5 ms·

Slightly, but only slightly exaggerated. It's not cost-effective to support a platform with such small user-base, especially when it is a crapshoot of specs on

Slightly, but only slightly exaggerated. It's not cost-effective to support a platform with such small user-base, especially when it is a crapshoot of specs on the order of 90s PC gaming. Probably much simpler just to make a solid Windows build that plays nicely with WINE.

likeclockwork 8y ago
The Steam hardware survey doesn't really support your claims about Linux hardware specs vs Windows: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... Let alone MacOS, which is more supported than Linux but has comparatively much poorer hardware stats.
- jonas21 8y ago
  According to your link, 0.81% of Steam users are running Linux. And they're spread out over a number of distributions, with the largest share at 0.20% for Ubuntu 18.04. Seems to support the claim that it's a very small and fragmented user base.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    The post you replied to is about hardware specs, not the size of the user base.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Which is filled with broken driver experiences, and a pleothora of distributions.
      - squarefoot 8y ago
        It wouldn't be that hard to put a couple developers of each major distro around a table then have them decide that when the user installs say the gaming_mode package, a well defined and standardized set of kernel+libraries+devices gets installed/created along with a new Grub boot option should that conflict with current versions.
        pjmlp 8y ago
        It would work as easy as having a desktop_mode, audio_mode package, .... /s In case you missed it, that was the point of Steam Machines, and the respective distribution. A mere 1% of Valve customers.
      - Sir_Substance 8y ago
        I gather from your comment that it's been a while since you refreshed your knowledge of the current state of linux. Graphics card driver issues largely stopped being a problem about 4 years ago, with both major graphics card manufacturers committing to open source drivers. Packaging for multiple distributions is a problem that I would call "solved" for the past ~2 years, see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Maybe that is why AMD open source drivers still doesn't properly support my travel notebook APU. So where is the great hardware video decoding and the GL features fxgl was capable of?
        jnurmine 8y ago
        Accelerated video support is in the amdgpu driver which supports va-api (and vdpau).
        pjmlp 8y ago
        It doesn't support my AMD card, which was doing perfectly fine with fxgl, and DX11 on the Windows side.
        jnurmine 8y ago
        I take it your card is pretty old. There's always an option of staying at an older OS (like Ubuntu pre 16.04) to keep fglrx. What is your AMD card, by the way?
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Brazos APU. So the solution is to stay on a legacy kernel, with the security risks it entails, while my Windows 10 can perfectly make use of the DX 11 drivers.
- thrower123 8y ago
  I was referring more to the variations of distributions, and the subsystems and drivers and other gunk that makes a big surface area. I've had enough trouble with pulseaudio and Intel graphics drivers and flaky Synaptics crap just on my own machines.

likeclockwork 8y ago

The Steam hardware survey doesn't really support your claims about Linux hardware specs vs Windows: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw... Let alone MacOS, which is more supported than Linux but has comparatively much poorer hardware stats.

jonas21 8y ago
According to your link, 0.81% of Steam users are running Linux. And they're spread out over a number of distributions, with the largest share at 0.20% for Ubuntu 18.04. Seems to support the claim that it's a very small and fragmented user base.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  The post you replied to is about hardware specs, not the size of the user base.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Which is filled with broken driver experiences, and a pleothora of distributions.
    - squarefoot 8y ago
      It wouldn't be that hard to put a couple developers of each major distro around a table then have them decide that when the user installs say the gaming_mode package, a well defined and standardized set of kernel+libraries+devices gets installed/created along with a new Grub boot option should that conflict with current versions.
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        It would work as easy as having a desktop_mode, audio_mode package, .... /s In case you missed it, that was the point of Steam Machines, and the respective distribution. A mere 1% of Valve customers.
    - Sir_Substance 8y ago
      I gather from your comment that it's been a while since you refreshed your knowledge of the current state of linux. Graphics card driver issues largely stopped being a problem about 4 years ago, with both major graphics card manufacturers committing to open source drivers. Packaging for multiple distributions is a problem that I would call "solved" for the past ~2 years, see my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19844241
      - pjmlp 8y ago
        Maybe that is why AMD open source drivers still doesn't properly support my travel notebook APU. So where is the great hardware video decoding and the GL features fxgl was capable of?
        jnurmine 8y ago
        Accelerated video support is in the amdgpu driver which supports va-api (and vdpau).
        pjmlp 8y ago
        It doesn't support my AMD card, which was doing perfectly fine with fxgl, and DX11 on the Windows side.
        jnurmine 8y ago
        I take it your card is pretty old. There's always an option of staying at an older OS (like Ubuntu pre 16.04) to keep fglrx. What is your AMD card, by the way?
        pjmlp 8y ago
        Brazos APU. So the solution is to stay on a legacy kernel, with the security risks it entails, while my Windows 10 can perfectly make use of the DX 11 drivers.
thrower123 8y ago
I was referring more to the variations of distributions, and the subsystems and drivers and other gunk that makes a big surface area. I've had enough trouble with pulseaudio and Intel graphics drivers and flaky Synaptics crap just on my own machines.