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I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this. The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dolla

by lumost 5y ago

I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this. The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
>I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this Not even in the slightest. Linux marketshare is still insignificant to even Chromebooks. This is just the echo chamber that is HN that thinks Linux is bigger than it is. Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01% Edit: I love how HN downvotes because someone gives them a reality check on their beloved Linux. I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
- capableweb 5y ago
  > Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01% I'm not part of the group that downvoted you, but why would the only people touching Linux be CS majors? I'm not a CS major and I think most people I know that voluntarily use Linux on a daily basis isn't neither.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors. You pull any random business major and they barely understand Excel. You eliminate all college majors and the average person that uses Linux has already plummeted. Regular every day computer uses want cheap and easy. Linux is cheap but not very easy, especially if you have no clue what your doing. Sure you can go into a forum on what to do, but what person that knows nothing of computers and doesn't intend on going into the field will bother with learning this stuff? Even myself I find it tedious and I know what I'm doing or can at least learn it pretty easily.
    - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
      “ most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors” As someone who taught in an accounting school where awareness of Linux was higher than you state, I can tell you this is false. Give it up already, face the fact that Linux is more popular and well-known than you want it to be, for whichever reason.
    - indymike 5y ago
      > I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors. Android is a Linux distribution it is the #1 phone OS (73% market share this year). ChromeOS is a Linux distribution and is the leading OS by market share in K-12 schools. Both are cheap and easy. In ChromeOS's case, they are easier for both administrators to manage and users. I'm also sure the students using Chromebooks have not completed their CS degrees yet, but one can hope.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        And yet zero of Android and ChromeOS games come into GNU/Linux. Linux community likes to pat themselves on the back thanks to Android and ChromeOS using the Linux kernel, yet they are oblivious to the fact that Linux syscalls aren't part of the official stable API, only certain ChromeOS models do run Linux (a yet another guest OS, WSL style), and then what GNU/Linux gets are Electron apps.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Talanes 5y ago
      >You pull any random business major and they barely understand Excel. I'm not sure you could pull any random Linux user and have them truly understand Excel either.
      - pxc 5y ago
        > I'm not sure you could pull any random Linux user and have them truly understand Excel either. As a Linux user who did not major in business, I bet your odds with Linux users would be markedly worse than with business majors on this one, hahaha
  - pxc 5y ago
    Not to mention that Linux also has users who never went to college
    - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
      I knew this comment would get brought up haha. God this site is filled with pretentious and anal people who nit pick everything.
- blibble 5y ago
  every Android phone runs Linux...
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Which isn't part of the public APIs, https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis
    - blibble 5y ago
      I'm not really sure what your point is the NT native kernel API is also undocumented
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Exactly, that is why applications that don't want to break with each OS update don't touch those APIs, making them irrelevant for application developers. Also, contrary to Windows, since Android 7, applications that link to undocumented APIs get terminated as security measure. Ask the termux guys how much fun they are having by refusing to acknowledge the fact that they have to use JNI and not Linux syscalls for their stuff.
        blibble 5y ago
        > Also, contrary to Windows, since Android 7, applications that link to undocumented APIs get terminated as security measure. "undocumented" has nothing to do with it there is a sandbox, syscalls are checked by seccomp and those not explicitly permitted will result in termination of the application it doesn't care where the syscall comes from, be that libc, golang style, or calling svc #0 yourself additionally: the kernel is open source... there are no "undocumented" syscalls this also has nothing to do with the original point
        pjmlp 5y ago
        Sure it has, because it doesn't matter if it is open source or not, if it is a stable API described on the NDK documentation it is not allowed. Something that termux guys are having some issues to swallow, regarless of Linux being the kernel, it is not allowed to do what they want, wrapping Java APIs via JNI is the only allowed way.
- ben-schaaf 5y ago
  Unlike Android, Chrome OS is actually a full fledged desktop GNU/Linux distribution. It's Gentoo-based (used to be Ubuntu) and runs desktop Linux apps. Though even outside of that you'd be surprised where people have unknowingly used Linux. ATMs, Point-Of-Sale, Infotainment (Planes/Cars), public transit, arcades, etc. I'd estimate that a majority of people have had some interaction with a Linux-based system. > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. One of my grandparents runs Ubuntu and they're able to handle their email and documents just fine. Arguably better than the others who run macOS/Windows. You can find plenty of similar anecdotes online; if all you need is a browser and possibly basic word processing it's not all that different.
  - hparadiz 5y ago
    It's not Gentoo based. It just uses portage as a package manager in dev mode. ChromeOS has it's own rendering system separate from X and Wayland entirely.
- indymike 5y ago
  > Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01% Android. I'd say a huge percentage of computing device users have Linux in their pocket and quite literally touch linux on regular basis. > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. I've done this, 10 years ago with my aging Mom and Dad and it worked well. Stock Kubuntu works closely enough to Windows, Chrome and Firefox are identical, the built in photo manager and video players just worked, and it put an end to malware and viruses. Please donate the $1000 to a local food bank, please. I do not what the check. Two weeks ago, my son and I re-purposed a three year old cryptocoin mining desktop into a gaming machine. We loaded it up with Kubuntu and Steam and ... well, I thought I'd have to install Windows. No problems. Proton lived up to the hype.
  - icemelt8 5y ago
    I don't get it WHY? When Windows is more user friendly and has better software?
- marcodiego 5y ago
  > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. This is what I call the "Granma case". Considering the uses case is very well defined and the possibility of using exotic hardware and services and basically never needing to install any software; this is the situation where linux shines the brightest. My mom has being using linux having 0 idea what it was and needed 0 assistance to browse the web, access social networks, see photographs and videos and listen to music. That's all she does and any modern linux is much better than windows for this specific use case. No need to care about anti-virus, degrading performance, malware, advertisements... it is perfect for that.
  - sizeofchar 5y ago
    I do the same with my parents in law, and it’s been like 8 years without call for maintenance, if not for the very rare Ubuntu upgrade.
