I’m waiting for a MS vs Steam lawsuit where MS tries to sue over the usage of the Windows api
They would have a hell of a time trying to say they want to control API usage after letting everyone and their mother use it free and unrestricted for decades. But I wouldn’t put it past them to try.
This is the final hurdle keeping me on windows, a seamless gaming experience. If SteamOS can hammer everything out, there’s zero reason to stay.
I would argue that at this point, today, its already a fairly seamless experience.
The only singular issue is MMOs with invasive rootkit anticheats. All the MMO’s i’ve played have worked like a charm with zero issues, but thats because I actively avoid games that use invasive rootkit anticheat systems… and I did that on windows, too, so its never been a big issue for me.
Might be an issue if you love your korean mmos though.
and I’m not, like, a sysadmin with 2 decades of linux experience or anything. I’m just a random idiot.
I dont say this to proselytize or try to get you to convert/install today. Just a vewpoint from general everyday user.
Nope, I’m almost exclusively single player at this point. How’s the performance and everything? Is there any drop off?
Everything runs about as good or better than on windows.
That doesnt mean there arent games that run bad… but those games run bad because of something wrong with the game, and not because of running it on Linux or Windows. Cities Skylines 2 and Starfield being prime examples of games that run like ass, because they are ass, and not because of running it on Linux or proton. . . Just for full disclosures sake.
I will say that I run a gaming specific distro (I personally use nobara, but I’ve also heard good things about other gaming distros like bazzite) that takes care of a lot of the headache and has all the annoying shit setup and installed ready to go. It would definitely be more headache trying to get to the same point on, say, ubuntu.
My biggest issue is I work in IT and by the time I’m done for the day I absolutely don’t want to screw with it. I just wanna fire up and go. It seems that I might need to do some research, as things have progressed further than I’d realized.
The only problem I have gaming on Linux these days is anti-cheat on a couple titles. Everything else is seamless already. The steam client works just as it does on Windows.
SteamOS will let you pay games from GOG, right?
Because they’re DRM free, they’re super easy to install too! Another install method is Heroic
Yes you just have to sideload the client. I believe Lutris makes it easy but I don’t use GOG myself.
Heroic makes it even easier
Imagine gaming with no windos OS…. The future is better!
No need to imagine!
I’m legitimately curious how many half-baked ad-filled second-to-the-punch products will be too many for Microsoft before they finally capitulate.
Man, if microsoft capitulated, and gave us a Windows 7 - 2, that was just windows 7 with current support, no spyware, no telemetry, and a nice coat of polish… I would definitely be tempted to switch back lol
I hope to see this before the EoL date set for Windows 10 and a bunch of people throw out perfectly good machines to but something that works with Windows 11.
Personally, I won’t use Windows 11 on my home machines. But my concern is that I install a distro this year and want to switch to SteamOS later, but would have to start over with customizations, etc. in the new distro. I wish SteamOS was available now for gaming rigs!
I think it should be available just in time for Windows 10 sunset later this summer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdR-bxvQKN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebmp2FIrTlE
my concern is that I install a distro this year and want to switch to SteamOS later, but would have to start over with customizations, etc. in the new distro.
I wouldn’t sweat that at all.
I switched distros last week, didn’t like the new one as much as I thought I would, and switched again a few days later. It’s not that big of a deal. Install some apps, reload your files from a USB stick. It’s not a major commitment.
A good way to keep this easy for yourself is to keep the files you actually care about like pictures, game saves, documents, etc all on a separate partition. It makes it very easy to make a backup for distro hopping.
You can nuke your OS as many times as you like, and everything will be exactly in the same place.
If you want to be slightly fancier, you can use a btrfs subvolume and not have to worry about sizing partitions correctly.
lvm2 noises intensify
@cadekat @Olgratin_Magmatoe doesn’t ext4 have this feature or am I missing something?
I don’t believe it does, but I could be wrong!
Steam is terrified of the Microsoft store. It’s part of why they’re moving to linux
Even MS hasn’t dared to release a version of Windows you can’t switch out of “S mode” yet, but the fact that it even exists would be troubling for them.
