> But before you declare this a triumphant moment for desktop Linux, it's important to note that some of these Linux users are not, in fact, using Steam on a desktop. The Linux version "SteamOS Holo" 64-bit is the most popular reported, at just over 42 percent of the Linux slice of pie. That indicates that a huge portion of these Linux users are actually playing on Valve's Steam Deck portable, which runs Linux.
There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win, to any degree or magnitude, because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.
Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet. Oh, no, that's no good a measure, servers are messy, let's refine it to most popular consumer operating system kernel? Oh... it, could also reasonably claim that title? No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not. Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop, that'll never trend up and thus is the perfect new-new definition of desktop linu--wait hold up, I'm getting word this is, not possible, its actually SteamOS? Nope, kill it, that's not desktop linux either, kill it.
Instead, I think it's that "Linux" is an overloaded term. One sense is that someone downloads and installs a "Linux" distro because they actually want to use "GNU+Linux" (wink). The other sense, what you are aluding, to is that linux is foundational to most things IT. If I subscribe to DSL the provider is probably going to send me a modem that runs linux. But that doesn't mean I chose linux. I just wanted DSL. Same for Android. Most people that use Android didn't choose a linux-based mobile operating system. They want Android or are just using whats one the phone they wanted. And indeed, I don't think many "GNU+Linux" people would tolerate the specific essense of Android in their distros.
Now, SteamOS might be the bridge between these two worlds. On the one hand, Steam Deck users also didn't chose Linux. But then, the resources that Valve can spend on enabling gaming on Linux because of the success of Steam Deck means that many more people, like me, can finally consider choosing Linux.
At the same time, the majority of those running Windows have the same relationship to it as you have with Linux on your DSL modem - "It's what the computer I bought comes with" - and yet we are not discounting those Windows users. Same goes for macOS, especially now where Asahi Linux is the only and yet incomplete alternative.
In some comparisons it makes sense to remove DSL modems from the equation and focusing on some more "computer-like" subset of device (otherwise no OS would ever do better than "several orders of magnitude fewer deployments than Linux"), but discounting every device where you did not actively pick the OS would make for an extremely biased comparison.
Plus, we don't care about such distinctions outside comparisons. SteamOS have already driven significant improvements for regular desktop users. Same goes for Tizen, Android and ChromeOS. Even wonky DSL firmwares have positive effects for the rest of us.
> Exactly. And MacBook users don't choose MacOS either.
I'm not sure what would make you an authoritative source on why people by Macs or where you're sourcing your thoroughly researched data, but I can tell you I purchased an MBA to run macOS and the software that runs on macOS. Or like the Intel N100 mini PC I purchased explicitly to run proxmox + OPNSense. Or like my Windows laptop to have a mobile lab.
I pick the machine based on the software I want to run. I'm sure we can find one, perhaps if we stretch it, two other people on HN who also purchase machines based off of the OS/software they need to run.
Many on HN might be intimately familiar with macOS internals, but we are not in any way or form the average users. Running OPNSense on Proxmox definitely sets the "outlier" sticky bit.
Most users do not watch WWDC and do not know what OS release notes are. They don't know what the boundary between their web browser and their OS is, and macOS just becomes "the thing that nags them to update it" - a nag that users unfortunately still ignore, as evident by my recent confrontation with Big Sur machines.
Oh I completely agree with you that folks on HN are likely to be of a particular mindset when it comes to technology purchases.
However, that doesn't mean that every non-HN user out there buys the aluminum-shell-in-the-vague-shape-of-a-laptop and doesn't make a conscious choice.
My point still stands. The GP doesn't have the data to back up the assertion.
There is also no data to back up the opposite assertion. It would be rather surprising to see comments on HN based on hard statistical data - an implicit "IMO" prefix makes sense to apply in most human discussions.
> That does not mean that every non-HN user...
Not every - but I do believe it is still the majority. There are a lot of people out there, and the knowledge required to make the aforementioned OS choice is niche.
This is not implying stupidity, just that there are many trades and interests out there, and subscribing to ours specifically is not a given.
You are indeed making the opposite assertion by implying the statement is false, hypocritically with no information to back it up. By your standards, your counter is entirely invalid. "I do not know" is how you avoid making an assertion.
Ridiculous standards aside, I find it an extremely reasonable to assert that given more than 7 billion people across vast areas, interests, ideologies and jobs, and given the vast hi.an knowledge, expertise and culture, that any particular interest or knowledge is only shared by a small subset.
> You are indeed making the opposite assertion by implying the statement is false
That's not at all what they said. All they're saying -- correctly -- is that you are asserting some sort of magnitude ("majority") without any data to back it up.
I would guess, though, from my personal experience, that you are probably right that a majority of people just get whatever laptop with whatever OS they're used to because that's what their parents/school/employer gave them to use, and when it's time for a new machine, they just get whatever they had before. But I don't think this is a very large majority.
> I find it an extremely reasonable to assert that given more than 7 billion people [...] that any particular interest or knowledge is only shared by a small subset.
Probably true, but also remember that OS choice isn't always driven by interest. A macOS user may get frustrated with the state of gaming on the Mac, and decide to switch to Windows. Or a Windows user might really want or need to use an application only available on macOS (though I expect this sort of thing doesn't happen as often anymore, since more and more of people's computer use ends up being through a web browser). A Windows user might also buy an iPhone or iPad and get into the Apple ecosystem enough that they decide to switch to macOS.
Certainly some people who do switch OSes don't do so because they've made an independent choice; they do so because they switch employers, and something else is the only thing available, or a friend evangelizes another OS to them to the point they want to give it a try, and end up liking it.
Regardless, many people these days don't even have a laptop or desktop computer, and do all their computing on their phone or tablet. I think that 7 billion number gets a lot smaller when you consider that. (Also, as an aside, the current world population is estimated to be a bit over 8 billion now, not 7.)
The problem with making unreasonable demands for data in response to casual discussions is that it is usually done when the person strongly disagrees with the statement. For that reason, it is implicitly a counter argument, and a hypocritical one: "Your opinion differs from mine, so you must provide data to back up yours!". None of the available options can be considered default, so any outcome is equally "grand" and subject to same requirements. Opposing without having a standpoint could happen in a peer review for a paper, but that is not what this is.
Your response is more reasonable, and is also more out in the open about the alternate belief (of course equally without data). Nothing wrong with disagreeing - only about making up unbalanced burdens of proof in casual discussions.
For good reason. Running those updates requires restarting the computer, which in turn means you have to get your working state setup again after each update. People use computers to get things done, and running updates often has the opposite effect.
That and updates are going to be the time where computers stop working. If you don't change anything, it will generally continue to work fine for years. My experience with MacOS at work was that I could expect to spend at least a day fixing whatever broke after each major OS version update, so naturally I'd put off doing it for as long as possible.
Even if things continue to work, updates may come with UI changes that disrupt the user's workflow (and the trend tends to be to remove or hide functionality and make things less useful/information dense as time goes by). Unless there's something you specifically want, modern software updates tend to be high risk low reward from the user's perspective.
Incidentally this is why I prefer desktop Linux. With the exception of Firefox turning into Chrome over the years, FOSS software tends to be remarkably stable. My home computer feels like it hasn't changed at all in almost a decade. I never have to fiddle with it.
What was surprising to me was that having an Ubuntu Laptop and a Windows 11 PC side by side that Ubuntu needs about twice as often restarts compared to Windows.
I only have that setup 3-4 months, so it could be an outlier though.
> They don't know what the boundary between their web browser and their OS is,
Exactly. The thing many users are referring to as MacOS, is in fact, Darwin/MacOS, or as I've recently taken to calling it, Darwin plus MacOS. MacOS is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another component of a fully functioning operating system made useful by the BSD corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by the Single Unix Specification v3.
They would, as soon as they try to use any software most people on their circle of friends use, CD/DVD coming on the hardware they bought at the mall, or any computer magazine besides Linux Format and similar.
Well, in 2023 a majority of that would be web or electron apps so they might not be able to tell the difference. They would be equally stumped at the sight of a CD/DVD no matter their choice of OS, as machines have not shipped with optical drives in ages.
Desktop computers are unusual nowadays, despite being a decent option. They are gone from non-gaming retail stores from what I can tell, so it's much more of an active decision to get.
It is true that if you try to reuse your 2003 Office install you will fail, but such unsupported and deprecated software will also cause trouble on a modern PC. Even if it runs, using an old version of Outlook is extremely unsafe...
Common end-user hardware does not require drivers nowadays either (not even printers due to IPPAnywhere and co., even though manufacturers still ship them for some reason).
Things are always hairy outside that though - macOS no longer permit kernel extensions, and you know you are in a dark place if DKMS gets involved on Linux.
macOS does not permit kernel extensions, because contrary to GNU/Linux they take ABI and kernel stability seriously, and are incrementally turning the OS into a proper microkernel, with all extensions running in userspace.
Do you have a source on Apple working to turn macOS into a proper microkernel? Couldn't find anything. Certainly Mach is a microkernel, but Darwin very much isn't. I do know that Apple has worked to expose some kernel-level hardware interfacing features in safer ways than giving full kernel extension access, but otherwise that's it?
How do you call a kernel whose drivers and extensions are all in user space?
WWDC sessions on that roadmap state quite clearly that is the long term end goal, all the kernel extension mechanisms will only be available in userspace, with one year transition for each subsystem after an userspace API is made available.