  - skohan 5y ago
    Yeah honestly 99% of what most casual user do on a computer is in the browser, and Linux does that just fine. And it's way less noisy in terms of random notifications, upgrade spam etc. so it is not a bad choice for unsophisticated users. Also things don't randomly move around so much between upgrades like they do on commercial OS's.
- blondin 5y ago
  i understand what you are trying to say. people mentioning android have forgotten that android hides many parts of linux. and manufacturers make sure your device hardware works well with the operating system. other have mentioned relatives who are using linux on desktop. that they are doing limited activities such as browsing and emails. that's fair but the story of how they discovered linux would be the most interesting one. which brings me to op's cs majors point. so many things have changed that we should not dismiss the claim but think about it. do happenstances of the past still present themselves to people today. i discovered linux through a pc magazine back in the late 90s. pc magazines back then offered young people like myself at the time a way to try new things on the computer. and i did try everything. what is the equivalent of that nowadays?
- Agentlien 5y ago
  I did do the same with my father-in-law, about ten years ago. I installed Ubuntu on his laptop and he used it for work (photo editing, writing articles, etc.) without any complaints until he got a new one from work a few years later.
- therouwboat 5y ago
  What? My mom has been using linux for 5 years and I don't think she even knows what windows or linux is. She calls her computer "the memory" or "that box".
- bigbob2 5y ago
  I used to work in a small computer shop and there were some (presumably) 60-70 year olds who I wouldn't consider to be computer literate in the least running Ubuntu and even other distros. There were at least a couple people who refused to use any other OS including Windows. One such customer always referred to their beloved Ubuntu as "Ukabuntu" for some reason.
- Talanes 5y ago
  >I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. My father is tech illiterate enough that he manually searches and navigates to the unemployment website each week rather than figure out bookmarks. He's been on an Ubuntu laptop a friend gave him since late last year. I kept expecting to have to walk him through it, but it hasn't happened yet.
- approxim8ion 5y ago
  I honestly don't think giving my parent who didn't know jack about computers Windows and telling them to figure it out would be a necessarily pleasant alternative either. How about we show some compassion and take time to help people around things, especially when they are people we care about and things we care about as well?
Causality1 5y ago
No chance at all. There are more gamers with pirated Windows than there are Linux gamers.
- skohan 5y ago
  So you cannot imagine a world, say 5-10 years from now, where 100% of games work on Linux, where PC game enthusiasts choose a cheaper and equally capable OS?
  - 0-_-0 5y ago
    You can get a key for 5-10$ and the Windows 10 crack KMSpico is one of the most downloaded torrents. Cheaper doesn't work as a value proposition, it has to be better than Windows for people to change in large numbers and get used to a new OS. On the other hand, knowing gamers, I'm pretty sure many would change if games on Linux were 2% faster... (higher fps)
    - skohan 5y ago
      Arguably Linux is a better UX than Windows, but I know it's a matter of opinion.
fastssd 5y ago
You are not required to pay the windows license fee. You can simply download an ISO off of Microsoft's website and use it, you only get a watermark in the corner.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  Every budget gaming computer I built for friends was like this because budget.
- notimrelakatos 5y ago
  You are always paying Microsoft, one way or the other.
  - ric2b 5y ago
    Death and Windows licensing fees, like B. Franklin said.
- hellcow 5y ago
  It's worth noting that the watermark is always visible in the corner, even in games.
  - rygine 5y ago
    you can run a script that will remove the watermark for ~4 hours. you can run it as many times as you’d like, just requires a restart. since i never play a game for that long, it works out great.
- cute_boi 5y ago
  but now you are going to pay with your data just like facebook etc?
  - tlamponi 5y ago
    You're doing that either way, just like you're going to see ads regardless of whether you paid $$$ for a Windows license, pirated a key or just life with the water-mark and other limits of an unlicensed Windows.
tester756 5y ago
>The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig. I wonder how many people actually pay for Windows, since you don't have to activate it in order to use.
- enlyth 5y ago
  I bought a Windows 10 key from eBay once for about five dollars, it didn't work so I called Microsoft support and they activated my copy for free, I don't think they care that much.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- GeckoEidechse 5y ago
  I help decommissioning old Windows PCs for a relative of mine. Whenever a device gets thrown in the bin I note down it's activation key. Haven't had to pay for a Windows key in years ^^
CitrusFruits 5y ago
Sad to say, but Linux just isn't a good experience for gaming yet. Even if games work, there's usually caveats (like needing to be run through some sort of emulation) and they almost always run faster and in a more stable manner than Windows. Most people I know are more than happy to pay that premium compared to the hassle of dealing with Linux. Also, a lot of those savvy enough to use Linux will just crack Windows or get a key at a discount through a reseller.
- noobermin 5y ago
  This on a post of using steam on linux. Proton is "emulation" for some of the listed but it's pretty good emulation. It requires no savvy, open steam and play.
- CoolGuySteve 5y ago
  In Steam you just click the play button and it launches the game under Proton. It’s very rare to have issues if the game is rated Platinum in protondb and sometimes a setting in the Steam GUI needs to be changed if it’s gold or silver. All in all I find it significantly less annoying than dealing with Windows’ ads and forced updates.
  - viceroyalbean 5y ago
    The user experience is pretty smooth from a high-level perspective but there are often performance issues from the emulation. Not a huge issue in many situations but not flawless either.
    - Retric 5y ago
      The question then becomes if extra 100$ worth of hardware balances out these issues. For 500$ machines it clearly does, but I don’t know about the 1000$ price point.
    - y4mi 5y ago
      Steams Linux support (proton) is forked from wine. So no, it doesn't emulate. Performance can still be an issue, mostly because the Nvidia graphics drivers are performing worse on Linux vs on Windows.
smoldesu 5y ago
It's hard to say for sure... if you're interested in more competitive, trendy shooters, then you're out of luck. Rainbow Six Siege and Fortnite are both perpetually broken, which makes it a pretty hard sell to the up-and-coming audience of younger nerds. On the other hand, the games it does work with are nearly flawless. I play Overwatch, Splitgate, and Battlefield online pretty regularly without issue, and single-player titles like The Sims, Rimworld and Noita function out-of-the-box. With more and more games "just working" on the platform, I think in 2 or 3 years it will be particularly competitive with Windows 11. Today though? It's a bit of a mixed bag.
macNchz 5y ago
I built a pretty beefy workstation last year, mostly for software dev but with a high end GPU so I could check out new games. I installed Ubuntu and Windows 10 on it from the start and figured I’d boot into Windows to play games, but so far basically everything I’ve wanted to play has run fine on Linux. I haven’t booted into Windows in months.
- skohan 5y ago
  Similar story for me. I installed Ubuntu a few years ago to try out proton, fully expecting to boot most of the time into Windows, and I could count on one hand the number of times I have used Windows in the past year.
