Something I’ve noticed in this community is that whenever I criticize Steam, or point out something I don’t like about the platform, I tend to get a ton of downvotes.
And honestly, I’m just curious why.
This is a piracy-oriented community, so I find it kinda interesting that Steam seems to have such a strong positive reputation here. I’m not saying people shouldn’t like Steam, obviously everyone has their own reasons for using it. Steam is convenient, has huge sales, supports Linux, has a massive library of games, etc. I completely get why people use it.
I’m just wondering where the line is for people.
For example, do you like Steam despite the DRM because the convenience outweighs the negatives? Do you see Steam as fundamentally different from other forms of DRM? Do you consider Valve one of the “good guys” in the industry? Or do you simply see Steam as a convenient storefront and don’t really think much about the DRM side of it?
Or maybe you actually agree with some of the criticism of Steam, but just think it’s being exaggerated.
For me personally, I don’t use Steam because I don’t really like having my games tied to an account and a platform. I’d rather have the actual files, be able to back them up, move them around, mod them and know that I still have them years later. That’s basically what I was getting at in that video I made about Steam as well.
But I’m not trying to start another “Steam bad!” argument here. I’m genuinely curious because sometimes the reaction seems surprisingly pro-Steam considering the nature of this community.
So what is it about Steam that you guys actually appreciate?
My hypothesis is that Lemmy is very pro-Linux, and Steam has made gaming easier on Linux while also bringing Linux to more mainstream eyes.
As well, the younger crowd on Lemmy are probably on the younger side that grew up with Steam being basically infinite games available at low prices without having to resort to piracy, rather than the older crowd which first experienced Steam as software overhead needed to run a game that was already paid for.
So far I haven’t tried Linux yet. But the way its been going with Windows them even wanting to make it some sort of SaaS OS (?) I guess? Then i’m willing to take the plunge. Kinda wondering if its worth it, in example regular games like GTA, L.A. Noire, all that stuff will that still work under Linux? Sorry if thats a dumb question, its just I know next to nothing about Linux other than that its an other OS.
Being able to actually leave behind big tech with Microsoft being one of the biggest ones with all the changes going on when it comes to things like privacy and getting your information sold is pretty huge for some people.
People have been tired of Microsoft since Windows 10 when even a clean install would have ads, and it went from a basic OS to one trying to get you to log into an account to funnel data from you.
At this point is kind of less about the games, but improvements to Linux and the attempt to make it more accessible for the average user who isn’t tech savvy that has people seeing Valve positively.
You need a compatibility layer to run windows games on linux. Wine is this for most people, proton is built on wine.
If it’s installed via steam it will use proton by default. If you install it elsewhere you will need to set it up yourself, however interfaces like lutris have install scripts for many non-steam pieces of software and you can always study one if you need to write your own/manually set up a wine root (pretend C drive with the game an appropriate compatibility stuff).
You can check the state of games running on wine/proton here: https://www.protondb.com/
Thank you thats very helpful. I just wish I had a machine to test Linux on some time. I’ll figure it out though, but thank you. Let me put it this way: I’m Linux-curious now.
You can dual-boot although windows can be persnickety about sharing the boot partition. Guides are around, e.g. https://docs.bazzite.gg/General/Installation_Guide/dual_boot_setup_guide/
Linux installations are very light and don’t need much space (games do but you can read the windows partition from linux and just run a compatibility tool through steam if you have steam games)
Bazzite is a bad OS for general computing (advanced concepts required to move away from stock config) but good for “it just works” gaming. Fedora is a good general OS and for playing games although some software will need installing.
What would work for what I’m doing? I like gaming pirated games, I’ll personally never use steam (no offense) and I do a lot of artsy stuff and coding, specially these days with AI.
Don’t do any nieche distros.
Use one of the top ones by user amount, that way it’s less hassle (lots of users prove that stuff works well) and easier to get help (cause larger community).
For gaming a “rolling” distro is recommended to get the most up to date software and bugfixes.
My recommendation is (in order, best to good) cachy, fedora kde or bazzite.
Do not use “stable” distros for gaming like debian or ubuntu or mint. Those do a major release once a year and you will sit on bugs ir compatability issues that are already fixed on other distros. Stable means they don’t update often.
So basically I gotta sorta look at it like how Android OS’s often are, check for the best one before I flash it? (In this case install it)
All linux distros are the same OS but with a different community managing packaging. So what software is available to be installed/ or updated automatically; how and how frequently things are update, e.g. bleeding edge or only stable versions, whether the kernel (the os) is continually updated or has discrete versions; the software and configuration shipped with the installation software and; what software is used to manage the system.
It’s not a very significant choice, and if you keep user and system stuff on different partitions you can change distributions at will.
I use arch and have for a very long time. I think arch is an excellent choice if and only if you are interested in maintaining and understanding a linux system. If you just want to click buttons and have it all work, and maybe put up with some stuff that’s configured not exactly how you would like then fedora is a rolling release distribution that has many packages available kept up to date.
You will have to spend a bit of time reading documentation, and learning basic self help like looking up how to use tools via the “man toolname” command.
You’ll probably manage most of your pirated games via a piece of software called lutris, and will want to use helpful tools like proton-up to install compatibility layers.
Repack installs are sometimes hard to run properly but everything else is really straight forward. Just take the time to understand how wine/proton works so you’re not copy pasting blindly and getting frustrated.
Thank you. I think I’ll try some prolonged testing first just to use it for a while and if i’m comfortable enough with it hop on over to Linux.
My love for it is absolutely based on the Linux thing. I used widows and Xbox/Xbox app for years as well as some games outside the eco system. Windows pissed me off one too many times and I finally switched full time to Linux. The reason, steam made me able to play my games. It’s why I had never left before.
So yeah, I think that’s a valid point.
This is a very good answer.