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Ditched Windows 11 for Bazzite on my RoG Ally. It is much smoother, more stable and zero problems running games on Steam.
IMO, the hardest part of moving over is relearning a bunch of things you’ve taken for granted. However, Windows has been changing and breaking things at such a rapid pace, that not even my friends who still use it can keep track.
PC Gamer saying this is a good sign though, still one of the most popular special interest magazines that’s not porn
I recently began casually installing games on my Ubuntu system which I use for work. Apart from sound issues that I have because the drivers currently have issues with my specific hardware, I am surprised how ridiculously easy it was to run games. Steam’s Proton compatibility layer sure does the crucial work. But it’s usually just as simple as install and play.
Worst I had so far was a graphics glitch which was solved by using Proton GE for that title instead. Okay, and Wayland seems to make it hard for games to set the screen resolution and possibly fullscreen mode. But switching to X11 helps to get around such quirks.
League of Legends still doesn’t support it. Most of my friends play it however shitty and toxic it may be. As long as that remains a fact, I can’t move to Linux unless I want to “sit outside and look at my friends playing together”.
I too, am super brave for switching to Linux from Windows 11.
Joking aside, I love it. My relatively new laptop runs so much smoother on it. W11 always was doing something in the background and making my fan blast even when I wasn’t using it. That’s all gone and it’s a much happier device.
My printer works, my wacom intous tablet works, all my steam games so far work (I haven’t played every single one, but the ones I have played are fine).
Honestly, there was some things I had to troubleshoot at the beginning. I just asked AI and it gave me the terminal commands that I needed to get it done.
10/10 would recommend… if you’re brave.
I am brave enough to say it: The ocean has water in it.
Praise me for my braveness.
I get the sentiment but the article is more targeted at the PC gaming crowd that isn’t exactly tech-illiterate but probably only knows Linux from memes about it requiring you to recompile a kernel to install Chrome or some other BS like that
I think a good portion of Lemmy and the fediverse already know it’s been at this level for a long while now but I’m excited to see articles like this since it means the tide is turning against Windows for the average user
but probably only knows Linux from memes about it requiring you to recompile a kernel to install Chrome or some other BS like that
Yeah just look at the article’s comment section (not recommended). Still full of ignorant misinformation. Borderline disinformation IMO.
Yeah, though would be better if the well were not poisoned, misleading perceptions, with words like “brave” and “now”.
i think this bravery is worthy of a marble carving. 12 stories tall, of you pointing at the ocean
Pretty sure Trump’s already building one, but I guess you could put this guy’s next to it.
I heard somewhere that by the time the scientific community officially announces life on mars the rest of us will have already concluded that there is life on mars. I feel like this is the same thing.
Because science doesn’t work on circumstantial evidence, but hard proof.
The problem is there’s a large difference between the 50% the average person needs and the 99.9% the scientific community needs. It’s just a different level of proof they’re looking for.
I realize that scientific rigor demands more to assert a claim. I was more commenting on mainstream gamer media embracing Linux after it seems like a well proven option.
Big if true.
How do you live so dangerously, sir? Aren’t you worried about retribution?
Valorant DaddleDew,
Doth proudly proclaim.
Sees that the sea is due
To torrential rain.Dew truly polymath,
Paragon of deep.
Scrolls Lemmy in the bath
And nods right off to sleep.Wtf. MODSSSSS
'zacly.
Best reply.
Next you’ll say the ocean is a soup.
Salt, meat, vegetables–it is soup.
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I hate PCGamer’s website. Everytime I get partway through an article, a pop-up shows asking me to sign up to their newsletter. Now the pop-up alone would turn me off of their website, but what happens is the pop-up scrolls the article all the way back to the top of the page. So I completely lose my reading position.
PCGamer isn’t the only site to do this, but I think it’s one of the more popular ones that do.
The other thing that sites do now that earns an instant DNS block on my pihole, is capturing the back action that prevents leaving the site to show a pop-up that says “wait, before you go, check out these other articles” or something along those lines. HELL… NO!
Seriously, all the lutris & co mess is obsolete now.
Open Steam > add non-steam game > properties > compatibility > force proton 10 > profit
Worked for all the cough responsibly ripped .exe’s I’ve thrown at it so far
I still use bottles to have a persistent virtual drive for things like modding tools.
Most things work perfectly in Steam though.
