Valve is proving that LOTS of people would use Linux if it came in convenient preinstalled packaging.
“User-friendly? Pffftt… Do you mean noob enabling?”
- Toxic Linux fanatic
“I hate noobs. So glad I never was one.”
- That same toxic fanatic
It’s all fun and games until some manjaro user starts asking about manjaro-specific f-ups in an arch chat and telling users there that apparently it’s the same when told such f-ups are discussed in a chat next-door
Yeah unfortunately this is a real issue. I also think it’s an issue that experienced users don’t really want to help newbies, especially those who can’t or won’t do research by themselves. Ideally experienced users would be more helpful, but at the same time that isn’t their job. There are many who learned Linux more or less on their own so it’s understandable they don’t want to help given they didn’t use any help when it was their turn. I think now that the community is growing this might start to change a bit, as the newcomers are more likely to have had help and be willing to help others.
I sometimes try to advocate for using Linux, and I don’t mind giving friends advice from time to time. That being said I don’t want to be stuck answering stupid questions all the time that could have been solved with a google search or a YouTube video. I have my own stuff to worry about both technical and otherwise.
That’s why I think teaching new users how to access resources like man pages, gnu info pages, google, and so on is the correct approach to take. It is empowering having the skills to work through your own issues. That being said I also think it’s important for experienced people to give advice on more complex questions.
that could have been solved with a google search
This is very quickly becoming untrue. Actually, I’d argue that it’s been somewhat not the case for some situations, that I’ve personally encountered, for over a decade. There’s times when I search forums for days, finally find someone who’s experiencing the exact same issue as me. The post is marked solved! Fuck yeah!
The post:OP: Hey guys, I’m trying to fix xyz and I’m not able to find anything on it. Could I get some help?
Two months after initial post:
Only reply is OP: Nevermind guys, I figured it out.
Me: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
Are you honestly telling me there aren’t people asking basic questions that could be solved with a google search? Don’t get me wrong the kind of question you are talking about does exist, but that’s now what I am discussing here.
Oh, no totally, there’s people asking questions that Google used to be able to answer. Google is now a burning tire fire, and getting a useable answer from it can now be a full time job…is what I’m saying.
Then you use DuckDuckGo like I do. Not every search engine has gone to complete shit. Google was just an example. Obviously it’s not the current meta in terms of search engines.
Indeed. I’d say majority of people nowadays need just one thing from their computer - working web browser. Mail, office suite, audio and video consumption, even graphic suite (e.g. photopea) is available, and widely adopted, in browser. And browsers behavesbvirtually the same whether on Windows or Linux, so yeah, put person in front of nicely packed Linux PC and chances are there won’t be many issues.
That would be a Chromebook.
That’s been the case for a long time, this xkcd is at least a decade old!
That’s good one :-)
As someone who has recently begun dipping in to Linux and trying to figure it all out, I agree with this.
I feel like if Samsung or someone embraced Linux in the way Apple have macOS, it could very easily become a serious contender to Windows. But I guess no one could trust Samsung to not fuck it all up and make it a proprietary fork that would end up having nothing to do with Linux.
Basically like they (and Google) have handled phones. “Wow look, a majority of the OS work is done for us! Sooo if we just…overlay it all with proprietary blobs and un-removable software and locked bootloaders and…”
I have enough PTSD from the aptly named TouchWiz era. I simply can’t imagine all those Samsung executives nodding approvingly with the powerpoint presentation in their offices.
Fuck Samsung but ValveOS (something aimed at the average user) would be neat to see. At least until Valve goes full on ‘LET’S BE FUCKING EVIL!’
Darth Gaben: To verify your identity, say the gamer word out loud with the hard R explicitly pronounced. If you’d fail to do this check every half an hour (offline included), the VAC ban would follow. I don’t make rules, hahaha, no, I make them up as we speak.
Oh yeah, I agree. I really only chose Samsung because they’re one of the very few companies with the same kind of market presence as Apple.
SteamOS is a thing. https://store.steampowered.com/steamos
I’m aware but from your own link:
Users should not consider SteamOS as a replacement for their desktop operating system.
I was suggesting a desktop replacement OS - something for the ‘normies.’
I bought a steam deck and it inspired me to build a Linux gaming pc. Haven’t been in the pc world since windows 7. Dabbled a bit with Linux long ago. Well, it was a pretty smooth set up this go around. Everything just worked. I didn’t even need to find a driver for my GPU.
The exception was a VR headset I tried to set up. I decided to install Windows on a separate HD just for VR games. When I did, I was shocked at how bad it is. I mean the UI and UX are dated and bloated, sure, but Windows couldn’t even detect my motherboards wifi. I had to boot in to Linux, download my WiFi drivers and then transfer them via USB drive to windows. Same issue with Bluetooth. I can’t believe in 2024, Windows doesn’t just work out of the box while Linux does.
