To me it never made sense, people point out issues that makes linux not suitable for desktop use by quoting how it should follow Windows or OSX approach... to me someone wanted to use linux but without using linux, at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? I also use linux on the desktop and the way it behaves matches my thinking process, If I wanted it to be used as Windows or OSX I would be using Windows or OSX
> at that point why don't they use windows or OSX?
Because for a lot of people the point is to use a free (as in speech) OS. They are fine with how OSX or Windows works, and they want Linux to work the same. They simply want a good, user-friendly free desktop OS.
> to me someone wanted to use linux but without using linux, at that point why don't they use windows or OSX? I also use linux on the desktop and the way it behaves matches my thinking process, If I wanted it to be used as Windows or OSX I would be using Windows or OSX
People want Linux to act like other operating systems because:
1. They want an easy alternative that doesn’t require extensive relearning should their original OS of choice become unpalatable for some reason
2. Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes?
The first is particularly big, because remember that at this point a lot of people have decades of usage of Windows/macOS under their belt, and even if switching to Linux is a practical consideration for them, such users probably aren’t keen on tossing out all their little bits of power user knowledge and productivity boosting tricks and having to start out from almost scratch.
Part of this is about distro selection. I have a decade plus of windows9x, XP, and 7 experience, so I use Lubuntu which works pretty much exactly like they did, and is honestly less surprising/confusing than Windows 10 (I skipped 8.)
My understanding is that there are also distros that closely match the mac experience.
If you pick up a distro like mainline Ubuntu you might be confronted with potentially confusing new opinions about how desktops should work. I lucked out and tried it back in the Gnome 2 days when it felt like XP.
There are distros/DEs that get within shooting distance of the Windows experience but don’t quite achieve it. The devil is in the details.
There’s nothing that replicates macOS unfortunately. Many point to GNOME, but it’s much more like iPadOS than macOS, or to elementaryOS but it only shares some aesthetics with core features like the global menubar or super-based (as opposed to control-based) key shortcuts being entirely absent. For the latter there’s hacks like Kinto[0] but this is the sort of thing that really needs to be part of the DE.
> Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes?
This is something that I always bothered me. I love using middle click to scroll (you middle click, then move your mouse up and down) in Windows, but there isn't any way to do this in Linux. You can enable it in Firefox for Linux but not on the entire OS, and trying to ask people about this just makes people reply with "why would you want to do this if the default is middle click to copy??".
There are ways to sort of mimic this behavior, but none 100% matches how Windows work.
Yeah I’m sure middle click copy is handy if you’re used to it, but for me “Copy == Command/Ctrl-C” is so deeply rooted at this point that I’d really rather not fight it if I don’t have to.
People who say linux should follow a Windows or OSX approach 1) don't use linux and 2) don't understand what makes a good product or brand.
I don't really care how many people use Linux, it's been my daily driver for a decade and I don't need other people to use it - I just need them to use compatible file formats or sometimes the same web apps as me which is increasingly a solved problem, for people who really need Adobe CS or something they are not going to be using Linux this decade.
Linux can enjoy great success if it finds a suitable OS market segment -- hello Steam deck and Steam OS? After a few tries Gabe may be on to something.
If it happens it will have nothing to do with competing with Microsoft or Apple on their terms.
In the meantime I don't really give a shit because it's great for me and I use it.
I do think the GPL world in general is missing some kind of amazing positioning opportunity - don't know what exactly or how to fix it but basically most of Big Tech are not liked because they're abusers, and GPLed software is the antidote.
Does Linux finally have something like a Device Manager on Windows? Because last time I tried, there is just no BFU suitable way to figure out what is status of this or that peripheral.
I don’t get this obsession everyone outside the Linux-space has with desktop Linux being viable or not.
To me, as a developer who likes to form the tools to fit my needs (as opposed to doing the opposite), Linux is great. It’s not for everyone. It’s not perfect in all ways, but for me it represents a pretty decent local maxima, and that’s all that matters for me.
I could probably rant on about how desktop Windows can never be a true developer OS, because it definitely doesn’t work out for me. But you know what? I’m not going to do that.
Clearly it works for some people as I see some people using Windows for development tasks. Maybe that’s their local maxima? Who am I to judge?
Why obsess over what OS can and can not be used on the desktop (or server)? Why focus on negatives? Why can’t we all just get along? ;)
It is quite a weird assumption I think, that the open source community should want a year of Linux on the desktop. It is a nice project and I’m sure everyone would like it the world to get as much use out of it as possible. But it is a community developed effort. Adding a bunch of new non-technical users to the community who don’t do development wouldn’t be a win, it would be a big new tech support problem with not much upside.
I think it must just be a wrong assumption based on accidentally applying the motivations of for-profit operating systems or something.
I've used linux professionally for a long time. I've also used it as my desktop / laptop OS on and off for about the same amount of time.
From a purely selfish point of view, I'd like to stop dual booting. 60% of my CS:GO time is in windows because of faceit anti-cheat. Beyond that, I almost need another OS.
Now I have a bunch of reasons why I think open platforms are better, but they don't matter. Pragmatism tells me that if enough people use linux to game, the anti-cheat problem will go away. There's other software, but wine mostly works now.
Ergo, I don't actually want a steam deck, but I really hope it does well. :)
I don't even know what is that concept of "year of linux desktop", I use Ubuntu then Mint since 2011 as the daily driver and have never had any more problems than on Windows (maybe because I'm not a gamer or play only niche games) and I don't give a ff about anyone using anything else
In the 90s there was some ongoing fight between 'good' Linux and 'evil' Microsoft Windows. Since this was the beginning of the internet (by which I mean the web) for the general public, and there was virtually no mobile computing (phones, etc), the territory to win was perceived to be the regular pc desktop.
Every year, Linux advocates would claim that this year was the year of the Linux desktop (and that Linux would topple Windows and become the dominant OS on personal computers), and every year, well, it didn't happen.
These days, the market is just different : computers are not only desktop computers, but also phones, blu ray player, tvs, smart speakers, and software running on a server is reachable through a browser.
In many ways, Linux is dominant, but simply because it took the new, much bigger,non desktop markets, and the desktop doesn't matter that much these days.
At least for me "year of Linux on the desktop" is not about "can Linux be used on desktop" because of course it is possible. For me it means Linux being a popular choice on the desktop. That it is not.
Go to any Walmart or BestBuy here in the US and you'll see an entire row of Chromebooks for sale. They don't do this because these devices don't sell. Steamdeck has now sold tons of desktop-class devices running Linux.
I'd also note that Windows is ubiquitous, but hardly popular. People who know about computers tend to have not-so-great opinions of both MS and Windows while people who don't know about computers are only using Windows because it's what comes bundled with their machine. For the rest, MS has directly or indirectly paid to keep the software they need stuck in the Wintel duopoly (though that is also slowly changing).
SteamDeck is not desktop device, it's pretty much single usecase machine. It is for gaming and that's how most use it. And there is no need to take bad samples and anecdotes on how widely used Linux is. There are multiple longstanding companies tracking the usage numbers of various operating systems. Linux on non-mobile devices is really rare exception.
You can dock the Deck and use it as a desktop with a monitor, mouse and keyboard. It runs a KDE desktop and many people have said they're using it as their daily driver now.
> Linux on non-mobile devices is really rare exception.
Linux is widespread on basically every single type platform out there, if not dominant in most of them. The only where it's currently lagging is laptops, and of course not as popular as other OSes on desktop. But on the rest of the platforms out in the world, Linux and various derivations is very popular.
To me saying that ChromeBook is Linux is as disingenuous as saying that your Android phone is Linux.
Yeah maybe it's the UNIX kernel, but it's not the end-user Linux experience, which is what 99% of the people talk about when they say it's not the "year of Linux on the [insert platform here]".
And with Proton and the Steam Deck, Valve is also removing the argument that you can't game on Linux.
For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things).
It has very good specs for a handheld, and you can emulate most games up to the Switch, and some Switch games run even better on the deck than on the Switch.
As it's open, you can even install Windows or replace parts if you want.
It has surpassed all my expectations and it feels like the deck together with Proton is solving the last big obstacle with Linux on desktop.
You're putting up a scarecrow... you're saying people said that linux was perfect for gaming, except for the fact that it doesn't have anti cheat? No way. If anything, people said: If Linux wants to take off, it needs to have anticheat, but a whole lot more too.
Friend, I've had each of the arguments stated above as absolute statements.
The format of the arguments aren't coherent or well thought through. It uses the quoted argument as a jumping off point before going into an anti-Linux rant, often citing the perception that the year of the Linux desktop has been "coming for 20 years" (or pick whatever number you want) or that the Linux community are toxic (which is ironic since most of the attacks are incredibly toxic).
I think it's laudable that you're giving these people the benefit of the doubt, but they absolutely do exist and their positions are always thin or in bad faith.
