this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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Linux Gaming
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Which is another points against Linux. Stuff should work correctly out of the box. That's what average user expects.
That's why Windows isn't ready for mass adoption
Average users can't even remember to set their proper monitor resolution/refresh rate in windows or in games.
Or enable XMP/Expo profiles for RAM.
Or enable RE-BAR / Hypervisor support.
Smooth brains around'.
I helped my mom with her windows install when the update half a year ago nuked keyboard support (I had to use the onscreen keyboard just to login). Before thar I had to forcefully install the correct wifi driver as well to get it working properly. This is was running from their factory installation. Stuff working correctly out of the box is a problem on both platforms.
Its not the fault of linux that the hardware manufacturer doesnt make functioning drivers tho...
Yes it is.
For the end user, if one platform has driver support and the other one doesn't, then one platform works and the other one does not.
"It's not my bug" is a thing engineers get to say to close issues on their backlog, but it doesn't magically fix the problem for the end user if the other side says the same thing (or doesn't care).
If you want people to use Linux, then Linux has to work, and that includes the third party drivers.
The user perceiving it as such, doesnt make it so. It makes a difference because if you acknowledge and make visible that it is AMDs fault, then they will be more likely to fix their shitty driver. Over all linux does have much better hardware support than windows, but with newer hardware the vendors are just oddly slow sometimes.
It does make it so.
I get so tired of shouting this from the rooftops in the general direction of FOSS devs and advocates. UX is the only thing that matters. If the user can't use it, it doesn't exist.
No, Linux doesn't have "much better hardware support than Windows". It is harder to set up and maintain, so it's worse. It doesn't matter if you can make it work. It doesn't matter if you can make things work that don't work on Windows. If I plug it in and it doesn't go, then it's worse.
This doesn't make me mad because I want to defend Windows, this makes me mad because I really, REALLY want Linux to do well, along with other FOSS alternatives to enshittified commercial software, and this is an absolute brick wall blocker for that. I don't know how FOSS spaces take away control from whiny engineers who think the current situation is functional, but somebody needs a UX equivalent of a Linus Torvalds shouting abuse at coworkers about how garbage their UX is (that everybody finds hilarious for some reason. Maybe the next step is getting some HR).
Its really not tho. Have you installed Windows 11 to a PC? Shit takes forever to remove all the ads, garbage and AI features. You literally have to edit the registry to get a usable system. Installing a popular linux distro takes like 5 minutes and then you just install whatever software you need. Any normal consumer device you plug in just works out of the box, no need to install drivers that are then again filled with bloat, ads and often even malicious code or vulnerabilities. Like ffs sake Windows 11 doesnt even function at all on a good portion of desktop computers in use today because of the TPM requirement.
Just last weekend i helped someone that never used linux before to switch. The actual install took less than 5 minutes. GPU drivers come preinstalled with the distro and work out of the box. Then another 30 minutes or so of installing and setting up all the programs they need. Another 30 minutes to copy all their old files over and explaining some general differences and thats it. Literally zero tinkering required and they are happily playing their steam games at peak performance.
Ofcourse you can get unlucky with your hardware which then involves a very annoying amount of tinkering, but when the baseline on windows is already fuckloads of tinkering then having to do tinkering sometimes is not at all a bad trade off.
I dual boot on most of my devices and I have PCs around the house going back to Windows 95.
I am also proposing that "just this week I installed Linux for my mom" becomes the next "year of Linux desktop" and is treated with similar derision, because man.
In all seriousness, this is delusional. All Windows devices out there work out of the box and come with Windows preinstalled, so there isn't an installation in the first place, just a first time setup. Installing Windows the way I like it takes some tinkering, but MS's assumption is that most normies don't have a way they like at all and will happily take the default. They are right about this.
There is certainly more clicking on a Windows install in that you have to say no to a bunch of stuff, but it's ultimately fairly equivalent these days.
The problem with Linux isn't installing it (sweaty Arch users aside), the problem is what happens next. You can get lucky and have everything work, particularly with Bazzite and other distros that have a narrow focus and provide specific installers targeted to specific hardware, but if something in your PC doesn't work out of the box you're SoL.
