Valve is proving that LOTS of people would use Linux if it came in convenient preinstalled packaging.
“User-friendly? Pffftt… Do you mean noob enabling?”
- Toxic Linux fanatic
It’s all fun and games until some manjaro user starts asking about manjaro-specific f-ups in an arch chat and telling users there that apparently it’s the same when told such f-ups are discussed in a chat next-door
Yeah unfortunately this is a real issue. I also think it’s an issue that experienced users don’t really want to help newbies, especially those who can’t or won’t do research by themselves. Ideally experienced users would be more helpful, but at the same time that isn’t their job. There are many who learned Linux more or less on their own so it’s understandable they don’t want to help given they didn’t use any help when it was their turn. I think now that the community is growing this might start to change a bit, as the newcomers are more likely to have had help and be willing to help others.
I sometimes try to advocate for using Linux, and I don’t mind giving friends advice from time to time. That being said I don’t want to be stuck answering stupid questions all the time that could have been solved with a google search or a YouTube video. I have my own stuff to worry about both technical and otherwise.
That’s why I think teaching new users how to access resources like man pages, gnu info pages, google, and so on is the correct approach to take. It is empowering having the skills to work through your own issues. That being said I also think it’s important for experienced people to give advice on more complex questions.
Indeed. I’d say majority of people nowadays need just one thing from their computer - working web browser. Mail, office suite, audio and video consumption, even graphic suite (e.g. photopea) is available, and widely adopted, in browser. And browsers behavesbvirtually the same whether on Windows or Linux, so yeah, put person in front of nicely packed Linux PC and chances are there won’t be many issues.
As someone who has recently begun dipping in to Linux and trying to figure it all out, I agree with this.
I feel like if Samsung or someone embraced Linux in the way Apple have macOS, it could very easily become a serious contender to Windows. But I guess no one could trust Samsung to not fuck it all up and make it a proprietary fork that would end up having nothing to do with Linux.
Basically like they (and Google) have handled phones. “Wow look, a majority of the OS work is done for us! Sooo if we just…overlay it all with proprietary blobs and un-removable software and locked bootloaders and…”
Fuck Samsung but ValveOS (something aimed at the average user) would be neat to see. At least until Valve goes full on ‘LET’S BE FUCKING EVIL!’
I bought a steam deck and it inspired me to build a Linux gaming pc. Haven’t been in the pc world since windows 7. Dabbled a bit with Linux long ago. Well, it was a pretty smooth set up this go around. Everything just worked. I didn’t even need to find a driver for my GPU.
The exception was a VR headset I tried to set up. I decided to install Windows on a separate HD just for VR games. When I did, I was shocked at how bad it is. I mean the UI and UX are dated and bloated, sure, but Windows couldn’t even detect my motherboards wifi. I had to boot in to Linux, download my WiFi drivers and then transfer them via USB drive to windows. Same issue with Bluetooth. I can’t believe in 2024, Windows doesn’t just work out of the box while Linux does.
For VR, if you have a Quest headset and good WiFi, you can try ALVR with SteamVR, it works just fine for me while playing BeatSaber but depending on games your milage might vary.
Yeah, not using Quest. Trying to run an HTC Vive, which is pretty ancient at this point. In any case, I think the issue is I installed Steam via flatpak, but I guess it’s better to install it natively for VR. I’m sure I could technically get it running, but after putting a few hours into trying, I just gave up. Mostly just want to play Half-Life Alyx and after that I’m probably finished with the VR till some other killer game comes out.
Which distro did you use?
I’ve been having a good but not perfect experience with Ubuntu as a desktop OS lately, but I’m open to trying other suggestions.
I used Linux Mint originally. No issues at all with drivers there, worked perfectly. My main complaint was its kinda ugly and had limited UI configurability. It also was a pain to install certain apps, which weren’t available by default in the software manager. I tried a few other distros including Fedora and Elementary OS. Fedora was pretty nice. Elementary OS felt a bit dated looking and I was going to have to fix some UI issues to make it work.
Finally, I gave Zorin OS a go and couldn’t be happier. It’s based on Ubuntu so pretty stable and just works, plus the UI is polished and it has a lot of built in ways to customize it, whether you’re from Mac or Windows background. It’s also really easy to install apps - flatpak and snap. I guess some on here would say it isn’t optimized for gaming, but shrug it works fine for me (aside from VR). The free version works completely fine, but if you want to support the devs and get some extra UI customization, you can donate for the pro version.
I’m sure there are lots of other ways to do it, but my priority was to have something polished and easy to use without a lot of time spent tinkering. I’d rather spend my limited free time gaming.
Android may be vaguely user friendly, but it’s horrible to use for anything except launching a self-contained app.
So it’s ok-ish for phones, but horrible as a general purpose system.
Valve is doing this? Not Android since 2008?
Heck we know people don’t give a shit what’s under the covers since at least the switch between Windows 98 and 2000/XP, the latter being a very different OS. It could have been BSD or Linux and people wouldn’t have bat an eye if the start menu looked the same and Word, Corel Draw, Photoshop and AutoCAD worked.
Android is not (really) a desktop OS. Devices with preconfigured locked-up Linux installations have been around way before that, mainly networking equipment.
While I’ll always be wary of corporations, Valve seems to be maintaining an overall good relationship with the FOSS community (for the time being).
I’d bet dollars to donuts that’s exactly the reason. And the minute they start goin public, the enshittification will occur.
Maybe I’m wrong but I’ve got the horrible feeling that once Gabe dies the enshittification begins.
I mean, the second someone is a billionaire from the business they run, the enshitifaction has begun because that money comes from somewhere.
Valve hasn’t sued anyone to give them a portion of their income forever. Valve also doesn’t pursue anti consumer goals on daily basis. Not that it has never done anything wrong but it has done enough good to be on my good side as little as it means
At one point Apple, Google, etc. were not evil… but yeah, enjoy the moment for sure.:-)
But they are/were publicly traded.
Being publicly traded inherently means you need to show growth every 3 months or your shares are worthless. Cue the enshittification and squeezing pennies from every revenue stream possible.
That’s the sole reason Valve hasn’t gone down that path is its status in this regard.
and we love them like brothers and sisters.
And we also treat them like such, lol.
Together we can create a dysfunctional OS user base, and this is what we’re missing.
Microsoft is the best advertising for Linux out there
Seriously though for the first time I am seeing long time Microsoft admins start to complain
You haven’t been looking in the right places then, I’ve been seeing it since I started working in IT nearly a decade ago.
It has definitely gotten crappier since I started though.
(Microsoft Admin whining incoming)
More and more snags related to implementation details of ancient functionality that still exists under the hood of their all new shiny crap, but isn’t actually documented properly anywhere anymore because rolling out new stuff is more important than finishing documentation on core sysadmin tools multiple years old.
They got rid of all training courses, certs, and learning material for all their on premise stuff in order to push cloud only setups years ago. They are just barely starting to backtrack that, so there’s a massive gap in official documentation.
Thank god my team has enough requisite greybeards to bridge the gap and train me on what Microsoft wants to pretend isn’t still in widespread use.
