Edit: wasn’t trying to to come off as a dick, reread it and I could see it taken that way
Also I’m relatively new to Linux, so I’m sure with some things that may not be true, but 100% of what I’ve had to do has been either within discover, or I’ve followed pages on fedora to find out and it’s worked Everytime. Whatever bazzite installation you have whether it’s 38/39 etc, those line up with fedora versions as far as I’m aware.
It’s been solid for me. It’s the same or less amount of troubleshooting I’d have to do on windows, and I’m familiar with windows. Making windows work is my job. That coupled with the absolute mess that is windows support pages, bazzite has been good for me. Arch was pretty cool too, not nearly as bad as people said it was going to be, I just had an issue with audio I couldn’t figure out. I just wanted a works right now solution, and that’s what it’s been.
So I think I was partially wrong about this one. I just threw my head against the wall for a good hour because I couldn’t get a package installed through dnf.
I don’t know what all this applies to, but I think it may be most things, using rpm-ostree in place of dnf and my install finally worked.
Leaving this here in case someone stumbles up on this while trying to install packages
Honestly, even for a living room PC it’s a pain. My living room machine uses Corsair fan controllers, so I had to battle to get OpenLinkHub installed, and a realtek 2.5gbe card, which I attempted to get working and gave up (kernel src package does not match the kernel for some reason). Not overly fun.
What about my alternatively acquired games? I’ve tried using Mint and Steam with whatever that is that runs compatibility. Sometimes doesn’t work for them.
I tried that but then there was a launcher and the launcher loaded okay but then when you tried to run the game from the launcher it didn’t run but just crashed…
What about non steam games? Maybe I’m in the extreme minority, but my most played games are things like Microsoft Flight Sim, DCS, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, which not only have their own launchers etc (one of which is tied directly to MS), they also require peripherals… sometimes lots of em, that have config and/or telemetry software that is all built in windows.
Unfortunately this is one of the cases where you’re going to have to do some research.
Check ProtonDB to see how a game plays on Linux. I’m assuming the flight simulator would be problematic.
Usually the periferal drivers are built into the Linux kernel. Your keyboard and mice will just work, gamepads as well. Niche stuff like wheels and flight controllers will likely not work out of the box and you’ll have to find a community based software to support it. Sucks.
If I were you I’d boot a virtual machine or a live USB drive and try it out. If you’re not comfortable with the amount of compatibility just don’t install it. Nothing lost
Currently, my favorite ways of running non-Steam games are the Heroic Games Launcher and Bottles. Heroic is especially nice if you have games from GOG or EGS. However, looking at ProtonDB, it seems that both DCS and Flight Sim 2024 don’t work too well on Linux. Overall it sounds like it might be challenging for you to switch to Linux, but you can always give it a try and see how much works.
There are plenty of ways to run non-steam games and most games work out of box. Wine/Proton, the software that steam uses to translate windows calls to linux calls, can also be run outside of steam. Wine can also just run generic windows programs so config software will probably run fine.
The peripherals is where you may run into some issues as I’m not sure how well supported they would be on linux. I wouldn’t know as I don’t use any special peripherals.
Man, Steam has a real opportunity here to make Linux desktops more palatable. Imagine a SteamOS computer that’s as easy to use as Windows for people who don’t know Linux…
Except not really and about half the time there are breaking bugs that the average person cannot simply fix. Shit gets serious when a company like valve spends a load of programmers on this and gets it up to standard.
If you are tech savvy enough to install Windows, you can easily install Linux as well. If you install any of the big distros you will have a good time.
I think that the big thing for the general public is not that Linux will now be easy to use/accessible, it currently is pretty much there with many different distros, it’s that there’s a known face behind it. In the general public Linux is just this weird thing that isn’t really attached to anything besides the super tech savvy, so they think they can’t use it because they aren’t super tech savvy. By making it steam’s Linux, they can go “oh I know steam, they do stuff really well for people like me! This is probably easy enough that I can use!”
