brave enough
It was good enough for me at least as early as 2003.
It took no bravery to say.
I wonder why it takes Joshua Wolens any bravery to say “linux is good now, and if you want to feel like you actually own your PC, make 2026 the year of Linux on (your) desktop”. I’ll skip writing a list of possibilities (~ most which would not be kind to the content of his character).
I’m all-in, baby. I’m committed.
This is the way. :)
PS, it’s the “Free Software” (Free As In Freedom ~ Free to use, study, share, change, as you wish), not the “Linux” that really matters, in the long run.
The steam hardware survey showed Linux has 3.8% while Mac has 2.2% and windows the remaining 94%
Desktop Linux is niche, it will always be niche if they continue to ignore the user experience. Linux is for nerds, Linux nerds love that.
I would fuckin’ love it if we had the same support Mac users get.
Linux is niche, because every computer sold comes with Windows on it.
Linux nerds hate to hear Linux is for nerds. The OS is too difficult for the average person and instead of taking in that feedback and fixing the issues, the community just downvotes it and sticks their head in the sand.
Linux isn’t the problem the user is! Yeah, that attitude ain’t helping.
Are there issues? Sure. HDR’s still a crapshoot…
Untrue.
I cannot for the life of me get HDR working consistently across games on my CachyOS rig. So I would say true. I also find Bluetooth is my biggest pain point for now. I seem to only be able to connect to stuff from the command line. Some Linux hardcores here might roll their eyes at that complaint, but I’m not afraid to admit that I prefer a GUI.
Some Linux hardcores here might roll their eyes at that complaint, but I’m not afraid to admit that I prefer a GUI.
Even most of the Linux hardcores use a GUI. Living 24/7 in a terminal environment is mostly a sysadmin/programmer flex.
The important thing here is that you were able to figure out how to do what you wanted via the terminal, that’s a huge first step since most people just give up as soon as they can’t use a GUI (props to you). Now that you know the commands to do what you want, you can now do the most common useful Linux thing: make a script
It sounds like Bluetooth works, but requires a configuration/setting that the GUI developer didn’t forsee.
What you need to do is to break down the individual tasks that you have to do in the command line (like, enable/disable bluetooth, connect to a device, etc) and type them into a text file instead (one command per line), add #!/bin/bash at the top. Save the file and make it executable (chmod +x filename). Then you can execute the script by typing (from the directory where the script is located) ./enablebluetooth.sh or ./connecttoheadphones.sh
Once you know the scripts work, you can bind them to a hotkey in Plasma Settings under Keyboard Shortcuts -> Add New -> Command or Script -> select your script, and bind it to a hotkey combo. If you wanted to get a bit more advanced, you could probably create some UI buttons that would launch the script when clicked but I don’t know how to do that off of the top of my head.
Once you’re comfortable with the workflow of 1. Figure out how to do it in the terminal, 2. Write a script, 3. Make the script convenient to use/automatic then you’ll come to appreciate the flexibility of the terminal (because you can put it in a script and never have to use the terminal!)
If you try and run into any issues just let me know and I’ll try to get to you pointed in the right direction.
I appreciate the thorough response and the attempt to help, truly I do. But I feel like it’s kind of missed the point a bit.
I actually run a home server, have written some scripts here and there for the server (particularly backup scripts), use VMs and have figured out pass through; my point is that I’m not completely clueless here, while still not exactly being a power user. Even though I’ve done that stuff, and have that knowledge, it’s not a fun user experience for me. When I open my Bluetooth settings, I want it to just work. I don’t want to have to dig into the terminal and troubleshoot stuff.
Windows sucks for a lot of reasons, but I at least, personally, never had issues with Bluetooth or HDR.
I would like it to just work too. That would be amazing. Spending time fixing bluetooth or HDR issues is annoying, 100%. I understand your point.
Like everything, it’s about choosing the trade-off that’s best for you.
The reason that you don’t have to fix these problems yourself in Apple/Microsoft products is that they invest millions of dollars in software engineering labor in order to cover every possible contingency and hardware configuration available and they expect a return on that investment. Instead of spending your time fixing bluetooth issues you can pay money to subsidize Microsoft/Apple fixing it. That has been, for quite a while, the best deal available in personal computing.
