Year of Linux on the Desktop
2024 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop, at least for my boyfriend. He's running Windows 7 right now, so I'll be switching him to Ubuntu in a few days. Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
it is kinda wild that people abandon Windows 7 because of Steam and not because Microsoft stopped patching it several years ago
Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
I don't think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
People don't care about security until they get hit. Source: working in IT for 10 years.
And then suddenly they care a lot and do all the wrong things for wrong reasons because they know shit
I see it more in: people won't switch for security reasons if it means giving up usability
Even IT people don't give a shit about security until it's way too late. Source: getting out of a job where the median age of a server is around 3-4 years old with no updates and runtimes hard installed outside repositories.
And I bet they blamed you when it went to shit
Nvidia gpu drivers wont even install on win 7 anymore. That by itself causes huge performance issues on new games that have driver optimizations.
Probably the same story for amd drivers
Why would you need new Nvidia drivers in Windows 7 if every new game released requires Windows 10 or above?
it is kinda wild that people abandon Windows 7 because of Steam
There's this certain subsection of Win7/8 diehards that absolutely confuse me. It's one thing to keep using them on old systems, but I've seen a few people posting about their brand-new PC, equipped with RTX 4090s and 13th gen I9 processors, who are adamant on running those outdated operating systems as their only OS. Such a waste of money.
Nah I think it's just that windows 7 and 8 was and still is quite literally one of those ones where it hit the sweet spot between good UI and UX and actually having huge range and compatibility straight off the bat. Plus everything was pretty smooth back then, but hell, nobody ever says how many viruses and dumb apps were floating around for Windows 7x32 and x64
I don't think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
I think they do by proxy since they only distribute it via .deb (and with Steam of course) and all games in the store that have a native Linux version mention some kind of Ubuntu version in their requirements as well. Which is funny since the Steam Deck doesn't even run Ubuntu.
since they only distribute it via .deb
.deb are the Debian package format. Ubuntu is actually a Debian derivative, among others, which is why they use the same format. Debian lists a few of those derivatives in their docs: https://www.debian.org/derivatives/
Here's my Debian setup for gaming: https://lemmy.world/post/9543661
https://repo.steampowered.com/steam/pool/steam/s/steam/
They have a tarball also, which is what the Arch PKGBUILD uses and probably other distros.
Valve releases Steam as Flatpak too
I don’t think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
The way steam works for package maintainers is basically "ok we need at least kernel xyz+, graphics drivers, valve already packaged the rest". Supporting it is trivial unless you insist on replacing libraries steam includes as runtime with your own versions, which you shouldn't. It's kind of its own user-level distribution in a sense.
I think there have been some small groups making their own security patches for windows 7
Yeah, Windows 7 is very old. It's definitely a concern. I keep him highly firewalled on the network so that hopefully he won't get hacked.
I usually play on Debian, but when I contacted Steam for support regarding Proton, they said they only supported Ubuntu or Steam OS. Since Steam OS isn't currently available for PC, that means Ubuntu.
To be fair they've got enough market share to start a distro they got enough market share to be platform agnostic
They already have their SteamOS, which has 43% of the Linux market share on Steam (I guess almost all Steam Deck)
SteamOS isn't included in the combined numbers, but comparing it to Arch which is only 0.15% of steam, the deck is <1% of the total.
I actually quite like the read only incremental update model of SteamOS combined with flatpak. It makes the OS a lot simpler and I rarely ever change the OS much outside of apps that I can install in home or with flatpak. And if you have special hardware, you are probably already looking at other distros anyway. There is enough choice.
And yet the Deck uses Arch...
All these people saying "use this or use that distro instead" is why Windows users don't go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners because that's a distro with a lot of tutorials online if not the most.
There's a lot of people out there that hate to hear this, but ubuntu is probably the best gateway to Linux we have at the moment. Go ahead, let them come in on the distro that's pretty well supported, preconfigured with everything on and newbie friendly, then once they've cut their teeth, let they have the option to move to something that's a little more tweaked.
I've used Ubuntu for 10 years. I love it for stability, ease, and simplicity If i need to do anything there are plenty of guides. I learned how to do a lot of cool stuff on linux but I don't really need or want to do any of it.
