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I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? A new machine for an enterprise or gamer will probably retain windows be

I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? A new machine for an enterprise or gamer will probably retain windows because it's needed but people not using their computers for more than surfing will be happy enough. On that side-note I would also not be surprised if people are leaving "computers" altogether in favor of phones, it's a capable enough computer today for most lay-people, my ex and her parents don't have computers anymore and my daughter hardly uses her either. Those that actually need computers such as developers are more prone to use Linux anyhow (especially when Microsoft is pushing annoying features such as forced reboots for those dropping their computers anyhow onto powerusers).

WJW 1y ago
Anecdotal evidence, but Steams' Proton compatibility layer that lets you run Windows-only games on Linux works really really well. I haven't had to log into years and years by now.
- fmbb 1y ago
  Same. Finally no reason to boot Windows on any machine.
- latexr 1y ago
  I’ve been wanting to do this for years on an old (and severely underpowered) MacBook Pro which I use with Windows exclusively for Games. Do you have any recommendation for an extremely lightweight Linus distro which installs and runs Steam fine? It would be used exclusively for that, so it shouldn’t run a ton of background stuff.
  - tomrod 1y ago
    Depends on your view of lightweight, but probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) will serve you great. Full featured without a ton of bloat, historically.
    - latexr 1y ago
      > Depends on your view of lightweight Basically, what I care is that as I’m running the game, the system is consuming as few resources as possible. It’s an outdated machine, so every bit matters. > probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) Thank you. Will check it out.
      - tomrod 1y ago
        I'm a big fan of Linux. My small business and personal life run on it. You can download XFCE/Ubuntu spin at https://xubuntu.org/download/ https://xubuntu.org/download/. If you develop on your Apple system, it will be pretty similar except - App Installation via repositories is more common than single program installs. No DMG files. There is a similar concept to DMG with "snap" installs. Steam should probably be installed via a snap. You trust the producer (Valve). But most software and security should come through repos (in CLI, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade) - Home directory is /home/<username> Much of the rest is similar -- Apple's BSD and Linux share a common Unix design progenitor. Linux is way open to rewipe, just pay attention that you don't lose files. My first day on Linux in the mid 2000s, I somehow overwrite the file system allocation table with the content of an MP3. It was recoverable! Good luck, and have fun!
  - delecti 1y ago
    Check out Bazzite. It started as a way to approximate SteamOS for general hardware. Or if you have an AMD GPU, you could even try SteamOS itself, though it's intended for handhelds.
    - latexr 1y ago
      I thought about SteamOS but didn’t seem viable for that Mac. Bazzite looks to be the next best thing. Probably what I’m looking for. Thank you.
  - ac29 1y ago
    You can login directly to steam big picture mode using gamescope if you have no need for a traditional desktop: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from_a_display_manager https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from...
- alias_neo 1y ago
  I've been gaming on Linux for about a decade now full time, and somewhat before that too. I don't have a single Windows machine any more. My laptops are running Arch, my wife's personal Laptop runs Mint, her work machine is Windows because it has to, my work machine is Ubuntu, and my 5yo plays Minecraft on an Arch + Gnome laptop. 7-8 years ago it was pretty frustrating to spend £4k+ on a gaming rig to be unable to play a bunch of titles but I will not use Windows, I just accepted it. Fast forward to today, and I'm playing Helldivers 2, with its anti-cheat and everything online with my nephew who's on Windows and getting far, far better performance (granted my PC is also more powerful). I can play the modern DOOM games with better performance than if I was running Windows on the same hardware. My point is, Linux gaming is only getting better, I now also own a ROG Ally which I "flashed" (installed the same way you would any other Linux distro) with Bazzite straight out of the box without even booting Windows and I can play the single-player games I like to while travelling, or can have a quick game of Helldivers with my nephew if I'm not near my PC but have a stable connection. When I need/want to I can plug it into a monitor/kb/mouse with a single cable and have a full desktop with HDR, VRR etc.
  - threetonesun 1y ago
    I'm mostly a Mac user but I tested Windows 11 versus Bazzite in VMs in my Unraid server, and the Windows 11 install was a nightmare to then be left with a nightmare UI and a bundle of GPU driver issues, meanwhile Bazzite took two clicks and worked. Obviously there are very cutting edge drivers you can't get on Linux, and Nvidia support is questionable, and some anti-cheat doesn't work, etc, but if you mostly play games released in [current year - a few] on hardware released [current year - a few] it's really a much more enjoyable experience.
    - kwanbix 1y ago
      I hate W11 to the point that I am still running W10 (IoT) on my machines (I also run Solus and Mint). That said, I have never experienced what you say in the first paragraph.
      - threetonesun 1y ago
- zelphirkalt 1y ago
