this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2024

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Linux Gaming

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5 reasons why desktop Linux is finally growing in popularity (www.zdnet.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I wish it was friendlier to Nvidia (though, that's no fault of the Linux community), because that's the one hangup for me. I built my rig just a couple years ago around the 3060ti, and the spotty/shoddy support provided by Nvidia (again, not at all the fault of the Linux community) keeps me where I am in the world of Windows.

Hopefully, NVK can successfully remove that barrier for folks like me, because I run Linux on every other computer I own, and it's looking very promising that it may be the case sooner than later.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It’s funny because back in the day the lack of support for amd is what made me choose to go nvidia in the future. Maybe the pendulum will swing back who knows? Kind of surprising it’s not well supported given the popularity / importance of cuda.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

It's the ol' spectre of Capitalism come to haunt the market again. Nvidia's support has always been an afterthought, and given the relatively small share of Linux gamers, "good enough" has been their level of investment.

I forget when AMD went open source, but I think it was that move that has brought them up to competing (surpassing?) with Nvidia in the Linux space. Not only is the support better, but they were able to secure a hold on Steam Deck sales, and with Linux gaming improving as a result of upstreamed fixes, now they're becoming the better option for people who want to dump Windows but still play games (Nvidia even leeches off those improvements and ports them into their own code).

If Nvidia would go open source, the Linux community wouldn't have to reverse-engineer everything re: Nouveau and NVK, and they might be a stronger competitor again.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I wish it was friendlier to Nvidia

You got that one backwards.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I more meant the experience. Linux would be friendly, if Nvidia would get off their high horse.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

i'm using a 3070 currently, my next GPU will 100% be AMD.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

i have 3060ti too and the only distro that works perfectly is mint, and nvidia driver version 535

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I have that one too and it's running fine on Arch (btw). Only after the Plasma 6 upgrade I have this weird issue that sometimes one of my screens isn't correctly identified and starts in 640x480. Wait... it's not running fine, I guess. :/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Funnily enough I've never had any problem out of my GTX-1080, and I run Mint. Still I've heard irritation stories about RTX cards. Which is why my next GPU is gonna be Radeon.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I moved to Linux on my desktop back in 2019. I was sick of my slightly old (4 year old) processor running constantly at 20 to 30 percent utilization.

During COVID, there were times I worked from home and did so successfully on Linux.

Gaming was one of the big for me as well but the transition to Linux was not really that painful. There was only one of two games that I had to leave behind, and even then, I was able to set up Looking Glass to play them occasionally (definitely not a task for a regular end user).

I think some people are too comfortable with MS Office to migrate, if anything, I think Office isa bigger barrier to Linux adoption than Windows is. After all, the are plenty of comments saying "Windows 10... Bad. Windows 11... Worse!" There are no comments focusing on the Office suite being bad.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Because honestly, Office is pretty great for what it does.

I know a lot of folks here can't get over it being proprietary or all the other anticompetitive stuff Microsoft has done with Office, but once we got M365 at work, a lot of my work life got a lot easier.

Any time I have tried to use LibreOffice or other alternatives, I feel like I'm giving up ten years' worth of quality of life improvements. That's generally my experience with 99% of FOSS stuff - fully functional but dogshit to navigate and use.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

I wish installing linux for non-technical people using windows were as easy as downloading an .exe and walking through an installation wizard. Something that gave very very simple instructions, backed up their stuff, rebooted to install linux with the chosen settings, and restored their backup into linux.

IMO if it were that simple or as simple as double clicking an .exe and hitting Install Linux (with default settings) that did all of the above with a default distro set by the installer, more people would be willing to install linux.

And non of that Gnome shit. Drop them into a distro with a DE configured to look like windows (probably KDE or Cinnamon).

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I think Fedora Media Writer kind of hits those boxes, and the Fedora installation (with the Blivet partitioner) is fairly easy.