> My dad exclusively use ie(due to activex/flash in some internal corp site), excel, and word on the laptop I bought for him.
That was a majority use-case between 2005-2015. Now it's a niche case (yeah, even if absolute numbers are still big enough, relatively speaking it's a niche)
Except many if not most (at least in the past) chose a Mac for the software first and the hardware second. I know I did. And I’ve also been using desktop Linux begrudgingly beside it, ever since it existed. Windows too, though I’ve lately removed any need for that.
But at that point then who gives a damn what the “desktop” or other market share is because it’s essentially meaningless and can be manipulated into whatever you want it to be. Add in the fact that a lot of what you run whether SaaS or even a shell is in a server somewhere else. The actual client operating system is increasingly about as relevant for a lot of use cases as what software your terminal ran a few decades ago.
I don't see why. I really like macOS. More than any other environment it's uncluttered, well organised, it gets out of the way. It abstracts a lot of unnecessary technical detail but still allows diving into that, if I'm inclined. And most of all, I like well integrated system-wide features instead of palming it off to developers. Sure the hardware is good too, but I don't know where you get that idea from.
It can be quite pragmatic to use it too, there's no need to be religious about it. Even though the term gets criticized for "what about other parts than GNU", "what about Alpine" etc. it's actually a very useful term which makes people know exactly what you mean behind it, which is not something that can be said about "Linux" without providing additional context.
well, maybe you are right and it's not as clear cut. But I think people very intentionally buy a PC or a Mac which to most means the hardware and the operating system together. And, not to put too fine a point on it, but NOBODY here is counting mac user as BSD users either.
I agree with this assessment but the same two senses exist for Iphones and Macs too. To some extent it is even the same with Windows. A lot of people just buy _a_ laptop. They don't even know what an operating system is.
They know to the extent of the applications they need to use, when accessing goverment sites, and if it doesn't work it is broken, from their point of view.
Having said this, the local library from my German city does run on GNU/Linux.
I would be very curious to see the numbers comparing intentional OS installation. How many people go out of their way to buy and install Windows (thereby truly choosing Windows) versus how many people go out of their way to download and install Linux.
If Linux wins in that category as well, could we finally stop moving the goalposts?
You know, I used to be a Windows guy but Windows really jumped the shark some years ago and so I am just preparing to move over to Linux at the next best time. This is just to say, I want to the best for Linux and I don't want to move the goalposts unfairly. But I do think there is diffence between "using" Linux as in Android and using Linux as in Arch and I think the people who use Windows use it more similarly to that later way.
> or are just using whats one the phone they wanted
In that case 99.9% of windows users fall in the same category. They are just using the OS that came on the device they bought. How many people actually bought a separate license, and downloaded a Windows installer because they specifically wanted to install Windows on their device?
How many people actually bought a separate license, and downloaded a Windows installer because they specifically wanted to install Windows on their device?
Pretty much the entire (DIY) PC gaming market? Granted they may not buy Windows but they are certainly making the choice to download and use it over linux.
Sure there is a pre-built market for desktop PCs but I would think the PC Gaming market skews to DIY though I have no stats.
Yeah I know. But they must be less than 0.5% of the total number of Windows users. Probably even less. So you are just proving my point here that practically all windows users just use the OS that comes with the device they got.
Just a few weeks ago, I tried playing a Japanese game that I was interested in, but it didn't even get past the start menu. Not a big deal for me as I'm not an avid gamer, I just moved on.
But imagine telling a hardcore gamer that no, you can't play that new game released an hour ago. Maybe it'll become compatible a few months later, maybe not.
Or tell a professional artist that no, they can't use that art software anymore, they have to retrain their entire skillset with an entirely different software.
Now that's a show-stopper. For most people, it's 100% compatibility or bust.
The community is really responsive, such that you could point the hardcore gamer to the forums and they would likely get help getting it fixed.
Professional artists are also an interesting choice. If they are in a major art studio, they are probably having to use custom tooling there already. And Wacom is very well supported on linux.
They aren't necessarily technically skilled, but they are often building the skills. Is literally how a lot of us got into computers. Did we actually understand what himem was? Not at all, but we could play with DOS and friends really well. :D
This is also an odd rabbit hole to fight about. I've had so many windows boxes that couldn't play games throughout the years that I've basically accepted that games programming is hard. :D
Your whole comment is hilarously incorrect because overwhelming majority of windows users never intentionally installed it. It just came pre-installed with their new laptop. The exact scenario you invoke with a DSL device.
Do you have stats on that? I would imagine if you swapped it out with linux or BSD they would have something to say about why all their apps aren't available. It's a choice.
A modem's application is the one thing it does and the interface is an abstraction layer standardised enough that the modem could be replaced in a shoe closet without anyone even noticing.
Another way to look at this is to say that the massive uptick in Steam Deck users is really good for the future of Linux gaming given that if current trends continue with the next version of the Steam Deck it may well get to the point where it becomes worth it for developers to focus on native Linux builds rather than being Proton compatible. Especially in cases where Unreal / Unity takes most of the heavy lifting away anyway.
I'm not overly optimistic given that the biggest barrier to supporting Linux has always been how much variance there is in terms of what's out there, but it's still a good thing for Linux.
In terms of perceptions of desktop Linux I don't really think it matters. Linux isn't going anywhere and as software probably has more penetration right now than any other operating system ever has.
> I'm not overly optimistic given that the biggest barrier to supporting Linux has always been how much variance there is in terms of what's out there, but it's still a good thing for Linux.
Nope. The biggest barrier is the FUD around there being so much variance. 99% of desktop Linux is glibc-based. Beyond that, binary compatibility is no harder than Windows. Differrent yes, meaning devs used to Windows have some learning to do, but not drastically different even.
once a developer from a company whose device i had bought, told me they couldn't support linux because every distribution had a different way to open a serial port and read data.
It is almost certainly handled by whatever library they are using to interface. And if they didn't pick one that is targeting linux, then that would be more work for them.
That is, this is likely easily solvable, but it is most easily solvable at the beginning of a project by choice of base libraries. I can understand not wanting to change things after the fact for a presumably small user base.
They claimed that they'd need a different implementation per distribution. Which makes no sense. It's just open()/ioctl_tty()/read()/write(), all of which are in the libc of every distribution that has ever existed since the 90s.
Fair, I'm putting charity to the claim and assuming that they coded against a Microsoft toolchain. That is, my assumption would not be that it was the different distros, but that is just an easy thing to say.
The WIN32 is Linux's most stable API. Joking aside I don't see native ports becoming more common, we tried that a decade ago with Steam Machines and it was for the most part a disaster made of awful ports and zero support. Proton has a large community around it and just keep getting better every release, I can't see people giving that up.
Steam Machine failed because nobody made them and what we did get was overpriced for the performance delivered. There was no reason to buy or make a Steam Machine over a standard PC, thus no audience for publishers or devs to care about. The Deck delivers something people want and people are buying it and using it.
That said, I think most of us, except for the die hard purists, are fine with Proton compatibility being the main target for companies. As long as a game runs as well as it does elsewhere without restrictions or inconvenience, most of us are happy and don't care about the technical details of how it's running.
It's funny because it's true. Valve took advantage of Microsoft API stability guarantees and executed with an overnight success 10 years in the making.
It's actually a great thing, too. You build a game once and it's more stable than any distro packaging could ever make it be.
Both, which is kind of ironic, as they need to emulate Windows and DirectX, and have been a complete failure making studios port their PlayStation, Android and Switch games to SteamOS, despite the heavy POSIX flavour of those platforms, specially in what concerns Android and its relationship to Linux.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking that it's the Steam Deck that's skewing these. Which is fine. Both Linux and MacOS are dwarfed by Windows.
The weird thing is, for me personally, is that of all the games I collected over there years when I did Windows gaming, many of them are now Apple Silicon native. Sure, the big ones like Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises aren't there, but many others are. Even the brand-new Baldur's Gate 3 is on Apple Silicon. No Man's Sky is now too.
I'm not a big gamer anymore, but it's just interesting to see.
There is a problem unique to linux. The linux don't have a stable userspace runtime environment agreed by all parties. Every distro decides their own. This is both a gift and a curse.
The pros of deciding your own runtime environment allows you to customize the system more and even run Linux on machine that has very strict resource limit.
The cons is that it is almost impossible to run a software everywhere without bundle literally anything you use into own binary. The steam itself do it(steam runtime), but I don't know if it is even close to a complete resolution because it don't really solve the problem for softwares outside of steam.
This WP article and parent’s video are both fun, I enjoyed this momentary rabbit hole. The video above claims there’s a difference between a Mondegreens and Eggcorns, which is that Eggcorns are mis-heard phrases that have the same meaning as the original, while Mondegreens change the meaning. Plus the video has a clip of the ‘Mondegreen’ song sung with a strong Scottish accent - check it out if you didn’t make it that far!
The reason why we tend to only consider 'real' desktop OS such as Windows or OSX is that those are the generalists platform where content is produced and work is being done. The others are special purpose devices
Desktop Mode on the Steam Deck is like a DVD playback on PS2 for me; an excuse to buy a portable gaming console. Pretty good one. You can actually do grown up things on it.
Indeed, never mind that, because it's irrelevant. Nobody is using a Steam Deck as their daily machine. Daily Linux users are using their existing machines, and Windows and Mac users are using their PCs and Macs.