Yeah. I also use Bottles for GOG / itch games that don’t have a native linux version. And I’m pretty happy with how it works. Things install smoothly and easily, and it has a very nice menu for the games I’ve installed. Here’s what it looks like:
However, there have been some hiccups along the way that might have caused less patient people to give up. In particular, it took me awhile to work out that although I could tell bottle to launch a windows .exe from anywhere on my computer, it would only actually work properly if I first move the exe into the virtual drive - which deep inside a confusing directory structure. (The “troubleshooting” menu option goes directly into talking about this issue; but even finding that menu option isn’t totally straight forward, especially if you’re just launching the exe from a file browser or something.)
Anyway, the upshot is that I like bottles; because it is easy to use but also very transparent about how it works and what it is doing, which I like. But I wouldn’t say it’s the best option for everyone.
Lutris has allowed me to use battle.net though which I don’t think steam can do, afaik. I’m happy to be proven wrong, though
I run battle.net through Steam. Works just fine.
Personally I prefer having Battle.net in Lutris (or something else like Bottles) even if you can run it through Steam. I just dislike using a launcher to open another launcher and Lutris avoids that.
I can understand that the Steam method would be a little easier for some people, but using Lutris for something as popular as Battle.net is really easy too. You just click “Add” and search for “Battle.net” and it does the rest automatically, even downloading the installer. The only thing to be aware of is that you should close the launcher when it gets to the point you are asked to log in which completes the installation, but Lutris tells you that as well.
how did you do it? mine does not start after installing.
I added Battle.net-Setup.exe as a non-steam game and set the compatibility tool to Proton Experimental. This seems to have worked for me. Running on Garuda.
‘Works fine’ is not true yet, currently.
Especially annoying on steam deck. Is this a Linux issue? No. It absolutely is not.
I also had no(*) trouble installing Battle.net in Heroic Launcher, FWIW. Steam probably shouldn’t be much different.
(*) ok, well, not any more trouble than Battle.net usually is on Linux. The point is after prodding at it for awhile it eventually finished installing and updating and started up properly and has worked fine ever since.
Thanks, I need to give that a try. Most of my non-Steam games (“Deus Ex”, “Giants: Citizen Kabuto”) run just fine under Wine, using the default settings. The only one that doesn’t work is NOLF 1. (Everything works except music).
If I have an .exe from the high seas that still needs to be unpacked/installed how do I deal with it?
Just started using Linux for playing, currently playing Dispatch (highly recommend it), used Lutris to first install the compacted .exe and then run the launcher .exe. Is there a better way to go about it?
In heroic, you can add the game and while adding it, click “run installer first” and then install the EXE and copy whatever cracks needed. I needed to do that with a few games that are literally not available anymore on stores.
Lutris had been so janky for me the past 10 years and many of the installer scripts literally don’t install any dependencies anyways that I switched to heroic last year and I no longer have games that work completely fine and then next launch they don’t work.
Hell, I’ve got a game I legally purchased on CD back in the Win XP days I’d like to play, and the farthest I got is installed but fails to run.
This may or may not help. But I’ll give you the basic steps using wine only and no Proton magic to run a game from disk:
- Create an empty folder to be your wineprefix (emulated system folder) or use the default.
- run
WINEPREFIX=[full path to new folder] winecfgcommand in terminal (justwinecfgif you will use the default prefix). - mount your CD so that you can see it in your file browser. (Might be simply clicking that device in the file browser when a CD is in the drive bay)
- In the winecfg set drive D: to point to the folder where you mounted the CD.
- run the CD installer with wine… e.g
WINEPREFIX=/some/path wine /media/something/cdrom1/setup.exe, install the game to C: - run the game with WINE on the same prefix and with the CD inserted and mounted (if there are resources on the CD or basic DRM) e.g.
WINEPREFIX=/some/path wine '/some/path/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Cool Game/coolgame.exe - if that works, you might be able to create an image of the disc and mount that instead of the physical CD, you’d then rerun winecfg and set D: to the correct folder where the disk image is mounted.
So, I’m actually very drunk right now and my eyes just slid right off all that, but I want to set my default misanthropy aside for a second and genuinely thank you for taking the time to write up some genuine helpful tech advice. That’s really cool of you to have done. I might try that day after tomorrow.