I've had about 2 decades of experience hearing that gaming on Linux is here and being disappointed. I started hearing about Proton and how it was really doing it this time and I was skeptical as always, but I figured it was worth a shot based on who I was hearing it from. And I'll say that for me, Proton is it. Not only does it provide awesome compatibility, it's basically just a checkbox in Steam to enable. I'm sure you can still find issues; even Windows can't provide 100% compatibility with decades of games, but for me, it's arrived.
That's an interesting path to using a Linux desktop, but it makes sense. I'm not sure if you're asking rhetorically, but I'd say that if you wanted a Linux gaming desktop, you'd just start with a normal gaming desktop (prebuilt or custom - you'll find endless guides on either). The thing about Linux/Open Source is that there are nearly endless distributions and politics around those, which is confusing, but I'm a fan of Pop!_OS for its simplicity - I suspect I could install it on my parents machines and they'd be OK, but it's also fine for my uses. The other option I'd consider is SteamOS so you could presumably just run the OS installed on the Deck on your dekstop for commonality, but I have zero experience with it as an OS, so it may be more complicated than that.
I'm using Pop!_OS with an AMD CPU/GPU system that's pretty far from what I'd call stout, but I'm able to play games like "No Man's Sky" or "Crysis" just fine. I've probably tested around a dozen games personally going back as far as "Total Annihilation" from 1997(?) which ran without issue.
> "Linux won't be viable for gaming until I can run Fortnite, Destiny 2 and Xbox Game pass"
> Well you have me there..
FYI MS Game Pass has worked on Linux for months now.
Fortnite and Destiny 2 are two games where the developers have both, for whatever reason, specifically gone on record to say they will ban players that attempt to play their games on Linux.
For what its worth, the Destiny 2 developers did create a feedback thread a few months back on Reddit for the purposes of seeing the level of interest in them supporting Linux/Steam Deck
Game Pass works on Linux? I can't find anything about that, seems unlikely. Unless you're talking about Xbox Cloud Gaming, which is not a replacement for games running on your system, especially for people with bad internet connections.
It isn't going to be something I choose to run until there's a VR system that works for it that doesn't feel like it is alpha quality. Even Valve's own Index only kinda-sorta works with half of the features.
If Steam Deck was being sucessful by having game studios write Steam Deck games like they bother with Android, iOS, Switch and PlayStation, that would be inovative, emulating Windows and DirectX via a translation layer, not really,
> For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things).
Not just "basically a PC" but an actual PC running a modified version of Arch Linux (called SteamOS). One of the options in the menu is "Enter Desktop Mode" which does exactly what it says; drops you to a KDE desktop with all the bells and whistles of a normal Linux desktop. From there, you can use it as a normal PC if you want. Hook it up to a USB-C hub with HDMI and USB I/O, and you have a portable computer you can connect to displays with your keyboard and mouse.
Flexible as hell, and it's also pretty nice as a gaming device.
Yes and no - the work that's gone into it, and into Proton in general has made game support on linux generally leap forward. I don't have a Steam Deck myself, but because it exists, things are getting patched in Proton often before games even come out, which is a far cry from where things used to be with Wine.
Having a site like ProtonDB to be a single place to go look up any tweaks or config flags for Wine/Proton to get a game to work is invaluable, and it's now actually getting good traffic and data because of Steam Deck.
Presumably you mean that as a criticism but "being supported by a multibillion company" is normally a fantastic sign of success, and "a single hardware configuration" is an indicator of seriousness about guaranteeing a good UX.
Look no further than power management/sleep/awake, which is flawless and snappy on steamdeck. That's more than you can say for 95% of "supported linux laptops".
Sure proton is great and it does a good job on my steam deck.
But to me the fact that the games are not natively supporting Linux and are instead needing a tool like Proton still means that Linux is not ideal for gaming. Just like Mac is not.
It has nothing to do with the OS itself and everything to do with developer support.
I love my steam deck but I also strongly believe that going with Linux was a short cited decision on Valves part to try to protect themselves from Microsoft. Many (most, all?) of us here are technical enough to understand at least on some level what proton does and what native actually is. But most users are not and that is where the problems come up.
When a game pushes an update that breaks support on the steam deck most users will go to complain to the developers. But the developer was not involved in supporting Linux and rightly so they don't test every update on it.
That is not the right path here.
I strongly believe that to claim that an OS can be good for something it must be targeted by the developers of whatever that thing is and run natively (or at the very least if it is prepackaged with something like proton, it is still distributed by the developers for that OS)
And yes I fully realize this is a chicken and the egg problem with linux and gaming.
I do wonder if Valve has tried to discuss with Microsoft what it would like to see out of Windows in the future (potentially Windows 12) to make it a useful OS for a Steam Deck device.
Some sort of advanced suspend/resume functionality similar to the Series X's Quick Resume would be a killer feature. And I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind having native Game Pass hooks into a device like that
There has been rumors about Game Pass discussions with Valve at one point but I have not seen anything about that recently.
I feel like most likely not, that seems like something that would benefit Microsoft and not give any benefit to Valve. I know they have stated before some concern regarding the windows store or something.
Game Pass is also the reason I installed Windows on my Steam Deck. Being able to sync game saves between my PC, Xbox, and Steam Deck is just way too powerful. And the obvious benefit of the games in game pass.
> But to me the fact that the games are not natively supporting Linux and are instead needing a tool like Proton still means that Linux is not ideal for gaming. Just like Mac is not.
You’re holding a proof that it isn’t so in your hands and still claim something opposite. The biggest issue with gaming on Linux has always been impossibility of providing a binary build that works everywhere due to lack of a stable kernel API and ABI. Turns out, win32 API is exactly that and works really well on Linux if you put in the work, see proton.
IOW Linux is ready for gaming thanks to and because of Windows, not despite it.
> really well on Linux if you put in the work, see proton.
That work is exactly the problem though. This is not an ideal solution for the average user. My dad plays games and there is no way in hell I would give him a Linux machine to play games. If I end up buying him a steam deck (which I am considering) I will be installing Windows on it for him.
Again I will point out the issues with this not being an officially supported release from the developer of a game. Meaning when they push updates they don't test on Linux and could very easily break it. It happened with Halo recently and could just as easily happen with another game.
If we really want to argue that "if you put in the work" linux is a viable solution, it has been for years been viable as a desktop solution and many people played games on it.
But until we enter a time that on Linux you are running native packages from the developer targeting Linux, we will remain in a situation that Linux Gaming will always be an update away from breaking completely. Not that Windows isnt either, but at least developers test their Windows release.
Edit: For the record I would LOVE an alternative to Windows for PC gaming. Wether that is Linux, Mac, or something else. I despise Windows but I relucantly have a Windows PC. BUT I do not believe this is how we will get there.
Random advice from personal experience: if you buy a steam deck for a non-techy, don't get them to use windows, the user experience is awful. Just use the default OS, and only install games that a labelled as working well through Proton. Anything else will be a fairly painful experience.
I disagree, I have Windows on my steam deck and it works just fine. It is the primary way I use mine (Windows 10 though, not 11) because of the issues I have mentioned here.
The only real issue I have is it being a small screen. But I just have any games I need on my desktop and its easy enough to tap an icon.
Interesting you had more success then me. I just got annoyed with the tiny screen, and lots of minor things that seemed to not work smoothly (although now I can't remember exactly what they were I'll admit).
I detest ageist and ignorant comments like "My dad plays games and there is no way in hell I would give him a Linux machine to play games.".
My mom and dad were gaming into their mid-70's around the time they passed away. I'm approaching 60 and have gamed for 4 decades and see no stopping. I've read multiple comments from people in their 80's and even 90's still gaming.
Proton enables a lot of great games to play on Linux, I use it every day.
Linux lets all users including non-technical, use it every day with ease.
Great job just ignoring the issues I bring up and trying to wipe them away because of "ageist".
I think I can speak on my dads technical understanding better than you can. We have tried to give him an iPhone and he has struggled with that so he continues to use a flip phone.
The last thing I want to do is give him a device that due to Valve pushing a bad OS update (I mean the last Update made it so I could no longer boot normally and I had to do a boot from file and then fix that in the terminal) or games won't load because something breaks in the update for that game, which has happened to me.
That is not ageist to worry about a device not working as expected (which has happened to me, I just have the technical knowledge to fix it).
While I respect your ideological opposition to this and understand your logic, I'm not sure if you've ever seen the lifecycle of a Linux-native game.
For the first 6 months of its release, everything works great! A few minor bugs to fix but your game engine figured everything out for you. Flash forward 2 years - your game is broken on every distro. An Ubuntu hotpatch broke your game on most systems months ago, and glibc changes have decimated the runtime for every user. Steam's own runtime has already bumped it's versioning and is missing 3-4 libraries you used to rely on. The Windows version boots through Proton though, so nobody is complaining yet.
Linux shouldn't need Windows as a stable runtime, but until it fixes it's packaging issues this will continue to be the status-quo.
Admittedly I have not seen how a native linux game works and that to me just makes me continue to feel like linux isn't ready?