Sure, some might dip into desktop mode to do a bit of browsing, or set up emulators, but nobody is saying "hey, I'll just use this as my daily driver now".
Yes, but similarly you could connect a computer screen to a server. The idea behind separating desktop computers is, as mentioned above, that it is a particular platform a lot of us are interested in. I imagine neither me or you are typing these comments on a server or a Steam Deck.
> I imagine neither me or you are typing these comments on a server or a Steam Deck.
Stop imagining. I'm quite literally mooching around in bed posting this from Firefox on a Steam Deck in desktop mode docked to my bedroom TV. This[1] isn't your father's Oldsmobile.
OK but I wasn't speaking to you. It's not surprising to me, that out of maybe hundreds of people reading our conversation, there was one using Steamdeck in an unusual way. But I imagine andybak wasn't, the argument being, the chance of him doing so is very low, because that's not how most people use Steamdecks, or from another perspective, I imagine most people commenting on Hackernews do so from a laptop or a desktop, and a mobile phone on the third place.
Yes, but if you connect a computer screen to a server, you'll notice that servers usually don't have GPUs for anything beyond "show a 1280x1024 console screen". Unlike a server, the Steam Deck is literally marketed as a device that can be used as a "desktop computer", that's the entire purpose of the optional USB-C dock.
You can't use Blender on a desktop PC that has no monitor attached, nor would it be comfortable to do so on a 13 inch laptop. Is my desktop computer also not a desktop computer because it's not useful until hooked up?
I could make the exact same argument for OSX that you make against linux. It's a lower share platform, mainly used for special purpose (and increasingly so at each version since it's becoming less and less generalist). The purpose of system is what you are using it for.
I guess it really depends on what you expect out of a "user". I think servers and Android count but I think SteamOS is a bit tricky, because it's relying on a compatibility layers running Windows to run most games. This may not matter to the end user, but it isn't quite the developer revelation many imagine where suddenly tons of games and apps have a proper linux port.
The article doesn't mention it, but you can flip SteamOS to Desktop Mode where it's just a normal Arch Linux desktop.
So it is proper Linux, as GP comment implies. Yes it's running games in Windows compatibility layers, but it is also a complete Linux system itself, with desktop. Definitely counts as running Linux.
And a decent chunk of those games are running on the Unity or Unreal runtimes. Do they count as "running on Windows"? Where are we drawing the line here?
>And a decent chunk of those games are running on the Unity or Unreal runtimes. Do they count as "running on Windows"?
if the developer released it as a windows build but is being played though a compatibility layer, yes. Unity and Unreal both support deploying Linux builds, but it doesn't mean making a proper Linux port is as easy as pressing the "Linux" button.
>Where are we drawing the line here?
I don't personally care for what counts or not. I just personally wish for more native support.
As someone who has played a lot of games with native linux "support", I want less of it.
In nearly every instance of these native ports, switching to using the windows version via Proton was a better experience, either because the Linux version was outdated, unmaintained and buggy, or it simply performed better.
Annoyingly, as far as I can tell, Steam these days doesn't make a distinction between native ports and Proton games so it's hard to tell if I'm getting served the unloved child version until something goes drastically wrong and I have to start messing around with it.
>either because the Linux version was outdated, unmaintained and buggy, or it simply performed better.
Sure, I can see that. My solution to that one day will hopefully be to make sure devs can keep their linux platforms updated, not give up and go around it with a windows build.
But Proton discourages that, not encourages. As you said, Steam doesn't want you to know what build you are playing, and if the audience doesn't know, then the devs won't care either.
Besides SteamOS, this is another reason why Linux is more popular on Steam. I play Steam games on both Mac and Linux: I can play more and better games on Linux (using Proton), but the ease of access on Mac makes me play there more. I just break my Linux too often because it’s a work tool.
Not exactly. I don't think those proprietary compatibility layers are generally (ever?) based on Wine, since Wine is LGPL. But they might have different bugs than Proton does, and in some cases they may have more bugs that affect a given game.
> but it doesn't mean making a proper Linux port is as easy as pressing the "Linux" button.
Depends ... It can be that easy, sometimes. I was maintaining a huge Unity based VR setup the last years which had both Linux and Windows PCs (mostly for legacy reasons). Building for both platforms was done from the same bash script with the only difference being the platform identifier.
Tbf that was a very standalone application that did not interact with the OS a lot, but otoh I would assume that a lot of games are like that.
Same. I don't care about Proton compatibility for games and only look for native support. Something that works on Proton today might stop working tomorrow if the developer only cares about Windows. Even for games that do work on it, they have all sorts of bugs and glitches that may not be game-breaking but which I'm not going to put up with like a second-class citizen.
My impression is the exact opposite. A native version would have to be actively maintained by the developer, and if they're not that interested the native version is likely to have more bugs, lag behind in development, not receive the latest updates, or even stop working altogether. If it's running on Proton, it's out of the devs hands, and it's either Valve or gamers maintaining the right configuration to get the best experience.
At least that's my very limited experience with linux gaming. I started only a couple of weeks ago, but so far, everything works incredibly well.
I think Steam Deck is getting to be a large enough market that people are going to care about Linux support in the future (even if via Proton). It may be only 2%ish of the market, but I'll bet those 2% are the high-spending end of the market. The industry has reacted to the Deck by making everything work with it. That's not going to stop. Developers are not "only caring about Windows" any more.
The problem is that, long term, native games also break if they are not maintained. I trust more the wine/proton developers to fix compat issues than random game publishers.
Around the turn of the millennium a bunch of high profiles games were ported to linux. All of those are hard to run today as rely on libraries that are no longer easily available on a common Linux distro. Yet wine runs the WIN32 version just fine.
In the mid '10s Feral (and a to a lesser extent Aspyr), ported many AAA games to linx. Many of the ports were of quite good quality. I own a few of them, yet occasionally I have to switch to the Proton version as the native one fails to start.
OSS games are the exception of course: being able to produce a good working binary from source make them future proof.
I'm using EndeavorOS (which is friendly Arch for newbies), and Steam is just an application that launches Steam games and it works great.
There are a couple of other game launchers, like Heroic, which handles both Epic and GOG games, which also works great.
But what's even better, is that if a GOG game doesn't quite run perfectly on Heroic because it lacks some of the latest refinements from Proton, you can import that game into Steam and taie advantage of Valve's nice work on Proton anyway.
I might do that; Cyberpunk on Heroic doesn't support raytracing or DLSS, and as I understand it, those do work if I were to run it on Steam. So that's a very nice option to have.
You can install any OS on it, and people have successfully recreated SteamOS behaviour on other distros (for example, NixOS).
You can also just go to the normal KDE Plasma environment from the steam menu and use it like normal Linux - or even install let's say emulators from Arch repos and add them to Steam then run them from SteamOS interface.
So I think this is referring to the Steam Deck. Which (as you say) can support other Linux distros, it's not locked down to SteamOS. Or even other OS's if you wanted to.
I've only run SteamOS on my Deck, but afaik if you install it on something else then you can still flip it between the gaming mode and the desktop mode. In desktop mode it behaves exactly like you'd expect an Arch Linux install to behave, and you can mess around with it as much as you'd like. In gaming mode it's like a console and really only plays games (but isn't limited to Steam games - people have got it running emulators and all sorts of other stuff too).
So? Even Windows itself has adopted some of those exact same compatibility layers to make games run properly. The Intel Arc driver on Windows uses DXVK to translate from DirectX 9 to Vulkan - which was originally developed by Valve for use in the Steam Deck.
SteamOS solved the chicken-and-egg problem and is demonstrating that Linux-based gaming is viable. 2% isn't a massive number, but it might just be enough for a game developer to justify compiling a Linux-native version too.
>Even Windows itself has adopted some of those exact same compatibility layers to make games run properly.
sure, Microsoft used a compatability layer to translate microsoft's API to an API Microsoft also maintains to an open source API. As far as I see it, it doesn't introduce any further points of failure that I don't already have by relying on Microsoft.
an open source compatibility layer relying on Microsoft's API... It unfortunately isn't a communicative property here.
>SteamOS solved the chicken-and-egg problem and is demonstrating that Linux-based gaming is viable.
Sure, just not in a way I feel is productive for the long term. But again, to each their own.
>2% isn't a massive number, but it might just be enough for a game developer to justify compiling a Linux-native version too.
In my mind, it reduces the need because why not just rely on Valve to do the hard "porting" work for you? It's a win-win for a dev who simply wants to launch a game. I hope your vision is the correct one, but I'm not so optimistic.
Not a personal win for someone who wants less leverage from large corporations.
For now, it's probably better for developers to focus on Windows in such a way that Wine/Proton can easily run it on Linux. But once the percentage of Linux users grows big enough, it may become more attractive for developers to focus on a native Linux version.
That won't be for a while, though. But im the mean time, Wine/Proton/DXVK means that the Linux experience is excellent even without explicit developer support, so the Linux user base can grow beyond just the handful of die hards. Anyone can easily game on Linux now.
As far as I'm concerned, this misses the point on a couple levels. One is that the focus here is very intentionally on desktop Linux. Servers and Android absolutely do not count.
The other is that the notion of a 'proper port' here doesn't really matter. Source ports are rare and don't necessarily turn out better than compatibility layer ports. If the goal is to have playable games, or for Linux to become usable as a desktop OS for gamers, what kinds of ports we get doesn't come into it.