Definitely do not recommend trying to set up a winecfg environment while drunk. The two kinds of wine do NOT mix.
You know what they say about wine and beer…
do steam games run on linux already or something? Like do you only have to do that for non steam games?
Some have native Linux versions, while the rest can be “translated” (not strictly emulation, but the concept is close enough) via Proton, a translation layer that Valve introduced with the Steam Deck, which is itself running (arch btw) Linux. I’m not sure what the split is in the catalog, but the steam deck verified list serves as an indication for Linux (for Arch, at least) compatibility in general.
This is true for both Steam and non-Steam games - the developer or publisher might offer a native Linux version, but packaging is always a mixed bag. This proton trick allows you to run the Windows version with the same compatibility it would have on the steam deck, no matter where it came from.
do steam games run on linux already or something?
Oversimplification coming, but…
Most (modern) games can actually just run on Linux already, because Linux is where the best cross platform developer tools are.
Today, if a developer wants to publish their game to Windows, Mac, Android, Playstation, Nintendo Switch and XBox - the odds are strong that the developer is actually (possibly unwittingly) writing a Linux native game and then using an engine to port the Linux version to the other platforms.
The reasons for this are complicated, but mainly boil down to Linux being the simplest target to reliably build developer tools for - because every part of Linux is open and public.
Like do you only have to do that for non steam games?
If a game is purchased through Steam, Steam launcher knows enough to choose the best available version of the game for the operating system - whether the best version is the Windows executable running under wine/proton, or a native Linux executable.
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MS may have finally pushed me to home linux. I’m used working with RHEL servers at work.
I was so reluctant to transition to Linux for gaming. I’ve been using Linux since 2007, so I’m not new to the OS.
I took the plunge a handful of months ago, and it is an amazing experience. The games I like to play actually saw performance gains when switching over.
I still dual boot a Win 10 partition for outliers, but so far the only game to get installed there has been BF6, due to the requirements of their anti-cheat.
It’s funny. I also was very hesitant to make the jump from Windows, but finally did in 2025. I was dual booting for a while until I realized I hadn’t been into the Windows one in months because it was a pain in the ass for various reasons. So I just got rid of it.
I’ve made peace with the fact that I won’t be able to play certain games. Their loss; there’s plenty of other games to buy with my money.
I was dual booting for a while until I realized I hadn’t been into the Windows one in months because it was a pain in the ass for various reasons. So I just got rid of it.
A very old familiar story over the past couple decades or so.
I’ve made peace with the fact that I won’t be able to play certain games. Their loss
Yup.
It shall continue being good to see other people get this, taking their power back, ceasing being their games dealer’s bitch.
I’ve made peace with the fact that I won’t be able to play certain games. Their loss; there’s plenty of other games to buy with my money.
Same.
I have a backlog of games years long, the fact that I can’t put Battlefield or Valorant on that list doesn’t diminish my ability to play amazing games 24/7 if I wanted.
Expedtion 33, Blue Prince, Hollow Knight, Silksong, Hades 2, ARC Raiders, Helldivers 2, Path of Exile 2, Deep Rock Galactic, etcetcetc.
I have over 200 games in my Steam library and every single one works on Linux. I’ll worry about the 5 kernel anti-cheat games once I get to the end of my list…
I also have a spare windows drive for BF6, but it’s so unbelievably mid that in practice I don’t really even play it
I can’t disagree. But a couple of friends and I like to play a few casual bot rounds on Friday nights.
How easy was it to do the signed boot?
Not OP. I’m dual booting Windows and Fedora. Fedora supports secure boot, so everything works out of the box. The only thing that annoys me are the Nvidia drivers. Those need a kernel module that you need to compile yourself. And all kernel modules need to be signed for secure boot.
In theory, it’s still easy: At first, Fedora boots with a precompiled and signed nouveau driver, that supports secure boot - so you can use your PC after the install. When you install the NVidia Driver,
akmodsetc gets setup automatically. Also they automatically generate a key pair for you andmokutilallows you to send that key to your UEFI, so that you can install it on the next boot. So it’s just reboot, load the key once in the UEFI and after the reboot the official driver is running. After every kernel upgrade akmods should automatically recompile the module, sign it with your key (now known by your UEFI) and it just works.In practice… For me it’s a 50:50 if the akmods auto build works. So, after a kernel upgrade, I usually reboot, wait for the build to fail to a Desktop in 1024×768 and then have to open a terminal and type
akmods --rebuild --force. After the build and an additional reboot everything works again.Lmfao it’s a piece of shit, basically I have all three of my drives hanging out of the 5.25 bay on the front of my machine. That way I can easily unplug my 2 Linux drives when I enable secure boot. Otherwise my Linux won’t boot, which fucking sucks to fix. So basically it’s a pain in the ass and BF6 just isn’t good enough for me to spend that effort.
