Proton is a tool for use with the Steam client which allows games which are exclusive to Windows to run on the Linux operating system. It uses Wine to facilitate this.
I really, REALLY wish the Affinity suite would work on Linux. They are the only ones even remotely comparable to Adobe.
Yeah, it’s what I use these days and yeah, that’d be nice. It isn’t the all-in-one package you get with PS, but for casual use in photo editing it’s decent and there are alternatives for some of the other use cases of PS that are closer while still being a fraction of the cost when stacked on top of Affinity.
I use gimp for pixel art for game textures and to make memes. It has tons of features that nobody knows about becuase they’re fucked by horrendous UI. But theres never been anything I needed to to but couldnt after looking up a tutorial on the internet. Valid points against gimp but lets not pretend people used to photoshop arent also kind of stuck in their old workflow habits and unwilling to relearn new software UI.
Theres photogimp but it hasn’t been worked on in a while.
Also also, most people who use gimp on linux probably did so on a stable distro like Mint installing with default package manager. This means their experience with gimp is from a terribly old outdated version. Flatpaks have some issues but being able to easily install the most current version of software like gimp or kdenlive is night and day difference.
Also also, most people who use gimp on linux probably did so on a stable distro like Mint installing with default package manager. This means their experience with gimp is from a terribly old outdated version. Flatpaks have some issues but being able to easily install the most current version of software like gimp or kdenlive is night and day difference.
Another reason to use Gentoo: https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/media-gfx/gimp
You can install 3.0.0rc2 or even git version.
Oh cool! Let me just spend three weeks crawling through wiki articles, setting flags in the config files, and patching out 15 different issues with various drivers then installing 20 dependencies compiling them all from source.
Hyperbole, but yeah no thanks I’ll take the L on some optimization and 2gb of storage space and some wierd file system locations for files to load a flatpak if old stable doesn’t cut it. you might want to be careful recommending gentoo to people they might not know better. Most Linux nerds don’t want to open that can of worms, but good for you if it works.
Photopea was written by a single college grad, and it’s miles better than gimp. While gimp has more resources and manpowers. Something is seriously wrong with their team.
Photopea uses rendering by browser. And probably doesn’t have plugin system.
Even for hobbyist needs the feature set is basically a decade behind.
I mean, Gimp 3 ia looking pretty good to me. Maybe it’s not fit for a workplace (even though it depends on the workplace imo) but it’s definitely more than enough for hobbyists.
Would you mind citing some example of fundamental missing features?
Not trying to be a smartass, just genuinely curious
Yup, circle select, menu bar, select->outline, select your thickness, then use the paint bucket.
This is what people mean when they say GIMP can do the same stuff, the process is just totally different.
I can guarantee you that no app on or for your phone can do a fraction of what GIMP is capable of.
You’re telling me this free, volunteer-run feature full software isn’t almost as good as the multi-million dollar product from a multi-billion dollar company?
If this dude can edit his videos and images on Linux so can you Mr Van Gogh. https://youtu.be/lm51xZHZI6g
Yes, that’s what we’re saying. It’s fine though, I don’t expect developers to work miracles for free, they are doing an amazing job, but In the context of “Linux being ready” it’s important to recognize some honest truths.
But also, whenever someone pulls that card I just point at Blender until they go away.
Hell, there is such a widespread appetite for a PS alternative you’d think it’d be easier for Gimp than Blender at this point.
Thank you. All of this libre software is amazing, and impressive as hell, but that doesn’t exempt it from having usability issues and other valid points of criticism.
Calling that out isn’t inherently anti-Linux or anti open source. I want all of these tools to improve to the point that there’s no fucking contest and they are the de facto standard (like blender is), but shit is going to have a harder time improving if people have blinders to valid criticism.
Users do not care about how hard the devs are working for free. If the software doesn’t have the features, it’s not ready.
Really think about this. You’re saying two entirely contradictory things:
-
Linux software is ready to compete with Windows
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Users cannot expect Linux software to have comparable features to Windows
How will it compete without comparable features? Passion and morals aren’t valued over effectiveness by most users.
