How many people are considering Linux now as a viable gaming option after LTT's video?

[Chunchunmaru_]

2 minutes ago, Matchmuchach said:

which means that you have to wait for a new kernel release before the kernel supports brand new hardware. Even on servers this can be an issue, I've seen HBAs that run at 25MB/s max because the kernel has no driver for it yet. Very irritating when your 35k server is unusable for a couple of weeks after recieving it because the distro that your company uses doens't yet support the kernel that you need. 

Don't you backport drivers?

[Matchmuchach]

4 minutes ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

Don't you backport drivers?

Sure, but it takes time for the drivers to show up in the backport repos. The example I gave was for a HBA in a brand new HPE DL380 Gen10, running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It took almost six weeks for the HBA driver to show up in the HWE repository from Ubuntu. At that point the server had been collecting dust in the datacenter for about a month.

 

With servers this isn't really an issue, it's just irritating and it might mess up deadlines. But it's a bit anticlimactic when your new 800 euro GPU is unsuable for a month after recieving it I really like Linux, but it's not perfect. For personal use it's still way to much work in my opinion.

[Brennan Price]

Right ok... So it's not so much the games that I have an issue with in Linux. I've used Linux and still use it, however, I mainly revert back to Windows because there are programs that I simply cannot live without and I find it difficult to relearn what I already know within other windows based programs. 

 

Paint.NET is the best example of this for me, I have been using it for years and I cannot do the same things I'd like to do as easily in programs such as GIMP, Pinta or other similar programs in Linux. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of applications I could use for image editing and colour grading etc but I don't have the time to learn these new programs generally, it just feels annatural. 

 

It's also the same thing for a lot of the MS Office suit, MS Access is an absolute pain in the a** on Linux, Kexi comes close to the same functionality but it doesn't port everything across too well. 

 

Basically, I can game within Linux fine, it's just other productivity programs that I struggle to get into properly, hence why I revert back to Windows from Linux and then I just tend not to use it unless it's very specific since gaming is still better currently. Does this make sense? More of my own personal rant for no reason... 

 

Last final thing.... Linux is great and lightweight for laptops, I infact use it on my laptop a fair bit... However, even with TLP installed and battery saver measures in place, it still uses more power than Windows in a lot of aspects. Not to mention how much degradation it gave my battery.... Uggggh.

[Chunchunmaru_]

9 minutes ago, Matchmuchach said:

Sure, but it takes time for the drivers to show up in the backport repos. The example I gave was for a HBA in a brand new HPE DL380 Gen10, running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. It took almost six weeks for the HBA driver to show up in the HWE repository from Ubuntu. At that point the server had been collecting dust in the datacenter for about a month.

 

With servers this isn't really an issue, it's just irritating and it might mess up deadlines. But it's a bit anticlimactic when your new 800 euro GPU is unsuable for a month after recieving it I really like Linux, but it's not perfect. For personal use it's still way to much work in my opinion.

Sure, but I mean, since it's expensive hardware, I would personally took care to manually backport those drivers by compiling in my distribution, I am sure you know you could have took those before they are released from an unstable release for example or even take the risk and do a manual kernel update, in those cases anyway I don't remember if you need to get in contact with the launchpad team for backporting drivers in the repository

This is primarily an Ubuntu issue, unless someone reports a missing feature, they will still be using the same old packages till the new release, for NVIDIA since for some reason nouveau forces itself to load even for unknown GPU's for that brand (failing obviously to output something) it's a bit annoying, the vesa driver should have kicked in in that case


But at least, it became fairly easy to just add some ppa's for kernel updates, mesa drivers or nvidia ones, it looks like PopOS has those repositories out the box, which should be great for new graphics hardare

Another solution here is there is to pick development version on ubuntu, which so far worked fairly nice to me...
Intel and AMD open source drivers seem to support new GPU's better though, roughly almost months before an eventual release for my experience, I mean speaking back to server hardware drivers, since the Linux market share on servers is fairly consistently higher, but also, as a hardware manufacturer, I would make sure my drivers get correctly in the most common server distros

[Chunchunmaru_]

19 minutes ago, Brennan_Price said:

Right ok... So it's not so much the games that I have an issue with in Linux. I've used Linux and still use it, however, I mainly revert back to Windows because there are programs that I simply cannot live without and I find it difficult to relearn what I already know within other windows based programs. 

