• Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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    2 months ago

    Microsoft is already responding to the potential shift. The upcoming ROG Xbox Ally X handheld from Microsoft and ASUS will reportedly ship with a gaming-optimized version of Windows 11 with a dedicated Xbox UI and interface that aims to streamline the experience while boosting in-game performance and overall handheld efficiency.

    Given how much Microsoft wants to shove AI tools every where in Windows, I don’t think this optimisation will make much of a difference.

    • rafoix@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      MS optimization = maximize revenue streams = more ads = more spyware

      I don’t believe a thing MS says is ever meant to improve the customer experience.

    • DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Given the popularity of the Steam Deck, the Xbox handheld would have to come free with the purchase of any Xbox exclusive game to stand a chance in that sphere, I think. The fact that it’s Win11 immediately turns me off and I say this as someone who still uses Windows.

        • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Microsoft has plenty of console exclusives, so they are on PlayStation and Switch but not Windows for whatever reason. Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled is one I’m confused why they don’t trust their own platform with.

          That said, they don’t trust their own Windows on ARM devices either and those should definitely be capable enough to run games that come to Switch.

    • null@lemmy.nullspace.lol
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      2 months ago

      And if we take this as an actual attempt at a better handheld experience, then this is just further proof that competition breeds better products for consumers.

    • k0e3@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      Yeah and honestly, whatever optimization they promise — or deliver, for that matter — won’t sway me because it’s the company itself and the country where it is based that I’m against at this point. So, there’s no way I’m ever going to buy any MS handheld.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Given how much Microsoft wants to shove AI tools every where in Windows, I don’t think this optimisation will make much of a difference.

      AMD’s own Windows drivers also perform much worse in low power situations than the open source Linux drivers, whereas Windows game mode (or whatever it’ll be called) is about reducing background tasks that consume RAM. Obviously reducing RAM consumption is beneficial but it’s not the whole story.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      The thing that confuses me is that Microsoft is no stranger to Linux. They use it in their data centers. It’s plainly obvious if you know what other offerings are doing.

      Their entire front end stack for azure virtual machines is OpenStack. Some years back they integrated with OpenStack to allow it to manage hyper-v, but OpenStack can also natively manage KVM hypervisors, as it was originally designed to do, and also VMware.

      Hell, I’d be surprised if there isn’t a Microsoft distro of Linux floating around (not available to the public… Not yet at least).

      The people who seem to be pushing Microsoft, more than anyone, are game studios. Their garbage Anti cheat rootkits work best on Windows. So use Windows so they can low jack your PC.

    • Can I post a potentially controversial opinion? I think that the ‘Game Bar’ feature that Win11 has now is actually kinda good. It has really come a long, long way since Windows Gaming for PC. I think that whenever I switch to Linux, I would probably seek out something similarly as elegant.

      • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Can I post a potentially controversial opinion?

        NO, YOU CAN’T. (just kidding.)

        Serious now: if I got it right, this game bar is an overlay showing FPS, CPU/GPU usage, screenshots/recording, stuff like this. It doesn’t look too hard to implement in Linux, and apparently there’s a GNOME extension in the makes for that. (If it’s compatible with Cinnamon I’ll be a happy camper. I’d rather not touch GNOME directly with a 3m pole, but the tools for GNOME are sometimes OK.)

    • Wooki@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Given how much Microsoft wants to enshitify its services. Windows 11 is proven to be no exception. They have no reason to stop at the Xbox brand. Even Microsoft games like their new flight sim has not escaped enshitification race to the bottom.

      Fixed

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    2 months ago

    Switched to linux (popos - so far so good) this month because fuck microsoft. yeah, some things aren’t perfect or require extra steps (modding, usually) but fuck microsoft. Fuck their AI shit, fuck their “recall” spyware, fuck their CEO that babbles about AI while laying off thousands of workers.

    • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I’m a long-time Linux hacker and I’m currently running Pop! OS on my laptop and dev box. It’s the best distro I’ve found yet that Just Works™ (but naturally still allows for all the customization I might want).

      • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        2 months ago

        I’ve also run mint and ubuntu, but this was very smooth.

        The only problem so far are I get a crackling in my headphones in at least one game (guild wars 2), and I’m not sure how to diagnose that. One of the related problems of windows being so dominant is the internet is full of SEO slop for windows problems

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I find Ubuntu to be buggier than it used to be, and snaps are inherently broken.