- Fjolsvith 5y ago
  I'm about a month into Linux Mint, and the only game I have trouble with is Eve. I replaced all OS on all of my machines except one, my Blue Iris workstation. Blue Iris doesn't run well on Wine.
pjmlp 5y ago
It didn't happen with Steam Machines, and it won't happen now.
- skohan 5y ago
  Have you tried Proton? It works great, and Valve is bringing quality first-party hardware this time around by every indication. I don't think Linux will replace Windows for gaming any time soon, but Linux gaming has a very real value proposition in a way it didn't just a few years ago.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    I should I ever bother with a 2nd class experience. https://www.howtogeek.com/688970/what-was-ibms-os2-and-why-did-it-matter/ https://www.howtogeek.com/688970/what-was-ibms-os2-and-why-d...
    - imtringued 5y ago
      There is no first class experience if you are forced to use windows.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Definitely wrong, when the games are designed for Windows in first place, enjoy your Steam Machine.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
queuebert 5y ago
By then we'll have Microsoft Linux, for only $15, with mostly stolen code.
- drran 5y ago
  s/stolen/copiloted/
- thefr0g 5y ago
  PS /c:/Home/user$ which rm /usr/Programs (x86)/del
aseipp 5y ago
I mean, if you're just curious if literally anyone will do it, sure. Because you can (due to selection bias of Hacker News) find plenty of people here willing to say so. My prediction is twofold. First, that there's very, very little chance this will any have measurable impact on the overall proportion of Steam/PC gamers who use Windows. Solutions like Steam Deck will be the most popular venue for Proton, but this will actually sell the best with people who will keep using Windows. Why wouldn't it? As someone who games a lot, the only reason I would want one is to have my already existing library on the go. It essentially solves that "I wish this was on Switch" problem, especially for indie games. But I don't think of my Switch as a replacement for my PC, either. From this POV, it's fine if some things don't work (I'm no Warzone/Apex/League addict) or the mobile performance constrains things a little, because the accessibility and my game library is overall enough to offset some of those issues. But actual Windows gamers who use Windows exclusively, and are going to suddenly see the Steam Deck or Proton and be like, "Wow, now I'm going to use Linux, and move over my whole game library since it's obviously so great", who aren't already software engineering/SRE/existing Linux users? Practically non-existent, or so little in number to be non-existent, I'd predict. They don't even really pay for the Windows license as another comment pointed out, the OEMs do and this subsidizes the product (along with mass volume) even further. This is related to my original point: the reason your question is even getting responses in the positive isn't because there's some massive contingency of Windows gamers looking to throw away their install. It's because you're asking on Hacker News.
- skohan 5y ago
  What do you mean "move over my whole game library"? All you have to do is install steam and use it just like you would on Windows.
tmpz22 5y ago
OEMs buy licenses in bulk they do not pay $100 a pop and it doesn’t get passed onto the user as a full $100 add on. Similarly if you’re building it yourself you can buy for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly legitimate.
- gpderetta 5y ago
  As someone that was looking to buy a Windows key, finding a legitimate reseller is a non-trivial task.
  - cdumler 5y ago
    Are there recommendations?
    - maccard 5y ago
      Why not go straight to the horses mouth? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows
      - rdpintqogeogsaa 5y ago
        Can confirm, that's the most straightforward way.
      - jorams 5y ago
        The statement that started the talk about resellers was: > Similarly if you’re building it yourself you can buy for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly legitimate. The horses mouth charges $140+, which is significantly more than the $100 that was about.
    - cenal 5y ago
      If you only need a single copy you are best suited buying from Microsoft directly. If you need multiple copies you can work with a VAR (Value Added Reseller) to get better pricing. CDW.com is the big name in VAR's but they have enormous turnover in staff. I try to build relationships with smaller VAR's. I like these guys: https://greenbeetech.com/ https://greenbeetech.com/ it's a small company with two guys running it who have decades of VAR experience (former CDW people). Navigating the process of compliantly licensing Microsoft as you scale up is quite a job. Having a good partner to help your organization stay compliant is very valuable.
Zababa 5y ago
People pay $100 for Windows? There are licenses on ebay for less than 5€ in Europe.
- tlamponi 5y ago
  If you buy a laptop here it's ~100€ cheaper without an OS or Linux on it, so even if you want to use Windows you should buy the cheaper version and get a 5€ OEM key or the like. An additional benefit to that: less HW vendor crap installed. At least that was the case with the Lenovo laptops I personally and also the company I work for (Linux shop) bought.
  - novok 5y ago
    I think what you are being charged is a form of retail markup, by lenovo. They are paying $10-$15 max for that license. It wouldn't make sense on their cheaper laptops where they do not give you the option of linux or no OS, otherwise the laptop would lose money. AFAIK the PC market is low margin, and the only place they really get margin is from all the crap ware they 'offer' and stuff like margins on windows licenses and such. I think microsoft has realized the real price for windows is $10 too, which is why they are adding all the adware crap in it. Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Windows 12 might be free. And then have premium sub with more features like O365...
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      >Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it. I'm sure that is where we are heading in the long term. I used to spend a lot of money on software for my business, now the majority of what I use is free. I can't see Microsoft being able to escape that forever.
- Qi_ 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
dogma1138 5y ago
Work and work well are two different things and most importantly the question is what’s in those 72% because you have like 1% of Steam games which have like 80% of the player base at any given moment and a lot of AAA titles and popular multiplayer games don’t work on Linux or can even get you banned if you play them due to anticheat issues. Also if you bought Windows 7 so far you could’ve updated it upto 11 without paying anything extra if you leveraged the update Windows that Microsoft offered.
- pdpi 5y ago
  The list is precisely composed of that 1% — it’s 36 out of the top 50 games by max concurrent players.
  - dogma1138 5y ago
    Out of the top 10, 6 are “No Go” and technically 7 if you count the fact that the player count for GTA V is based on GTA Online which still constantly issues bans when running on Linux due to anti cheat mishaps. This list also overlooks other very popular games that aren’t on Steam like Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite…
    - Crespyl 5y ago
      > This list also overlooks other very popular games that aren’t on Steam Well yes, it is, as the title makes pretty clear, the top 50 games on Steam. That said, non-Steam games can work just fine with Proton, wrappers like Lutris make this only a couple clicks more than Steam. Fortnite is limited by EAC: https://lutris.net/games/fortnite/ https://lutris.net/games/fortnite/, and I'm not very familiar with Warzone but I suspect it's a similar situation.
      - dogma1138 5y ago
        Non native multiplayer games are quite often a no go, which was my gripe with putting GTA V on the list since the concurrent player base is nearly all due to GTAO and if you run it on Linux through proton you risk a ban.