You’re telling me this free, volunteer-run feature full software isn’t almost as good as the multi-million dollar product from a multi-billion dollar company?
You’re describing the truth about Linux vs windows, except many Linux oses are better than anything ms makes.
I think Windows could be a far better OS than Linux if Microsoft gave a single shit. Instead they want to add AI and recall and various invasive updates.
The only thing windows has going is the market share.
I’ve been using the Gimp for decades to great effect. Git gud (pin intended). Also, all phone photo editors are garbage.
Thanks to the likes of Proton, gaming on Linux is a hell of a lot better than it was ~5 years ago. You can actually do it now for the most part without to much fuss in my experience as long as you stick to Steam.
But once you leave Steam or get something brand new made by an EA type and have to lean on third party implementations of Proton or raw Wine to get things working it gets a lot worse.
But once you leave Steam […] it gets a lot worse
Heroic Games Launcher is pretty great for games from GOG and Epic. You can run games with Proton just fine.
Lutris is also a great option, actively contributing to it. Got a slightly different focus than Heroic, but a lot more features as well. Basically a one-stop shop once you got familiar with it. Really needs more people that can contribute though given the huge amount of platforms and launchers it attempts to cover (literally all of them).
Also, for folks out of the loop, let me explain what this entails. I installed Steam. I clicked install on a game. I clicked play in Steam. That was it. Proton isn’t some sort of thing you need to install or launch separately. It really does “just work”.
I’m able to play Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, and even Marvel Rivals online just fine. All of these are online multiplayer games, the types that generally seem to have the most trouble on Linux.
that is most definitely not the process. You have to explicitly go into Steam’s settings > Compatibility > “Enable Steam Play for all other titles” (what in the world, it’s called Steam Play, not Proton?) and then additionally select which Proton version you want. If you don’t know this, or don’t google it with the right keywords, you won’t understand why literally 90% of your library isn’t available (in my case it was 99% of my library, I think I only had 3 games available on linux natively). Also if you select the wrong Proton version some games won’t run, so you have to know that and switch it for those games only.
They’re likely using a gaming distro that has those settings enabled by default.
It isn’t perfectly seamless but enabling Steam Play or changing proton versions isn’t any more of an advanced task than verifying game files (something that Windows users are asked to do the moment that they have a problem).
It has come a long way from the days of manually creating wine environments and writing custom launch files.
If you can install Skyrim or Minecraft mods (not using Steam Workshop) then you’re sophisticated enough to game on gaming distros like Pop and Bazzite.
If you can use cheat engine without a guide and write your own mods then you’re ready for Arch.
Agreed, but I think it’s important to note that that isn’t because of a shortcoming of Linux, it’s because those companies are incentivized to support platforms that are more suitable for enabling massive profits, that’s what it seems like to me anyways.
“Nvidia GPU working”
If the driver feels like it, lol.
I know NVIDIA gets a lot of shit, but I’ve honestly never encountered a problem after using nvidia + Linux for well over a decade. Sure, it can be picky when it comes to kernel version, but deciding on a kernel that works well for you and the rest of the system is part of initial setup of a proper system anyway.
Same here. I really don’t know what people do with their machines. I’ve had numerous nvidia gpus for ages without trouble (and litteraly decades of linux).
Never on laptops though, maybe that’s where problems arise.
For real?? 😓 I was rockin a 3080ti on a 4k panel for a bit there and Wayland was impossible to run on Debian-KDE. Like as soon as I got to desktop everything stuttered in slow motion, dpi was janky as hell, and wouldn’t respond to DPI config changes… And that was on a fresh install from Debian’s KDE installation media! 🤔 did ya’ll have to do any tinkering or was Wayland cruising for ya outta the box?
Had to sell that card as I got tf outta the US anyways (been maining my steam Deck on a dock, which has been fun!), but I’m thinking I’ll go AMD for my next build. VR & Wayland are way better on an AMD GPU, from what I hear!
If the average person can not use your OS, it is not ready. Period.