Another thing that will help is a centralization of support. With enough people using it questions and bugs will be more common and more accessible as well as answered. Currently for you to find help for your issue you need to look for your specific distro and try to also parse if the answers for other distros would help you with your issue.
You can quite safely jump onto any distro recommended for gaming. From me I would recommend PopOS, especially when 24.04 releases - easy install and Nvidia drivers work out of the box, and the super rare issue Linus encountered is long fixed
Anecdote alert: I mean, I went to Mint thinking this to be true. The first release I tried didn’t even support my (years old) WiFi drivers, and then the second couldn’t run levels in Hitman. (Bazzite did, however, so distro apparently matters)
Interesting, what year was that? Before Ubuntu shipped with pipewire by default I do remember it having the worst Bluetooth experience, so maybe something similar was the case with WiFi?
Anecdote as well: the non-working Bluetooth lead me to perform my very first (successful) dive into system files to replace Alsa with Pipewire
You cannot let someone else control your screen. This is fine by me, I never want someone controlling my screen anyway. If I want to collaborate with them, I use any number of better ways to get them shared access.
You cannot control other folks screen. This is often a challenge as too many people offer this up as the only way to remotely help them. I hate doing this because even in Windows the experience is utter garbage, but sometimes the other party just forces my hand.
Don’t use SteamOS as a desktop OS, that’s not what it’s meant to. You might be used to Windows and think that a different distribution of Linux is just a different customization of the OS, but it’s almost an entirely different OS that happens to run the same binaries.
If you’re interested in getting an alternative to Windows, try some beginner friendly Linux distros on a Virtual Machine or an old laptop. I recommend Linux Mint to newcomers, but if you’re used to the desktop mode on SteamOS maybe Kubuntu. The closest you can get is Bazzite but that’s also not a desktop OS so I wouldn’t use that unless it was for a Steam Machine. The second closest (that’s also somewhat beginner friendly) is Manjaro K DE version, but being Arch based I don’t tend to recommend it to new Linux users, but of you’re dead set on getting something as close as possible to SteamOS that’s it.
Yes, for you and me who understand what that means it’s just the same, but for someone with no Linux experience is going to be very different. Googling any issue he has will direct him to alter config files or install packages, neither of which would be permanent on SteamOS, while the OS is the same the usage of it is completely different, so for a person with no Linux experience to try to use it as their daily desktop system it would be frustrating because none of the help online would apply to him.
Isn’t Bazzite an immutable OS with very limited package availability outside of gaming? At least that’s what I remember from a while back. If so it’s an excellent distro for getting a Steam Machine just like ChimeraOS, but I’m not sure it would be a good experience for someone just getting into Linux, since most of the help he will get online will direct him to edit config files which would get overwritten on update.
For example, say the person wants to install Skype, or something that is not in the graphical UI store on Bazzite.
Most guides they would find for Linux would tell him to add a PPA, or download a .Deb, or if he manages to find something that works it would be to download an RPM and they would need to redo it every update, or they could find a guide on how to install it via flatpak (but for that they would need to know what flatpak is) or snap (and go into a lot of troubleshoot figuring out why he doesn’t have snap). We take a lot of Linux knowledge for granted, but people using it for the first time won’t know all of this.
I see what you mean. But I’m a Linux beginner myself and found that their package manager has everything I need. I’m guessing it’s the one from Fedora as it was the same when I installed Nobara last year.
Here’s hoping it matures enough for desktop use by the time my Win10 desktop is EOL.
My man, have you heard of Bazzite?
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If they went through this, they wouldn’t.
I’ve also been able to find 99% of what I need through discover.
