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Biggest issue with targeting "Linux" is revealed in the Linux OS breakdown. If you throw out the SteamOS, you are left with about 45% of the Linux users in the
by aidenn0 3y ago
Biggest issue with targeting "Linux" is revealed in the Linux OS breakdown. If you throw out the SteamOS, you are left with about 45% of the Linux users in the "Other" category (i.e. not in the 6 most popular linux distributions), compared to about 14% for Arch and Ubuntu.
There's plenty to disagree with RMS on, but he's absolutely right that Linux is not an OS; it's a kernel.
- deaddodo 3y agoLinux Distros, these days especially, are a paint of coat and tire size difference between each other. You make it sound like someone running Fedora (a significant slice of those in the "Other" category) is having a drastically different experience to those using Manjaro, Ubuntu and Pop_OS!.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoIf that were the case then they could all pool together their documentation and help guides. But I'm guessing the reason they don't is because there are some non-superficial differences.
- dijit 3y agoyear-by-year they are doing exactly this. I hear more often than not ubuntu users using the arch wiki for example because despite the package manager, lots of things are similar.
- deaddodo 3y agoNo, the differences are purely superficial. Which is why they don't pool together. Your argument is like saying Lutherans and Episcopalians aren't both Protestants because they disagree on the meaning of the trinity, despite agreeing on 99% else. Most Linux guides do work on all distros, as long as you're willing to adapt for package management solutions and Desktop Environments (when applicable).
- conradev 3y agoSuperficial from your perspective, but likely not from the maintainer's perspective Debian caring about reproducibility matters quite a lot to some people, but not most, etc
- deaddodo 3y agoYou're just reinforcing my point, not countering it. There's very little experiential difference, being superficial at best. But governing body and community differences are chasmic, meaning the Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora communities have little reason to add information for other distros to their guides; despite the instructions being 99% compatible.
- mikepurvis 3y agoAlso visible in the popularity of the Arch Linux wiki as being reliable, up-to-date "how to fix it" instructions for common problems, regardless of whether you're actually running Arch.
- deaddodo 3y agoNot sure why you downvoted my response when we're agreeing; but yes, I fully concur.
- mikepurvis 3y agoWasn't my downvote.
- jokethrowaway 3y agoThat's the reason I started using arch and that's why it's the distro I used the most (moved to nixos now, though)
- mikepurvis 3y agoRight, but most users don't care about that at all. Particularly for non-technical users who are only ever going to use the GUI frontend to the package manager, almost none of the underlying system matters at all. In a world that has almost completely standardized on grub, systemd, fhs, etc with major applications being shipped in container-like blobs (snap, flatpak, appimage) that mirror a Windows-style setup.exe workflow and then bypass the filesystem and package manager and talk right to the kernel anyway... yeah, if you're an end user, your distro choice doesn't much matter. Pick whatever has out of the box drivers for your laptop's trackpad.
- tux3 3y agoIt's not that far off. Whenever I'm looking for distro-level documentation, I end up either on manpages (which are shared), or the Arch Wiki. And as a Debian user for many years, the differences are surface-level enough that the Arch Wiki is still one of the best resources with completely applicable answers.
- bhaney 3y agoI regularly use other distros' docs and guides for getting things done on Debian. I probably spend more time on the Arch wiki than any Debian-specific sites.
- slikrick 3y agoactually it's literally why I use the archwiki no matter what distro I'm on
- Gigachad 3y agoI don’t think I ever read the actual Fedora docs for anything. I just read the docs for whatever software I’m trying to do something with.
- AdmiralAsshat 3y agoWell, since we're talking about it... Given the popularity of Steam, it's a high-visibility, high-priority application, which means your distro may be running it in one of three ways: 1) A snap 2) A flatpak 3) Your distro's native packaging format (deb/rpm, etc.) So yeah, there might be a bit of variation there. I've already had a handful of problems on the Steam Flatpak on Fedora in which it's been suggested that I should switch to the RPMFusion Steam rpm instead, but so far I have resisted. The fact that Steam is a program that installs other programs means that it will frequently test the boundaries of the OS and package format's security models.
- deaddodo 3y agoSnap and Flatpak are both (theoretically) distro agnostic. That's their entire point of existence, to solve scenario three of your list. Yes, Fedora defaults to and prefers Flatpak and Ubuntu defaults to and prefers Snap, but you can install either on either distro and it should Just Work. In which case, distro-specific differences are an even further moot point.
- sagarm 3y agoThe steam snap hasn't worked for me.
- soperj 3y ago> There's plenty to disagree with RMS on, but he's absolutely right that Linux is not an OS; it's a kernel. Why bother posting who's opinion it is if you think it will cause disagreements? (curious)
- birdyrooster 3y agobecause RMS is free software Jesus and people want others to see him in this light
- aidenn0 3y agoIn my experience, if I quote him without citation, then it causes more of a kerfuffle; some people either assume I completely agree with him on everything and go on an anti-RMS rant, or assume that I don't know he said this and go on a pr-RMS rant.
