If Linux supported all games and software would you switch?

[captain_aggravated]

On 3/1/2019 at 7:43 PM, lloose said:

I'm not going to be "that guy" and say that 2019 is the year of Linux. People have been saying that since you could install Ubuntu without reading a 1500 page book about Linux. I will say that 2018 and 2019 so far have really made strides to get Linux closer to that statement in general. SteamPlay works *okay*, DVXK work *okay*, and the amount of native titles that work on Linux natively is getting bigger. The last two games I bought (Battletech and Parkitect) both have Linux support. I wasn't even basing my decision to buy them on that Linux support either, it was just a nice bonus that I noticed after the fact.

When I switched to Linux, I found that all but one of my Steam games just happened to be supported on Linux anyway, and that one was a gift that I wasn't really interested in anyway.  My tastes just so happen to line up with Linux support.

[purplemonkeydishwasher]

God no! I absolutely loathe the over reliance on the terminal on Linux, nevermind the awful hardware support, and the fact that gaming on Linux is still a non-starter. Linux, for most people, is an utter waste of time, providing no advantages and many, many disadvantages.

[Mihle]

Game and software support only wont make me switch, there are other improvements to it that would have to be done to make me switch.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

On 4/16/2019 at 5:57 AM, purplemonkeydishwasher said:

God no! I absolutely loathe the over reliance on the terminal on Linux, nevermind the awful hardware support, and the fact that gaming on Linux is still a non-starter. Linux, for most people, is an utter waste of time, providing no advantages and many, many disadvantages.

Have you used Linux in the last 3 years, non of what you say is true of today's Linux. 

 

The application store in Arch linux is also comprehensive, what do you need that isnt there?

 

Wine + DXVK + Lutris has majority of games working without issues, e.g. Overwatch, Fortnight, Apex, Witcher 3 etc...

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

23 hours ago, Mihle said:

Game and software support only wont make me switch, there are other improvements to it that would have to be done to make me switch.

Such as?

[Mihle]

1 hour ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Such as?

Require Terminal ZERO of the time, doesnt matter if its just rare or you can just copy paste from the internet.

Fewer different Desktop environments people say are the best ones, there are just too many options that people consider the best. I rather have 3 main ones that have tons of customize settings, than many different ones that have less settings, for example. Having 20+ different ones that people consider good is too much.

Just works with all hardware out of the box. (at least something basic that works, last time I tried linux, that was not the case) It might depend from one distro to another, but again, that just points to my point above.

 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

2 minutes ago, Mihle said:

Require Terminal ZERO of the time, doesnt matter if its just rare or you can just copy paste from the internet.

Fewer different Desktop environments people say are the best ones, there are just too many options that people consider the best. I rather have 3 main ones that have tons of customize settings, than many different ones that have less settings, for example. Having 20+ different ones that people consider good is too much.

Just works with all hardware out of the box. (at least something basic that works, last time I tried linux, that was not the case) It might depend from one distro to another, but again, that just points to my point above.

 

You don't need terminal.  Arch Linux with AUR gives you pretty much everything, people have built and tested install script so you just need to search and click.

 

The main ones are GNOME(full featured), KDE(full featured), LXDE(Old PCs), XFCE(lightweight).  The rest are based off GNOME.

 

What hardware have you tried that doesn't work?  Kernels provide support, nowadays everything works out of the box, the question is whether the manufacturer uses open sourced libraries so people can change things e.g. G502 programming can only be set on windows and MAC, so I have native sensitivity.

