Comment by orbital-decay 2 days ago
Most gamers don't give a shit about openness. A much more likely outcome is "big tech" following the numbers and slowly making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic under the pretense of usefulness.
They don't care about it as an abstract idea, but they do notice that Windows 11 is worse than Windows 10 was worse than Windows 8 was worse than Windows 7.
I'm not saying there have been zero useful improvements in later Windows releases, but 7 looked good and did what you told it to. "Openness" is a very abstract idea but "Only does what you tell it to" is a selling point for Linux.
You know it's not going to upload all your documents to OneDrive and then erase them from the computer.
My opinion on that may be colored by the fact that I had a Surface Pro 3, the one place where Windows 8.1 was actually great to use, and taking away some of the focus on tablet use was a regression. Overall you're right though, outside of tablets W10 was an improvement, because 8 tried to stick the tablet UI into desktops.
I was recently connecting to some server with the Windows 8 derived version of Windows Server and gosh that full screen start menu is stupid with a mouse.
Yes, but when they go out creating that aquarium PC tower with rainbow lights, they will install W11 Pro as usual.
Ironically I built a Linux box for mainly local models with some RGBs because I wanted tasteful accent lights to match the room, but my motherboard isn't supported by OpenRGB so they're stuck on either nothing or 'unicorn vomit' mode until some indefinite point in the future. This is the first time I've run into a stereotypically Linux issue in nearly a decade (on sane hardware) I think!
Not a fan of those aquarium PC cases though, they sacrifice airflow for aesthetics which isn't a great shout. I have a 5090 and a 9950X in a more traditional case and my temperatures are fine with air cooling alone. Not sure you'd get away with that in an aquarium case with poorer airflow, at least without it sounding like a hairdryer all day.
I feel like that makes sense. Linux users are messing with all the control given to them in software by a free OS, while windows user get only what they're allowed in software and Microsoft has not figured out how to keep them from modifying their hardware... yet. So the flashy LED folks are making their modifications where still allowed.
Maybe the people who go hardcore like that, with the obnoxious PC cases, but there are lots of casual-to-less-casual gamers out there who will be happy enough with Bazzite.
There’s a whole spectrum of PC gamers, and I think Linux+Proton can appeal to most of them. Let the people spending $10,000 on a glowing case make their own bad decisions.
They don’t care about FOSS, but they care about “computer lets me do what I want”.
Discord is obviously proprietary but it’s actually a very modular platform that gives a lot of nice controls. It’s easy to make your own “server”, it’s easy to add whatever bots you want, it’s easy to moderate. From a consumer perspective, it’s “open”.
Also, I know that this wasn’t your point, but I do feel compelled to point out that Discord works fine on Linux.
Right, but that proves nothing, is there something that is more open and better than Discord, for this group of people? Otherwise I'd say my argument applies in exactly the same way. Pragmatism wins, so why change unless there is a need?
I actually did selfhost my own matrix server to communicate with my friends while gaming. Works great on my steamdeck and I’ve got bazzite on my laptop. Most games I’m interested in work great on Linux and anything that doesn’t I just don’t play. There are so many games that do work great, but I can see people skipping Linux because of fomo.
> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness.
With the Windows 11 debacle, many are learning first hand about what closed ecosystems force on you. It seems every feed I have that has gaming as an interest has an article about Linux as the future. Clearly someone is reading these articles.
Of course they don’t care about F/OSS — the vast majority of games are closed proprietary software. The small minority of Linux gamers are there for anti-Windows reasons rather than pro-Linux or F/OSS reasons. Which given Microsoft is now signaling a pull back on AI and a gear to improved performance/quality in Windows, if those anti-reasons evaporate, you’ll have the more frustrated Linux gamers potentially move back.
Linux needs a positive reason for Linux rather than relying on anti-Windows reasons (and there are, but I see those reasons outside of the gaming space).
There are 1B Windows 11 devices. Granted not all are for games, but it is not an unpopular OS by the numbers alone.
The pretense is security, PC software attestation is already in the workings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572
> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness.
Most gamers are idiots. They are okay paying exorbitant sums for broken games and most have no problem with forced rootkits.
I don't think gaming is or should be driving people to Linux.
Microslop turning their OS into a data mining and ad platform should and is pushing normal, rational people to Linux. But, most gamers don't care about such things as long as they are getting their sweet, sweet dopamine hit.
Ironically, lower framerates(even though they are higher than the human eye and nervous system can perceive) on Windows 11 might push gamers onto Linux.They still want their rootkits, though.