- merb 3y agotbf the biggest factor is not steamos, it‘s dxvk, wine and proton , which basically is in itself „an os“ on top of the kernel. It basically brings „windows wrappers“ for Linux with „minimal dependencies“.* * not so minimal but makes it highly compatible
- dangus 3y agoI don’t think this is an issue for Linux gaming. Basically everyone is using something Debian/Ubuntu-based or Arch-based. If you can install a flatpak or Debian package you’re pretty much golden (which includes Fedora users, who can install flatpaks). Vulkan is pretty much the graphics API standard for the entire Linux ecosystem.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- arp242 3y agoI've been using Void Linux for many years, which is hardly mainstream, and pretty much all Linux games from gog.com "Just Work™" with a minimum of effort (I need to install some 32bit libraries for some, but that's about it). I believe on Steam it's even better/easier, as it just ships with an Ubuntu base and uses that (but I don't really use Steam). Point being: I think the differences between distros for this kind of stuff has been rather overstated. For most things, it doesn't actually matter all that much.
- freedomben 3y agoYep, It's really not too hard. While I would very much prefer to get .rpm files for the games, in practice the installer approach (such as what GOG takes) is great. One minor correction, Modern Steam OS is Arch-based, not Ubuntu-based, but your point still stands.
- nani8ot 3y agoThey probably talk about the Steam Linux Runtime (or it's predecessor), which is called scout and is based on Debian 10. They also have a more recent one called soldier used for proton and are working on a successor for scout called sniper (all TF2 characters). As far as I understand correctly SteamOS might be based on Arch, but it uses Valve's kernel and mesa while running the games themselves in a container. https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/blob/main/docs/container-runtime.md https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/b...
- arp242 3y agoYup, I was talking about the Steam Runtime, or whatever it's called, not SteamOS. Last time I used Steam it downloaded and installed all of that somewhere in my ~/.local or thereabouts.
- rkangel 3y agoIt's interesting that Linux gaming has managed to largely avoid this problem - by targeting Windows. By which I mean: Proton (and DXVK etc.). Proton has got so good that the best way of making games work on Linux is to target Proton and all your cross platform challenges are taken care of.
- haunter 3y ago> Proton has got so good that the best way of making games work on Linux is to target Proton and all your cross platform challenges are taken care of There was the famous "Win32 Is The Only Stable ABI on Linux" article last year which pretty much about this https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/ https://blog.hiler.eu/win32-the-only-stable-abi/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32471624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32471624 As you said, easier/better to target Win32 and just use Proton. It's also funny because it kinda became true on another level as "Win32 Is Only Stable on Linux". It's easier to run old games and softwares (XP era and earlier) with Proton under Linux than on current Windows 10/11
- christkv 3y agoThis is so true. I’ve been playing some games from the early 2000s and it was easier to get them running under Linux than windows
- deaddodo 3y ago> It's also funny because it kinda became true on another level as "Win32 Is Only Stable on Linux". It's easier to run old games and softwares (XP era and earlier) with Proton under Linux than on current Windows 10/11 Yeah, I'm gonna call that out as suspicious. Maybe on a few select titles, but the Wine database shows tons of titles that still won't run above "Silver"; all of which run just fine on newer versions of Windows. The older games that Windows can't run are usually due to some insanely intrusive DRM solution which also wouldn't run on Wine. And this isn't me as some Windows fanboy, my comment history clearly shows I'm a Linux user; but that statement is just ridiculous on its face.
- 3y ago
- ajross 3y agoMeh. That's mostly semantics. Debian and Fedora and Mint and all the others are all still complatible distros. The days of wild changes in library standards or C++ ABIs or whatnot are decades behind us now. Are there still compatibility burps for people wanting to ship cross-distro binaries? Sure. But the overwhelming majority of binary distributors do fine with "build it on whatever the second most recent Ubuntu LTS is". And that includes games (though increasingly "make it work on SteamOS" is supplanting Ubuntu there).
- bee_rider 3y agoJust target steamOS and Ubuntu. For every other distro, someone in the community will take what you’ve done and patch together the pieces to make it work. Say you’ve got SteamOS and Ubuntu support, let the user click an “OK I know what I’m doing” button, and they’ll figure it out.
- out_of_protocol 3y agoEven with these two, there are no common ground and no stable api. App released today is likely to break in the next distro release, or next after that. There is some hope in flatpak (not shipped with Ubuntu) and snap (ubuntu-exclusive), but these are not stable enough yet. The most stable api for linux is still win32
- nani8ot 3y agoThe issue of targeting many distros with different package versions is already solved by Valve's Steam Linux Runtime. They use namespaces/container to provide the same environment on any distro. https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/blob/main/docs/container-runtime.md https://gitlab.steamos.cloud/steamrt/steam-runtime-tools/-/b...
- eikenberry 3y agoThere no "issue" here as the kernel is the only thing that matters anymore as containerization has fixed the library compatibility problem.
- jacobwilliamroy 3y agoI've been using linux mint for a while now and the only thing I wanted to play but haven't figured out how to run yet is the twin peaks demo on itch.io. But also most of the games I play are on emulated consoles anyway so usually as long as the emulator works everything is fine.