Enjoy the moment

Valve is proving that LOTS of people would use Linux if it came in convenient preinstalled packaging.

"User-friendly? Pffftt... Do you mean noob enabling?"

- Toxic Linux fanatic
- "I hate noobs. So glad I never was one."
  
  - That same toxic fanatic
- It's all fun and games until some manjaro user starts asking about manjaro-specific f-ups in an arch chat and telling users there that apparently it's the same when told such f-ups are discussed in a chat next-door
Indeed. I'd say majority of people nowadays need just one thing from their computer - working web browser. Mail, office suite, audio and video consumption, even graphic suite (e.g. photopea) is available, and widely adopted, in browser. And browsers behavesbvirtually the same whether on Windows or Linux, so yeah, put person in front of nicely packed Linux PC and chances are there won't be many issues.
- That's been the case for a long time, this xkcd is at least a decade old!
- That would be a Chromebook.
As someone who has recently begun dipping in to Linux and trying to figure it all out, I agree with this.

I feel like if Samsung or someone embraced Linux in the way Apple have macOS, it could very easily become a serious contender to Windows. But I guess no one could trust Samsung to not fuck it all up and make it a proprietary fork that would end up having nothing to do with Linux.
- Basically like they (and Google) have handled phones. "Wow look, a majority of the OS work is done for us! Sooo if we just...overlay it all with proprietary blobs and un-removable software and locked bootloaders and..."
- Fuck Samsung but ValveOS (something aimed at the average user) would be neat to see. At least until Valve goes full on 'LET'S BE FUCKING EVIL!'
I bought a steam deck and it inspired me to build a Linux gaming pc. Haven’t been in the pc world since windows 7. Dabbled a bit with Linux long ago. Well, it was a pretty smooth set up this go around. Everything just worked. I didn’t even need to find a driver for my GPU.

The exception was a VR headset I tried to set up. I decided to install Windows on a separate HD just for VR games. When I did, I was shocked at how bad it is. I mean the UI and UX are dated and bloated, sure, but Windows couldn’t even detect my motherboards wifi. I had to boot in to Linux, download my WiFi drivers and then transfer them via USB drive to windows. Same issue with Bluetooth. I can’t believe in 2024, Windows doesn’t just work out of the box while Linux does.
- For VR, if you have a Quest headset and good WiFi, you can try ALVR with SteamVR, it works just fine for me while playing BeatSaber but depending on games your milage might vary.
- If network card drivers don't work, you can transfer the file the old-fashioned way, or get online using an Android phone in USB Tethering mode (Wi-Fi and mobile data both work).
- Which distro did you use?
  
  I’ve been having a good but not perfect experience with Ubuntu as a desktop OS lately, but I’m open to trying other suggestions.
Isn't that technically what Android fix 15 tears ago?
- Android may be vaguely user friendly, but it's horrible to use for anything except launching a self-contained app.
  
  So it's ok-ish for phones, but horrible as a general purpose system.
Valve is doing this? Not Android since 2008?

Heck we know people don't give a shit what's under the covers since at least the switch between Windows 98 and 2000/XP, the latter being a very different OS. It could have been BSD or Linux and people wouldn't have bat an eye if the start menu looked the same and Word, Corel Draw, Photoshop and AutoCAD worked.
- Android is not (really) a desktop OS. Devices with preconfigured locked-up Linux installations have been around way before that, mainly networking equipment.
One could make a similar argument with Google (Android/ChromeOS).
- You could...
  
  But then one is an open system where you can disable the UI put on top and have a working linux system, while the other is a closed blob destroying compatibility and trying hard to lock you out from accessing the underlying linux system.

While I'll always be wary of corporations, Valve seems to be maintaining an overall good relationship with the FOSS community (for the time being).

they aren't publicly traded so that's probably part of the reason.
- I’d bet dollars to donuts that’s exactly the reason. And the minute they start goin public, the enshittification will occur.

Valve hasn't sued anyone to give them a portion of their income forever. Valve also doesn't pursue anti consumer goals on daily basis. Not that it has never done anything wrong but it has done enough good to be on my good side as little as it means

Valve also doesn't pursue anti consumer goals on daily basis.

Valve pioneered lootboxes and marketing gambling to children, why does everyone forget that?
At one point Apple, Google, etc. were not evil... but yeah, enjoy the moment for sure.:-)
- But they are/were publicly traded.
  
  Being publicly traded inherently means you need to show growth every 3 months or your shares are worthless. Cue the enshittification and squeezing pennies from every revenue stream possible.
  
  That's the sole reason Valve hasn't gone down that path is its status in this regard.
- There is a difference with valve ,that's that the company is private.
All companies making enough profit to make someone a billionaire are anti consumer.

and we love them like brothers and sisters.

And we also treat them like such, lol.

Together we can create a dysfunctional OS user base, and this is what we're missing.

Microsoft is the best advertising for Linux out there

Seriously though for the first time I am seeing long time Microsoft admins start to complain
- You haven't been looking in the right places then, I've been seeing it since I started working in IT nearly a decade ago.
  
  It has definitely gotten crappier since I started though.
  
  (Microsoft Admin whining incoming)
  
  More and more snags related to implementation details of ancient functionality that still exists under the hood of their all new shiny crap, but isn't actually documented properly anywhere anymore because rolling out new stuff is more important than finishing documentation on core sysadmin tools multiple years old.
  
  They got rid of all training courses, certs, and learning material for all their on premise stuff in order to push cloud only setups years ago. They are just barely starting to backtrack that, so there's a massive gap in official documentation.
  
  Thank god my team has enough requisite greybeards to bridge the gap and train me on what Microsoft wants to pretend isn't still in widespread use.

I'm planning to get a handheld gaming computer and install one of the open source Linux gaming distros on it, like ChimeraOS or Bazzite

Just skip that step and get the deck. It's the best handheld anyway.
- I haven't had a gaming system.in over 10 years and I was so glad I got the steam deck. It just worked out of the box, no messing around having to set anything up or play around with settings.
  
  I bought a few games, downloaded them and everything has been seamless. Its been the most worthwhile purchase I've made in quite some time.
- You can get better specs and pretty much the same UI experience from competitors by installing Bazzite, only the lack of a trackpad might turn some people off depending on what type of game they're playing...
- The steam deck isn't powerful enough for what I want:
  This is also going to serve as my main computer, so it's going to spend like 95% of the time docked to an eGPU, external monitor, and mouse/keyboard. I mess around with unreal engine and do software development, so I want more ram than the steam deck currently provides.

Me using windows on the steam deck to really make things confusing

Why can't you just be normal?
- [SCREAMS IN WINDOWS 11]

Steam deck is great, no complaints, however the place Linux really shines and brighter than any other OS, is in the server space, I am in no way recommending this to anyone but self hosting is so amazing you can literally run your own internet, I personally barely use anything not hosted on my server in my browser, the only place this isn’t a valid option is in programs that have to be in real time and hardware intensive, like video games and I’ll be honest I never played my games on Linux anything that requires a desktop never felt reliable or worth it to me but now oh boy, I bought a steam deck thinking it would sit in a closet and never be used or I would end up putting windows on but nope, I was subconsciously pulled to it until it eventually became the only console in my living room, this is primarily thanks to emulation, once you get your emulators set up you never want to do it again and I can take the steam deck with me and hook it up to any screen with a single wire, but thanks to the steam deck I am down to one computer With windows on it and it is only used for games that are wholly incompatible it gets used about once a month.