xeromal 5y ago
I'm just comfortable with Windows and I have no reason to move off of it until the transition to linux is so seamless that I barely have to do anything.
- ismayilzadan 5y ago
  After trying to install and debug countless wifi/gpu drivers on debian distros during my university years, I jumped to the same boat as you and just continued using Windows. I pretty much gave up on linux desktop. However, last week (it has been 6 years after my graduation) after seeing many articles on Microsoft, Windows 11 and Manjaro Linux, I decided to give Manjaro a test from bootable usb drive on my new HP touch screen laptop. Everything works without opening terminal once! This is seamless enough for me.
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  Same. I use linux for work but windows for gaming. The linux gaming experience is 90% the way there, but that 10% of the time where you have to scour forums, bug reports, install custom versions of mesa to work with your gpu, etc… is not worth the effort. I will probably give linux gaming another try in a few years but if it doesn’t “just work” I’m going back to windows for gaming.
lpcvoid 5y ago
As long as you use a AMD GPU, life is sweet. Nvidia is a lot more pain to get working - AMD is part of the kernel.
- josefx 5y ago
  A lot harder meaning: knows hot to install a program on Linux if the distro of choice doesn't outright ask to install the correct driver.
  - lpcvoid 5y ago
    No, I mean specifically things like Optimus on dual GPU laptops. Also, even if the distros do in fact either install automatically or provide a method to install it, there is simply no need to even do this on an AMD system. And then there's the matter of AMDGPU being complete open source, while Nvidia's offering is not. And don't even start on Nvidia's slow pace to properly support Wayland.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    There's the never let your GPU get old too. But since this is about gaming, it isn't very relevant.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  Nvidia just requires installing one extra package... It hasn't been an issue for a while now. The nvidia driver actually works very well... The amdgpu driver wprks well but still has issues with suspend/hibernate. I'd say they are about the same IMO.
  - fgonzag 5y ago
    Except for Wayland, and KDE stuttering. I have an AMD and an Nvidia PC, both running Manjaro. AMD is really much less problematic than Nvidia for Linux.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Only if it is a recent generation AMD card. Good luck with older cards, ignored by the open source driver.
Philip-J-Fry 5y ago
Windows costs like £5 max. All you need is an OEM key. Yeah, you might need a new one if you change enough components but it ain't gonna break the bank once every few years.
- judge2020 5y ago
  To add, if you succumb to using a Microsoft account for your main Windows account, it seems you can swap out hardware a lot more without losing your license (although I imagine you can't swap out hardware and reinstall at the same time). I've had this one key since 2015 with many upgrades, including motherboard+cpu swaps, hard drive swaps, and a few reinstalls, and haven't lost the license.
  - noasaservice 5y ago
    So did you name your computer Theseus? :)
  - tyrfing 5y ago
    With some trickery you only need the MS account for setup. You can also transfer the key to a completely new system. With a bit more time to prune services/apps and set up something like simplewall to block everything else, you have a pretty decent setup. Sure, it's not FOSS, but neither is Steam or any of those games. Looking at my personal selection of long-tail games, about 1/3 work perfectly on Linux, another 1/3 don't work at all, and the last 1/3 have various levels of yak-shaving tweaking settings before they run well. That last 1/3 is why I went back to Windows years ago.
    - skohan 5y ago
      If you went back years ago, you might have missed how good Linux gaming has gotten recently.
      - tyrfing 5y ago
        I understand that, it's why I went down my list of games to check the current state. A lot seem to work very well now, some are completely broken due to anticheat systems, and many still have discussion of tweaks and versions to coax them into running decently. Seems like singleplayer games mostly work very well.
gundamdoubleO 5y ago
I find it pretty hard to believe anyone with the knowledge to build their own rig is not getting Windows through other potentially dubious means.
- massysett 5y ago
  I built my own rig and bought Windows directly from Microsoft, under no circumstance am I going to risk my security by rummaging around in shady places for something as critical as an operating system.
  - 0-_-0 5y ago
    You can download the ISO directly from MS and still get a key for 5$
- lumost 5y ago
  I’d also go out on a small limb and bet that most gaming rigs are at least partially OEM. I have the knowledge to put together my own gaming/dev workstation - but I’d rather just get a prebuilt that isn’t going to become a timesuck of crappy boot times then swap some components.
notjustanymike 5y ago
I would 100% move to Linux if I was guaranteed the conviniences of windows, but that seems unlikely. When I'm in the mood for gaming, the last thing I want to deal with is technical issues. Windows has some, but they're bearable. Not sure if I can tolerate any more though.
- novok 5y ago
  Yeah me too. What keeps me on windows for my desktop is a couple of pro image library software packages and games. $15 is well worth my time to not deal with the unreliability of linux. I could use a mac, but they don't have justifiable storage costs and external storage is annoying, costs more and is less reliable than internal storage, and macs don't do games well anyway and I just built a new mini-ITX sized PC. Apple is also going down a path in computing I don't like, so I don't know if they are that viable too...
yepthatsreality 5y ago
This has already been happening and the numbers have been going up for years now. [0] 100% compatibility not required as most gamers don’t play 100% of games. [0] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/linux-has-finally-hit-that-almost-mythical-1-user-share-on-steam-again https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/linux-has-finally-hit-...
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  Hmm, that shows a growth rate of 0.1% every 2.5 years, meaning the Year of our Lord 4479 A.D. might be the year of Linux on the desktop.
  - yepthatsreality 5y ago
    Linux is on the desktop already. From KDE to Windows, the applications, DE, and compatibility layers are there to have it how you want.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Yeah, with small details like having a GL 3.3 driver for a graphics card that under Windows does GL 4.1 and hardware video decoding.
konart 5y ago
> The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig. Not 100. And 1000$ is just a video card. Not a newest one too.
swarnie 5y ago
Outside of audited companies who is actually paying money for Windows? Seriously....
mt_ 5y ago
For me, Windows 11 is the last straw. Once Microsoft moves on from 10 to 11, I'll move on to Linux full time.
- skohan 5y ago
  Come on in, the water is fine :)
gremloni 5y ago
No it doesn’t, especially since a lot of us just transfer licenses from the old system.
kcb 5y ago
Despite n number of games working Proton/Wine is still not ideal. The performance and frame pacing especially on graphically intensive games is significantly worse than Windows.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Depends on the game. Gems like Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal runs absolutely phenomenal. Valve's own games, including Alyx, also run as good as they do on win. Sure, there were a few problems with Cyberpunk 2077 but they were resolved relatively quickly, given that the game has its own host of problems. I have two almost identical high end machines running Ubuntu and Mankato. The first is more stable, the latter is simply better for gaming :/