Some distros like Mint support ‘secure boot’ out of the box, so dual booting works fine without any extra work. But I haven’t used Nvidia drivers yet, so idk about that.
Same experience here. I’ve used Linux for decades. Always on my servers. Occasionally on a desktop here or there. Tried to daily-drive it on a single computer or laptop many times. Got close a couple times, but ultimately always fell back to Windows when the going got tough, when hardware support wasn’t available or the errors and misconfigurations became too convoluted or I simply fell back into the habit of regularly using programs that simply didn’t work or weren’t available in any form on Linux.
When I came back to it a year or two ago? That experience totally changed. The tables have flipped completely. Linux is now the compatible, straightforward, quickly-fixed, and often even user-friendly option while Windows has turned into a frustrating shitshow of blocking and opting-out of misfeatures and reconfiguring shit that breaks all the time with Microsoft’s ideological “updates”.
Switching to Linux on my grandma’s computer was a breath of fresh air for both of us. Then I switched one of my laptops. I remained impressed. It took some self-convincing, but eventually I got brave enough to switch my main gaming PC/desktop workstation… and with a little bit of work, it was soon perfectly lovely (I’m typing this on it right now). I’ve been running PikaOS, a gaming-focused Debian variant for over a year now and it’s been an utterly fantastic experience. I have zero complaints. Are there still some rough edges? Yes, absolutely, but I don’t mind. I use them to file the callouses off my bash-scripting fingers while I figure out a way to smooth them down.
I’m pretty savvy and experienced with Linux, and I realize it’s probably not ready for everyone yet, but it’s ready for more people than you’d think. For grandma, who only uses web browser and word processor and email, Linux is a straight upgrade in user experience, stability, functionality, everything. For Gamers, everything you need is almost all out there already, thanks to Steam and Wine and Proton and the gaming-focused distros and all the ecosystem that’s built up around that. Ironically it’s the technically competent Windows “Power Users” who might still struggle the most, they won’t have the survival skills they need to operate at the level they expect in a Linux ecosystem yet.
It would also be good enough for a Power User to work at grandma’s level with zero effort, or a Gamer level if they were willing to just blindly follow copy-and-pasted instructions, but that justifiably won’t be enough for them. To work at a Power User level in Linux, you need to learn some different skills. Maybe you can get those on the server side and through stubborn trial and error, like I did, or maybe Linux will eventually get good enough that it’s intuitive to do everything even Windows Power Users want to do eventually. But I don’t think it’s quite there yet for that group. It takes some effort, for sure.
The games I like to play actually saw performance gains when switching over.
Yes. That’s part what got me to let go of my dual-booting habit.
When booted to Windows, I would get tempted to play something (that I had installed on both sides) lazily without rebooting back to Linux, and it would suck.
TBH I don’t understand what’s there even to be reluctant about if you’re already a Linux user. You’ve probably already been dualbooting, it’s not exactly a lot of effort to install Steam or a gog Linux installer.
How shit gaming had been on it, for the majority of it’s lifetime.
Yeah do people not remember the pre proton era? Or before the push in the 2010s that got indie games to support Linux?
Linux gaming has seen wild changes in just the last 5 years.
Yeah for tech savvy people it wasn’t a big deal. Download Windows game on the interwebs, check winehq and then game.
But it wasn’t always plug and play. Also I always was flexible on what games I wanted to play.
Even then, it often crashed or glitched. I mean it was amazing for me at the time anyway, running Windows games on Linux. But nowadays it’s on a different level.
I absolute do remember the pre proton era, but for Linux users it should have been common knowledge that Proton exists and worked pretty well for years. And it’s certainly less effort to try at least a little to get a game working you already own (by looking it up on protondb if it doesn’t work right away) than to boot into Windows specifically for gaming.
I AM VERY BADASS
Yes, so badass, clicking “install” on a Steam game.