For example:
Windows - Open File Explorer > Add Network Drive > Find/plug it in > Enter creds > Bam. Ready to go and will automatically log you in at boot. Very nice, very intuitive UI.
Linux - Open Dolphin (or whatever) > Network > Add Network Folder/Find it > Enter creds > Does not automatically mount the drive when booting the computer back up > Must go into fstab to get it to automount > Stop, because that is ridiculous
In my own experience, I was able to get the hang of Windows with no one showing me how a computer ever worked, at the age of 10! Intuitive enough a child can do it.
On Linux, you have to read manuals/documentation, ask random (mostly rude) people on the internet, or give up because why the fuck would I want to go and enter 5 commands just to have something as simple as auto mount a network share? Not intuitive, therefore not easy to learn as you go.
I get it, Linux people like knowing how their computers operate, they like ensuring everything is working the way THEY want to, and that’s awesome! What’s not awesome is recommending Linux to the general populace and then getting upset at them for asking why they can’t do something or why don’t they just do these steps to do whatever it is they are having issues with. Then, you have a person who doesn’t even know what a terminal is confused as hell because they were told Linux is so much better than Windows.
Until we get a more intuitive (GUI focused) way of doing what I would consider normal computer tasks, it will not ever be ready. That’s just the way I see it.
the average person doesnt know how to mount a drive on windows or even what that is or why you would want to, they just need to be able to open a browser
Meanwhile my experience with automounting network drives with dolphin is
Open Dolphin > Add Network Folder > Enter creds > Check automount box > done
I haven’t had to use the terminal for anything in years. There’s some things I do in the terminal, but that’s because I like it better, not because there isn’t an intuitive way to do it.
The reason guides tell people to use the terminal is because it’s the same across DEs, not because there aren’t DEs that make it more intuitive.
Would I throw a random non techy friend on Linux? No, because it’s not what they’re used to. If they had no computer experience at all though I absolutely would.
The average person does not mount network drives themselves.
I would hazard a guess that for the truly average user, booting to a desktop with Firefox and LibreOffice installed is like 90% of what they need.
I once wanted to change my mouse scrolling direction on Windows. In KDE it’s a toggle in the mouse settings and on Windows it’s some dubious registry editing (apparently). I think there are about as many things that are easier on Linux than on Windows as there are things that are easier on Windows than on Linux (assuming you’re using a modern distribution with a beginner-friendly, sensible configuration).
I mean, I was able to figure out how MS-DOS worked as a child just be flailing on the keyboard and reading the errors. It was “easy” because now I know it while Macintoshes may as well have been alien technology. A “mouse”?, moving windows?, you have to find programs and click on them instead of just typing?
You’re just used to Windows annoyances and not used to Linux annoyances, that’s all.
For example:
Installing and updating a program on Windows is a horror show compared to using a package manager. It expects average users to find, download and run executable files from the Internet and conditions them to approve elevation for anything that asks.
If Windows breaks, how do you troubleshoot it? Maybe Google knows, maybe rebooting fixes it, if not then possibly re-installing the entire OS. It’s so bad that if you work with Windows clients you probably already have an image of a Windows install because troubleshooting is so much of a pain it’s easier to just completely re-image the machine.
Don’t even get me started on how often Microsoft changes the layout of administration tools and system menus or their tendency to change the name of various system components for no logical reason.
I don’t think Linux is for everyone, but only because most everyone already has years of Windows experience and forgets all of the frustration and learning.
If you used Linux for just as long as you’ve used Windows, then editing fstab would seem as trivial a task as pinning an item to the start bar taskbar, or launching a program starting an app from the system tray notification area system tray.
It’s kinda funny that as a seasoned Linux user, I never had to edit fstab for years. I just use Gnome Disks if I need automount or format a USB drive.