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/installing-from-source/
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That’s why we got dem tar and dnf
And also that’s just not true. There’s also Space Cadet Pinball
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No, on bazzite because it’s a fedora distro
Edit: wasn’t trying to to come off as a dick, reread it and I could see it taken that way
Also I’m relatively new to Linux, so I’m sure with some things that may not be true, but 100% of what I’ve had to do has been either within discover, or I’ve followed pages on fedora to find out and it’s worked Everytime. Whatever bazzite installation you have whether it’s 38/39 etc, those line up with fedora versions as far as I’m aware.
It’s been solid for me. It’s the same or less amount of troubleshooting I’d have to do on windows, and I’m familiar with windows. Making windows work is my job. That coupled with the absolute mess that is windows support pages, bazzite has been good for me. Arch was pretty cool too, not nearly as bad as people said it was going to be, I just had an issue with audio I couldn’t figure out. I just wanted a works right now solution, and that’s what it’s been.
@kadup
So I think I was partially wrong about this one. I just threw my head against the wall for a good hour because I couldn’t get a package installed through dnf.
I don’t know what all this applies to, but I think it may be most things, using rpm-ostree in place of dnf and my install finally worked.
Leaving this here in case someone stumbles up on this while trying to install packages
Honestly, even for a living room PC it’s a pain. My living room machine uses Corsair fan controllers, so I had to battle to get OpenLinkHub installed, and a realtek 2.5gbe card, which I attempted to get working and gave up (kernel src package does not match the kernel for some reason). Not overly fun.
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Not necessary, you can use dozens of distros where playing Steam games is pretty much plug and play
What about my alternatively acquired games? I’ve tried using Mint and Steam with whatever that is that runs compatibility. Sometimes doesn’t work for them.
You can just add the .exe to steam and then they are as plug and play as most other steam games.
I tried that but then there was a launcher and the launcher loaded okay but then when you tried to run the game from the launcher it didn’t run but just crashed…
What about non steam games? Maybe I’m in the extreme minority, but my most played games are things like Microsoft Flight Sim, DCS, Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, which not only have their own launchers etc (one of which is tied directly to MS), they also require peripherals… sometimes lots of em, that have config and/or telemetry software that is all built in windows.
Unfortunately this is one of the cases where you’re going to have to do some research.
Check ProtonDB to see how a game plays on Linux. I’m assuming the flight simulator would be problematic.
Usually the periferal drivers are built into the Linux kernel. Your keyboard and mice will just work, gamepads as well. Niche stuff like wheels and flight controllers will likely not work out of the box and you’ll have to find a community based software to support it. Sucks.
If I were you I’d boot a virtual machine or a live USB drive and try it out. If you’re not comfortable with the amount of compatibility just don’t install it. Nothing lost
Currently, my favorite ways of running non-Steam games are the Heroic Games Launcher and Bottles. Heroic is especially nice if you have games from GOG or EGS. However, looking at ProtonDB, it seems that both DCS and Flight Sim 2024 don’t work too well on Linux. Overall it sounds like it might be challenging for you to switch to Linux, but you can always give it a try and see how much works.
There are plenty of ways to run non-steam games and most games work out of box. Wine/Proton, the software that steam uses to translate windows calls to linux calls, can also be run outside of steam. Wine can also just run generic windows programs so config software will probably run fine.
The peripherals is where you may run into some issues as I’m not sure how well supported they would be on linux. I wouldn’t know as I don’t use any special peripherals.
Man, Steam has a real opportunity here to make Linux desktops more palatable. Imagine a SteamOS computer that’s as easy to use as Windows for people who don’t know Linux…
There are plenty of distros that have been doing that for years now
Except not really and about half the time there are breaking bugs that the average person cannot simply fix. Shit gets serious when a company like valve spends a load of programmers on this and gets it up to standard.
You’re either doing too much or using the wrong distros. Haven’t had breaking bugs for a long while using Fedora KDE.
It’s been nothing but as reliable as windows. Windows can have severe bugs too BTW
If you are tech savvy enough to install Windows, you can easily install Linux as well. If you install any of the big distros you will have a good time.
It’s not going to happen in this iteration of SteamOS. It remains mostly a gaming “only” distribution.
