Linux is now the best gaming system.
Linux is now the best gaming system.
When it comes to gaming on Linux, many many many people’s understanding stil remains in the Jurassic era. For the past few years, I’ve been using Linux as my main operating system for both work and gaming. From my personal experience, the gaming experience on Linux is far superior to that of macOS a...
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The author lost me when they showed the terminal command to install Nvidia drivers on Debian. Yes, it's one sentence. That's still extremely daunting to the vast majority of computer users. It undermines the author's own thesis.
Linux is a better gaming OS for some (myself included) but there is still a small learning curve. It's nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be, but it's not nothing.
I'd have softened the title and focused on the ways Linux shines as a gaming OS: compatibility with older games (1990-2010 in my experience) that dont work on modern Windows, the ability to get more performace out of older hardware, consistent behavior, and a much more pleasant desktop experience.
Windows is a better choice for many people, but Linux is just as good for many and a better choice for some.
I agree with your comment....except for the part about a small learning curve. The learning curve is steep and difficult. You've got to be willing to jump in as an enthusiast and not a casual user. This is not the choice for the vast majority of normies (as you rightly conclude). The saving grace for Linux will be pre-installed systems with extremely polished UI's (like the Steam Deck).
I'm highly motivated to stay on Linux, but there's still a list of open issues for me (this is a year and a half after adoption....I'm just living with these limitations now, and there are a couple more I've added to my list of unsolvable problems since).
That's still a five year old stance. Just install bazzite and have a steam deck like experience on any PC without ever touching a terminal. It even does nvidia drivers out of the box for you. The curve is not steep at all. It's still there, but it's getting much easier very fast.
Until you need to install something that isnt on Flatpak. Then the flat learning curve suddenly becomes a vertical cliff :)
At least the climbing gear is FOSS though!
I kid, but I'm guessing Bazzite has something like openSUSE Aeon's
distrobox, which let's you install anything you want inside of a container and expose it as an app. If not, they should consider adding it.distrobox
It has exactly this. And comes with BoxBuddy pre-installed if you want gui.
They absolutely do, but i'm sure you'd agree it's a bit technical for most people
Edit: By technical i mean obscure, not difficult.
It would be interesting for that to be the default shell and silently "just work" for installing stuff. They could even handle debs or rpms in the correct container. So you could pull a PPA, AUR package, etc and could just work.
Bazzite uses boxbuddy for distro box automation. It's literally two buttons on a gui, then the app is just another icon in your start menu. It even works well with autostart and desktop integration. It updates on its own. It has an extensive but easy to understand documentation. I've seen literal children do this without issue.
vertical cliff
Massive exaggeration.
Agreed. There are tons of random papercuts that a lot of us just ignore or workaround without thinking about it.
I absolutely think Linux is the bees knees, but I always list a bunch of caveats whenever I recommend it. If you go in with modest expectations, you'll be pleasantly surprised, and that's much better than being disappointed.
The author lost me when they showed the terminal command to install Nvidia drivers on Debian. Yes, it’s one sentence. That’s still extremely daunting to the vast majority of computer users. It undermines the author’s own thesis.
I think it's just a consequence of the variety of ways a Linux distro can present its options and settings. It's far easier—and arguably, safer—to share a command than to anticipate how to get to a certain option or setting.
Just as an aside, I had this exact same problem when a friend asked me to do something on my system. I ended up having to send them screenshots of what I'm looking at in order to direct me to where I need to be. All that trouble could have been avoided had they sent me a command to run on my terminal.
Is it better to have a utility that a user can just click? Yeah! Someone can write a utility program that can do just that, I guess. But then again, the problem now becomes how the user can make sure this utility program is in their system.
I guess it can be a bash script? The user can download the script and then make it usable. It's a few clicks in Dolphin and (Gnome) Files, probably the same in Thunar, but we're back to the same problem: the variety of ways a GUI can take to the same end.
I highly doubt that Linux users, at least the ones who value customization, will want to lose that customizability in order to make things easier for Windows refugees and pull more of them in.
Depending on your distro, that command likely has a GUI alternative. It just depends on the distro implementation, the disparity is a weakness of GUIs in general. instructions for windows won't match MacOS or others, and sometimes even older versions of windows
Why do we treat people as if they're too stupid for this. This is nauseating.
They arent stupid. The information is opaque unless you are an enthusiast.
99% of people have no interest in installing an operating system. They have no interest in learning about different types of software installation. That's not stupidity, it's just preference.
Im treating them as too lazy and not willing and not as too stupid. And both lazyness and not willing to put in extra effort are completely valid reasons to not do something.
Id rather disable secureboot and copy paste a command in terminal than mess around with regedit tbf
agreed