7 years later, Valve's Proton has been an incredible game-changer for Linux
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Sourced facts nonetheless
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macOS has been free for, like, 15 years.
Yes, you have to already own an Apple computer, but Apple users don’t pay for OS upgrades.
Technically, anyone could download the OS images, but there’s not a lot that non-Apple users can do with them.
macOS is included with every Mac, not free.
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Fortunately Valve publishes monthly hardware statistics so we can back claims with statistics. Linux comprises 2.89% of their surveyed share. Of that 28.31% are using Steam OS. Using the wayback machine we can check the statistics from last year. Checking the July 2024 results using the Wayback Machine shows Linux at 2.08% with Steam OS comprising 40.97% of that.
From that we can see that Linux is growing, while Steam OS is becoming less of a contributing factor to the Linux share.
the deck is a gateway drug for linux
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Yeah, the big reason to do that was so you could attach an EGPU which wasn’t supported natively. Now it is, though, so the need for that mostly disappeared. Plus, macOS is now so reliant on proprietary interval hardware like the T2 chip, then I won’t run on anything, but Apple hardware.
The big reason to make a hackintosh was to use eGPUs?
eGPUs were not supported natively? And now they are?
What timeline are you talking about here? Is it all back 10-6 years ago?
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macOS has been free for, like, 15 years.
Yes, you have to already own an Apple computer, but Apple users don’t pay for OS upgrades.
Technically, anyone could download the OS images, but there’s not a lot that non-Apple users can do with them.
Anybody can download Windows images too. That doesn’t mean the OS is free.
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I've tried switching to Linux on my home desktop several times over the last 3 decades, but because I always use that machine also for gaming it always had some Windows in a dual boot configuration and I always found myself not really booting Linux more than once in a while.
Since my last switch, maybe a year ago, even though Windows is still there in duat boot, I've only ever booted it once and that only to move some data files which were in the main windows partition over to a data partition I have in a seperated drive (were most of my data files already resided but a few were still elsewhere) so that I can cleanly share it between both OSes.
Whilst I know more than enough to muck around with Linux and Wine configuration (and for example had to do the latter to get a pirated version working of a game I have in Steam whose official version won't run in Linux no matter what I do), it's very seldom that I actually have to do it (and I don't just use Steam with Proton but also Lutris with Wine for GOG games), whilst in my previous try maybe 5 years ago getting anything but DOS games to run under Linux was a major PITA.
There are the obvious options that can't work due to the general mode anti cheat software, but over the past 1.5 years, I've only had a couple of steam games where I had to tweak something because it didn't work out the gate. Every major title I've played worked first try.
I tried Linux a couple times over the bast 20+ years and it was still too raw for me. Now, it just works for me. I'm by no means a Linux guru but I am a computer smart guy. I setup a laptop with Mint for my brother who knows the bare minimum about computers, and he's had no issues using it. The progress made over the past decade has been wildly positive.
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Proton is the reason I daily drive Linux. That is a simple, unequivocal fact.
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This is what finally let me transition to Mint :3
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Anybody can download Windows images too. That doesn’t mean the OS is free.
I never said it did.
macOS is free because they don’t charge for it.
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The big reason to make a hackintosh was to use eGPUs?
eGPUs were not supported natively? And now they are?
What timeline are you talking about here? Is it all back 10-6 years ago?
Maybe, because I haven’t looked into it in a few years.
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macOS is included with every Mac, not free.
Well, then show me a receipt where you (or anyone) paid for macOS. Should be interesting.
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Maybe, because I haven’t looked into it in a few years.
Ok, that makes a bit more sense then.
eGPUs got pretty good support on Intel Macs in the years leading up to Apple Silicon. And that transition started 5+ years ago. And now all Apple Silicon Macs have no eGPU support.
I find it weird that you cite eGPU support since hackintoshes almost always have PCI slots. And the eGPU support still comes from Apple (at the driver level) even on a hackintosh. AFAIK.
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the deck is a gateway drug for linux
I think if Valve would release SteamOS 3.0 for PC that would make a bigger dent in Windows. TurboTax just announced they will not support Windows 10 for the new version and that's probably just the start for Win10 abandonment.
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In my experience, it's not actually Proton specifically but more generally Wine along with DXVK and Vulkan itself.
I have as good a success rate with Windows games from GOG under Wine through Lutris (which also defaults to using DXVK and Vulkan plus has Wine configuration scripts for most GOG games, making their install fully automated and zero-configuration) as I have with Windows games from Steam under Proton.
If I understand it correctly, Proton is mainly a fork of Wine with Steam integration thrown in and changes to make sure it works with specific Steam games, so I don't think the improvements are Proton specific, but rather more global than that (the use of Vulkan instead of OpenGL, DXVK allowing DirectX games run with Vulkan, Wine improvements).
Mind you, if improvements in Proton are flowing to those other projects and having a big impact, then credit were credit is due for Proton pulling up the whole ecosystem, otherwise Proton isn't actually as crucial in improving Gaming on Linux as seems to be portrayed in so many posts here.
