2024 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop, at least for my boyfriend. He’s running Windows 7 right now, so I’ll be switching him to Ubuntu in a few days. Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
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it is kinda wild that people abandon Windows 7 because of Steam and not because Microsoft stopped patching it several years ago
Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
I don’t think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
People don’t care about security until they get hit. Source: working in IT for 10 years.
And then suddenly they care a lot and do all the wrong things for wrong reasons because they know shit
“I don’t worry about missing security patches. I just have 5 anti-virus tools running simultaneously, they keep me safe.”
And all of the anti-virus tools are 50 updates behind so they’re essentially non-functional bloatware even moreso
Or those people who actively avoid patches in general, because “they make my device slow”
I mean, they do make your device slow. That why tools like InSpectre exists. For some old cpu’s like my notebooks one it can be up to 20% performance impact, so if you not planning to use it with internet (or at least as main access point via browser) ever again, why not get yourself free performance?
Effective immediately employees must update passwords every week, and cannot match any past password.
Managers will receive hardware security dongles to make their logins easier. Employees may feel free to register their personal hardware security dongles on site but off the clock.
Even IT people don’t give a shit about security until it’s way too late. Source: getting out of a job where the median age of a server is around 3-4 years old with no updates and runtimes hard installed outside repositories.
I think this is just kind of a side effect of capitalism.
If it’s costing them in the short term, and the results aren’t evident or won’t be seen until the long term, they almost always won’t do it.
No, it’s education.
Definitely. You see it across all aspects of life: basic misunderstanding of risk everywhere.
And I bet they blamed you when it went to shit
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Nvidia gpu drivers wont even install on win 7 anymore. That by itself causes huge performance issues on new games that have driver optimizations.
Probably the same story for amd drivers
it is kinda wild that people abandon Windows 7 because of Steam
There’s this certain subsection of Win7/8 diehards that absolutely confuse me. It’s one thing to keep using them on old systems, but I’ve seen a few people posting about their brand-new PC, equipped with RTX 4090s and 13th gen I9 processors, who are adamant on running those outdated operating systems as their only OS. Such a waste of money.
Nah I think it’s just that windows 7 and 8 was and still is quite literally one of those ones where it hit the sweet spot between good UI and UX and actually having huge range and compatibility straight off the bat. Plus everything was pretty smooth back then, but hell, nobody ever says how many viruses and dumb apps were floating around for Windows 7x32 and x64
I mean that’s true, but what what I was specifically referring to was those using top-of-the-line hardware, which you can’t properly utilize on those systems because the CPU scheduler isn’t optimized for modern CPUs and you can’t really make good use of the GPU either due to the lack of DX12. With that hardware you need Win10+ or a somewhat recent version of Linux.
It’s almost certainly a very small percentage of the already small percentage of people still running Win7/8, but I’m just stunned everytime someone brags about such a crappy setup.
I don’t think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
The way steam works for package maintainers is basically “ok we need at least kernel xyz+, graphics drivers, valve already packaged the rest”. Supporting it is trivial unless you insist on replacing libraries steam includes as runtime with your own versions, which you shouldn’t. It’s kind of its own user-level distribution in a sense.
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And yet the Deck uses Arch…
I don’t think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
I think they do by proxy since they only distribute it via .deb (and with Steam of course) and all games in the store that have a native Linux version mention some kind of Ubuntu version in their requirements as well. Which is funny since the Steam Deck doesn’t even run Ubuntu.
Valve releases Steam as Flatpak too
To be fair they’ve got enough market share to start a distro they got enough market share to be platform agnostic
They already have their SteamOS, which has 43% of the Linux market share on Steam (I guess almost all Steam Deck)
SteamOS isn’t included in the combined numbers, but comparing it to Arch which is only 0.15% of steam, the deck is <1% of the total.
I actually quite like the read only incremental update model of SteamOS combined with flatpak. It makes the OS a lot simpler and I rarely ever change the OS much outside of apps that I can install in home or with flatpak. And if you have special hardware, you are probably already looking at other distros anyway. There is enough choice.
Linus himself has been long advocating for something flatpak-like in general: One of his projects, subsurface, is not exactly of interest to most people for the simple reason that most people don’t dive, why should half a gazillion distros maintain their own packages? Distros should focus on the actual OS part and a full-featured DE, from document viewer to browser – stuff everyone needs, also the little stuff practically noone wants to choose, like, say, a desktop calculator.
Yeah, Windows 7 is very old. It’s definitely a concern. I keep him highly firewalled on the network so that hopefully he won’t get hacked.
