The prediction about Linux breaking 2% is interesting. As a Linux gamer is does often feel like we're such a tiny minority that rapid multiple growth wouldn't even make a difference, but something has really changed over the last year. A lot of people who are Linux-friendly but choose Windows for their PC and macOS for their work machine are buying Steam Decks and loving it. The Deck is getting covered like crazy in mainsteam gaming media (possibly this is a google-created echo chamber around me as they know how to get me to click, but I don't think that's all it is). I don't see the waves converting en masse, but things are really happening in a way I've never seen before, and have hoped for years. Related, I have a lot of love for what Steam is doing for Linux.
Turns out, as ChromeOS and Android has proven, and now the Deck the best way to increase linux usage is to not immediately drop someone into the hot mess that are mainstream DEs for linux.
The fact most Linux neckbeards fervently deny Android as a Linux distro points to the reasons why Linux has thus far never achieved mainstream acceptance outside of the aforementioned.
It’s hardly unreasonable. Android exists almost entirely within an ecosystem of its own. Maybe Stallman was right. It’s not Linux that people love, it’s GNU plus Linux.
This comparison is pretty unfair! SteamDeck is as open as it gets! The last thing left for Valve to do finish mainlining the drivers (they have done a few in the past few months).
The fact is it isn't a Linux distro, everything about the Linux kernel is considered private APIs and not available to anyone other than Google and Android OEMs.
>it's correct to say it's more of an appliance than a distro?
It's not an appliance, it's a full operating system. It's one of the best Linux based operating systems for consumers because the design of it actually cares about security and privacy compared to most other Linux based distros. For example on Arch you can download some random package from the AUR or just run something from a third party it can immediately start listening to your mic, steal your private keys / cookies / personal files, and add an alias for sudo to steal your root password.
>it's not designed to be installed on generic hardware
What do you mean by this? Android is built on Linux, so it can run on any hardware Linux has been ported to. It has an HAL to make it for different vendors to expose their drivers in the same way to higher levels of the system.
>It's one of the best Linux based operating systems for consumers because the design of it actually cares about security and privacy compared to most other Linux based distros.
No, consumers (read: most common users) quite literally don't know and don't care about security or privacy.
Assuming you weren't doing neckbeard things and were just using an Android phone like a reasonable human being, when was the last time you had to dive into the terminal in Android? Probably never, not the least because there isn't even a terminal readily accessible anyway.
Android is one of the best Linux distros for the common user because Android actually cares about usability and practicality. Android succeeded where the rest of the Linux world failed (and continues to fail) because, just like Windows and MacOS and iOS, it put the common users' needs front and center.
Steam Deck is succeeding down the path Android took because, just like Android, it puts usability and practicality front and center. "Stop using Windows programs and use these Linux alternatives", you say? No, the common user wants Windows programs and Steam Deck is striving to answer that demand.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Linux world continues to argue about X and Wayland and Flatpak and Snap and apt and dnf and Debian and Red Hat and systemd and PulseAudio and GNOME and KDE and vi and emacs and GNU and copyleft and libre and the Holy Divinity of the All-Mighty Terminal, and the world at large cannot and will not care less about any of it.
>consumers quite literally don't know and don't care about security or privacy.
Which is why it's so important that the operating system is built to be secure without requiring the user to secure it themselves. If the user's bank login is stored on the device it's important that other applications on it can't steal it. Consumers don't care about security, but the operating system can still protect them (and the bank).
>when was the last time you had to dive into the terminal in Android?
Today. I ssh into production and released a new update today from my phone. If you mean a shell on the phone itself, then yesterday. I used am to send some test broadcasts to an app I'm working on.
>Android is one of the best Linux distros for the common user because Android actually cares about usability and practicality.
I agree. I didn't mean to imply that the security and privacy benefits of Android were the only benefits that consumers get from it. And I wasn't explaining why it is popular. When I said best I said so with comparisons other operating systems like steamos which are user friendly and work well from the user's perspective.
>Meanwhile, the rest of the Linux world continues to argue...
They also have proven that GNU userland is worthless for most folks, and the only thing about the Linux kernel that matters is using it as a free beer POSIX kernel.
I don't think a lot of Linux gamers play on Linux in a VM on their Windows machine. Why would they? They could run the games natively on Windows. On a Mac maybe but also unlikely.
