Linux

I hate when people say that they'll only move when it has 100% support

Why do you give a shit what os others use?

"I want to be able to use my expensive hardware for the reason I purchased it in the first place" seems like a pretty solid argument to me.

Windows doesn't run every game i want. I couldn't get the first Command and Conquer to be playable at all. I have had the same experience many times with older strategy and simulation games: they just don't work very well on modern Windows.

By contrast, so far Linux does play every game i want. My entire library going back decades works just fine with Wine or Proton. It's easy once you get used to using a translation layer.

I don't play Apex, League, or Fortnite, so that's probably why i dont feel like i'm missing anything on Linux.

Frankly, I probably wouldn't move either if Windows didn't permanently break my ethernet and WiFi drivers

I think this might be colouring your expectations a bit, and you might be projecting your experiences on to others.

I've said for years that it was gaming that was holding me back from running Linux full time. I don't do a huge amount of gaming, but it is important to me, so for many years it was a deal breaker.

Now, gaming is good enough, even though it's not perfect, and I moved to linux full time around 9 months ago.

People aren't "lying". They just have different priorities to you...

I refuse to let gaming preferences dictate my choice of operating system. I choose my OS first—Linux—because I demand full ownership of my computing environment. If an entity can extract data without your knowledge or control updates, shutdowns, or reboots against your will, they own your machine—not you. With Linux, I own my system entirely. I decide when updates happen, I control what data—if any—leaves my computer, and nothing happens without my explicit consent. My computer works for me, not someone else.

I kept saying once upon a time"I'll make the switch to Linux but X doesn't work, so not yet. "

I dual booted for a while. That "a while" ended when Windows ate GRUB.

I had enough. I decided enough was enough. I kept windows on one SSD, just in case I wanted to go back. That didn't last long, I wiped that drive, and formatted it to BTRFS. Now none of my drives are NTFS.

For the one case I "need" Windows, I spun up a VM (and configured USB passthrough) for Windows. That is for a guitar pedal and amp that I need Windows for updates. But I don't remember the last time I booted up that VM.

For music recording and production I installed Reaper for Linux natively, but that was an easy transition considering Reaper was what i used in Windows. Sure VSTs were a big concern for me, so I investigated VST bridge type software. And I can't recall the ones I investigated. But this is where I am at on my journey.

I don't care how "easy" it is to just stay the same and keep using Windows, it isn't for me. I don't agree with their data collection policies. I don't agree with the "black box" mentality. I want to know what is happening on my system. I want to understand what I am using. And at a certain point with Windows, I just don't have the ability, tools, or inside scoop to fully learn that.

With Linux, the journey may have taken time, effort, and willingness to troubleshoot and learn but it ultimately is a better experience.

There have been very few games I couldn't get working on my system, but those games aren't enough to sell out my ideals. I will never go back.

I would rather be a farmer.

Im ngl, I feel like its posts like these that make people dislike Linux users. Expecting every game that you own to run perfectly isn't some insane requirement, its totally reasonable lol. I get that its kinda frustrating people won't ever switch, but lets be real, the only way Linux is actually going to gain new users is by having it come pre-installed on devices. Look at the increased Linux use because it's the default OS on the steamdeck. It just needs to be the default on more devices, and be solid enough that people don't even notice they're not on Windows. The amount of people who will actually go out of there way to switch their OS is so negligible it may as well not even count. So who cares about these people who will never switch, because they probably won't matter much in the end anyway.

--And I say this as someone who has been on Linux full time for a little over a year now.

1. don't play any games on windows
2. move
3. only play like 2 games, still haven't downloaded Steam

I'm having ca 20 servers at home and the majority of those are linux. I love it. My main rig is still windows and will probably stay that way unless win12 won't finally cure what pisses me off so damn much with 11. They won't, obviously. But migration would be very hard. Most of my tools won't run, most of my self made tools won't run, most of my games won't run, most 4 decades of internalization of shortcuts won't cut it short anymore. And I won't even start with the domain migration horrors as this one's still MS. I would end up dual booting for eternity until I stop booting up one of the two.

So..my point is. I use the right tool for the right job.

Switching from Windows to Linux was a refreshing experience. I’ve never encountered any problems running Windows games on Linux.

The only thing I miss is ShareX.

I mean moving from linux now is a bit like moving from reddit back when they screwed with the api. I don't care really if other people do but its long past due that I move along. Should have done it years ago.

It's mainly Linux enthusiasts who evangelize other people to use it. So if others don't want to move to Linux, let them be.

I feel the someway about people who say "I'm moving to Linux after W10 support ends".

I think it takes one of two things for people to move.

1. Linux has to have several features that are unavailable on Windows that makes it worth swapping.
2. Windows has to do something so egregious that they no longer consider it viable.

In my case, I swapped back 3 years ago when ads appeared in explorer for a preview version. In combination with the work the community had done for Valve to consider the steam deck worth selling with Linux, I was confident enough that I could have a good enough experience with Linux.

Why does it matter? All that matters is that plenty of people do use Linux - literally millions of people. There is a healthy vibrant ecosystem of distros, and devs working on Linux.

I don't care if people aren't interested in Linux. I'm much more interested in ensuring those people who choose Linux are happy because that is good for all.of us.

And the best thing anyone can do is donate to the projects they care about. That helps projects fund development and support. It's much more useful than trying to convince people to try Linux when they have no real interest in it.

I can understand if the game they play is online and it has an anti-cheat that makes it uncompatible with Linux. (Mainly game devs not allowing Linux to work). Otherwise, my experince with gaming on Linux has been pretty good

I'm finally moving myself and my parents over to Linux this weekend. I'm putting them on Mint and I think I'll probably be using Debian 12.

For the longest time it was games that prevented me from moving, but with what MS has been doing as of late, and especially with them trying to force copilot/recall onto systems/my Win 11 install refusing to get security updates anymore, I went and checked my entire game library on steam against the proton db and found the following.

95 of my games run natively on Linux. 31 of my games are rated platinum. 73 of my games are rated gold. 12 are rated silver. 3 are rated as bronze. 3 are unplayable.

This shocked me a little when I counted it out as this is a huge improvement compared to a few years ago.

The actual difficulties I will be facing are getting all of my music/sound production stuff functioning well enough to use.

But yes, anyone who claims they won't move to Linux due to gaming in the contemporary is either sorely out of the loop or hard stuck silver in a game like Valorant which they cannot bring themselves to drop and artificially refuses to run on anything where it can't have kernel level anti-cheat.

Since ProtonDB (and obviously Proton itself, Wine with its own WineApp DB, SteamOS) there is an easy way to check if your favorite games do work. That being said I understand that people are afraid. They might think "OK... well Elden Ring works but what about the DLC, or upcoming Elden Ring Nightreign?" and believe, probably rightfully so to be honest, that because Windows is still the most popular OS for gaming on PC and that game publishers are economically rational actors, more testing and fixes will be done against that target platform.

So... 100% is a ridiculous coverage because it's impractical but IMHO they are not that silly to "want" it. It's just a simpler way to say they are scared and do not want to bother. They would rather follow the crowd than take a risk themselves and be trail blazers.

All that being said now that ProtonDB exists and Valve is actively radically improving support via Proton, that gamers see in the wild SteamDecks popping up literally around them, in flights, airports, waiting rooms, etc they just can not ignore the fact that support is improving enough to have fun. Mentality will change but it takes time and Microsoft is fighting back because despite having Azure as their dollar printing asset, they are just hooked on bundling.