Mostly I just pirate movies, use a vpn, torrent, listen to music, write. My career doesn't require much computer stuff. Why should I try something different?
I'm not working with a huge amount of interest in or energy for complicated customization. I just wanna turn it on and have it work.
As a windows user who's been doing some research and looking to switch this is really the post I needed to see. I know everyone seems to have their favourite distro and means well when suggesting them but its nice to have someone point out a distinct beginner friendly one with no caveats.
I don't get what the fuck is the problem with Ubuntu anyway.
Edit: I mean I heard the reasons many times but they are completely non-issues for me.
It's about Ubuntu behaving lightly like Microsoft with a closed source backend for the store, having had ads in the apps drawer, putting ads on the motd in cli with apt... It's small things like these
They are mostly more technical and architecture based issues. Also the model of the whole ubuntu ecosystem. At least for me.
There's not really a "the problem".
Canonical's intentions don't line up with what is best for the linux community.
But in the end of the day Ubuntu is still linux and it's fine if Ubuntu's tastw of linux is what you want.
I am back to Ubuntu now and I like how it just works out of the box. I might try some other ones later knowing I can go back to Ubuntu if I want to.
I somewhat disagree. Sure, telling windows users they have so many options will overwhelm them so it's best to just give them 1 or 2 options. But telling other linux users who are about to put/suggest linux on someone else's computer that there's better options is good.
For example, let's take Ubuntu pushing snaps. A noob won't know what they are, and there's good chances they will have a bad experience with them and not understand what they are, they will probably think it's a Linux problem rather than an Ubuntu problem and there's a good chance they will leave linux because of them. I personally learned the problems I was having at the start of my linux journey were problems with snaps only because I read it somewhere in the zorin discord server or something like that. If it wasn't for that I would have thought it's a linux problem. Tho this wasn't easy information to find and I was already well on my way to becoming a Linux nerd and I was interested in learning more, but the average user, in my experience, doesn't know/want to look these things up and if you try to explain to them there's a good chance you'll lose them halfway through (which is normal, package managers aren't a fun topic) Telling a linux user about it and that linux mint (for exampel) may be a better introduction for their resident noodles doesn't run the risk because they're already a linux user.
I use Ubuntu for my VMs, and Snaps never feel bad. Why are Snaps bad? At this point, I am only aware that "Snaps are bad" because people keep parroting that idea. Is there an empirical benchmark that compares the "speed" (whatever that is defined as) of a Snap app vs other packaging formats? If there is a claim to be made, there should be evidence supporting it.
If we're going by anecdotal data, then I have had fewer Snap issues than Flatpaks and Rpm. So technically, Snaps are superior, according to my experience. At that point, it becomes an anecdotal debate, which is meaningless.
I showed him the thread, and he agreed. He was surprised by how strongly people felt about distros.
Personally, I think I never would have gotten as many comments as I did if not for mentioning the distro!
I dislike GNOME, but I would still recommend Ubuntu to anyone, because it just works. There's no reason to recommend Arch Linux or openSUSE etc. if someone never used (GNU/)Linux before.
All these people saying “use this or use that distro instead” is why Windows users don’t go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners
You literally did the thing you're decrying in the very next sentence.
"The problem is everyone telling Windows users which distro to use. Which is why I'm telling them they should just use Ubuntu."
No I did not. My actual opinion would be to recommend Nobara OS. What I did was agree with OP's decision. It doesn't matter in the end which they use but if someone is deadset on Ubuntu and you hear several people saying "pick mint" "no pick pop os" "no actually Debian" it becomes overwhelming. Agreeing with OP's decision does not make me a hypocrite.
Don't hate on Ubuntu. It's a great starter distro for people who only know Win or Mac
It used to be, Snap ootb is remarkably horrible, I had a not-good internet plan and Snap drove me crazy with its updates, I could've settled fine if auto updates could be switched off, but nope, they're shoved down my throat, I'd say Mint is a better starter distro
False. KDE will feel much more familiar. And using a system with a modern kde version is way better than the ancient versions Ubuntu and all of its cousins use
Linux Mint Debian Edition
Ubuntu is the entire reason why elderly parents have a functional PC. They didn't need to know all of the negatives vs other distros and just needed the machine they have to work. It has been going strong for 5 years on 13 year old hardware.