I accidentally bought games exclusively for microsoft off of newegg (they don’t allow returns) and use Linux exclusively. I’m planning on setting up a vm to play them, also r/VFIO is a niche subreddit sorta gaining steam the last I saw.
More important than my situation, some people may want to switch to linux but have Adobe software or better features sets available on the Windows version of software like DaVinci resolve that disallows then from totally cutting the cord from Windows.
You might be interested in looking-glasses [1], it is a pre-configured setup for running your GPU on a Windows VM by hardware passthrough. Small catch is that you need at least 2 video cards, as you need to give up your main one to the VM
Thanks, I’ll check this out. I haven’t had a chance to check play anything recently nor look very deep into vms and passthrough (its on my todo list), but this will likely help a ton :)
It’s “fun” to get it all up and running and for the most part it works well. But I did start to hit issues like if you want a game of counterstrike it steam didn’t like the fact it was running in a VM, etc. halo infinite etc were all in the same boat. Now whenever I rarely get time to have a quick game its either straight on Linux with Proton or something, most steam installs just seem to work these days. Or I just boot into Windows for a session
Some of these predictions are reasonable, but some of these are pretty out there. I'm as diehard a Linux user as any, but some of these feel like they live in their own little bubble a bit too much.
> The announcement of an updated Steam Deck
I think this is way too soon, it's only been out just over a year. It reminds me of people convinced the Switch Pro will be just around the corner. They may come out with a better Steam Deck, but I don't think it will be for a while (and I personally hope they don't move into some annual upgrade pattern).
> We will see some sort of VR device for the Steam Deck in 2023
I just can't picture how this would even work. They're completely different products for different demographics, and trying to mush them together makes no sense. Maybe we'll get an updated Valve Index, but not some Steam Deck specific thing.
> Next, I believe that there will be a AAA game exclusive for the Steam Deck in 2023.
Even if Linux had sizable enough market share to justify not making a Windows port, there's nothing about the Steam Deck hardware that would make a game Deck only.
> This is my longshot… I predict a Steam-based console comparable to the Xbox or PS5 will be announced before the end of this year.
A longshot indeed. I don't think there's even the slightest chance of this, especially given the fate of the Steam machines.
> Epic provides official support for Linux on the EGS and puts Heroic Games Launcher out of business
> Finally, GOG annouces official Linux support for GOG Galaxy
I think these ships have sailed. As much as I and everyone else wanted GOG Galaxy for Linux, they seem disinclined to do so. Epic seems even less likely to support anything other than Windows.
> Ubuntu has lost its top spot as the gaming Linux platform.
This I believe actually. I think Arch-based distros have been higher on the Steam survey for a while, and I don't see that changing.
> I predict a Steam-based console comparable to the Xbox or PS5
Theres this perception that the Deck SoC is fully custom (and therefore Valve ordering another from AMD or upgrading it is quite possible).
But the initial capital costs for such a thing are enormous... probably 10 figures if its a big chip on a cutting edge node now. The Deck just doesn't have the kind of volume the PS5/XSX do. Hence this old leak makes me think Van Gogh is a laptop part that OEMs (other than Valve) just didnt pick up:
Same goes for the screen. I dont think Valve is custom ordering the LCDs (otherwise they would be VRR), and they aren't going OLED unless they stumble upon an existing part thats just right. Again, Nintendo is big enough to amortize away a custom OLED.
> there's nothing about the Steam Deck hardware that would make a game Deck only.
Yes, AAA exclusive for steam deck is too unrealistic. However AA or indies with steam deck-first platform may be emerging, that they'll focus on the screen size and controls of deck.
Yeah, but they would have to be crazy to make the games linux exclusive.
Even if you set the shut out market thing aside, Proton is an excellent platform to target. Theres basically no disadvantage vs targeting linux native unless your game is java+opengl or something.
>I just can't picture how this would even work. They're completely different products for different demographics, and trying to mush them together makes no sense. Maybe we'll get an updated Valve Index, but not some Steam Deck specific thing.
I kind of think the Steam Deck is going to eventually morph into a VR device itself. Assuming continual progress of some form or another in shrinking and packing transistors on a die, there are probably going to be APUs that match VR performance of a 3070, performance which will be seen as entry level, or even irrelevant for discreet gpus and desktop rigs in 2030, but mostly fine for casual users who want a portable device that can play vr. I could be totally wrong though.
