2 ms·

Valve is great! I love my SteamDeck. I just think it’s hilarious that the trick to making gaming on Linux possible was to use exes compiled for Windows.

aaomidi 2y ago
Is it? When there’s a dominant player that’s practically the only way?
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  No. Linux just sucks and is bad at deploying proprietary software in a reliable manner. It's not particularly difficult to target a broad combination of Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. They're all basically the same. Even x64 vs ARM is largely irrelevant. In a sense SteamOS isn't even Linux. It's one distribution with no user modifications running on one set of hardware. It's closer to a console than to "Linux". Meanwhile Linux isn't even a thing. It's many many many different things. Once upon a time I shipped a game that supported Linux. It's been awhile but Linux players were roughly 1% of the audience but they represented 50% of bug reports. And no, Linux users were not "good" users who were simply better at reporting bugs.
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    > No. Linux just sucks and is bad at deploying proprietary software in a reliable manner. Yeah this is a feature. Games on Linux are running fine by the way.
  - wmlhwl 2y ago
    Linux just sucks at deploying proprietary software in a reliable manner.
tylerchilds 2y ago
that’s only a tiny aspect of it, which is why i used the word “reductive” specifically there’s so much more internal plumbing that happened, mostly in the hardware compatibility and device driver layer of the stack. i’ve been double clicking .exes using wine since 2008. i haven’t been able to use every gamepad under the sun on linux until valve funded device compatibility— not just “steam” or “steamos” or “steamdeck”— the upstream.

2 ms·

Valve is great! I love my SteamDeck. I just think it’s hilarious that the trick to making gaming on Linux possible was to use exes compiled for Windows.

by forrestthewoods 2y ago

aaomidi 2y ago
Is it? When there’s a dominant player that’s practically the only way?
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  No. Linux just sucks and is bad at deploying proprietary software in a reliable manner. It's not particularly difficult to target a broad combination of Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox. They're all basically the same. Even x64 vs ARM is largely irrelevant. In a sense SteamOS isn't even Linux. It's one distribution with no user modifications running on one set of hardware. It's closer to a console than to "Linux". Meanwhile Linux isn't even a thing. It's many many many different things. Once upon a time I shipped a game that supported Linux. It's been awhile but Linux players were roughly 1% of the audience but they represented 50% of bug reports. And no, Linux users were not "good" users who were simply better at reporting bugs.
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    > No. Linux just sucks and is bad at deploying proprietary software in a reliable manner. Yeah this is a feature. Games on Linux are running fine by the way.
  - wmlhwl 2y ago
    Linux just sucks at deploying proprietary software in a reliable manner.
tylerchilds 2y ago
that’s only a tiny aspect of it, which is why i used the word “reductive” specifically there’s so much more internal plumbing that happened, mostly in the hardware compatibility and device driver layer of the stack. i’ve been double clicking .exes using wine since 2008. i haven’t been able to use every gamepad under the sun on linux until valve funded device compatibility— not just “steam” or “steamos” or “steamdeck”— the upstream.