In the example from this video the guy found out their AMD GPU was running about 25% slower than expected, so now what? And that's before he reaches an ungraceful boot failure and is stuck out of the OS instead of going into an automated recovery process.
You have to troubleshoot on Windows as well, as you do on any computer, but the likelihood of hitting an issue in the first place is lower due to it being the baseline platform, and the paths to a resolution are also more streamlined. That's the definition of harder to set up and maintain.
The sooner the Linux community gets over the delusional bubble they live in after getting their systems set up and fine tuned the faster a transition to Linux for more people will be. The delusional rah-rah isn't helping.
I should add that in my experience Linux developers and maintainers are WAY less unrealistic about the current state of Linux in these areas than vocal online advocates. This is more a community problem than a development or strategy problem, although there's some of both in there as well.
You're right that it's Linux's problem, but that doesn't mean it's Linux's fault.
Sure. No argument from me here.
That's just life, though. You so very often have to solve problems someone else created that get in your way but not theirs.
@TheBat @grue how do you define not working correctly ? ...
the GFX Card booted
the GFX Card rendered the desktop
the GFX Card rendered Games
... the only issue it wasn't as fast as possible ...
-> solution on windows -> you report and get a new driver or you get a new driver cause you don't know that you don't have the max performance
-> solution on linux -> you report and get a new driver or you get a new driver cause you don't know that you don't have the max performance
^^^ where is the difference ?
Oh yeah because spending half a day manually downloading and installing a zillion drivers and their bloat and rebooting between each install is peak ootb-functionality.
Meanwhile I was in CP2077 literally 5 minutes after booting a fresh install of Bazzite. On the exact same computer.
Cringe.
Which operating system works out of the box for gamers that requires zero tweaks? Is it windows? Are you sure it's windows?
More so than Linux, yeah. No system is perfect, but some are less fiddly than others.
Stuff should work correctly out of the box. That’s what average user expects. Linux is getting better at that every single day, is Windows? Linux is where the innovation is for the user, not Windows or any other proprietary, profit-seeking OS. Is it perfect? Probably won't ever be. Will it get better? That's up to us and our actions. Will windows or any other proprietary OS get better because of our actions?
Linux is getting better... but it's still nowhere near the default Windows position. A major factor in this is because development focuses on Windows for most studios, and frankly Linux is so fractured that it's difficult to make a game work on everything Linux.
But, that's Linux's main strength. It has a wider flexibility than other operating systems ny design. It will likely never be as "out-of-the-box" as Windows, no matter how much they sabotage themselves.
The average Windows user would have to change wildly for them to care about 99% of the changes that most power users would. You can see that in most other platforms, like YouTube, reddit, Netflix and other streaming services. They enshittify day by day and the average user shrugs and says "that's the way it is" and continues on.
@Zorque @dreadbeef
My whole comment -> check out https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/11/check-out-linux-porter-ethan-lee-show-off-how-linux-games-are-built-and-packaged/ and the video in it.
PS: This guy really knows what he is talking. All of his linux ports are top notch and if needed he provides extremly fast updates. GLIBC updates breaking stuff ( which has happen once in alot of years) -> he got you
But that responsibility is not on the OS. It's a vendor and publisher responsibility. When a game doesn't work on Windows, people don't blame Microsoft. Admittedly the game was made for Windows. But most publishers and developers will give the same response to gamers, “fuck off, the game was for Windows XP, not W10 or W11. We will remake it and make you pay $60 again to play a game you already played 15 years ago. You are on your own until then.” The vast majority of old games that are still playable, are so through an effort from third parties. Like mod developers and vendors like Valve and GOG keeping compatibility alive.
Linux, as it has become abundantly clear after the SteamDeck and Proton, already makes gaming out of the box extremely easy and entirely viable. It was the other side of the equation who were being dickheads. Or, as an example, like Epic, or Genshin Impact, who intentionally go out of their way to break Linux viability for their games with utmost hatred.
you’re absolutely right, but it’s still the gaming experience as a whole on linux. is it unfair? absolutely! but it’s still the experience
Most shit on windows needs adjustments out of the box to work correctly... That's just all PCs
That's the whole thing with consoles is that you don't have to do that
This is just not true of Windows. I trust you aren't talking about settings in-game, of course.