I can understand that if all people have used for gaming in Linux is Steam and never games from other digital sources - like GOG or even pirated games - via launchers like Heroic or Lutris, it might seem like Proton is the secret juice making gaming under Linux nowadays a vastly better experience than before, but in my experience in the last year of gaming in Linux, a good laucher using Wine + DXVK + Vulkan works just as well as Proton.
Proton developers are working on Wine code. Their patches go upstream. If you are using Wine, you have benefited (massively) from the sea change that has occurred (directly and indirectly) as a result of the development of Proton.
I remember the naysayers predicting that Gabe would never in a million years make the required investment because the state of Linux gaming was (in their assessment) that terrible.
And now we're having argue about whether it actually did anything for us? In the comments about an article about how much it did for us?
That's not an argument I'm having, I watched it happen.
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I think if Valve would release SteamOS 3.0 for PC that would make a bigger dent in Windows. TurboTax just announced they will not support Windows 10 for the new version and that's probably just the start for Win10 abandonment.
does turbotax support linux?
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Proton is the reason I daily drive Linux. That is a simple, unequivocal fact.
Not me! I switched in 2017, right around the time Windows 10 "telemetry" (read: spyware) was getting backported to Windows 7.
It was a rough first couple of years, gaming-wise, but I managed to get by playing mostly Linux-native games and using PlayOnLinux with pre-Proton WINE for the one or two games important enough to justify the hassle.
(INB4 "weird flex but OK")
I gotta admit, I was pretty conflicted about Proton when it was first announced, since there was a lot of fear that it would reduce developer impetus to make proper Linux-native games. I'm not actually sure whether that came to pass or not, but I feel like the issue is a lot less important than it seemed at the time.
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Proton definitely existed before the Steam Deck was released.
Proton had its initial release in 2018. I was using it on a linux desktop in 2019.
The Steam Deck came out in 2022, after ~4 years of Proton improving from masses of desktop/laptop users running everything possible through it on all kinds of hardware to (auto) generate bug and crash reports for Valve (and others), who then of course actually developed it up to... I think Proton was at either 7 or 8 when the Deck actually came out, now we are on 9, 10 will probably come out of beta and be official Steam default by the end of the year.
.........
Also, Proton was not created as part of the Steam
BoxMachine, that was way earlier, back in 2015.Also also, the 'Steam Machine' was really more of just a minimum spec requirement than a specific product, the idea was to try to get other manufacturers to take their own crack at the concept, got a small amount of buy in, but not much.
Ah cool, thanks for looking all that up. I knew Proton pre-dated Steam Deck, I just wasn't sure exactly where in the timeline it fit between the original Steam Machine launch and the release of the Steam Deck.
It's kind of a shame that Steam Machine failed, but in many ways it was a little too ahead of its time and its failure brought us to the Steam Deck which is a much more sensible approach.
Ultimately none of this would have existed without Wine and ironically the Microsoft app store (or whatever they're calling it these days). The threat of MS getting a stranglehold on program distribution on Windows the way Apple does on OS X and iOS was enough to spur Valve into putting significant effort into making Linux a viable gaming platform, something we're all benefitting from greatly.
People seem to be downplaying somewhat how significant an achievement this is for Linux. The thing is, for most programs you can find alternatives because the point isn't the program it's what you do with it. People don't use Photoshop because they enjoy Photoshop, they do it because they want to create something, which means if you can create that same thing using a different program then you don't need Photoshop. On the other hand games are an experience. The point is the game. Sure you can play a different game, but that's not an Apples to Apples thing as the experience however similar isn't the same. That means games are uniquely placed as a roadblock for migrating away from a platform, something consoles with their exclusive releases have known for a long time. Giving people the option to play the exact same game under Linux as they can under Windows is massive because there really isn't any other way to solve that problem.
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Well, then show me a receipt where you (or anyone) paid for macOS. Should be interesting.
As they need to be installed on Apple hardware, there's an implicit cost associated with it.
If you want to be super pedantic for no reason, you're correct, it is technically free.
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Proton developers are working on Wine code. Their patches go upstream. If you are using Wine, you have benefited (massively) from the sea change that has occurred (directly and indirectly) as a result of the development of Proton.
I remember the naysayers predicting that Gabe would never in a million years make the required investment because the state of Linux gaming was (in their assessment) that terrible.
And now we're having argue about whether it actually did anything for us? In the comments about an article about how much it did for us?
That's not an argument I'm having, I watched it happen.
Well, credit to Steam then.
I didn't know one way or the other if Proton development ended up in Wine or not, much less if Steam was or not directly participating in Wine development, all I knew is that Proton was forked from Wine in the beginning.
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macOS has been free for, like, 15 years.
Yes, you have to already own an Apple computer, but Apple users don’t pay for OS upgrades.
Technically, anyone could download the OS images, but there’s not a lot that non-Apple users can do with them.
This is a dumb argument. Apple does provide you the OS upgrades for free but getting an ISO file and installing it on a non-Mac computer is impossible so no it's not really free