That said, source ports are nice and it'd be nice if they were common some day. It would also better secure desktop Linux's position here.
>The other is that the notion of a 'proper port' here doesn't really matter. Source ports are rare and don't necessarily turn out better than compatibility layer ports.
It does to me, but I'm not a stranger to being part of an underrepresented niche. I have windows machines to make games playable if I want to play a windows platform game.
I simply prefer control where possible, and leaving something to a compatibility layers makes me rely on two separate platforms being maintained and contributed to (and/or not enshittified) in order to not be SO, be it now or in a future. 3 if you count Steam's contributions on Proton and choosing to carry whatever game you want to play. There can still be bugs in the game proper, but a native port eliminated points of failure for me to investigate.
Is that any different developer tools not supporting Windows and Windows users using WSL? We would still classify these as Windows users despite the compatibility layer. Ultimately compatibility layers are good because they reduce developer workload so that developers can focus on what really matters.
>Is that any different developer tools not supporting Windows and Windows users using WSL?
excuse my ignorance, but are there any major developer tools that don't support Windows? I can only imagine some internal enterprise tooling doing this.
>Ultimately compatibility layers are good because they reduce developer workload so that developers can focus on what really matters
I don't mind them as a concept, but I personally want as few points of failure between me and my software as possible. Some software is already either overly bloated or buggy (or both) as is without wondering if there's now compatibility layer issues on top of it.
> excuse my ignorance, but are there any major developer tools that don't support Windows?
Semgrep is one that I use at work. Nix is another. Docker¹ is a third. Many terminal emulators support multiple operating systems, but not Windows.
Windows support also often lags for new programming languages. Golang didn't run on Windows at first. Crystal is only now starting to have full-fledged Windows support. Plus there are many tools that do run on Windows but work poorly or are extremely slow or require tons of compatibility shims, like Git and Emacs.
A lot of dev tools are Unix-first. You just probably use only a few of them if you work at a Microsoft shop.
--
Not Docker itself at this point but 99.9% of all Docker containers that anyone actually uses.
Docker only supports Windows by way of a virtual machine with some extra UI wrappers on top, it's not as if you're building/running Windows native containers in there. (Unless things have changed a whole lot since I last looked.) By that logic you might as well count anything that runs under WSL2 as supporting windows.
> it's not as if you're building/running Windows native containers in there
You can. Idr if Docker Desktop supports it or not, but you can install Docker Engine for Windows and plug it into the Docker CLI and all that for sure.
> excuse my ignorance, but are there any major developer tools that don't support Windows? I can only imagine some internal enterprise tooling doing this.
At all, or well? Because git works on Windows, but it's meaningfully slow as a result of NT and unix having very different ideas about how filesystems should work.
Docker for windows is a thin shim over a VM that falls apart at the seams when it comes to networking..
Git on Windows is only supported by installing a whole suite of Unix tools and a shell.
Tools like ccache/sccache treat windows (well msvc) as a second class citizen.
Go, the poster child for cross-compilation shatters that illusion when you need to use CGO.
Python, I believe things have gotten better but the last time I tried getting tensorflow up and running on Windows it was a long and painful path involving third party python distributions, native toolchains and changing drivers.
Depends pretty much on the Windows version, and if using Linux or Windows containers.
Docker on Windows is a shim for the Windows Jobs API, as Microsoft decided to offer the same experience instead of coming up with their own set of tooling.
In more recent Windows versions, there are other ways to manage containers, specially after containerd support improved.
The best way to distribute builds on Windows is via incredible and their VS integration.
Cross compilation never really quite works out, unless one can have a complete set of libraries and toolset of the host OS, otherwise there will always be corner cases.
Python has been quite alright when using distributions like ActiveState Python.
Git, well one cannot expect better from a SCM designed for the Linux kernel project in first place.
Many Unix-based developers have no idea how Windows works, especially the hardcore free software folks who refuse to use Windows out of principle.
I personally have not owned a Windows computer in the last 10 years, and even then I only used it for gaming and not for development. If my code works on Windows without a compatibility layer that’s a complete miracle.
Many Windows developers similarly have little idea how Unix works and stay in the Windows development ecosystem.
Ultimately you can only fit so much in your head and I don’t have room for Windows to live in mine too. I’m sure a lot of Windows devs feel the same way about Unix.
> excuse my ignorance, but are there any major developer tools that don't support Windows?
The entire Ruby ecosystem has never had great Windows DX: the most recommended Windows builds of Ruby itself come from a "second-party" group because official upstream doesn't seem to care to bundle nice installers, there's a ton of papercuts on Windows in the base libraries even in APIs you don't think would be platform-dependent, and a large number of third-party libraries and apps just kind of invariantly assume that you will never try to use them on Windows.
There was an article posted on HN a few weeks ago, about Excel's rise over Lotus 1-2-3.
Excel was acknowledged as a better software pretty early on, and could always import Lotus spreadsheets, but it really started gaining adoption once it was able to export to Lotus files.
Counter-intuitively, the ability to stay within the Lotus ecosystem (and switch back at any time) is what enabled a lot of people on the fence to try Excel out. Only once Excel became dominant did people actually switch to XLS files.
Surely a main reason Excel gained market share was that it was graphical i.e. on Windows. Probably gained when OS/2 and Windows 3 came out giving a decent graphical environment.
I used Excel on Windows 2 from its release but I would be an outlier.
>I think this makes it even more valuable, not less.
put it this way: I have the expenses and know how to simply have 2 native platforms if I need it. If I need to emulate something but don't feel like spinning a second boot, it's usually for a few niche programs I need very occasionally. Otherwise, I can just get that OS ready.
That's how I see the Steam Deck. I simply have a portable windows machine that has Steam on it, so I don't see the incremental value of having these games run through Proton while having a linux machine. Because I have "running windows games" covered. If it was running Linux games natively, I may in fact buy it simply to help say to developers that I want more native games on Linux. But if devs just keep focusing on Windows, I have that set already.
And To be honest I'm not a huge fan of the form factor nor screen to begin with, so it'd be a bigger compromise choosing to play on a Steam Deck than if I could choose other machines.
> But if devs just keep focusing on Windows, I have that set already.
It is what it is. I would say they will never focus on Linux but it's not so clear anymore. A lot of things are changing fast.
> And To be honest I'm not a huge fan of the form factor nor screen to begin with, so it'd be a bigger compromise choosing to play on a Steam Deck than if I could choose other machines.
Luckily even better handhelds seem to be coming out. Asus ROG Ally (windows) is worth a look, as is Ayn Odin 2 (android..Now we have this too as a potential gaming platform to consider. Maybe not today, but who knows.). I recommend ETA PRIME's youtube channel to keep an eye on these things.
Non-SteamOS Linux users using Steam are using that exact same compatibility layer. There's really no difference.
The only reason why SteamOS might conceivably not count, is because the users didn't explicitly, knowingly choose Linux. They chose Steam. Valve pushes the Steam deck to its users, and those users buy it, possibly not even caring that it's running Linux rather than Windows.
Doesn't matter though. It's still Linux, even if the users may not be aware of it.
We don't include Xbox users in Windows stats, even though it uses the Windows kernel. We generally put single-use devices into their own boxes when discussing gaming OSs.
Side thought: If Microsoft thought there was a market for booting an Xbox into Windows they would sell it already. (Windows for Xbox for Workgroups 2H13)
There was a working, officially supported Miracast app on the Xbox One for a while and I used that for a screen extender of a Windows 10 Phone and a laptop for a few years before the app stopped working. I think it stopped working only because no one was using it.
This is in reference to a meme that has been around since the days when Slashdot was the king of tech news sites. "The Year Of Linux On The Desktop" has been just around the corner for all this time and is still not here.
Or is it? Whether or not we have come close to TYOLOTD depends on how you define "The Desktop". If "The Desktop" is a metaphor for "the hands of the non-specialist user who doesn't even call their device 'a computer" then yeah, it's doing great. The Deck is a major step forwards in that, it wraps up Steam's entire catalog of Windows games into a nice little bubble of virtualization that varies in seamlessness depending on how new the game is.
If you define it as a desktop computer, it's nowhere near that. Most people who sit down at a a desk with a large screen to do work that involves multiple windows and a mouse pointer are still sitting in front of a box that's running Windows or MacOS. Those two operating systems still dominate that domain, as well as the world of people popping open a laptop to do windows-and-pointer work away from their office.
Linux keeps nibbling at that domain, and the work Valve did on their fork of WINE to get fifty bazillion Windows games running on this handheld Linux device is probably going to help take some bigger bites. But what do people go buy when they want A Computer? When you answer that with "Linux", that's The Year Of Linux On The Desktop.
"Claim victory" is just something for dorks (myself included) to argue about on the internet. It doesn't matter to any one, in any way.
Linux "won" the server. Linux has not "won" the consumer desktop/laptop gaming market.
SteamOS is super interesting. Does it count as Linux? Yes and no? Depends on your goalpost! If I were shipping a game today I would 100% support SteamDeck and SteamOS. I'd maybe provide support via Win32 emulation, or maybe native. I'd probably stick to Win32 and only do native if needed for performance.