I usually play on Debian, but when I contacted Steam for support regarding Proton, they said they only supported Ubuntu or Steam OS. Since Steam OS isn’t currently available for PC, that means Ubuntu.
Isn’t SteamOS based on Arch? Did I miss something?
the way SteamOS works is extremely different to how a regular Arch Linux runs so I wouldn’t really conclude anything from that
it just shows how little the underlying distro mattersIt’s based on Debian.
2.0 is debian based. 3.0 (the version on steamdeck) is arch based
All these people saying “use this or use that distro instead” is why Windows users don’t go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners because that’s a distro with a lot of tutorials online if not the most.
I don’t get what the fuck is the problem with Ubuntu anyway.
Edit: I mean I heard the reasons many times but they are completely non-issues for me.
It’s about Ubuntu behaving lightly like Microsoft with a closed source backend for the store, having had ads in the apps drawer, putting ads on the motd in cli with apt… It’s small things like these
Base Mint now is just Ubuntu but with bullshit cut out. My first and current one was actually Debian, but at this point I’d rather recommend Mint)
-Don’t let companies have any control over their products!
Least deranged Linux user
They are mostly more technical and architecture based issues. Also the model of the whole ubuntu ecosystem. At least for me.
There’s not really a “the problem”.
Canonical’s intentions don’t line up with what is best for the linux community.
But in the end of the day Ubuntu is still linux and it’s fine if Ubuntu’s tastw of linux is what you want.
I am back to Ubuntu now and I like how it just works out of the box. I might try some other ones later knowing I can go back to Ubuntu if I want to.
I somewhat disagree. Sure, telling windows users they have so many options will overwhelm them so it’s best to just give them 1 or 2 options. But telling other linux users who are about to put/suggest linux on someone else’s computer that there’s better options is good.
For example, let’s take Ubuntu pushing snaps. A noob won’t know what they are, and there’s good chances they will have a bad experience with them and not understand what they are, they will probably think it’s a Linux problem rather than an Ubuntu problem and there’s a good chance they will leave linux because of them. I personally learned the problems I was having at the start of my linux journey were problems with snaps only because I read it somewhere in the zorin discord server or something like that. If it wasn’t for that I would have thought it’s a linux problem. Tho this wasn’t easy information to find and I was already well on my way to becoming a Linux nerd and I was interested in learning more, but the average user, in my experience, doesn’t know/want to look these things up and if you try to explain to them there’s a good chance you’ll lose them halfway through (which is normal, package managers aren’t a fun topic) Telling a linux user about it and that linux mint (for exampel) may be a better introduction for their resident noodles doesn’t run the risk because they’re already a linux user.
I use Ubuntu for my VMs, and Snaps never feel bad. Why are Snaps bad? At this point, I am only aware that “Snaps are bad” because people keep parroting that idea. Is there an empirical benchmark that compares the “speed” (whatever that is defined as) of a Snap app vs other packaging formats? If there is a claim to be made, there should be evidence supporting it.
If we’re going by anecdotal data, then I have had fewer Snap issues than Flatpaks and Rpm. So technically, Snaps are superior, according to my experience. At that point, it becomes an anecdotal debate, which is meaningless.
for some people snaps work, for most they don’t. If they work, we all good, but when they don’t people will blame Linux for this issue. And that’s just snaps there’s a lot of shady bs Canonical is doing. Meanwhile we know Linux Mint’s packages, for example, work well and rarely has anyone complained about them. There are some benchmarks but that isn’t the main issue.
I showed him the thread, and he agreed. He was surprised by how strongly people felt about distros.
Personally, I think I never would have gotten as many comments as I did if not for mentioning the distro!
I dislike GNOME, but I would still recommend Ubuntu to anyone, because it just works. There’s no reason to recommend Arch Linux or openSUSE etc. if someone never used (GNU/)Linux before.
Yeah exactly. People expect beginners to know the distro for VoIP phones, when in reality all they need to know is how to install plain Ubuntu that is not a server.
All these people saying “use this or use that distro instead” is why Windows users don’t go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners
You literally did the thing you’re decrying in the very next sentence.
“The problem is everyone telling Windows users which distro to use. Which is why I’m telling them they should just use Ubuntu.”
No I did not. My actual opinion would be to recommend Nobara OS. What I did was agree with OP’s decision. It doesn’t matter in the end which they use but if someone is deadset on Ubuntu and you hear several people saying “pick mint” “no pick pop os” “no actually Debian” it becomes overwhelming. Agreeing with OP’s decision does not make me a hypocrite.
