this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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Why is this argument so common? "Games work on Linux now so you can switch over". As if games is the only thing holding people back. My laptops are finally running Linux full time now, but I've been looking to switch my workstation over to Linux for 25 years now and I'm still not able to fully do it due to limited software and hardware support, and I barely play any games.
It's almost like people don't care to realize there's requirements that are out of my/their/your control. I have to run windows for my SCADA vms to work. I have to run the exact software the company uses. I am 100% not in control of the requirements.
My home lab is 100% windows free. Proxmox, truenas and basic Debian everywhere. Dual booting fedora and Arch on my personal laptop.
It's becoming such an inarticulate argument that I've just taken to ignoring everyone who rattles that off as if it's just black and white.
Because for decades every sincere attempt to suggest Linux as the solution to some problem was 80% of the time met with "but muh games", so now people make the assumption that it will be the likely objection when it comes up.
You seem to have a corner case that requires you to use Windows even if you did prefer not to, and that's totally valid.
I'm 17 years in running Linux on everything at home while being paid to support and deploy Windows at work, and my trajectory has been that each and every one of those 17 years MS has given me reason to be really happy I left them behind. Lots of other folks have similar stories, and it's only natural that they want to share that enthusiasm with folks who are pearl-clutching about however MS has shit on their users this month.
Personally I think there are more users who could go my way than who are likely to have a corner case such as yours. (I barely even consider HW compatibility anymore for common devices except of course avoiding a very short list of wifi vendors.) But I also recognize that is my perception and anecdote and I couldn't support that assertion with any particular data.
Gaming was at one point a serious hurdle. Back in 2007 when I was forced to switch from Windows XP to Ubuntu due to a former friend's IT fuck-up, the only Windows game I could legitimately get running was World of Warcraft, and even then the installation process was arduous.
Valve deserves much of the credit for getting Linux into the state where it can play a vast majority of Windows games with comparable or even better performance.
The true hurdle now is with anticheat.
From my experience it's still a common misconception and I think it's the largest potential group that can switch. Sucks that your usecase is unsupported, though. Just out of interest, what software can you still not run?
You're right that it's a common misconception that games don't work on Linux, and that misconception needs to be addressed. But playing games occasionally is such a common thing that you can't treat them as one homogenous group. "Everyone" plays games. But many many of them do other things as well on their computers, and many of those would consider the other thing more important than the games.
People who use the Abobe suite for example. Digital media creation in general (massive group of people btw) is subpar on Linux. Personally my biggest hurdles right now are DTP software and a specific piece of music production software+hardware combination from Native Instruments.
Not to mention that most people are not ready to deal with a Linux installation that is having issues.
Yep, I really hope a future will become reality where Adobe has some competition and/or an incentive to port the suite to Linux. I just can't help but cheer on the sounds against Stockholm syndrome. So much of these "it doesn't work on Linux" is just the company intentionally trying to prohibit integration with open systems (looking at you HDMI forum). In the end I agree, though, when giving advice, it's best not to assume the "only gaming" use case.
Yeah don't get me started on Adobe. But I guess I should thank them for opening my eyes to exactly how bad SaaS really is with their ransomware. Sorry, I mean Creative Cloud subscriptions. Thanks to them I'm trying to move to FOSS as much as possible, but when you're talking about alternatives for advanced top tier commercial software, and sometimes hardware... It's a barren landscape thus far. And I'm putting a hopeful emphasis on thus far.
Wow. Locking up a Cloud really is ransomware when you look at it like that.
What are you on about, I answered. DTP software and Native Instruments software that uses their proprietary hardware (Maschine if you need to know).
Ah crap, was replying on an old tab that I hadn’t refreshed.
They did, and 3 hours before you made this comment.
https://lemmy.world/comment/11936358
Ah crap, was replying on an old tab that I hadn't refreshed.
Because, it is really the last thing that windows did better than Linux. There are many reasons to switch Linux. Having control over your computer is the primary one in my opinion. Maybe I made a poorly worded argument, but the fact that windows can just change your system is on you is incredibly frustrating. I haven't used Windows in almost 10 years, and I don't think I've missed much. Recent advances in wine and proton make it incredibly easy to run windows software, and for the few things that don't work there are arguably better alternatives.