But I would 1000% NOT claim to support "Linux". I would support SteamDeck and that's it. If any user reported a bug or issue on other Linux distros then I would close the bug as "not supported". If it works, cool. If it doesn't, that's cool too. You're entirely on your own.
Supporting one Linux distro on one piece of hardware is pretty easy. Supporting all the Linux flavors on all possible hardware configurations is a bloody nightmare. And it's radically harder than supporting Windows across all hardware configurations. And it's definitely not worth it to increase sales by ~0.5% or so.
> Supporting all the Linux flavors on all possible hardware configurations is a bloody nightmare. And it's radically harder than supporting Windows across all hardware configurations.
"Steam Deck" is clearly not "Desktop Linux", just like Android isn't, or PlayStation isn't "Desktop FreeBSD". It's reasonable to make these distinctions. No one was talking about "operating system kernels".
My TV runs WebOS. So I'm a WebOS user? Nobody will care that it can run in desktop mode, until people start using that as their daily driver. Spoiler: That's not a thing that will happen.
It's not "vanilla", but so isn't Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora Sericea, or whatever else. The underlying stack is the same, there's just customizations on top.
You can run all sorts of things on all sorts of things, but the Steam Deck clearly isn't a desktop machine, and isn't intended or widely used for desktop type stuff. This seems so obvious I don't even know how to explain it. "Yes, but technically ..." isn't meaningful.
> There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win
Probably the reason it can never “win” is because it’s an operating system kernel. It’s software.
You know what can win? People. Companies. In competition with each other. The Linux Foundation wins all the time when it gets contributions of code, money and capital. Valve wins all the time when people buy Steam Decks. Microsoft wins all the time when someone spins up a Linux server instance on Azure. Users when all the time when their Linux systems do the things they want it to.
But yeah, Linux never wins. Never can, never will. The same is true for Windows and Mac OS X and FreeBSD though, and postulating that a piece of an operating system code base can “win” or “lose” is the linguistic trap that sniped millions of nerds for over three decades. There’s no scorekeeper in this game.
> because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.
Funnily enough these goalposts were actively moved by Linux proponents themselves. Because whenever there's a criticism of Linux, it turns out that the system in question is not a true Linux... because reasons.
> Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet.
It is. I don't think anyone is denying that.
> No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not.
This has been the argument of Linux proponents (many of them) for years.
> Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop
I've seen multiple claims that Ubuntu is not the true Linux. From people using Arch, or Gentoo, or...
I agree with your complaint on the specific topic at hand. Whether the installed linux users are on Steam Deck or Desktop Linux, it matters not. It's a boon to the ecosystem in general and any specific differences in their distribution so minor as to be insignificant.
As to your latter point, you're just muddying the topic. Marketshare/netshare metrics are subdivided as they are because most people viewing those reports don't care what their web server, handwatch, video game console, etc use. They care what OS the computers people actually interface with runs; mostly for targeting reasons.
Okay, I'll push back against this and say it's actually true for Android, because phone kernels only rarely contribute improvements upstream, so while they're growing the userbase they aren't really improving any ecosystem but their own. I don't think that's the case for SteamOS though.
I think you're just proving OP's point. Linux is FOSS, which means it has a bewildering variety of different Linuxes with different characteristics. They're all still Linux, but they're not homogeneous like Windows so none of them meet everyone's platonic ideal of Linux.
It's likely the only thing everyone can agree is Linux is whatever Linus has on his machine.
It's just not desktop. That's all. Linux as the base OS for desktop word processing, etc. has not succeeded, even though it was the OG dream of the Linux community. Linux as the OS to run WINE ... weird case.
But it's simply not relevant. Linux is a success in its own right. So much better than Windows on a server. And the desktop is losing relevance (but it might bounce back when you least expect it).
I don't count ChromeOS or Android because they're even more locked down than Windows or the Macintosh. I don't care about the Linux desktop. I care about people using a system they can control.
If FreeBSD got substantial market share that would be a victory. ChromeOS gaining market share, and especially being used in education, is a defeat.
If we just counted the kernel, then it is possible that Minix could be the most popular "OS" because it's burnt into every Intel CPU, however it's probably not a helpful metric. If we equate Android with Linux, we can also say that MacOS is the most popular mobile operating system because iOS uses the same kernel as MacOS.
I consider 2 things to be the same OS if they can natively run the same unmodified binary files and if we look at it this way, Linux is on a losing streak:
- I cannot download an app on Android and run it on Debian
- I cannot compile a program on one version of the same distro and run it on another version of the same distro
The moment I will be able to compile a program that runs on both Arch and Android, we can start adding the stats up, however I doubt tis will happen anytime soon looking at the poor attempts at fixing this.
>I cannot download an app on Android and run it on Debian
Yes you can on the android emulator. The biggest issue is compu arch in that case.
> I cannot compile a program on one version of the same distro and run it on another version of the same distro
Yes you can for the most part (unless it uses a capability provided by a newer kernel which is super rare and mostly limited to system tools, and less for "apps"). Actually that is what makes containers and flatpak possible. It even works accross different distros as long as cpu arch is the same.
> The moment I will be able to compile a program that runs on both Arch and Android
You can! You will need to have a UI wrapper around it on Android but if you compile it in the right way there’s no reason this can’t work (assuming they use the same CPU architecture of course)
I thought it was relevant information and could predict it was probably steam deck.
The newer generations of users are not computer literate, they use user friendly computers. It was not a conscious decision based on the OS it runs on.
The people that care about OS - specifically linux - dominance are not those users.
I think once Valve ships an installable ISO of Arch Linux-based SteamOS 3.0 you'll start seeing an uptick of people installing it on their desktop gaming PCs.
There seems to be a rising sentiment of discontent with Windows 11 and the general direction Windows is heading. There's been positive coverage of SteamDeck and the new SteamOS that is driving previously skeptical people towards being open to trying out Linux for gaming and as a general desktop OS.
I dunno, I don't see this as bias or as anything nefarious. When I read the headline, my first thought was "huh, that seems unlikely; I wonder if they are counting Steam Deck users in that".
Frankly I just don't see it as an interesting metric. "More Steam games are played on Steam Deck (+ desktop Linux) than on macOS." So what? Even though the Steam Deck blurs the lines a bit, I don't consider desktop gaming and console/handheld gaming to be directly comparable. Or at least, I don't consider comparing them in this way to be interesting.
Just as I don't think "Linux is the most used OS kernel on the planet" to be all that interesting. Ok, it's interesting in a certain, narrow way. Obviously its use in mobile/embedded devices and servers dwarfs its use on the desktop. If we want to compare "OS choice on servers" or "OS choice on mobile devices", that's notable.
But when we're talking about gaming, and we want to compare "desktop macOS gamers" to other things, the only other things I think are relevant are "desktop Windows gamers" and "desktop Linux gamers".
If Steam-using desktop Linux gamers were surpassing Steam-using desktop macOS gamers, that would be huge, important news! But a bunch of people buying a Steam Deck and raising the number of people gaming on the Linux kernel is, to me, no more interesting than saying there are a ton of people playing games on the Linux kernel because there are a ton of people who game on Android phones. Whoop-de-do, film at 11.
(Full disclosure: I'm a desktop Linux user, and have been for over 20 years.)
Android does not count because it's userspace is completely different and in practice it cannot be modified or easily run on different hardware. Same for Chrome OS.
SteamOS on the other hand is an actual GNU/Linux distribution that can be installed in any machine and any improvements that Steam does, e.g. to 3d drivers or hardware support, will benefit the entire desktop Linux ecosystem.
I don't think this is that unfair at all? What people are invested in is Linux desktop popularity. The old Windows vs Linux (desktop) thing. The Linux desktop has somewhat of a muddier definition than other desktops, but it's whatever free desktop stack people use - Gnome, KDE, or whatever other X.org/Freedesktop based stack people use.
If Linux is only popular on Android, Chromebooks, SteamOS, servers, embedded devices it strongly suggests to me that people are perfectly content with using Linux as long as they don't have to use the Linux desktop. (I know it's available on the Deck, but it's not the primary UI for it).
The Steam Linux numbers used to be indicative of Linux desktop popularity. If their large rise now is in large part due to the Steam Deck, that doesn't quite mean that the Linux desktop is getting popular. So it seems this is a totally fair nuance to me?
Let's be fair; when we say "desktop Linux", none of us think "a dedicated games console which uses Linux to run Steam, occasionally running the desktop mode to make something in Steam easier (like emulation)". Obviously it only would count if it were "daily Linux users, running Steam".
So, I teach an intro to IT class and honestly, I like the fact that I can simply state the truth with no blowback:
Linux is the dominant operating system in tech, moreso when you include a fuzzy, but reasonable, definition -- I like to say "Linux-ish."
Kids, literally everything you encounter that isn't Windows is "Linux-ish."
Apple has found ways to make their flavor of "Linux-ish" more exclusive and that has drawbacks. In fact, each company naturally tries to figure out how they can best make money for themselves and you can judge them how you want -- but the core of this is this thing called "free and open source software," where basically everyone agrees to (or it just makes more sense to) use this stuff that's shared and out there.
You can use this as your desktop too, if you like. Here's how.
I wouldn’t label Google/Android as GNU/Linux. Neither MacOS as UNIX. Nor ChromeOS as GNU/Linux. Why? Linux is the shorthand for GNU/Linux.
SteamOS is actually Archlinux which is a mere Linux. Archlinux can be considered as clean sheet Linux, they avoid patching and modifications if possible. So probably even the FSF people would accept it as GNU/Linux?
