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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I took each rating for games on Wine Application Database, mapped them to numbers (Garbage -> 1, Bronze -> 2, Silver -> 3, Gold -> 4, Platinum -> 5) and plotted a monthly average.
Delusional.
I've been using Linux for over 10 years for work and dev. But for gaming it's still absolute dogshit. You need to constantly tinker to get shit to work.
So this basically leaves me with half of my game library than on Windows, half of my gaming hardware, no sound, and a worse performance even in Minecraft.
Everyone who says Linux is a viable alternative as a daily driver for things other than software dev or sys admin is just delusional.
Fuck me, I guess - All the fun I've had the last two years wasn't actually real? I only thought I was having a good time? Why didn't you tell me back then so I could have been appropriately miserable!
I've got an RTX 3060 with a Ryzen 5 5600X, running Nobara as my sole OS and I'm playing plenty of games just fine. I can't say that I've ever had to do any tinkering to get BG3 to run, and when I recently decided to replay AC Odyssey, it ran smoothly out of the box.
Granted, sound issues can be annoying, but it's not like there are no guides for setting up 5.1 with pulseaudio or pipewire. Yes, it's some tinkering, and I agree that it would be nice if it ran out of the box.
But if plenty of people around you have theirs working fine, calling them all delusional because yours doesn't is kinda stupid.
"Could it be that I'm doing something wrong? No, it's the linux gamers that are wrong!"
Don't @ me too hard, but I think @luciferofastora has some good points on sound and anti-cheat. They don't affect me, mostly because I don't like PVP games that need anti-cheat, but they represent a huge chunk of the market and I do wish they worked better on Linux. I'm fully on Linux for my daily driver and generally have good experiences, I'm not even considering going back to Windows, I just wish things worked better for everyone.
Anti-Cheat is a bitch, special sound setups not working out of the box is a shame, and it certainly isn't a complete replacement for all use cases.
But the performance issues are definitely not universal, and claiming that anyone who uses it as daily driver is delusional overshoots the mark of criticism and into pointless insults.
Seriously, I don't know how this one is solvable, to be honest, without major investment and support from the game companies themselves.
Agreed!
AFAIK there is support for EAC in Proton now, as that was required for Elden Ring. But there probably is some work to do still on the devs' part, and if they're not willing to invest that time for what so far is still a niche...
It's a bit of a self-perpetuating problem, like all cases of platform inertia: People are reluctant to switch, so unless the draw to the alternative becomes strong enough, they're more likely to stay. But for the alternative to become appealing, more people would need to switch.
It's the same reason many people aren't leaving Twatter: If you want to reach many people, you'll want to be in the place with many people.
Skill issue
How is skill related to booting up an OS and launching a game? That should not require skill.
Besides, I'm probably more skillful with Linux. I could probably fix all of these issues. I just won't. It's much faster booting into Windows.
Minecraft is arguably & measurably more performant on Linux, full stop. Anything using OpenGL performs better on Linux, check any Minecraft benchmark online.
Not on stock Ubuntu. Don't believe me? Reproduce with:
What else do you want me to say? The benchmarks seem to be wrong I guess.
LoL, for me Linux is a daily driver and I have not used windows/macOS for private stuff since a long time. I’m neither a sys admin nor a software dev.
I've used both for 10 years. So I'm in a better position to compare both. I'm a software dev and hobby sys admin.
You can not see through eyes that are not yours. How TF would you be in a better position to judge how non dev can handle Linux?!
Here's a program I found my first day of using linux. It fixes your last point entirely.
lol.
Listen, I'm not going to lie and say that Linux is all sunshine and rainbows, because it isn't - but neither is Windows. But I can play this game too!
Minecraft runs faster for me on Linux than it does on Windows, I get frequent stutters in Windows especially when trying to use mods (the same exact profile has zero issues on Linux).
Razer's software was so horrible in Windows that it would quite literally cause Windows Explorer to not startup properly unless I didn't have the hardware connected when I logged in. Otherwise it was a roll of the dice whether Explorer and the rest of the desktop shell would start. There is zero reason that having a peripheral plugged in should cause Windows' services to not start properly. OpenRazer on Linux has never caused anything like this, and works flawlessly. Nope, don't blame it on Razer. As an end-user, I don't care about that.
https://insider.razer.com/keyboards-8/razer-huntsman-mini-explorer-exe-hanging-23003
https://insider.razer.com/keyboards-8/explorer-exe-crashes-when-huntsman-te-is-reconnected-synapse-29319
https://insider.razer.com/razer-support-45/after-installing-razer-synapse-the-explorer-exe-program-stops-working-27866
https://insider.razer.com/razer-support-45/razer-orochi-v2-causing-windows-10-explorer-to-crash-break-26625?postid=120188#post120188
https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/vak030/blackwidow_v3_crashing_windows_explorer/
https://insider.razer.com/keyboards-8/razer-huntsman-te-crashing-explorer-exe-on-startup-29963
Even tracking the problem down to it being due to Razer was a major pain.