Except now they don’t just want to sell you a box with software in it that operates your computer. They also want to spy on you, lock down your device, prevent you from repairing your own system and trap you in a walled garden of subscription services and use their monopoly power to prevent any other alternatives from being able to offer better services.
I don’t like this new bargain, I’d rather write a script or read a wiki. The FOSS world is full of people who understand this dilemma and we’re all working together to make computers better for everyone. Part of that is helping our fellow users come onboard and deal with the issues that they’re facing, that’s what I was aiming for (and even if you don’t need the information, it may help some reader).
Actually very true.
Kde has good hdr with Wayland but a lot DEs still are very much a crapshoot, yes
Getting it to actually work with games is still a crapshoot, though.
Plasma 6.5 has broken tonemapping both with gamescope and proton wayland (which breaks a bunch of other things to boot). The fix was merged just a couple of weeks ago.
To be fair, HDR gaming is pretty bad on Windows, too. (Unless - so I heard - you use RTX HDR, which is still a workaround AND you need a new-dish NVIDIA card, which I don’t have.)
Niri has HDR too
You want to explain? Because the last time I checked getting HDR to work with games is a huge hassle.
with KDE and Wayland i have no issues, using Steam launch parameters:
PROTON_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1 PROTON_ENABLE_HDR=1Linux 6.18
AMD Radeon 9070XT
Mesa 25Doesn’t this require you to also be on plasma 6.4?
Using proton wayland also breaks steam input, which can be deal breaker.
maybe. i’m on plasma 6.5 and usually on latest.
i can’t speak to steam input, but i’ve not had any controller issues with my 8bitdo and Gulikit.
It isn’t a controller issue. That still works through SDL.
Steam Input uses the Steam overlay, it takes your controller input and allows for more custom remapping options, macros, etcetc. I primarily see it being used to let people use a controller to play games that were not designed to play with a controller (by remapping the controller to move the mouse cursor and send keyboard inputs with the controller buttons)
I use Wayland and my xbox controllers work fine. I’d use Steam Input if I could, but most games are already designed to accept controller input directly so the damage is limited.
This is exactly what I do on Garuda Arch with KDE and Wayland.
I usually use the latest GE Proton 10-x for games with HDR.
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.
how does steam operate on Linux? anything I need to do to port over stuff?
The biggest problem with Linux has always been windows software imo.
Most of it works fine if the devs aren’t actively making it impossible to work under Wine, either as a conscious effort (which is more often than you would think) or as a side-effect of other shady practices like constant communication with servers for DRM that is poorly or aggressively implemented.
idk, simple stuff like old versions of microsoft word, or mspaint don’t work under wine.
Then don’t use them? Alternatives exist that work better
As a 20+ year Linux user, no shit. It’s been great every year.
Maybe, but this isn’t just any year, this is THE year of the linux desktop.
I have been a user since around 2000, I work in Linux every day, and I get where you’re coming from - but in the context of gaming Linux has really only recently come into its own.
Like, could you imagine, circa 2010, telling a naive user that practically their whole Steam library would work with one click? Wine has always been a minor miracle, but at some point there was an inversion between being surprised when it worked, and being surprised that it didn’t work…
I used to be shocked when a game ran in wine without any manual intervention. Now I’m shocked when it doesn’t!
Only game I played on Linux before Proton was Minecraft Java (cracked) for Ubuntu in like 2014.
In fairness, it can be easy to go an entire decade playing almost nothing but Minecraft…
At the time, I was running on an very old 2004 Dell Win XP laptop and it still had alright performance.
These days on my full gaming PC, I get amazing MC performance, like 300+ fps vs my friend on W10 gets like 130+ fps.
Linux stays winning!
As someone who gamed on Linux in 2005, I can tell you that the experience was generally garbage back then.
I still remember making a bug report about the then ATI driver - performance tanked in certain situations in ut2k4, a game with a native Linux build. After months, they released a “fixed” driver which disabled some feature - so the game looked worse but didn’t lag.
Then I was trying to get Enemy Territory (and its total conversion TC:E) - another native Linux game - to play nice. I ended up running a second X server so that I could alt tab, but that made sound even more interesting than it already was back then; a friend actually shipped me a PCI sound card to be able to use teamspeak in Linux.