If the game is not on Steam or doesn’t have a native Linux port (which is actually worse more often than not) then manually setting up to run through wine/proton is pain the ass.
How many people only play games that this applies to?
There are a lot of people play such such games at least occasionally. And on Windows they just work. The moment gamer try to do this on Linux and realize that it doesn’t, they will go back to Windows.
The paradise of easy gaming on Linux ends the moment you try to leave Valve’s walled garden.
Sure, I understand not wanting to fuck around with WINE manually. But the commenter who said they’re reluctant never even said that they don’t use Steam - why wouldn’t they at least try?
For me, it’s Final Fantasy XI - it’s a million years old and it actually does run fine on Linux, but some of the third party QOL tools I use to make it less painful to play don’t work (or at least I can’t figure out how to get them to work) through Lutris.
I’ve been gaming on Linux mostly if not entirely full time since 2014. Back when you had to look to see if there was a Steam icon alongside the Windows and sometimes Apple logo because Proton wasn’t the “everything works” magic it is now.
Anyone complaining about the state of Linux today look like diaper shitting babies. “WAAAH! My privacy invading rootkit requiring multiplayer CoD Fortnite meme slop sippy cup game is specifically designed to not run on Linux. WAAAAH!” Yeah, I remember when hair didn’t grow near my genitals too, but then I stopped acknowledging any of my feelings in public except anger and pretended to like beer out of sheer force of peer pressure, and thus became a fully grown man by the standards of my culture. Get on my level.
What were we talking about?
You’re definitely living up to your username 👌
I always have since before joining this experiment in mediocrity we call the Fediverse.
In an age of enshitification, pretty ok most of the time is to be celebrated
Entering my 12th year as a Linux user, I can’t disagree with that.
You keep up the good fight.
Some of y’all are showing your bubble side; outside of our communities here, Linux very much is obscure. That said, there really does seem to be a leak in the mainstream and it’s nice to see it mentioned in a publication. Even if just a little gain, thanks in large part to Steam raising awareness for gamers, US decline in Europe and Canada, and Windows 11 blunders with security.
I’ve gone from people being completely oblivious when I mention Linux, to going “oh, like steam deck?” but there’s still plenty of others who still are oblivious. Then again, mentioning file extensions goes over the heads of 95% of who I talk to, so I wouldn’t have too high hopes.
Linux very much is obscure
To paraphrase Bill Hicks about drugs…
See, I think
drugsLinuxes have done some good things for us! I really do. And if you don’t believedrugsLinuxes have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight, take all youralbumsbookmarks, all yourtapeslinks and all yourCDswebsites and burn 'em. 'Cause you know what? Themusiciansservers whomadehost all that greatmusicweb content that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years?Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal fuckin’
highhosted ondrugsLinux.:3 Well, that nearly worked. n_n
(I had intended to add a “they[servers]'re all running linux” meme… but failed to find… instead, this’ll do nicely too…)
https://images3.memedroid.com/images/UPLOADED455/6859360c6abcc.jpeg
I’d say it worked. Bravo. Haha
Wish I didn’t cave in and bought an NVidia card back in 2022. But well now we’re served with severe shortage of PC hardware all thanks to fucking AI and I’m stuck with a 500GB main SSD and an almost full 2TB spinning disk with a 3050 and I’m sick of MS getting slower by the day it’s ridiculous; I’m still on 10 and not actually paid MS for it ;), but still.
The plan was to get a new 2TB SSD and install a distro, but see above fuckery because of AI.
I’m going to check if I moved all my installed Steam games to the spinning disk will Steam on Linux be able to read it. Because I’m sure as hell am not downloading the game files again if I can help it. If the answer is yes, I’ll just nuke the current SSD to install a distro. I’ll figure how to move installs again later in 2029 or something when SSD prices have gone down again and I can get 2 or 4TB SSD for less than 2 kidneys.
Fuck Microsoft. Fuck NVidia.
If I were in that situation, one thing I’d consider trying… get 2 USB pendrives, one to put a Live/Installer distro on (Devuan, or AntiX being the two friendliest of my likely candidate distros (or VoidLinux, Artix or Gentoo if feeling a little more bold)), and a bigger one to install the distro to, just like it’s a HD or SSD, to see if “everything works”. Then can decide from there if wanting to just carry on from there living like that, or, move to the main SSD.