[homeap5]

Never. I like Windows, it's far better OS than Linux with its great hardware support. Also - almost all my programs are Windows only, except maybe browsers. Beginning with graphics software, music tools, filemanager, email client, office, editors and lot of small applications that I'm using. Of course, i can find "replacements" of SOME of them on Linux, but I try to use them in the past and they're really bad. Even the same software can work worse - stupid browsers can utilize lot of more CPU than in Windows with less tabs open, GUI is heavy and less responsive (or is lightweight like in Lubuntu, but crappy). No, sorry, I hate Linux and probably will never use it other than just as a curiositiy.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

4 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

Never. I like Windows, it's far better OS than Linux with its great hardware support. Also - almost all my programs are Windows only, except maybe browsers. Beginning with graphics software, music tools, filemanager, email client, office, editors and lot of small applications that I'm using. Of course, i can find "replacements" of SOME of them on Linux, but I try to use them in the past and they're really bad. Even the same software can work worse - stupid browsers can utilize lot of more CPU than in Windows with less tabs open, GUI is heavy and less responsive (or is lightweight like in Lubuntu, but crappy). No, sorry, I hate Linux and probably will never use it other than just as a curiositiy.

Sounds like you haven't used it recently.

[homeap5]

15 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Sounds like you haven't used it recently.

I know which my programs have Linux versions. Almost none of them.

 

Windows is nice, really.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Just now, homeap5 said:

I know which my programs have Linux versions. Almost none of them.

 

Windows is nice, really.

Do you know about Wine?  It is a compatibility layer that is now pretty solid.  Valve has even pumped money into it over the last 12-18m months

[homeap5]

1 hour ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Do you know about Wine?  It is a compatibility layer that is now pretty solid.  Valve has even pumped money into it over the last 12-18m months

So what? The whole point of using Linux is because it supposed to be better. If Linux must emulate Windows programs to be good, then I prefer to stay with original system.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

14 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

So what? The whole point of using Linux is because it supposed to be better. If Linux must emulate Windows programs to be good, then I prefer to stay with original system.

WINE stands for WINE IS NOT an EMULATOR   What programs do you use that are not on Linux? or available via a translation layer?

 

I am surprised that someone who mentions customisation uses Windows which is restrictive and has loads of windows store apps that cannot be uninstalled without powershell

 

 

[Mihle]

3 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

You don't need terminal.  Arch Linux with AUR gives you pretty much everything, people have built and tested install script so you just need to search and click.

 

I dont remember what it was, but when I tried, there was at least one thing that I only found how to do in terminal.

 

3 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

The main ones are GNOME(full featured), KDE(full featured), LXDE(Old PCs), XFCE(lightweight).  The rest are based off GNOME.

 

I am talking about for example Mint, Ubuntu, Arch, Manjaro, Fedora, Elementrary OS and so many different other ones people recommend around the web. People say normal people should stay away from arch for example tho, but still. (yes I googled to get those names, I dont go around remembering names on stuff I dont use). For what I know, some of them might be almost the same exept for how it "looks", but if so, why isnt those just the same thing you have to download and install, just with different "skins" or whatever from an app or whatever? Would have made stuff much easier to choose.
 

3 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

What hardware have you tried that doesn't work?  Kernels provide support, nowadays everything works out of the box, the question is whether the manufacturer uses open sourced libraries so people can change things e.g. G502 programming can only be set on windows and MAC, so I have native sensitivity.

For example program the extra buttons on my mice, to mention one of the things.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

Ah distributions, yes totally agree with you there, too many for new people to be comfortable with.

 

Mint is on top of Ubuntu (Phased release like Windows)

Manjaro, Antegros is on top of Arch (Rolling release, install once, continue forever)

Fedora is for scientific work (It is used in the European Space Center)

Elementary OS is for children

 

There is a lot of re-skinning going on, frankly, for the Linux platform to thrive some of these distributions need to DIE.  It splits distribution donations.  Thankfully the application side to doing incredibly well.

 

[reniat]

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

for the Linux platform to thrive so of these distributions need to DIE

gonna disagree here. Part of what makes linux great IS the variety of distributions, and the fact that you can fork and customize. For example, Mint is built on ubuntu, but it is focused on being low on resource consumption in a way that standard ubuntu is not. It's not accurate to say you could just get rid of Mint because ubuntu already exists.

