Linux surpassed MacOS in marketshare for the first ever time this month. Let’s go! :)
Proton is doing god’s work!
False alarm everyone. I run Garuda but have been playing around with Nobara and I filled it out on both distros on the same machine. Sorry to get everyone’s hopes up.
Isn’t this just the Steam Deck?
Probably, though does that actually matter?
The SteamDeck is showing people that Linux can in fact game. And while we’re always saying “ThE yEaR oF lInUx!” This is actually a huge step in the right direction.
Agreed. I have a deck and I’m now definitely gonna switch my main pc from Win10 to Linux. Steam deck desktop mode helped show me I could be comfortable using it, and the deck in general showed the gaming support is there nowadays.
I now see no reason to not put Linux on my desktop. Just deciding on which distros to check out. Probably mint. Maybe garuda…
I use Garuda and love it, but I also don’t think it’s the best for a first Linux distro, unless you’re good with needing to consistently use the command line for things, and you are interested in learning more about Linux and want a distro that requires you to occasionally get your hands dirty.
From what I’ve seen, Linux Mint is a great first distro. If you want something that’s more purposed to gaming, then Nobara is great. It’s made by GloriousEggroll, who makes Proton-GE. It’s not going to be as new-user friendly as Mint, but more so than Garuda.
I’m thinking about doing this as well. My Steam Deck runs fine like 99% of the time, so I don’t see why a gaming desktop with Linux wouldn’t work.
Plus, I’ve always been looking for a reason to use Linux daily. I’ve messed around with SUSE and Ubuntu here and there and use it for some homelab stuff, but Linux has never been my daily driver. Which means I’ve never really learned it the same way I’ve learned how to use and navigate Windows, or even Mac (I forced myself to learn OSX/MacOS several years ago when I bought a Macbook as my daily driver for productivity). This could be it.
It’s showing people Linux is acceptable as a handheld os. Which the world already knew with Android. Linux as a desktop is another story. Steam deck has desktop mode but I highly doubt the percentage of those who use it as a desktop is high. I wonder how many bought the dock.
I think you’re wrong. It’s showing that Linux has the capability to actually run these games. Some/most people won’t be able to equate the Linux on their handheld with Linux on a desktop, but those who do are welcome to the fold.
The Deck is basically a laptop in a handheld form factor, so no, it’s not just showing that Linux can game as a handheld.
No wonder! I’ve lately noticed that some non-AAA games run way better on Linux than Windows on my computer (5950X, RTX3090). For some reason Barotrauma seems to lag heavily while playing on Windows but runs buttersmooth on Linux. Valheim has similar effect as well.
Also I have already decided that Win10 is going to be the last Windows version on my machine ever. Gaming on Linux has gotten so damn good over the last few years that I see no reason upgrading my Windows installation anymore.
I wish that would be the case for VR too. But with VR there is lots of stuff just not being supported unfortunately. If you have any Headset that basically isn’t the Index good luck using Linux. Also there are still Software issues with certain stuff there that won’t properly work or not at all. I once tried Linux but unfortunately ran into several issues which caused me going back to windows 11.
Nah, I have an index and was not able to get steam vr running. Its problems everywhere in VR on linux I guess.
Oh i expected the hardware that basically is made for the software to actually work with SteamVR always. Guess I’m wrong. But unfortunately proves my post more true.
Hope this trend continues to strengthen over the next few years!
I do wonder how Microsoft buying up basically the entirety of the western game dev world will influence this in the future though
If Proton keeps getting better, it won’t matter. I mean it matters, because this is clearly where governments should step in and bust up the monopolies, but they obviously aren’t going to.
Might become a problem if Microsoft starts making all their games windows store exclusives. Doesn’t seem to be their strategy right now, but it’s always a danger.