Yeah, this one gets me, but you are exactly right with “years of experience”. Something goes wrong on my GFs MacBook or Windows PC and she just googles fixes, something goes wrong on her Steamdeck and she hands it to me “I don’t know how to get around the desktop mode”…GOOGLE IT, LEARN, YOU ARENT STUPID! sigh
I mean atleast in terms of the troubleshooting I’ve had to do it’s much easier on Windows. Sure it can be more finicky but if I have a problem 99% of the time I google it and find someone else having the same problem and worst case scenario atleast reinstalling Windows fixes the problem. When I gave Linux a try the amount of times I googled something and either found an out of date solution that didn’t work or was just told that that doesn’t work and you can’t do that was annoying enough that I gave up and went back to Windows. If Linux works for you that’s great but acting like the problems with Linux are just people not being used to it is wrong.
Installing programs through Windows is now (thankfully) more align with Linux.
winget install firefox > see two different forms, one from Windows Store (ew) and the one provided and hosted by Mozilla > winget install mozilla.firefox > program installs
When updating: winget upgrade shows available updates > winget upgrade --all updates all the listed programs
Not as good as Linux of course, but much better than the old method you stated. That point I will give to you, as it is still not simple for the average user. “Terminal? WTF is that?”
I generally don’t have any annoyances with Windows because it does the things I need it to. I don’t find a UAC popups as annoying, because it is supposed to help prevent people from messing their computer up. The same could be said for the average person on Linux running random commands they found online because the thing they were expecting their computer to do isn’t doing the thing.
Windows has never broken on me, so I do not have a good rebuttal for that. I can at least say that when Linux has been borked before on my own hardware, I essentially had to put the ISO back on the single USB I owned at the time just to reinstall the entire OS again, because again, I didn’t know anything about Linux at this time. While in Windows, if the computer doesn’t boot properly 3 times, it brings up the Windows Recovery menu that has in plain English what available options you have to get your install back in at least some working manner. Again, you must keep the average person in mind. You and I are not what I would consider average in this context.
Again, point to you for the changes to UI that Micro$oft introduce. Very, very, very stupid UI/UX redesign choices, and without an alternate avenue at that! (there are a few programs that try to replace some of the Windows UI to get it back to how it should be, but of course that can introduce entirely new issues…)
I’ve been knuckle dragging my way into Linux more and more for 15 years. That’s why I have such a strong opinion on what they could do better for the average people. UI/GUI is a must have to get people to even consider ditching Windows. That’s without even taking into consideration that most of the programs I run personally do not even have a Linux alternative, and Wine/Bottles/Lutris/Heroic can not remedy without loads of understanding what you’re supposed to change here and there for that specific program. That is a real nightmare in my view.
You are mostly correct that I am very much more used to the “plug and play and it just works” of Windows, but having to go and edit some config file somewhere on my computer, instead of it just being an option in the settings or in the file manager itself, is just insane to a person who just wants to set it and forget it, like I can do with Windows.
Obviously, my time with Windows is not the average either, so I can see your points. I love Linux, what it stands for, and how it is community driven. I want it to be better so I can finally delete Windows forever.
I still use and support the users of Windows.
I do like winget (and chocolate), but the software repo doesn’t have everything and so people are still conditioned into going online and searching for executable file to run as admin.
I can’t count the amount of times that I’ve had to reinstall Windows because a user was tricked into downloading the wrong file and infected themselves (and the rest of the network).
I’d say that if you had a brand new person who needed to learn an OS then Windows and Linux are very close in difficulty as of today. I prefer to use Linux because I like the amount of information and control that is afforded to me
But, I play video games, use VR and deal with applications that only support Windows so I have a Windows drive handy.
Sure, mapping a (Samba) network drive is easy, and possible via GUI, in Windows, but have you tried to use NFS?
You need a Professional license ($100) first of all, and even then, you can only use NFSv3. The Powershell command cmdlet to mount is a trainwreck: >!New-PSDrive Z -PsProvider FileSystem -Root \10.40.1.1\export\isos -Persist!<. It’s so bad that Microsoft implemented an alias, ‘mount’, so you can pretend it’s a Linux command and it translates it into Powershell-ese.
