4 ms·

Steam with Proton is simply incredible. And now it doesn't even split games in "Linux" vs "Windows"; it simply assumes all games run on Linux. And they mostly

by the_af 9mo ago

Steam with Proton is simply incredible. And now it doesn't even split games in "Linux" vs "Windows"; it simply assumes all games run on Linux. And they mostly do! Though to be fair I had to tweak a couple to make them run, and Space Marine II absolutely refuses to play past the cutscene, but most other games "just work".

tombert 9mo ago
I was amazed that the PC port of Spider-man Myles Morales worked perfectly with no tweaking at all. That’s the newest AAA game I own (I think), and it runs silky smooth and hasn’t had any issues. It wasn’t that long ago that Wine was only really useful for games that were at least 5-10 years old. Proton is amazing.
hbn 9mo ago
God I hope Valve gets serious with Steam OS and it becomes a competitive target for PC games. They're making amazing progress with the Steam Deck, and I'm so ready to be free from Windows.
- mfro 9mo ago
  Considering the Steam Machine will come with SteamOS, it looks like they are going all in.
- tracker1 9mo ago
  Is there something wrong with the many distros that make Steam a really easy install, or in the box? I mean Bazzite literally has a FS Steam option in the box for installers that's pretty close to the Steam OS experience with broader hardware support.
  - hbn 9mo ago
    I'm trying to word this without sounding dismissive of Bazzite for simply not being from a big company with money to throw around. I'm sure the people making it are doing great work. But I just don't get the feeling it's anywhere near the position it needs to be a "real platform" that could disrupt Windows. It has to be looked at from the perspective of publishers, and whether it's worth their money to target a new platform. Valve has good, stable funds to pay a team full time to build and support Steam OS which, over a long period of time and with enough user uptake, I think will have better chances of getting publishers on board with ensuring their games work on something that isn't Windows. Hell, they could probably make deals with publishers to say "hey, here's a pile of money to make sure your game works on Steam OS day 1, and put it in all the ads" and get the ball rolling that way. Gaming is a tough space to crack. I think Valve's money and their history of supporting the most popular gaming platform on PC inspires more trust needed to make their platform a standard target.
    - 0x1ch 9mo ago
      The core of bazzite has nothing to do with being from a big company or not. The complaint doesn't make much sense given the foundation Bazzite is actually built on is sponsored and developed by Fedora/RHEL. Maybe I'm downplaying what the Bazzite team is actually doing, but from afar it is Fedora Silverblue with gaming related tweaks out of the box, probably targeting handhelds and common gaming hardware in testing. The actual issue of adopting a new operating system is already rearing its head on this thread. "What's Bazzite? What's Silverblue? SteamOS, is that linux? Is that different from this other linux?". There's too many options for someone that wants to sit down and play a game. Unless a major OEM decides to push Linux on their systems, SteamOS is generally the only real competitor in this space due to reputation and control of the PC gaming market. Time in the market, versus timing the market is what comes to mind here.
      - tadfisher 9mo ago
        Paradox-of-choice issues are overblown. Every Linux distro is a repackaging of the same core components and same software. The PC is standardized for the most part, there is not much commodity hardware that lacks support, and the popular hardware that needs particular support (Nvidia drivers) is catered to by any popular distro out there. Users are mostly afraid of wasting time trying Linux (any Linux) and having to go back to Windows for reason X, Y, or Z that they didn't even know about. For my partner who doesn't game, reason Z is one particular feature of Microsoft Word (the shrinkwrap application, not 365 Copilot App or whatever) that isn't emulated by LibreOffice or Google Docs. For competitive PC gamers, it's kernel anti-cheat. The Linux desktop story in general has been to slowly whittle down these reasons until there really is no good excuse for users not to switch and for vendors not to support the OS, even through compatibility layers.
        tracker1 9mo ago
        I'd say it's even more true with appimage and flatpak options for desktop apps, and docker/podman containers for development use. My biggest hobby project right now has several dependency services that are configured via docker compose and some script files for development.. then the couple services/application I'm working on are literally setup to run in dev containers watching/running against mounted volumes to the source director(ies). It's very portable to any nix-like environment with docker installed in terms of dev. Including Windows with git/msys bash or wsl. You can use pretty much whatever Linux you want or suits your needs... relatively easily. I'm probably going to get to a point for first release over the weekend... a lot of it AI assisted (Claude Code) and pretty happy with it.
  - babypuncher 9mo ago
    SteamOS is actively shipping on consumer hardware today, that's the real major difference here. People who don't even know how to install their own operating system are using it. There isn't a downside to these other distros like Bazzite.