> > Epic provides official support for Linux on the EGS and puts Heroic Games Launcher out of business > Finally, GOG annouces official Linux support for GOG Galaxy
Epic (or maybe just Sweeny) has seemed actively hostile towards Linux in the last year or so if only to throw mud at Valve.
>Ubuntu has lost its top spot as the gaming Linux platform. Despite Canonical’s attempt to bolster its status as a gaming platform, it will remain in second place.
With the nature of Linux gaming, where tools that are either used to make games run better, or bring features tinkerers/power users use to linux (like MangoHud and Goverlay), I think, at least in the near future, the best distros to use for Linux gaming will have to be rolling. I've tried a few Ubuntu derived distros (Mint and Tuxedo OS), and there are still some holes because their repos aren't kept up to date (in the case of Tuxedo OS, the devs for that distro mirror Ubuntu's repositories and do some things their way, so as to tailor the Ubuntu experience to the hardware their company sells, is my understanding), and many of the devs working on these tools for Linux are Arch users. The Debian and Ubuntu ecosystems are overall known for their stability, but it seems that that's whats holding back that whole family of distros, for the most part, from being ideal distributions for gaming on Linux.
Arch is rolling and may be great for people who want to learn everything about how Linux works, but I don't know if it's great for people who may want to try and game on Linux with a system they have that they can't install Windows 11 on.
This leads me to think the OpenSuse family of distros (OpenSuse and Gecko, which is sort of a user friendly wrapper applied to Open Suse), which are known for being rolling and having the software tested by the OpenSuse team before being added to repos, could be the darkhorse distro for people who are curious about gaming on Linux. I think, at least for a while, until things cool down and settle, Ubuntu and it's offshoot distros will move a bit further down than second place.
Even people disagree with snap I look forward to it for this specific use case. I want parts of my system to be stable and LTS and others to be pulling the latest features. On top of this a way to rollback to whichever version in a safe and reproducible manner. Rolling release is nice but sometimes it creates real headaches.
This could be a good use case for snap, but preventing users from choosing native versions of applications and installing firefox as a snap by default made me exiled me from Kubuntu, at least for now.
If the Windows 12 rumors (CorePC etc.) are really true, and Windows continues down the path of PMs and designers handing out orders from their Macs, I expect a temporary jump in the amount of gamers jumping ship.
I think the whole "moving security tools on a vm that will eat up cpu cores" will be the issue to watch this year on Windows 11. There's a lot of these new crazy Windows features (that reveal why Microsoft set a hard line on the age of hardware that can be used going forward) that have the potential to be breaking points for various segments of the Windows userbase. But maybe I'm just blindly optimistic, and Microsoft has studied windows users enough to know how much they can abuse them.
With my security hat on, many of those features are more than welcomed by SecDevOps, specially when many insist writing software in languages like C and C++ is still the way to go.
Maybe this is old and outdated, but isn't Linux mostly just more secure that WIndows based on how it's designed (I'm thinking mainly about how administrative tasks require sudo level authorization, btut here's probably more)?
YEs, if you have to use linux, it's probably a great thing to have security run features run in a virtual environment, nut I think people who have an old system and don't want to buy a new computer might look at other options that don't just chew up system resources. Sudo doesn't require little cores.
Not really, specially after Windows XP security focus.
Nowadays Windows even runs critical parts of the kernel and drivers in their own little sandboxes, it uses mostly userspace drivers, and every OS handle has a security descriptor associated with it.
Also if running on the network, there are AD group policies that can be really fined tuned to what each user is allowed to access on their computers.
Windows NT linage of OSes isn't the same free ride for all than Windows 9x.
> Windows continues down the path of PMs and designers handing out orders from their Macs
Oof, that's a damning statement. Is there evidence this is a real thing? I would hope under Nadella the concept of dogfooding is ubiquitous enough that they are all forced onto surface pros and windows 11, but I've seen crazier things.
> Oof, that's a damning statement. Is there evidence this is a real thing?
Depends on what you mean by evidence. Several HNers claiming to be or have been Microsoft employees attest to the designers at least using Macs. To my knowledge no one has ever stepped forward to contradict them.
Frankly, give where Windows has gone under Nadella, I think he'd just rather the Desktop OS die off as a concept.
I have been reading about this since Windows XP came out.
