I just think they're neat!
The Duff CEO with a Windows-Logo on his forehead: "Gamers use Windows because of its' user experience not our de facto monopoly."
Next Image: Duff CEO with Windows-Logo in front of a "Out of Business" sign. Subtitle: "30 minutes after SteamOS is released"
Edit: Yo, I'm not saying this is gonna happen. I just want to say that Windew's UX sucks ass.
Year of the Linux ~~Desktop~~ Handheld
I’ve considered Windows a toy OS for decades because the only use case anyone can legitimately make for needing to use it is to play games.
Ah, there's Adobe and maybe some 3D modelling software
Adobe is sadly huge for design professionals. Also fuck Adobe
Cries in professional CAD-Software-User-Noises
Fact. I only still use it because of game compatibility.
Its the only os with functional cad as well. Freecad is a user hating joke.
I've used several CAD solutions as a toolmaker. And tested even more. All Windows only. I wear the sackcloth and ashes of FreeCAD at home because
1: It's free and I don't need to buy a subscription. Billed monthly or annually-- your choice. I can use FreeCAD as I see fit.
It does NOT require me to store my data in the cloud. I have worked on things that were trade secrets.
If my internet connection goes down I can't access my work with the full ability to manipulate it.
I absolutely detest the clown car UX that is Fusion 360. I don't want to click an icon and get a dropdown menu that's a dozen entries long, then click one of those and getting a submenu that's ANOTHER 6 entries deep. Ain't nobody got time for that shit.
Learning difficult things does not scare me.
Most people just use what's in front of them. Apple takes on exorbitant costs to make sure marginalized people are the face of iphone. Microsoft takes on exorbitant costs to be the face of our soul crushing tech capitalism. What can linux represent and how can we leverage that to our advantage while taking down apple and Microsoft.
Linux represents those that are free
Why do steam users act like their game company and their billionaire is somehow their friend?
Am I missing something? The meme says "Windows bad" not "Valve is our friend."
I don't need Steam to win, I want windows to lose.
Because it's a Linux distribution. They're forced to be our friends because of a brilliant legal tactic that has been working marvelously. For Steam itself we have to trust a billionaire pinky promise that he won't enshittify. But if Linux becomes a major gaming platform, it could be a major turning point for free software adoption in general.
So steam has had 20 years to enshitify, in that time they have always remained a privately held company and have made choices to ensure long term growth. I imagine at some point (like after gaben hands over control) they could go public and obtain their very own collection of worthless bloodsucking vampires, but i imagine that would be quite awhile, and hopefully by then they will have removed windows death grip from gamers throats.
I don't, its just valve demolishes apple and microsoft in the "don't be hostile to your users" category
I'm not but they have done a lot to make gaming on Linux more viable.
Happy cake day!
Because monopolies are good when it's one that I like!
It's not a monopoly and it's certainly one of the best services out there so if GabeN has a spot in the line, it's at the back of it.
If Steam isn't a monopoly because the Epic Games store and GoG exists, then Windows isn't a monopoly because Mac and Linux exist.
Look, I like Valve. They are better than the vast majority of big game companies out there. They aren't perfect, though, and they definitely have a monopoly on online PC game distribution. We shouldn't be blind to that.
There are people using Windows who would very much rather not use Windows but need to because it is the only way to use given software. I haven't heard of anyone who would very much rather not use Steam but has to in order to access a given game.
In this regard Windows has more in common with Epic and their paid exclusives than Steam.
Unfortunately the biggest issue now is the anticheats that only function on windows. My friends refuse to switch to Linux because you cannot play:
They'll play other games but because they mainline one of these they refuse to leave. As long as SteamOS has no answer to these anti cheats windows will maintain a dominance.
Source: https://areweanticheatyet.com/
Technically, all the major anti cheats have Linux userspace binaries that even support wine/proton passthrough, so there are actually a lot of anti cheat games that run on linux as shown in the list.
The issue is not entirely something SteamOS can solve or is even linux's fault because no sane distro would ever support running a kernel level anticheat module. It would break the defining security features of linux, and I'm not even sure DKMS or Akmod would support it out of box on secure boot.
The games in question refuse to enable anticheat on linux because they know the userspace binaries are limited, but then their windows solution is just a crappy rootkit. It's not a very good or longterm solution either. EAC and Battleye both have demonstrable bypasses with various methods of fooling. Only Vangaurd seems to aggressively keep up with the arms race by literally scanning your PCIe devices for hardware cheats.
What they can do is to convince game OEMs to enable their linux AC support by marketing the potential customers they are losing out on. That's basically what happened with Halo MCC and Infinite. I'm still surprised they actually convinced Microsoft to allow both games to run on Linux with EAC.
I am an idiot, so this is probably a dumb question, but it sounds like you might be able to shine some light.
Why could we not run kernel level anticheat in a sandbox? Does kernel level inherently mean a sandbox cannot contain it?
As an aside is kernel level anticheat required for anti-cheat to function? Or are the developers of anti-cheat software just doing kernel level because its easier?
Fuck kernel-level anticheat.
I refuse to buy or play any games with Kernel Anti-cheat.
And I will die on that hill.
If it doesn't run on Linux because of intrusive anti-cheats you probably shouldn't install it anyway.
Congratulations? How does that help Linux adoption, though.
Well if they are losing out on sales due to practices that are incompatible with Linux then companies are less likely to use those practices in the future.
They literally care about market share and money watch the magical adoption of server stuff anti chest if Linux takes off
Don't make me tap the post title.