> There is no excuse, especially thanks to Valve for their work enhancing wine ecosystem and making your games work.

While Proton is great, it helps no one to suggest it's a solution to making all games work. There are absolutely enormous multiplayer titles still unavailable on Proton, if you can't play the games your friends play who cares if 99% of the rest of the Steam library works?

Again, I think Proton is great, and only getting better. It is not though a drop in replacement for a Windows gaming machine, for most people, yet.

And yet I know gamers who have fully switched to Proton. I’m too lazy, and have a windows box reserved for games; it would be PII-free if it weren’t for the darn Microsoft account. But for some, Proton is already a better Windows.

It's not a feature-complete solution, but a good 90% of the games you own will "just work" without any additional tinkering required. Some games (like Overwatch) are just straight-up smoother running through Wine/DXVK: https://youtu.be/voXc1nCD4IA

Agreed on all counts. Proton (and WINE in general, really) is an impressive piece of work that has done wonders to make software available on Linux Desktop, but it is not a perfect solution. Personally, I'm sick enough of Microsoft's shit that I'm now willing to put up with Linux Desktop's shit instead and if that means I miss a few games, I'll live with it. I don't play competitive online games anyway.

A friend virtualized his hardware and just assigned a dedicated gpu to the windows vm under Linux and gets close to native performance for games.

This approach is a lot more hassle to setup than Proton, but it does yield some really great performance and ~100% game compatibility. I've been planning to go this way for my next desktop build (Windows gaming VM with native GPU pass-through).

Not quite 100% compatibility, since some games intentionally detect if they're running in a VM, and refuse to launch, for anti-cheat purposes.

As i mostly play single player titles me. Have been using linux as my daily driver since 2010, I play game that work on my system if they have a multiplayer and my friends are interested fine I might multiplayer with them otherwise i am fine on my own. I wont support bulshit and put up with MS on my machine just for a game, there are plenty of other things entertain me.

They have promised they'll fix this for the Steam Deck, so there's a chance this will change in the next week.

They have also said they would implement a rating system of how well proton will run various games. From 'Perfect' all the way down to 'unplayable'.

I think it was their quiet way of saying they couldn't meet the standard they set, at least, not yet.

https://www.protondb.com/ has been around for a while and provides all of this. I consult it before buying titles.

Is steam deck supposed to release next week?

Yes, February 25th.

Which games specifically do not work? Proton has been improving rapidly.

Games that require certain anti-cheats that either valve doesn't support or the dev doesn't opt into. It seems to be mostly related to multi player online games.

Also games that have issues with patented codecs, although valve is working around that by transcoding them to a different format, so they can play locally without the relevant decodre

Games may have gotten better on Linux, but that’s not the case with some programs. Usually riddled with obnoxious DRM that throws a fit in a VM or wine like program. That and nvidia woes are the only thing stopping me from using Linux.

The only thing stopping me from using Linux at this point is piss-poor 4k support, combined with the crap market for building your own PC (thanks Bitcoin!)

I just couldn't beat the m1 Air for price/performance last year.

Hmm what do you mean by piss poor 4k support? I have a 27" 4k display and so far things have been great with debian/gnome at 200% scaling. From what I can tell at least integer scaling is pretty good in most Linux desktop environments.

Gnome is the only linux desktop environment that got 4k (sort of) right. If you don't like gnome then you are on your own. I use sway/wayland for work and i3/xorg for home and I got them to work in 4k after days of customization. Wayland, X, sway, each version of gtk, qt, and various apps all have their own configuration, each which need to be configured separately, often with conflicting results, and when finally functioning, still don't work very well.

What are you configuring for 4k?

I set base DPI to native. Then set GDK environment variables to scale up to double so UI and fonys aren't tiny in apps like chromium. QT scaling env variables, and the Trolltech conf for font size in apps like Beyond Compare. Then a HiDPI font config for Gimp. Each version of GTK has its own dconf settings. Then there's Firefox which requires an environment variable for HiDPI in wayland. Mouse cursor size must be configured in both Sway and X. Font size for terminals like Kitty. Display managers often have their own separate config, e.g. SDDM. Its a nightmare.

I know this comment is aging, but I had to configure every app individually in Linux Mint 18 (which I acknowledge is older), whereas macOS I just moved a slider.

That said, I didn't realize until just now it could have been due to being on such an older Linux Mint, so maybe I'm just way out of date.

Linux actually has excellent 4K support. If you primarily use KDE and QT applications under x11 what you need to do is virtually nothing or set DPI. GTK apps can be adjusted by setting GDK_SCALE=Integer. If you want to tweak text bigger or smaller set your default font size in GTK/KDE settings to be larger or smaller.

There is an entire section on handles you can tweak in different environments odds are you need few of them save for the above as things are increasingly automatic. For example GDK_SCALE is enough for firefox to look correct without also fiddling with anything internal to firefox.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/HiDPI

Essentially hidpi on Linux is spending 5 minutes reading a wiki then enumerable hours using the system.

It's 2022. Linux should be past the point of requiring people to hunt for a config file so they can edit it to get a usable display.

