No, I think the success comes from Linux becoming normalized in devices like Android and the Steam Deck. We’ll see how it shakes out.
How easy is it for someone who has no PC gaming experience (they are computer literate) and hence no steam library, to buy a steam deck and it be a comfortable user experience?
If nobody told you it was Linux, you wouldn’t know. If boots straight into Steam. It’s as easy as using a Nintendo Switch.
But you can enter desktop mode to get a Plasma desktop, and you have root access, so if you know what you’re doing it’s a great Linux machine.
I have seen tech illiterate people who are very comfortable with steam deck.
She doesn’t even know macbook charger can charge steam deck. She was complaining to me that she is very afraid of losing her steam deck charger, since she doesn’t have a spare.
So the total positive rate, from my observation, is around 100%, with sample size of 1.
Its the most simple handheld gaming PC by far. As with all unfamiliar systems, there is a learning curve that exists, and person to person the difficulties in this will vary. But at a base level, out of the box, the SteamDeck is almost as simple to grasp as something like a Switch (or any other console). If you just want to game, and just want it to work, SteamDeck is your best choice.
Full disclosure though, the deeper you choose to dig into advanced use, the more complicated this question becomes. If you are more familiar with Windows, then using the desktop on a Windows handheld will naturally make more sense at first. But if you are comfortable with Linux (or put in the time to learn), the SteamDeck is far easier to use fully handled than it’s competition thanks to easy to remap on the fly controls and the track pads. But again, this second “advanced usage” point is moot if you just want to buy games from Steam and have them work out of the box.
Awesome. I keep recommending them to people asking me if they should buy one even though they don’t game on their PC and i love mine but the last console i owned was a Sega so i didn’t feel like I’m really unbiased at all.
Lol, oh, guess I was preaching to the choir.
Very straightforward.
I dunno I don’t own one.
Linux is amazing. It’s hitting peak productivity with support for every driver, and highly optimized systems like Systems, Dbus, Wayland,and Pipewire. It’s actually world class rn, both windows and Mac are jealous of what the core Linux is now. Linux now runs every server, most of the world’s phones, most of the IoT devices, and some gaming stuff
But it’s still a tiny percentage of desktop/laptop, so yeah idk it’s all good
I guess it’s the year of the Linux desktop!
This could actually happen soon. Outside of office use most casual users in younger generations are using laptops. Desktops are getting to be more niche and associated with computer builders and power users. As Windows gets shittier, Linux gets easier to use and customize, and desktop use shrinks to just enthusiasts, we could very well see Linux on the majority of desktops.
I think PlayStation’s OS is a FreeBSD derivative, Switch is proprietary but uses parts of FreeBSD and Android, and Steam Deck runs straight Linux so maybe it’s more “The decade of the *nix console” rather than “the year of the Linux desktop”?
I think so. Installing Linux was a hurdle for a lot of people but having it by default on the Steam Deck was a bit of a game changer. Installing Windows on it versus figuring out how to use something Lutris probably takes a similar amount of effort for average casual user.
I feel like it also helps that Windows isn’t very controller friendly, in my experience, and an increasing amount of people are looking for that for couch gaming and viewing media.
Should have went with L I U X
Leenoox
In my own case I’d put it down to Flatpak etc. finally resolving the software installation problem.
Installing most Linux OSes has been easy enough for decades, but a program not in your distro’s repos could be a nightmare to get working.
I disagree naming Flatpak etc. as the reason for more adoption. New users I know of do not know how to search for software and software alternatives in the first place.
Documentation and engagement on linux just improves by each day. Experiences are shared and people may just be curious. Then there are news about linux breakthroughs by big players like valve.
Imo a beginner linux distro should prompt on install:
If you are a potential linux adaptor do not get discouraged. You may have spent your entire life building knowledge for an other operating system. Once you grok the aimed simplicity of UNIX and which parts are involved in your daily tasks you will be at least as efficient as with other operating systems. The most inportant thing: Have fun on your journey and engage in our chats, forums and/or in social media.
