- cross-posted to:
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
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I have a theory for some time now, But it’s highly speculative.
Microsoft hasn’t been making a lot of money with Windows for a couple of years now and I think they’re pretty aware of the shit show they released with Windows 11. And they already integrated the WSL. So what what if Windows dumps It’s kernel and switches to Linux? The current windows UI could be switched to either native implementations or running through wine while keeping the familiar look and feel. Microsoft would then also need to push patches to the wine project Including their hidden and undocumented, APIs In order to get all the stuff running, they currently need in windows. This would drive the compatibility of Wine and Proton even further.
The windows API are so old and full of legacy stuff that this might a big opportunity for Microsoft to properly abstract them and be done with it.
Windows would be changed to a package based distribution, making updates much less cumbersome.
The remaining capacities could be put where Microsoft earns most of its money: cloud and business applications.
Win(dows)-Win, right?
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.
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.
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.
Also, some (most) annoyances with installing Linux, still, is primarily due to Microsoft managing to fuck things up in subtle ways.
Creating an offline account to install windows is worse than installing 99% of the Linux distros out there.
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.
As a Mac user I too want SteamOS to succeed, because it will indirectly result in more games that are compatible with macOS via game porting tools and wine.
Honestly windows is just annoying to deal with. I don’t like the ads, and I don’t like my start menu bar being reorganized. I run it in a VM and managing my install keys is a huge pain with their login system.
Linux is awesome, it’s neat watching its developer friendliness result in snowballing market share.
As a long time Linux enjoyer, this is honestly the easiest way to get it into the mainstream. People have already seen the success of the steam deck which only reinforces that Linux can be used for gaming better than ever before. As long as people stop using Windows I’m here for it.
Eh, I don’t really care if they stop using Windows, I care that they start using Linux. Dual boot if you need, but more market share for Linux increases the likelihood that devs will support Linux directly.
If linux breaks 5 or 10% marketshare on hardware surveys, developers will start thinking about the 300-600 dollars they lose every 100 sales simply from disabling anti-cheat on linux.
For sure. I’m doing the dual boot life these days because as much as I want every game to work on Linux there are still some that don’t. And some games just work better on Windows. But at the same time that’s why more devs supporting Linux is what we wanna see.
I’m always curious tochear what games people aren’t able to run in Linux. Which ones are you unable to run?
It’s mostly the problems with anti cheats. The one that comes to mind is Helldivers. I already hated the anti cheat for that game but it’s impossible on Linux. If I was still into Apex Legends I’m sure Easy Anti Cheat would cause some issues but I’m not sure. If Easy Anti Cheat doesn’t work then there are a lot of games to add to that list like Halo and The Finals. I can’t name a lot off the top of my head but Easy Anti Cheat is super popular with devs of online games.
Helldivers or Helldivers 2? HD2 runs very well in Linux.
Helldivers 2. It kept crashing so I figured it was because of the anti cheat. Perhaps it was just user error and I need to try again.
I’ve played Helldivers 2 for over 400 hours now, and all of that has been on linux.
Look it up on protondb, there’s some launch options you could try.
Proton has modules for EasyAntiCheat. I have played Halo on Arch. I don’t know about Helldivers, or Apex. But I absolutely know anticheat is an issue on Linux. Well if you ask me it is more so that these Kernel level anti-cheat mechanisms need to die.
(iirc) Apex worked great up until recently, when they started deliberately banning Linux players.
openSUSE, Mass Effect Legendary Edition does not boot on my setup, but on ProtonDB, it says gold. Just using Proton did not work for me, so I don’t know what extra BS people did to get it running, but yeah. That’s a recent one I’ve run into.
Not super familiar with openSUSE, but you could get protonup-qt and install Proton-GE.
I tried that too, as I did have the GE option under compatibility when trying different versions. It just won’t install EA’s shitty app. I feel like on one of the Proton versions, it did “install” and booted up, but then just showed a black screen with nothing afterwards. I shut it down to try again because I know how finicky these things can be, and then the EA app was saying t wasn’t installed. I gave up after about an hour and went back to Windows. I work way too much to be able to sit there and tinker with this crap when I get off from a 10 hour shift…
I mean, use the tool that fits the job. I could probably help point you in the right direction. Is it from steam, or straight EA play app?
more market share for Linux increases the likelihood that devs will support Linux directly.
I’m starting to wonder if that’s true. I thought so do but now I’m wondering, especially with compatibility layers like Proton, and even Wine before that, and plenty of tools like Electron, Unity, etc helping to be cross-platform, if the lack of support is rather due to bad habits instilled by years of Microsoft partnership with manufacturers (and thus driver support) implying that drivers must be kept secret and thus Linux support is “bad for business” and that then cascades down to developers then users.
I think it’s more that devs see Linux support as a liability. Linux market share is low, and supporting Linux opens them up to Linux specific cheats, so they’ll need to spend resources on Linux specific mitigations. Why do all that for ~2% market share, most of whom seem content not playing their games?
I don’t think we need to jump to conspiracy theories. If Linux adoption gets to 10% or so and still see this issue maybe the conspiracy theory carries some weight.