Then came source games, which worked but were choppy and missing some graphical niceties. Then I gave up, bought a laptop so I didn’t have to dual boot my pc, and never looked back.
Yup.
Ditto.
Everything I’ve played this year has been as easy—if not easier—to run on a free OS put together by a gaggle of passionate nerds as it is on Windows, the OS made by one of the most valuable corporations on planet Earth.
I know the histories of both Linux and Windows are complicated, and oversimplification is going to be more wrong than right, but this seems almost malicious. Yes many, if not most, people who work on Linux can probably be characterized as nerds, but that’s equally as true of Windows developers. Programming itself is classified as nerdy, so it would be impossible for it not to be true. And dozens, if not hundreds, of companies contribute to Linux, both the kernel and software running in user space, so it’s not like it’s only unwashed 20-somethings living in their parents’ basement that built Linux.
The statement could be completely flipped and be equally as true (if not moreso, since multiple of the most valuable companies on earth contribute to Linux), so why even make it?
Ditched Windows 11 for Bazzite on my RoG Ally. It is much smoother, more stable and zero problems running games on Steam.
If people don’t need any specific software and can adapt to the Linux alternatives, like LibreOffice… people will see some distros are now easier than Windows to use… and… you don’t have bad surprises on updates
Libreoffice is frankly really cumbersome to use. I’ve found that OnlyOffice is significantly more user-friendly, and that’s been my go-to recommendation for office replacements
So, so brave…
Made the switch to Ubuntu in 2019. The only time I use windows is at work, sadly, but in my main computer, that malware hasn’t been installed for years
I started using linux a few months ago after a longer break. It’s so smooth and i hardly ever use windows. There are some niche things that don’t support linux, and some need a bunch of workarounds. I don’t even think linux needs to improve more, but i do hope comparability is going up
I am on Linux and never looking back to Windows (except if I have to use Microsoft Teams for interviews).
deleted by creator
If you can handle the browser version, works fine on Linux with Firefox.
I have to use Teams for work and it works fine in a (Chrome-based) browser. I have a Chromium install that I only use for work stuff.
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!
Yeah, DHTML popups aren’t much different from the old popups that used to plague the internet. The only real difference is that I haven’t seen them used maliciously like the old popups were to be super annoying, but even “good faith” uses were all “hey, stop what you’re doing and do this for me” without any shame that went along with a real person doing that in a store.
I look forward to the day someone gets an AI to block this shit (on the assumption that it’s more complicated than blocking the old style popups without interfering with legitimate DHTML and needs context awareness).
My theory is that all this is the fault of the cookie law. Before that, the design philosophy was that you could not break the flow of a visitor by pop-ups etc., because they would go somewhere else before even looking at your content.
When all the big websites suddenly implemented increasingly annoying cooking consent dialogs, the flow was already broken everywhere. And so now the floodgates had opened for all kinds “subscribe to our newsletter”, “get a welcome 10% rebate” etc., because users no longer has the expectation of an unbroken flow.
And, my god was that law stupid. What we needed was carefully balanced non-negotiable limits on what websites were allowed to do in terms of tracking users; what we got was every website implementing a site-dependent UI for functionality already present in every web browser (“turn off cookies”). The rules got different when GDPR arrived later, both for the better and for the worse. But the flow-breaking pop-ups we will probably never get rid of now that the public has learned to live with them.
End of rant.
This is why people like quotes, not just links. I friggin hate the ads
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!
I would like to find the dev who came up with this and shit on his lawn after eating two weeks of burritos.
Made the switch during Christmas to Cachyos. I am extremely glad I did, and so relieved to finally be free of Microsofts clammy grasp.
I already stopped playing online competitive games long ago, so the anti-cheat thing isn’t really a problem for me. All the games I want to play works fine, even better in fact than they did on Windows.
The competitive game anti-cheat issue is kinda overblown nowadays. A lot of popular competitive FPS games run perfectly fine, anti-cheat and all, on Linux with wine/proton. And the ones that don’t either have incredibly invasive anti-cheat that you wouldn’t want running on your computer anyways, or have server-side “protections” that properly boot Linux players out of the game for some arbitrary reason.