 

I would love to switch to linux, but until I get most of my games running natively on linux (or running with negligible performance loss in WINE or Photon) i just don't feel like I can make the switch. It doesn't have to be ALL games (I don't mind dual booting into windows for games I play maybe <20% of the time), but i'd say 80% of my gaming time would have to be an ideal experience on linux.

[homeap5]

50 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

WINE stands for WINE IS NOT an EMULATOR   What programs do you use that are not on Linux? or available via a translation layer?

 

I am surprised that someone who mentions customisation uses Windows which is restrictive and has loads of windows store apps that cannot be uninstalled without powershell

 

 

It may stands for anything. You can write that Aimp is NOT music player, even using big letters, but that doesn't change the fact that IS music player. Wine allows to run Windows programs under Linux - so it still is my point that if I'm using Windows software, I prefer to do it under Windows. And I don't know if definition changed over years, but if you need a program to run other programs from inside not compatible operating system, it's called emulation. But you can name or an elephant or whatever - it's very Linux style (pretend that Linux is way better than it really is).

 

I'm using Corel Draw, Photoshop, Directory Opus, eM Client, Miranda, IrfanView, ImBatch, lot of music VST instruments for Windows and many others. The only I can find on Linux is one decent music library tool (Nectarine instead of MusicBee). Rest, including video player, is better in Windows. I'm just choose BETTER system with better programs. I don't care about how great is empty, freshly installed system - without programs is useless.

[GoodBytes]

3 hours ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Sounds like you haven't used it recently.

I use Linux daily at work (Ubuntu and CentOS, RedHat), and I can tell you, that using Linux you very much still need to use the Terminal daily. And it like, at the very best, like using Windows XP, with select few features from modern windows. And despite the fact that we are in 2019, it still has no idea what high-DPI scaling is. Sure, it can double pixels (yay?!), but not actual scaling system. Font rendering is as blurry as ever. 99% of the workplace do great efforts to avoid development under Linux just for that main fact alone, let alone the rest. They'll use their Mac or Windows system. And it is very nice to be in a work environment where the people are highly knowledgeable on Linux, but don't play the denial game like it is the case online.

 

You act like there is no hardware support problem with late Linux based OS, but the reality is that it is very much there. Heck, even AMD "excellent" (or so they say) GPU drivers, doesn't even support any system with switchable graphics with no plan in sight to bring support. Same for Nvidia, just to mention one example. Everything in the Linux world are workarounds, patches, and complicated to get things to work. Each thing are weekend projects. On select hardware configuration you have tearing everywhere, even when playing videos. The basic things like hardware echo cancelation feature that all sound card/chips support under OSX and Windows is a rarity under Linux. All you have are, once again, software workarounds that don't work properly. This reminds me, high audio quality support. If you use onboard chip audio, and occasionally play videos online like on YouTube, and want sound alerts, then yea, it is fine. But if you enjoy audio, if enjoy music, or seek excellent audio experiences. Linux doesn't have driver’s audio solutions. Already getting 96KHz is winning the lottery. You want 192KHz? Sorry. Here is the source code, have fun! Printers!!!! Yes, you know when you want to do real work! Nope sorry! Limited support. Digitize Pen? Nope. Convertible device? Nope! Touch support that does more than basic mouse emulation? Nope, unless you have hardware specific touch screen for Linux based OS that you use. I know you’ll show me: “Look at this it works!” But I am not looking if it works or not... I am looking that it works properly, having the cursor or whatever I move vibrate all over the place, and not have a smart guess system to know here you finger wanted to land, is what is needed.  and lots more...

 

Remote desktop? Use SSH.. so Terminal! All remote protocol under Linux only support large screen refreshes, even full screen ones only. So higher your resolution and less fancy your internet upload speed where your host is, let alone download speed on client end, the more painful it is. See with RDP, what so cool about it, is that it works with the OS. It doesn't do workarounds to get things working. It works in tandem, it knows when a message box has appeared or disappeared, it knows the content behind it, even if it is a video playing, and only that section of the screen, the dialog box overlays the client side, and stop refreshing what's behind. Click OK, boom, disappears instantly and the behind content is instantly displayed.