I installed KDE for something more familiar and showed them where the internet, e-mail, and solitaire are. If you are the actual typical user and don't need more, then there is no need to hate on any distro at all as long as it will boot and perform maybe 10 functions.
Windows 12 may end up being my transition to Linux, especially if they go for a subscription model. If you told me just a decade ago that Linux was a viable OS for gaming, I would have laughed at you.
Valve have outdone themselves with Proton. So have those who worked on DXVK and VKD3D.
I'll be the first to hope for the demise of Windows....but I thought the "subscription model" rumours were all discredited. Obviously anything could happen in the future I guess.
Yes, the subscription would only apply to Windows IOT.
Win IOT is for embedded systems, so pretty much only corporate customers would be affected.
Windows 11 is my stopping point. I will use windows 10 until end of life (either myself or the os). BUT knowing windows every other os, the next one after w11 should be OK. Time will tell.
A decade? For me it would be 3 years
A decade ago I was already firmly away from playing games under Windows.
World of Tanks, SW:TOR (IIRC), Warcraft III TFT, SW: KotOR I and II, Jedi Academy and Jedi Outcast, X-Wing Alliance, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Empire at War, older Paradox games and a few others ran fine for me under Wine. I'm not sure if I had Rome: Total War working back then (definitely ran Medieval II: Total War with a few heavy mods later), I think at some point RTW worked fine. Well, also Galactic Battlegrounds (again Star Wars) and the second Battlefront (again Star Wars). And Battle for Middle-Earth I and II (these are boring), and War of the Ring (that one was and is really good), and some little-known space station manager game from a Russian studio, and likely some other things. Ah, also Star Wars: Rebellion without tactical space battles (would crash on these).
It wasn't a viable OS for gaming for adults, but for teens with interest in Linux - no problem at all.
There was a decent selection of games on Linux ten years ago. Just because your favourite games didn't run didn't make it a nonviable games platform. Xbox doesn't run all games either, but it's still viable.
I was going to say the same thing. Pretty much all the games I was playing at the time worked on Linux 10 years ago, Portal 2, Civ 5 , Kerbal Space program. There were others I've forgotten too.
I don't think that comparison tracks. If you're a heavy gamer and the platform doesn't allow you to play a lot of your favorite games, I wouldn't recommend it as a platform. Xbox doesn't get everything but it does get about 95% of all the titles you are looking for that aren't platform exclusive to Sony or Nintendo. A decade ago linux could only play a much smaller fraction of the games you could play on windows. What your percentage of viable vs non-viable is, is up to you but I'd wager for many heavy gamers that percentage was much too low then.
Yeah Linux has been better at gaming for 15 years
The issue is native software
No one puts a PS disc in a computer and say Windows isn’t good for gaming because it cant play PS games
I don't have an opinion on Linux as a banking platform, but that analogy is bad. An Xbox can play 100% of games made for the same generation of Xbox hardware. If Linux can't play close to 100% of the games released for PC hardware for at least a few years after the hardware was new, then it's a substandard option. That was the case until pretty recently.
There's a bit of controversy regarding Ubuntu that I don't need to get into but Fedora and Pop!_OS are also really good for Proton support. Ubuntu will work fine but I just prefer not to use it. Maybe you could let him try out the live environment for a couple distros to see what he might like in terms of UI.
And Mint as well
Yay Mint! But seriously, it's an excellent choice for anyone switching from Windows. And I've been running Steam on it without any issues whatsoever.
Mint is a really good distro for people coming from windows 7 UI wise.
They also ripped out Snaps, which is half the performance problems with Ubuntu
Ubuntu has experimented with so much shit going in then being pulled out it's a surprise she don't have an anal relapse
I've had some random issues with Mint and Lutris that I haven't had on Fedora. Otherwise it's a great distro
I second popos and mint. I love fedora but if he is a gamer you want something that will just work (navida built in or a very easy one click mechanism to get it). If he has to research PPAs and installing rpmfussion it will get all too hard very quickly. Also do some expectation setting before hand, research what games he plays work on linux, better he finds out now rather than after 2 hours of pain or getting band for "hacking" because of proton triggered an anti-cheat thing.