  I hear this all around and I am myself running GNU/Linux almost all the time, but running games on Steam on my default OS, which is a Debian with KDE currently, that is more miss than hit. I even know someone who has almost the same hardware, also runs a GNU/Linux system and for them almost all games work using Proton. For me however they don't. I already tried proprietary graphics card drivers instead of the ones that come with the OS for amdgpu, HWE kernel, another distro, using Steam installer downloaded from website ... nothing seems to fix the issue. When I click on the big green "Play" button in Steam, for many times it loads for a moment, and the button turns into a blue "stop" button, but then just turns back into a green "play" button, never starting the game. Mind, some games work, like Stardew Valley for example. But I think those are mostly already made to work cross platform. I have no idea what I can still try, and it annoys me, that for most games I still have to reboot into Windows to play them. I seem to have had more luck following guides for using WINE for specific games in the past, when I made games like StarCraft 2 work better than on Windows, than I have had with Steam and Proton so far. So anecdote. It is not smooth sailing for everyone yet, unfortunately, and I don't know what the issue is.
  - esseph 1y ago
    Debian is just not going to have access to as much up to date software as it probably needs, even with testing back ports, to run well. I say this as a very long time Debian user that is really struggling in this day and age to find a place for Debian among my devices at this point.
    - doodlesdev 1y ago
      Out of curiosity, what distribution have you been using lately instead of Debian? Anecdotally, I've been using Fedora Workstation for a few years already, and my Steam + Proton Experimental experience has been fantastic with an AMD GPU using the drivers that come with the kernel. Although I must admit, I miss having a Debian-based distribution sometimes, because in some situations I can't find rpm packages for more specific things I'm trying to do in my system. The problem is I just don't know any other distribution that's not Debian Testing that could work like Fedora Workstation but with .deb packages.
- jandrese 1y ago
  For me Proton works sometimes, but I've had much more success with the third party Glorious Eggroll versions that include the Microsoft Codecs used by many games for in-game video.
- agoodusername63 1y ago
  The case that this is true is only if you don't have an Nvidia GPU or don't play D3D12 games. I tried it, discovered that Nvidia has a known regression that causes anywhere up to 25% lower performance compared to Windows in GPU limited games in D3D12, and immediately went back to Windows. I'll never understand why people keep championing Linux for gaming when it has such a severe regression on the most common gaming GPU vendor. Steam says 75%. An Nvidia employee even stated that the fix is not trivial so they're not committing to a timeline for a fix. This is a year+ old issue. They're never fixing it because it doesn't affect CUDA. https://github.com/NVIDIA/egl-wayland/issues/164#issuecomment-2996996055 https://github.com/NVIDIA/egl-wayland/issues/164#issuecommen...
  - philistine 1y ago
    Add it to the list of the death by a thousand cuts of Nvidia as a gaming powerhouse. I would have said that they would have fixed it eventually to be chosen by Valve for a Steam Deck, but they’re gorged on AI money at this point. I don’t think they’re the future of gaming GPUs at all. They’re very slowly abandoning the market through those cuts.
theandrewbailey 1y ago
> I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? I know that a large portion of our business is to other resellers and businesses. FWIW, long before I started working here, I replaced XP with Xubuntu on my parent's computer about 15 years ago. I told them that "it works like Windows[0]", showed them how to check email, browse the web, play solitare, and shut down. Even the random HP printer and scanner worked great! I expected a call from them to "put it back to what it was", but it never happened. (The closest was Mom wondering why solitare (the gnome-games version) was different, then guided her on how to change the game type to klondike.) [0] If "it [Xubuntu] works like Windows" offended you, I'd like to point out that most people don't care about how operating system kernels are designed. They care about things like a start menu, and that the X in the corner closes programs.
- keyringlight 1y ago
  One thing I wonder about with people moving to linux is whether "it works like windows" can act as a safe and comfortable landing point, but then how many people explore and prefer the options that they then have access to. One aspect MS has been criticized for over the past few versions of windows is that they are opinionated about how the base windows UI operates and looks for a very large number of users. One of the things I find interesting on the subreddits for some distros is a lot of posts is showing off how they've customized things, so you can nudge people towards the theming support or panel components you can swap out, or that you can have drastically different DEs with different operation models yet handle the same applications.
bargainbin 1y ago
Would just like to add it’s not needed so much now. I’m a pretty avid gamer and I’ve been using Bazzite as my OS now for months without issue. Proton has completely changed the game (pun not intended). All that’s really missing now is the big studios who won’t release their anticheat for Linux.
techjamie 1y ago
> I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? I got my hands on a Dell that was retired out of an office somewhere for $30+shipping. Add the cost of a couple HDDs, time spent removing a disc drive and installing Linux, I got myself a cheap backup server on my LAN. They're great for machines you don't want to drop a lot on for basic utilities.