MS would love a walled garden like Apple have made, but there’s no way in hell it would ever pan out for them, and certainly not before regulation arrives (probably from the EU) that would stamp it out, and that’s before you take into account the business implications. Windows only exists because of all the pre-existing software. Flattening the only reason to stay would be suicide.
thats exactly why Valve start Fighting Against Windows, UWP And Microsoft store.
Sure, but Valve is terrified of the Microsoft store for a subtly, but importantly, different reason than why Microsoft should be terrified of Steam OS.
Microsoft should be terrified that Steam OS will destroy their monopoly by making it so users no longer have to use their product.
Valve is terrified that Microsoft will destroy their monopoly by making it so users no longer can use their product.
So in the end, consumers win?
In this case, between Valve winning and Microsoft winning, a Valve win is good for consumers.
Valve winning is less awful for consumers.
Valve is still a multi billion dollar company, who had to be forced into compliance with lawsuit and regulation to get even the most basic shit like refunds for bad/broken/scam games.
Valve does have a better history
Those are two orthogonal things, but they do both point towards Valve being the better choice between the two. But if there were a Valve vs. Microsoft duality where the choice that’s better for anyone that’s not the two of them is to side with Microsoft, I’d be disappointed with Valve, but I’d choose the Microsoft route.
I don’t think that’s likely, as Valve have repeatedly made choices that are better for the consumer even when they’re not better for Valve, but I’m not ruling out the possibility.
As long as SteamOS doesn’t fail, yes. If SteamOS draws enough gamers for there to be a healthy amount on Windows and SteamOS there will be competition between the two OS-s, which will benefit everyone. If SteamOS does draw away the supermajority of gamers then we still benefit because the open source nature of Linux makes it much harder for Valve to have total control like Microsoft has.
We shall see, there has been a rise recently
People use steam because it’s better than alternatives, if it dies consumers will lose
Oh I was thinking competition on the market. But yes, Valve is great
Microshit already lost, most windows users just don’t know it yet. Sure microshit will get another 25 years as generations shift… Similar to opinions on israel but the trend is set
They probably give it the side eye every time it comes up
Microsoft could also be terrified of how shitty Windows 11 is. I have to think back to Millennium Edition to compare to something this disastrous, but Satya doesn’t care about Windows, Surface, or XBox. Microsoft’s future is M365, Azure, and D365. Big fat high margin Enterprise Agreements since everyone is locked into their proprietary shitty office formats. And they get enterprise problems with audit, identify, access control like few other businesses.
What I don’t know understand is why companies refuse to sell off businesses that they know will die off from their neglect. A shame, except for Windows.
Windows 98 was supported until almost a year after Windows XP’s release, so nobody really had to use Millennium Edition. Windows 10’s support is ending in October and no new version has been announced.
There is nothing to be terrified of for MS, windows can implement mandatory rectal scans to log in and linux wouldn’t break 20% market share.
windows can implement mandatory rectal scans to log in
I for one would swap back to Windows from Liinux if this was implemented!
Linux is already over 15% in India
A fresh install of ME was typically fine, the live update usually fucked things up big time.
I’d compare the Windows 11 disaster to Windows 8; only that they released 8.1 in relatively short succession, with most issues actively fixed.
Microsoft always follows the pattern of good OS, bad OS, good OS, bad OS. We just have to wait for Windows 12 for a good one.
It’s true:
3.0 - aka the Windows Protection Fault release 3.1/3.11/WFWG, now with far fewer WPFs 95 - I lost nearly a year of life waiting for it to reboot, again. 98! Second Edition TBF ME - Lets remove stuff and cause cause problems XP - SP2 - I can login before my PC is taken over by RPC calls from the Internet! Vista - UAC up the Longhorn ass 7 - took long enough 8 - 1.5 half complet OSes 10 - erased 1 OS, completed the other 11 - I am still waiting for file Explorer to open. Where is fileman.exe? It’s so laggy, why does the context menu draw out one row at a time.
10 sucked ass. It’s the reason I stayed on Windows 7 way longer than I should have.
I did the same, and when I switched I just switched to Linux rather than another Windows version.
Then again I’ve been playing with Linux (and using it professionally on the server side) since the 90s, so am not at all representative of most people out there.
10 was good?
I liked it just fine. You have to admit it was good compared to 8.
I actually liked 8.1. 10 was fine until they started hiding all of the classic control panel settings and stuff behind their new ones and we got a total fustercluck of windows, buttons and options.