          Mint stands between Ubuntu and Pop! OS, but is still fiddlier than what I want for a daily driver.

        • SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Like I said, it allows for what I want. I don’t need to “rice” a setup that I’m trying to use to Get Shit Done. These days, the only time I’m rebuilding Linux from scratch is when I’m literally building an OS for a project.

    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz
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      2 months ago

      With Pop!_OS you should be in for a good huge update in about 2026 or so. They normally released every half year with Ubuntu, but they haven’t done a new release since the 22.04 LTS (Long Term Support) version because they’re working on their own desktop environment and it’s taking up most of the developer resources.

      So hopefully in 2026 they’ll release 26.04 with the new COSMIC DE to replace 22.04 with Gnome (with their customizations, also called ‘COSMIC’ so it gets confusing lol). I think technically they’re working on a 24.04, but at this rate I think Ubuntu 26.04 will be out around the same time or even before COSMIC is fully ready.

      So there’s a decent chance you’ll get a whole lot of improvements at once, which is cool

  • seraphine
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    2 months ago

    It was written in the scrolls. The day prophezised for hundreds of years: the year of the linux desktop.

  • D06M4@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    Won’t miss those years tweaking Windows to uninstall or disable bloatware and malware. I don’t mind if more or less people migrate to Linux, I’m just grateful to those who are making and improving such amazingly good distros. 💪💛

  • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    If all you do is game, outside of a few key games (Destiny 2, uhh,couple others) the experience on Linux is better for many folks.

    • arc99@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The success of Steam Deck has helped a lot. Prior to that Linux ports tended to be very perfunctory and they weren’t tested or supported very well. I guess that now there are actual Linux gamers (via Steam Deck), that support has improved. That said, I think outside of Steam Deck and SteamOS, your experience of gaming is going to be extremely dependent on your GPU, driver support and a number of other factors. Things are far more likely to work well on Windows than they would for Linux.

      • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I could drill down into the work that went into DXVK before Proton came about, enabling the Steam Deck, but that’s a boring history lesson. I will concede that newer bleeding edge hardware is far more likely to be plug and play on Windows, but one of the leading reasons I transitioned was Windows removing support for the audio chipset on the motherboard for my Ryzen 1600. Every time I rebooted, I’d have to unpack a zip file and reinstall the audio drivers, it was maddening.

        In my experience (so, totally anecdotal), my hardware is stable longer on Linux than Windows.

        • 0x0@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          Every time I rebooted, I’d have to unpack a zip file and reinstall the audio drivers,

          The OS would autoremove them?!

          • Nugscree@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            It’s probably Windows update “fixing” you drivers by updating them to the Windows version because it is newer. I had to turn off Windows driver updates, because it kept updating my already fully working 5.1 Dolby digital driver to a newer one that only has dual channel audio, and it also broke the optional optical out my sound card supports (and has installed).

          • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            Yeah, it was super fun. I tried reformatting, I bought a new drive and put new Windows on it and the same thing happened.

        • arc99@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          My experience with Linux with Nvidia drivers was basically - hey execute this “.run” file and you get drivers. Okay that worked but then if the kernel updated, the drivers broke and had to be reinstalled. And if the dist upgraded to a new version then the drivers broke completely. And NVidia gave up providing drivers at all for their older GPUs and I was stuck with Noveau which is better than nothing but useless for gaming.

          Conversely, some dists are supported by graphics manufacturers with proper packages but there is always that gap where the driver dependencies and the kernel dependencies are out of sync. Or the graphics driver only works on the last couple of dists and support disappears after that. Or you upgrade the dist and then discover there are no drivers for it yet.

          I know it rankles some purists, but really there should be an long term, versioned ABI for graphics drivers on Linux. There is sort-of is one with Gallium3D but it’s still not supported properly by all vendors.

          • arc99@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I just took an old Optiplex with a GTX1650 and got it going with Ubuntu 24.04 and my experience was mostly okay but I saw a number of issues which could confound a newbie. Firstly, I had to go to the command like to run the ubuntu-drivers auto install because the card wasn’t set up properly. If I hadn’t then games wouldn’t run properly. But then I was able to install Steam and get some games going. Acceleration looked okay and I tested games which were running under Windows emulation and natively with some success - however there was a long delay launching some games, like it was having to transpile shaders or something. Still, when they worked they seemed to work well.

