I would say the chances of the Linux desktop taking off are slim to none. Sure, people that like playing old games will just use Linux with Steam, but let’s face it, those are very few… and they will only do it because Windows is just moving on from DX and all that and has no support for it any more. But, most gamers that like playing new games will just stick to Windows. One, it has support, two installing the game is 3 clicks away. And let’s face it, those are the majority when it comes to gaming.
And, even if they’d like to switch to Linux and there are, generally, no problems with their game running on Linux (it might even be supported by the developer natively), guess what… Linux doesn’t like your nVidia card 🤦. Or you’d have to configure the shit out of your card to make it run that game… or you have a multi monitor setup with monitors with different resolutions and refresh rates and all hell breaks loose.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with Linux. I don’t game at all, I have a single monitor setup and I’m fine with that, I don’t need anything else. But, I’m also aware that I’m not the majority of PC/laptop users. People usually want more than just one monitor these days and they like to be able to just click and play their games or their software to just work without major problems, like not being able to run because libfoo is not installed or a wrong version of it is installed and that just doesn’t work with what they wanna run. Sure, Flatpack has somewhat solved this problem, but let’s face it, it has it’s own problems (everything runs sandboxed).
And then, on top of all this, you put the companies with proprietary software that mainly don’t give AF about FOSS and generally (there are exceptions, but very few) just put out the Linux version of their software for the heck of it. It gets updated far lesser than their mainstream Windows/MacOS versions and it’s full of bugs that are not present in the Windows/MacOS versions.
And this is why Linux desktop will never take off IMO… at least not with this economic and social structure in place.
I would say the chances of the Linux desktop taking off are slim to none. Sure, people that like playing old games will just use Linux with Steam, but let’s face it, those are very few… and they will only do it because Windows is just moving on from DX and all that and has no support for it any more. But, most gamers that like playing new games will just stick to Windows. One, it has support, two installing the game is 3 clicks away. And let’s face it, those are the majority when it comes to gaming.
And, even if they’d like to switch to Linux and there are, generally, no problems with their game running on Linux (it might even be supported by the developer natively), guess what… Linux doesn’t like your nVidia card 🤦. Or you’d have to configure the shit out of your card to make it run that game… or you have a multi monitor setup with monitors with different resolutions and refresh rates and all hell breaks loose.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with Linux. I don’t game at all, I have a single monitor setup and I’m fine with that, I don’t need anything else. But, I’m also aware that I’m not the majority of PC/laptop users. People usually want more than just one monitor these days and they like to be able to just click and play their games or their software to just work without major problems, like not being able to run because libfoo is not installed or a wrong version of it is installed and that just doesn’t work with what they wanna run. Sure, Flatpack has somewhat solved this problem, but let’s face it, it has it’s own problems (everything runs sandboxed).
And then, on top of all this, you put the companies with proprietary software that mainly don’t give AF about FOSS and generally (there are exceptions, but very few) just put out the Linux version of their software for the heck of it. It gets updated far lesser than their mainstream Windows/MacOS versions and it’s full of bugs that are not present in the Windows/MacOS versions.
And this is why Linux desktop will never take off IMO… at least not with this economic and social structure in place.