M$ Windoze gets slower by the day, by design. Just one of many anti-features abusing the
userused. Planned obsolescence, actively engaged, to encourage you that you need to buy the new version, and new hardware. Stick a GNU+Linux or a BSD on it, and then surprisingly the hardware’s nippy again, for over a decade more, sparing your kindeys.Ooh, I’ve never seen installing on a pendrive being suggested before, I think. I certainly do have a couple pendrives. I’ll give that a shot, since I also have a gaming wheel I’d like to test.
When I first set up my current gaming PC, I had Kubuntu running from a 1Gb external SSD, just to check all the hardware was good before wiping the main internal SSD.
Used it that way for weeks before figuring that I needed to get around to setting it up on the internal drive. At no point did it feel like a problem. Games were running from a 2Tb HDD, and were playing just fine.
Also had it installed on a 64Gb thumb drive, so I could boot some of the Windows machines at work into Kubuntu for hardware testing.
It really is extraordinary how flexible Linux can be.
I’m going to check if I moved all my installed Steam games to the spinning disk will Steam on Linux be able to read it.
I advise against trying to use the same library for windows and linux, but if you just want to migrate, it should be possible to use Steam’s backup feature.
Thanks. I have a feeling that might be the case. I’ll have to research properly.
Just to add, since I recently started to switch. Steam will find the game if I mount the “old” NTFS drive and point my steam library to it. It will be able to download missing files and appears to launch the game. The game doesn’t start though. After adding a EXT4 partition, I was able to add a library there and use the “move installation folder” in game settings. Then it works.
thanks for the tip.
so I can’t use the files if my 2TB HDD is NTFS as is. the main drive currently with windows and a few games that I’ll move to the HDD, I’ll be converting to a distro I haven’t yet decide.
so I’m guessing after I get Steam running on the linux drive, install any game then move the games installed from the old windows install…?
I’m not sure I follow the question. I’ll try to list the steps.
- Install distro
- Install steam
- Mount NTFS drive
- Add steam library in NTFS drive (point to existing Window library)
- Let steam recognize the game and install potentially missing files
- Create EXT4 partition disk (preferably done already when installing distro)
- If EXT4 game partition is not main drive, mount it and create steam library on it
- Move game files.
Hopefully that makes sense. Somewhere along the way steam will probably install Proton as well. It might work straight from NTFS too, maybe? But I didn’t get it to on Linux Mint
I think it’s also down to windows 11 being increasingly enshitified, and unwanted AI stuff being forced on users. A lot of people are frustrated and are more open to alternatives.
Everyone acts like it’s all about gaming, but people want to use Lightroom, Photoshop, Excel, their banking and tax software etc. They don’t want the alternatives because they’re not integrated well, they can’t access their Dropbox/Apple Cloud/whatever and they gave Linux their Google password already, why does it need it again for that mail software that has some stupid bird name instead of “mail”.
Better to escape the user lock-in (and other) malicious anti-features of proprietary software, going for more of a fully Free Software system.
Yup. Although I’ve become a fan of things like GIMP, you do need to learn a new software and depending on who you are, it might take a while. Lucky (?) for me, I was too poor to afford it for school and since it was for official assignments, I didn’t want to pirate.
That said, Microsoft integration is more a curse than a blessing at this point. Privacy and junk aside, it’s dumped hundreds of GB of files onto my tiny SSD C: since it kept changing settings and ignoring my preferences. That’s why Microsoft messing things up is converting people who even prefer integration, when there’s an option to anyway!
A bunch of the issues you mention aren’t issues anymore, thanks to fully featured web applications.
Sure. There’s always an exception like graphics editing.
We talk about exceptions a lot. But being in a niche professional can lead to either early or late adoption. A job is a job, and we just use the tools we need.
But for stuff like email, banking, and various document services, the average user’s experience is identical:
- Type the product name into Google.
- Register or Sign in.
- Use product.
I do think a good file backup service is one of the big remaining challenges.
Ironically you mentioned two that are I believe are still fully Linux native (Dropbox and Google).
But to your point, people need file backups that just work, and plenty of popular cloud sync services choose not to provide Linux support.
If you’re setting up an email client you’re almost certainly doing work on the computer and anyone who has setup outlook can setup any other email client so that’s maybe not the example to use. But you’re right in the sense gaming, office environments and schools are the major groups that train window users.