Now you gotta upgrade to Windows 11 by next year, use a Microsoft account (Yes, I know the workaround) and let your computer’s contents be indexed and fed to Microsoft in the name of integrating an AI feature that’s complete opaque to the user.
I’m not a frog that likes to be boiled, so I deal with Linux problems which seems quaint by comparison.
If my mother can’t tell the difference between Firefox and the OS, but can use Linux mint just fine, then so can the average user.
Mounting a network share is beyond the usage scope of the DAU you describe. They need a functional default desktop environment, working standard drivers for their standard hardware, and a browser. That’s pretty much it.
And let’s not pretend there’s anything intuitive about Windows distinguishing between accessing a network share, and mounting it as a virtual drive. This is just the staying power of “whatever I’m used to from an age when I had the curiosity and patience to figure stuff out”.
I work with windows for over 10 years, and use Linux daily for private stuff, including being a nerd and a gamer, and some side gigs for at least 8.
If something is weird, doesn’t work or breaks in Linux, I can usually find the culprit and help fast. It’s out there or it’s so obscure I need to puzzle it myself.
If something like that happens on windows, pray someone already had that issue or Microsoft decided to write an article about it, because nobody will help, and most search results point to bot responses about scf scannow, dism at best, and straight up reseting your system to factory defaults.
Point being, I like figuring out stuff in Linux, and I dread opaque bullshit Microsoft gets away with.
Even your network drive example, in my experience is a coin toss. So many variables, hidden settings, weird registry keys with no documentation. Yeah.
Linux - Open Dolphin (or whatever) > Network > Add Network Folder/Find it > Enter creds > Does not automatically mount the drive when booting the computer back up > Must go into fstab to get it to automount > Stop, because that is ridiculous
I put into the dolphin path sftp://myusername@remoteip.address. Then I give it my password, and check the box to save it. Then I right click any folder in the destination and do “add to places” and in the future I just navigate to it like a local folder.
I guess I’m supposed to do it a harder way? I’ve done essentially the same but with smb:// when forced to work with a samba share like an animal.
You are confusing the average user with the mids… average usage is equally easy to windows:
Open a file Edit a file Copy a file Open a browser
Most people i know does not care for anything else.
Why is automounting at boot without credentials a necessity and intuitive for you. No, I would expect it to mount exactly once and to require me to input username and password before I mount my porn collection so that my sister does not see it.
I don’t get why you claim that windows does this correctly and Linux does not. It would be the opposite for me.
Besides, the important point in this example is to actually mount the folder to do your job. In your example, both systems do this equally well with an equally well UI, before your automounting nonsense.
It’s simpler that all that. Turn on new computer, open browser, install steam, install games, play games. Anything more complex than that makes it unusable. People have zero time to deal with even a slight hiccup. It is annoying to watch as people are getting into steamOS on Steamdeck and every little thing is the end of the world. I have seen “oh, to get that one to run smooth you gotta set the FPS locked to 30” met with “nah, I ain’t got time for all that, I’ll play it on the Xbox”.
I don’t know what the fix is, outside cloning windows GUI and making an ultra safe and familiar entry Linux (the replies will be various lists of “just use x,y,z” and “get this one and technobabble the dilithium crystals into the frondulator” and that just pushes people away instantly…there has to be a tiktok-dumb entry level OS before any real migration happens.
While I agree linux has some pants on head stupid shit that needs to change, like right click new file being something you need to diy for some reason on fedora, linux now is better than windows was when I was 10. Most things work, you don’t need to troubleshoot. I remember spending more time troubleshooting games than playing them back in the day on windows while linux desktop didn’t even exist at the time.
There are some issues to work out but majority of them are things that are done differently on linux and you hate cause youre used to windows bullshit.
Thunar + (i think) gvfs does fine with network drives, it mounts them as soon as I try to click on them. If I wanted otherwise I wouldn’t use the tool that’s meant to show me files when I want to look at them.
When administrating (an admittedly horribly set up) computer system I hate that Windows automatically saves the address without asking because then after turning the protections back on after installing a program from there, the users still see the network drive and want to play around with it.