 

Paint.NET is the best example of this for me, I have been using it for years and I cannot do the same things I'd like to do as easily in programs such as GIMP, Pinta or other similar programs in Linux. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of applications I could use for image editing and colour grading etc but I don't have the time to learn these new programs generally, it just feels annatural. 

 

It's also the same thing for a lot of the MS Office suit, MS Access is an absolute pain in the a** on Linux, Kexi comes close to the same functionality but it doesn't port everything across too well. 

 

Basically, I can game within Linux fine, it's just other productivity programs that I struggle to get into properly, hence why I revert back to Windows from Linux and then I just tend not to use it unless it's very specific since gaming is still better currently. Does this make sense? More of my own personal rant for no reason... 

I use Linux from something like ...11 years?

I never got to use the open source graphics editing on it too, It's just too much for me to learn new things, and for the one who don't work the same as I used to on Photoshop (or even work better)
I tried Krita, KDEnlive, Olive, GIMP, Pinta, but nothing satisfied me for everything (except some very basic editings)

I am just a bit frustrated because you require to use wine to get partial Photoshop functionality for example, but even though they run a bit slowly and I always preferred dual booting for that

I sincerely hope to see full Wine compatibility in the future, or native proprietary releases or something like Paint.NET or Adobe suite

[Matchmuchach]

36 minutes ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

Sure, but I mean, since it's expensive hardware, I would personally took care to manually backport those drivers by compiling in my distribution, I am sure you know you could have took those before they are released from an unstable release for example or even take the risk and do a manual kernel update, in those cases anyway I don't remember if you need to get in contact with the launchpad team for backporting drivers in the repository

This is primarily an Ubuntu issue, unless someone reports a missing feature, they will still be using the same old packages till the new release, for NVIDIA since for some reason nouveau forces itself to load even for unknown GPU's for that brand (failing obviously to output something) it's a bit annoying, the vesa driver should have kicked in in that case


But at least, it became fairly easy to just add some ppa's for kernel updates, mesa drivers or nvidia ones, it looks like PopOS has those repositories out the box, which should be great for new graphics hardare

Another solution here is there is to pick development version on ubuntu, which so far worked fairly nice to me...
Intel and AMD open source drivers seem to support new GPU's better though, roughly almost months before an eventual release for my experience, I mean speaking back to server hardware drivers, since the Linux market share on servers is fairly consistently higher, but also, as a hardware manufacturer, I would make sure my drivers get correctly in the most common server distros

We could, yes, but we decided against it since we don't want any "special" servers with self-compiled kernels. We update these things centrally and manage them like a herd, not pets.

 

But this discussion is kinda my point. Everything can and will work on Linux, no question about it. And when someone pays me to do it for 8 hours a day I will gladly do it, I like my job. But for my personal PC it's to much hassle, I only have about 2/3 hours of leisure time every day. Windows these days "just works" for gaming and desktop use. If a Linux distro ever wants to seriously compete with Windows it has to be just as good if not better. Anything less then the convenience that Windows gives and it's simply not good enough.

 

Microsoft isn't sitting still either. Just a couple of years ago I had to install 7/8 different drivers on my PC after installing Windows, these days everything gets installed through Windows Update (except for my GPU driver). Linux is getting better but it still has a long way to go.

[Ross Siggers]

LTT: Linux Tech Tips

But really, a simple answer here. I use too many programs that are heavily developed with Windows as a priority. Sorry Linux!

[Chunchunmaru_]

15 minutes ago, Matchmuchach said:

But for my personal PC it's to much hassle, I only have about 2/3 hours of leisure time every day. Windows these days "just works" for gaming and desktop use. If a Linux distro ever wants to seriously compete with Windows it has to be just as good if not better. Anything less then the convenience that Windows gives and it's simply not good enough.