Year of linux desktop, amirite?
Jesus, news outlets love hyperbole, don’t they. We are not even at 5% market share.
He specifically didn’t say that. Instead of criticizing that they aren’t nuanced enough you should read the nuance they actually wrote:
Let me be clear: The odds of a massive, immediate shift away from Windows PCs aren’t great. This isn’t a “year of the Linux desktop” rallying cry. But if there is a Linux desktop that exists today, it’s the Steam Deck. And that makes SteamOS a bellwether for greater proliferation of non-Windows devices (if not necessarily “Linux” specifically) in a huge range of form factors.
Then the title is misrepresenting what they are saying (i.e., clickbait). The title “Microsoft should be terrified of SteamOS” reads as ‘SteamOS would threaten Windows dominance on desktop space’.
Bro, just admit you only read the headline before coming down to comment.
I don’t know how long it’ll take desktop Linux to reach 10% market share. Could be a couple of years, could be decades, could be never. But once it reaches 10%, I give it 5 years before it’s over 80%.
When most/all multiplayer games start working on Linux that’s when Linux can really start taking off.
They do. We’re already there.
The only titles that don’t work are the ones with kernel level anti-cheat, and that needs to die anyway.
All games that enforce kernel level anti-cheat won’t work
As someone who almost exclusively plays multiplayer games - we are def not there. I agree with you that kernel-level anti-cheat needs to go and games should focus more on AI-based (behavior and pattern analysis) anti-cheats instead. But, it’s simply not fair to to say that “we’re already there” when almost 50% of the largest (most played) games out there don’t work on Linux.
We are not there. Is it Linux’s fault? No. But we are absolutely not there, yet.
I’m curious, what games have you tried that don’t work in Linux?
Perhaps I’m just lucky but it rarely happens to me these days.
I have a Windows PC to play Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, and more recently Marvel Rivals. We’re still not quite there yet, although it was pretty cool that Baulders Gate worked on Linux.
I don’t know about Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, but Marvel Rivals worked fine out of the box for me.
For context:
CPU: Intel 9900k
GPU: RTX 3080ti
Distro: EndeavorOS
Display: WaylandBoth of those games are marked gold on protonDB, so you shouldn’t have to use windows to run them if you want (although marvel rivals apparently needs
SteamDeck=1 %command%in the launch options): https://www.protondb.com/app/3107230 https://www.protondb.com/app/2767030Interesting… thanks for this. I’ll need to look into protondb more; had not heard of it prior to this.
I was a part of the pre-EA access group for Pantheon so my game isn’t a part of Steam. Is this a Steam specific thing?
Proton is certainly “cleaner” to use with Steam, but you don’t have to use Steam to use proton. I’d recommend adding the executable to Steam as a non-Steam game for simplicity. Otherwise you can use Lutris or find a tutorial online to run that specific executable with proton outside of Steam
I appreciate the info, and willingness to discuss this. I think you’ve been able to identify my point of reluctance around all of this now; it feels like work. When I’m done with work, I don’t want to do more work in order to get my games to play. Might explain why I bought a PS5 in May too.
Maybe I’ll give this some investigation on my next holiday / day off. That way it’ll feel only “kinda” like work.
That’s a fair point, linux has gotten a lot better with stuff ‘just working’ but when it doesn’t, it requires some research and tinkering.
I was figuring something out the other day and it dawned on me that the reason I’ve become so enamored with linux is that it’s a hit of nostalgia from getting things working in the 90s. (Also I’m a nerd and I think the way computers work is fascinating lol)
Are you serious? Most games can be played on Linux? I don’t care about the kernel anti cheat games, since that shit is not going on my pc anyway
Proton is basically magic. I’ve got 1960 games on steam and I have a chunk that are listed as ‘untested’ but less than 10 that are listed as incompatible. The games listed as untested also usually end up just working. You may have to mess with proton or winetricks sporadically, but even that is very rare in my experience. It is nearly always an issue in a multiplayer game with anti-cheat when it just doesn’t work.
@BarbecueCowboy @madcaesar That’s basically my experience as well. Usually, the developers need to add a flag in their anti-cheat builds, and they’ll just work; however, developers are frequently not interested.
