Hey it’s just like EVs or any other new technologies. The enthusiasts or believers will dive in first and deal with all the complicated setups. If it is actually better, these enthusiasts will form a company or already be a company who will create a product that will dominate the industry because they have a better product. Valve is definitely setup to be that company with the funds and competitive reasons to compete with Microsoft (windows/xbox store vs steam store). Steam store is their money maker but they face risks from Microsoft. Luckily Microsoft has to be careful due to antitrust issues because of their size, ie, Apple Store.

Be a cheerleader, encourage these people to take the dive. If you’re hating on people who want their stuff to just work you’ll never grow to get the casual pc / gamer user. Change is hard, most people are not looking to tinker.

I think you put too much weight on everything, including your opinion. I am not trying to be insulting, just realistic.

I can equally say that I hate how so many people say, “just switch to Linux, its easy and does everything.” Neither of those is the case because it doesn’t factor in the learning curve nor does Linux do everything.

So if you want more Linux users, focus more on being helpful. Ask what their specific concerns are, or what apps they must have vs would be nice to have. Point people to distros that would fit their use case (it’s mind boggling as a non Linux user to just look up what distro to get). Then point them towards how to find answers to their questions and troubleshooting steps.

Nuture the seeds you plant and they will grow. Yelling at them that they aren’t growing isn’t going to help.

1. don’t play any games on windows
2. move
3. only play like 2 games, still haven’t downloaded Steam

I understand what you’re saying and I guess it’s true that some people are just finding excuses.

But I think you also lack some empathy towards everyone ´s user’s case.

Personnaly, switching fully to Linux was pretty easy as 99% of my gaming is being done on Playstation.

On my playstation 5 I can know for sure that I can play every game I fancy.

Why am I gaming on consoles? Mostly because it involves no tinkering.

So, despite having gotten rid of Windows a while ago, I would easily give up if I had to tinker to get a game running.

I know that gaming on Linux as never been so easy, but gaming on PC (windows or linux) looks already too difficult for some people with all the requirements.

I might jump to a Linux gaming rig in the future, but I can also understand why some people are choosing an easy path.

Windows doesn’t run every game i want. I couldn’t get the first Command and Conquer to be playable at all. I have had the same experience many times with older strategy and simulation games: they just don’t work very well on modern Windows.

By contrast, so far Linux does play every game i want. My entire library going back decades works just fine with Wine or Proton. It’s easy once you get used to using a translation layer.

I don’t play Apex, League, or Fortnite, so that’s probably why i dont feel like i’m missing anything on Linux.

As a Linux user, this post is exhausting.

SteamOS is exciting. Many people had their first proper experience of using Linux with the steamdeck and many of those thoroughly enjoy the experience. I imagine its a great comfort to know that your OS is being supported by the same people who gave you such a great experience in the past.

I’m sure theres a tiny fraction of people who absolutely are just moving the goalpost over and over, but most people just want something that works for them with minimal friction. SteamOS will do that, and it’ll be familiar.

This is an terrible take. You must have switched the moment you became aware of Linux, had no qualms or before the switch, didn’t mull it over even a little bit.

Please go back in time to when you weren’t using Linux yet, and direct this rant at yourself and see how you like it.

I kept saying once upon a time"I’ll make the switch to Linux but X doesn’t work, so not yet. "

I dual booted for a while. That “a while” ended when Windows ate GRUB.

I had enough. I decided enough was enough. I kept windows on one SSD, just in case I wanted to go back. That didn’t last long, I wiped that drive, and formatted it to BTRFS. Now none of my drives are NTFS.

For the one case I “need” Windows, I spun up a VM (and configured USB passthrough) for Windows. That is for a guitar pedal and amp that I need Windows for updates. But I don’t remember the last time I booted up that VM.

For music recording and production I installed Reaper for Linux natively, but that was an easy transition considering Reaper was what i used in Windows. Sure VSTs were a big concern for me, so I investigated VST bridge type software. And I can’t recall the ones I investigated. But this is where I am at on my journey.

I don’t care how “easy” it is to just stay the same and keep using Windows, it isn’t for me. I don’t agree with their data collection policies. I don’t agree with the “black box” mentality. I want to know what is happening on my system. I want to understand what I am using. And at a certain point with Windows, I just don’t have the ability, tools, or inside scoop to fully learn that.

With Linux, the journey may have taken time, effort, and willingness to troubleshoot and learn but it ultimately is a better experience.

There have been very few games I couldn’t get working on my system, but those games aren’t enough to sell out my ideals. I will never go back.

I would rather be a farmer.

I’m having ca 20 servers at home and the majority of those are linux. I love it. My main rig is still windows and will probably stay that way unless win12 won’t finally cure what pisses me off so damn much with 11. They won’t, obviously. But migration would be very hard. Most of my tools won’t run, most of my self made tools won’t run, most of my games won’t run, most 4 decades of internalization of shortcuts won’t cut it short anymore. And I won’t even start with the domain migration horrors as this one’s still MS. I would end up dual booting for eternity until I stop booting up one of the two.

So…my point is. I use the right tool for the right job.

I find it easy enough to want only those games that can be run on linux. There are plenty of them. No system is going to run every game, just ignore those that are exclusive to the Sony Weebox or whatever.

Pointless discussion.

“Fuck you Microsoft, I’m moving to Linux” says the individual that would never move if they haven’t already

I posted this in a comment somewhere on Lemmy about a month before I moved. It took me a while because I have a chronic illness, a disability, and the whole process takes a lot of sitting at my desk which is quite hard on my body.

Not everyone’s circumstances are the same. I get the sentiment you’re trying to share but cut people some slack…

You ever seen this XKCD about “today’s 10,000?”

Your rant reminds me of that because I think you’ve got this idea in your head that everyone in life is at the same point in their journey as you are now. Linux has been on the edge of my mind for awhile but I’m a really busy working person and learning a new operating system seems daunting when you don’t have the experience.

Then I bought a Steamdeck last year and a switch flipped in my head; I was like hey this gaming on Linux and it looks like it is actually doable. Then a few weeks back a misfortune resulted in Windows getting nuked on my gaming PC and I had some free time so installed Linux for the first time and started trying to figure stuff out.

My point is that there are people who are truthfully interested but overwhelmed with life or it’s just not as high a priority to them so it hasn’t happened yet but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. This approach of “they would have done it by now if they were going to” just seems silly to me. People have lives and we are all at different places in our journey.

Im ngl, I feel like its posts like these that make people dislike Linux users. Expecting every game that you own to run perfectly isn’t some insane requirement, its totally reasonable lol. I get that its kinda frustrating people won’t ever switch, but lets be real, the only way Linux is actually going to gain new users is by having it come pre-installed on devices. Look at the increased Linux use because it’s the default OS on the steamdeck. It just needs to be the default on more devices, and be solid enough that people don’t even notice they’re not on Windows. The amount of people who will actually go out of there way to switch their OS is so negligible it may as well not even count. So who cares about these people who will never switch, because they probably won’t matter much in the end anyway.

–And I say this as someone who has been on Linux full time for a little over a year now.