Even more. The SteamDeck is using a X86_64 CPU and RDNA2 GPU. No hidden firmware locks. So it is an IBM-PC. It counts therefore 100% as Linux. I would even say 120% because it comes pre-installed.
It shouldn't be. For the same reasons you would shorten TCP/IP to TCP, you should shorten GNU/Linux to GNU. This avoids all of the confusion about what is "really Linux", because when people say that they actually mean GNU.
There are a few: Android and Alpine are two other notable ones. It's important to note that these are not the same operating system as GNU/Linux. Just like there are many transport protocols that can be used on top of IP that are not TCP.
Yes, but it's uncommon to actually want to lump this 4+ operating systems under a single term. People do it by accident, and it causes a lot of confusion about "what's really Linux", as evident by this thread.
There are reasons to want to talk about Linux, but it probably shouldn't be much more common than NT in day to day vocabulary.
> There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win, to any degree or magnitude, because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.
Win what? It’s wildly popular in some environments, and it’s getting more popular in others. I think it’s a waste your energy to get worked up over who’s giving Linux “proper recognition”…
You can hardly say Android represents the value of freedom that Linux offers, to the contrary, it is the first platform to get Web Environment Integrity, hopefully the only. Stem Deck, in the other hand, is relatively free.
When eventually Linux is undeniably #1, the rhetoric will be "the OS you run does not matter". We're almost already there with browser based apps and completely dumbed down mobile devices so they might even have a point.
None of that matters, though. All that matters, is if this satisfies someone who wants "a triumphant moment for desktop Linux". And I'd say, no, no it does not.
There are people here using their Steam Deck to post on HN in its Desktop Mode. It comes with Python and you can install VS Code. It plays PC games, which has long been a hallmark of the desktop experience. What's missing? The stuck-in-one-place tower?
just because the embedded computer on your fridge can run doom, doesn't make your fridge a console. Same reasoning with the steam deck - just because you can access the linux desktop underneath, doesn't mean the device was designed with that use case in mind.
I can't connect my fridge to a keyboard, mouse and screen and seamlessly use it as a desktop.
I'm doing exactly that with a Steam Deck. I'll be going out of town for the next few week and instead of carrying a laptop to WFH, I'm just taking my SD and a keyboard with me.
yeah that's stupid. We can discuss if Android is a real linux OS or another OS based on a linux kernel, but there is absolutely no doubt that steam OS is a linux OS with a customized windows manager
It is funny how people put everybody in the same bag.
There are many kind of linux users, and many reason to use linux. We don't all agree on the why and the how, which is one of the reason there are so many linux based OSes/distros.
Yet, even Valve could not convince game studios publishing on Android to port their games into GNU/Linux, they have to emulate Windows and DirectX instead for "Linux" games.
The Linux community does this themselves as well, tell a Linux enthusiast how much you like Ubuntu and watch their eyes roll as if to say “that doesn’t count”
I don't know what the complaint is about. Read after me: desktop Linux. Not clear? Again, desktop Linux. I think that is abundantly clear what counts and what doesn't.
> Meanwhile, Apple has been making a lot of noise about making the Mac a more viable gaming platform, given the exceptionally strong graphics performance (for integrated graphics on a laptop, at least) of the M1 and M2 series chips in the latest Macs.
Mac was actually doing pretty decently for game a few years back. A pretty big chunk of the games on Steam, including many of the high profile games, were available on OSX. Dropping 32-bit support set things back immensely, however. With that one decision, Apple made the number of games available to OSX users a small fraction of the amount that was available before.
It's probably only a matter of time before Apple drops support for OpenGL and/or x64 binaries, which would wipe out another whole chunk of Mac gaming history.
PowerPC binaries are no longer usable, x86 binaries are no longer usable, I don't see why they wouldn't do it again in the name of streamlining the platform.
And those that are left can't be played on an Intel Mac running macOS 13, because it's become unbearably sluggish. I'm booting into 10.15 now if I want to play a game that needs more than minimal resources.
While I like GOG, I must say that they don't support linux, they merely sometimes make it possible to download binaries which may work on linux if you do everything yourself.
> While I like GOG, I must say that they don't support linux, they merely sometimes make it possible to download binaries which may work on linux if you do everything yourself.
They have an actual "Games for Linux" section (https://www.gog.com/en/games/linux). I guess that should mean anything more than just "this may work on Linux if you compile this kernel and use this version of wine with these patches".
I tried, but not every game works out of the box yet. Sometimes you need to do a lot of work to play a game on linux, on windows you just click "next" several times. Also, they don't provide linux launcher, you first have to find that you can indeed download those games manually, navigate to your library in a special way and then you can download something that might work.
It’s sad to me that you and many others have this opinion, which is fine, but Valve takes a significant tax from small companies while gamers, a cheap demographic, complain about the price of games.
The issue kinda is on Linux we’re playing windows games. There is significant work done by valve on that proton compatability layer, so a lot of people on Linux want to support that. Without that us Linux users have a lot harder time gaming.
There are some other launchers for epic games and gog (heroic game launcher I’ve used). It worked for me for a the couple games I tried (gloomhaven and disco elysium) but I’m using the proton wine I which I think was put out there by valve/steam.
This I agree with. If the game developer can produce a Linux binary I am happy to buy on other stores (I prefer GOG). They usually do _not_ and I don’t want to spend time to wrap and configure windows apps to run on Linux. You can consider the 30% steam fee outsourcing the multi-platform “porting”.
Many gamedevs actually stopped building a specific Linux binary because the Proton compatibility version was so much faster and required almost zero effort from them =)
That is super interesting. Thanks for sharing! :)
Turns out releasing a Linux version can probably, for small studios, substitute and/or support a QA team.
He’s openly hostile to gamers. If anyone thinks he does what he does for gamers and companies you would be a fool. He’s only trying to steal market share to line his own pockets. He can’t even compete with a quality product. Epic game store is probably the worst store to exist.
> If anyone thinks he does what he does for gamers and companies you would be a fool.
Same with Gabe? Neither are running charities. They made tools that helped enable creators. But always keep in mind that it's money first, and creativity second.
>Epic game store is probably the worst store to exist.
Given all the PC platforms that have come and gone I always find this to be an odd take. EGS makes the grave sin of uhh...
- exclusivity windows which may or may not be permanent (which every store does)
- they don't make features fast enough for the power users
Like... am I missing something here? Or am I just much better versed in what Origin, the Ubi Store, Rockstar's store, and Window's own game store's negative aspects?
Other than valves own games they don’t have exclusives. They don’t care if you’re on other stores. Only that if you’re on steam you don’t remove it later. Which was never really enforced until epic bought steam as exclusives to pump themselves.
So you could argue valve cares about gamers more.
This is also evident in the fact that exclusives are often more expensive than games on steam that are available elsewhere because of actual competition.
I'm honestly curious about Epic and where they are heading these days. They no longer need to compete in this market since they had their breakout with Fortnite and most of their revenue comes from there anyway.
I understand their work on Unreal Engine (UE) since Fortnite is built on top of UE, but I don't understand the rest of their ecosystem and why Epic game store even exists.
Neither do I. I thought they were doing good work on UE. I don’t understand the popularity of fortnite but people love it and play it and it earns them a ton of money.
But the store seems to exist because they don’t want to use steam or anything else cos they won’t want to lose the 30% cut on game sales or in-game micro transactions.
Yet they happily pay Sony and MS…
And if they created their store and opened it up to others and says oh yeah our fees are less. It would be fine. Gamers have choice. Developers have choice.
But buying games already on steam, or paying to get exclusives is bad. Especially when Tim lies so much.
They should compete by having a better product, service, experience. But they lie cheat and steal to grow.
>I'm honestly curious about Epic and where they are heading these days.
based on their webstore and their butting with Apple/Google, they want to be the one stop shop for desktop and mobile. desktop was the obvious first step, but the aspect of a premium mobile game store is an interesting premise. And probably overly optimistic. I'm sure they will simply bend to the f2p GAAS model as much as Apple/Google did and simply want that platform cut.
There's also the matter of its own Unreal ecosystem it's building. It's letting kids use real (but watered down) UE tools to mod fortnite, which leads to future devs that make games in UE, which they can then publish to the EGS. Short of actual hardware, they seem to want full vertical integration of the game development process. And if Fornite money keeps flowing, I can see a 5+ year plan where they cover the hardware aspect as well.
I try to ignore his flamebate comments, so am really only aware of his dismissal of Linux support and paying to remove Linux support from games that already support it.
In what way is he openly hostile to gamers in general?
He has a history of whinging about Windows, and when suggestions of supporting Linux come up, since it's what Valve is doing to ensure they aren't trapped in a mono-system, Tim is argumentative in a bad faith way.
Previous discussions about Epics anti-Linux behaviour, but unfortunately the Tweets have since been deleted.
Is this what they want to support? To each their own, but I feel like relying on Wine to play linux games is like relying on an emulator to play your favorite legacy games. Or even mobile games for existing games. It's a nice option, but I'd always strive for native support where possible, because who knows what happens to emulators overtime (and yes, I know Wine Is Not an Emulator. Similar principles in relying on a middleman tool).
I won't buy a non-native Linux game that's not on steam. The steam Linux stuff "just works", I don't need to mess around with wine/wintricks/proton or different wrappers like lutris.