Imagine gaming with no windos OS…. The future is better!
No need to imagine!
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?
Check for the games you play here, it will tell you if there’s good linux support for it currently
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.
Thats pretty much my experience with every game I play anymore. Its just click and go.
The only extra step, is something you only have to do once upon fresh install of steam, and thats go into settings > Compatibility > Enable steam play for all games, and set the default proton to use for them to proton experimental.
after that every windows game you download will automatically use proton experimental and should just run right off the bat.
Its genuinely amazing how far proton has come just in this last year alone, and gaming on steam in general… and for that latter part, a lot of the progress is simply due to the gaming focus distros that have everything pre installed, configured, and setup ready to go.
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
I hope the installer will be so easy that even non-gamers with little to no technical knowledge will be able to download it, double-click, and follow the wizard then end up with SteamOS installed. That would be the dream.
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.
I’m at an uncomfortable crossroads of knowing enough to hate Microsoft, but not knowing enough to trust myself with switching to Linux. I’m like just barely tech-literate enough to wander into places like Lemmy, but beneath some surface level shit I’m probably one of the dumbest motherfuckers here when it comes to not setting my devices on fire.
So… a ‘Linux for dummies’ sounds exactly like what I need!
Well, there are a lot of newb-friendly distros these days. Some options:
- Linux Mint (any spin) - one of the easiest to get help with online, with minimal compromises
- Fedora - also pretty easy to get help w/ online
- Bazzite - great if you just want to play games; it’s about as close to SteamOS as you get w/o an official release
Any of those should be pretty friendly to users new to Linux, and they go roughly in order from fitness as a regular desktop (top down) to fitness for gaming (bottom up), but any of them can handle gaming and desktop stuff pretty equivalently.
Some things that may help you get started:
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All of the risk in changing your computer operating system comes from the potential loss of data. Everything else is replaceable/recoverable, including your original Windows install if needed. You can avoid this risk by backing up your personal data to an external drive, which frankly everyone should be doing anyway because hard drives are consumables.
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You can try Linux with no risk by running it as a live OS. This loads the operating system files into RAM from an external device (typically a USB drive) and makes no changes to the system hard drive. This lets you test your computer’s functionality in Linux without making permanent changes (does my graphics card work? wifi? audio? etc). The mainstream Linux installers do this already for the installation process, but you can just load one up to try things out without running the installation process.
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You don’t have to completely switch off of Windows. It’s fairly easy to install Linux as a dual-boot on an existing Windows system. As long as you have some free space on your hard drive to dedicate to Linux, you can just keep your Windows install and have Linux too. You can even access your files in Windows from the Linux install. All of the mainstream Linux installers have the option for setting up dual-boot during the installation.
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I think one of the biggest hurdles for switching over is knowing what software to use in Linux (how do I edit a document? watch a movie? read a pdf? etc). There are options for basically anything you might want to do, but if you don’t know what you’re looking for you might feel a bit lost. I recommend alternativeto.net for this. You can search for software like Microsoft Office and filter for Linux to get a list of compatible software options that do the same job.
I’m probably one of the dumbest motherfuckers here when it comes to not setting my devices on fire.
I know exactly how you feel. I have wrecked so many OS installs I’ve lost track. I have friends who tell me I have tech problems like no one else. I seem to stumble into edge cases on a higher-than-average basis.
My point is, when I say that everything is recoverable, that’s from experience. I’ve done it enough times to know there’s very little chance of actually making a computer unusable, though it’s relatively easy to lose your data if you’re not paying attention to what you doing - so backups. Always backups.
If you try this a couple times you’ll start to see your computer as something that you have control over, something that you can completely wipe and bring back or rebuild into a different system as you please. Feel free to reach out if you’ve got questions.
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I feared making the plunge as well but it was so seamless tbh. Got Linux Mint and it just feels like a newer version of old Windows. Not sure how it’s with other distros, but I find it to be precicely Linux for dummies.
I’d say the difficulty to getting used to new environment was on a similar level to getting from Windows XP to Windows 7. If you can dual boot I recommend just trying it - the water is fine.
They probably give it the side eye every time it comes up
Microsoft has already lost the console wars, and now it starts to look like they might even lose the PC wars. Is there any future for Microsoft gaming? It feels like the only thing they got going for them is Call of Duty.
Is there any future for Microsoft gaming?
Yes, in the “Netflix of Gaming” Game Pass, they’ve already been pivoting on it more and more. They know they’re losing their hardware dominance
Only a matter of time IMO before they work on getting Game Pass games on Linux. Which would be great because I got the bulk of my games from Game Pass these days lol
The only real limitation for Game Pass on Linux is market share. There’s no way Microsoft passes up that money if Linux gaming gets big enough.
True. When they start feeling threatened, they will bite as hard as they can.
That would be nice, having good competition solves a lot of problems. Plus if steamOS gains enough traction more large game studios may start to specifically support it.
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.
I hope to see this before the EoL date set for Windows 10 and a bunch of people throw out perfectly good machines to buy 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!
