I just swapped to Ubuntu on my straggler/media server Windows 10 desktop. Have been running Gentoo on another PC for years but never had so much trouble as trying to setup bumblebee with a GTX960 - holy crap nvidia suck so hard. The other PC is all AMD so I was living in blissful ignorance.
Sword of Linuxcles.
This is the third time today that I have seen a reference to the sword of Damocles. Almost as if the entire fucking world feels like it’s only a thread away from destruction…
I’ve been seeing it a lot more recently, too. IRL even.
Did it get used by sometime famous recently or something?
There was a king once named Damocles that had a sword suspended over his throne that could come crashing down at any random moment and kill him, to remind himself of the fragility of his power, and human life.
I have no idea how that anecdote might apply to people in power in this day and age, or why people would reference the anecdote.
Glares at the fraying rope
I tried to switch to Linux several days ago, but there were clear issues regarding games that weren’t tied to Steam. Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, and so forth all had shortcomings regarding compatibility, handling of DLC, or lack of user-friendliness. Then I tried to use a VM, which was a frustrating rabbit hole. Virt-Manager supports GPU passthru, but you have to jump through hoops to identify PCI addresses and to configure correctly. Boxes initially seemed promising, but had no apparent way of storing the VM on my gaming drive. (Linux terminal commands are beyond my understanding.) Considering how big games are getting, and the size of my collection, that is a bad combo. Virtualbox doesn’t have GPU passthru, so the performance sucked.
As a gamer, I currently find Linux to be insufficient. I was wanting to switch due to security concerns regarding Microsoft, especially in light of the Trump Regime’s willingness to ignore law and norms. My concern is that they could use Windows as a spy, or to seal up my computer to punish those who go against Dogey America. As it is, I will have to use some scripts from Github to break Windows Update if I hear of Richmond being infiltrated by the Xitler Youth.
Here’s hoping that Gabe decides to invest much more heavily in Linux to make it casual friendly - I want my mods, cheats, Japanese locale games, emulators, and so forth to all work seamlessly and without compromise. I would seriously pay $400 smackers to have an OS that is capable, flexible, compatible, friendly, and most importantly, MINE.
The days of just buying Windows 7 Ultimate and not thinking about Microsoft was glorious.
You should definately look at PlayOnLinux for those game. It is an app to help leverage all Wine setup and configuration. Normally with Steam and this would should be able to run almost everything.
tried to use a VM
Yeah, this is where you went wrong. It’s possible, but it really doesn’t solve anything IMO, has the possibility of getting detected (so anticheat bans), and can often run worse. It’s possible to get a sane setup, but what are you really gaining over just dual booting? You’re still running Windows, after all, but now you have drawbacks (and some benefits) of a VM.
Can you be more specific about what didn’t work? As in, games, platforms, etc. If it’s a game with anticheat, you’re probably SOL on Linux, but I have Heroic working just fine on both my Linux desktop (openSUSE) and Steam Deck. I usually launch through Steam to use Steam input and manage Proton versions, and it seems to work fine for GOG and EGS. Some games have issues, so check protondb.com if that’s the case, but most work just fine.
The idea here with the VM is two-fold: First, to keep a potential Windows Big Brother update from spying on my documents and whatnot, while also preventing it from tampering with the security of my PC. Secondly, to maximize compatibility, since I lost trust in Linux to not have technical issues with my gaming. That means mods, Japanese games, emulators, and so forth. Windows is simply more reliable and documented, unlike Linux. If something goes wrong with a game playing on Windows, there is decent odds of me troubleshooting. My hardware should be able to handle a VM, it being a 5950x with a RTX 4090+3060, and 128gb of RAM.
Anyhow, I don’t really remember the specifics regarding how my efforts with Lutris, Heroic Game Launcher, and so forth went: I don’t like remembering unpleasant things. All that I recall is assorted errors or lack of features that rattled my willingness to trust Linux for gaming. I will try again some years for now, if I hear Linux has become more suitable to the task.
What distro did you try?
I’ve been in bazzite for some time now and haven’t had any of those problems
Sorry it didn’t work out for you like Linux Mint works for me (I switched full time to LM in December 2024).
If you haven’t already, switch to Windows 10 LTSC in the interim. I have a feeling Linux will only improve over time with greater compatibility with Proton. Since Win 10 LTSC is supported until 2029, that’s plenty of time for for more kinks to be worked out and you can potentially try Linux again.
I am already on a Internet of Things edition, which is the debloated version of Windows. However, that still leaves the possibility of Microsoft going fascist and sending out a Big Brother update.
