Linux is great until you want to update your graphics card or play games. Sure it has gotten much better, but you can’t deny it’s a massive hassle for the majority of new users.
I didn’t realize how hostile the Linux community is. I have an Nvidia card and I’ve never had a pleasant experience trying to make it work.
It’s actually easier to keep your graphics drivers updated on Linux vs windows, at least with AMD cards. All I have to do is type “sudo dnf upgrade” or if you’re lazy click the “update” button and my system and GPU drivers are up to date.
Also in regards to games, basically everything on steam works flawlessly and that will satisfy the majority of desktop gamers
It’s not. I still dual boot but boot more into Linux now as I do want to get away from Windows. The one thing that always held me back was gaming. There’s still games that don’t run but those tend to be ones that use specific anti cheat software. Certainly all the games I run work fine.
If Linux couldn’t play games the Steam Deck would be a very flawed concept!
Both of those things are pretty easy now days. Proton seriously changed the game, and AMD is the graphics card of choice for Linux because they don’t actively hate free software like Intel and Nvidia
Have an amd card. Have never done any special steps to update my graphics card, as amd drivers are just built into the kernel. I used to have a nvidia card and it was like 2 or 3 commands to enable proprietary drivers and was then always notified and updated with my usual software package upgrades.
Granted i haven’t run windows for over 15 years but I remember having to go to nvidia’s website and manually download and install new nvidia drivers to update. Is this still true? If so, this is simply objectively worse.
I’ll agree with a decent amount of gaming. Unless it’s steam, getting wine set up, even with lutris, can be a hassle.
You’re totally right, it was such a pain to upgrade my last graphics card in Linux. I just turned off the computer, switched the GPUs, and powered my compy back on, because the Linux kernel includes AMD’s drivers by default and requires nothing from the user to get them installed.
Gaming still sucks though, only 10,000+ games on Steam are supported right now, so barely any. Proton is super tough to use, you have to go into Steam settings and select “Use Steam Play” then restart Steam; well beyond the capabilities of most gamers.
And then there’s the issue of controllers on the Steam Deck. Literally the only controllers that have worked so far are all my Xbox controllers, my PS5 controllers, my friend’s Switch controllers, my Logitech controller, and my MadCatz controller. And I had to plug them in or link them via Bluetooth, it took almost 2 minutes to set up once, horribly inconvenient.
Graphics cards update through the system updater, and any game that doesn’t have kernel anticheat will generally just work without any extra effort from the user.
Yeah afaik any AMD card should work out of the box with the Linux kernel, which includes AMD drivers. Never had any problems with my AMD card. Even on Nvidia it worked, admittedly proprietary Nvidia graphics driver updates frequently broke my graphics but downgrading (in a tty or even a chroot if I can’t do it graphically, I think I only ever needed a tty though I don’t think I ever needed to chroot because of an nvidia update) fixed it, and using outdated Nvidia drivers was not too big of a deal, I didn’t notice game performance issues.
And gaming on Linux is completely fine if you don’t have any kind of funky setup (like musl or whatever). The majority of my steam library has native linux versions, those that don’t play fine with Wine/Proton.
Linux is great until you want to update your graphics card or play games. Sure it has gotten much better, but you can’t deny it’s a massive hassle for the majority of new users.
I didn’t realize how hostile the Linux community is. I have an Nvidia card and I’ve never had a pleasant experience trying to make it work.
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Because it’s still an issue.
It’s actually easier to keep your graphics drivers updated on Linux vs windows, at least with AMD cards. All I have to do is type “sudo dnf upgrade” or if you’re lazy click the “update” button and my system and GPU drivers are up to date.
Also in regards to games, basically everything on steam works flawlessly and that will satisfy the majority of desktop gamers
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It’s not. I still dual boot but boot more into Linux now as I do want to get away from Windows. The one thing that always held me back was gaming. There’s still games that don’t run but those tend to be ones that use specific anti cheat software. Certainly all the games I run work fine.
If Linux couldn’t play games the Steam Deck would be a very flawed concept!
The graphics drivers just update via repo in the store, like everything else, automatically.
Which doesn’t work, thanks. I wish it did.
Both of those things are pretty easy now days. Proton seriously changed the game, and AMD is the graphics card of choice for Linux because they don’t actively hate free software like Intel and Nvidia
Wait, aren’t the Intel graphics drivers open source and part of the kernel as well?
It’s just NVIDIA that refuses to play ball
My info is out of date then, I didn’t know that Intel had open source drivers for Arc. That’s awesome!
For me I just went all CPU with my laptop and save gaming for my Steam Deck or my old 360.
Unfortunately I use Nvidia. Now I know Nvidia isn’t good for Linux but wasn’t when I planned on using it.
Have an amd card. Have never done any special steps to update my graphics card, as amd drivers are just built into the kernel. I used to have a nvidia card and it was like 2 or 3 commands to enable proprietary drivers and was then always notified and updated with my usual software package upgrades.
Granted i haven’t run windows for over 15 years but I remember having to go to nvidia’s website and manually download and install new nvidia drivers to update. Is this still true? If so, this is simply objectively worse.
I’ll agree with a decent amount of gaming. Unless it’s steam, getting wine set up, even with lutris, can be a hassle.
there is nvidia experience which handles updates now on windows
Unfortunately, I have multiple Nvidia cards. That’s the issue. My Linux machines don’t use Windows, at all.
What hassle? Literally don’t even check protondb anymore…I just buy games assuming they will work and 98/100, they do.
You’re totally right, it was such a pain to upgrade my last graphics card in Linux. I just turned off the computer, switched the GPUs, and powered my compy back on, because the Linux kernel includes AMD’s drivers by default and requires nothing from the user to get them installed.
Gaming still sucks though, only 10,000+ games on Steam are supported right now, so barely any. Proton is super tough to use, you have to go into Steam settings and select “Use Steam Play” then restart Steam; well beyond the capabilities of most gamers.
And then there’s the issue of controllers on the Steam Deck. Literally the only controllers that have worked so far are all my Xbox controllers, my PS5 controllers, my friend’s Switch controllers, my Logitech controller, and my MadCatz controller. And I had to plug them in or link them via Bluetooth, it took almost 2 minutes to set up once, horribly inconvenient.
Graphics cards update through the system updater, and any game that doesn’t have kernel anticheat will generally just work without any extra effort from the user.
Yeah afaik any AMD card should work out of the box with the Linux kernel, which includes AMD drivers. Never had any problems with my AMD card. Even on Nvidia it worked, admittedly proprietary Nvidia graphics driver updates frequently broke my graphics but downgrading (in a tty or even a chroot if I can’t do it graphically, I think I only ever needed a tty though I don’t think I ever needed to chroot because of an nvidia update) fixed it, and using outdated Nvidia drivers was not too big of a deal, I didn’t notice game performance issues.
And gaming on Linux is completely fine if you don’t have any kind of funky setup (like musl or whatever). The majority of my steam library has native linux versions, those that don’t play fine with Wine/Proton.