            The most egregious issue I had is that Ubuntu defaults to an X11 desktop and the desktop is slightly off but the games work well. If I change to a Wayland desktop, then the desktop is buttery smooth but the games are very choppy. I suspect that’s the driver for this old card just doesn’t work properly with the window manager for some reason in that mode, that the wm is not giving the game a proper surface to render in or is somehow interfering with performance.

    • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      For flat games this is true, there is still work to be done for the VR side of things, even that has advanced by leaps and bounds in just the last 2 or 3 years

      • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Yeah that’s the biggest reason I haven’t pulled the trigger on a VR set.

        The pace of hardware for the last few years has been crazy rapid with almost zero thought given to non-windows OS’s. The people working on reverse engineering drivers for headsets get one operable just in time for it to be out of date.

      • Omega_Jimes@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I mean, yes, but I also do dev coding work, run AI models, produce audio and video content from my machine. But years ago I adopted a ‘No BS’ software approach and rid myself of software that was deliberately getting in my way so transitioning to a fully *Nix workflow wasn’t an issue for me.

        If anyone working with aggressively anticonsumer software right now tried to switch, it’s a nightmare.

      • Jinarched@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I never had a single issue so far. Actually, performamce is better on Linux every single time for me. I finally got rid of Windows since I have zero use for it. The only problem could be games with anti cheats.

        I’m always surprised when I hear people claiming they work in IT and find Linux to be complicated. I just installed Fedora on two of my friends’ machines. Both are cluless about computers and they are doing perfectly fine. Now for basic tasks including gaming, a granny could use it without much issues if any.

        When was the last time you tried Linux? If it has been a while, you might be surprised how it has changed recently. Proton made everything so much easier.

        I’m not a technical person by the way; just a normal dude who uses Linux now.

        • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          The things that keeps me coming back to Windows in my gaming rig is mostly VR, which I haven’t been able to get working on Bazzite.

          Though I steam my games with Apollo/Moonlight to Mac’s and handhelds, so I rarely need to look at Windows at all.

          • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            I have VR running in Kubuntu using the sigh “official” nvidia drivers for my 4070ti super. Many of the games work from (I have over 100 in my library) ok to real good. It is just some of my peripherals have no drivers or software to configure them. I am no expert, but I might be able to assist you in your vr on nix issue, feel free to dm

            • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Thanks, kind stranger, and I might take you up on that, in the days ahead.

              I get that it won’t be turnkey like in Windows and that I’ll probably need a Windows partition (or a dedicated system) for some time longer.

              Just so we are clear, you are able to play Steam PCVR games and use the SteamVR environments on your Kubuntu system?

              Added monkey wrench, I just use ‘Virtual Desktop’ for streaming 100% of my PCVR content to a Quest 3 wirelessly. I assume handling the controllers and telemetry is all software for Steam and not needing obscure system calls or api’s that will have driver complications?

              'Cause in hella ignorant. Lol.

              • lost_faith@lemmy.ca
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                2 months ago

                I get that it won’t be turnkey like in Windows

                actually, for my vive, the setup was EASIER than on windows as steam does all the heavy lifting and I didn’t need to install the vive software, and didn’t have to pair my controllers, room setup is simple same as windows.

                Just so we are clear, you are able to play Steam PCVR games and use the SteamVR environments

                I only do pcvr, and the steam overlay works for LOOKING at your desktop (sadly can’t interact with desktop through steam, it just closes, but there is an easy to install app that is kind of like Desktop+ that gives desktop control with a double press of a button on your controller) or using the steam launcher. I stopped using their environments (I had the basic and some Dr Who ones, some star wars ones like the cantina and millennium falcon) on my older pc cause the environment was adversely affecting performance(don’t think it was shutting off completely, I now simply use the empty space on the round grid with mountains in the distance and bring up my steam menu from the controller.

                I just use ‘Virtual Desktop’ for streaming 100% of my PCVR content to a Quest 3 wirelessly

                I never used VD and the people I know that do are only on windows.

                I assume handling the controllers and telemetry is all software for Steam and not needing obscure system calls or api’s that will have driver complications?

