alt Hacker NewsLet me guess. When it gets tricky it fails. USB? Own IP? 3D? Bluetooth?
My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native apps. Don’t use WINE. Don’t try to be compatible to inherent hostile things. Don’t use VMs. And especially don’t use Dual-Boot. It sucks.
Basically migrate and go full Linux. Don’t look back :)
Proton (which is WINE derivative) works somehow, because Valve invests every single day tremendous efforts into it. But that’s the problem, tremendous efforts.
The good news. Every bit invested in high quality API/ABI on Linux pays off. Valve contributions to MESA and amdgpu are invaluable. Valve should honor native AAA-Titles and Indie-Titles for Linux - with exclusive Steam Awards. There is awesome stuff like Unrailed. Make the game developers think:
“I better should do a proper port. And it should not be done by the Win32 developer. Task the Linux developer.”
PPS: I use a Mac for two incompatible applications (Garmin Express and Zwift). Less maintenance than Windows. Less possibilities than Linux. Horrible file-browser. Window management is a pain. But it covers the gap without ruining my day. I have to admit, the Mac cannot run Counter-Strike 2. That’s a task for Linux :)
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I switched my gaming desktop over to Linux last year.
My experience has mostly been that Linux native versions just aren't as good as the Windows-on-Proton version. (Shout out to Larian for their recent BG3 release, a much better native version.)
Totally agree that Proton only works so well because of the constant effort that Valve put into it.
Shouting at game devs to make better native Linux versions isn't going to work. What will work is that the market demographics are slowly moving over to Linux, mostly thanks to Valve, Proton and the Steam Deck.
Very often what holds you back is not a huge and complex thing like an AAA game, but something far less demanding and obscure. Something like an app to design knitting patterns, elaborate, purpose-built, and without a huge team behind it. Not open-source though. In this case, seamless compatibility is great.
(For games, there is Proton.)
> My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native apps. Don’t use WINE. Don’t try to be compatible to inherent hostile things. Don’t use VMs. And especially don’t use Dual-Boot. It sucks.
Had I listened to your recommendation, I would've never tried Linux.
Sorry, but Linux doesn't run Photoshop. Or Valorant. Or certain VPNs, certain educational software, and doesn't work with a bunch of hardware.
Dual booting is still a hell of a lot better than trying to configure Wine in most cases, but if doing everything natively on Linux was an option, it would've have taken SteamOS so many years to become even remotely usable. And even then people install Windows on their Steam Decks to run certain specific programs or games.
For the same reason native Linux isn't an option, native macOS wouldn't have been an option back when I first tried Linux. And even today, programs like Paint.NET are dearly missed on Linux and macOS (yes, I know about Pinta), and stock macOS is infuriating to use without all manner of tools and background programs reminding me of my XP. I use Windows for my Windows tools, Linux most of the time, and macOS for my macOS work stuff. I'm not getting rid of either non-Linux OS because that would make doing certain things simply impossible.
> My recommendation for happiness with Linux is: Always use native apps. Don’t use WINE. Don’t try to be compatible to inherent hostile things. Don’t use VMs. And especially don’t use Dual-Boot. It sucks.
This is terrible advice. Many people want to use Windows apps while using Linux, and Wine works just fine for that. And for those few that don't work in Wine, dual boot works great.
Some of us have work that requires windows only applications.
The vast majority of games are fine via Steam/Proton.
They will never ever receive native Linux ports.
Understand what each OS is good at. Back in my younger days, experimenting with Linux was my defacto CS education.
I use desktop Linux when I don't want distractions I need my computer to do what I want it it.
Window's is much much better for music production. I'm not switching DAWs.
Primarily I'm a .net developer, I NEED Visual Studio to really be productive.
OSX is when I have an important interview or something. Although I did interview using Fedora recently. Fantastically stable distro!
You don't take a Lambo off road, you generally don't take a Jeep to the race track.
I don't know about this project, but using KVM+Qemu w/ VFIO lets you partition USB devices (and most other physical assets) to your virtualized OS. I used to pass my mouse back and forth between Windows and Linux this way, and similarly for one monitor (mainly to demonstrate I could indeed run Crysis).
I've found games running in Proton to provide better long-term compatibility than many native games. Despite Steam providing a stable runtime for native games, I have a few titles from their first major Linux push back in the '10s that are now crash-happy or exhibit substantial performance problems, but work perfectly fine when I use the Windows version with Proton.
Telling people not to even think about using their favorite piece of software is a good way to make sure they don't consider switching. A lot of popular Windows apps run perfectly fine in WINE. I've been using foobar2000 in it for a decade at this point, and have yet to find a native alternative that gives me the same feature set. So why shouldn't I keep running it?
USB passthrough works remarkably well. (No experience with winboat).
Or just use windows :)
native Linux apps also fail when it gets "tricky", so this isn't really that great of a benchmark, is it?
Bad advice. Counterpoint: Wine works really well (especially for old applications) and there's nothing wrong with using it. If people restrict themselves to arbitrary rules then many won't be able to use Linux.