Edit: I run fedora on all my machines except my gaming rig which is popos. Fedora works too but popos is hassle a free experience.
All of those are still ancient systems. Arch or opensuse tumbleweed are the only systems that are reasonable for a desktop because they're rolling releases
Fedora is still pretty frequently and recently up to date with respect to packages and kernel, not sure you'd be losing much over arch.
But the debate to me is also not that important, I've been running fedora and have at some few occasions gotten some instabilities due to updates (mostly Nvidia with Wayland) so I can totally understand someone wanting stability and reliability over bleeding edge).
This is totally wrong. Having the latest software is overrated for gaming. I think most users would rather have a reliable system.
I don't know about vanilla Arch, but on Manjaro each update breaks at least one thing. I never had issues with Mint. I wonder if I'd still get more stability from Mint if I installed Plasma on it. Anyway, I already got used to AUR and not having to deal with version upgrades. But I still wouldn't recommend Arch-based distros when stability is needed.
Yeah dude I totally need those new flags the latest less implements.
I'm pretty sure that this is because steam uses chromium as its backend and chromium new version doesn't run on windows 7. It's still not good because there are some games that won't run on newer systems and therefore 7 is required for preservation.
As many of you pointed out, yes I agree proton is the answer if possible. YMMV
This is the actual reason. Steam officially said that: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-800A
This change is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.
my boyfriend. He's running Windows 7
You saint.
That man must be packing a monster dong
Lol 0.06% usage in November 2023
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
There are more linux users than windows7 users.
0.69% (nice) on windows 7 64bit. That's 0.75% total or 0.91% including windows 8 which is also dying. This is slightly under half of the linux user base according to these statistics
Missed that indeed. Weird sorting 😅
I think the 1.91 also includes the stream deck, but for some reason it isn't included in the list (it is included if you select only Linux). It is about 5.5x Arch so around 0.8% of the total installs.
So the discontinue versions are around the same number as Linux desktop installs.
Win 7 64-bit handily beats any distro of Linux at .69% (nice). Comparing only to 32-bit isn't a fair comparison. Not that I'm against using Linux, I use Popos on a spare computer as a Linux test bed for gaming.
Does distro breakdown matter that much though? It only really matters on windows because each version has significant compatibility changes. AFAIK as long as you update your system Linux compatibility with tools like wine/proton shouldn't change much between distros.
Why are some Linux distros in scare quotes?
Like others already mentioned, I would suggest Linux Mint as well. It's better Ubuntu than Ubuntu and similarity to Windows UI would make his transition much better.
Seconded. Switched my wife to Mint two years ago, and she never cared about going back to Windows. Not that she cares about Mint, either; the point of contention was the transition, which was much smoother than she was afraid of.
If he wants something similar to windows, get Linux mint, it's the best parts of Debian/Ubuntu but made modern. If you can do it on Ubuntu, you can do it in mint (like online guides cuz mint is based on ubuntu if you couldn't tell).
Or KDE Neon. Basically Kubuntu LTS, but up to date KDE Plasma and no snaps.
I started with KDE neon and loved it. For me personally, the weird partial rolling release thing was really nice. I loved seeing YT people talk about the new KDE release and all of its bells and whistles, and being able to instantly play with it on release.
To be fair, steam reports less than 1% of users using windows 7. It's not as big as we think.
But steam has > 100 million active users. Even if it is less than 1%, it still is a huge number
Did that report include in the third world?
Yes, these are global stats, but as someone from the third world myself, I can say that most gamers around here resort to piracy, even though steam has gained a lot of popularity, so, only a fraction of us are included in the steam statistics, which would make such data not very representative.
Perhaps a better source for understanding software usage in the third world is data from statcounter. They show something around 3 to 5%, a much higher number. However, even this data can be biased, because they only count machines connected to the internet and who browse certain sites.
Good question, almost all of my country's government PCs are still running Windows 7.
Yes... It's anyone internet connected with steam, ie the people who this will affect
Why not Linux mint? It is way more use friendly.
Also why on earth is anyone using windows 7 in 2023. I stopped using it to move to Linux back in 2016
I used Windows 7 in 2023. It's the best windows that still ran stuff but obviously that's changing. I made the switch in April and have been dumbfounded by just how great proton is at running all my games.
