Proton is a big deal for the change. Think back 5 years ago and switching to Linux was much less approachable because you needed to be an enthusiast to get your games running. Nowadays, you just click download on the Linux Steam client and >90% of the time, it’ll just work.
I have been on Linux for over 15 years and even I don’t want to go back to the old days of manually installing Wine and having to create different prefixes to get different games to launch without sound. or some missing textures.
not manually, yeah, but bottles and such are still really useful. it shows how much good GUI tools help with usability for everyone
Not just UI, but simplicity of operation. The closer to “it just works” a system/program is, the more palatable it is to adopt.
I ended up wading into the world of WINE prefixes when I tried to mod some older games. I got it working in the end, but it sure made me grateful for how easy I have it with Proton
Hear, hear!
There is nothing wrong, and in fact there is something good, with FOSS being polished and user friendly out of the box.
Historically that has not been a priority, because FOSS has been by the computer nerds, for the computer nerds. But if that priority shifts to being a bit more “by the computer nerds, for the normies” then that is a good thing as long as the developers don’t prevent the power users from accessing any part of the system they want. Fortunately that completely against the point of the FOSS world.
I first learned Unix in the 90s, I use my Linux desktop more than my phone, I’m an engineer on embedded systems digging through C and C++ code all day, I have terminals open all day, and… I have Linux Mint Cinnamon installed on all my machines and love it. Change My Mind, lol.
I, on the contrary, prefer it when everyone uses mainstream Wine with winetricks and prefixes so if something doesn’t work, you can at least fix it using someone’s advice posted on winehq. With Proton it seems that everyone expects stuff to either just work or doesn’t bother. The Proton advice is usually as valuable as Windows problems advice.
What are you on about? ProtonDB is full of such advice
Like I said, similar quality to googling for Windows problems. Reports on WineHQ are sorted by Wine version, OS version, usually involve specific actions taken.
That’s exactly how protondb works. And you also get hardware and distro information.
You can search and filter reports by all of the aforementioned criteria for any game that’s listed.
OK, it just has utterly degenerate webpage design. I thought those were voluntary additions by users telling what they use, not common format. Inconvenient.
It’s okay, we don’t actually care that you were wrong about something.
Proton is just Wine under the hood. I even use winetricks with it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Yes, I do that too, except different things work and don’t. And making tweaks for Proton in Steam seems more bother.
100% this. I’ve been on Linux for 27 years now (ffs I’m getting old), and until proton, I just wrote off gaming as a hit or miss experience, usually not worth the trouble. Now I’ll buy Windows only games without even checking compatibility in most cases. Unless it’s a full price AAA game, I’ll risk the off chance that it doesn’t work.
Clair Obscur worked out of the box and it took a while for me to realize that I didn’t even check before buying.
I think it’s less Proton, more Vulkan/DXVK. Proton is just wrapping these amazing things. Before DXVK, games in Linux used to suck big time.
now is a good time to switch. Im so glad im off windows and their bullshit. a lot of games just work, including many online games, which is super cool. often there’s no difference between launching a game on Linux vs windows.
If we can get close to that kind of support for productivity software, I think Linux usage would explode. One of the problems with business adoption is that specialized software almost always skips Linux. The Affinity suite, for example. I’m hoping we see some snowballing now that Linux is growing so quickly, but getting Wine/Proton working with more non-game software would also be an enormous win.
inb4 Linux users sweepingly get declared as criminals for some flimsy reason. There was some news of Facebook filtering out Linux content because it seemed harmful to them.
You wouldn’t download an operating system, would you?
All my operating systems are hand written in assembly
Temple OS?
“They glow in the dark, but you can hit them with your car”
Pretty funny that the slang term “glowies” for feds was started by Terry Davis.
Of course not! I will only get organic / grass fed computers with a OS preinstalled by the vendor. They only do this to protect the users and not for the fuckton of money MS shoves into their throats.
I’m less worried about any specific targeting of Linux than I am about some random tech bro whispering in Trump’s ear and suddenly he bans Open Source or something similarly unenforceable and insane.
Banning open source would basically destroy the entire Internet in the United States. No tech bro is going to want that.
Business tech Bros would absolutely love to force all open source closed, all long as it’s now their property.
The software tech bro thing started with a letter from Bill Gates to the hobbyists that despite learning to program on freely available software, and copying a freely available language with his new version of Basic, everyone needs to stop sharing and pay to use software. They all have wet dreams of pulling out the ladder and owning everything. I wouldn’t put it past them to try to nullify copyleft or something like that.
I know that and you know that, but have you seen the sort of thing Trump and those who have his ear think is a good idea?
I don’t think they’d just ban using all open source software, it’d be something ridiculous like asserting that all FOSS licenses are null and void and those projects are now the intellectual property of the US. Likely propped up by the classic “security” justification.