by lumost 5y ago

I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this. The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

>I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this Not even in the slightest. Linux marketshare is still insignificant to even Chromebooks. This is just the echo chamber that is HN that thinks Linux is bigger than it is. Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01% Edit: I love how HN downvotes because someone gives them a reality check on their beloved Linux. I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.

capableweb 5y ago
> Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01% I'm not part of the group that downvoted you, but why would the only people touching Linux be CS majors? I'm not a CS major and I think most people I know that voluntarily use Linux on a daily basis isn't neither.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors. You pull any random business major and they barely understand Excel. You eliminate all college majors and the average person that uses Linux has already plummeted. Regular every day computer uses want cheap and easy. Linux is cheap but not very easy, especially if you have no clue what your doing. Sure you can go into a forum on what to do, but what person that knows nothing of computers and doesn't intend on going into the field will bother with learning this stuff? Even myself I find it tedious and I know what I'm doing or can at least learn it pretty easily.
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    “ most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors” As someone who taught in an accounting school where awareness of Linux was higher than you state, I can tell you this is false. Give it up already, face the fact that Linux is more popular and well-known than you want it to be, for whichever reason.
  - indymike 5y ago
    > I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors. Android is a Linux distribution it is the #1 phone OS (73% market share this year). ChromeOS is a Linux distribution and is the leading OS by market share in K-12 schools. Both are cheap and easy. In ChromeOS's case, they are easier for both administrators to manage and users. I'm also sure the students using Chromebooks have not completed their CS degrees yet, but one can hope.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      And yet zero of Android and ChromeOS games come into GNU/Linux. Linux community likes to pat themselves on the back thanks to Android and ChromeOS using the Linux kernel, yet they are oblivious to the fact that Linux syscalls aren't part of the official stable API, only certain ChromeOS models do run Linux (a yet another guest OS, WSL style), and then what GNU/Linux gets are Electron apps.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Talanes 5y ago
    >You pull any random business major and they barely understand Excel. I'm not sure you could pull any random Linux user and have them truly understand Excel either.
    - pxc 5y ago
      > I'm not sure you could pull any random Linux user and have them truly understand Excel either. As a Linux user who did not major in business, I bet your odds with Linux users would be markedly worse than with business majors on this one, hahaha
- pxc 5y ago
  Not to mention that Linux also has users who never went to college
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
    I knew this comment would get brought up haha. God this site is filled with pretentious and anal people who nit pick everything.
blibble 5y ago
every Android phone runs Linux...
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Which isn't part of the public APIs, https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/stable_apis
  - blibble 5y ago
    I'm not really sure what your point is the NT native kernel API is also undocumented
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Exactly, that is why applications that don't want to break with each OS update don't touch those APIs, making them irrelevant for application developers. Also, contrary to Windows, since Android 7, applications that link to undocumented APIs get terminated as security measure. Ask the termux guys how much fun they are having by refusing to acknowledge the fact that they have to use JNI and not Linux syscalls for their stuff.
      - blibble 5y ago
        > Also, contrary to Windows, since Android 7, applications that link to undocumented APIs get terminated as security measure. "undocumented" has nothing to do with it there is a sandbox, syscalls are checked by seccomp and those not explicitly permitted will result in termination of the application it doesn't care where the syscall comes from, be that libc, golang style, or calling svc #0 yourself additionally: the kernel is open source... there are no "undocumented" syscalls this also has nothing to do with the original point
        pjmlp 5y ago
        Sure it has, because it doesn't matter if it is open source or not, if it is a stable API described on the NDK documentation it is not allowed. Something that termux guys are having some issues to swallow, regarless of Linux being the kernel, it is not allowed to do what they want, wrapping Java APIs via JNI is the only allowed way.
ben-schaaf 5y ago
Unlike Android, Chrome OS is actually a full fledged desktop GNU/Linux distribution. It's Gentoo-based (used to be Ubuntu) and runs desktop Linux apps. Though even outside of that you'd be surprised where people have unknowingly used Linux. ATMs, Point-Of-Sale, Infotainment (Planes/Cars), public transit, arcades, etc. I'd estimate that a majority of people have had some interaction with a Linux-based system. > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. One of my grandparents runs Ubuntu and they're able to handle their email and documents just fine. Arguably better than the others who run macOS/Windows. You can find plenty of similar anecdotes online; if all you need is a browser and possibly basic word processing it's not all that different.
- hparadiz 5y ago
  It's not Gentoo based. It just uses portage as a package manager in dev mode. ChromeOS has it's own rendering system separate from X and Wayland entirely.
indymike 5y ago
> Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01% Android. I'd say a huge percentage of computing device users have Linux in their pocket and quite literally touch linux on regular basis. > I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. I've done this, 10 years ago with my aging Mom and Dad and it worked well. Stock Kubuntu works closely enough to Windows, Chrome and Firefox are identical, the built in photo manager and video players just worked, and it put an end to malware and viruses. Please donate the $1000 to a local food bank, please. I do not what the check. Two weeks ago, my son and I re-purposed a three year old cryptocoin mining desktop into a gaming machine. We loaded it up with Kubuntu and Steam and ... well, I thought I'd have to install Windows. No problems. Proton lived up to the hype.
- icemelt8 5y ago
  I don't get it WHY? When Windows is more user friendly and has better software?
marcodiego 5y ago
> I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. This is what I call the "Granma case". Considering the uses case is very well defined and the possibility of using exotic hardware and services and basically never needing to install any software; this is the situation where linux shines the brightest. My mom has being using linux having 0 idea what it was and needed 0 assistance to browse the web, access social networks, see photographs and videos and listen to music. That's all she does and any modern linux is much better than windows for this specific use case. No need to care about anti-virus, degrading performance, malware, advertisements... it is perfect for that.
- sizeofchar 5y ago
  I do the same with my parents in law, and it’s been like 8 years without call for maintenance, if not for the very rare Ubuntu upgrade.
- skohan 5y ago
  Yeah honestly 99% of what most casual user do on a computer is in the browser, and Linux does that just fine. And it's way less noisy in terms of random notifications, upgrade spam etc. so it is not a bad choice for unsophisticated users. Also things don't randomly move around so much between upgrades like they do on commercial OS's.
blondin 5y ago
i understand what you are trying to say. people mentioning android have forgotten that android hides many parts of linux. and manufacturers make sure your device hardware works well with the operating system. other have mentioned relatives who are using linux on desktop. that they are doing limited activities such as browsing and emails. that's fair but the story of how they discovered linux would be the most interesting one. which brings me to op's cs majors point. so many things have changed that we should not dismiss the claim but think about it. do happenstances of the past still present themselves to people today. i discovered linux through a pc magazine back in the late 90s. pc magazines back then offered young people like myself at the time a way to try new things on the computer. and i did try everything. what is the equivalent of that nowadays?
Agentlien 5y ago
I did do the same with my father-in-law, about ten years ago. I installed Ubuntu on his laptop and he used it for work (photo editing, writing articles, etc.) without any complaints until he got a new one from work a few years later.
therouwboat 5y ago
What? My mom has been using linux for 5 years and I don't think she even knows what windows or linux is. She calls her computer "the memory" or "that box".
bigbob2 5y ago
I used to work in a small computer shop and there were some (presumably) 60-70 year olds who I wouldn't consider to be computer literate in the least running Ubuntu and even other distros. There were at least a couple people who refused to use any other OS including Windows. One such customer always referred to their beloved Ubuntu as "Ukabuntu" for some reason.
Talanes 5y ago
>I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it. My father is tech illiterate enough that he manually searches and navigates to the unemployment website each week rather than figure out bookmarks. He's been on an Ubuntu laptop a friend gave him since late last year. I kept expecting to have to walk him through it, but it hasn't happened yet.
approxim8ion 5y ago
I honestly don't think giving my parent who didn't know jack about computers Windows and telling them to figure it out would be a necessarily pleasant alternative either. How about we show some compassion and take time to help people around things, especially when they are people we care about and things we care about as well?