I'd love if Linux could do everything but I still keep a Windows laptop. Mostly because I don't want to go forum diving to update the firmware on my synthesizers or exert effort into something that should be thoughtless and trivial.
Maybe use windows 10? If you are going to use windows at least use a supported build
I do, in VirtualBox. I have a 20 year old printer, and the drivers don't work in newer Windows versions. I mean, at all. The installer crashes, and automatic driver installer only gets the scanner working.
Anyway, I don't use Windows. It works on Linux. Kinda. In Linux Mint, I just can't use high DPI, but I can scan, print, and see "remaining ink" just fine.
Manjaro is another story. Only "Normal Grayscale" works, hp-toolbox doesn't even show the color cartridge. So I just use Windows 7 with the drivers as the heaviest printer driver ever.
But when I have to use Windows (e.g.: at school), I prefer Windows 7. Windows 10/11 have really weird control, and they are SLOW. Also, when installing Windows 10 onto school computers, nobody bothered to install drivers.
I like the ThinkPad T440s laptops that are in one class. But after upgrade to Windows 10 they have some battery charging issues, and some of them just fail to boot from time-to-time. I use the last one with Windows 7 because it just works.
You really should not be using Windows 7. If you need to for old software make sure it is isolated and doesn't have network access. It is very insecure at this point.
Nah. It's more, year of the piracy comeback
Have downloaded 10k songs in the last week, at 160GB so far, 22,000 total. Synced all to my phone with media monkey. Ditching any subscription services.
That also helps linux. Tried watching something on someone else's peacock account logged into Linux, and got an error. Checked Google to see if it was available. A free site had it, in better quality streaming too! We ended up using her computer, but I was kind of amazed.
I suggest an Ubuntu fork workout snaps, they are a headache to remove now
It doesn't really matter for the average use though, most probably won't really notice the app opening times and most Windows users will not care about the backend being closed source, coming from an entirely closed source OS. I will tend to recommend stock Ubuntu or Mint/PopOS at most because those actually bring some things to the table while being Ubuntu based, not being Ubuntu but with a different DE
I've been quite enjoying Mint as well. Granted, it's been reeeal light use. But so far loving it. I've always enjoyed Debian distros. RHEL can kiss my butt. It was always frustrating to work with at work. I think Slackware was Debian? That was probably my first back in like 2004ish. Generally just works™
most Windows users will not care about the backend being closed source
I'd have thought those windows users came to Linux because they wanted an open source OS though.
The year of Linux was supposed to be somewhere in mid 1990-s...
Lots of choices but I'd probably use Kubuntu if your boyfriend is new to Linux and you want this "official" Proton support (not sure that actually means much; Proton works very well on most distros). The plasma interface can be set fairly similar to windows for a newbie to feel comfortable.
It's all just personal preference of course; I just find the Ubuntu interface annoying as someone who uses Linux and windows a lot. Personally I use Mint; very nice distro, good and stable, nice for newbies, and the default cinnamon interface is very windows like too.
Proton works on any Linux distro, it comes with steam. As long as you can install steam, you should be golden.
Aha, just popping in here to suggest taking a look at PopOS!
Proton works extremely well on it, its compatible out of the box with everything Debian based (this includes Ubuntu) so it has a huge selection of free software, has great documentation for the PopOS! specific stuff and for all the debian/ubuntu stuff you can nearly always use older wikis on the internet if you run into a snag, and its got a custom DE that I personally find better than KDE and Ubuntu's latest rendition if GNOME.
Also, while Ubuntu is going hard into Snaps, which I hate, PopOS! is going into flatpaks, which are less bad than snaps, but still stupid imo.
If you care, its fairly easy to disable and/or remove flatpaks from PopOS. It doesnt come with any preloaded afaik, so all you have to do is go into the PopShop (the app store) settings and just remove the flatpak source.
Ive run Proton on Steam via debian sources on PopOS! for years, works fine.
Oh right! I am fairly sure that PopOS! nowadays just comes by default with graphics drivers pre-installed and preset to automatically update with the rest of your software when you run sudo apt update. All you have to do is pick the Nvidia ISO if youve got Nvidia, or the standard one if youve got AMD.