It is always the dumbest reasons that get gamers upset.
Until it fully supports multiplayer which doesn't seem to be a thing for any major game or studio, it's a nothingburger for the majority of people.
but they do care about AI slop and owning their own system.
a lot of FOSS is an abstraction but even the rubes can realize that they're being spied on, that Big Tech wants to be Big Brother, and is enshittifying their experience to that end.
Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever.
The PC is an “open” platform in that you can buy and choose your own hardware. Intel vs AMD vs Nvidia, Seagate vs Western Digital, etc….
Using open software isn’t really more than a few steps from that. Being able to pick how your system works and customizing it to your liking is basically the software version of picking your PC parts. Gamers also like to run all sorts of software to rice there Windows desktops and will install all sorts of abominations tha mess with the Windows desktop shell. Much easier and fun to rice a Linux desktop.
Linux enthusiasts need to just learn how to appeal to their sensibilities. Valve knows, and they are very effective at getting people excited for a Linux based gaming platform. They’ve also proven they can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Sure, they won’t give a crap about the source code but there is more to libre software than just being able to change the source code if you want.
We’re also at an inflection point where people are getting really really really annoyed with companies like Microsoft treating them like lab rats and shoving Copilot down their throat when they don’t want it. There is a chink in the armor; people are opening up to the idea of alternative platforms where you don’t have to worry about any of that garbage.
> making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic
This will never happen because projects will just be forked.
> Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever.
You're making a huge assumption here. I think that's a really small percentage. Most people game on PC because certain games they like to play are only on PC, or are much better suited to PC, or because their friends are on PC, or because they want to play on the go (Steam Deck is very recent and still not widely used), or because they need to have a PC anyway. Or because they grew up with it at home/in the neighborhood because there was no money for a console. Or because "Because they like building their system", I'm going to peg at <10%.
It's a bit on a tangent because it's about hardware rather than OS choice, but the next few years are going to be a stress test on how much people value PC versus the cash-value of components increases, and what happens to the numbers of people entering the market, staying with older systems or upgrading (or replacing/complimenting with a console). Someone saying they think it's worth a lot is different to opening their wallet.
One aspect I think will be interesting is to compare what happens to attitudes with prices changes in more affluent markets like North America or Western Europe compare to how PC has been approached in other markets like Asia or South America.
I got into PC gaming in ~2009 primarily because it is so much cheaper than console. Steam sales and Humble Bundle allowed me to buy so many more games for less money.
The initial cost upfront was higher than a console but if you want a lot of games it ends up being worth it.
And those games do not die with each or every other generation of hardware. Almost my entire Steam library still runs on my latest machine.
Yeah, I was happily surprised to be reminded of that when I set up my NixOS Jovian box that I “consolified” by having it boot into Gamescope and the SteamOS interface.
It’s plugged into my TV, with a wireless controller, and I have direct access to around 800 games immediately.
There are consoles that don’t even have 800 games in their entire library and I have 800 I can play whenever I want, some of which I purchased almost two decades ago.
Many game mods and community maps, etc. are only available on PC. You can play the vanilla version on console, but not the mods you watch Twitch streamers playing. So, it's not b/c they like building PCs, it's because they want to play the mods with their friends.
I am speaking as an old gamer. I no longer play.
I would not worry too much about the mod community! They are the one persistant group of people who will hack the software to their liking. Yes you can't play full FiveM GTA V right now, but it will get there eventually. There is nothing technical that is limiting the mods from working on Proton, just time from some annoyed mod dev that has had enough with windows, and it will be migrated over.
>This will never happen because projects will just be forked.
There's a chasm of difference between a technical fork and a meaningful fork. The entire point of EEE is relying on usefulness and convenience combined with network effects to make the entire system restricted and control it. Sure, you can go and fork anything you want - nobody stops you, technically. But you're getting the rug pulled from under your feet in any case.
You can witness the early stage of subversion with very useful software (without any hint of irony) made by people who "left" Microsoft: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572
> Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever.
I haven't built a PC in over 2 decades and I can't stand trying to game on a console or on a phone. I buy a stock machine like AlienWare, overwrite Windows with Kubuntu and go to town gaming.
> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness
I don't think this is a given. I think most gamers so far haven't cared about openness because pragmatically, it didn't matter for them.
Now they're seeing the long-term effect of not caring about that though, which is why we're suddenly seeing a movement of gamers moving to Linux, and trying to get others to move with them, because they realize the importance now, as their desktops are slowly collapsing over Microsoft's decision to let AI do all the programming, and having zero QA before releasing stuff to the public.