Instead what I have witness have been many UNIX zealots (myself included), to either move into Windows (alongside VMs), or macOS, with Linux desktop never going beyond 2% in 25 years.
> Gaming experience on Linux is still terrible and a non starter for most people.
That's a very confident assertion for something that is extremely debatable either way. Do you have a source on Linux being a non-starter? At least a million Steam Deck users seem to be doing just fine.
As much as I like Codeweavers the predictions seem the most off. 0.89% in Jun 2021 -> 1.27% in Feb 2023 is given as reasoning to expect it to be 3% or greater in 10 months but 2 additional cloud gaming services by the end of the year is a "very longshot" despite that being met the last couple of years in a row already. AAA exclusives seem to be on the decline but the Steam Deck should get one? Maybe if Valve makes one themselves but even then it doesn't feel likely they'd just not sell it to other Steam users to say the Steam Deck has an exclusive. A newer Steam Machine like console device seems plausible though.
The other predictions seem more reasonable. It seems 2% market share is a common guess. Personally I think that's still optimistic but at least plausible. Nick's predictions overall seem pretty reasonable and it might be because they resist the urge to insist an instant upset is an inevitability. Time will tell though! Like the 10 year HN threads I look forward to looking back at this comment and seeing if I was actually any more reasonable with my assumptions.
I know several non-techie people who have Decks now. Some are into casual PC games that don't have mobile ports but work really well on Deck, and others are hardcore console gamers whose favorite games have a PC port but don't ship on Switch or whatever.
I also know a couple Linux users who are playing a lot more games recently because so much stuff just works now. Thanks Valve.
Prediction: Valve will cleanup the technical abomination which is the current steam client: clean 64bits (yeah, the core is still 32bits...), libdl-ing all its system deps (yeah, it is still statically loading libgl...), static libstdc++ and static libgcc to avoid those horrible ABIs, shell scripts with program helpers and conservative usage of command options and not bash scripts using command niche options (often gnu only, or alternative breaking, for instance alternatives of the "official xz"). Ofc, beyond compile-time OS abstraction tables of functions, proper runtime fallback tables of functions (wayland->x11, vulkan->GL->CPU), but since libcef (the steam client is moving to libcef) is blink, they don't do anything, google seems to do everything here (hope I am wrong).
Ofc, all game engines will be coded properly the same way. It seems unity3D is doing exactly that (but their vulkan3D backend seems far to be on par with their glcore backend).
Elephant is the room: c++ is not mean for binary-only games on elf/linux since the static libstdc++ does not libdl (dlopen/dlsym/dlclose) its system dependency (unless it was fixed by c++ gcc devs and I missed it). absolute truth: c++ syntax has a toxic complexity, not to mention its absurd and grotesque _very few_ required compilers in size and complexity.
And of course: Silksong, Half-life 3, dota2 out of beta and more native AAA (irony).
I don't talk about proton, which does just displace the QA which should be done by the game devs on native elf/linux to the "proton devs" (probably a money sink hole for valve) which have to deal with the massive bloat and kludge, msft grade (yeah...), of its code and SDK. It would be more reasonable with a lean build of wine(win64 core)+only vkd3d(dx12->vulkan), but I guess few to no games would run on that. Heard proton has straight copies of windows components... which would make things even worse.
> the "proton devs" (probably a money sink hole for valve)
It's probably a ridiculous figure. However, compared to the amount Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft spends engineering their console runtimes, I bet it makes a lot more sense. It also helps that Valve doesn't have to maintain Wine by themselves, with various cross-platform stakeholders funding and making contributions. It's obvious that Proton/DXVK/Wine is a passion project for Valve, but much harder to tell if they're seriously threatening the idea of a "Windows runtime".
> Elephant is the room: c++ is not mean for binary-only games
I think I agree with you. Steam's runtime provides a lot of stuff (probably standardized libstdc++), so it's hard to truly evaluate how true this is. That being said... both Steam and Wine do a really good job juggling it. Steam works roughly the same on NixOS, Arch, Flatpak and Snap - that's a better starting point than most software clients get.