For VR, if you have a Quest headset and good WiFi, you can try ALVR with SteamVR, it works just fine for me while playing BeatSaber but depending on games your milage might vary.
Yeah, not using Quest. Trying to run an HTC Vive, which is pretty ancient at this point. In any case, I think the issue is I installed Steam via flatpak, but I guess it’s better to install it natively for VR. I’m sure I could technically get it running, but after putting a few hours into trying, I just gave up. Mostly just want to play Half-Life Alyx and after that I’m probably finished with the VR till some other killer game comes out.
If network card drivers don’t work, you can transfer the file the old-fashioned way, or get online using an Android phone in USB Tethering mode (Wi-Fi and mobile data both work).
Which distro did you use?
I’ve been having a good but not perfect experience with Ubuntu as a desktop OS lately, but I’m open to trying other suggestions.
I used Linux Mint originally. No issues at all with drivers there, worked perfectly. My main complaint was its kinda ugly and had limited UI configurability. It also was a pain to install certain apps, which weren’t available by default in the software manager. I tried a few other distros including Fedora and Elementary OS. Fedora was pretty nice. Elementary OS felt a bit dated looking and I was going to have to fix some UI issues to make it work.
Finally, I gave Zorin OS a go and couldn’t be happier. It’s based on Ubuntu so pretty stable and just works, plus the UI is polished and it has a lot of built in ways to customize it, whether you’re from Mac or Windows background. It’s also really easy to install apps - flatpak and snap. I guess some on here would say it isn’t optimized for gaming, but shrug it works fine for me (aside from VR). The free version works completely fine, but if you want to support the devs and get some extra UI customization, you can donate for the pro version.
I’m sure there are lots of other ways to do it, but my priority was to have something polished and easy to use without a lot of time spent tinkering. I’d rather spend my limited free time gaming.
Isn’t that technically what Android fix 15 tears ago?
Android may be vaguely user friendly, but it’s horrible to use for anything except launching a self-contained app.
So it’s ok-ish for phones, but horrible as a general purpose system.
This thread is about the steam deck. It is a purpose built piece of hardware that runs its software in containers.
It can run regular desktop software, but it is absolutely not a replacement for “a general purpose system”.
Valve is doing this? Not Android since 2008?
Heck we know people don’t give a shit what’s under the covers since at least the switch between Windows 98 and 2000/XP, the latter being a very different OS. It could have been BSD or Linux and people wouldn’t have bat an eye if the start menu looked the same and Word, Corel Draw, Photoshop and AutoCAD worked.
Android is not (really) a desktop OS. Devices with preconfigured locked-up Linux installations have been around way before that, mainly networking equipment.
Neither is SteamOS.
SteamOS is not locked, and at any point can can be set to desktop mode and used as one. Unlike android which has no compatibility with other Linux desktop apps without a fair bit of tinkering to get working.
I take it you’ve never used a steam deck
One could make a similar argument with Google (Android/ChromeOS).
You could…
But then one is an open system where you can disable the UI put on top and have a working linux system, while the other is a closed blob destroying compatibility and trying hard to lock you out from accessing the underlying linux system.
While I’ll always be wary of corporations, Valve seems to be maintaining an overall good relationship with the FOSS community (for the time being).
they aren’t publicly traded so that’s probably part of the reason.
I’d bet dollars to donuts that’s exactly the reason. And the minute they start goin public, the enshittification will occur.
Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve got the horrible feeling that once Gabe dies the enshittification begins.
Enjoy it while it lasts. Capitalism will definitely suck out all joy out of life eventually but we can still have a little bit of fun here on the verge.
That’s what was happening so Gabe took it private again.
I mean, the second someone is a billionaire from the business they run, the enshitifaction has begun because that money comes from somewhere.
Gabe has been a billionaire a while now. Like $9.5B net worth with a yacht collection.
Exactly my point
But counter to your point Steam has done a ton of pro-consumer moves since then…?
If they can afford to do all of that while also making the boss a billionaire then they could have afforded to do all of that while also saving you money and only a single person would have went with less money in their pockets.
well fortunately valve is enshittificating at a pretty slow pace, then
Want some hats and some cards and loot boxes?
Valve hasn’t sued anyone to give them a portion of their income forever. Valve also doesn’t pursue anti consumer goals on daily basis. Not that it has never done anything wrong but it has done enough good to be on my good side as little as it means
Valve also doesn’t pursue anti consumer goals on daily basis.
Valve pioneered lootboxes and marketing gambling to children, why does everyone forget that?