WJW 1y ago

Anecdotal evidence, but Steams' Proton compatibility layer that lets you run Windows-only games on Linux works really really well. I haven't had to log into years and years by now.

fmbb 1y ago
Same. Finally no reason to boot Windows on any machine.
latexr 1y ago
I’ve been wanting to do this for years on an old (and severely underpowered) MacBook Pro which I use with Windows exclusively for Games. Do you have any recommendation for an extremely lightweight Linus distro which installs and runs Steam fine? It would be used exclusively for that, so it shouldn’t run a ton of background stuff.
- tomrod 1y ago
  Depends on your view of lightweight, but probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) will serve you great. Full featured without a ton of bloat, historically.
  - latexr 1y ago
    > Depends on your view of lightweight Basically, what I care is that as I’m running the game, the system is consuming as few resources as possible. It’s an outdated machine, so every bit matters. > probably XFCE Ubuntu (Xubuntu) Thank you. Will check it out.
    - tomrod 1y ago
      I'm a big fan of Linux. My small business and personal life run on it. You can download XFCE/Ubuntu spin at https://xubuntu.org/download/ https://xubuntu.org/download/. If you develop on your Apple system, it will be pretty similar except - App Installation via repositories is more common than single program installs. No DMG files. There is a similar concept to DMG with "snap" installs. Steam should probably be installed via a snap. You trust the producer (Valve). But most software and security should come through repos (in CLI, sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade) - Home directory is /home/<username> Much of the rest is similar -- Apple's BSD and Linux share a common Unix design progenitor. Linux is way open to rewipe, just pay attention that you don't lose files. My first day on Linux in the mid 2000s, I somehow overwrite the file system allocation table with the content of an MP3. It was recoverable! Good luck, and have fun!
- delecti 1y ago
  Check out Bazzite. It started as a way to approximate SteamOS for general hardware. Or if you have an AMD GPU, you could even try SteamOS itself, though it's intended for handhelds.
  - latexr 1y ago
    I thought about SteamOS but didn’t seem viable for that Mac. Bazzite looks to be the next best thing. Probably what I’m looking for. Thank you.
- ac29 1y ago
  You can login directly to steam big picture mode using gamescope if you have no need for a traditional desktop: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from_a_display_manager https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Steam#Big_Picture_Mode_from...
alias_neo 1y ago
I've been gaming on Linux for about a decade now full time, and somewhat before that too. I don't have a single Windows machine any more. My laptops are running Arch, my wife's personal Laptop runs Mint, her work machine is Windows because it has to, my work machine is Ubuntu, and my 5yo plays Minecraft on an Arch + Gnome laptop. 7-8 years ago it was pretty frustrating to spend £4k+ on a gaming rig to be unable to play a bunch of titles but I will not use Windows, I just accepted it. Fast forward to today, and I'm playing Helldivers 2, with its anti-cheat and everything online with my nephew who's on Windows and getting far, far better performance (granted my PC is also more powerful). I can play the modern DOOM games with better performance than if I was running Windows on the same hardware. My point is, Linux gaming is only getting better, I now also own a ROG Ally which I "flashed" (installed the same way you would any other Linux distro) with Bazzite straight out of the box without even booting Windows and I can play the single-player games I like to while travelling, or can have a quick game of Helldivers with my nephew if I'm not near my PC but have a stable connection. When I need/want to I can plug it into a monitor/kb/mouse with a single cable and have a full desktop with HDR, VRR etc.
- threetonesun 1y ago
  I'm mostly a Mac user but I tested Windows 11 versus Bazzite in VMs in my Unraid server, and the Windows 11 install was a nightmare to then be left with a nightmare UI and a bundle of GPU driver issues, meanwhile Bazzite took two clicks and worked. Obviously there are very cutting edge drivers you can't get on Linux, and Nvidia support is questionable, and some anti-cheat doesn't work, etc, but if you mostly play games released in [current year - a few] on hardware released [current year - a few] it's really a much more enjoyable experience.
  - kwanbix 1y ago
    I hate W11 to the point that I am still running W10 (IoT) on my machines (I also run Solus and Mint). That said, I have never experienced what you say in the first paragraph.
    - threetonesun 1y ago
zelphirkalt 1y ago
I hear this all around and I am myself running GNU/Linux almost all the time, but running games on Steam on my default OS, which is a Debian with KDE currently, that is more miss than hit. I even know someone who has almost the same hardware, also runs a GNU/Linux system and for them almost all games work using Proton. For me however they don't. I already tried proprietary graphics card drivers instead of the ones that come with the OS for amdgpu, HWE kernel, another distro, using Steam installer downloaded from website ... nothing seems to fix the issue. When I click on the big green "Play" button in Steam, for many times it loads for a moment, and the button turns into a blue "stop" button, but then just turns back into a green "play" button, never starting the game. Mind, some games work, like Stardew Valley for example. But I think those are mostly already made to work cross platform. I have no idea what I can still try, and it annoys me, that for most games I still have to reboot into Windows to play them. I seem to have had more luck following guides for using WINE for specific games in the past, when I made games like StarCraft 2 work better than on Windows, than I have had with Steam and Proton so far. So anecdote. It is not smooth sailing for everyone yet, unfortunately, and I don't know what the issue is.
- esseph 1y ago
  Debian is just not going to have access to as much up to date software as it probably needs, even with testing back ports, to run well. I say this as a very long time Debian user that is really struggling in this day and age to find a place for Debian among my devices at this point.
  - doodlesdev 1y ago
    Out of curiosity, what distribution have you been using lately instead of Debian? Anecdotally, I've been using Fedora Workstation for a few years already, and my Steam + Proton Experimental experience has been fantastic with an AMD GPU using the drivers that come with the kernel. Although I must admit, I miss having a Debian-based distribution sometimes, because in some situations I can't find rpm packages for more specific things I'm trying to do in my system. The problem is I just don't know any other distribution that's not Debian Testing that could work like Fedora Workstation but with .deb packages.
jandrese 1y ago
For me Proton works sometimes, but I've had much more success with the third party Glorious Eggroll versions that include the Microsoft Codecs used by many games for in-game video.
agoodusername63 1y ago
The case that this is true is only if you don't have an Nvidia GPU or don't play D3D12 games. I tried it, discovered that Nvidia has a known regression that causes anywhere up to 25% lower performance compared to Windows in GPU limited games in D3D12, and immediately went back to Windows. I'll never understand why people keep championing Linux for gaming when it has such a severe regression on the most common gaming GPU vendor. Steam says 75%. An Nvidia employee even stated that the fix is not trivial so they're not committing to a timeline for a fix. This is a year+ old issue. They're never fixing it because it doesn't affect CUDA. https://github.com/NVIDIA/egl-wayland/issues/164#issuecomment-2996996055 https://github.com/NVIDIA/egl-wayland/issues/164#issuecommen...
- philistine 1y ago
  Add it to the list of the death by a thousand cuts of Nvidia as a gaming powerhouse. I would have said that they would have fixed it eventually to be chosen by Valve for a Steam Deck, but they’re gorged on AI money at this point. I don’t think they’re the future of gaming GPUs at all. They’re very slowly abandoning the market through those cuts.