 

Linux has no reliable, rapid, easy to use, backup and restore solution, nor have file/folder version history. If you screw up as a user... say... sudo rm -rf *, there is no undo. Get your OS disk, cross your fingers you have a recent full backup of the system.

 

Linux drivers aren't separate from the kernel. Under modern Windows, if your GPU drivers, you have the inconvenience of a flashing screen while Windows restarts the driver. Under Linux... Kernel panic. This applies to more than just GPU drivers.

 

It doesn't help that Linux has no concept of file locks. The, once again, workaround, is to create a file, where if it exists the software that wants to lock it, knows it should be locked, and avoid doing things, until the file is gone. The problem with this, is that it only works for that software, as this is not a system thing, nor even a standard, not to mention any security system to block this.

 

Anyway, I can continue...

 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

1 hour ago, reniat said:

gonna disagree here. Part of what makes linux great IS the variety of distributions, and the fact that you can fork and customize. For example, Mint is built on ubuntu, but it is focused on being low on resource consumption in a way that standard ubuntu is not. It's not accurate to say you could just get rid of Mint because ubuntu already exists.

 

I would love to switch to linux, but until I get most of my games running natively on linux (or running with negligible performance loss in WINE or Photon) i just don't feel like I can make the switch. It doesn't have to be ALL games (I don't mind dual booting into windows for games I play maybe <20% of the time), but i'd say 80% of my gaming time would have to be an ideal experience on linux.

You just highlighted part of the problem.  Mint was an alternative to Ubuntu Unity and was built by people who love Ubuntu but not its direction.   They created their own DE called Cinnamon, used MATE based off GNOME, however the rest is the worse than using Ubuntu LXDE, and XFCE.   It was an amazing experience alternative to Unity, now Unity is dead.  Gnome 3 is the default DE in most distros, Cinnamon and Mate will struggle to be updated, so distros will kill off DEs that they have to.  Linux Mint have already done so with KDE. 

 

Have you used DXVK? 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

1 hour ago, homeap5 said:

It may stands for anything. You can write that Aimp is NOT music player, even using big letters, but that doesn't change the fact that IS music player. Wine allows to run Windows programs under Linux - so it still is my point that if I'm using Windows software, I prefer to do it under Windows. And I don't know if definition changed over years, but if you need a program to run other programs from inside not compatible operating system, it's called emulation. But you can name or an elephant or whatever - it's very Linux style (pretend that Linux is way better than it really is).

 

I'm using Corel Draw, Photoshop, Directory Opus, eM Client, Miranda, IrfanView, ImBatch, lot of music VST instruments for Windows and many others. The only I can find on Linux is one decent music library tool (Nectarine instead of MusicBee). Rest, including video player, is better in Windows. I'm just choose BETTER system with better programs. I don't care about how great is empty, freshly installed system - without programs is useless.

WINE is a realtime translator, hence why you lose performance, it translates windows code into something interpretable by Linux or Vulkan. 

 

I don't like to be pedantic but your definition is wrong, WINE doesnt emulate the Windows architecture. Application are not running on top of anything.

 

All of those apps could be translate to run, majority on them fairly well.  If you prefer Native then you prefer Native.  An OS stands on its owned.  Applications dont make Windows more stable, reliable, faster, more efficient, more secure, use less resources, and better for privacy.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

52 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

I use Linux daily at work (Ubuntu and CentOS, RedHat), and I can tell you, that using Linux you very much still need to use the Terminal daily. And it like, at the very best, like using Windows XP, with select few features from modern windows. And despite the fact that we are in 2019, it still has no idea what high-DPI scaling is. Sure, it can double pixels (yay?!), but not actual scaling system. Font rendering is as blurry as ever. 99% of the workplace do great efforts to avoid development under Linux just for that main fact alone, let alone the rest. They'll use their Mac or Windows system. And it is very nice to be in a work environment where the people are highly knowledgeable on Linux, but don't play the denial game like it is the case online.