I think that the big thing for the general public is not that Linux will now be easy to use/accessible, it currently is pretty much there with many different distros, it’s that there’s a known face behind it. In the general public Linux is just this weird thing that isn’t really attached to anything besides the super tech savvy, so they think they can’t use it because they aren’t super tech savvy. By making it steam’s Linux, they can go “oh I know steam, they do stuff really well for people like me! This is probably easy enough that I can use!”
Another thing that will help is a centralization of support. With enough people using it questions and bugs will be more common and more accessible as well as answered. Currently for you to find help for your issue you need to look for your specific distro and try to also parse if the answers for other distros would help you with your issue.
You can quite safely jump onto any distro recommended for gaming. From me I would recommend PopOS, especially when 24.04 releases - easy install and Nvidia drivers work out of the box, and the super rare issue Linus encountered is long fixed
Anecdote alert: I mean, I went to Mint thinking this to be true. The first release I tried didn’t even support my (years old) WiFi drivers, and then the second couldn’t run levels in Hitman. (Bazzite did, however, so distro apparently matters)
Interesting, what year was that? Before Ubuntu shipped with pipewire by default I do remember it having the worst Bluetooth experience, so maybe something similar was the case with WiFi?
Anecdote as well: the non-working Bluetooth lead me to perform my very first (successful) dive into system files to replace Alsa with Pipewire
I really want to switch my main desktop to Linux, but use it for remote work too, so I have MS Teams… is there a way to reliably virtualize it?
Krdc
https://itsfoss.com/remote-desktop-tools/
Using it from chrome is how I use it.
Two limitations:
https://massgrave.dev/
Here you go.
Don’t use SteamOS as a desktop OS, that’s not what it’s meant to. You might be used to Windows and think that a different distribution of Linux is just a different customization of the OS, but it’s almost an entirely different OS that happens to run the same binaries.
If you’re interested in getting an alternative to Windows, try some beginner friendly Linux distros on a Virtual Machine or an old laptop. I recommend Linux Mint to newcomers, but if you’re used to the desktop mode on SteamOS maybe Kubuntu. The closest you can get is Bazzite but that’s also not a desktop OS so I wouldn’t use that unless it was for a Steam Machine. The second closest (that’s also somewhat beginner friendly) is Manjaro K DE version, but being Arch based I don’t tend to recommend it to new Linux users, but of you’re dead set on getting something as close as possible to SteamOS that’s it.
What?
As far as I know, it’s literally just an immutable build of Arch Linux.
Yes, for you and me who understand what that means it’s just the same, but for someone with no Linux experience is going to be very different. Googling any issue he has will direct him to alter config files or install packages, neither of which would be permanent on SteamOS, while the OS is the same the usage of it is completely different, so for a person with no Linux experience to try to use it as their daily desktop system it would be frustrating because none of the help online would apply to him.
Bazzite is full fledged desktop OS. Perfect for beginners
Isn’t Bazzite an immutable OS with very limited package availability outside of gaming? At least that’s what I remember from a while back. If so it’s an excellent distro for getting a Steam Machine just like ChimeraOS, but I’m not sure it would be a good experience for someone just getting into Linux, since most of the help he will get online will direct him to edit config files which would get overwritten on update.
For example, say the person wants to install Skype, or something that is not in the graphical UI store on Bazzite. Most guides they would find for Linux would tell him to add a PPA, or download a .Deb, or if he manages to find something that works it would be to download an RPM and they would need to redo it every update, or they could find a guide on how to install it via flatpak (but for that they would need to know what flatpak is) or snap (and go into a lot of troubleshoot figuring out why he doesn’t have snap). We take a lot of Linux knowledge for granted, but people using it for the first time won’t know all of this.
I see what you mean. But I’m a Linux beginner myself and found that their package manager has everything I need. I’m guessing it’s the one from Fedora as it was the same when I installed Nobara last year.