Gulf of Open Source
Reminds me of the thing in Spain where the cops just immediately suspect anyone of drug trafficking for using pixel devices because thats what grapheneos runs on.
My understanding of that was Facebook just gave up on human moderation and let an AI do whatever it wanted. Still unacceptable but totally foreseeable.
Just switched last month and I love it so far (:
Hopefully this surge in users make people want to develop for it a lot more and break more walls for others who are interested.
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Windows
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Linux
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Just made the full switch meself this past week!
Welcome Mr. Krabs
Wow, that’s excluding Chrome OS, which has 2.71% on it’s own. So you could say Linux is at over 7%, but glad they split it so we know.
ChromeOS is going to the Google graveyard, to be replaced by android
(Maybe this is a good thing as Chromebooks have an expiration date averaging 3-5 years where they stop getting Chrome updates, when if it’s android can get updates to the browser for a much longer time AND have Firefox as default)
Android is also Linux though
I have an old Chromebook that I used for D&D sessions that is now collecting dust because they stopped supporting the model and use security hardware to prevent overwriting the drive that I have neither the tools or skills to circumvent.
Google can blow me where the pampers is.
Well yes, but Android now has a Debian container option. If they expose some Wayland/X interface to it for displaying stuff on Android, for a load of stuff, maybe that is good enough for a lot of stuff?
Linux as an OS is generally meant as Desktop Linux, and it most definitely is in this context that is about desktop marketshare, Desktop Linux is mostly following freedesktop guidelines, which has traditionally helped standards on Linux a lot to streamline developments. So for instance XFCE/Gnome/KDE desktop apps can be run in all the different desktop environments. For instance also standardizing things like how tray icons work. Freedesktop is part of X.Org Foundation, and Chrome OS does not use X.org or Free Desktop standards at all. The newer Wayland to replace X is also an X.org standard.
So while Chrome OS is based on the Linux kernel, it is NOT a Linux OS in the original sense, a term that became popular decades before Chrome OS or Android became a thing.
If you include Chrome OS you might as well include Android too. As it can run on for instance Raspberry Pi and other mini systems, and could be used as a desktop system.
Chrome OS is a Linux kernel based OS, and not much more than that.
It’s somewhat confusing in some situations that Linux as a desktop OS doesn’t have a unique name, but it wasn’t a problem originally, as what some prefer to call GNU/Linux was made 100% for desktop use originally.The Linux kernel is way way more widespread and successful than what we usually term Desktop Linux or GNU/Linux.
TLDR:
Linux OS, Desktop Linux, GNU/Linux are generally meant as the same thing.
Chrome OS and Android do not belong in that category. They are Linux based as in the Linux kernel only, but do not follow the standards of Desktop Linux.This isn’t entirely right because Chrome OS is using a lot more of normal desktop Linux than Android does, which basically uses none.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChromeOS
Android is this completely different thing (built round OpenBinder) that ended up using the Linux kernel for good hardware support. It’s basically got nothing to do with desktop Linux, bar needed it to actually build Android. You can argue that Google basically tried forking Linux for Binder and control.
Oh so you can install KDE/Gnome/XFCE apps on Chrome OS and they will work?
You know the “desktop” in Desktop Linux means compatibility is on the desktop apps,and that goes way beyond terminal commands right?Yes you can, but they are actually in a LXC container with Wayland/X from outside (I think it is also in a KVM/QEmu). (Interesting project : https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromiumos/platform2/+/HEAD/vm_tools/sommelier/README.md)
If you look at the architecture it looks more normal than Android.
https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/software-architecture/
Others note this:
It’s made of lots of FOSS, but it is a dystopian version of a Linux desktop.
OK maybe you are technically correct which is the best kind of correct.
It just goes against every nerve in my body to categorize Chrome OS as part of Desktop Linux.Yeah, I hear you. It’s not going to be the case for long anyway.
I use arch btw
It wasn’t immediately clear, I think you need to change your username to IUseArchBtw so we all know off the bat.
This guy uses arch btw
Real men and women run Slack. Tarballs Yum!
To head off the zealots-- ./././
That’s not even close to a proper test of Linux womanhood/manhood.
my linux runs only in RAM, has just a terminal
I briefly looked at LFS with the thought to try it a long time ago. No… Just no…
That’s not an OS, that is a psychotic break with reality. Fortunately, you can take shots for it…
Gentoo with allllllllll the custom cflags while hanging a 20 lb weight off your scrotum
I did Gentoo for a bit also. Ain’t enough hours in the day…
At some point companies will be forced to accept that they’re losing out on revenue by not releasing a linux version of their software.
And the Windows version through Wine will still run better than the native… As is tradition.