If you aren’t playing games with a kernel anti cheat, legit 99.99% of games will work. Nearly every broken game is due to an anticheat. ProtonDB lists only 4% of the top 1000 Steam games as “borked”, and the majority of those are due to anticheat. Any that aren’t will likely be fixed by Proton updates.
If you also want to avoid any games that might not be super smooth, filtering Bronze ranked games are another 3%. Silver is another 8%, but I’ve never had an issue running a Silver rated game.
My issue is I only play multiplayer games and most have KLAC.
I’m sure there are exceptions… I haven’t tried every game. But most games in my Steam library work with 0 tinkering, and the rest usually just require setting a few launch options.
The only games I haven’t been able to get working at all are Riot games (vanguard anti-cheat is a b*****) and the VR mods for HL2.
I played enshrouded and path of exile and Diablo and Elden ring coop and bg3 coop all with zero issues except on like the first few days of release if there are any.
The worst thing right now about Linux multiplayer gaming with anticheat is the release day experience. Or if it’s a AAA title with heavy graphics expectations, odds are they use some weird directx fuckery that’s not available in vulkan immediately and needs patching.
All of that gets fixed when Steam deck compatibility at launch day becomes more of a thing, so it’s just a matter of time tbh. I’ve been using Linux dual-boot since Hardy Heron and as my sole OS since 2018, 2025 may be honestly the year of the Linux desktop no joke.
I haven’t had a problem running anything yet, currently playing fallout 4 with f4se and a few mods using a ds4 controller over bluetooth.
That’s probably one of the buggiest games out there so that’s saying something. It’s the first game I’ve had to tinker with the launch settings though
Seems more like about 20% of games. It’s definitely improving but still a long way to go.
20% of games are broken or working? That’s way off either way.
Yea… you’re probably right. Maybe it’s just the games that I want to play. Those tend to not be Linux compatible (if they’re in steam), and for the games that aren’t even in Steam, I don’t bother trying to make them work in wine or anything like that. Just dual boot and call it a day.
Steam Deck compatibility has a much higher standard since it requires the performance being good, gamepad support, etc, and even that’s at 40%. General Linux can’t be less than 95% for games that don’t require kernel level anticheat. Try checking a random sampling on https://www.protondb.com/.
I appreciate it; seeing more than a couple of people recommending protondb. I’ll have to investigate it on my next day off from work that’s not a weekend. Thank you.
It’s the year of the Linux Desktop!!
(2025 is “The year of the Windows 11 PC refresh,” allegedly)
Wait. Since when has Microsoft’s Windows team been driking the same from the same copium jars as us Linux users have for years?
That’s hilarious.
Oh it will be the year of the Windows 11 refresh, there’s no question of that. Untold millions of business PCs will be making the change as Windows 10 goes EoL.
It’s a very different story in the home market. Frankly the only thing holding Windows Gaming in place is decades of increasing personal PC ownership but that ownership / use rate is now declining as normal people transition to using smartphones and tablets.
In just a few short years, ten at most, gaming on Windows will be about as relevant as gaming on Mac. It may still be called “PC Gaming”, you can already see media trying to redefine gaming on SteamDeck and other handhelds as “PC Gaming”, but those games won’t be built around the Windows OS.
This. Family have even ditched laptops for tablets, and businesses would definitely not risk a new eco system just because of 11
I think Steam Machines would be successful now.
I believe it could be killer casual home PC if they had clearly stated specs with expected power draw and output. Not everything needs to run at 240 Hz in 4k res… as steamdeck showed. It has too low res though for desktop PC, so new steam machine should be a bit beefier than just rebranded deck.
I could be horribly wrong, but with a disgruntled console market and SteamOS’s success on the Steam Deck, a plug and play device along with a controller could be very successful at capturing departing console users and it would really give a kick start to linux gaming.
I know there’s lots of people who want to try PC gaming, but are not sure how to or are scared to do so, a Steam Machine would be the perfect device for them, they could just plug it into their TV and be gaming in minutes, just like the simplicity of the Deck.
I just installed Linux and holy shit it is so much easier and more straight forward than a windows install. Really wish I would have done it sooner.
I had issues with drivers, like I would have to find them somewhere on the internet, trust a random stranger to download and install them. And even then some things required me to launch drivers manually every single time I wanted to use my hardware.