Competitive gamers want edges - a better mouse, a better keyboard, a better internet connection. The latest performance metrics show linux running many games better than windows so this means a major inflow to windows is losing out to linux.
The weird part about all of this is that macbook sales are also up like 4%, suggesting overall a move away from windows. And for most of those apps you listed they also work on mac.
If linux is eating the gaming environment and the mac office experience is better than windows (due to MS enshittification)… the thing keeping windows in place is legacy software, corporate products, oem deals and like historical precedence.
“Like an Android, but without Google’s control.”
Since Android was built off Linux, just way locked down. Might appeal to a wider range of folk since it isn’t strictly to do with gaming and more people are likely to be familiar with Android than a Steam Deck.
I built a high end Steam machine in October. I haven’t played many Windows games since. There are games I can’t play, like Space Marine 2, but I have so much that I can play I’m kind of fine with it. Being able to PC game in the living room with an OS that is well formatted for TV play is wonderful.
Space Marine 2 no Linux?
It runs like butt. It’s optimized for Windows, apparently.
That’s a shame. But hopefully by the time I’ll buy it in 2 years or something on deep discount, it has better support or optimization.
That’s the thing about PC gaming, right? There’s always hope someone will figure it out.
Idk one of my siblings who I never chalked up as a non-windows user and not particularly tech savvy sent me a screenshot of their linux install. If like the tech barriers to linux are falling then the only thing left to fall is software developers for commercial software.
Idk one of my siblings who I never chalked up as a non-windows user and not particularly tech savvy sent me a screenshot of their linux install.
Yes. 2026 was an interesting year for Linux desktop.
More of my friends installed Linux in response to Windows 11 than I imagined possible.
I think I noticed a correlation with their having a kid in the house who owned a SteamDeck. There’s a generation who are learning Linux in order to mod their games.
We have a time traveller over here.
Nah. Just an ordinary typo that anyone could make on their period authentic LTE smart phone or Casio smart watch.
our university put linux mint on all the desktop computers this year.
Cool. Which university is that? How did it go?
they put linux mint (cinnamon edition) on computers. people more or less used it normally, i’d say most people barely bothered that it’s not windows. essential software that we needed to use was pre-installed (with neatly visible icons on the desktop to click on), and web browser was installed too. that covers basically all use-cases.
one colleague asked how to do screenshots. i showed her.
That’s the main reason, Linux is still not as widespread as Windows - marketing. If you’d ship all of the sold PCs with a pre-installed Linux, nobody would give a shit.
And why would they? The vast majority of ALL computer users just use functions (email, office, browsing) instead of programs. Oh, I know, I know. If you ask, you always hear Word, Excel, Outlook. But to me that are just synonyms for the tedious everyday tasks most users perform. And if you’d stop training people to repeat tasks and klick buttons and instead train them to understand what they’re actually doing … sigh
To take it a bit further, I found at least cinnamon and KDE to be familiar enough that you can use your “discover how to do things on windows” skills for figuring out many things.
And once you get a handle on the repository software, it can also be easier to find and install new software when instructions direct you to a terminal command that doesn’t exist. KDE even does a search and says what needs to be installed when the command isn’t found. On windows, you need to download shit from some random website (which always sketched me out that someone could take advantage of that trust by making their malware behave as expected) and their search can fail to find something already installed on your machine, let alone figure out what you want to do if the name is a common word.
For everyday computer use, the experience is pretty similar. Unsurprisingly so because that’s how they designed Cinnamon. Funny though, your colleague didn’t think of typing “screenshot” into the search bar of the start menu.
your colleague didn’t think of typing “screenshot” into the search bar of the start menu.
i didn’t think of that either. thanks for pointing it out. i have always used a weird key combination for that till today.
Let us know, I’m very curious. At our school (cal poly pomona), our comp sci professors were upset Ubuntu got put on their lab computers and they were upset because IT didn’t give warning and some didn’t know how to use it.
That sounds like the dumbest possible way to go about this.
Yep
If you’re curious about migrations, there will be several talks at this years FOSSDEM from people sharing their experiences migrating whole organizations /municipalities to FOSS.
Compsci labs or everywhere?
the department where i am. don’t wanna say which one because privacy concerns.
Wir petzen schon nicht.
The biggest problem with Linux has always been windows software imo.