Causality1 5y ago

No chance at all. There are more gamers with pirated Windows than there are Linux gamers.

skohan 5y ago
So you cannot imagine a world, say 5-10 years from now, where 100% of games work on Linux, where PC game enthusiasts choose a cheaper and equally capable OS?
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  You can get a key for 5-10$ and the Windows 10 crack KMSpico is one of the most downloaded torrents. Cheaper doesn't work as a value proposition, it has to be better than Windows for people to change in large numbers and get used to a new OS. On the other hand, knowing gamers, I'm pretty sure many would change if games on Linux were 2% faster... (higher fps)
  - skohan 5y ago
    Arguably Linux is a better UX than Windows, but I know it's a matter of opinion.

fastssd 5y ago

You are not required to pay the windows license fee. You can simply download an ISO off of Microsoft's website and use it, you only get a watermark in the corner.

bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
Every budget gaming computer I built for friends was like this because budget.
notimrelakatos 5y ago
You are always paying Microsoft, one way or the other.
- ric2b 5y ago
  Death and Windows licensing fees, like B. Franklin said.
hellcow 5y ago
It's worth noting that the watermark is always visible in the corner, even in games.
- rygine 5y ago
  you can run a script that will remove the watermark for ~4 hours. you can run it as many times as you’d like, just requires a restart. since i never play a game for that long, it works out great.
cute_boi 5y ago
but now you are going to pay with your data just like facebook etc?
- tlamponi 5y ago
  You're doing that either way, just like you're going to see ads regardless of whether you paid $$$ for a Windows license, pirated a key or just life with the water-mark and other limits of an unlicensed Windows.

tester756 5y ago

>The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig. I wonder how many people actually pay for Windows, since you don't have to activate it in order to use.

enlyth 5y ago
I bought a Windows 10 key from eBay once for about five dollars, it didn't work so I called Microsoft support and they activated my copy for free, I don't think they care that much.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
GeckoEidechse 5y ago
I help decommissioning old Windows PCs for a relative of mine. Whenever a device gets thrown in the bin I note down it's activation key. Haven't had to pay for a Windows key in years ^^

CitrusFruits 5y ago

Sad to say, but Linux just isn't a good experience for gaming yet. Even if games work, there's usually caveats (like needing to be run through some sort of emulation) and they almost always run faster and in a more stable manner than Windows. Most people I know are more than happy to pay that premium compared to the hassle of dealing with Linux. Also, a lot of those savvy enough to use Linux will just crack Windows or get a key at a discount through a reseller.

noobermin 5y ago
This on a post of using steam on linux. Proton is "emulation" for some of the listed but it's pretty good emulation. It requires no savvy, open steam and play.
CoolGuySteve 5y ago
In Steam you just click the play button and it launches the game under Proton. It’s very rare to have issues if the game is rated Platinum in protondb and sometimes a setting in the Steam GUI needs to be changed if it’s gold or silver. All in all I find it significantly less annoying than dealing with Windows’ ads and forced updates.
- viceroyalbean 5y ago
  The user experience is pretty smooth from a high-level perspective but there are often performance issues from the emulation. Not a huge issue in many situations but not flawless either.
  - Retric 5y ago
    The question then becomes if extra 100$ worth of hardware balances out these issues. For 500$ machines it clearly does, but I don’t know about the 1000$ price point.
  - y4mi 5y ago
    Steams Linux support (proton) is forked from wine. So no, it doesn't emulate. Performance can still be an issue, mostly because the Nvidia graphics drivers are performing worse on Linux vs on Windows.

smoldesu 5y ago

It's hard to say for sure... if you're interested in more competitive, trendy shooters, then you're out of luck. Rainbow Six Siege and Fortnite are both perpetually broken, which makes it a pretty hard sell to the up-and-coming audience of younger nerds. On the other hand, the games it does work with are nearly flawless. I play Overwatch, Splitgate, and Battlefield online pretty regularly without issue, and single-player titles like The Sims, Rimworld and Noita function out-of-the-box. With more and more games "just working" on the platform, I think in 2 or 3 years it will be particularly competitive with Windows 11. Today though? It's a bit of a mixed bag.

macNchz 5y ago

I built a pretty beefy workstation last year, mostly for software dev but with a high end GPU so I could check out new games. I installed Ubuntu and Windows 10 on it from the start and figured I’d boot into Windows to play games, but so far basically everything I’ve wanted to play has run fine on Linux. I haven’t booted into Windows in months.

skohan 5y ago
Similar story for me. I installed Ubuntu a few years ago to try out proton, fully expecting to boot most of the time into Windows, and I could count on one hand the number of times I have used Windows in the past year.
Fjolsvith 5y ago
I'm about a month into Linux Mint, and the only game I have trouble with is Eve. I replaced all OS on all of my machines except one, my Blue Iris workstation. Blue Iris doesn't run well on Wine.

pjmlp 5y ago

It didn't happen with Steam Machines, and it won't happen now.