Regarding Linux, it was indeed Mint that I tried to use - it seemed similar to Windows, at least visually. Getting standard software was easy enough, and things seemed promising until I started to migrate my gaming. I mod my games a fair bit of the time, or play niche stuff that hardly has support on Windows. It became very apparent that Linux can’t handle that, not yet. In a couple of years I will revisit Linux.
I enjoy this headline writing style. Imagine if we turned “try these 7 tricks” headlines into “Dionysius I of Syracuse would like you to try these”
I would switch to Linux but I have yet to find a distro that recognizes my 5K monitor
Wow, I didn’t know that was an option, I thought we did 4k, then skipped to 6k and 8k. What’s the actual resolution on that thing?
5120x2880, it’s the same panel as the Apple Studio Display made by LG, just in a much cheaper chassis.
Windows 10??? I’m still using windows 8.1 lmao
At the moment I’m 50/50 between switching over to Linux full-time, or full booting Windows 10 LTSC.
But having had to use it for work, I am adamant in saying that Windows 11 will never touch my home system drive.
Linux
One of us, one of us, one of us.
Sword of Damocles? More like the sword of Microsoft can go fuck itself!
Pry it from my cold dead hands. I have linux on multiple computers, but it still can’t play all the games and give me my 5.1 surround. Despite all the claims, it’s still not ready for primetime to do all the things windows does.
What’s the issue with sound? I thought that was solved since… 15 years or so.
Can’t help with the games though, must anti cheat games won’t work without developer support. Do what you gotta do, but I’m interested in any issues that should be solvable with some config or swapping out a cheap card or something.
Can’t get the surround on my A50s. Yeah, normal stereo is fine out of the box.
Have you tried messing with either pulsesudio or alsamixer? https://askubuntu.com/questions/1304002/how-to-enable-5-1-sound-on-ubuntu-20-04#1304054
I personally just use stereo on my PC, but I’ve seen home theater setups w/ surround sound, so I know it’s possible.
I did try alsamixer. It just didn’t like something about the headset. I use an optical connection and a 3rd party surround card, so I don’t know if that’s the issue. It’s pretty much moot because the game I use surround on the most won’t run because of anti-cheat.
That’s too bad. If Linux becomes an option, please hop on a chat or something and I’m sure someone can get you sorted.
If I did anything other than use my PC as a glorified gaming console, I might care about w10 not being updated anymore. Until games literally can’t work on the OS, I’ll stay on it. And when they do stop working, I’ll probably just install Linux.
Linux
Join us, you know you want to.
They are gonna have to pry windows 10 from my cold dead hands. I was sold 10 on the premise that it was going to be “the last windows OS I would need”.
Fuck you Microsoft.
Except it isn’t even remotely a sword of damacles situation. 🤣
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age. My intuition says most people will be able to use Windows 10 for at least one more decade with minimal issues, after that it will gradually become trickier, but it will still be usable even in 20-30 years with advanced hacks if humanity doesn’t go extinct by then.
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age
Those people are called doctors and they deserve your respect!
“Powerful” probably wouldn’t be the word I’d use given that security updates have stopped. Maybe “foolhardy”?
Yeah, I don’t use critical software that doesn’t get security updates, and an OS is super critical.
If you’re going to stick with ancient software, at least throw it in a VM so it can’t screw up everything else (and don’t let it touch the rest of your network).
Seriously the posts on here make me laugh so much. Linux has never felt like more of a cult than since I’ve been on Lemmy… And I use Linux! But I also use Windows! I used Windows XP, 7 and 8 all well past their prime and will do the same with 10.
The whole point of the Sword of Damocles was that the threat was always looming and Damocles didn’t know when it might fall. We know exactly when Microsoft says they are going to drop support. There’s a decent chance that they’ll push that date back due to slow adoption at least once.
This is more about rats not fleeing the sinking ship until the sea has reached the bow.
Well, the real moment it becomes an issue is when a significant vulnerability is found after EOS. So I guess after EOS is when the sword of damocles starts hanging above every win 10 user…
Personally I’m on the edge of the ship just waiting to jump off once i have my new pc (probably next week).
With the shit they built into 10 I really would not be surprised if they put in a kill switch
“Sword of Damocles” like bitch we used service pack 2 XP for ever. “We won’t support something” means nothing if the original product was built right.
…Ohhh now I see the problem. Nevermind, everybody, carry on.
I know people still running XP sp3 (firewalled off the net) and it still does the job. They claimed to have killed 7 but between FOSS and enshittification pushback I reckon it’s gonna be like the PS2
More like rats not joining a leaking ship. I’ve been through enough windows upgrades to know: Don’t be the first! You’ll only end up paying to be a software tester for a product MS had to ship before it’s ready to keep the shareholders happy.
Don’t be the first one in the water after the shark warning …
