this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2024
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When games work so well on Linux these days, it seems to me that there is absolutely no reason for Windows to exist anymore. Why does anyone use it?
Especially for buisnesses its hard to switch. A lot of specialised software is not supported on Linux and often there isn't any form of good replacement.
Just switched from win 10 to Linux mint today. Feels good, games running faster than before even. The only thing that doesn’t work is the invasive anti cheat shit for multiplayer games. But I get merked every time in multiplayer so screw it
I am used to it. I don't like the app store of Ubuntu and manually installing software on Linux is vastly different.
But Win11 is forcing me to Ubuntu. It's the same but with commercials.
Go to Mint, Ubuntu is owned by Canonical and they’re doing ad shit too
Why do you need an app store?
Ease of installing I would say. Most people do not need nor want to learn how to install stuff using terminal. An app store is necessary for your regular Joe using the Operating system.
You don't always need the terminal. If the software is available in a deb package, you just double click it and hit Install. But, you're right, most people don't want to learn apt or any other command, and I get that.
Edit: Autocorrect
There are decent GUI installers for most, if not all, major Linux distros. They may not be as full-featured as the CLI versions, but they are sufficient for average users.
I don't want an app store. But I don't want to jump through too many hoops when installing Software. I like the "Installer" concept.
Still needed for VR games.
Not needed, many VR games work fine under Proton. Unlike desktop though, not "plug and play". If you're ready to spend time troubleshooting, give Linux VR a try with SteamVR or Monado through Envision. If you just want to play VR, stick to Windows for now.
Yes, you can technically get some games working. If you use the right VR headset (meaning Valve Index or Vive), use the right distro, with the right compositor and right GPU, spend a lot of time troubleshooting, then you can maybe get a few games to start. Camera passthrough won't work, power management won't work (no control for base stations), Bluetooth won't work, tracking won't be as good, you will experience weird bugs and crashes of both the games and SteamVR, and you will get less FPS than on Windows. And even with that inferior experience, most games still won't run.
I spent a lot of time trying despite this being the experience for most people online, and I only confirmed that it's the case. Windows is absolutely needed if you want a good experience. Hopefully Valve changes that in the future, but that's the case today.
Not entirely. SteamVR on Linux is almost that bad, yes. With ALVR you can try to use standalones on SteamVR, but it's not very stable. Most games will "run" under SteamVR and modern proton, I've only encountered a few situations where they don't, once again caused by kernel level anticheat. SteamVR does have major issues with stability and reprojection, which makes the VR experience much worse overall.
However, Monado and WiVRN (+ OpenComposite) are great when using Envision. Not all games run, and some have input issues, but it's significantly better than SteamVR. With a couple overlays, you can get most functions working as expected, like desktop view, camera passthrough, etc.
As for "power management" and "bluetooth", the only thing the Valve Index uses bluetooth for is power management. That doesn't work in the drivers on Linux, but there are scripts you can use if you have a separate bluetooth dongle. It's not a full fix, but not as painful as using an Android app or unplugging the basestations.
As we both noted, it requires setup and troubleshooting, and as someone who uses Linux for VR gaming too, I can't recommend it to the average person. That does not make Windows a "requirement", just much easier and the better plug and play experience.
Sure, as I said "Windows is absolutely needed if you want a good experience". Yes, it's not required to get something working if you try hard enough, but it is required if you want everything to work well.
I keep a Windows virtual machine with GPU passthrough for VR and don't see myself ditching it any time soon. At least I don't need to boot into Windows.
Aw shit! Thought there was nothing left that would keep me from completely ditching windows (htpc, pihole, homelab ... everything but my workstation is Linux already). I recently got a headset tho and quite enjoy it... What a bummer :(
Hardware support is still an issue. I recently tried to use Linux on my laptop, it didn't work out primarily because not all of the hardware was supported. I thought it was when I bought the laptop but the documentation of what actually works and doesn't work isn't clear or accurate so I ended up with a laptop that can technically run Linux but has various hardware in it will not function and likely never will.
Main reason would be "why not?" windows is also working great for most common use cases. Actually there is not much difference nowadays between OSes. Another reason would be specific software like Excel. Why would you switch your OS adlnd most of the software you use if you don't gain much from it.
I've a Linux OS for coding, OSX for work and Windows for gaming. There are absolutely no problems with any of them. Windows worked great last 4 years, no virusesor performance issues without anti-virus or tweaking. Linux drivers needed work at the start but now there is no issues, Mac is similar. Only issue is when I try to code with Windows it feels annoying but it is mostly because I'm doing things with CLI where I should have used GUI.
Btw, anyone got Reshade 5+ working in wine/proton?
Never had a problem with Reshade. You could use steamtinkerlaunch to do it more easily or just config Wine to overwrite the .dll needed for Reshade(I think is the dxgi.dll).
If that doesn't work you can pass a argument on steam/gog/lutris/heroic/whatever to replace the .dll. I'm linking a guide to mod Cyberpunk 2077 on linux but the instructions works for any game and any .dll just change the name.
My work is 90% on Adobe software and my main game nowadays in Genshin 🙃 I checked ProtonDB for the rest of my games, and many are gold or worse. Having to mess around with command line stuff is already annoying in Windows, I don't want to have to do more of it, which seems to be the case with all Linux versions I've read about.