                I wish I had an answer for this one. Can quest use the steam backend like vive/index? if so should be good. I know vive and valve worked together on the software so are compatible that way. Like I said above wrt controllers they just worked with no pairing, both my index controllers and vive wands (I did a quick test for someone who was having issues with vive wands “stuck on the floor while in their hand”

                Just make sure you use the steam installer from the steam site, not the flat pack or snap or whatever, they don’t have the correct screen lease thing (whatever it is called) and I used Kubuntu simply because when I started my journey KDE was the preferred DE, I personally prefer Gnome but VR dammit, and wayland was the better choice for VR x11 maybe better now for VR but wayland is the future from what I read.

                • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 months ago

                  Thanks for sharing all of this and I’ll have to take it for another spin.

                  Quest is a whole SOC, a beefy Snapdragon computer that has its own environment, and needs software to link it with the desktop housing SteamVR.

                  I’ll have to try Steam’s maybe platform and see if I can forego Virtual Desktop. Or at least dual boot

          • Jinarched@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            Yeah, that is fair. I personally don’t know much about VR so I wound’t know.

            I admit it might be a a bit more complicated when it comes to make VR or things like a racing wheel work without having to dig around.

            • MyNameIsIgglePiggle@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              I had to move back to windows on my son’s computer because of VR… But we now have the quest 3 and most things I want to run just work on that now anyway. It’s for the kids really, it’s gives me a headache

              But year vr on Linux doesn’t really work from what I can tell.

        • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s often easier for those that have few technical skills to learn new things. Simple because they need to unlearn so little. Experts have to put forth much greater effort to forget the “I have always done it this way” an “Why doesn’t this respond exactly the same way I’m used to.”

          It takes far more effort to unlearn years of skills and replace them with new ones.

          • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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            2 months ago

            While This is true, AS long AS you weren’t a Windows power User and stick to Distros like Mint with cinnamon The experience will be almost the same and you dont have to relearn that much.

              • da_cow (she/her)@feddit.org
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                2 months ago

                Depends on what you used to do with your PC. If you are used to writing power shell scripts for doing stuff on your PC, it might take a bit longer to adapt to Linux. If you mainly used GUIs to do small stuff it is much easier to adapt.

                So in conclusion yes, as long as the non Power user has some technical knowledge and doesn’t get scared away, if the UI looks slightly different.

        • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          lol anyone who works in IT and finds Linux too complicated should not work in IT. Then again, most people who work in IT should not. It’s complex, but all you need to do is learn. People who can’t learn more all the time don’t belong in a field where things change and improve all the time.

          I got started with tech starting from when I was like 7 yo in 1980 and ended up in IT since it was a passion of mine and I have an affinity for it. Working as a professional, I saw - DAILY - morons in the field who were bungling every other task they had. They didn’t think the right way, they didn’t understand it, they didn’t love it, and screwed up every other thing they did. DAILY I saw this from techs whose work I was called in to fix after the fact.

        • Roopappy@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I recently got a new work laptop with Windows 11. It’s just different enough from Windows 10 that it pisses me off to try to find the stuff I need. I end up hunting and grumbling and searching the web for answers to simple things.

          If you’re going to do that anyway, just try Linux. It’s free and easy, and it doesn’t steal all your private data, sell it, and use that money to corrupt your government to steal your rights and give them to corporations.

        • keyez@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          It’s probably because I’m using an NVIDIA card but I switched an SSD to arch Linux because that’s the only thing I could get to actually run a game and not a black or grey screen. Once I finally got steam and heroic launching games I will say only about 60% of the games I’ve tried work but that’s because I’m trying to keep up with some newer games and play Jedi Survivor, The Last of Us part 1 and the Mass effect Legendary Edition and half the time it won’t boot or has HDR issues or something. But all my indie or smaller games that are verified I’m surely installing and only playing them there.

          • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            A decade ago you tried Linux and it was hard, try again or butt out. Windows has become even more of a privacy violating, data snorting, market manipulating whore in that time and it will not stop.

            I’ll bet they roll out subscription based drivers before you make a legitimate atempt.

          • Jinarched@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            Dude, you need to chill. Why not take a break and unclench you jaw and fists for a while?

            This conversation doesn’t deserve this level of blood pressure.

          • imecth@fedia.io
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            2 months ago

            2015… I was there back then, and let me tell you, the distribution landscape is very different. You don’t have to rely on package managers to get your apps anymore because flatpaks and appimages are ubiquitous. Games went from having maybe a 50% chance to run with opengl to 98% running with vulkan ootb. Desktop environments have improved across the board with stuff like wayland and plenty of other good shit. And finally, linux itself has gotten much better hardware support. Seriously, you’re doing yourself and everyone else a disservice by using 2015 as a comparison point.