Thank you for your attention.
New users don’t need to know nor care about Flatpak. They just go to the app store, install the niche app on their niche distro without any hassle.
“./configure”
“error: libblahblah1.0.0-2 not found”
“downloads tarball”
“tar –xvzf libblahblah1.0.0-2.tar.xz”
“./configure”
“error: libblahblah1.0.0-2 depends on libgofuckyourself.2.0.0”
“downloads tarball”
“tar -xvzf libgofuckyourself.2.0.0”
“./configure”
“error: libblahblah1.0.0-2 not found”
🤯😡🤬
I was there in darker times, with a modem that had no Linux driver, so no connection at all, learning from printouts from the library.
I may have PTSD from it.
Memories 🥲
And on top of that, to even get linux installed, there was lilo…
With every update Windows becomes more annoying.
With every update Linux Mint (and every distro) becomes more refined.
There are still gaps; HDR isn’t really there yet, never mind Dolby Vision… but if all you want is a PC that acts right and doesn’t piss you off with ads and upsells… honestly, a default Linux Mint install is at least as good as Windows at this point.
More devices need to come with Linux out of the box. It should be possible to buy a device with Linux at your local Walmart.
I used to have more faith in people in general and believed this can actually happen. I changed my mind.
People are generally ignorant and even when working in tech where there’s a lot of interaction with Linux machines, most people I meet couldn’t care less about Linux on desktop. With how obvious advantage of free software might look at glance, it’s very rare for me to see somebody actually caring about freedom, privacy and being in full control over the piece of hardware they’re using or even seeing anything bad in blind trust towards big tech. Companies are stupid enough to on one hand not trust their employees and locking down their work machines, on other sucking corporate cock and enforcing intrusive services or straight up sending their data right to multi-billion companies for the sake of convenience.
I don’t blame home users who can’t or don’t want to switch for whatever reason. They’re just consumers using devices they’ve bought, there’s no reason to force them to the change. It gets really bad with public institutions though, where Windows remains the king on desktop and Microsoft does its best for that to never change. Everything relies on one corporation that is trusted to drive computers to deal with confidential stuff. When there’s security flaw in their software, only MS can fully understand what’s going on (in a timely manner, ofc it can be reverse-engineered) and fix it, which was already an issue numerous times. If I believe there might be some big shift in the desktop space, it’s definitely stuff like military and all sorts of national institutions in many different countries. To some degree it already happens in Germany and France among others.
As for home users and gamers, I believe the market can grow some more, but Windows won’t go anywhere anytime soon and will stay on dominating position in that area for decades to come. Maybe it will only be replaced eventually when the concept of personal computing will change drastically and traditional PCs that we know will become irrelevant.
With recent advancements Linux is showing how it can be a viable alternative for some people, but keep in mind it has been around for 30+ years at this point and the kernel was already solid by mid-2000’s. The adoption really boils down to how complete and accessible it is. The first thing is impossible to get 100% as lot of missing features comes from lack of hardware/software vendor support. The community can supplement a lot of it, but a lot remains unsupported. Without that, kinda hard to believe in a super significant shift.
As usual the issue is more systemic than individual. You can never trust an individual to make the “right” choice. This is why I don’t believe free markets are a good way to organize society. The only way the general populace switches over to Linux is it gains foothold in enterprise and educational institutions as the main OS to be used.
I think that happened a few years after Ubuntu came out
I’ve broken my Nvidia driver 4x this week and I wouldn’t have it any other way (not /s)
Nothing else compares to the flexibility of linux and if I need a kernel-level anti cheat I do it on a separate drive entirely (which can’t see my linux BTFS drive at all)
I’ve broken my Nvidia driver 4x this week
Genuinely confused by that statement… been using an NVIDIA for years, both closed (to play and work) and open drivers (to test only) and beside having the “wrong” version for CUDA and some graphical bug in specific situation, e.g ALT-Tab out of game or resuming from a game leading to some minor visual glitches, I’ve never encountered even a reboot. I also have relatively recent drivers but I don’t even know which version I have (checked out of curiosity : Driver Version: 525.147.05 CUDA Version: 12.0).
