this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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ITT: folks who think Linux is too complicated or whatever, but are perfectly willing to jump through endless hoops to work around some of Windows' deliberate hostility.
The Stockholm syndrome is real.
In my experience Linux usually has many more hoops...
I've reinstalled both Linux and Windows on the same machine a few weeks ago and it was considerably easier and faster to install Linux. It also had less problems post-install too.
Installing Linux is incredibly fast and easy, yeah. It's everything you try to do after that. Unless you are a regular user and have commands memorized you need to open a browser and go look them up every time you need to do some basic shit. I've been using Linux off and on since 2008 and you just cannot say with a straight face that it is easier than windows.
I’m a developer, so I find it easier because dependency management is easier (especially if you have a good package manager, arch btw). WSL is improving but is still not enough for my needs (big projects that use usb are not well supported).
Opening up a browser to look up commands to copy and paste is a lot easier than looking up registry fixes and mimicking screenshots into GUIs. I fix Windows for a living and the crazy shit I see daily blows my mind. It seems like in Windows I'm doing the same thing multiple times until it (hopefully) works but in Linux the problem is easier to identify and fix.
At one point this was true, but that was many years ago.
Unfortunately, that reputation has kind of stuck.
The barriers are still too steep. My Ubuntu machine updated it's kernel and then refused to boot after that. I had to look up how to manually lock the old working kernel.
Windows has never completely broken itself on an update for me.
If that happened to my parents they'd be angrily driving to the shop to get another cheap windows laptop.
We have a phrase for a bricked windows install: it's called the Blue Screen of Death. It's not like Windows never gets fucked either.
I've personally never had such an issue upgrading Linux.
If you want anecdotes, I can give you mine about how the mouse simply stops working until i unload & reload the driver, or how the window manager shits the bed upon wake up.
Mac, Windows, Linux - they're all software, they all have bugs, someone is going to have a bad time with all of them eventually
The BSoD isn't always a bricked Windows machine, it's often just an OS crash that causes you to restart the system.
Funny, I switched to Ubuntu because my brand new laptop was continually bricking with Windows 10, specifically due to Windows Update.
Roundabouts the time period of the forced Windows 10 update I had a desktop and laptop BOTH completely break, booting only to a black screen on startup, having received somewhere around half of an update I had no say in.
I’d like to think they’ve learned their lesson. I’d like to think I could safely leave a windows computer on overnight without waking up to a surprise new version, or bricked PC. But even having that as an outside possibility is enough to turn me off windows entirely.
Not really. You are underestimating how stupid the average person is. They cannot peel an orange.
Microsoft only hurts me when I'm being a bitch. Its my fault. He's normally really nice.
Man I realised this when I found myself running a third party program just to get my audio to simultaneously play out of multiple outputs on windows. I had regular issues with games and my killer ethernet adapter (they're notoriously bad, but after switching to linux didn't have any issues). Reformatting for home was getting longer and longer. Start menu search started to become slow and bogged down. Windows store was a nightmare. It was a constant battle to remove all the advertising and tracking "features". I game, but mostly a PC for me is a tool. When a tool stops doing its job, it gets replaced.
Funnily, when I play games with my friends, I rarely have issues... but as soon as I do, they they're pretty quick to jump down my throat about my OS of choice.
EDIT: WSL is pretty nice though, I use it on my work box.
I think Windows makes multiple audio input/output hard as a piracy measure and it drives me crazy as well. Perfectly good audio ruined the moment I plug my mic in. Makes it harder to game without a headset.
I feel like I get closer and closer every day, but video games still keep me anchored down
Have you heard of our Lord and Savior, Proton?
In the holy GNU scripture, we predict the second coming of Proton who will one day return to vanquish the evil Electron.
Out of curiosity: can you mod the game in Linux?
sure, Steam workshop works even identical
otherwise the game data paths are different
So if I understand this correctly:
The games files inside the game folder are the same, therefore when you apply/load a mod into the gamefolder it works the same correct?
If thats the case, this is the straw that makes me migrate to Linux. I currently have AMD CPU and GPU (because fuck nvidia, even if AMD is not that much better) and from my understanding they should have good drivers in Linux
the biggest difference to Windows gaming is that for Windows games on Linux played via Proton every game gets its own Proton/Wine prefix (basically a windows folder structure)
ifyou want to use mod manager you need to run them inside the game specific proton prefix
Steam Tinker Launcher simplify this process
Yeah modding is basically the same assuming you don't have to use some kind of installer for them then it would be a bit more complicated, however I'd imagine using wine would solve that for the most part (haven't installed mods through an installer on Linux so can't speak much on that)
And also you might need to learn where Linux stores those game files but you can always just use steam to directly open the game folder
Basically all is fine, but Vortex etc might have some trouble. I was looking also about GOG (got some of my best games in there), but it seems that Wine is doing fine. CP2077 loses around 10% perf/5FPS, but is a price Im willing to pay just to shove it in the ass to microsoft
I use Linux full time since 2020, and have known it since 2013~, but I don't ever recommend it to anyone. It's full of papercuts.
I actually like to be able to play games on my gaming PC so no thanks, I will stay with windows
That's wholly your prerogative, but I just wanted to chime in and say - I was firmly in this camp too, but I've been restricted to a shitty second PC as I don't have access to my usual rig at the moment. Decided it was the time to give Linux a shot after 4-5 years since last time. Every game I've tried has worked with 0 mucking around, outside of games I'm obtaining through uh, less ethical means, which don't just install straight through Steam.
I know it's only anecdotal and I'm not saying you have to change if you've got no reason to, but gaming isn't really the reason it used to be for not using Linux. Unless you only play competitive shooters with Anti-Cheat that doesn't work on Linux.
Not really an issue for basically any game these days. The Steam Deck running Linux has changed the game significantly. I play video games exclusively on Linux. I haven't booted into my Windows SSD in months. Honestly considering nuking it and making it a game storage drive for Linux.
The amount of Steam games compatible with Linux is about 10 000.
The amount of Steam games compatible with Windows is about 70 000.
Stop claiming gaming on Linux isn't an issue anymore. Yeah it is getting better, but it isn't even close to what Windows has to offer at the moment.
This isn't the full picture of those statistics. 10097 games have Platinum or Gold on protondb, out of 11223 with any results at all. It's not that there's 60k games broken on Linux, it's that there just isn't any data on those.
The only correct thing to do here is to extrapolate from the data we have, which is around ~90% of games work on Linux. So it's more like 63 000 vs 70 000.
Of the top 1000 games on Steam, only 38 currently don't run at all and 744 of those are Gold or Platinum status on ProtonDB. Having nearly 3/4 of the top 1000 games work flawlessly or nearly so is enough to not need Windows.
If for some reason it's not, you could dual boot, but I haven't run into a game in months I could not play.