K
Don’t hate on Ubuntu. It’s a great starter distro for people who only know Win or Mac
It used to be, Snap ootb is remarkably horrible, I had a not-good internet plan and Snap drove me crazy with its updates, I could’ve settled fine if auto updates could be switched off, but nope, they’re shoved down my throat, I’d say Mint is a better starter distro
Snap has really bad performance and licensing. I like that it’s cross-platform and gives devs easier time to release software on Linux. (Flatpak is better, ofc)
I personally would recommend Kubuntu and Pop!OS if asked. However, think that people that think “I should probably install Ubuntu” should install it. There are a billion guides on how to do X on Ubuntu for non-tech people and people starting out on line might not know that everything Ubuntu based behaves more or less the same except for the KDE/Gnome/xfce. It’s also supremely stable on top of that.
I think as a community we shouldn’t judge people based on their choice of distro.
I use lubuntu on my 10 year old Laptop for work at the customers place, using VPN with strongswan to connect to my resources. At Home I use Ubuntu on my 7 year old Laptop. I REALLY do not understand the whole controversy. I use apt and can compile sourcecode to install Programms, I did not use the appstore at all. Is there something I did not realize as a plain user who has not so much knowledge about different distros? I personally like the gnome Desktop.
It’s pretty easy to disable snap entirely.
There are a couple of packages that I use the snap of. At least I’m the software store (not the stupid snap store) you can select which type of install you want to use. Sometimes there is an option for Deb, snap, AND flatpak in the drop down. Now that’s cool!
Is it a switch in gnome sw or settings? If not it’s not pretty easy
Linux Mint Debian Edition
Ubuntu is the entire reason why elderly parents have a functional PC. They didn’t need to know all of the negatives vs other distros and just needed the machine they have to work. It has been going strong for 5 years on 13 year old hardware.
I installed KDE for something more familiar and showed them where the internet, e-mail, and solitaire are. If you are the actual typical user and don’t need more, then there is no need to hate on any distro at all as long as it will boot and perform maybe 10 functions.
I’m pretty sure that this is because steam uses chromium as its backend and chromium new version doesn’t run on windows 7. It’s still not good because there are some games that won’t run on newer systems and therefore 7 is required for preservation.
As many of you pointed out, yes I agree proton is the answer if possible. YMMV
This is the actual reason. Steam officially said that: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-800A
This change is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.
Lol 0.06% usage in November 2023
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
There are more linux users than windows7 users.
0.69% (nice) on windows 7 64bit. That’s 0.75% total or 0.91% including windows 8 which is also dying. This is slightly under half of the linux user base according to these statistics
I think the 1.91 also includes the stream deck, but for some reason it isn’t included in the list (it is included if you select only Linux). It is about 5.5x Arch so around 0.8% of the total installs.
So the discontinue versions are around the same number as Linux desktop installs.
Missed that indeed. Weird sorting 😅
Win 7 64-bit handily beats any distro of Linux at .69% (nice). Comparing only to 32-bit isn’t a fair comparison. Not that I’m against using Linux, I use Pop_os on a spare computer as a Linux test bed for gaming.
Why are some Linux distros in scare quotes?
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There’s a bit of controversy regarding Ubuntu that I don’t need to get into but Fedora and Pop!_OS are also really good for Proton support. Ubuntu will work fine but I just prefer not to use it. Maybe you could let him try out the live environment for a couple distros to see what he might like in terms of UI.
And Mint as well
Yay Mint! But seriously, it’s an excellent choice for anyone switching from Windows. And I’ve been running Steam on it without any issues whatsoever.
Mint is a really good distro for people coming from windows 7 UI wise.
They also ripped out Snaps, which is half the performance problems with Ubuntu
I’ve had some random issues with Mint and Lutris that I haven’t had on Fedora. Otherwise it’s a great distro
Ubuntu has experimented with so much shit going in then being pulled out it’s a surprise she don’t have an anal relapse
I second popos and mint. I love fedora but if he is a gamer you want something that will just work (navida built in or a very easy one click mechanism to get it). If he has to research PPAs and installing rpmfussion it will get all too hard very quickly. Also do some expectation setting before hand, research what games he plays work on linux, better he finds out now rather than after 2 hours of pain or getting band for “hacking” because of proton triggered an anti-cheat thing.
Edit: I run fedora on all my machines except my gaming rig which is popos. Fedora works too but popos is hassle a free experience.
Fedora more or less just works. I followed, like, 5 simple steps on the top Google result for “installing nvidia drivers fedora” and that was all it took. No further configuration or fiddling required.