So… I don’t get it, what leads you and others to such situation? Are you reverse engineering the drivers? Are you overclocking? Are you changing some specific parameters that are not stable?
I’m asking because this is so different from my experience that I don’t get it.
Want specifics or just the general vibe of me being a dumbie ;)? Stable Diffusion (the web gui version) uses CUDA 11 and all of my attempts to work around this let me w/ either a perma black screen or a 1FPS Desktop Enviornment that leads to a crash of said DE in ~30 seconds or so.
It seems that running that exact NVIDIA driver + Cuda 11 freaks the fuck out and I tried in maybe 5+ ways before giving up and accepting Cuda 12 and no Simple Diffusion (at least on this partition)
I’m not sure if it’s still happening but there was something going on with my Nvidia DKMS where I would have to reboot twice to get my Nvidia card to work after a kernel update. (Debian- took me a few updates to figure out what was happening since I would start troubleshooting and it would fix itself seemingly randomly)
The Steam Deck has been a gamechanger, pun intended :)
I think it’s still a migration of a rather knowledgeable part of the windows users. I did migrate a year ago because of frustrations from windows pop ups showing up like they own the computer.
I a still reluctant to recommend it to my partner who is comfortable with windows but not really techy. As long as Linux works, it works. But when you need something a bit more involved or something breaks, the terminal will be harder for those users who might not have ever opened CMD in windows.
When a problem arises in windows, the same people that never opened a cmd would be equally puzzled about how to solve the issue when something breaks.
I’m my opinion and experience, great majority of users don’t have the skills to solve common issues on windows either. Cue all the jokes and memes from the tech savvy family members that have to fix uncle Lou infested pc.
Maybe we are talking about tradition. People are used to windows, the hardware companies works with them. The pc stores had been selling pre installed windows on pcs for decades. Software and games are being made for windows. People know it’s
not a goodgarbage OS, but you have to fight so many walls that the common user is never going to make the jump by himself.
Yes! I’m an example of this. I’ve decided to give Linux a try on my old 2012 Macbook last year, because I’ve heard so much about it on Lemmy. I played with it for a few days and realized it was the OS I’ve been dreaming of. Ended up installing Nobara on a partition of my gaming PC (with NVDIA) and cant remeber last time I’ve booted Windows. I still have to work on macOS on my M1, but I’ve install Asahi and alternate between the two. I am now convince 80,% pc user would be way more happy on Linux. I really think FOSS are now better then licence software in most case.
Noice. Hadn’t heard of Asahi. Gonna try it out on my old Mac!
Asahi is for M1 to M3 macs only, it works well. If your old mac is an Intel, you can basically install any distro!
Asahi pushes changes back to Linux kernel
There sure is new comers thanks to the enhancement of graphic environment and gaming. But this is still very marginal, and there is some good reasons.
If we want to promote linux and FOSS we couldn’t only rely on use-cases and good-will of people, we need to find structures that make people use mac and windows. FOSS movement make some interesting stuff about the education system, and the institution use of windows, which are a lot more impact on the OS we are using than the qualities of such systems. But the so-called “politically neutral” forbade us to prevent this situation to repeat itself. Microsoft works on daily bases with tremendous resources (not only monetary). People who are making this decisions have some carrer interests that is not align on those of the masses.
Free-software without anti-capitalism is only open-source, sry
That not a moral state; some capitalist on corporation help us a lot. The main reason for the linux promotion is the choice of Valve, but because that choice is not profitable (in a capitalist way), we should consider it as the exception.
I’m not saying that it’s helpless. It’s quite the opposite : I’m saying that if we want to have a massive action, we have to take the power were it is.
