Feral Interactive one of our new favourite porting houses has asked the big question. Why do we game on Linux?
Linux gamers! Tell us: why do you game on Linux? Please spread this question hither and thither. @GameLinux @ROOTGAMERcom @gamingonlinux
— Feral Interactive (@feralgames) September 3, 2014
Feel free to twitter them, or comment here if you answer isn't a short one. I am sure they are watching.
My reasons
It's an interesting question and one that has been asked a lot by many interesting gamers across the years to the Linux community.
For me it's not about why I game on Linux, but more about why I use Linux which directly translates into gaming on it.
I love customization and having the choice to do lots or do nothing. For me it's not always about source code access (I feel that is important though!), but more about being free to do what I want with it, and never having to pay for system upgrades. I spend enough money on games and hardware without wanting to fork out x amount for the latest operating system.
With Linux I have OpenGL and can get updates for it whenever my chosen graphics vendor pushes out a driver for it, but on Windows at times you have needed to upgrade your entire operating system to get it.
On Linux if I don't like how the entire desktop works I can install another one with a few quick commands, or finding the main package in some package manager. That's an important one to note: I dislike Gnome Shell and Unity a lot, so I use Cinnamon and it works perfectly for my needs. I tried Windows 8 and the new UI was utterly a pain to work with or to find anything on (I gave it a real good go too), and I was stuck with it until I installed Linux on my laptop.
On Linux I have choices, and lots of them. I can tinker with almost anything, and if a game doesn't work you can do simple things to find out why. Running a game in the terminal for example will generally be pretty clear on what you are missing and fix it myself, and I can't say the same for broken games on Windows.
I also find Linux to perform far better at most general day to day tasks, and I come from a Windows 95/98/2000/xp/7 and recently a little of 8 background (yes I've used nearly all Windows operating systems, and a lot to).
There's also the community aspect. The amount of times of looked to find out how to do something, and someone helpful already has the answer and shared it with everyone. Linux users can be very, very helpful.
Right now Linux has also helped me fall in love with games I would never had tried if I was on Windows.
That is all off the top of my head, but that's my honest answer to it.
1) Rock-Solid stability (even for a rolling release like Arch, it's more stable than the Windows 7 beta that I used to use).
2) A good community. Very important point. I am not saying the community isn't great on windows, but most of the most interesting people already did the switch to Linux due to the others points...
3) Bleeding edge software, constant evolution, no backdoors. Most of the Linux ecosystem is open source, with all the advantages. Plus, Linux itself is free, and we have the freedow to do whatever we want with it.
4) It's free. Even if my school has a partnership with microsoft, I like the Idea that Linux is also free as in free beer.
5) Customization. A very important point. I used to customize windows a lot. Now I use KDE... Definitely another level.
6) The OS actually tells what it does, if the user wants to know. It is really easy to get a full glimpse at the Linux internals. And it's easy to learn, too.
7) Linux is used everywhere. Smartphones, servers, embedded systems, routers, switchs, supercomputers, scientific equipment... Definitely a plus to master a tool that is widely available, for free, to anyone, ant that is used by everyone...
8) No expiration date. Due to the open source nature of Linux, It will always be possible to make it run on recent machines, even if the software you want to run isn't ported to the most recent toolkit. If microsoft went to suddenly disappear, we couldn't say the same about the software that runs on windows. That's one of the big advantages of open source.
9) Many reasons I can't think of at the moment I am writing this post...
So, there's a lot of reasons that I use Linux, and the reason I want games on Linux is that I use Linux. So, there's a lot of reasons that I want games on Linux :)
Windows is like a patched luxury car/truck combo where you can drive it wherever you like without a problem, it may run perfectly and take you to your destination or it may have an engine failure during the trip.....
Personally I prefer to drive a Lamborghini Veneno Roadster and hopefully more streets will be available in the future... ;)
why do I game on Linux? The most direct answer is why not ?
I use Linux as my primary OS. I work with Linux and have used it for many years.
I don't use Linux because of software freedom, because its open source, because its free/costs nothing. I use it because its the best operating system for my needs, its the easiest to manage its package management is the most advanced, its support for servers is the best, its support for Python,Perl,Java etc is excellent its development potential is excellent its usage as a server platform is excellent. The in-built virtualisation is probably the best around, its networking stack is one of the best out there, its general latency and memory management is excellent if not the best out there. I also find KDE to be one of the best desktop environments out there, extremely fast and fluid. When Wayland is finally released I will be able to confidently boast that Linux as a desktop platform is also the best on the market.
I like having multiple switching desktops, I like being able to configure things the way I like I like being able to change desktop environments. I like being able to upgrade to the latest and greatest kernel, I like the freedom it provides for me to do whatever I want.
Ultimately cost doesn't factor into my choice of using it at all, I have a mbp, I have apple gear, but I prefer using Linux and given all of the above you can hopefully understand why I say why not ?
Given the choice between gaming on Linux, Windows or Apple. Linux wins hands down for me.
Windows -> Microsoft as a corporation cannot be trusted, it puts more power into directX and abominations like windows 8 and will force the gaming industry into making games that are only compatible with their platform, which is just unacceptable. If Microsoft had their way we would all be buying from the windows 8 store and MS would be making a 30% cut on everything sold no other platforms would be allowed to compete. Hardware flexibility but no software flexibility,
OSX -> Apple control the whole graphics and hardware stack and are pretty dictatorial as to what can / cannot be run. They have so far run old versions of OpenGL and do not seem to be able to keep pace. Most fundamentally while their laptops and PCs can run games they are not designed to do so, gaming has always been an afterthought on their platform and furthermore the Mac Pro is really expensive for any sort of pure gameplay and the gpus offered really are not the best for gaming. Hackintosh's can be built to get around the limitations, but maintaining a hackintosh is quite a pain and the game devs will only target official mac hardware. To put it bluntly No Hardware or Software flexibility, but at least its Unix.
Linux -> latest version of OpenGL courtesy of the binary drivers from nvidia/amd. Complete Hardware and Software flexibility, simple as that.
Steam, Desura, GOG and whatever other game selling places that supports linux are changing the tux games paradigms of: "In Linux you can't play anything with some quality" And, as always, the community is the main role on this paradigm shift... If we, Linux users don't play games in it... who else will play?
I'm feeling bad about my english... I read a lot in english, but rarelly speaks english and I refuse myself to go on some translator tool.
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