        • Angry_Autist@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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          2 months ago

          Well I tried redhat ubuntu gentoo fedora knoppix mint arch MEPIS and even fucking slackware because apparently i am a masochist

          And you will say ‘Oh but those are old distros, now they’re much betterer!’

          Nope the weeks of frustration aren’t worth revisiting. You really don’t understand how much PTSD I got from the linux forums

          • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Get a techie to set gaming distros for you. My brother installed Bazzite for me and troubleshoots. Speaking of which, Bazzite is meant to be for average users who are less literate on computers. I have rarely had issues on Bazzite unlike with other distros. Indeed, newer distros are better.

            I understand. Linux can be daunting for us average Joes. Plenty of information i see on the internet are either outdated, or simply doesn’t work.

            • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Bazzite feels so close to feature complete, but there are still corners I stub my toes on.

              I have to care about whatever Wayland is, because RustDesk on Bazzite fights me (it’s my backup for remoting to fix a machine when moonlight or Steam Link is misbehaving), and I miss Steam PCVR hosting, but both of those are edge cases for most folks and I can forego on most systems.

              Meanwhile, the lean, light, singularly focused environment is great and I really do like not having to bother with Windows. I never want Edge to barge in on my day again. I will never subscribe to OneDrive. I don’t want an AI companion modem Bonzai Buddy to “help” me remember anything, and memorize my SSN or Birthday along the way.

              • krunklom@lemmy.zip
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                2 months ago

                The great news is that all you really need to do to use bazzite is click on things in the gui so your skill set will be a perfect fit.

              • Blemgo@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Still, Bazzite is pretty much one of the best Gaming distros out there. All drivers are included with the installation (you select which Hardware you have before downloading) and the OS itself is immutable, so you don’t have to worry about damaging the OS in any way. The only downside is that it exclusively uses Flatpaks, which does have a few problems regarding interoperability between programs (e.g. Firefox doesn’t allow KeePassXC to interact with the KeePass add-on). However, I would recommend Flatpaks either way, since it adds better security and reliability, since you don’t have to worry about an update breaking programs.

                However, if you don’t need that interoperability, I’d say there is little reason not to use it if you want to play games. And when a game doesn’t work, protondb usually gives enough hints to how to fix these issues. Generally, I had less issues with games on there compared to other distros (e.g. OpenSUSE).

              • cardfire@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                And yet, here we are. What are you even doing, responding to everyone on this group, if you just want to do work and just want to use Windows?

                How is this informative, edifying or fun for you?

          • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz
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            2 months ago

            Your experience isn’t normal, I give fedora to the elderly and they have less problems than on windows. You also aren’t saying what any of your problems are, bad trolling.

  • InvalidName2@lemmy.zip
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    2 months ago

    How do you know if someone owns a Steam Deck? Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.

    So anyway, a couple years ago I bought a Steam Deck. And since I bought it, virtually all of my gaming is on the Deck. Prior to that, virtually all of my game time was on a Windows PC. So, for me personally, there’s been a big shift towards Linux for gaming.

    The other big change that’s coming for a lot of people I know: end of Windows 10 support. Honestly, the majority of people I know who still have a traditional Windows PC are using machines that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11. These computers are perfectly functional and do everything the users need them to do, and they have no inclination to go out and buy a new computer just because. Especially in this economy. Additionally, there are quite a few people with computers that are capable of running Windows 11, but they have no desire to upgrade to a worse experience and an experience that is randomly different in a myriad different ways for no good reason. Both groups are ripe for the picking in terms of a switch to Linux. No, the year of the Linux desktop is not here, but the conditions for such a change are building. And this Steam data may present a picture of the larger trend. Who knows?

    • nfreak@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I ran a dual boot back in college to dabble with Linux a bit but gaming support back then was literally nonexistent. The Deck and Proton really reinvigorated that drive nearly a decade later.

      This past winter I started a huge degoogling push and trying to replace big tech platforms in general, and I’d also recently quit the only the game I regularly played that didn’t run on Linux due to anticheat bullshit, so I said fuck it and set up a CachyOS dual boot and I haven’t looked back since.

