Quoting: Eike

Quoting: rustybroomhandleI wager a hefty chunk of Linux users do not allow the survey because "oh no, privacy!"

I'm not sure. I could also imagine Windows users say "No, why would I?!?", while Linux users, having eagerly waited for their vote, scream "Hell yeah!". At least I did! ;)

You are all making this too complex. In my experience people just click yes to anything that pops up without reading it.

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Quoting: PJ

Quoting: SchattenspiegelLet's hope the ones crossing over do not come into contact with GNOME desktop first. Otherwise they might start to find windows 11 not so bad after all. ;-)

and that's debatable. My personal experience is that when I introduce some non-techie to Linux Gnome works best (with addad dock and some minor tweaks). Those were folks that actually kept using Linux.
With "techies" KDE is usually the best choice. Sucks with default settings but you can do almost anything with it.
IMO one of the issues with Linux desktop is by default every single DE sucks... even though every single one (among the major ones) is actually awesome.

Gnome out of the box is ugly and to make it useful you have to add plugins to it. The default should be a useable desktop without the user having to do anything.

Imagine if a Windows user had to add a taskbar themselves...

Say what you want about KDE but out of the box it is useful and a user doesn't have to do anything to it.

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They were hesitant to port over Trine 3 and didn't bother with Trine 4. This is not a surprise by any means.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeSo... if Feral isn't porting it for Linux due to Proton... that just means they make no money on the sale of the game, right? As it is published by Sega. Sega gets that money. Sounds like Feral is going to give in and try to survive off the Mac? Most macs can't even run the total war games...

Most of their ports these days are on the Nintendo Switch and iOS.

We'll probably see a native Linux port from them someday again and they will continue porting to Mac OS as well. However, those two platforms are probably low priority for them at this point.

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: barottoBut Long term I can see porting companies and Linux professionals losing their job and native versions disappear form the market. There's a risk Linux won't be seen as a target platform ever again. I'm not sure it's a good thing...

Who knows what happens in the future, but the status quo always changes. Blockbuster died due to online streaming. Should we have kept Blockbuster artificially alive - just for the sake of it?

While it would have eventually done them in, until recently Family Video was still around. Blockbuster was expensive and didn't adapt to online streaming.

In this case, Feral has no choice because Valve decided to go with Proton and not native ports. There is no alternative plan that Feral can take and honestly even with out Valve it wasn't looking good.

For now, I think something like Unity is the best chance of getting a native Linux port these days.

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Quoting: benjamimgoisGreat article Liam ! I still remember the faster zombies article, that thing was really a hit by that time. I would suggest to add a note about CEDEGA, for those that are old enough to remember, it was the beginning of Linux gaming before steam.

I still remember walking into GameStop in 1999 and seeing boxed Linux versions of Quake and being confused as to why anyone would sell boxed version of Linux games (I had already used Linux for 6 years by that time).

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Steam would be the easiest route for them to take. Otherwise, they would probably end up having to do native ports + finding a native store to add them to.

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I'm surprised this is running and id Software game. I guess Linux Gaming really is becoming a big deal finally.

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Quoting: benjamimgoisSuddenly arch seems the new standard ! that's an amazing time to be a linux gamer.

Nah, Arch just makes sense to use here.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: KohlyKohl

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: Supay

Quoting: Solitary

Quoting: KohlyKohl

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: KohlyKohlI'm also concerned about the switch to Arch. I would have preferred a more stable distribution such as Ubuntu.

It's not like you're going to be installing a stack of AUR stuff. Someone's carefully set up bare-bones Arch is probably very stable.

Arch is inherently less stable by design. Adding in the AUR just makes it more unstable. Arch has its place I just don't think a consumer device is one of them.

Just because it's based on Arch doesn't mean it needs to have Arch issues. The updates are still tested and controlled by Valve. It is SteamOS, not Arch.

Absolutely agree. I run Arch on my desktop and some various home servers. My desktop is the messiest with AUR stuff wedged and lots of random bits I tinker with, and even that hasn't had any issues in a long time. The issues I have had were ones I caused. My servers are kept lean and focused, and I have never had an issue with them. Even when I slack off and realise I haven't updated packages in months, it all just works as it's as minimal as possible.

On the contrary, I recently switched to Ubuntu to give it a go again, expecting it to be something that would just work and have a decent default experience. Sure, it installed easily and had a flashy GUI, and I didn't have to manually do everything as I do when installing Arch, however I have had more issues with Ubuntu in a few weeks than I had on Arch in the last two years. Stuff that just worked in Arch due to up to date packages and a huge central repo has involved forum scouring for fixes, random private repos added, and a host of other issues. Give me Arch anyday.

My experience: the exact opposite of yours. Nothing works easily on Arch, the AUR has heaps of outdated keys and I had to troubleshoot basic things like gamepads not working which work out of the box on Debian/Ubuntu distros.

You know what you know, I suppose, and there are significant differences between the big core distros that experience in one of them doesn't necessarily translate to a good experience in the others.

For a device like this though? Who cares if it's Arch? I'm not going to be looking up the arch wiki if something doesn't work on this thing. I'll be using Valve support, or sending the unit back.

It matters because Valve is pushing the idea that you can install any apps you like and in my experience this is much easier for new users on Ubuntu and not on Arch.

Not really... you have Flatpaks, snaps, and the 'software store' thing, that pretty much is just a frontend to PackageKit and makes most software installations on Linux these days Distribution agnostic. The only real difference these days are 'what is packaged and set up to be installed easy via UI?'

Arch would have a lot more customization options that would allow Valve to 'do whatever they want' with the OS, whereas Ubuntu is... well less so :P

I'm not as convinced as you are. Also, what happens when they break their system, which is much easier to do under Arch? I really hope Valve has an easy way to reinstall SteamOS on these.

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