At one point Apple, Google, etc. were not evil… but yeah, enjoy the moment for sure.:-)
But they are/were publicly traded.
Being publicly traded inherently means you need to show growth every 3 months or your shares are worthless. Cue the enshittification and squeezing pennies from every revenue stream possible.
That’s the sole reason Valve hasn’t gone down that path is its status in this regard.
That is a VERY good point. Let’s hope it remains that way. Reddit was private once too.
There is a difference with valve ,that’s that the company is private.
All companies making enough profit to make someone a billionaire are anti consumer.
and we love them like brothers and sisters.
And we also treat them like such, lol.
Together we can create a dysfunctional OS user base, and this is what we’re missing.
Microsoft is the best advertising for Linux out there
Seriously though for the first time I am seeing long time Microsoft admins start to complain
You haven’t been looking in the right places then, I’ve been seeing it since I started working in IT nearly a decade ago.
It has definitely gotten crappier since I started though.
(Microsoft Admin whining incoming)
More and more snags related to implementation details of ancient functionality that still exists under the hood of their all new shiny crap, but isn’t actually documented properly anywhere anymore because rolling out new stuff is more important than finishing documentation on core sysadmin tools multiple years old.
They got rid of all training courses, certs, and learning material for all their on premise stuff in order to push cloud only setups years ago. They are just barely starting to backtrack that, so there’s a massive gap in official documentation.
Thank god my team has enough requisite greybeards to bridge the gap and train me on what Microsoft wants to pretend isn’t still in widespread use.
I’m planning to get a handheld gaming computer and install one of the open source Linux gaming distros on it, like ChimeraOS or Bazzite
Just skip that step and get the deck. It’s the best handheld anyway.
I haven’t had a gaming system.in over 10 years and I was so glad I got the steam deck. It just worked out of the box, no messing around having to set anything up or play around with settings.
I bought a few games, downloaded them and everything has been seamless. Its been the most worthwhile purchase I’ve made in quite some time.
You can get better specs and pretty much the same UI experience from competitors by installing Bazzite, only the lack of a trackpad might turn some people off depending on what type of game they’re playing…
Unless you referring specifically to the original deck’s screen, I dont see a point in paying way more for specs that if you try using will get you a battery life of 30min.
And as someone who thought the trackpads were pointless: they make a lot of games you wouldn’t expect perfectly playable. I personally have been playing stellaris on the deck and it’s been great.
If you don’t mind being plugged in then the better specs can be used without having to worry about the battery, some options have a bigger screen and better resolution, some options have a bigger battery than the Deck (double the Deck’s battery in the Ally X) , as I mentioned the trackpad isn’t essential to everyone (if you’re always playing games with controllers anyway, you’re probably not playing RTS or city builders)…
It’s ok for the Deck to not be the only option people should consider, it’s nice of Valve to develop stuff, it’s a good thing that they have competitors.
I have to say, I have and like my Steam Deck OLED, but there are multiple solutions for desktop mode in other handhelds I prefer to Steam’s weirdo dual touchpads. The platonic ideal is GPD’s physical keyboard and optical trackball thingy, paired with their stick mouse emulation switch, but there are things like the Lenovo Legion Go’s single touchpad that also work.
Bazzite supports the Legion Go’s detachable dual controllers surprisingly well, too. I was shocked, considering how weird and proprietary they are. You can’t even get Switch Joycon support that good on a desktop PC.
The steam deck isn’t powerful enough for what I want:
This is also going to serve as my main computer, so it’s going to spend like 95% of the time docked to an eGPU, external monitor, and mouse/keyboard. I mess around with unreal engine and do software development, so I want more ram than the steam deck currently provides.
Me using windows on the steam deck to really make things confusing
Why can’t you just be normal?
[SCREAMS IN WINDOWS 11]
Steam deck is great, no complaints, however the place Linux really shines and brighter than any other OS, is in the server space, I am in no way recommending this to anyone but self hosting is so amazing you can literally run your own internet, I personally barely use anything not hosted on my server in my browser, the only place this isn’t a valid option is in programs that have to be in real time and hardware intensive, like video games and I’ll be honest I never played my games on Linux anything that requires a desktop never felt reliable or worth it to me but now oh boy, I bought a steam deck thinking it would sit in a closet and never be used or I would end up putting windows on but nope, I was subconsciously pulled to it until it eventually became the only console in my living room, this is primarily thanks to emulation, once you get your emulators set up you never want to do it again and I can take the steam deck with me and hook it up to any screen with a single wire, but thanks to the steam deck I am down to one computer With windows on it and it is only used for games that are wholly incompatible it gets used about once a month.