Logically I get it, a tool like proton is most likely the only way that Linux (or anything not Windows) was going to be an option for gaming at all.
My concern here is not in how it runs, how good proton is, or even how "easy" it is to setup.
It all boils down to average users for me. I continue to find myself (and I feel like many of us do) overestimating the technical knowledge of the average consumer. I know for many years I had assumed that my generation (I am now 32) would be the generation that the average user would be able to pick up any new technology and run with it. That has been proven false to me many times now...
What happens with it fails, what happens when a game was previously working but breaks in a future version of proton or worse breaks because the developer pushes an update (and maybe its an online service game so you have to update).
Idk something about this entire thing has just felt wrong to me in how we are pushing Linux as a gaming platform.
> What happens with it fails, what happens when a game was previously working but breaks in a future version of proton or worse breaks because the developer pushes an update (and maybe its an online service game so you have to update).
All of these are good questions to have, Valve didn't directly come out and address them so it makes sense that people would feel anxious about it.
Largely, Valve has solved this by running every game in a lightweight container runtime, kinda like Docker. Regardless of the distro you're running on, Valve can define a common runtime for the game and the title should boot using the defined settings. If something then breaks with that runtime, Valve can actually go through on a game-by-game (or even system-by-system) basis and fix it. This is how Elden Ring got performance patches on Linux at launch, or how titles like Rocket League became playable when their native version was not.
It's a complicated technical solution to a nuanced problem, but Valve has done a bang-up job so far.
They have done a good job, I am not denying that. But this approach is not without faults.
I mean when the big winter update for Halo Infinite came out it broke Proton support. Sure they (the people working on Proton) were quick to fix it, but it did break and since it was an online game there really was nothing the user could do about it.
I used to think this. But with so many Linux variants out there I think supporting it is harder than just supporting the windows api that makes it work.
It’s odd but things like docker and the JVM and browser based software mean the software will run abstracted a bit, less optimally, but good enough. Even among the different Linux distros software is distributed differently (rpm, debs, flat pack, pacman….)
Brining more people to Linux is the goal, more developers! and better software packaging eventually.
This sentiment is not popular with most Linux advocates, but I think that cross-platform toolkits are great for the less popular platforms, so they should be more accepted.
If you write a flutter app for Linux then it will also work everywhere else. If you write a flutter app for iOS/android - which is the most common scenario - then let's get you to tweak it for desktop Linux.
Fully agree. I think this was also key to the macOS/OS X comeback but with web apps instead of the electron/flutter type stacks we have now.
All those little specialized win32 apps for, like, dentists and accountants and navigation and filing expenses and so on moved to the web, which really eroded Windows’ lock in (obligatory citation of https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...). Electron and flutter type stacks have extended this trend
I predict along the same lines a comeback for Java on the client. Java desktop apps used to feel heavy and awkward but these days they look downright svelte. No good mobile story - yet.
I use many electron apps. i don’t like that they are electron, and they are more bloated than native. However, my laptop and desktop never come close to needing more RAM. Each app is basically just a heavy browser tab. The UX is acceptable. That is about it really.
I have a ton of ram. the biggest issue I have with electron is that it sucks battery down.
As cto of a startup, I fully understand the case for it. one codebase, less to maintain and easier to focus on pumping out features.
That said, I wish slack would consider going all native for their desktop apps. Its a memory hog and for something that runs on my desktop all day, I would prefer if it sipped power and ran fast
> Next year, 2023, will be my thirtieth year of Linux on the desktop, and the thirtieth year of being told it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, or to only use Linux on the desktop. Some of the people telling me this weren’t born when I started using Linux on the desktop.
Says a hardcore Linux user. This is what happens when you shove the Linux Desktop to people like artists and the distro 'support' becomes EOL. [0] Thousands of complaints, headaches in updating the system software and if all else fails, migration hell.
Now in 2023, we are still telling users to "choose a distro for Desktop" and companies to 'define Linux Desktop support' for their GUI apps which they still cannot do and support all distros like many can with the latest supported versions of Windows or macOS. This is an eternal issue for the Linux Desktop.
At this point the best Linux Desktop is Windows with WSL2 and requires no reformatting, partitioning, migrating and reconfiguring dotfiles in window managers.
The currently-supported version of the distro you're on.
It's a cultural difference. People using Windows seem to spend an inordinate amount of effort coddling along ancient installs of Windows 10, presumably because they're such a pain in the backside to set up (I have personally never successfully installed any version of Windows later than 3.11 and got all my devices working, with graphics and networking support a particular problem).
People using Linux will just blow away the install and stick on the latest LTS, because it's quick and easy and supported. If you've got a lot of apps to install it is generally possible to script all that, and so you pull the trigger on an install and it's ready to go in ten minutes.
One slight counterexample is the situation that Black Magic Design's video software DaVinci Resolve is in, where it's packaged for (and only officially supported on) CentOS 7, which goes EOL next year. However, it turns out it works just fine in CentOS Stream 8, and indeed it can be run on other distros in a Docker container based on CentOS (and of course running it in a container brings other benefits like being able to work with multiple versions on the same computer).
In general though, there's more of a "blow it away and reinstall" approach with Linux when a distro is EOL. I know I'm not the only one that takes this a stage further, and just replaces the hard disk when a new LTS comes out, so if anything happens the old stuff isn't "lost".
You added an /s to the end, but I think this is one of many valid arguments/pain points for a lot of people. It was for me, too: I've been using Linux at work and on my servers for years, but up until recently (September), I was running Windows on my Desktop PC. Now I'm dual booting Windows and Arch Linux, usually using the latter. Windows exists for a handful of games that rely on anti-cheat solutions that do not run on Linux.
The reason it took me this long to use Linux at home were my so-so experiences with Gnome and its derivatives and other DEs I had used: the devil is in the detail. Linux _worked_, but there were always small things that made using it as a daily driver unnecessarily painful. The Gnome save file dialog highlights the file name as being selected, which suggests it is in focus. But when I start typing, a search in the current folder is started instead. Likewise, when typing anything in the file browser, a search in that folder is being started (as opposed to jumping to files and/or folders matching what I'm typing).
This and many other small bothersome things kept me away from Linux as my daily desktop driver for a long time. Microsoft's decision to require a Microsoft account for even the professional version of Windows 11 made me finally decide to switch, and the first DE I had tried (because I had heard so many good things) was KDE. And what a surprise that was, because as it turns out: KDE got all of those little details absolutely right. The file dialogs are heaps better than Gnome's/GTK's, Dolphin (its file browser) is an absolute bliss to use, and so much more.
So, looking back, all it took (at least for me) was just KDE. Better late than never ;)
Your experience sounds a lot like mine - I first cut my teeth on the Linux desktop when I was a kid, using Ubuntu 7.10. As I had an Athlon 64 at the time I thought it'd be cool to run the amd64 build, only to find out that there were no amd64 drivers for my NIC!
Played around with various distros and DEs, but ended up switching back to Windows due to various sharp corners in the desktop UX. Always kept a toe in the water by occasionally booting in to a live DVD or a VM over the years. The progress has been incremental, sometimes a step back (e.g. early GNOME 3.x), but when you look at the bigger picture, it's definitely noticeable and going in the right direction.
I've tried Windows 11 and can't get along with the UI, not to mention the forced online account and data mining. I'll keep running Windows 10 until it goes out of support in 2025 and evaluate my options then. I can see three possible paths:
* Switch to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, which buys me another 5 years of support
* Switch to Windows 11 (or whatever they call the next version), if they roll back some of the annoying changes
* Switch to Linux - increasingly looking like the path for me, given the improvements in UI/UX
To me the year of Linux on a desktop arrived years ago. I'm waiting for the year of Linux on a laptop, because unfortunately, and I'm a free software supporter, I've to say that a Macbook works objectively better than a laptop with Linux on it (and there is small to blame to Linux to be fair, but to hardware manufacturers that doesn't provide a good support, and to be fair even Windows on the same hardware doesn't work that great in most laptop that I see...).
The classic problems are suspend and hibernation issues, along with worse performance and battery life compared to windows (with manufactur optimised drivers).
I can't get Linux to not drain my laptop battery when the lid is closed. On my M1 Air I can close the lid and come back a week later with maybe a couple percent less battery; on my Framework with PopOS it drains after just a day (default settings).
Probably goes to S2 instead of S3 deep sleep. Had the same issue on microsoft surface (running Linux on it) - i needed to tweak few kernel flags to force it into deep sleep.
I run Linux on a T480s and it’s pretty good, but there are issues. I’m using Ubuntu 22.04. It’s comfortably usable for me but it would be silly to pretend that these things aren’t major problems for many (perhaps a majority) users.
Off the top of my head:
- Waking from sleep with the lid closed while using an external monitor straight-up doesn’t work. Not with keyboard and mouse input, not even by hitting the power button.
- Thunderbolt hotplugging JUST started working in 22.04, and it still flakes out quite a bit. I think my laptop would normally maintain days to weeks of uptime if it weren’t for Thunderbolt-related issues.