by the_af 9mo ago

tombert 9mo ago

I was amazed that the PC port of Spider-man Myles Morales worked perfectly with no tweaking at all. That’s the newest AAA game I own (I think), and it runs silky smooth and hasn’t had any issues. It wasn’t that long ago that Wine was only really useful for games that were at least 5-10 years old. Proton is amazing.

hbn 9mo ago

God I hope Valve gets serious with Steam OS and it becomes a competitive target for PC games. They're making amazing progress with the Steam Deck, and I'm so ready to be free from Windows.

mfro 9mo ago
Considering the Steam Machine will come with SteamOS, it looks like they are going all in.
tracker1 9mo ago
Is there something wrong with the many distros that make Steam a really easy install, or in the box? I mean Bazzite literally has a FS Steam option in the box for installers that's pretty close to the Steam OS experience with broader hardware support.
- hbn 9mo ago
  I'm trying to word this without sounding dismissive of Bazzite for simply not being from a big company with money to throw around. I'm sure the people making it are doing great work. But I just don't get the feeling it's anywhere near the position it needs to be a "real platform" that could disrupt Windows. It has to be looked at from the perspective of publishers, and whether it's worth their money to target a new platform. Valve has good, stable funds to pay a team full time to build and support Steam OS which, over a long period of time and with enough user uptake, I think will have better chances of getting publishers on board with ensuring their games work on something that isn't Windows. Hell, they could probably make deals with publishers to say "hey, here's a pile of money to make sure your game works on Steam OS day 1, and put it in all the ads" and get the ball rolling that way. Gaming is a tough space to crack. I think Valve's money and their history of supporting the most popular gaming platform on PC inspires more trust needed to make their platform a standard target.
  - 0x1ch 9mo ago
    The core of bazzite has nothing to do with being from a big company or not. The complaint doesn't make much sense given the foundation Bazzite is actually built on is sponsored and developed by Fedora/RHEL. Maybe I'm downplaying what the Bazzite team is actually doing, but from afar it is Fedora Silverblue with gaming related tweaks out of the box, probably targeting handhelds and common gaming hardware in testing. The actual issue of adopting a new operating system is already rearing its head on this thread. "What's Bazzite? What's Silverblue? SteamOS, is that linux? Is that different from this other linux?". There's too many options for someone that wants to sit down and play a game. Unless a major OEM decides to push Linux on their systems, SteamOS is generally the only real competitor in this space due to reputation and control of the PC gaming market. Time in the market, versus timing the market is what comes to mind here.
    - tadfisher 9mo ago
      Paradox-of-choice issues are overblown. Every Linux distro is a repackaging of the same core components and same software. The PC is standardized for the most part, there is not much commodity hardware that lacks support, and the popular hardware that needs particular support (Nvidia drivers) is catered to by any popular distro out there. Users are mostly afraid of wasting time trying Linux (any Linux) and having to go back to Windows for reason X, Y, or Z that they didn't even know about. For my partner who doesn't game, reason Z is one particular feature of Microsoft Word (the shrinkwrap application, not 365 Copilot App or whatever) that isn't emulated by LibreOffice or Google Docs. For competitive PC gamers, it's kernel anti-cheat. The Linux desktop story in general has been to slowly whittle down these reasons until there really is no good excuse for users not to switch and for vendors not to support the OS, even through compatibility layers.
      - tracker1 9mo ago
        I'd say it's even more true with appimage and flatpak options for desktop apps, and docker/podman containers for development use. My biggest hobby project right now has several dependency services that are configured via docker compose and some script files for development.. then the couple services/application I'm working on are literally setup to run in dev containers watching/running against mounted volumes to the source director(ies). It's very portable to any nix-like environment with docker installed in terms of dev. Including Windows with git/msys bash or wsl. You can use pretty much whatever Linux you want or suits your needs... relatively easily. I'm probably going to get to a point for first release over the weekend... a lot of it AI assisted (Claude Code) and pretty happy with it.
- babypuncher 9mo ago
  SteamOS is actively shipping on consumer hardware today, that's the real major difference here. People who don't even know how to install their own operating system are using it. There isn't a downside to these other distros like Bazzite.