I initially switched because I heard about Windows planning to drop support for Windows 10 and I knew that Windows 11 was slow as hell so I jumped ship. I stayed because I really like the customizability and all the options Linux affords me as well as being able to just… switch distros if one company does something I don’t like. Being able to update when I want to is also amazing.
• 1) I’m disillusioned with and sick of Windows. I’ve been in there since the days of XP and 7, back then those systems could take a crapload of abuse from my young clueless arse prone to downloading hundreds of malware, yet still be functioning largely flawlessy. Hell, even Vista and 8 were still quite resilient, and I say this as someone who used Vista for 2 years. Meanwhile, Windows 10 completely falls apart if I so much as look at it wrong, and I never had a W10 installation last longer than 6 months without falling apart with bizarre bug after bizarre bug (such as leaving me completely unable to open any image files) - and this is without my past proneness to getting malware. I don’t have the patience for that anymore, and then 11 comes in adding ads to the start menu and I just can’t anymore.
• 2) I’ve come to appreciate how Linux handles some things better - mostly with regards to Flatpaks and their self-containment making it less risky to run some things and easier to keep track of what I have installed. I find it’s also easier to deal with backups on Linux than Windows, especially with Kinoite (and I heard Tumbleweed also does a good job at it with snapper, too). In general I feel safer when using Linux, but on Windows I’m always paranoid about downloading a virus again - and with how brittle 10 is…
• 3) I don’t really like monopolies and don’t like the idea of Microsoft becoming basically synonymous with computers (and Apple isn’t any better).
It’s not perfect, mind you, and I do still feel many frustrations with Linux (I had to deal with Steam stopping working for no reason lately, but at least I could rollback to an earlier version), but I’ve genuinely not had much better luck with 10 at this point.
Windows 10 shit the bed and needed a reinstall so I went through all the steps needed to get it just right again in my head. I realized it’s gonna take me most of the day and I installed pop OS instead, that was like 2 years ago and I haven’t looked back.
It started with me being creeped out with all the privacy settings everytime i reinstalled windows 10, wanting my fricking handwriting data and all that, then i saw a LTT video from anthony where he talked about trying linux instead of windows 11, and seeing previous LTT videos about gaming becoming doable on linux. I had tried linux before as a kid on my laptop, ubuntu and linux mint, but i didn’t really get it at the time. I decided to follow anthony’s recommendation and tried pop os. I was impressed with how far linux had come with playing games, but i also didn’t realize how usable linux was in general for a desktop user. I quickly went down the rabbithole after that because i really liked how customizable linux was, so i went to arch linux, i ended becoming a tiling window manager user, making some simple scripts, running windows virtualized with single gpu passthrough, and now i’ve been using void linux for a few months. I’m really happy LTT made those videos cause otherwise i wouldn’t be here now.
Yeah. Having used Linux for quite some time, I’ve watched it slowly go from being the better option for geeks and nerds to just being the better option.
One of the biggest, most useful Linux tips is:
use supported hardware
Don’t mess around forever trying to fix things that almost work. Get supported hardware instead. It’s worth it, and once it’s supported, usage is generally plug-and play - far more so than in Windows.
That aside, Linux won’t shove crap in your face, sell your data, mine your data, cause major problems for you, force you to do installations when you don’t want to (except Ubuntu’s Snap), nor will it degrade in install quality over one year to the point where you think you need a new computer.
Linux allows you to make a hardware investment, rather than driving you towards cycling out to the newest thing ASAP.
The old ThinkPads I have become media servers or home automation rigs. They sip power and chug along for years.
I use Linux because I got frustrated with Windows and decided that in my opinion, something as fundamental as an operating system should never be closed source.
I don’t mind some software, (e.g., a game store), being closed source.
I support Valve in particular because A) they have the games I want and B) because they’ve done more than any other company to improve the drivers on Linux (which is the operating system I bailed to following my distaste for Windows).
It’s worth noting, I do use Windows to play some games, but I actually use two computers to do it. I use Moonlight and Sunshine. My Linux computer continues to be “my computer” and the Windows machine is effectively a LAN console/gaming computer that I interact with via my computer.