I’ve done it. I agree it can be done very easily. But is relying on all new users entering the right question into google and google returning a correct answer for their distro that is not 7 years out of date the best strategy in the long run?
Any distro that does not offer a option during install or on first boot to just install this stuff with a promt is not new user friendly.
Ublue-nvidia. Just works
Would Ublue be of any use to someone who uses AMD? I’m seeing it recommended a lot lately.
Yes I use it on Amd / Intel too
The project in general is huge. Checkout secureblue or hyprgreen, these all use ublue as base.
Really, ublue made Fedora more like Ubuntu with all the variants. Just a looot more modern.
I’ll have to give it a shot then, maybe on a VM or something. I thought it was mainly for specific configurations at first.
No its a toolbox (not the program) based on Fedora, with minor changes and improvements.
This is a great way to package stuff, as it means changes are done fully automated and scalable.
Ublue has maaany images, for more Desktops than Fedora officially supports (so they wont be as stable but they are there), including different kmods and rules for Asus, Framework, Surface, with or without NVIDIA drivers.
There are other projects using ublues tooling, like Secureblue, which is now in a well working state.
So its not only good for Nvidia but the shitty mess that is kernel modules and proprietary drivers, while being on a recent distro, can be tamed best in ostree and immutable snapshots.
If an update fails, you wont get it. And even if, you will have a rollback image that you can select on boot.
To be fair, steam reports less than 1% of users using windows 7. It’s not as big as we think.
Did that report include in the third world?
Yes, these are global stats, but as someone from the third world myself, I can say that most gamers around here resort to piracy, even though steam has gained a lot of popularity, so, only a fraction of us are included in the steam statistics, which would make such data not very representative.
Perhaps a better source for understanding software usage in the third world is data from statcounter. They show something around 3 to 5%, a much higher number. However, even this data can be biased, because they only count machines connected to the internet and who browse certain sites.
only a fraction of us are included in the steam statistics, which would make such data not very representative
And since not all users get the survey I imagine even this isn’t as accurate as it could be - I would guess at least.
Can’t they just automatically collect this data if the user gives permission?
In that case steam doesn’t need to send the survey to all users, but only to a randomized sample, and it will statistically represent the whole of steam users.
Good question, almost all of my country’s government PCs are still running Windows 7.
I don’t think they have steam installed on them.
You’d be surprised… 😂
I imagine governments are paying for the ESU packs if they’re still on Win7
That’s cool. I imagine I’m a billionaire.
hahahaha maybe in the US or Europe. Not here, lmao, luckily they are being maintained.
Yes… It’s anyone internet connected with steam, ie the people who this will affect
But steam has > 100 million active users. Even if it is less than 1%, it still is a huge number
Nah. It’s more, year of the piracy comeback
Have downloaded 10k songs in the last week, at 160GB so far, 22,000 total. Synced all to my phone with media monkey. Ditching any subscription services.
160gb in a phone? Thats pretty large storage for a phone
It shouldn’t be though.
Micro SD 512
or 1tb even
The price difference wasnt worth. 512 was sub $25, jumped to $100 for 1tb. This is a good start. It’s also all stored on a 15tb truenas.
No.
I’ve got a good fast fiber internet connection at home so I just host a Plex server and use Plexamp, which is a great app.
A lot of my music was ripped by me though, not downloaded, so my library isn’t as large as some other people’s.
That also helps linux. Tried watching something on someone else’s peacock account logged into Linux, and got an error. Checked Google to see if it was available. A free site had it, in better quality streaming too! We ended up using her computer, but I was kind of amazed.
my boyfriend. He’s running Windows 7
You saint.
Like others already mentioned, I would suggest Linux Mint as well. It’s better Ubuntu than Ubuntu and similarity to Windows UI would make his transition much better.
Seconded. Switched my wife to Mint two years ago, and she never cared about going back to Windows. Not that she cares about Mint, either; the point of contention was the transition, which was much smoother than she was afraid of.
The year of Linux was supposed to be somewhere in mid 1990-s…
The year of linux was 1991, since it was created there.
The only year when it peaked. Too bad it didn’t catch up to today’s standards.
What are you smoking? Linux is better in literally every way.
Oh yeah? Explain why I can’t run league of legends, valorant, Fortnite, R6 siege, PUBG, faceit csgo, destiny 2, fiveM and hundreds more games if Linux is better in literally every way? (your words)
And why did I have trouble setting up wifi and sound drivers? Why did a simple update break my whole PC so much I had to reinstall windows again? Why superusers™ are always disrespectful and condescending? Why are kernel developers so disconnected from reality? Do I really need 999+ distros for every use case?