skohan 5y ago
Have you tried Proton? It works great, and Valve is bringing quality first-party hardware this time around by every indication. I don't think Linux will replace Windows for gaming any time soon, but Linux gaming has a very real value proposition in a way it didn't just a few years ago.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  I should I ever bother with a 2nd class experience. https://www.howtogeek.com/688970/what-was-ibms-os2-and-why-did-it-matter/ https://www.howtogeek.com/688970/what-was-ibms-os2-and-why-d...
  - imtringued 5y ago
    There is no first class experience if you are forced to use windows.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Definitely wrong, when the games are designed for Windows in first place, enjoy your Steam Machine.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

queuebert 5y ago

By then we'll have Microsoft Linux, for only $15, with mostly stolen code.

drran 5y ago
s/stolen/copiloted/
thefr0g 5y ago
PS /c:/Home/user$ which rm /usr/Programs (x86)/del

aseipp 5y ago

I mean, if you're just curious if literally anyone will do it, sure. Because you can (due to selection bias of Hacker News) find plenty of people here willing to say so. My prediction is twofold. First, that there's very, very little chance this will any have measurable impact on the overall proportion of Steam/PC gamers who use Windows. Solutions like Steam Deck will be the most popular venue for Proton, but this will actually sell the best with people who will keep using Windows. Why wouldn't it? As someone who games a lot, the only reason I would want one is to have my already existing library on the go. It essentially solves that "I wish this was on Switch" problem, especially for indie games. But I don't think of my Switch as a replacement for my PC, either. From this POV, it's fine if some things don't work (I'm no Warzone/Apex/League addict) or the mobile performance constrains things a little, because the accessibility and my game library is overall enough to offset some of those issues. But actual Windows gamers who use Windows exclusively, and are going to suddenly see the Steam Deck or Proton and be like, "Wow, now I'm going to use Linux, and move over my whole game library since it's obviously so great", who aren't already software engineering/SRE/existing Linux users? Practically non-existent, or so little in number to be non-existent, I'd predict. They don't even really pay for the Windows license as another comment pointed out, the OEMs do and this subsidizes the product (along with mass volume) even further. This is related to my original point: the reason your question is even getting responses in the positive isn't because there's some massive contingency of Windows gamers looking to throw away their install. It's because you're asking on Hacker News.

skohan 5y ago
What do you mean "move over my whole game library"? All you have to do is install steam and use it just like you would on Windows.

tmpz22 5y ago

OEMs buy licenses in bulk they do not pay $100 a pop and it doesn’t get passed onto the user as a full $100 add on. Similarly if you’re building it yourself you can buy for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly legitimate.

gpderetta 5y ago
As someone that was looking to buy a Windows key, finding a legitimate reseller is a non-trivial task.
- cdumler 5y ago
  Are there recommendations?
  - maccard 5y ago
    Why not go straight to the horses mouth? https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/b/windows
    - rdpintqogeogsaa 5y ago
      Can confirm, that's the most straightforward way.
    - jorams 5y ago
      The statement that started the talk about resellers was: > Similarly if you’re building it yourself you can buy for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly legitimate. The horses mouth charges $140+, which is significantly more than the $100 that was about.
  - cenal 5y ago
    If you only need a single copy you are best suited buying from Microsoft directly. If you need multiple copies you can work with a VAR (Value Added Reseller) to get better pricing. CDW.com is the big name in VAR's but they have enormous turnover in staff. I try to build relationships with smaller VAR's. I like these guys: https://greenbeetech.com/ https://greenbeetech.com/ it's a small company with two guys running it who have decades of VAR experience (former CDW people). Navigating the process of compliantly licensing Microsoft as you scale up is quite a job. Having a good partner to help your organization stay compliant is very valuable.

Zababa 5y ago

People pay $100 for Windows? There are licenses on ebay for less than 5€ in Europe.

tlamponi 5y ago
If you buy a laptop here it's ~100€ cheaper without an OS or Linux on it, so even if you want to use Windows you should buy the cheaper version and get a 5€ OEM key or the like. An additional benefit to that: less HW vendor crap installed. At least that was the case with the Lenovo laptops I personally and also the company I work for (Linux shop) bought.
- novok 5y ago
  I think what you are being charged is a form of retail markup, by lenovo. They are paying $10-$15 max for that license. It wouldn't make sense on their cheaper laptops where they do not give you the option of linux or no OS, otherwise the laptop would lose money. AFAIK the PC market is low margin, and the only place they really get margin is from all the crap ware they 'offer' and stuff like margins on windows licenses and such. I think microsoft has realized the real price for windows is $10 too, which is why they are adding all the adware crap in it. Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Windows 12 might be free. And then have premium sub with more features like O365...
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it. I'm sure that is where we are heading in the long term. I used to spend a lot of money on software for my business, now the majority of what I use is free. I can't see Microsoft being able to escape that forever.
Qi_ 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

dogma1138 5y ago

Work and work well are two different things and most importantly the question is what’s in those 72% because you have like 1% of Steam games which have like 80% of the player base at any given moment and a lot of AAA titles and popular multiplayer games don’t work on Linux or can even get you banned if you play them due to anticheat issues. Also if you bought Windows 7 so far you could’ve updated it upto 11 without paying anything extra if you leveraged the update Windows that Microsoft offered.

pdpi 5y ago
The list is precisely composed of that 1% — it’s 36 out of the top 50 games by max concurrent players.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Out of the top 10, 6 are “No Go” and technically 7 if you count the fact that the player count for GTA V is based on GTA Online which still constantly issues bans when running on Linux due to anti cheat mishaps. This list also overlooks other very popular games that aren’t on Steam like Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite…
  - Crespyl 5y ago
    > This list also overlooks other very popular games that aren’t on Steam Well yes, it is, as the title makes pretty clear, the top 50 games on Steam. That said, non-Steam games can work just fine with Proton, wrappers like Lutris make this only a couple clicks more than Steam. Fortnite is limited by EAC: https://lutris.net/games/fortnite/ https://lutris.net/games/fortnite/, and I'm not very familiar with Warzone but I suspect it's a similar situation.
    - dogma1138 5y ago
      Non native multiplayer games are quite often a no go, which was my gripe with putting GTA V on the list since the concurrent player base is nearly all due to GTAO and if you run it on Linux through proton you risk a ban.

xeromal 5y ago

I'm just comfortable with Windows and I have no reason to move off of it until the transition to linux is so seamless that I barely have to do anything.