- Battery life in-use is like three hours, max. I’ve never used anything but Linux in this machine so I don’t know how battery life stacks up in Windows, but I know that I was using a MacBook Air at work over a decade ago that did 6+ hours.
I strongly prefer to run Linux and I’ve used it as my primary desktop OS since 2001, but I can’t think of a single Linux laptop in the past 22 years that hasn’t presented me with significant problems that I had to either work around or accept.
+1 to all of these, plus any time I need some sort of mixed UI scaling, like 1.25x on the laptop and 1.75x on my extended display, it introduces a whole skew of problems, like applications not rescaling themselves when they move to the other display, blurry text all over the place, when I disconnect the external display out of frustration the windows don't migrate back to the internal display properly... ironically i3wm/swaywm with some very specific configuration works best for me, but the out-of-the-box experience on common DEs is awful. Windows and Mac OS have largely solved these problems.
Have you activated tlp? That should double your battery life, I use a T490 and had to install that to get battery life comparable to when running Windows
Two things I really miss having moved to Linux are the MBP touchpad and power management (battery-life/sleep/hibernate).
There are also weird audio/mic UX issues. Not sure if this is the same across all platforms, but -
I usually have my laptop hooked up to an external monitor, audio output set to the external monitor, and my headphones plugged into the monitor. Yesterday, I locked my desktop and stepped away from my desk with the music still playing. When I came back, music was playing out loud from the laptop speaker. That's because the monitor went to sleep, so the HDMI audio sink went away, and the OS "helpfully" switched audio output to the laptop speaker which was set to full volume.
Logically, it makes sense that would happen. Clearly, I am to blame.
I'm having a very different experience. I've been using Linux on and off for many years, but 2022 was the first time I installed it on a new laptop (Thinkpad X1 Carbon) and I like my overall setup + work experience more than on a MacBook Pro. I was able to tweak a lot of things related to my flow that are more difficult to tweak on macOS. Battery life is excellent, performance maybe not on-par with M1, but still very good and I like the keyboard a lot more.
Long live Linux.
Edit: Oh yeah, the hibernation is still crappy on Linux, but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
I use GNOME with a few extensions. I love that GNOME setup that comes with PopOS has great keyboard shortcuts, snapping and tiling (if desired - on my 14" laptop I don't use it much) out of the box.
From macOS GUI I miss:
1) And the only big one: a good implementation of fractional scaling. Not an issue for the current laptop, but likely will annoy the hell out of me once I upgrade to 1600p in the future.
2) Screen casting works better on macOS.
3) (nit-picky) emoji selector
4) The ability to instantly look up answers to all GUI problems, because so many devs use macOS.
I'm curious about the battery life on the X1 Carbon (and the model/specs).
I'm on an M1 Air, but over the years I've also been running (mainly) Mint on various ThinkPads and whilst I loved the experience I never got more than a few hours. And I'm now getting days with Mac OS on the Air, which is the main reason I'm using it - I have become used to not worrying about the battery life, and certainly never having to constrain performance workloads to preserve it.
So I read "Battery life is excellent" and am curious. I get that it won't be M1 (ARM) level, but for doing stuff like a mix of writing plus development (with for example smallish Go compilations) do you have a feel for any kind of averages?
I used Linux on my desktop for many years and also on and off on my laptop but since I got an M1 laptop at my previous job and since bought one for personal use, the Linux/Windows x86 laptops just can't seem to compete for my use. As you mentioned, particularly battery life is stellar on the M1.
> the Linux/Windows x86 laptops just can't seem to compete for my use
I still find it surprising. Not the M1, but the impact the battery life has on my perceptions.
In so many ways I prefer Linux (and Windows) to the Mac. I also prefer the hardware on ThinkPads (and even my old HP ProBook) because whilst the build quality isn't there they have vastly superior keyboards, ports, and/or matte screen.
And yet it's always the Air I pick up because it's always the Air I know will launch virtually instantly and run for hours.
I consistently get 10+ hours. I'm currently using PopOS+GNOME and my typical workload is a combination of a web browser + development in terminal (vim) + Obsidian for notes + cloud sync + listening to music + IM (but not Slack ;) ). It is to say, the workload is rather low.
It is certainly not M1-like battery performance, but plenty for my average workday not to feel constrained.
My current laptop is ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen from 2019 with 1080p screen, 10th gen Intel CPU, 16GB RAM, I replaced SSD for a very fast Samsung one. The laptop has a rather tiny 51Wh battery.
Thanks - I'll bear that in mind going forward and appreciate the info. I currently have a HP ProBook of roughly the same spec (just because I quite like the keyboard and screen) but cheaper, and only get about 5 hours.
I have the IdeaPad S540 from Lenovo, and it runs Fedora 37 more or less flawlessly. Battery life is decent, I'm getting 5-7 hours out of it (light usage, 20% brightness - browsing, e-mail, some videos, office applications like LibreOffice).
Everything on laptops has been good enough for a few years for me now in Linux. Maybe not perfect and there are things that are better out there, but I am not chasing perfection. Good enough is good enough.
> but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
Well... no, since most new laptop manufacturers had removed the S3 state (classic suspend to RAM) because Microsoft said that today they have to go with "Modern standby" that basically is leave the system on at a lower power settings. Beside that it doesn't work and will overheat your laptop if placed in a bag... and unfortunately since it is removed from the UEFI Linux can't do too much to put it back.
Same here... should I use a desktop computer, Linux has been fine for that for quite a while. Laptop is an entirely different matter though. When called to the meeting room, it's sure fun to see my colleagues go there with their lid open and their chargers.
Agree macOS on M1 is the best DX you can get today. However, I've been running Ubuntu 22 on a Framework (Intel 11th gen) laptop - and it's 90% of the DX of macOS.
My $150 Costco special 14" 1080P Chromebook gets as much use as my M1 MacBook Pro because it's also 90% of the DX of a system 10x its cost.
I was initially interested by the Framework, but if I'm spending $1000 or more, I really don't want something that generic in every regard. After moving to OLED, HDR, and/or HFR this year, "here's a laptop that might cost you less if it fails from a repairable issue outside of our 1-year limited warranty, otherwise it's another $1000 for a new mainboard" didn't seem like that awesome a feature in the face of AppleCare+, upcycled ThinkPads, etc.
don't you understand that MSFT and OEM contracts are literally locking the boot process right now -- the cheaper the laptop, the more locking of the boot process. This is an active situation, while smart people here wail like sheep
I dunno what you're talking about. I have a 2022 T14s with AMD 6850U. It runs fast and battery lasts at least 5h (not epic, but more than good enough for a day, and I've done no tuning whatsoever). As a daily driver, I have not had serious problems with Linux (Ubuntu) on a notebook (though I stick to Thinkpads) for a long, long time. Until about 5 years ago, battery story wasn't great, but no real issues since then. Have not had problems with suspend to RAM or other day to day features in quite a long time. In fact I tried a Macbook around 2000 and it had those problems, couldn't wait to get rid of that silver blimp.
While hacking is neat, I prefer things to just work with an -intentionally- open ecosystem, one that can't be taken away because of a marketing decision disguised as something else, with companies that are there for this fundamental idea first, and am more than happy with the constant ability to manage the system comprehensively.
It’s not hard to find examples of people having problems with Linux on modern laptop hardware, there are already half a dozen anecdotes as I’m typing this if you scroll down the thread a bit.
I don’t know why this is such a thing in Linux-land, but people love to say, “works for me, case closed”. Desktop Linux is more forgiving with each passing year, but it’s not productive to ignore problems just because you aren’t experiencing them.
Well, in one case you have "it works great, just make sure you have reasonably supported hardware" out of thousands of choices, on the other, you have "You have to use Apple hardware." So I think it's more than reasonable.
As for the "5h is not enough" comments, it seems like a pretty arbitrary number, my work days are not usually longer than 5h per location. USB chargers these days are tiny and ubiquitious, planes have outlets, so it's really not a big deal as a tradeoff for an intentionally open system. People make it sound like they're walking around naked in the world with only their Macbook for weeks at a time and that's the only reality they accept.
If I were doing a weighted choice, at least 5h battery would be critical, but anything more than that is a frill compared to an open ecosystem, which is the world I want to live in.
That is interesting. I have a T14s with 5850U. The high-dpi display was tough nut to crack for me -- I want to use i3, so I need Xorg. Of course, there is also Sway, which is supposed to be a drop-in replacement for i3 on wayland. But for some reason Sway never felt as clean, fast and crisp as i3 to me. I can't even quantify it, and maybe it is in my head, but if I can, I will take i3 over Sway. So Xorg it is. After tuning and tweaking font DPIs and scaling factors for weeks, I got brave and tried to hook up an external display to my docking station. Many i3 config tweaks later, supplying a flurry of arguments to xrandr, bound to arcane key combinations, I got it to work, with readable font sizes on both displays simultaneously. Battery life is still crap though (~3-4h).