 

Microsoft isn't sitting still either. Just a couple of years ago I had to install 7/8 different drivers on my PC after installing Windows, these days everything gets installed through Windows Update (except for my GPU driver). Linux is getting better but it still has a long way to go.

For me it's the opposite, sometimes spend much less time in Linux for example when formatting my PC's, most of the time I just add the ppa's (I put the commands in the CLI) on Ubuntu, and everything will just work, I also install programs from the Ubuntu Store pretty much flawlessly and faster than I would usually do on Windows, if I want to import the setting (backgrounds, browser data, programs data) I just move my /home/ folder and it's like I never formatted

But on my old Acer PC, where the backlight keys and the ethernet wifi driver would not work because of non-mainline kernel drivers (realtek magic here, but at least now I think there is a dkms package on Ubuntu and the arch AUR) and ACPI parameters that needed to be put in grub, which was taking me 20 minutes almost

Windows 10 isn't always plug&play either, also had problems on my parent's PC's where Windows Update was always updating the wifi driver to a buggy version (OEM drivers are not available for 10 I forced an unsigned older 8.1 one which works until it gets updated) which would break the functionality, since they were just using that for web browsing, I put Xubuntu on that (it's a core 2 duo toshiba tecra) and worked decently, intel has decent support for wifi chips on linux

Also, on my desktop it usually takes me some times compared to linux when installing mobo (AMD board) drivers like audio, chipset, graphics compared to linux where I just put the graphics ppa, even though, pretty much everything I need is on the repository and it takes me less time than search setups on the internet, so that's valid only for me

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

1 hour ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

Depends from what you are going to do, I suppose since this it's a tech forum, people are just not going to do grandma web browsing, but at least playing games is becoming pretty decent if yours are supported

i don't see any benefit from switching to linux just for gaming honestly, name one. 

[Chunchunmaru_]

4 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

i don't see any benefit from switching to linux just for gaming honestly, name one. 

I just it as free alternative, if you just play a bunch of supported games with roughly the same performance (which can only get better in the future) if you dislike Windows for some reasons or you do not want to spend money on a license on non-OEM computers (using windows without a license is an EULA violation)

And in the future it will start supporting EAC games, as it's the biggest issue currently, Paladins started working (tested it yesterday) though for some reason

Also I don't think someone switches only for games, could be also desktop customization and overall looking, integrated dark mode everywhere (a stupid example), faster updates, file system that doesn't suffer from fragmentation for data hard disks

[WildW_UK]

It was an interesting video, and I did download and try out Manjaro afterwards, booting from a USB drive. It was easy to install Steam and play games. I may try installing it on a spare SSD, but it will likely only be something to toy with.

 

I've not heard a convincing argument for why Linux is better than Windows for the average home user/gamer. . . it's always about how Linux is getting better/almost as good/not as bad as you think. I get that the price is good, but I got full Windows 7 for next to nothing when it was first released, and the licence has moved hardware with me ever since.

 

 When I've tried Linux in the past is has always been support that was the problem, when you run into some little issue you want to fix. You Google the problem and you get answers from the past, for other distros that work differently, and so on.

[Matchmuchach]

33 minutes ago, WildW_UK said:

I've not heard a convincing argument for why Linux is better than Windows for the average home user/gamer. . . it's always about how Linux is getting better/almost as good/not as bad as you think. I get that the price is good, but I got full Windows 7 for next to nothing when it was first released, and the licence has moved hardware with me ever since.

Exactly, I don't see a reason either. If you like playing around with your OS, go for it. But most people are fine with Windows or already think Windows is to complex. So you might see a small percentage of gamers move over to Linux, but I don't think Microsoft has anything to fear as the video suggested. Most people (and this includes gamers) don't care about their OS. Even though they're smart enough to get everything working, most people will choose convenience over saving a 100 bucks every 4/5 years on a Windows license.

 

However, this is what makes the PC such a wonderfull platform. You have the choice to run Linux if you want to

[moriel5]

I don't game, however this is for everyone who thinks that Budgie is Mac-inspired.