I guess it's a sinkhole, but its more of an investment for Valve's future. If Microsoft comes down hard with pushing the Microsoft Store, especially since they now own how many different game studios, Valve (and the other Launcher/Gaming storefronts) will be pushed out of existence. Now, while Valve continues to hold influence in how games are distributed online, they are finding a way to exist without Windows and Microsoft. Steam is the easiest way to get games to play on Linux, and people can (and will) jump the Windows ship and still be able to buy games from Steam, allowing Steam to weather any attempts by Microsoft to put it out of business.
>if they're seriously threatening the idea of a "Windows runtime".
From my vantage point, it certainly seems successful. I finally ditched my Windows gaming-only PC last year. Granted, people like me are likely less than a single digit percentage of gamers, but we exist, and as Proton compatibility improves, the percentage could rise.
Yep, I'm in the same boat. I reserve my judgement though, since a lot of people are still Windows-first and Microsoft has yet to make a Hail-Mary powergrab for DirectX.
It happens all the time: some c++ games are compiled for a shared libstdc++... which is not ABI compatible with the one from the steam runtime (this is well know issue:c++ ABI is HORRIBLE). Namely it breaks with the steam runtime shared libstdc++. I repeat: it has been happening ALL THE TIME IN THE LAST DECADE.
I usually ask their devs to use the '-static-libstdc++' gcc/clang option (and at the same time -static-libgcc), and this issue is gone... actually partially, because the static libstdc++ is not libdl-ing its system (module/version)s & (symbol/version)s (well, did not check if c++ gcc/clang devs did fix that) and this is a big problem too: the linker with use the most recent version of modules and symbols (and you cannot overide than unless properly using libdl with dlopen/dlsym/dlclose).
What is the problem with that: well, the game binaries will then refuse to load on system with glibc modules/symbols with "too old" versions... and I was hit hard with this: no more than 1.5 years... yep, this is filthy nasty. And yes, this is not limited to the static libstdc++, it encompasses the glibc modules too. Godot devs mitigate this by explicitely warning devs about this issue and provide some containers with a really old glibc in order to avoid too recent versions.
When you really look at this, I mean with a "final" perspective: the "right" way would be to eat the bullet, and I mean seriously: deprecate ELF DT_NEEDED (and static TLS). It means that if you want to get some services from the system shared objects, you must use dlopen/dlsym/dlclose (and deal with the versions). It would be those symbols will become hard defined in the ELF loader, like __get_tls_addr() for TLS.
We could manage to keep DT_NEEDED, but it means binutils ld MUST allow fine-grained version specification of modules(shared objects) and symbols... which it does not (or it was fixed very recently and I missed it, or I sucked and did miss it from the doc for years).
You cannot "officially" remove any symbol versions, but it does not matter: games must become pure ELF binaries, namely MUST NOT USE main() for the following reason:
A genius at IBM(redhat/sourceware) did break for good the glibc: From glibc 2.34 __libc_start_main symbol has 2 versions, GLIBC_2.2.5 and GLIBC_2.34, it means that any game exe linked against glibc 2.34 won't load on system with glibc below 2.34, if using main().
wow... those guys are msft "grade" in planned obsolescence.
I for one would be very happy if they clean up the 32bit parts. On Fedora I haven't been able to get rid of a start-up warning saying 32 bit libs are missing (installing them doesn't seem to fix it). Fortunately I can launch games and do Steam Link just fine, so it's more an annoying dialog to click "Ok" on. But it does break anytime they push updates as Steam can't restart itself. I also occasionally have to `pkill -9 steam` as it doesn't properly handle signals so will ignore anything it can. Minor complaints to be sure, but would be great to get cleaned up.
any language that allows polymorphism (i.e same name for a procedure call with different versions used for different argument types) has to do some sort of naming trick to make this possible (since the idea is unknown at assembler or linker level). what makes c++ tricky for linkage is almost entirely just this, which has nothing to do with c++ syntax at all.
> Microsoft will release a XBox portable console by the end of the Year.
I could definitely see them making a portable game streaming device, stream from the cloud or your Xbox Series X. Sure there's already some products that do this but it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft so they can drive more GamePass subscriptions.
>Finally, GOG announces official Linux support for GOG Galaxy
That would really be a dream come true. Especially if it could tie into Proton's WINE layer automatically. Right now, I have to jump through a few hoops to get some GOG games playable. Sometimes I fail.
The Steam Deck is the most well known gaming device sold running Linux, made by the most well known PC gaming company, who are often credited with making the most significant contributions to Linux gaming in recent years (~5+ years).