Maybe, a big MAYBE year 2100 will be the year of the Linux desktop. For now, it’s better to just stick with what’s been working for the past 30 years.
Oh I’ll be stomped for criticism, because I threatened the holy open source. Come on, hack me using your terminal like some 90’s kid and prove me wrong. Or don’t. I don’t care 💅🏿😘
Obviously because those developers are specifically making that impossible. That’s not Linux’s issue.
Also I’ve played CSGO and R6 siege on Linux before with no issues.
Also valorant, Fortnite, and Destiny 2 are shit and made by companies that are practically hostile to environments they don’t have strict control with.
Why did you have trouble? Maybe because you suck. You don’t need to distro hop. Most of us do that for fun.
The real fact of the matter here is that you’re here to be a troll.
Actually it was around mid 2000’s when it matured enough as a desktop environment to be used by a regular user. Since then it has been improving, and for the last decade or so I dare say it is even easier to use.
Why not Linux mint? It is way more use friendly.
Also why on earth is anyone using windows 7 in 2023. I stopped using it to move to Linux back in 2016
I used Windows 7 in 2023. It’s the best windows that still ran stuff but obviously that’s changing. I made the switch in April and have been dumbfounded by just how great proton is at running all my games.
I’d love if Linux could do everything but I still keep a Windows laptop. Mostly because I don’t want to go forum diving to update the firmware on my synthesizers or exert effort into something that should be thoughtless and trivial.
Maybe use windows 10? If you are going to use windows at least use a supported build
I do, in VirtualBox. I have a 20 year old printer, and the drivers don’t work in newer Windows versions. I mean, at all. The installer crashes, and automatic driver installer only gets the scanner working.
Anyway, I don’t use Windows. It works on Linux. Kinda. In Linux Mint, I just can’t use high DPI, but I can scan, print, and see “remaining ink” just fine.
Manjaro is another story. Only “Normal Grayscale” works, hp-toolbox doesn’t even show the color cartridge. So I just use Windows 7 with the drivers as the heaviest printer driver ever.But when I have to use Windows (e.g.: at school), I prefer Windows 7. Windows 10/11 have really weird control, and they are SLOW. Also, when installing Windows 10 onto school computers, nobody bothered to install drivers.
I like the ThinkPad T440s laptops that are in one class. But after upgrade to Windows 10 they have some battery charging issues, and some of them just fail to boot from time-to-time. I use the last one with Windows 7 because it just works.You really should not be using Windows 7. If you need to for old software make sure it is isolated and doesn’t have network access. It is very insecure at this point.
Anyone who down voted pls explain…
I suggest an Ubuntu fork workout snaps, they are a headache to remove now
It doesn’t really matter for the average use though, most probably won’t really notice the app opening times and most Windows users will not care about the backend being closed source, coming from an entirely closed source OS. I will tend to recommend stock Ubuntu or Mint/PopOS at most because those actually bring some things to the table while being Ubuntu based, not being Ubuntu but with a different DE
I’ve been quite enjoying Mint as well. Granted, it’s been reeeal light use. But so far loving it. I’ve always enjoyed Debian distros. RHEL can kiss my butt. It was always frustrating to work with at work. I think Slackware was Debian? That was probably my first back in like 2004ish. Generally just works™
Nah, Slackware is just as old as Debian, and apparently SUSE branched off from Slackware. And it’s still around, although I don’t use it anymore…
most Windows users will not care about the backend being closed source
I’d have thought those windows users came to Linux because they wanted an open source OS though.
Lots of choices but I’d probably use Kubuntu if your boyfriend is new to Linux and you want this “official” Proton support (not sure that actually means much; Proton works very well on most distros). The plasma interface can be set fairly similar to windows for a newbie to feel comfortable.
It’s all just personal preference of course; I just find the Ubuntu interface annoying as someone who uses Linux and windows a lot. Personally I use Mint; very nice distro, good and stable, nice for newbies, and the default cinnamon interface is very windows like too.
If he wants something similar to windows, get Linux mint, it’s the best parts of Debian/Ubuntu but made modern. If you can do it on Ubuntu, you can do it in mint (like online guides cuz mint is based on ubuntu if you couldn’t tell).
Or KDE Neon. Basically Kubuntu LTS, but up to date KDE Plasma and no snaps.
I started with KDE neon and loved it. For me personally, the weird partial rolling release thing was really nice. I loved seeing YT people talk about the new KDE release and all of its bells and whistles, and being able to instantly play with it on release.