A lot of packages come only on flatpak these days. So limiting yourself to system packages only is not really a good idea. And other than disk space usage, I don't really see any issues with flatpak. It's a great solution especially for smaller projects, that don't have resources to create packages for every format.
Really? The only exception I have ever had to make to using deb sources for every kind of software I have ever needed is Bottles.
What other software is only flatpak available?
Anyway, I think flatpaks are just reinventing .exes. Yep lets do the equivalent of installing DirectX 35 times all over again. For older hardware and those with less access to internet, flatpaks are not great.
Further, because flatpaks do not have their dependencies updated as frequently, this paradigm is less secure than having all your dependencies updated whenever you run apt update.
The trend is that the app developers officially support and push updates for the flatpak. So you always get the latest source directly from the devs. This makes packaging organic, instead of deb/arch/rpm/etc packagers trying to catch up (those packages are often waaay out of date, even on arch occasionally)
Well if this trend becomes the norm then that is great, but in my experience the opposite is true, dependencies get updated first, then things built off of them get updated later.
RIP Windows 7, long live Linux Mint Xfce
As a former lifelong Windows user (from 2002 to 2019), I honestly don't get why people continue using Windows in the future. It doesn't make sense to me. They're cracking down on liberties, increasing system requirements, and old software and games are gradually becoming less compatible. And people seem to be starting to realize that other options are becoming gradually more attractive, because Windows is now hovering below 70% while just ten years ago it was at over 90%. Meanwhile Mac has grown from 7% to 20%, and Linux is at an unprecedented 3%, and that's not counting ChromeOS, which is slightly higher.
The mistakes Microsoft is doing can prove fatal. Because I think for most people, once they embrace Linux, even if Windows improves, they won't wanna go back.
You're right. And people continue to use Windows because all software is available for it. See... Adobe products, Notion, Windows games with just a double click, even the Whatsapp application, Full OneNote and do not even mention MS Office...
Yeah, I think the reason many don't switch, is because of software availability.
Only reason I use windows is for work. All the software for industrial controls stuff is windows only. But luckily its so shit at being updated that I still have to keep a windows xp VM around for some stuff so hopefully I'll be retired before I need to use windows 11+
Having recently replaced my laptop (with a used Lenovo T495) and set it up to dual boot Win11 and Endeavor…Windows 11 was by far the most difficult and time consuming to get from “boot off installation media” to “open functional web browser”. Would have been even easier had I asked Endeavor to just use up all of the partition I left free from installing Windows.
So when I got the T495, I went through the Win 11 OOBE to check it out. Turned it off until I got the Ram upgrade for it in the mail. That was my first problem, because “turn off” doesn’t mean what you think it does in Windows. If you want to get to the Lenovo system settings/boot order/diagnostics, turns out you have to “restart”. Go figure.
Then I did the switcheroo with NVMes in my old T470s and the 495. Took my 1TB out of the 470 into the 495, and took the 256 that came with the 495 and put it in the 470.
Then go to start the 470 and it boots fine to Win 11 but I can’t login with my PIN because my PIN is now expired. I’d enter a password but it never even let me do that. I tried to connect to my wifi and it wouldn’t connect.
Obviously this is because the host system changed and the TPM isn’t there anymore, but still frustrating to not be able to use the laptop offline just the same. I ended up just formatting and installing Endeavor on that, too. This was just where I finally realized that “reboot” means “give me the option to change boot order this time”, because I couldn’t get back into BIOS after it booted to windows.
Noo please don't Ubuntu. Just plain debian or mint debian instead for the closest thing without canonical. Ubuntu is based on debian and all the actual reasons to use it over debian ended probably like a decade or so ago.
I don't think there are many distro specific proton issues, if they exist at all. I've switched from arch to tumbleweed to bazzite(ublue/fedora based) and the only issues were unrelated to gaming. Proton would work on a toaster if it had a display and a vulkan compatible GPU.
Someone who's going to use Ubuntu wouldn't know what "debian," "mint debian," or "canonical" are. You should include an actual explanation or link to what you're referring to when trying to help beginners otherwise you've failed to help them
ubuntu is fine lol especially for a newbie. Zorin is really familliar for a windows user.