In all honesty, I find myself using the old T450s with a fat battery pack from Aliexpress more often than my new glass cannon T14s.
Well, you're running your own WM, though that is one of the advantages of the open source world it can also add a lot of overhead. These days I just try to stick to the out of the box experience because I got tired of fussing with everything. If I have workspaces via hotkeys, exposé, and focus on hover I'm good.
The whole xorg to wayland transition is definitely a drag, I have to use waynergy for input sharing until that's figured out. I haven't noticed any problems with external monitors, though it's mostly incidental for me since I use a desktop with synergy/barrier/waynergy (sigh) as the secondary display.
I did settle for the t14s 1920x1200 400nit 100% RGB display (I've got a 5k display on my desktop). If you've got a higher res display on your Thinkpad that could make some difference. I'm not saying the Linux world is perfect, but it's pretty good or great in most categories, and in the category of "open" Mac and Windows are basically silent except for handouts.
Linux doesn't run as universally on laptops as Windows does. Microsoft has an army of programmers and partnerships that make that happen, Linux has demand and voluntary contributions.
My Lenovo X1 Extreme runs Linux great, but Lenovo now produces Linux drivers on a regular schedule. Most other folks rely on generic drivers.
I have to agree. My M2 Air is a fantastic dev machine. I'm looking forward to installing an immutable Linux with 100% working and stable hardware support, sleep, multitouch, Wayland, etc., but in the meantime all I can do is continue donating to marcan and crossing my fingers.
“Next year, 2023, will be my thirtieth year of Linux on the desktop, and the thirtieth year of being told it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, (…)
Despite everything, it’s been fun. I’ve been lucky to have been able to take part of this journey.”
My HS gaming days were capped off with me running my games under linux. This was 2000-2002. (Ultimately i went to college, attempted a double math/physics major, and had no time for gaming.)
Don’t let others tell you what you can do or what will make you happy. For linux, definitely be a ray of inspiration for adoption by showing off your desktop and how easy it is achieve-advocacy. Or don’t, of course.
Edit-I get the feeling linux/foss has made a huge difference to the developing or low income world getting online and even industry. That, to me, is at least as important than what Windows did for the desktop.
I have been dual booting Windows / Linux on the desktop for ages. Each of them allow me to be very productive on some specific tasks, and I'm OK with it. Also Windows has progressively lost relevance for me, because Linux keeps letting you do more and more things that used to require Windows.
> Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.
> In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".
> To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio guide (listen (help·info)) with the kernel source code.
For me, as a gamer, Linux was not viable until about a decade ago when MS, in their infinite wisdom, pushed Valve to make it viable for gaming. This has always been my major problem with it.
Sure, I could - and did - play Quake 3 on Linux 20 years ago. My god, it used to start immediately whereas it used to take 2 seconds on Windows. Not sure if that was on ttimo, who I believe did the port for id, or just ext being faster.
But what else was out there? Pretty much nothing besides Tux Racing and similar toy projects. Almost no one else bothered until MS tried a little bit too hard. And Linux is the superior platform in terms of gaming, except that my Valve Index doesn't fucking work properly anymore. For your stupid compositor, Valve. I pad 1080 euro for this thing.
The Deck looks fantastic. Would've totally gotten one if I had any use for it but I have two modern desktops for desk and TV gaming so yeah. It doesn't look like they'll abandon it like they did with the Index. In fact, this little device may in fact play a major role in Linux desktop adoption beyond the couple of percent that get attributed to it
I think this whole meme died as soon as Steam/Proton started being okay. None of the other criticisms were ever in good faith. Linux has been great for everything else for a very long time. Some people do have legitimate criticisms but they are mostly nitpicking and making mountains out of molehills. When gaming becomes great on Linux it's game over for the entire industry of these arguments.
Pretty sure meme died, because desktop is dying, due to hardware slowing down and mobile boom.
Linux has the problem of no commercially successful distro, wasted duplication of effort (which DE, which sound manager, which compositor) and no backwards compatibility (user facing software).
Add onto that reliance on CLI, and lagging behind Windows features for 10+ years, and in-kernel nature of drivers and you have a recipe for lagging.
Imo the year of the Linux Desktop has passed us by. There was peak Linux Desktop in like 2007 before the X11/Wayland mess and before Gnome imploded where it was this totally usable thing. So in a lot of ways, the Linux Desktop is here in the form of ChromeOS.
Nice little article, and funny these 'memes' still get heard.
Linux is now has a lot of polish now, for the last 5 years I have been saying to all the young developers, if you are not on Linux (or BSD), move to it. For Development, Linux is the place to be.
FWIW, I have been exclusively using Linux at work (RHEL) as a desktop for over 10 years. It is a fortune 500 company and I moved as soon as it was allowed. But the other developers in my group still stick to Windows even though I have told them you really need to learn Linux.
I've used Linux since 1993 or 1994 (Slackware 1.0), including "Linux on the desktop" for most of that, and typically only use anything else when "forced" to do so. This resonated.
For my usage I am still heavily dependent on Macs since Adobe suite isn't available for Linux and the alternatives just do not compare. Neither in performance or interoperability. Davinci is a nice alternative to Premiere but Lightroom and Photoshop still reign supreme.
For the rest I am 100% on Linux as well. I used to game on Windows but MS made it such a hassle I just went Linux instead.
Ubuntu has already accomplished the year of linux on the desktop many years ago. Ubuntu is a good platform for development, for doing office work and even for gaming it's ok now with steam. Unless you're really dependent of a small fraction of things you can't really do on linux, it's been a pretty for many years already.
The second point is about popularity. Who still uses a desktop? Normal people now do most of their stuff on smartphones, tablets or consoles, desktop is that boring thing used only for work in your office. The desktop died before linux becoming popular, that's the reality.
In general, most OS vs OS debates are pointless because so many people go at it with the unconscious bias "I have extensive experience of X. When I try Y then all the parts that work differently from X are obviously wrong and stupid".
I guess it's a lot easier to believe that something works in wrong and stupid ways, than admitting that unfamiliarity feels uncomfortable when you're used to feeling like an expert.
I've been using Linux on laptops for the last decade or so with no issues. Dunno why the naysayers are so adamant, I haven't had a single hardware feature/piece of hardware not work in a very, very long time (a Wifi card in 2008 or so on my desktop which I just replaced).
From OP: "the thirtieth year of being told it’s not possible to use Linux on the desktop, or to only use Linux on the desktop."
Except for a percentage of users with special needs (corporate office software, gaming), I honestly don't think anyone is saying this. Also, the numbers have been looking great for a while[0].
I may be of the minority opinion that does _not_ want "The Year of the Linux Desktop"(TM). In every instance that I've seen software usage cross a certain threshold, I've seen it dumbed down and abused.
Decades ago, I remember trying to get people excited about computing. When they finally got on board, my email address was circulating the globe via chain letters. Spam began to rule. Blogspam took over 'teh internets'. Operating Systems lost their ability to tweak and nearly all decisions were made by a corporate overlord. Now these same OSes are filled with advertising, tracking and surveillance.
I could go on with so many examples. I think Linux is doing just fine positioned where it is. You can keep the newbies (who more often fight you against positive change) and the vultures they attract.
Linux doesn't have to convince or persuade or become anyone's idea of popular. It will, however, be here when you _need_ it.
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 371 ms ] threadBecause for a lot of people the point is to use a free (as in speech) OS. They are fine with how OSX or Windows works, and they want Linux to work the same. They simply want a good, user-friendly free desktop OS.
People want Linux to act like other operating systems because:
1. They want an easy alternative that doesn’t require extensive relearning should their original OS of choice become unpalatable for some reason
2. Advocates of desktop Linux have endlessly sung praises about how customizable it is and how that flexibility is a core tenet, so why shouldn’t it be able to act identically to Windows or macOS, at least as far as UI goes?
The first is particularly big, because remember that at this point a lot of people have decades of usage of Windows/macOS under their belt, and even if switching to Linux is a practical consideration for them, such users probably aren’t keen on tossing out all their little bits of power user knowledge and productivity boosting tricks and having to start out from almost scratch.
My understanding is that there are also distros that closely match the mac experience.
If you pick up a distro like mainline Ubuntu you might be confronted with potentially confusing new opinions about how desktops should work. I lucked out and tried it back in the Gnome 2 days when it felt like XP.
There’s nothing that replicates macOS unfortunately. Many point to GNOME, but it’s much more like iPadOS than macOS, or to elementaryOS but it only shares some aesthetics with core features like the global menubar or super-based (as opposed to control-based) key shortcuts being entirely absent. For the latter there’s hacks like Kinto[0] but this is the sort of thing that really needs to be part of the DE.
[0]: https://kinto.sh/
Well, a while ago Ubuntu implemented amazon ads in the start menu
This is something that I always bothered me. I love using middle click to scroll (you middle click, then move your mouse up and down) in Windows, but there isn't any way to do this in Linux. You can enable it in Firefox for Linux but not on the entire OS, and trying to ask people about this just makes people reply with "why would you want to do this if the default is middle click to copy??".