 

To be clear, you can make it look like the Mac UI, but it is not the default (the default is like Windows, just on the top of the screen).

 

My settings reflect my preferences, as well as (to a degree) the original defaults for Budgie.

 

And yes, I use Solus, where Budgie originates from.

 

Edit: For some odd reason, the image was posted separately.

 

[moriel5]

[Bananasplit_00]

I switched a few months back, thought I'd have to go back and forth a bit but since the switch I have booted the Windows install less times than I have fingers on one hand. 

 

It's not problem free if you install something like Mint because mint is just randomly borked but I have only run in to a single game so far that didn't work and that was because of EAC which is soon to be a non problem

[Bananasplit_00]

9 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Every time I've tried Linux, I've had to use the Terminal within an hour of setting it up because I had to do something that wasn't possible through the GUI.... Or because the GUI didn't recognize my monitor's resolution and had to manually add it through the terminal... or to install something that wasn't in the repository... or...

 

It might be fine if all you do is browse the internet and do not much else, but the moment you try to do anything remotely "advanced", you need the terminal. I hate this. Even if there's plenty of just "copy and paste this and it will work", it's annoying and sometimes you need to really search to find that piece of info.

At least .deb installs for many applications outside the repository are a thing nowadays... but so many app developers just don't bother and assume you want/know how, to compile from source.

 

So quite frankly, as long as there is still such a heavy reliance on the terminal to do mundane tasks, it will never go mainstream.

But I might consider it if there was a distro where literally everything you could possible need/want for gaming was already built-in, with driver support and what not... and didn't look like it came straight out of 1995.

Manjaro then. Got my games up and running without touching the terminal. Everything just worked through the GUI with no hassle. I didn't go much deeper as I just aimed to try it out but it had a no terminal experience, looked great and was easy to navigate

[Princess Luna]

 I'm perfectly satisfied with my Windows 9

[Chunchunmaru_]

1 hour ago, WildW_UK said:

I've not heard a convincing argument for why Linux is better than Windows for the average home user/gamer. . . it's always about how Linux is getting better/almost as good/not as bad as you think. I get that the price is good, but I got full Windows 7 for next to nothing when it was first released, and the licence has moved hardware with me ever since.

 

When I've tried Linux in the past is has always been support that was the problem, when you run into some little issue you want to fix. You Google the problem and you get answers from the past, for other distros that work differently, and so on.

It's not just for any home user and gamer, but only a portion of them for various reasons. It's not just better or worse in average it's just valid alternative
Not something that would change the overall market share that much until it gets all the programs windows has

Except for some "home" user for example, who only checks email and browse the internet, especially on old hardware, it's faster while also still being eyecandy and customizable, and without sacrificing security updates (when Win7 would end it's support for example) that's one of the things I think it's better

But you will still have to be lucky (aka supported drivers) in order to have basically a full plug&play support which can be a relatively better experience than windows where you do not have fully driver support from windows update in old machines (like for chipset drivers, sd card readers, webcams where usually linux has perfect support from intel in the mainline kernel, that means it will still work in the future)

[Bananasplit_00]

9 hours ago, SenpaiKaplan said:

Considering it, but SteamPlay doesn't work on any of the games in my library (at least on the test system I chose, which is likely the issue as it has no dGPU).

 

The big killer at the moment is the seeming impossibility to install Office 365, which is required at my university. I've gotten the installer to start, but it always crashes... If I could get that working, I would use it on my laptop.

Take a look at ProtonDB and Lutris websites, they should tell you if you can get the games running. I had the same experience with my first test back in December but now pretty much my entire 100 something games library works

 

[SenKa]

3 hours ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Take a look at ProtonDB and Lutris websites, they should tell you if you can get the games running. I had the same experience with my first test back in December but now pretty much my entire 100 something games library works

 

Again, the big killer is Office365 at the moment. I need it for my university (no, Liibre Office and Open Office won't work), and I couldn't get it to install. Mind you, I only tried for a few hours, but it doesn't seem obviously possible. But that's worthy of its own thread.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

5 hours ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

I just it as free alternative, if you just play a bunch of supported games with roughly the same performance (which can only get better in the future) if you dislike Windows for some reasons or you do not want to spend money on a license on non-OEM computers (using windows without a license is an EULA violation)

And in the future it will start supporting EAC games, as it's the biggest issue currently, Paladins started working (tested it yesterday) though for some reason

Also I don't think someone switches only for games, could be also desktop customization and overall looking, integrated dark mode everywhere (a stupid example), faster updates, file system that doesn't suffer from fragmentation for data hard disks

again, does it make my life any easier if i switch ?