I'm not sure for Ubuntu... I've seen here and there that some snap are still not as good as flatpak or .deb.
Especially the steam one where some games wouldn't launch on the snap but do with the flatpak or the .deb. Progress are made regularly, but until the snaps aren't on par with other packages type, I wouldn't recommand Ubuntu for beginners.
Distro based on it, without snap, yeah sure. Pop OS, tuxedo OS, Mint, Debian... There is a lot of alternative where you do not have to struggle on forced non finished applications.
And even not for newbies. I've using so many distros in the part 15 years, and I still prefer Ubuntu. (Or maybe Fedora)
Debian is the way
I've had exactly zero issues with steam on NixOS. It might actually be the best distro to choose short of the officially supported ones as steam runs in chroot with exactly what it's expecting in terms of libraries etc. Not a beginner-friendly distro though, user base is pretty much made up of devops, functional programmers, programmers appreciating replicable environments and willing to tolerate nix, as well as the odd enthusiast tinkerer.
According to a recent test, three good choices for gaming on Linux are Nobara (Fedora), Pop!OS (Ubuntu), and Steam OS 3 (Arch).
I highly recommend Linux Mint (cinnamon) as an entry level Linux distro. It looks and feels similar to Windows, and it's based on Ubuntu, so it has a lot of support and compatibility.
Really liked Mint, unfortunately the kernel was not new enough to support my 7900 XTX when I upgraded GPU so I ended up switching to Pop_OS which works fine as well.
Had the same issue for my nvidia 4060. I just installed a kernel manually which allowed me to run a new enough driver.
They now have an edge Version with a newer kernel. It's probably to do with mesa tho (this stuff can get frisky fast so let's stop here)
You can easily add xanmod kernel to Debian based distros to get a more up to date kernel. I've never had any issues running it.
Linux user of 20ish years here. I run Mint with cinnamon on my desktop PC - sometimes I just want stuff to work out of the box.
A SO that moves you to Linux? Sign me up! ❤️
Kubuntu for that win7 similarity. (It's still official ubuntu)
Or just try Fedora KDE.
The meme that will never ever go away.
The only reason my windows partition still lives is so I can stream VR to the quest 2, literally everything else I do in Linux and I'm so close to 100% I can taste it!
I only have Windows because it's the only way to run Ableton Live with plugins on your own hardware.
Did you look at steam Link yet?
did the same transition when switched to Lemmy. Very wise decision to take.
You should try plain Debian and KDE Plasma (the desktop it's one of the options of the shelf, you just pick it with the installer). I have been doing that and it's great, even with old hardware. Ubuntu is way too much bloated. And of course proton works like magic.
Yep, I think Debian is getting too little love from the Lemmy Linux community
If your friend ends up not liking the GNOME desktop environment because it's so radically different from the Windows UI, then maybe add the K in Ubuntu, I guess.
If I'm not mistaken it's not that Steam will just completely cease to function on that date, Just they won't be fixing any bugs related to Windows7/8 from that point on.
Ah yes. Well that's fine, I would just release a community edition, have the client go open source and leave it to the community lol
I strongly reccomend Zorin OS. I was in his exact shoes when I decided to switch to Linux and for very similar reasons. It feels pretty similar to Windows 7 IMHO, and I like its default dynamic background that changes throughout the day. Steam games run great on it btw.
The other reason I reccomend Zorin is that it is aimed at windows users and Mac users. There's an "app store" that is in fact a software manager, most windows apps run pretty well (although I reccomend using Bottles for that) and the layout is designed to feel similar to Windows. All the fun Linux stuff is still right there for you to use, it's just slightly out of sight so it doesn't overwhelm you at the beginning.
I can't say I'd agree with your recommendation. Its pretty obscure and not well maintained.
Wow that's shit, I know a lot of people who would still be quite happy to continue using Windows 7
It's ancient, unsupported, and closed source. Nobody can create or distribute security updates. People would have been happy to keep using horses and buggies if there'd been an automatic horse shit shoveller.
People are lazy as fuck. Provided it plays their games they don't give a shit about features updates, patches, bug fixes etc.
They probably have no ideal what version of windows is even installed on their machine.
The difference is, cars are better than horses. Windows 8, 10 and 11 are all worse than 7.