It's a free software provided gratis by volunteers. Desktop Linux is mostly by techies and for techies despite any other aspirations. Things that work great but require configuration don't always get looked at or worked on. This is especially true if they only effect a tiny minority of users.

https://linux-hardware.org/?view=mon_resolution

You should absolutely volunteer your time to address high dpi configuration out of the box across several of the most popular distros. I mean for example KDE software already works basically perfectly right out of the box. So all you really need to do is automate the process of choosing ideal font sizes, scaling settings etc.

Push out looks-right.sh to various distros to be run at installation.

Yeah I was -this close- to buying the Framework laptop when my 2017 MBP died (I'm not gentle with my electronics) but I needed a laptop soon and the M1 Air was ~200 cheaper than the Framework would have been. It's the best computer I've ever owned hands down. I do wish I got the Framework for Linux but I can work fine in macos.

The Nvidia thing is funny to me. I have never had any issues with them on Linux - NOW that said - my hardware is typically about 5 years behind so all the kinks have been ironed out.

Being the computer scrap man I am and using nothing but hand-me-downs and things I find people throwing out. It has worked out well for me from a compatibility point of view. ;)

If cryptocurrency bros hadn't made them ludicrously expensive, I'd have bought a new AMD based card by now to facilitate ditching Windows in the near future. Sadly, said bros continue to unashamedly make the world worse and show no signs of stopping.

> Literally a trap to hand over your encryption keys.

I let my keys sync to my MS account. I mainly want to protect against untargeted theft of my computer, so having recovery keys online makes more sense than a recovery key printout or USB key in a drawer.

You may regret that one day. I try to live my life mitigating regrets. Good cryptographic key hygiene will pay dividends.

Also trust people, systems and corporations less.

> Literally a trap to hand over your encryption keys. Never sign into an operating system with a cloud identity.

Why does your trust model include "running a proprietary OS that can do anything at any time" but not "the OS explicitly requires a user account tied to an online account?" That doesn't make any sense.

To be clear: there are plenty of great reasons to dislike this change. But they all fall under "user-hostile" or "creeping surveillance capitalism," not "shady conspiracy to steal your encryption keys." They can already have the keys if they want them, and there's nothing you can do about it as-is.

My trust model absolutely abhors closed source software. I compile binaries myself. I would not use Microsoft software.

However the this isn’t about me. This is providing advice in such a way that the casual windows user might see the threat to their keys.

The only reason they were allowed to rollout BitLocker was if they stole the keys. Funny that encryption only became a “problem” in the age of the iPhone.

Wake me up when I can play my sim racing games with wheel and pedal support in Linux.

Which sim racing games? I'm more of a truck sim player than a racing player, but my wheel and pedal worked as controls out of the box. For FFB I had to install an extra package, but is that really that different to installing the logitech software on windows?

Assetto Corsa Comeptizione and F1 series mostly, with Thrustmaster gear and ultra wide monitor. It's a non starter, I've checked.

What is your specific setup? It seems like that would be a pretty straightforward thing to do.

Have nice dreams while MS builds a walled garden all around with ads and surveillance.

Can you not? I play Rockband on Linux with a real-ass guitar, I had no idea that random gaming HID didn't just get passed through like any other controller.

but the adobes

Photoshop CC 2018 runs great in Wine, with Wacom tablet support as well.

For Illustrator, use CC 2019 to get hi-def display support in the GUI. I don’t use Illustrator much though, so I can’t vouch for how well it works.

This is good to know. I still need to figure out which distribution of Linux to try out first. Having the ability to use my wacom tablet across a variety of software is a must.

Ubuntu has a native wacom driver that just comes with the operating system. Just plug it in and find the Wacom Tablet panel in settings.

Blackmagic Davinci Resolve is a good Premiere replacement and can replace parts of AE. It runs well on Linux.

Pixelmator on macOS is a good Photoshop replacement.

I got nothing for Lightroom or heavier uses of AE. Or Excel.

Also missing is support for Pro Audio such as Nuendo and Dorico. If these would run on FreeBSD I would've swapped from OSX/Win years ago. At least there's some hope for Proton so gaming could work...

Reaper might run on FreeBSD with Linux binary support. It has a notation editor, so it might work as a Dorico replacement depending on your needs.

Sadly none of the free editors are as well developed as Dorico is at the moment including the new Musescore with it's Dorico "inspired" UI. Dorico's workflow just fits my needs perfectly at the moment.

Reaper and Nuendo aren't really comparable either. Nuendo just has so much engineering behind it for audio post and multichannel (e.g. Atmos) not to mention expression maps and excellent MIDI editing. I do admit Reaper, if it runs on linuxulator, could work quite well as a prototyping tool on the go. Then again Cubasis and Dorico iPad does it too and can import straight to the Desktop versions.

I do wish there were good open source options but, alas. Maybe some day...

If you are on macOS, you can also try Affinity Photo as a Photoshop replacement.

For Lightroom there is Darktable.

Darktable is as much a Lightroom replacement as LibreOffice is an Excel replacement or Gimp is a Photoshop replacement, i.e. it absolutely is not.

Source: portrait photographer for 20+ years that would ditch Adobe in a heartbeat if it were possible.

Darktable is in the uncanny valley with its similarity to Lightroom. It looks like LR, so your habits kick in, only to get the cold shower that Darktable is not really LR and the thing you wanted to do you must do differently.