[Chunchunmaru_]

4 hours ago, valdyrgramr said:

Until it has equal support to windows, never.  Don't get me wrong, I love Linux for pro work stuff.  I won't deny this is a huge improvement for Linux gaming; however, it's still buggy, problematic, and not even close to my entire library is supported on there.

I got only a few buggy setups mostly related to crappy nvidia drivers though, but you don't have to switch if that's the case

 

9 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

again, does it make my life any easier if i switch ?

And again, if you dislike Windows, in supported setups yes, I already covered those in my last response

EDIT: I can also think more about NTFS fragmentation, cost, speed (better file system, optimized file systems for ssd's, etc), windows updates, file managers, installation methods and the possibility to customize your desktop setup to maximize productivity

You don't necessarily have to like it if it isn't suitable for you but is for others

Edited April 11, 2019 by Chunchunmaru_

[wasab]

14 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Every time I've tried Linux, I've had to use the Terminal within an hour of setting it up because I had to do something that wasn't possible through the GUI.... Or because the GUI didn't recognize my monitor's resolution and had to manually add it through the terminal... or to install something that wasn't in the repository... or...

 

It might be fine if all you do is browse the internet and do not much else, but the moment you try to do anything remotely "advanced", you need the terminal. I hate this. Even if there's plenty of just "copy and paste this and it will work", it's annoying and sometimes you need to really search to find that piece of info.

At least .deb installs for many applications outside the repository are a thing nowadays... but so many app developers just don't bother and assume you want/know how, to compile from source.

 

So quite frankly, as long as there is still such a heavy reliance on the terminal to do mundane tasks, it will never go mainstream.

But I might consider it if there was a distro where literally everything you could possible need/want for gaming was already built-in, with driver support and what not... and didn't look like it came straight out of 1995.

You don't need the terminal. I am pretty sure I can replicate many of your so called "anything advance" with GUI click. Although if you wish to use command line only softwares, of course you will end up using the terminal. 

[solarflare]

I ran linux ubuntu for a while , for me it became a point of needing to fully embrace it and dive in learn how to navigate it through much effort or go back to windows which is a OS i know which is a OS i do know command lines for if needed its a OS i can mostly just use without issues. 

 

Now that's mostly farmiluratiy sometimes i wish i was raised using linux and had switched to windows later on so i could use both equally. 

Because there is much you can do free in linux that is quite expensive in windows on the tech and creative side of things. 

 

But that's not how it is for me , linux seemed like a lot of effort perhaps too much just to become as competent as i currently am in the windows platform which wouldnt get me to where i wanted to be and what i wanted to do with it anyways. 

 

For me there's just too many hurdles to go over to get to a competency i'd like, And I just dont have that much free time anymore for such endeavors.  

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

2 hours ago, Chunchunmaru_ said:

And again, if you dislike Windows, in supported setups yes, I already covered those in my last response

EDIT: I can also think more about NTFS fragmentation, cost, speed (better file system, optimized file systems for ssd's, etc), windows updates, file managers, installation methods and the possibility to customize your desktop setup to maximize productivity

You don't necessarily have to like it if it isn't suitable for you but is for others

so in other word, linux doesn't really offer any much better performance in gaming and a pain in the arese to set up to do the things you need it to do so you're better off just sticking to what ever you're using unless you have bunch of spare time to trouble shoots stuff. 

PS not really saying you are wrong, just talking from a perspective of a person who couldn't be bothered to switch to a whole new OS, hence my original comment

Will it make my life any easier ? No? .......then no.. i was answering the OP.