 

You act like there is no hardware support problem with late Linux based OS, but the reality is that it is very much there. Heck, even AMD "excellent" (or so they say) GPU drivers, doesn't even support any system with switchable graphics with no plan in sight to bring support. Same for Nvidia, just to mention one example. Everything in the Linux world are workarounds, patches, and complicated to get things to work. Each thing are weekend projects. On select hardware configuration you have tearing everywhere, even when playing videos. The basic things like hardware echo cancelation feature that all sound card/chips support under OSX and Windows is a rarity under Linux. All you have are, once again, software workarounds that don't work properly. This reminds me, high audio quality support. If you use onboard chip audio, and occasionally play videos online like on YouTube, and want sound alerts, then yea, it is fine. But if you enjoy audio, if enjoy music, or seek excellent audio experiences. Linux doesn't have driver’s audio solutions. Already getting 96KHz is winning the lottery. You want 192KHz? Sorry. Here is the source code, have fun! Printers!!!! Yes, you know when you want to do real work! Nope sorry! Limited support. Digitize Pen? Nope. Convertible device? Nope! Touch support that does more than basic mouse emulation? Nope, unless you have hardware specific touch screen for Linux based OS that you use. I know you’ll show me: “Look at this it works!” But I am not looking if it works or not... I am looking that it works properly, having the cursor or whatever I move vibrate all over the place, and not have a smart guess system to know here you finger wanted to land, is what is needed.  and lots more...

 

Remote desktop? Use SSH.. so Terminal! All remote protocol under Linux only support large screen refreshes, even full screen ones only. So higher your resolution and less fancy your internet upload speed where your host is, let alone download speed on client end, the more painful it is. See with RDP, what so cool about it, is that it works with the OS. It doesn't do workarounds to get things working. It works in tandem, it knows when a message box has appeared or disappeared, it knows the content behind it, even if it is a video playing, and only that section of the screen, the dialog box overlays the client side, and stop refreshing what's behind. Click OK, boom, disappears instantly and the behind content is instantly displayed.

 

Linux has no reliable, rapid, easy to use, backup and restore solution, nor have file/folder version history. If you screw up as a user... say... sudo rm -rf *, there is no undo. Get your OS disk, cross your fingers you have a recent full backup of the system.

 

Linux drivers aren't separate from the kernel. Under modern Windows, if your GPU drivers, you have the inconvenience of a flashing screen while Windows restarts the driver. Under Linux... Kernel panic. This applies to more than just GPU drivers.

 

It doesn't help that Linux has no concept of file locks. The, once again, workaround, is to create a file, where if it exists the software that wants to lock it, knows it should be locked, and avoid doing things, until the file is gone. The problem with this, is that it only works for that software, as this is not a system thing, nor even a standard, not to mention any security system to block this.

 

Anyway, I can continue...

 

Centos, Redhat are server builds so lets discount those. 

 

Ubtunu is phased not rolling release so it is highly unlikely that you do not have the latest drivers or kernel support. 

 

High DPI is available under X11 Gnome.

 

Switchable graphics is an edge case.

 

NVIDIA drivers are supported well on Arch Linux.

 

Linux supports the majority of Asus Soundcards. 

 

SSH use VNC or the like, no terminal needed.

 

Backup sadly has to be done with a shell script.

Hmmm, probably best to lock down certain linux for non sophisticated/IT savvy users.  

 

I have had no problems under Arch with GPU upgrades.

 

DLLs aren't locked...

 

My point with is rather long winded is that the experience on Linux is varied, a distro and de is not Linux. The only fair comparison is a recently version of Arch with Gnome + AUR. 