Basically you don’t have to be an absolutionist to support free software … and free software desktops are worth using not just because they’re free, but because they’re genuinely better at getting the job done.
A very simple reason, I use Linux because when I use Linux I feel like my computer is mine and mine alone, when I use Windows I feel like I’m leasing my PC from Microsoft and I have no control over the OS. I’d rather own my PC from hardware all the way up to the software.
I work in science and at university, I was noticing that increasingly often, the kinds of computational work I was doing worked better on Linux. Often, there’d be software that would ostensibly run in Linux and Windows, but the Windows documentation and community would be pretty sparse.
The more I learned, the clearer it became that switching over properly to Linux was the way to go. It just provides better infrastructure. As an example, an area of science I feel passionately about is FAIR data principles, a list of guidelines on how we can make scientific data more Findable, Accessible, Interactible and Reusable. In practice, for me, this means I’ve gotten very good at using containers, which I found much easier on Linux
Are you really curious or do you just want to hate on steam for paragraphs? Because I love FOSS too but I find your tone and post in general to be annoying and obtuse.
I’m genuinely curious about why someone would use/support Linux and then use/support Steam, and how people manage to conflate the two. I’ve already posted other paragraphs in other places complaining about Steam over the course of years so I’m alr.
Liking FOSS and the ethos behind it doesn’t at all mean you are required to be a zealot who only accepts that. Further, your claim that gaming on Linux without proton is easy is just flat out wrong.
I believe the platform power profiles are standard nowadays and coded in the bios, so Linux should have access to them just like Windows does. You can use the powerprofilesctl command to list and change power profiles. Gnome also has a Power Mode switcher on the top menu, it’s the same thing.
performance: Power limits to max; Aggressive fan curve with speed limit to max. Generally loud fans. I need this to play demanding games in the summer.
balanced: Power limits to max; Moderate fan curve with a medium limit. Great perf (under sane ambient temp), while not too loud.
power-saver: Lowered power limits; Quiet fans.
Those seem to correlate exactly with the power profiles in Armoury Crate: Turbo, Balanced and Silent respectively. I don’t think there’s any performance being left on the table.
Gaming laptops with AMD CPU + AMD dGPU are a great suit for Linux gaming.
Also, AMD GPUs benefit a lot from undervolting, which is safe to do. It’s free performance. I’ve made a simple systemd service to keep the undervolt always active: https://codeberg.org/jntesteves/amdgpu-tune
So, why use Linux and support Steam, or use Linux and use Steam?
Because Steam offers a good service. Almost as good as “hackers”.
The other problem is game developers that want DRM and blablabla.
Anyway honestly you sound a little bit way too pathethic. Maybe one day Steam just get’s out of Linux enviroment and goes with the “Steam OS” and you will lose every game you purchesed, but i doubt it because is a gaming platform, as many platforms as possible as much money comes in.
What is good about the service that is in any way similar to Linux, is my question. The two seem explicitly opposed in my eyes besides that Steam is using and therefore contributing to some Linux related projects.
It seems akin to supporting Microsoft for their implementation of WSL. MS also makes good some good products. They also have contributed. They are still anti-thetical to what I thought most Linux users want out of a company. Steam still seems anti-thetical to what I thought most Linux users wanted out of software.
@XenoStare@ZariZari yes, but some convenience is also good. In this case, being able to play windows games, as most of them are released for that platform, on linux without messing a lot with vanilla wine is a godsend. For now, it's about getting people, game studios, etc, to notice us, even if only through the lense of the steamdeck verified badge. It's only temporary I hope, but even if not, philosophi aside for a moment, it's good that we can have more enjoyment than before.
@XenoStare@ZariZari this doesn't make us evil, nor does it make valve good, they did it because they didn't want to pay for windows licenses for all the steam decks they produce, simple as that, we're collateral benefit. Not using entirely free software isn't evil. Every moment we accuse one another of not being supporting enough, idealistic enough, etc, gives the monopolies an advantage because we're squabeling pointlessly. This is what the pollitical left wing should understand as well.
Steam/Valve investing in Linux has thankfully made non-steam gaming on Linux better than ever! Proton and WINE have made it easy for the average Linux user to set up games from GoG, Humble Bundle, etc. without needing to beg a developer to release a shoddy port.
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