ismayilzadan 5y ago
After trying to install and debug countless wifi/gpu drivers on debian distros during my university years, I jumped to the same boat as you and just continued using Windows. I pretty much gave up on linux desktop. However, last week (it has been 6 years after my graduation) after seeing many articles on Microsoft, Windows 11 and Manjaro Linux, I decided to give Manjaro a test from bootable usb drive on my new HP touch screen laptop. Everything works without opening terminal once! This is seamless enough for me.
__turbobrew__ 5y ago
Same. I use linux for work but windows for gaming. The linux gaming experience is 90% the way there, but that 10% of the time where you have to scour forums, bug reports, install custom versions of mesa to work with your gpu, etc… is not worth the effort. I will probably give linux gaming another try in a few years but if it doesn’t “just work” I’m going back to windows for gaming.

lpcvoid 5y ago

As long as you use a AMD GPU, life is sweet. Nvidia is a lot more pain to get working - AMD is part of the kernel.

josefx 5y ago
A lot harder meaning: knows hot to install a program on Linux if the distro of choice doesn't outright ask to install the correct driver.
- lpcvoid 5y ago
  No, I mean specifically things like Optimus on dual GPU laptops. Also, even if the distros do in fact either install automatically or provide a method to install it, there is simply no need to even do this on an AMD system. And then there's the matter of AMDGPU being complete open source, while Nvidia's offering is not. And don't even start on Nvidia's slow pace to properly support Wayland.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  There's the never let your GPU get old too. But since this is about gaming, it isn't very relevant.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
Nvidia just requires installing one extra package... It hasn't been an issue for a while now. The nvidia driver actually works very well... The amdgpu driver wprks well but still has issues with suspend/hibernate. I'd say they are about the same IMO.
- fgonzag 5y ago
  Except for Wayland, and KDE stuttering. I have an AMD and an Nvidia PC, both running Manjaro. AMD is really much less problematic than Nvidia for Linux.
pjmlp 5y ago
Only if it is a recent generation AMD card. Good luck with older cards, ignored by the open source driver.

Philip-J-Fry 5y ago

Windows costs like £5 max. All you need is an OEM key. Yeah, you might need a new one if you change enough components but it ain't gonna break the bank once every few years.

judge2020 5y ago
To add, if you succumb to using a Microsoft account for your main Windows account, it seems you can swap out hardware a lot more without losing your license (although I imagine you can't swap out hardware and reinstall at the same time). I've had this one key since 2015 with many upgrades, including motherboard+cpu swaps, hard drive swaps, and a few reinstalls, and haven't lost the license.
- noasaservice 5y ago
  So did you name your computer Theseus? :)
- tyrfing 5y ago
  With some trickery you only need the MS account for setup. You can also transfer the key to a completely new system. With a bit more time to prune services/apps and set up something like simplewall to block everything else, you have a pretty decent setup. Sure, it's not FOSS, but neither is Steam or any of those games. Looking at my personal selection of long-tail games, about 1/3 work perfectly on Linux, another 1/3 don't work at all, and the last 1/3 have various levels of yak-shaving tweaking settings before they run well. That last 1/3 is why I went back to Windows years ago.
  - skohan 5y ago
    If you went back years ago, you might have missed how good Linux gaming has gotten recently.
    - tyrfing 5y ago
      I understand that, it's why I went down my list of games to check the current state. A lot seem to work very well now, some are completely broken due to anticheat systems, and many still have discussion of tweaks and versions to coax them into running decently. Seems like singleplayer games mostly work very well.

gundamdoubleO 5y ago

I find it pretty hard to believe anyone with the knowledge to build their own rig is not getting Windows through other potentially dubious means.

massysett 5y ago
I built my own rig and bought Windows directly from Microsoft, under no circumstance am I going to risk my security by rummaging around in shady places for something as critical as an operating system.
- 0-_-0 5y ago
  You can download the ISO directly from MS and still get a key for 5$
lumost 5y ago
I’d also go out on a small limb and bet that most gaming rigs are at least partially OEM. I have the knowledge to put together my own gaming/dev workstation - but I’d rather just get a prebuilt that isn’t going to become a timesuck of crappy boot times then swap some components.

notjustanymike 5y ago

I would 100% move to Linux if I was guaranteed the conviniences of windows, but that seems unlikely. When I'm in the mood for gaming, the last thing I want to deal with is technical issues. Windows has some, but they're bearable. Not sure if I can tolerate any more though.

novok 5y ago
Yeah me too. What keeps me on windows for my desktop is a couple of pro image library software packages and games. $15 is well worth my time to not deal with the unreliability of linux. I could use a mac, but they don't have justifiable storage costs and external storage is annoying, costs more and is less reliable than internal storage, and macs don't do games well anyway and I just built a new mini-ITX sized PC. Apple is also going down a path in computing I don't like, so I don't know if they are that viable too...

yepthatsreality 5y ago

This has already been happening and the numbers have been going up for years now. [0] 100% compatibility not required as most gamers don’t play 100% of games. [0] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/linux-has-finally-hit-that-almost-mythical-1-user-share-on-steam-again https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/08/linux-has-finally-hit-...

0-_-0 5y ago
Hmm, that shows a growth rate of 0.1% every 2.5 years, meaning the Year of our Lord 4479 A.D. might be the year of Linux on the desktop.
- yepthatsreality 5y ago
  Linux is on the desktop already. From KDE to Windows, the applications, DE, and compatibility layers are there to have it how you want.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Yeah, with small details like having a GL 3.3 driver for a graphics card that under Windows does GL 4.1 and hardware video decoding.

konart 5y ago

> The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig. Not 100. And 1000$ is just a video card. Not a newest one too.

swarnie 5y ago

Outside of audited companies who is actually paying money for Windows? Seriously....

mt_ 5y ago

For me, Windows 11 is the last straw. Once Microsoft moves on from 10 to 11, I'll move on to Linux full time.

skohan 5y ago
Come on in, the water is fine :)

gremloni 5y ago

No it doesn’t, especially since a lot of us just transfer licenses from the old system.

kcb 5y ago

Despite n number of games working Proton/Wine is still not ideal. The performance and frame pacing especially on graphically intensive games is significantly worse than Windows.

beebeepka 5y ago
Depends on the game. Gems like Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal runs absolutely phenomenal. Valve's own games, including Alyx, also run as good as they do on win. Sure, there were a few problems with Cyberpunk 2077 but they were resolved relatively quickly, given that the game has its own host of problems. I have two almost identical high end machines running Ubuntu and Mankato. The first is more stable, the latter is simply better for gaming :/