If the developers have a native Linux version that I can buy directly from their site, I might do that as well to show my support (but still buy it on steam since it's just too convenient).
I am on Linux and i vastly prefer DRM-free stores as i keep my own offline backups of games (and other software) i buy. As a result i have almost 1000 games from GOG, Zoom Platform and other non-Steam places.
In my experience 99% of the games work out of the box with wine-staging, DXVK and VKD3D-Proton (which works with wine-staging just fine). No need to mess around with anything, just install wine-string, install DXVK and VKD3D-Proton and you are ready to run pretty much everything with "wine installername.exe" or "wine gamebinary.exe".
I never had to use winetricks, lutris or anything of the sort.
I also play games on Steam and even got a Steam Deck (on which i also play games i got outside from Steam), so it isn't like i am Valve-free, but you certainly do not have to tie yourself on Steam if you are gaming on Linux nor your experience will be any worse.
> In my experience 99% of the games work out of the box with wine-staging, DXVK and VKD3D-Proton (which works with wine-staging just fine). No need to mess around with anything, just install wine-string, install DXVK and VKD3D-Proton and you are ready to run pretty much everything with "wine installername.exe" or "wine gamebinary.exe".
That sounds like a fair bit of domain-specific knowledge driven steps that could quickly got awry and lead a novice deep into frustration.
Compared to... Clicking the Play button in the Steam launcher, ideally from your Steam Deck.
It is OS-specific (not domain specific, i just know Linux) knowledge indeed but i'd assume someone who sticks with Linux, comments on HN and would prefer to use DRM-free games (and software) wouldn't have an issue installing a couple of programs. And really, also having Windows knowledge, aside from installing wine-staging, the process for getting DXVK and VKD3D-Proton working is similar to what you'd do on Windows to get buggy games to work (in fact some people do use DXVK with Windows[0]).
It isn't something i'd recommend to some random gamer (though judging from what i've seen people do with their Steam Decks i wouldn't underestimate gamers' technical abilities).
[0] like, say, me :-P. In 2020 i used Windows as my main OS after trying to switch to Linux as my main OS in 2018 but having some issues with games, but then i ended up having some visual glitches in a game that were fixed by throwing in DXVK. At that point i thought that this might actually be a sign that gaming on Linux now works fine - and indeed it did and since then i've being using it as my practically only OS because i can both work and game on it without feeling like i'm missing anything.
> You do realise that for most people they do not get buggy games to run.
I don't know what most people do as i am not most people, but i already addressed my expectations and assumptions on the first paragraph of the comment you replied to.
>That sounds like a fair bit of domain-specific knowledge driven steps that could quickly got awry and lead a novice deep into frustration.
I didn't know we got to the point where installing 3 packages was domain specific knowledge, especially for Linux users. I guess it explains why I feel s out of touch with people welcoming walled gardens with open arms.
> I guess it explains why I feel s out of touch with people welcoming walled gardens with open arms.
It's interesting, I hate walled gardens due to their restrictions, but I feel no restrictions regarding Steam. If anything, it enables me to enjoy my purchases more, not less.
I'd never use an iPhone because I hate the restrictiveness of their app store and how you cannot use whatever browser engine you want. I dislike consoles for the same reasons, I hate that I need to buy a switch and play on it (with it's inferior hardware) to enjoy Nintendo exclusives (yes, I am aware I can emulate their games and get a better experience). I hate Discord because they force you to use their client and still use mumble/IRC. There are probably examples of things I avoid because I don't want to support them.
I find Valve a completely different story. They've probably done more for Linux gaming than any other company. I am personally not inconvenienced by any of their restrictions. Like I previously said, in my mind, they add value to my game purchases, not remove it. I will gladly keep giving them my money, it's probably one of the few companies that I have strong positive feelings for.
Granted, I do remember being pissed off when they forced me to install Steam to play Half-life 2 back in 2004. Back then, it was a shit walled garden that provided no value. But since then, things have changed drastically.
>I feel no restrictions regarding Steam. If anything, it enables me to enjoy my purchases more, not less.
experiences are different. I play/read a lot of VN's and Valve's policies for approving those are like throwing darts on a board. I simply got tired of reading one VN and having its sequel mysteriously rejected a few years later. That's frustrating to both me as a gamer and the developers. I don't feel like picking up a pitchfork everytime and simply will avoid Steam whenever possible.
and on a very personal note, I find the Wine workaround as just that. another flimsy point of failure waiting until Microsoft does what it is historically known to do. It doesn't encourage much linux gaming for me nor does it make me feel like I'm supporting linux gaming by using it, because it's at the mercy of yet another conglomerate.
This is not my experience at all, I recently had to go through this dance to get D4 working. The latest versions of those things in the arch repositories don't/didn't work. Needed to get some older specific version, so now you can't use your package manager (since you can't have multiple versions). Then you need to mess around with paths and configs so that the correct versions are used.
I very quickly gave up and just used Lutris, copied someones settings/versions from Reddit and it worked, but I wasn't too happy. I _really_ wanted to try Diablo4, so I put up with it, but normally my patience for such things is pretty low.
I am not averse to messing around with things, I've got a pretty good idea of how things work in Linux. I've written my own .so files to fix bugs in closed source software using LD_PRELOAD. I just don't want to deal with that when gaming.
There's more to Steam than just the pre-configured proton. Their controller support stuff is top notch and so is the stream link/stream stuff. Not using steam would definitely make my experience worse.
> but Valve takes a significant tax from small companies
If you want, you can stick a static page onlinr and hook up stripe, and sell steam keys yourself. Valve offers a service; a marketplace, discovery, and a merchant system. Youre more than welcome to handle that yourself and see whether that "significant tax" is worth it.
And yet the developers do not have to pay the tax to use Valve’s roads. But if those developers choose to do so, they may get my business, which they otherwise were not likely to.
I do tend to think 30% is rather excessive but it's still standard across multiple things.. and I remember this talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs years ago from an indie guy, just a minor remark around the 27 minute point on how when you factor in the cost of doing everything steam does for you on your own, it suddenly isn't such a terrible cost. I have quibbles with that suggesting an all-or-nothing environment when that isn't the case, but the deal only gets even sweeter if you can take advantage of more of steam's offerings besides just being a place to host and sell your game.
On the consumer side too, steam makes things pretty frictionless. I can't say literally all of my budget on games is through steam, but it's over 95%. I was also happy that their steam deck I got recently, in addition to helping the linux ecosystem in theory, is actually not a piece of junk like the librem phone I finally got delivered this year and so helps it in reality too. (Though in the librem case that was expected even at pre-order time.)
They take a cut like any other storefront while also doing far more for me than any normal retailer ever has. I fail to see the problem unless you're just fundamentally against all forms of capitalism.
Also, what do you mean gamers complain about the price of games? Console, sure, with the new standard MSRP. But what does that have to do with Steam? Games are cheaper than they've ever been. One of the arguably best RPGs of recent times launched at 60 Euros with no microtransactions.
What exactly are you expecting? Do you want Valve to be a charity?
The Epic launcher is an unmitigated disaster that has barely improved in library management capabilities since it launched. I'm not sure if they fixed it but last I used it you literally could not see the download size of the game you're downloading and the controls for changing the queues are non-existent. The launcher is also the biggest resource hog of them all beating Origin and UPlay which is an achievement in itself. I am not wading through how troublesome it is to use what should be a fairly well featured launcher after 4 years of launch to support a "competitor". Discoverability on the store is also awful when Steam has been working on this space for over a decade to try and highlight indies. The reviews system is also incredibly inferior.
If I have to use some third party launcher to make up for what it lacks, I might as well use steam
Epic is a bublic company. Valve is a private company.
In Steam's terms, they make clear that they will do everything they can to maintain your access to your games, even if they close shop. Of course, that may not be much, but I think Valve cares more about the customer than any other company listed above.
> Of course, that may not be much, but I think Valve cares more about the customer than any other company listed above.
I've seen enough of the dark side of Valve to not trust that notion any more than any of Epic's promise. They haven't won that goodwill of "trust me" from me.
Besides, private companies scare me a tiny bit more in the grand scheme of things. A large company is evil, but boring. It's really hard for any new CEO to radically change the direction of a company in the short term. But Gabe won't live forever, and who knows who/what takes over later. taking action against a private company as a consumer is much harder than a public company that at least needs to care a bit about shareholders when making unpopular moves.
Fine, as long as some of the profits from my rent go towards development of the Linux gaming ecosystem. It may not be the best way through, but it's the most hopeful path forward at the moment.
A good point. Mine is 13 years old, and I've never once had a UX issue with the company where I felt that I didn't own the game. I know that the Terms of Service makes that possible, but in practice, the company's track record makes me delighted to do business with them.
Seems pretty cut and dry to me - you don't own the game.
A. General Content and Services License
Steam and your Subscription(s) require the download and installation of Content and Services onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms). This license ends upon termination of (a) this Agreement or (b) a Subscription that includes the license. The Content and Services are licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Content and Services. To make use of the Content and Services, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet.
I love it personally! I appreciate Proton, cloud saves, the ease of install, and sometimes even the Friends feature, with some games supporting just right clicking my friend and clicking Join game.
I think this is more of a Microsoft has dropped the ball, than Linux exceling.