      The dual boot is just there in case I ever need it for some odds or ends, or in case I break Cachy, but so far I’ve booted windows maybe 4 times since January.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        This last try at gaming under Linux (about a year ago with a desktop PC and Pop!OS) was a pleasant surprise given that my previous try (same machine, around 5 years before) was an exercise in frustration and I just gave up on it and that partition just stayed there in a dual boot config without being used until I nuked it in this latest try.

        This time it went so well that I’m now full time gaming in Linux and even though Windows is available as dual boot, I haven’t booted it in many months. Granted, I don’t do online multiplayer so don’t suffer from Wine not being compatible with the Windows rootkits used for cheat protection in some of those games.

        And this high success rate is not even exclusively with Steam and Proton - I get about the same rate of success for games from GOG with Wine under Lutris.

        The ease of gaming in Linux seems to have advanced massively in the last few years.

    • Pycorax@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      The other big change that’s coming for a lot of people I know: end of Windows 10 support. Honestly, the majority of people I know who still have a traditional Windows PC are using machines that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11.

      The average person just simply won’t upgrade. These are the people who find regular updates or shutting of their PC already a pain, what makes you think they would switch to a completely different OS?

    • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      They all can upgrade to win 11. Nothing is stopping them. But you have to do a couple of steps.

      Either way, Linux is better and Microsoft is playing stupid games.

      • ConsumptionOne@sopuli.xyz
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        2 months ago

        Unless their hardware doesn’t support it. A lot of people are going to be tossing out perfectly good systems because they don’t have a TPM.

        • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          You can bypass that requirement. The hardware is fine you just have to tell windows to ignore it.

          2 registry keys if I remember correctly.

          • JackbyDev@programming.dev
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            2 months ago

            Windows also said they don’t support it and may stop it from working at any time. I have already had a problem because Windows System Image tried to restore something as UEFI when I only had BIOS so forcing my BIOS system to something that technically only supports UEFI seems like an awful idea.

            • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
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              2 months ago

              Windows says lots of things. It is surprising how conflicting they are internally.

              The thing is, there are a lot of ways to install windows 11. You have a lot of versions to choose from and more options than you think.

              Anyways, I think it is all beating a dead horse, although you can get around windows requirements the best thing to do is not play the game.

              Switch to Linux and be done with the bullshit.

      • loudwhisper@infosec.pub
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        2 months ago

        Not in all cases. My desktop PC came with windows professional (10), back in 2021. Upgrading to windows 11 is not included for free (not even to windows 11 “basic”), I need to pay a new license.

        • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
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          2 months ago

          You still can upgrade for free and use a registry setting to take off the nag screen.

          But I really was commenting on people who think they can’t. You can too by buying windows11.

          • loudwhisper@infosec.pub
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            2 months ago

            Well, windows didn’t allow me to do that, so I might have to do a manual process maybe.

            Anyway, I am not interested in upgrading, I am just saying that I can’t upgrade (click button, couple of steps), without buying a new copy. We can argue about the semantics of what “upgrading” means, but effectively there are going to be plenty of people in my situations, which is why I brought it up.

  • Roopappy@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’ve been running Bazzite OS on my living room big screen gaming PC since May. It’s a really slick fedora-based distro that installs out of the box with Steam, proton, and graphics drivers ready-to-launch for gaming. It was really easy to use, and my games worked perfectly.

    My high school age son got a new AMD proc/mb for his birthday, and I was surprised when he said he wanted to try dual booting Bazzite and Windows when we set it up. 2 weeks later, and he decided to kill the Windows boot and just use Bazzite full time. He has no linux experience and just figures it out.

    Windows 11 is shit and Linux alternatives are prettier, easier to use, don’t shove AI down your throat, and don’t steal your data for profit. The time has come.

    • Joeffect@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Linux really is in a good place I’ve been on it for some months now. It feels like win 7, it doesn’t get in your way, it does what you want it to do when you want it to. And if you fuck something up its because you fucked it up… go fix it…

      • Bilb!@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        “Fixing it” has been a lot easier to do lately as well. Most distros set up a rollback feature of some kind these days.