My problem, however, and Brodie on YouTube can attest to this, is the language. Open source projects have a problem with communication, messaging and signalling.

It should be the priority of design and the UX to properly communicate actions, events, consequences, etc. It's also about accessibility, as bad messaging can be confusing and off-putting.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I think the best we can do is "easier to install than Windows." Which it currently is, barring the fact most devices ship with Windows pre-installed. If you're a PC or gaming enthusiast and you've built your own computer from spare parts, installing Linux is a similar though more streamlined process than Windows.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Non tech savvy people don't install windows or macos either. Everything comes pre-installed with the machine you buy.

If you make it to the point where you kinda know what Rufus and an iso file are, Pop! OS and Mint are easier to install than Windows.

I suppose a program could be made that partitions your OS drive and installs a distro on the second partition with a dual boot selection screen on next boot, but if you're at the point where you're curious enough about Linux to try it, you've probably learned enough to use Rufus and an iso file.

The answer is system integrators need to pre install and actively support one of the more friendly distros (like Valve with SteamOS on the deck) or it'll never catch on.

Simple users don't care what OS you present them with, as long as it's already there and it's easy to use.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

I think you're assuming too little and assuming too much of average users at the same time. Either you don't deal with them or have forgotten what it was like to be one.

normal users install software. OS to a user is just software. let it be installable like MPV, VLC, GIMP, Regex cleaners, games, ...
just because you know what linux is doesn't mean you understand Rufus, the BIOS, partitioning, ISOs vs EXE, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

As much as I'd like to see Linux gaining traction, I have a hard time believing market share is as high as StatCounter reported in some places. For example in Canada, Linux usage is at 1.99%, which even still seems high to me. That's 1 in every 50 desktops. Anecdotally I can think of only 3 people, including myself, who primarily run Linux on desktop. In corporate environments, I have only ever seen Windows, or sometimes Macs deployed to employees. Even with the hate on Windows 11, it still works for most people, so they upgrade to it (begrudgingly, if they care at all), or simply buy a new computer for it. I truly wonder who else out there is running desktop Linux here in Canada...

That being said, I am less skeptical of the growth in users in India, but not for the reason the author listed. I think it's more likely that it is growing in popularity due to its cost (ie, free), as well as the fact that many distros are more lightweight than Windows, which especially benefits older or cheaper hardware. India is still a developing country and I'd imagine many don't have the resources to buy the latest hardware, and instead will make do with what they have or what they can afford. I think this will continue to be a boon for Linux in the developing world as Windows is not getting cheaper or faster.

Overall, I think Linux has nowhere to go but up. Once Windows 10 finally goes EoL, we may see more people looking to make the switch.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That being said, I am less skeptical of the growth in users in India, but not for the reason the author listed. I think it's more likely that it is growing in popularity due to its cost (ie, free), as well as the fact that many distros are more lightweight than Windows, which especially benefits older or cheaper hardware.

Most Windows in India is pirated. Microsoft doesn't care unless you're a big company. The second point is true. Another reason is that schools shifted to Ubuntu 10-15 years ago, and government departments are now shifting to Linux.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

Agreed, Linux is quite popular in academia, particularly in any technical field. A lot of scientific software has to run on Linux because of supercomputers, and especially a lot of open source software is Linux only. So a lot of students run Linux for convenience, and a lot of computer labs run Linux as well. Of course, there's also the fact that lots of people just think Linux is better than the alternatives, and they're more likely to try new things when they're at a university student's age.

So I feel like that would probably be a significant contribution to the 2% that's being reported

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago

That’s 1 in every 50 desktops. Anecdotally I can think of only 3 people, including myself

Can you name 147 people using Windows? If you can, then that's 1 in every 50. Of course, people you know are probably the technical sort that are more likely to pay attention to their OS, but still you'd need to be able to individually name 147 Windows users just to match the 1 in 50 stat. Point I'm trying to make is that one in 50 really is not very many!

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