I switched to Linux because Windows Filesystem was too unreliable with OneDrive hijacking it. (Also Cortana, auto open edge links, ads/ragebait news in the start menu)
But I needed something reliable, and Microsoft is no longer reliable.
It’s worth noting that Steam gaming on M1+ chips is nearly impossible. My library of hundreds of games yielded only a dozen titles that were playable, compared with about 20% of my library that runs on my Intel Mac. Publishers simply couldn’t care less about supporting Apple Silicon outside of a handful of mostly casual indie games. For as wonderful as Steam gaming on Linux has become, the Mac side has seemed to regress in equal measure.
Probably at least in part by design, as with everything else in MacWorld.. how is Apple well served by allowing a competing app store that's dominant in gaming?
I believe it's the opposite - more publishers will consider porting to Mac.
Previously, you could only play on desktop Macs with a discrete graphics card. But now there is a M1 Macbook with powerful graphics out of the box. And the install base is pretty big.
But it only will happen with the help from Apple. We already see the first attempts - Death Stranding will be available natively on M1 Macs.
> We already see the first attempts - Death Stranding will be available natively on M1 Macs.
We see those first steps every year, Apple always has some big developer showing a game running on the Mac and then nothing relevant actually happens beyond that.
Agreed. Death Stranding was released for Windows over three years ago. A better example might be Larian Studios releasing Baldur’s Gate 3 natively from the beginning of early access.
Microsoft is trying to replace Chrome on Windows with Edge pretty hard. How far are we from Windows Store popping up when trying to buy a game on Steam and offering a discount or informing you that the game is on Game Pass?
It's 2023. Pretty much everyone is using Unreal Engine, Unity or Godot for the bravest. Custom renderers are a thing of the past. The reason game developers don't release on macOS and Linux is the costs of testing and supporting the platforms, not the availability of the renderers.
Specially since Android games, developed mostly with the NDK (C/C++/OpenGL ES/Vulkan/OpenSL), could be easily ported to GNU/Linux, yet studios don't even bother.
Your site lists Linux Vulkan as "Support in 3rd party drivers not guaranteed" when its supported by every driver relevant for gaming. The same comment is there for Linux OpenGL which is just plainly absurd. Not a site anyone should use as a reference.
I believe it. Game support under linux is fine. I don't even bother to check compatibility. I also have an M1. It can't play anything. No Proton, no 32 bit games, it's useless.
Due to Microsoft's Forced OneDrive on Windows 11, I installed my first ever Linux OS on my main (high performance) laptop.
It took a few hours of messing around until I finally decided to follow the Asus-Linux tutorial, which worked flawlessly. My suggestion for anyone looking to make the jump, follow a tutorial. (I thought my tech skills would be enough, but there are some gotchas)
Anyway I installed Steam last night! (And ran into an issue playing Dwarf Fortress, classic Linux... but at least I don't have to worry about M$ hijacking my filesystem anymore!)
You'll find, as I have, that laptops and Linux distributions/DEs don't always play well together (lid closing/reopening, suspend/hibernate, keyboard backlight, function key alternate media controls, trackpad, etc). It's sometimes a shot in the dark if not buying from a company that helps guarantee Linux support/compatibility for all the hardware in the system (Dell XPS 13 plus developer, System 76, etc).
That's great there was a tutorial that got everything working well, especially for your specific setup! I'm also now running Linux as my only operating system on my gaming desktop machine (I run Arch, btw ;D ). Steam/Proton and Lutris make gaming a relative cinch now, and I've been hoping for this since I first started with Linux in 1999.
I have a cheap laptop that runs Manjaro and Steam. I use it exclusively for gaming at this point. Mostly some older games. But it works great. Most games I have work fine, even though the intel GPU is a bit limiting. I'm considering buying something with more oompf at some point.
It strikes me that with all the progress on getting Linux working on the M1, getting Steam going there should also be doable and I think it already partially works.
But of course Valve could double down on getting proton working on mac os as well. I don't think that there are many fundamental blockers for that beyond the dealing with metal instead of vulkan and intel vs arm. And they could fall back to using e.g. qemu.
It's probably a bit of work but it's also a rich market of people used to spending money on expensive hardware that might be tempted to buy lots of Steam games if it becomes easy enough. And of course they have an insane catalog of older games that aren't that demanding that probably run fine even in an emulator. I bet this would piss Apple off a lot though but I'm not sure they'd be able to do much about it.
Ehh, I don't know how much Wine is integrated on the MacOS version, but AFAIK it was a subpar version compared to the Linux one.
Don't be fooled by the numbers, while we advanced a lot, Windows compatibility is a wild animal and Wine/Proton is still broken for a lot of things. I'm not sure if we will ever get full compatibility, but concurrent MacOS support looks like a great undertaking. It might be possible though.
You have to pay me to use Windows and macOS. After speeding years using both products, I don't want to use them any more unless I'm getting paid. I personally do not need any software that is tied to either platform. Professional, depends on what needs to be done.
Not all have this view and nor most will.
Hard-core gamer will most likely keeping on Windows unless developers and distributors change their ways.
Some people buy a computer because of the OS it is running and they need select applications to run. Most only need a web browser and it does not matter what OS they run, often it is the least expensive laptop. Something that has a bigger screen than a smart-phone.
Windows backwards capability is also limited. Gaming: never was able to get Slave Zero running on a Windows XP box, only Win98. Development: had to ignore the input event system Microsoft designed for WinForms and WPF, using Win32 message pump directly, because of faulty drivers and new features breaking backward capability.
My "dual booting for occasional games" Windows for some reason stopped working, and it was quicker to figure out gaming on Linux. With Lutris Diablo 4 worked perfectly, Baldur's Gate 3 has some issues (very rare error, Directx instead Vulkan - it's slower than I would expect on my hardware, not sure if Linux is the issue).
Steam (or the publishers) also tend to hinder the Mac versions unfairly: Some games are marked as being incompatible with macOS Catalina and above, but they run just fine.
I think large numbers of non-technical people make a conscious choice of OS when asking 'do I get a PC or a Mac'. Familiarity, compatibility with apps, games etc. I've not met a non-technical user actively choose Linux (or not complain if it's pre-installed). It's an anecdote but backed up by the numbers.
Only now? Considering how Apple has neglected gaming, and especially considering that most Mac games on Steam are 32-bit, which no macOS version released within the past 4 years can even run?
it would be cool if indie / open source game development would make linux more attractive to a wider population of gamers. with the cloudification of everything they are one of the few remaining demographics that values serious "local" hardware. but the nature of compute intensive modern game development seems so extremely large budget that such a grassroots efforts stand little chance. the linux desktop definitely feels like waiting for godot [1] :-)
With the Proton compatibility layer, the Microsoft Windows versions of Battlebit, Squad and Warno perform perfectly on Debian - I don't even think about it. Steam gaming on Linux Just Works !
Since there are so few games available for macOS, I signed up for GeForce NOW, and I don't look back. I have a feeling that native gaming might be slowly replaced by cloud gaming.
Steam is the worst application on macOS I use. It can't even scroll the game collection at 60fps and when I launch a game without Steam open I need wait 15 seconds to see the actual game's loading screen or 30+ if Steam decides to update. It's so slow that if you told me it's emulating an entire Windows environment, I would believe you.
It's just an application launcher, a glorified Start menu. I would never choose to use it, it's forced on me because of the Steam store.
Consoles purposefully add a big barrier for indies, so that doesn't help. I'm sure many devs would love to support console but lack the resources. I can't think of a single AAA/AA game that is PC exclusive.
Well, I don’t own a console, just a Mac. There are a number of games on Steam I’d like to play, but they are PC only. Perhaps they are also available on consoles, but I wouldn’t know.
Macs have many of the same problems as consoles with exclusive SDKs and custom graphics stacks (Metal) but without the benefit of the console manufacturer working to make it (relatively) easy to make and sell games on their platform.
Really depends on the game. Aside from my multiplayer shooters, I played all my games on Linux. And these shooters would work too, if not for the pesky anti-cheats. If you'd like, you can check if the Steam game would work on Linux with this tool: https://www.protondb.com/app/1174180
I'm personally using Debian testing with KDE, but as long as Steam works, you should be fine. Zorin is also a nice out of the box experience.
I don't own any Apple product so I might be wrong, but wouldn't it be highly impractical to run touch-screen oriented app/game on a device with keyboard/mouse input?
Also while we at it, imma include Android into the fold and curb stomp every other OS.
looked up: video game industry is $190bn and lootbox is $19bn market. iOS therefore cannot be the most popular platform, despite it possibly with highest mental share for some.
There's such a deep seeded, systemic bias against linux that it actually can never win, to any degree or magnitude, because the moment it starts winning we just move the goal-posts for the flimsiest of reasons to ensure it can't quite claim that victory.
Linux is obviously and clearly the most popular operating system kernel on the planet. Oh, no, that's no good a measure, servers are messy, let's refine it to most popular consumer operating system kernel? Oh... it, could also reasonably claim that title? No no, no Android, that doesn't count. Nope, No Chrome OS either, you can't have that, that's, well, that is linux, but its not. Just nice, pure, desktop linux, yes, perfect, arch linux, kde desktop, that'll never trend up and thus is the perfect new-new definition of desktop linu--wait hold up, I'm getting word this is, not possible, its actually SteamOS? Nope, kill it, that's not desktop linux either, kill it.