        • Joeffect@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I don’t remember what i did… but i completely fucked my system up… linux wouldnt start at all…

          I tried looking online for help and i basically needed a flash drive with linux to “fix” the issue…

          I didn’t have that, i lost it or whatever…

          I took a shot with asking chat gpt and for all its hate… it was somehow able to explain some weird boot loader thing I’ve never heard of and i punched in some commands into the command line, and everything was fixed…

          Im not sure the point of the story, but don’t go changing system level shit when your trying to fix your graphics card from crashing while playing no mans sky… i did fix the issue though changing the desktop from cinnamon to xde or something…

          But its like a memory bug or something that hopefully gets fixed for amd at some point

          • megopie
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            2 months ago

            If the game was crashing to desktop, it was probably not a graphics card thing, but that you were running out of ram and the system was just automatically killing the program when that happened. That’s a system stability thing, it prioritizing the needs of the system and desktop over a program so as to prevent the whole system from crashing.

            The easiest solution to that is to increase the “swap” size (IE a bit of storage that gets set aside to act as back up memory). That is a system level thing, but it’s not really a big deal to change.

            If you were getting to the command line, Linux was running, although, if it was just the command line then it may have been an issue with the desktop or window manager not starting. And if it was an issue with the desktop or window manager, then I could see changing some boot loader settings fixing that. Like, making sure the boot loader automatically starts the desktop when the computer boots. not sure how you got from messing with graphics card to the system only booting in command line, but, shit happens. I’ve broken my system in weirder ways while pulling at the guts.

            By switching from cinnamon to XFCE desktop you may have solved the issue with the game crashing simply because you had more memory available, as XFCE is a much lighterweight desktop.

            If the games was slowly slowing to a crawl before freezing up completely but not outright crashing to desktop, that could have been an issue of running out of video ram for the the GPU, I’ve had that happen with helldiver’s 2. I don’t remember exactly what I did to fix that, something with the launch options that affected the graphics settings or capped the frame rate I think. Not sure how changing between desktops could have fixed that though.

            • Joeffect@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Yeah xfce is what i switched to, which was easier than i expected it to be.

              No it was crashing to the login screen… randomly and frequently while playing games … I was trying to update stuff and make tweaks i messed something up and the system didn’t even recognize it had an operating system…

              I looked it up… it was the grub menu that i was finally able to get to load which helped me put things back to normal…

              It helped taking out my old 2 sticks of 8gb ram in my configuration with my teo 16 gb sticks which worked fine when i was using windows… none of the issues happened on windows so i was really trying to figure it out… i mean i did figure it out… but yeah…

              It really did not help that i was running at 120 on an ultra wide at 5120 x 1440 or whatever the resolution is… i also tried to run it at 240 but that was a horrible idea and the start of my issues…

              But yeah, its been a while so…

    • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Good on your son! Glad he sees the light. Windows is shittier and shittier all the time. I migrated away from it years ago. It’s absolute poison now.

    • TBi@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I can’t wait for nvidia to fix the last few graphical glitches in steam big picture and game scope.

      I have windows 11 and bazzite as dual boot. I haven’t moved over full time yet though. Mainly due to VR support and sailing…

  • network_switch@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    Valve put together a good product this time compared to the first steam machines push. Most games work without fuss and it’s priced well. They didn’t start the handheld PC market but they sort of Apple’ed it by taking something other companies had been doing and streamlined it enough to get mainstream copycats, Lenovo/Asus/etc. Plus SteamOS/bug picture looks a lot better today than 10 years ago. So proven market/platform that can again try to undercut Windows machines in price because Linux is free and leverages the work of open source developers

  • zer0bitz@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’ve been using Arch for a little over a year, and it’s been fun. I’ve learned so much more about computers and Linux itself. I highly recommend trying out Linux and you can do it here: https://distrosea.com/ - It’s a website where you can try out different Linux distros in your web browser.

  • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It’s not so much about users switching, it’s more about the ones that will stick with it. And that we can’t know for a few years yet.

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I tried setting up Windows 10 in a virtual machine recently and damn, what a miserable experience that was. “Please wait. We’re getting things ready . . . please wait . . . We’re getting things ready. Hey, you want Cortana? Tough shiat, we’re installing it anyway. Do you need an Office App? Well we’re going to install Live365, whether you like it or not. Also, we really want your email address. You don’t have a choice. Just give us your damn email address. And your phone number, too.”

    Installing Linux: 15 minutes later: “You’re done. Enjoy.”

    • Zozano@aussie.zone
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      2 months ago

      No to suggest that anyone should install Windows, but if you install Rufus then you can make the Window ISO skip most of the bullshit questions and TPM requirements before you write your flash drive.