I dual boot and I'm not ashamed of it. I spend most of my time in Windows.
Reason one - work and work related software. MS Office and Photoshop are vastly superior to any OS alternative as much as I respect LibreOffice and Gimp. Also Dreamweaver which as a development tool is hardly a must but the easy and fast conversion of word documents into a clear and well arranged markup us just invaluable for what I do. Also I've yet to find a Linux alternative that fully replaces Notepad++ . I've tried a lot, there are some really good ones but nothing that can emulate the seamless experience I get with it. I'm guessing it is a matter of habit and what you actually do, but despite my best efforts I have not been able to achieve the same smooth work process in Linux like I have in Windows.
Reason two - gaming. I cannot skip on all of the great titles that are Windows exclusive. And I would never bother with WINE, sorry. PlayOnLinux is definitely nice but it is still a crutch. Then there is performance. Even Nvidia cards cannot bring as good gaming experience in Linux as in Windows. And I use AMD - have been for the last 6 years. So guess which platform I use to play Borderlands 2.
Linux is definitely getting better and hopefully it will get "there" one day (soon?). But not yet. And with the direction Cannonical are taking with Unity's interface ("Let's take everything people hated in Windows 8 and put it in our desktop environment" ) there will be a definite slowdown in that progress.

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Yay. Booting in Linux as soon as I finish working.

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The only advantage of these Steam Machines is the size and arguably the better case design. The prices however are too high. With smart shopping you can get a much better PC for 460 dollars.

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For once I've nothing negative to say. This is huge. All I have to do now is hope for AMD to finally pull their Linux drivers together.

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Quoting: Segata SanshiroSo does this Steam Link run SteamOS too?

Source Engine 2 is pretty exciting really, means we could get some kind of sequel from Valve or even a completely new game. Personally, I'd hope for either Portal 3 or something new that isn't multiplayer.

I'm guessing some even more stripped down Debian.

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Reminds me a bit too much of that Gigabyte small factor gaming PC they released last year (Brick?). It throttled like there is no tomorrow because when you put a powerful GPU and CPU in such small confined space they start to overheat. I'd be curious if Zotac manage to avoid that problem somehow.

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I'm plenty pissed at Valve for holding the controller YET AGAIN. They promised us to have it for sure by the end of this month. The only reason we've not getting it is because somebody said: "Hey let's sell a glorified antenna for 50 bucks, but hold the controller for 7 more months or nobody would actually bother to buy the Steam Link". This is bullshit.

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Omg, Pantheon is less used than SteamOS. Poor Elementary...

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: maodzedunObviously it always boils down to personal preference, but I cannot imagine how gaming can be your hobby and you'd lock yourself out of 90% of the great titles that come out for the PC. Hopefully in the coming years more of you guys will get a taste of that AAA goodness that us dual booters get to experience.

PS I know I always seem to bash on Linux in my comments but it's actually tough love and this place sure needs a devil's advocate ;)

What has gaming being someone's hobby got to do with AAA games? By that thought pattern, why doesn't every "gamer" own all consoles? I mean you can't seriously tell someone how to do their hobby ;), it's a hobby, it's what people like to do, and not what they should do by other people's thoughts.

Most AAA games coming out are terrible.

Personally, I have a PS3 and PS4 and every time I pick up one of these AAA games I am shocked at just how many bugs they have, and most of them are re-hashes of a previous game. Yes, there are also a few really good AAA games, but really not as much as people think.

I considering web programming my hobby, but I don't go out and learn every possible web language around. It's about what you like to do, and a lot of us love the games we have already.

Oh we have plenty of negative nancy's here as well, you're not the only one.

Like I said - personal preference. As somebody who would play almost anything short of a Barbie game (then again, I've never tried one :)) I just can't understand it. Plus, if using Linux is about expanding your horizons, why shouldn't the reverse logic apply. I've little to gain from using Linux - the software I use for work and the games I play are all on Windows. Yet for 6 years now, I've persisted in having a Linux partition, tried different distros and desktop environments and try to pop in regularly and just do stuff in Linux because I feel it is right thing to do. I see nothing wrong for a primarily Linux user to pop in Windows from time to time (for gaming for example).

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The Steam Machine question was a tricky one considering we don't know how the whole thing will work out. Guess we'll learn in a day or two.

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