There are ways to sort of mimic this behavior, but none 100% matches how Windows work.
I don't really care how many people use Linux, it's been my daily driver for a decade and I don't need other people to use it - I just need them to use compatible file formats or sometimes the same web apps as me which is increasingly a solved problem, for people who really need Adobe CS or something they are not going to be using Linux this decade.
Linux can enjoy great success if it finds a suitable OS market segment -- hello Steam deck and Steam OS? After a few tries Gabe may be on to something.
If it happens it will have nothing to do with competing with Microsoft or Apple on their terms.
In the meantime I don't really give a shit because it's great for me and I use it.
I do think the GPL world in general is missing some kind of amazing positioning opportunity - don't know what exactly or how to fix it but basically most of Big Tech are not liked because they're abusers, and GPLed software is the antidote.
To me, as a developer who likes to form the tools to fit my needs (as opposed to doing the opposite), Linux is great. It’s not for everyone. It’s not perfect in all ways, but for me it represents a pretty decent local maxima, and that’s all that matters for me.
I could probably rant on about how desktop Windows can never be a true developer OS, because it definitely doesn’t work out for me. But you know what? I’m not going to do that.
Clearly it works for some people as I see some people using Windows for development tasks. Maybe that’s their local maxima? Who am I to judge?
Why obsess over what OS can and can not be used on the desktop (or server)? Why focus on negatives? Why can’t we all just get along? ;)
I think it must just be a wrong assumption based on accidentally applying the motivations of for-profit operating systems or something.
I've used linux professionally for a long time. I've also used it as my desktop / laptop OS on and off for about the same amount of time.
From a purely selfish point of view, I'd like to stop dual booting. 60% of my CS:GO time is in windows because of faceit anti-cheat. Beyond that, I almost need another OS.
Now I have a bunch of reasons why I think open platforms are better, but they don't matter. Pragmatism tells me that if enough people use linux to game, the anti-cheat problem will go away. There's other software, but wine mostly works now.
Ergo, I don't actually want a steam deck, but I really hope it does well. :)
In the 90s there was some ongoing fight between 'good' Linux and 'evil' Microsoft Windows. Since this was the beginning of the internet (by which I mean the web) for the general public, and there was virtually no mobile computing (phones, etc), the territory to win was perceived to be the regular pc desktop.
Every year, Linux advocates would claim that this year was the year of the Linux desktop (and that Linux would topple Windows and become the dominant OS on personal computers), and every year, well, it didn't happen.
These days, the market is just different : computers are not only desktop computers, but also phones, blu ray player, tvs, smart speakers, and software running on a server is reachable through a browser.
In many ways, Linux is dominant, but simply because it took the new, much bigger,non desktop markets, and the desktop doesn't matter that much these days.
I'd also note that Windows is ubiquitous, but hardly popular. People who know about computers tend to have not-so-great opinions of both MS and Windows while people who don't know about computers are only using Windows because it's what comes bundled with their machine. For the rest, MS has directly or indirectly paid to keep the software they need stuck in the Wintel duopoly (though that is also slowly changing).
Linux is widespread on basically every single type platform out there, if not dominant in most of them. The only where it's currently lagging is laptops, and of course not as popular as other OSes on desktop. But on the rest of the platforms out in the world, Linux and various derivations is very popular.
EDIT: I think it is pretty obvious that we are not talking about servers and patient monitors here, but rather desktops and other enduser devices.
Yeah maybe it's the UNIX kernel, but it's not the end-user Linux experience, which is what 99% of the people talk about when they say it's not the "year of Linux on the [insert platform here]".
For those who don't know, it's basically a PC in the form of a Switch, with access to a large part of the Steam library (even a lot of unsupported games play well if you're willing to tweak things).
It has very good specs for a handheld, and you can emulate most games up to the Switch, and some Switch games run even better on the deck than on the Switch.
As it's open, you can even install Windows or replace parts if you want.
It has surpassed all my expectations and it feels like the deck together with Proton is solving the last big obstacle with Linux on desktop.
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until it has Anti-cheat"
EAC and Battleye announce Proton support
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until there are AAA titles working"
Apex Legends, Fall guys and a bunch of other titles get support
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until the Steam Deck can meet demand"
Valve increase production
"Linux won't be viable for gaming until I can run Fortnite, Destiny 2 and Xbox Game pass"
Well you have me there..
The format of the arguments aren't coherent or well thought through. It uses the quoted argument as a jumping off point before going into an anti-Linux rant, often citing the perception that the year of the Linux desktop has been "coming for 20 years" (or pick whatever number you want) or that the Linux community are toxic (which is ironic since most of the attacks are incredibly toxic).
I think it's laudable that you're giving these people the benefit of the doubt, but they absolutely do exist and their positions are always thin or in bad faith.
I'm using Pop!_OS with an AMD CPU/GPU system that's pretty far from what I'd call stout, but I'm able to play games like "No Man's Sky" or "Crysis" just fine. I've probably tested around a dozen games personally going back as far as "Total Annihilation" from 1997(?) which ran without issue.
* Install the OS of your choice. I would recommend Nobara for minimal tweaking for games. PopOS is another popular choice
* Install steam and enable proton for all games in Settings
* If you want Steam desktop UI, you can opt into the Steam Beta, set Steam to load on boot with launch option '-gamepadui'
and voilà! You have yourself a Steam Deck gaming desktop!
Proton works from the steam Gui so I don’t think there is any install except the steam software.
Fortnite and Destiny 2 are two games where the developers have both, for whatever reason, specifically gone on record to say they will ban players that attempt to play their games on Linux.
Not just "basically a PC" but an actual PC running a modified version of Arch Linux (called SteamOS). One of the options in the menu is "Enter Desktop Mode" which does exactly what it says; drops you to a KDE desktop with all the bells and whistles of a normal Linux desktop. From there, you can use it as a normal PC if you want. Hook it up to a USB-C hub with HDMI and USB I/O, and you have a portable computer you can connect to displays with your keyboard and mouse.
Flexible as hell, and it's also pretty nice as a gaming device.
Having a site like ProtonDB to be a single place to go look up any tweaks or config flags for Wine/Proton to get a game to work is invaluable, and it's now actually getting good traffic and data because of Steam Deck.
Look no further than power management/sleep/awake, which is flawless and snappy on steamdeck. That's more than you can say for 95% of "supported linux laptops".
But to me the fact that the games are not natively supporting Linux and are instead needing a tool like Proton still means that Linux is not ideal for gaming. Just like Mac is not.
It has nothing to do with the OS itself and everything to do with developer support.
I love my steam deck but I also strongly believe that going with Linux was a short cited decision on Valves part to try to protect themselves from Microsoft. Many (most, all?) of us here are technical enough to understand at least on some level what proton does and what native actually is. But most users are not and that is where the problems come up.
When a game pushes an update that breaks support on the steam deck most users will go to complain to the developers. But the developer was not involved in supporting Linux and rightly so they don't test every update on it.
That is not the right path here.
I strongly believe that to claim that an OS can be good for something it must be targeted by the developers of whatever that thing is and run natively (or at the very least if it is prepackaged with something like proton, it is still distributed by the developers for that OS)
And yes I fully realize this is a chicken and the egg problem with linux and gaming.
Some sort of advanced suspend/resume functionality similar to the Series X's Quick Resume would be a killer feature. And I'm sure Microsoft wouldn't mind having native Game Pass hooks into a device like that
I feel like most likely not, that seems like something that would benefit Microsoft and not give any benefit to Valve. I know they have stated before some concern regarding the windows store or something.
Game Pass is also the reason I installed Windows on my Steam Deck. Being able to sync game saves between my PC, Xbox, and Steam Deck is just way too powerful. And the obvious benefit of the games in game pass.
You’re holding a proof that it isn’t so in your hands and still claim something opposite. The biggest issue with gaming on Linux has always been impossibility of providing a binary build that works everywhere due to lack of a stable kernel API and ABI. Turns out, win32 API is exactly that and works really well on Linux if you put in the work, see proton.
IOW Linux is ready for gaming thanks to and because of Windows, not despite it.
That work is exactly the problem though. This is not an ideal solution for the average user. My dad plays games and there is no way in hell I would give him a Linux machine to play games. If I end up buying him a steam deck (which I am considering) I will be installing Windows on it for him.
Again I will point out the issues with this not being an officially supported release from the developer of a game. Meaning when they push updates they don't test on Linux and could very easily break it. It happened with Halo recently and could just as easily happen with another game.
If we really want to argue that "if you put in the work" linux is a viable solution, it has been for years been viable as a desktop solution and many people played games on it.
But until we enter a time that on Linux you are running native packages from the developer targeting Linux, we will remain in a situation that Linux Gaming will always be an update away from breaking completely. Not that Windows isnt either, but at least developers test their Windows release.
