this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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I'm dreaming but that would be amazing. That would make this the year of the Linux desktop. C'mon GabeN, make it happen!
Things which are holding this back
What we know so far, SteamOS won't be a general purpose OS, so it might not support every random piece of h/w.
We might not have the year of the Linux Desktop, but we can expect 2025-2026 to be the year of the Linux handheld.
SRC: Linux fanboy for the last decade
Nvidia works flawlessly in my system, didn't have to tweak anything.
Let me tell you about my Nvidia experience.
I use an old Nvidia card and I'm using the proprietary drivers. My distro maintainer said they are switching over to the open source version (only supported for 20xx series and above). They said it will cause an issue. I updated my distro like usual. And boom! Can't boot anymore.
Since I'm more or less tech savvy, I could fix it but it took me few hours of my life to find the solution. I saw on reddit many people were having the same issue. If I constantly checked their Discord before every update, I could have avoided it but it's impossible for a layman.
A mainstream person won't be able to search & diagnose the problem. They will just think it's a Linux problem and give up. This is why it's impossible for Nvidia users to peacefully live with Linux. I know they are going to release a proper driver for Wayland but I am pretty sure that will take another 2-3 years. But till then, my stance remains the same.
There are a few things in your anecdote that are particular to your case and which should be solvable by an installer that focuses on gpu detection; those are the things that valve will focus on.
I'm sure it's solvable but I call these example "death by a 1000 papercuts". I don't want absolute newbies to face these issues which will make them give up Linux forever.
I am not saying that Linux can't be mainstream. I'm saying Nvidia is one of the blockades for Linux becoming mainstream. I have bazzite on my Rog Ally and it's a fantastic experience, way better than windows, but it's because of AMD.
If AMD can get an equal footing in the GPU landscape (unlikely in the next 5 years), maybe things can change. I just hope Nvidia comes to their senses and properly support Wayland.
Mine works fine, I knew nothing about linux and all I did was disable secureboot and copy paste some commands into the terminal. Now games that used to crash in windows don't and games that didn't run run. And yes spent tons of time scouting forums, going through dumb windows control panels and messing around in regedit to troubleshoot it without a solution.
Right, so since you had that experience, everyone else must also have it?
Previous commenter cited Nvidia support as a problem, I gave my singular experience of it not being a problem.
Not sure what you are on about.
Why did you feel compelled to give your anecdote, if not to undermine the idea that Nvidia support is not good?