I had issues with games, constant crashes or some games flat out not working. Some even crashing the entire system occationally.
I had issues where my pc would randomly turn on. Going to sleep was funky and would break the system requiring restart. I had to find drivers for my audio systems to get them running.
I had to run around confusing settings and tweak them through different control panels made by random people that largely overlapped to fix basic issues.
Thankfully those issues were solved the moment I installed linux.
Guessing your machine uses the one-two punch of Nvidia + Broadcom / Realtek?
Haha you had me, ngl
That said I’ve never had issues with drivers on Windows, like ever.
The last time I tried Linux was probably a good 5 years ago (Mint) and it was good, but I kept having to do what you described, adding repos (had no idea what they were or how they worked) and running command line updates, and it all looked like random code executing on my system. I could definitely see why the average person would be intimidated.
Eventually I gave up when I couldn’t get the most simple thing I did in windows working on Linux, updating my keepass automatically via Gmail.
I’ll have to give Mint another shot, I’m sure it’s come along even more.
I had a few times on Windows with niche discontinued products. Not really a huge issue but it didn’t work out of the box.
Here’s your issue with Linux: You’re expecting it to work identically as Windows does. They’re different systems with different issues and solutions. I use Syncthing to sync my Keepass database updated between devices. It’s very simple and easy to use.
Go into Linux unburdened with the expectation that everything should work the same and you’ll have a better time. You have to acclimate to the new environment, but you did the same with Windows. You got used to how bad Windows is to use. Linux is generally easier, in my opinion, once you’re used to it. It isn’t Windows though so you have to learn new things.
Did you get it working to sync via google drive?
I haven’t used Windows in a bit, but I had to help two friends with display driver issues on windows recently. When they break they have to be uninstalled using a third party tool before you can perform a fresh install of them.
Exactly, i was spending so much time using vmd and regedit in windows to troubleshoot everyday issues like games crashing or hardware bugs, that I realized “this is what every windows user tells me linux is like”.
Which distro ? I’ve been rocking Bazzite for a year, and holy mother of christ, it requires less maintenance than my smartphone.
I’ve been rocking endeavourOS.
It’s really nice, but I hear great things about bazzite. I’m going to have to take bazzite & steamOS for a spinIf you like endeavourOS, CachyOS is really good too. It’s also Arch based and includes a really fast custom kernel. It also has lots of gaming enhancements whatever that means. I’ve been trying to spread the word, not a lot of people seem to know about it. I hear Bazzite is pretty good as well. I definitely need to try it out.
I installed EOS and I’m liking it.
Bazzite for the win!
Ive been looking at Bazzite, but Ive tried to make the jump to linux for a while but always run into dumb issues and go back to windows.
Is it ‘it just works’ or is it actually dad gamer easy?
If you know how to flash an iso to a thumb drive and press F2 at the bios prompt to boot into the installer, everything else will be easier than that. It just works.
If you plan using Steam, gaming will be super easy. There’s also a good store to install new programs. Everything worked out of the box.
That’s actually what I went with too. I considered Mint and Pop!OS but really my PC is a gaming machine with a nvidia card. A friend recommended bazzite and its exactly what I was looking for.
Yeah. Windows install and Linux install quietly switched which was the difficult shitty experience sometime when I wasn’t watching.
It’s funny because while some of it has to do with work to make Linux desktops better, a non-trivial amount of it is how worse Microsoft has made it to deal with Windows.
Creating an offline account to install windows is worse than installing 99% of the Linux distros out there.
Also, some (most) annoyances with installing Linux, still, is primarily due to Microsoft managing to fuck things up in subtle ways.
Because Windows is a data-mining and advertising tool these days, more than anything. So they want to make sure you have a MS account on day 1 and that you have to opt out of all of their services 34 times over before they let you use the damn thing.
Yep, and then have to opt out all over again the next week when an update decides you need to verify you really mean to opt out again…
And if you managed to not have an MS account when you installed, interrupt your login and say “you cannot proceed like you have been doing for the past year without adding an MS account now”, and then look up how to get out of that dialog without doing the MS account…
Yep 100% this kind of shit drove me away a couple years ago. It had nothing to do with Linux getting better and everything to do with Windows getting worse.