Linux mint tends to work quite well on steam with proton after initially setting everything up
They can use steamCMD. If they don't want to switch to Linux, we don't need to shove things down.
To be fair, he could simply pay 5 bucks for a key and switch to Windows 10 or 11. Linux should be something people choose to try firsthand for a while before moving on.
I would recommend creating a Ventoy USB drive and download some live ISOs of your choice. Then boot them and let your BF try them. Because then he can choose a distro by his liking to the overall experience.
I use, errr, I mean Steam Deck uses Arch, btw.
It might not fuck over people as bad as their abandoning XP did, but its still really fucking shitty that they abandon OS's like this.
Simply because it means people who have games they used to be able to play on old machines, now cant get those games anymore, cause the service itself wont run on it on those machines.
They should at least fork off a special legacy version that lets people download their old games on their original platforms.
but they dont want to do that, not because of supporting it, because they dont want people to remember how sleek, slim, and fast steam used to be.
How is this shitty? Windows 7 isn't even supported by Microsoft anymore.
If you were looking to preserve games for playing on old computers, you chose the wrong platform.
because there are games that people fucking own that don't run on newer platforms, that they should still be allowed to fucking play and not have defacto taken away from them?
How is that hard to understand?
I swear to god the absolute short sightedness of gamers. If this prevented you from playing one of your games you'd be here spewing shit and fire and brimstone over it.
Did you know that Steam didn't even run on DOS?
Check out Lime disto. It's a friendlier interface and all the cool perks of Ubuntu. It's built on the basic same architecture. I have had my Steam and many other games work. If it wasn't for Epic I would go full Linux.
I'm sure you're probably aware, but the Heroic Game Launcher has compatibility built in to install and launch both Gog and Epic games. Makes it almost as easy as steam to set up and get going. I can't speak to any multiplayer/FPS games with anti-cheat shit though, probably SOL there
I tried it. It does have the launcher. However the Anti Cheat software of the game no one can get around. I'm even in their discord and the explicitly say it doesn't work or load in. You can get into the game menu and the minute you instance in the game boots you.
Can recommend Arch as a gaming platform OS. Works well with Steam. It's what the Steam Deck is built on. 👍
I'm sorry?
It doesn't break often, it doesn't have problems updating it you don't update regularly.
It might be a bad choice for a first-time Linux user due to the heavy setup process/time post-install, but as a gaming platform it works absolutely fine. Steam Deck runs on Arch ffs, come on now. 😄
Curious: when was the last time you used Arch? Seems like you haven't used it of late, considering those misconceptions you spewed. Or maybe you are running experimental/unsupported stuff?
I've used it for over a decade now and had less problems with it than with Ubuntu that I ran for much less time before Arch.
I have the throw my opinion in here, I recommend Debian. Ubuntu is based off of it, as is most of the other distros people are recommending. With AMD processor and GPU, Debian has been my best OS experience to date. No bloat, recent kernel, and stable as hell. Only advantage of Ubuntu is the plethora of tutorials and guides written for it, but most of those will work with bookworm if you use Ubuntu jammy repos and guides.
That is a lot of info for someone who hasn't used linux before. Just let them use ubuntu. Its a good distro for a beginner.
I beg to differ. The no bloat might simply turn out as an issue when they have an Nvidia Card or try to install drivers for it. Additionally the installer is not very intuitive. (And Ubuntu has other Problems where why not just use Mint which has so many UX und GUI Features from windows, it even prompts you to install drivers using an simple GUI application)
Please use pop os, it's a lot better in my opinion
From all the troubles I heard... Probably not when a simple apt upgrade breaks stuff...
Linux Mint handled cross version updates much more gracefully.
Also, fuck Flatpak in Pop os. Each update downloads a few gigs worth of Nvidia drivers, because each app references a different version.
It is terrible.
If you care about the latest drivers and software, Ubuntu might be a bit lagging behind rolling distros like Arch or OpenSuse Tumbleweed.
Debian distros are good for stability.
Rolling distros for the latest bleeding edge software.
"my boyfriend hasn't updated his computer in years and still runs windows 7. I'm going to give him Arch hahaha so easy for beginners"
Manjaro is as easy as ubuntu, even easier if you want proper gaming.