Windows has all sorts of issues constantly, however according to the Microsoft forums all I have to do is run some random DISM command to fix it, I'm sure that'll definitely do the trick /s
Oh speaking of gaming - have you ever tried to use the Microsoft Store for games (which is required if you use game pass - a Microsoft first-party service)? Good luck. And if you do manage to get it to work, but have to reinstall Windows because of the fact that its had some random bullshit problem that requires a reinstall, god help you if you had your game pass games on a separate partition. You would think you'd just be able to tell Windows where the games are and not have to reinstall those - but nope, your account doesn't own those files (even though you're logged in with the same Microsoft account that they practically force you to login with these days just to access the desktop)! Due to the sandboxing, you can't change the permissions back either. But also, since you don't own those files, you can't delete them either - and Microsoft requires that the game pass games go in a specific directory on that partition that... you now can't modify because you dONt HaVE PerMISsioN tO DO thAT! So you need to either format the partition completely, or in my case since I had other stuff that I didn't feel the need to copy somewhere else just to then copy it back, delete the
WindowsAppsfolder FROM LINUX. What in the actual fuck???Finally, after you've done all that, and have installed Forza, a Microsoft First-Party Game you can't play multiplayer because the networking services are broken:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/teredo-working-cant-play-forza-horizon-4/a68f6896-95a4-4824-a5db-702d61244ae7
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/hardware-network/connect-network/troubleshoot-party-chat
https://forums.forza.net/t/teredo-unable-to-qualify/95883
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/xbox-network-problem-teredo-is-unable-to-qualify/47ab3e0f-a9fe-49a6-aeb6-7aaa766e4ec9
[There are so many more, the posts are endless but I think this proves my point]
[Actually no, just to make sure, have a few more]
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/teredo-is-unable-to-qualify-server-connectivity/381e2b04-c0c1-4348-a7d3-872b797d2616
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/on-xbox-pc-forza-horizon-4-i-cannot-play/35a1197b-c9a6-456b-ad24-13dc53a7b4da
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/teredo-unable-to-qualify/f0b6ffca-4fa1-45b3-95af-a79a647009b6
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all/teredo-is-unable-to-qualify/1ef6bc09-8188-41ac-b234-835ea8fc6f4c
Oh hey, look, a guide to fix the problem https://techcult.com/fix-forza-horizon-4-unable-to-join-session-xbox-one/ - NINE different methods to supposedly "fix" the problem, including the almighty lord and savior DISM reset command!
People act like Windows is some holy gift from god and is perfect - it isn't. Anyone whose been using Windows for more than 6 months knows that this is the case, they're just used to dealing with Microsoft's bullshit.
Everyone who says Windows is a viable alternative as a daily driver for things other than using Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel is just delusional.
Thanks for sharing your experience. But I don't share that. All of my devices and games run perfectly well out of the box. Heavily modded or not. On stock Ubuntu it doesn't. Nothing else to say.
Thanks for bringing that up too. Because this is another prime example of popular software not running well on Linux. I'm not using that software though. I mostly just use the browser features of my Nextcloud instance for that. But browsers work just fine on Windows. Right... not even that works on Linux properly. Try watching DRM content on Firefox Linux or getting the hardware acceleration to work.
Nah man. I'm not a beginner with Linux. I'm using Ubuntu Server for hosting multiple docker images, a webserver, a Nextcloud, a professional Minecraft server. But I'm not using Linux Desktop anymore. If I need Linux for something terminal-related like easy ssh access to my server or git, then I'll just boot up a subsystem on Windows.
Self own.
Have you tried Sodium? And don't use stock Minecraft launcher. There is Prism Launcher, which is way better.
Raytracing on linux is good these days
You have OpenRGB for that.
But I don't care about a single bullet point you shared?
And you're not the average gamer. You're probably more of an average Linux user.
Fair point