[homeap5]

12 minutes ago, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

WINE is a realtime translator, hence why you lose performance, it translates windows code into something interpretable by Linux or Vulkan. 

 

I don't like to be pedantic but your definition is wrong, WINE doesnt emulate the Windows architecture. Application are not running on top of anything.

 

All of those apps could be translate to run, majority on them fairly well.  If you prefer Native then you prefer Native.  An OS stands on its owned.  Applications dont make Windows more stable, reliable, faster, more efficient, more secure, use less resources, and better for privacy.

Actually Windows is more stable, reliable and more efficient in my opinion. And for sure use less resources - try any browser and compare battery life, speed etc. Windows has built-in auto-repair if you broke something - and what about Linux? In case any problem, you'll end with black screen command line.

 

Sorry, I understand that Linux and Mac has worshippers, not just users, but I still prefer good and fast operating system.

[GoodBytes]

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Ubtunu is phased not rolling release so it is highly unlikely that you do not have the latest drivers or kernel support. 

So now you open teh door of havinbg to run multiple distro for different tasks.... nice. How many times I need to reboot my system during the day to switch between different distro?

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

High DPI is available under X11 Gnome.

No it's not. Again, Pixel doubling, is a hack, not actual support.

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Switchable graphics is an edge case.

NVIDIA drivers are supported well on Arch Linux.

Here we go again... the denial game.

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Linux supports the majority of Asus Soundcards. 

That did not answer my question, and now you just highlighted that only ASUS sound card are supported.

And I don'T see the Xonar control panel having support. So you don't even have full support.

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

SSH use VNC or the like, no terminal needed.

You just ignored everything I said.

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

Backup sadly has to be done with a shell script.

Hmmm, probably best to lock down certain linux for non sophisticated/IT savvy users. 

Now you insult users?! Nice.

 

Just now, TheFlyingSquirrel said:

DLLs aren't locked...

They aren't DLL's in Linux. What are you talking about?

 

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

3 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

Actually Windows is more stable, reliable and more efficient in my opinion. And for sure use less resources - try any browser and compare battery life, speed etc. Windows has built-in auto-repair if you broke something - and what about Linux? In case any problem, you'll end with black screen command line.

 

Sorry, I understand that Linux and Mac has worshippers, not just users, but I still prefer good and fast operating system.

Windows 10 requires 1.2-1.4 GB on launch, Arch Linux Cinnamon is 480MB.

 

Lets leave the conversation there, you clearly haven't actually used Linux.

[TheFlyingSquirrel]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

 

So now you open teh door of havinbg to run multiple distro for different tasks.... nice. How many times I need to reboot my system during the day to switch between different distro?

 

No it's not. Again, Pixel doubling, is a hack, not actual support.

 

Here we go again... the denial game.

 

That did not answer my question, and now you just highlighted that only ASUS sound card are supported.

And I don'T see the Xonar control panel having support. So you don't even have full support.

 

You just ignored everything I said.

 

Now you insult users?! Nice.

 

They aren't DLL's in Linux. What are you talking about?

 

Yes, why not, it is a byproduct of linux, just like  Window Enterprise or Server edition.

 

There are multiple scaling modes not just fractional scaling.

 

You might have issues with drivers, i haven't.  No denial, just factual.  If i had issues i would be honest about it.

 

Xonar Control Panel is propertiary, the Alsa suite + installing AlsaMixer replaces the control panel, not entirely convenient true, but you get all the features.

 

Oops i misread it. Yes you are right about non-local RDP. 

 

Not an insult, you don't give user admin rights on enterprise machines for a reason, it is risk mitigation you need to stop users from doing themselves harm.  Either A by restricting functionality or B hiding it or C education. 

 

I was saying Windows isn't file locked. 

 

My earlier points to other users was not to disregard something you have either never used recently. 95%+ of regular users will never see any of the problems you face with Linux.