Every year Linux fans:
👐 It’s happening! 👐
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I made the switch recently for probably the strangest reason.
I’ve been running win 11 for over a year using a shell tool that allowed me to move my task bar to the top of the screen and some other win 10 functionality.
However win 11 removed the ability to move the task bar and my shell program lost most of its functionality. After that I was done.
I’ve Linux off and on since 2002ish so it’s not scary to me and I’m pretty happy with Arch and KDE right now. Still the occasional crash that appears to happen sometimes when watching YouTube.
Hey, don’t knock customization as a reason. A couple of decades ago, I was sold on Linux by silly Beryl/Compiz videos such as this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=038RHEGu4OYyo compiz is the shit. You can do ANYTHING with it. It took me a while to figure out because where the hell is the manual, but I have my own custom thing going on and it’s brilliant.
Gimme mah Cube!
And the wobblies and explosions are cool too!
If anyone is stuck on windows and not able to switch there’s a program called wind hawk that will let you download customizations in windows 11 including moving the bar
it’s sad, pathetic, and stupid that one has to download a potentially dangerous hack to do something so basic.
From my reading all ways to move the task bar have been removed.
This is working currently on windows 11 23h2. There are other mods for the top too I just prefer a right side vertical.
Fine… that version, not 24H2
Still far too low, considering that the US is now a police state.
Yeah, even from inside the US it seems more and more iffy to trust our tech giants even as a paying customer. I love reading the stories about groups and governments in Europe adopting Linux/FOSS, but I’m also surprised I don’t see it more.
Everything in the news is so insane that I could see journalists ignoring/missing such mundane events as public sector software choices.
Here in Germany, at least something is happening. Recently, for example, the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein decided to switch to Linux (and also LibreOffice), with the change planned for this fall.
Overall, however, far too little is happening in our country. The vast majority of federal states and the national government continue to rely on proprietary software (mainly from US corporations, especially Microsoft).
At the national level, this is hardly surprising, as our Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is more of a US lobbyist than a politician: Until 2020, he was on the supervisory board of Black Rock Germany and was also a long time chairman of the “Atlantik-Brücke”, a German-American lobby organization for economic relations (so on and so forth). Unfortunately, no change of course is to be expected from him — nor from his party, the conservative CDU, that is the most popular party for some strange reason.
In Bavaria, which is also deeply conservative, the federal state government is even considering introducing Palantir.
I don’t understand how all this can happen when it is perfectly obvious how vulnerable all these US products are making us – vulnerable to industrial espionage and worse - especially now that the US is developing into a fascist, unjust state.
But hey, I think we all have to remain somewhat positive despite all this. As I said, there is some movement in terms of FOSS —probably much more in other European countries than in Germany. So, slowly but steady, we’re moving forward! I really hope that’s how it is in the US as well.
Best of luck in these harsh times!
I hopped on the Linux train when Microsoft began pushing hard for AI integration and Microsoft accounts. I fucking hate AI and I don’t need some corpo cunt looking over my shoulder and taking notes while I use my computer.
Welcome! Because we Linux aficionados are incorrigibly nosy and passionate, which distro did you pick and how are you liking it so far?
I went with Mint because my technical knowledge of Linux is very basic at the moment. I imagine I’ll jump to a more hands-on distro as my familiarity with it increases. EndeavorOS looks interesting.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Mint.
There’s a small army of Linux “snobs” that look down on it for recondite and mostly silly reasons. Mint is a great and user-friendly OS. The only thing I can say against it is that many of the binaries in the distro app manager are very out of date, but this hardly matters now because AppImage and Flatpaks are so on top of it and great.
EndeavourOS is fantastic. It’s my default distro because I love Arch, but CBA installing it manually these days. I’ve done my time with the Arch installer over the years 😂
And the community is great btw.
You don’t have to. I’m a long time Linux user and extremely well versed. I still use Mint and Debian because I’m an old fart who likes things that just work.
Same. It should be illegal for them to be forcing this shit on us. At least I only have to endure it on my work pc. No windows on personal devices
Great, but I don’t think that graph is showing any particular spike, just a nice and gentle upward trend in share. The article also overlooks that there is a certain element of Windows and MacOS computers being replaced by tablets and phones, while Linux is already an enthusiast choice on the desktop, meaning it will be insulated somewhat and gain market share through attrition.
On the plus side, Steam and Proton and maturing DEs/distros and enshittification of Windows certainly make Linux a much more viable “normie” option than it’s ever been. We’re a far cry from the CD-ROM of Red Hat that came with my “Intro to Linux” book in 1999 but couldn’t use my Winmodem or printer and really preferred to run XWindows in grayscale.
Knoppix or bust
I preferred Mepis. 😊