Edit: For the record I would LOVE an alternative to Windows for PC gaming. Wether that is Linux, Mac, or something else. I despise Windows but I relucantly have a Windows PC. BUT I do not believe this is how we will get there.
The only real issue I have is it being a small screen. But I just have any games I need on my desktop and its easy enough to tap an icon.
My mom and dad were gaming into their mid-70's around the time they passed away. I'm approaching 60 and have gamed for 4 decades and see no stopping. I've read multiple comments from people in their 80's and even 90's still gaming.
Proton enables a lot of great games to play on Linux, I use it every day.
Linux lets all users including non-technical, use it every day with ease.
I think I can speak on my dads technical understanding better than you can. We have tried to give him an iPhone and he has struggled with that so he continues to use a flip phone.
The last thing I want to do is give him a device that due to Valve pushing a bad OS update (I mean the last Update made it so I could no longer boot normally and I had to do a boot from file and then fix that in the terminal) or games won't load because something breaks in the update for that game, which has happened to me.
That is not ageist to worry about a device not working as expected (which has happened to me, I just have the technical knowledge to fix it).
For the first 6 months of its release, everything works great! A few minor bugs to fix but your game engine figured everything out for you. Flash forward 2 years - your game is broken on every distro. An Ubuntu hotpatch broke your game on most systems months ago, and glibc changes have decimated the runtime for every user. Steam's own runtime has already bumped it's versioning and is missing 3-4 libraries you used to rely on. The Windows version boots through Proton though, so nobody is complaining yet.
Linux shouldn't need Windows as a stable runtime, but until it fixes it's packaging issues this will continue to be the status-quo.
Logically I get it, a tool like proton is most likely the only way that Linux (or anything not Windows) was going to be an option for gaming at all.
My concern here is not in how it runs, how good proton is, or even how "easy" it is to setup.
It all boils down to average users for me. I continue to find myself (and I feel like many of us do) overestimating the technical knowledge of the average consumer. I know for many years I had assumed that my generation (I am now 32) would be the generation that the average user would be able to pick up any new technology and run with it. That has been proven false to me many times now...
What happens with it fails, what happens when a game was previously working but breaks in a future version of proton or worse breaks because the developer pushes an update (and maybe its an online service game so you have to update).
Idk something about this entire thing has just felt wrong to me in how we are pushing Linux as a gaming platform.
All of these are good questions to have, Valve didn't directly come out and address them so it makes sense that people would feel anxious about it.
Largely, Valve has solved this by running every game in a lightweight container runtime, kinda like Docker. Regardless of the distro you're running on, Valve can define a common runtime for the game and the title should boot using the defined settings. If something then breaks with that runtime, Valve can actually go through on a game-by-game (or even system-by-system) basis and fix it. This is how Elden Ring got performance patches on Linux at launch, or how titles like Rocket League became playable when their native version was not.
It's a complicated technical solution to a nuanced problem, but Valve has done a bang-up job so far.
I mean when the big winter update for Halo Infinite came out it broke Proton support. Sure they (the people working on Proton) were quick to fix it, but it did break and since it was an online game there really was nothing the user could do about it.
It’s odd but things like docker and the JVM and browser based software mean the software will run abstracted a bit, less optimally, but good enough. Even among the different Linux distros software is distributed differently (rpm, debs, flat pack, pacman….)
Brining more people to Linux is the goal, more developers! and better software packaging eventually.
If you write a flutter app for Linux then it will also work everywhere else. If you write a flutter app for iOS/android - which is the most common scenario - then let's get you to tweak it for desktop Linux.
All those little specialized win32 apps for, like, dentists and accountants and navigation and filing expenses and so on moved to the web, which really eroded Windows’ lock in (obligatory citation of https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...). Electron and flutter type stacks have extended this trend
I predict along the same lines a comeback for Java on the client. Java desktop apps used to feel heavy and awkward but these days they look downright svelte. No good mobile story - yet.
As cto of a startup, I fully understand the case for it. one codebase, less to maintain and easier to focus on pumping out features.
That said, I wish slack would consider going all native for their desktop apps. Its a memory hog and for something that runs on my desktop all day, I would prefer if it sipped power and ran fast
Says a hardcore Linux user. This is what happens when you shove the Linux Desktop to people like artists and the distro 'support' becomes EOL. [0] Thousands of complaints, headaches in updating the system software and if all else fails, migration hell.
Now in 2023, we are still telling users to "choose a distro for Desktop" and companies to 'define Linux Desktop support' for their GUI apps which they still cannot do and support all distros like many can with the latest supported versions of Windows or macOS. This is an eternal issue for the Linux Desktop.
At this point the best Linux Desktop is Windows with WSL2 and requires no reformatting, partitioning, migrating and reconfiguring dotfiles in window managers.
[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/15b-4GMTSEE9tyqeQdBfy_LZnxQI...
I tried this once to see if I could run the Linux-version of Emacs, on Windows, because the native Windows-version has terrible performance.
After an hour or so if fiddling I still couldn’t get X-forwarding working and concluded that WSL2 is a console-only toy.
It’s not near being a complete enough Linux-environment.
You just install https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/, run it, then
`export DISPLAY="$(grep nameserver /etc/resolv.conf | sed 's/nameserver //'):0"` in WSL and you're good to go.
So what? Upgrade to a supported one.
Which 'one'?
It's a cultural difference. People using Windows seem to spend an inordinate amount of effort coddling along ancient installs of Windows 10, presumably because they're such a pain in the backside to set up (I have personally never successfully installed any version of Windows later than 3.11 and got all my devices working, with graphics and networking support a particular problem).
People using Linux will just blow away the install and stick on the latest LTS, because it's quick and easy and supported. If you've got a lot of apps to install it is generally possible to script all that, and so you pull the trigger on an install and it's ready to go in ten minutes.
One slight counterexample is the situation that Black Magic Design's video software DaVinci Resolve is in, where it's packaged for (and only officially supported on) CentOS 7, which goes EOL next year. However, it turns out it works just fine in CentOS Stream 8, and indeed it can be run on other distros in a Docker container based on CentOS (and of course running it in a container brings other benefits like being able to work with multiple versions on the same computer).
In general though, there's more of a "blow it away and reinstall" approach with Linux when a distro is EOL. I know I'm not the only one that takes this a stage further, and just replaces the hard disk when a new LTS comes out, so if anything happens the old stuff isn't "lost".
The reason it took me this long to use Linux at home were my so-so experiences with Gnome and its derivatives and other DEs I had used: the devil is in the detail. Linux _worked_, but there were always small things that made using it as a daily driver unnecessarily painful. The Gnome save file dialog highlights the file name as being selected, which suggests it is in focus. But when I start typing, a search in the current folder is started instead. Likewise, when typing anything in the file browser, a search in that folder is being started (as opposed to jumping to files and/or folders matching what I'm typing).
This and many other small bothersome things kept me away from Linux as my daily desktop driver for a long time. Microsoft's decision to require a Microsoft account for even the professional version of Windows 11 made me finally decide to switch, and the first DE I had tried (because I had heard so many good things) was KDE. And what a surprise that was, because as it turns out: KDE got all of those little details absolutely right. The file dialogs are heaps better than Gnome's/GTK's, Dolphin (its file browser) is an absolute bliss to use, and so much more.
So, looking back, all it took (at least for me) was just KDE. Better late than never ;)
Played around with various distros and DEs, but ended up switching back to Windows due to various sharp corners in the desktop UX. Always kept a toe in the water by occasionally booting in to a live DVD or a VM over the years. The progress has been incremental, sometimes a step back (e.g. early GNOME 3.x), but when you look at the bigger picture, it's definitely noticeable and going in the right direction.
I've tried Windows 11 and can't get along with the UI, not to mention the forced online account and data mining. I'll keep running Windows 10 until it goes out of support in 2025 and evaluate my options then. I can see three possible paths:
* Switch to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise, which buys me another 5 years of support
* Switch to Windows 11 (or whatever they call the next version), if they roll back some of the annoying changes
* Switch to Linux - increasingly looking like the path for me, given the improvements in UI/UX
Off the top of my head:
- Waking from sleep with the lid closed while using an external monitor straight-up doesn’t work. Not with keyboard and mouse input, not even by hitting the power button.
- Thunderbolt hotplugging JUST started working in 22.04, and it still flakes out quite a bit. I think my laptop would normally maintain days to weeks of uptime if it weren’t for Thunderbolt-related issues.
- Battery life in-use is like three hours, max. I’ve never used anything but Linux in this machine so I don’t know how battery life stacks up in Windows, but I know that I was using a MacBook Air at work over a decade ago that did 6+ hours.
I strongly prefer to run Linux and I’ve used it as my primary desktop OS since 2001, but I can’t think of a single Linux laptop in the past 22 years that hasn’t presented me with significant problems that I had to either work around or accept.