theandrewbailey 1y ago

> I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? I know that a large portion of our business is to other resellers and businesses. FWIW, long before I started working here, I replaced XP with Xubuntu on my parent's computer about 15 years ago. I told them that "it works like Windows[0]", showed them how to check email, browse the web, play solitare, and shut down. Even the random HP printer and scanner worked great! I expected a call from them to "put it back to what it was", but it never happened. (The closest was Mom wondering why solitare (the gnome-games version) was different, then guided her on how to change the game type to klondike.) [0] If "it [Xubuntu] works like Windows" offended you, I'd like to point out that most people don't care about how operating system kernels are designed. They care about things like a start menu, and that the X in the corner closes programs.

keyringlight 1y ago
One thing I wonder about with people moving to linux is whether "it works like windows" can act as a safe and comfortable landing point, but then how many people explore and prefer the options that they then have access to. One aspect MS has been criticized for over the past few versions of windows is that they are opinionated about how the base windows UI operates and looks for a very large number of users. One of the things I find interesting on the subreddits for some distros is a lot of posts is showing off how they've customized things, so you can nudge people towards the theming support or panel components you can swap out, or that you can have drastically different DEs with different operation models yet handle the same applications.

bargainbin 1y ago

Would just like to add it’s not needed so much now. I’m a pretty avid gamer and I’ve been using Bazzite as my OS now for months without issue. Proton has completely changed the game (pun not intended). All that’s really missing now is the big studios who won’t release their anticheat for Linux.

techjamie 1y ago

> I think this plays a huge part, is it elders/poorer/others that receive these machines? I got my hands on a Dell that was retired out of an office somewhere for $30+shipping. Add the cost of a couple HDDs, time spent removing a disc drive and installing Linux, I got myself a cheap backup server on my LAN. They're great for machines you don't want to drop a lot on for basic utilities.