using Linux for years strongly disagrees.
Sorry, Linux is ready for basic usage such as web browsing and creating a document.
It’s ready for a lot more than that, can you tell me something that Linux can’t do without mentioning a third party company that refuses to support Linux?
Imma shiz myself when Linux reaches 10%.
Guys I have a foolproof plan to reach 10%
spoiler
- Stop using GNOME as default DE
- Throw cash money at Wayland devs and hire an assassin to harass slap Nvidia’s CEO
What’s the problem with GNOME?
Gnome = bad is a common Linux community circlejerk.
People will tell you Linux is about personal choice, but the second you say cool, I’m using flatpaks/Gnome/Wayland/System-D/any other thing that people get upset about, those same people will lose their fucking minds over you having a choice different to theirs.
It’s not so much a circlejerk as much as a knowledge that KDE plasma is the most approachable DE with the most polished first experience for the majority of new users
The reason it gets interpreted as Gnome bad is that both Plasma and Gnome both mainly target users who want something that just works out of the box and doesn’t have a steep learning curve, however KDE have managed to keep up better with what new users want in recent years while Gnome has fallen into a semi-trap of doing what their current/older users want. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad distro, frankly it’s great for their current users, however it does little for newer users who may not find it as intuitive as other DEs, therefore making it a worse default DE for “off-the-shelf” distros targeting new Linux users.
At the end of the day though, it is about personal choice, and nobody’s saying i3 isn’t better for powerusers or that LXDE doesn’t run faster, but if you have the knowledge that you want to install one of those or the many other DEs available, then you can just find the iso/distro/package with that DE and install it rather than just clicking the all-in-one-guaranteed-to-work-lts download button on the distro’s homepage
It’s not so much a circlejerk as much as a knowledge that KDE plasma is the most approachable DE with the most polished first experience for the majority of new users
You say that like it’s a fact rather than just your personal opinion.
The reason it gets interpreted as Gnome bad
No no no. I’m not misunderstanding people liking or preferring Plasma as hating Gnome. I love Plasma, and so should most people, it’s a very good DE. I pretty much only use Gnome and Plasma these days, and can happily praise or criticise either of them.
People do have a hateful circlejerk about Gnome. Look at any large discussion about Gnome and it gets full of haters who still can’t accept that Gnome 3 went in a very different direction to the traditional WinUX. People that say it’s shit. People that accuse the devs of being evil. Go onto a submission about a new Gnome release and you’ll find some smoothbrain making the classic wHaT fEaTuReS DiD tHeY rEmOVe tHiS TiMe joke which holds zero basis in reality.
And I’m not talking about fair criticisms either. I could rattle some off the top of my head. I’m talking about hatred.
Shitting on Gnome very much is the hip, trendy thing to do in the Reddit/Lemmy/reactionary YouTuber space.
According to many in the Linux community, Linux is all about choice, so long as your choice is the same as theirs.
It’s not so much a circlejerk as much as a knowledge that KDE plasma is the most approachable DE with the most polished first experience for the majority of new users
You say that like it’s a fact rather than just your personal opinion.
It’s a safe assumption to make though, based on the fact that KDE most closely mimics the Windows UX, which Gnome does not, and that the vast majority of human beings who use computers are most familiar with the Windows UX, hence most approachable.
I reject the premise that just because more people use Windows, a Windows UX must be the most intuitive and alternatives must appear more complicated to use.
There are more households that drive cars than ride a bike - is a car therefore a more intuitive to use transport tool than a bike?
That’s a crazy take though. Everyone knows that what you’re most familiar with is way more intuitive than something you’ve never touched in your life.
There are more households that drive cars than ride a bike - is a car therefore a more intuitive to use transport tool than a bike?
How intuitive something is only affects the initial experience. This is why driving a car usually takes a year to learn in most countries - it’s not very intuitive. If you know how to drive a car, however, you can learn to drive a bus much faster - it’s now intuitive because you already know how to drive a car, which is similar.
So of course whichever DE replicates windows the best is going to be the most intuitive. Doesn’t mean that it’s better once you’ve gotten used to it though.
People forget that freedom is a lie within the natural world. Why do they think they have freedom within the digital realm they all made up?
Why? I’ve been happily gaming on gnome for over two years now
I tried a few games on Linux and I spent more time looking for why one game wasn’t saving my game and why another game wouldn’t actually launch with no error messages then actually playing a game.
The only games thus far that I couldn’t get to work were pirated. Id say 80%+ pirated work, and so far all legit games. Even weird launchers like FF14 (stock, not the 3rd party) and Guild Wars 2. And then of course Steam does most the work.
Everyone’s mileage varies, obvs, plus there’s different distros and games.
I’ve just recently gotten into this and installed steam through ubuntu’s store. Could be why it thought subnautica was on Linux and let me download it. I uninstalled and installed through apt-get this time, hopefully that fixes that issue.
Having issue with the Steam snap isn’t surprising, as even Valve recommends against using it. A few years ago flatpak Steam had similar issues that got fixed over time.
For now I hope you’ll have more luck with the .deb!
Sounds way too confusing, and goes against the whole idea that “Linux is easier than Windows because it has an App Store” and “you don’t have to use the command line”.
Yes, it’s sad that Canonical is pushing Snap before those kinks are ironed out. In general it’s a solid distro for people not familiar with Linux, but having to stumble over those issues is a dealbreaker.
Linux being easier than Windows is true in some ways, but it completely sidesteps issues Windows and macOS solved for a while, e.g. forcing users to upgrade. It’s annoying but some people just… don’t do the bare minimum. E.g. a friend’s dad has been using Linux for probably a decade by now, and for some reason apt auto upgrades broke (likely powerloss during upgrade). An image based OS like Fedora Atomic doesn’t have this issue, as it won’t apply updates to the running OS (by default).