There are also weird audio/mic UX issues. Not sure if this is the same across all platforms, but - I usually have my laptop hooked up to an external monitor, audio output set to the external monitor, and my headphones plugged into the monitor. Yesterday, I locked my desktop and stepped away from my desk with the music still playing. When I came back, music was playing out loud from the laptop speaker. That's because the monitor went to sleep, so the HDMI audio sink went away, and the OS "helpfully" switched audio output to the laptop speaker which was set to full volume.
Logically, it makes sense that would happen. Clearly, I am to blame.
Long live Linux.
Edit: Oh yeah, the hibernation is still crappy on Linux, but suspend works well and the laptop starts extremely quickly.
What WM or DE do you use? Is there anything that you miss from the macOS GUI?
From macOS GUI I miss: 1) And the only big one: a good implementation of fractional scaling. Not an issue for the current laptop, but likely will annoy the hell out of me once I upgrade to 1600p in the future. 2) Screen casting works better on macOS. 3) (nit-picky) emoji selector 4) The ability to instantly look up answers to all GUI problems, because so many devs use macOS.
I'm on an M1 Air, but over the years I've also been running (mainly) Mint on various ThinkPads and whilst I loved the experience I never got more than a few hours. And I'm now getting days with Mac OS on the Air, which is the main reason I'm using it - I have become used to not worrying about the battery life, and certainly never having to constrain performance workloads to preserve it.
So I read "Battery life is excellent" and am curious. I get that it won't be M1 (ARM) level, but for doing stuff like a mix of writing plus development (with for example smallish Go compilations) do you have a feel for any kind of averages?
I still find it surprising. Not the M1, but the impact the battery life has on my perceptions.
In so many ways I prefer Linux (and Windows) to the Mac. I also prefer the hardware on ThinkPads (and even my old HP ProBook) because whilst the build quality isn't there they have vastly superior keyboards, ports, and/or matte screen.
And yet it's always the Air I pick up because it's always the Air I know will launch virtually instantly and run for hours.
It is certainly not M1-like battery performance, but plenty for my average workday not to feel constrained.
My current laptop is ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen from 2019 with 1080p screen, 10th gen Intel CPU, 16GB RAM, I replaced SSD for a very fast Samsung one. The laptop has a rather tiny 51Wh battery.
I was surprised.
Well... no, since most new laptop manufacturers had removed the S3 state (classic suspend to RAM) because Microsoft said that today they have to go with "Modern standby" that basically is leave the system on at a lower power settings. Beside that it doesn't work and will overheat your laptop if placed in a bag... and unfortunately since it is removed from the UEFI Linux can't do too much to put it back.
I was initially interested by the Framework, but if I'm spending $1000 or more, I really don't want something that generic in every regard. After moving to OLED, HDR, and/or HFR this year, "here's a laptop that might cost you less if it fails from a repairable issue outside of our 1-year limited warranty, otherwise it's another $1000 for a new mainboard" didn't seem like that awesome a feature in the face of AppleCare+, upcycled ThinkPads, etc.
While hacking is neat, I prefer things to just work with an -intentionally- open ecosystem, one that can't be taken away because of a marketing decision disguised as something else, with companies that are there for this fundamental idea first, and am more than happy with the constant ability to manage the system comprehensively.
I don’t know why this is such a thing in Linux-land, but people love to say, “works for me, case closed”. Desktop Linux is more forgiving with each passing year, but it’s not productive to ignore problems just because you aren’t experiencing them.
As for the "5h is not enough" comments, it seems like a pretty arbitrary number, my work days are not usually longer than 5h per location. USB chargers these days are tiny and ubiquitious, planes have outlets, so it's really not a big deal as a tradeoff for an intentionally open system. People make it sound like they're walking around naked in the world with only their Macbook for weeks at a time and that's the only reality they accept.
If I were doing a weighted choice, at least 5h battery would be critical, but anything more than that is a frill compared to an open ecosystem, which is the world I want to live in.
That would be a serious downgrade for anyone running an M1 machine. Total non-starter for me.
In all honesty, I find myself using the old T450s with a fat battery pack from Aliexpress more often than my new glass cannon T14s.
The whole xorg to wayland transition is definitely a drag, I have to use waynergy for input sharing until that's figured out. I haven't noticed any problems with external monitors, though it's mostly incidental for me since I use a desktop with synergy/barrier/waynergy (sigh) as the secondary display.
I did settle for the t14s 1920x1200 400nit 100% RGB display (I've got a 5k display on my desktop). If you've got a higher res display on your Thinkpad that could make some difference. I'm not saying the Linux world is perfect, but it's pretty good or great in most categories, and in the category of "open" Mac and Windows are basically silent except for handouts.
My Lenovo X1 Extreme runs Linux great, but Lenovo now produces Linux drivers on a regular schedule. Most other folks rely on generic drivers.
Despite everything, it’s been fun. I’ve been lucky to have been able to take part of this journey.”
My HS gaming days were capped off with me running my games under linux. This was 2000-2002. (Ultimately i went to college, attempted a double math/physics major, and had no time for gaming.)
Don’t let others tell you what you can do or what will make you happy. For linux, definitely be a ray of inspiration for adoption by showing off your desktop and how easy it is achieve-advocacy. Or don’t, of course.
Edit-I get the feeling linux/foss has made a huge difference to the developing or low income world getting online and even industry. That, to me, is at least as important than what Windows did for the desktop.
> I’ve been part of the Linux community since before Linux was called Linux
Was Linux not called Linux until some time after release?
> Linus Torvalds had wanted to call his invention Freax, a portmanteau of "free", "freak", and "x" (as an allusion to Unix). During the start of his work on the system, he stored the files under the name "Freax" for about half of a year. Torvalds had already considered the name "Linux", but initially dismissed it as too egotistical.
> In order to facilitate development, the files were uploaded to the FTP server (ftp.funet.fi) of FUNET in September 1991. Ari Lemmke at Helsinki University of Technology (HUT), who was one of the volunteer administrators for the FTP server at the time, did not think that "Freax" was a good name. So, he named the project "Linux" on the server without consulting Torvalds. Later, however, Torvalds consented to "Linux".
> To demonstrate how the word "Linux" should be pronounced ([ˈliːnɵks]), Torvalds included an audio guide (listen (help·info)) with the kernel source code.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Linux
<https://liw.fi/linux20/>
Sure, I could - and did - play Quake 3 on Linux 20 years ago. My god, it used to start immediately whereas it used to take 2 seconds on Windows. Not sure if that was on ttimo, who I believe did the port for id, or just ext being faster.
But what else was out there? Pretty much nothing besides Tux Racing and similar toy projects. Almost no one else bothered until MS tried a little bit too hard. And Linux is the superior platform in terms of gaming, except that my Valve Index doesn't fucking work properly anymore. For your stupid compositor, Valve. I pad 1080 euro for this thing.
Linux has the problem of no commercially successful distro, wasted duplication of effort (which DE, which sound manager, which compositor) and no backwards compatibility (user facing software).
Add onto that reliance on CLI, and lagging behind Windows features for 10+ years, and in-kernel nature of drivers and you have a recipe for lagging.
Linux is now has a lot of polish now, for the last 5 years I have been saying to all the young developers, if you are not on Linux (or BSD), move to it. For Development, Linux is the place to be.
FWIW, I have been exclusively using Linux at work (RHEL) as a desktop for over 10 years. It is a fortune 500 company and I moved as soon as it was allowed. But the other developers in my group still stick to Windows even though I have told them you really need to learn Linux.
Yup.
I'm not a Linux person, but I have been an Apple developer for 36 years, so I have had much shade thrown my way (sometimes, by Apple).
For the rest I am 100% on Linux as well. I used to game on Windows but MS made it such a hassle I just went Linux instead.
The second point is about popularity. Who still uses a desktop? Normal people now do most of their stuff on smartphones, tablets or consoles, desktop is that boring thing used only for work in your office. The desktop died before linux becoming popular, that's the reality.
I guess it's a lot easier to believe that something works in wrong and stupid ways, than admitting that unfamiliarity feels uncomfortable when you're used to feeling like an expert.
Except for a percentage of users with special needs (corporate office software, gaming), I honestly don't think anyone is saying this. Also, the numbers have been looking great for a while[0].
I may be of the minority opinion that does _not_ want "The Year of the Linux Desktop"(TM). In every instance that I've seen software usage cross a certain threshold, I've seen it dumbed down and abused.
Decades ago, I remember trying to get people excited about computing. When they finally got on board, my email address was circulating the globe via chain letters. Spam began to rule. Blogspam took over 'teh internets'. Operating Systems lost their ability to tweak and nearly all decisions were made by a corporate overlord. Now these same OSes are filled with advertising, tracking and surveillance.
I could go on with so many examples. I think Linux is doing just fine positioned where it is. You can keep the newbies (who more often fight you against positive change) and the vultures they attract.
Linux doesn't have to convince or persuade or become anyone's idea of popular. It will, however, be here when you _need_ it.
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[0] https://findly.in/how-many-linux-users-are-there/