[Sledgehammer]

Well, since you used Redhat before split happened (you're madman Forge), no wonder it was buggy as hell. As I said, that was in the past, now the times are different since community is now huge and is fixing every bug. I experienced no issues (well, at least I don't remember any), but I started to use Fedora since 2013.

MusicallyInspired, on 17 February 2017 - 04:57 PM, said:

They weren't "afraid" of anything. Gabe Newell got fed up with Microsoft's attempts to put up a walled garden environment with the Windows Store. SteamOS was also a part of bringing Steam gameplay to the couch, along with Steam Machines, the Steam Streamer box and Steam Controller.

Does it matter when in the end SteamOS is dead? This is quite sad, they then decided to cooperate with MS and then boom, no news about SteamOS, like it never happened. Well, at least it is another reason why I don't own SFV (Capcom promised to port the game to SteamOS and they said nothing about SteamOS for one year already).

Micky C, on 17 February 2017 - 05:08 PM, said:

IMO anything to chip away at Microsoft's apparent computer gaming monopoly is a good thing.

Killing MS monopoly is a good thing for obvious reasons, too bad that barely anyone is trying. It seems like after all MS themselves fucked up considering no one cares about DX12 since none is buying apps in Windows Store, making UWP apps is just not worth the money and I won't be surprised if many companies regret that they decided to work with MS (like Square Enix or Remedy). The same perhaps can be said about Xbone or their mobile business.

I wouldn't use "gaming" word though, they have no gaming monopoly and looking at their incompetence they'll never have it, although they indeed could in the past and can do that any time now as well. They're the least successful as a gaming company, Xbone division is bleeding money like crazy and if it was any other company Xbone would kill it.

Since SteamOS is dead, Vulkan is our only hope to kill OS monopoly, MS only the most successful business where they have monopoly, and I'm glad that even shitty companies such as Square Enix care more about Linux (they ported new Hitman recently). Also, can't wait for stable DX11 support in Wine.

[Micky C]

By monopoly I was referring to how most of the AAA devs develop for windows without regard for linux and macOS, besides the consoles of course. Ideally they'd set up a development workflow that would result in products that could work on multiple operating systems with minimal effort.

In fact, I'd imagine that macOS would be the easiest to develop for due to the limited set of hardware specifications allowing for maximum stability and optimization.

[Hendricks266]

macOS is less worth considering because 1) they don't support Vulkan, only their proprietary Metal and 2) they top out at medium-tier graphics hardware.

[Micky C]

We just can't win can we.

[Sledgehammer]

We can, we just need developers to support Vulkan and people to support gaming on Linux. Since Switch will be using Vulkan there are better chances that developers start to care about Linux. Well, if Switch won't be another Wii U which barely had third party support.

[Micky C]

Still, wouldn't that be easier if Valve was pushing SteamOS, like if they let devs keep an extra 1% of the profits or some incentive like that if they also develop for SteamOS? I admit the motivation might not be there on Valve's side since their microsoft fears didn't materialize.

However it looks like Valve is continuing to update SteamOS and hopefully won't abandon it any time soon. Who knows what might happen in the future, and it might be good for Valve to have it as a failsafe.

[Hendricks266]

There are marketing benefits to supporting Valve initiatives, in that you get more exposure on the Steam Store. SteamOS is one. Full Steam Controller support is another. SteamVR is a third.

[MusicallyInspired]

Valve tend to do things when they feel like it. That's why they haven't worked on Half-Life in so long; it's not exciting very many people. At one point they were excited about Linux so they really pushed it, another time they were excited about VR and did the Vive thing and even made a little VR Portal game. They're obviously working on something else right now. They'll always be maintaining it, though. I wouldn't say it's dead.

[Plagman]

Micky C, on 20 February 2017 - 02:13 PM, said:

Still, wouldn't that be easier if Valve was pushing SteamOS, like if they let devs keep an extra 1% of the profits or some incentive like that if they also develop for SteamOS? I admit the motivation might not be there on Valve's side since their microsoft fears didn't materialize.

However it looks like Valve is continuing to update SteamOS and hopefully won't abandon it any time soon. Who knows what might happen in the future, and it might be good for Valve to have it as a failsafe.

There's lots of pushing happening, and lots of work being done. It's just that there's a bunch more that needs to happen.

Just changes to SteamOS itself are the tip of the iceberg and not very relevant; technologies available to developers is one relevant axis, such as (but not limited to) the investment into Vulkan, with 15+ people working on spec/tools/infrastructure-related stuff on an ongoing basis in addition to just generally having helped make that standard happen. Another axis is game catalog availability: outside of game ports where Valve is directly involved (Rocket League, Street Fighter V, their own titles, etc), there's a lot of other titles where Valve is asking publishers, big and small, to tag along through various means, resulting in a game catalog you wouldn't otherwise see just looking at the numbers of the current Linux market.

Right now a lot of effort is being spent on SteamVR for Linux/SteamOS, in addition to these other things.

[NY00123]

So I'm finally considering an OS upgrade for the current PC for real, if not just a whole hardware upgrade.
Personally, I've been running Ubuntu 14.04 for ~4 years by now, occasionally adding this or that PPA for a few specific packages. I've also run earlier versions beforehand (this PC is from mid-2011).

This might be a good chance to see what have others gone with.

Note that I am really not interested in anything like a flame-war!

I simply want to see if anybody has some personal feedback. Eventually I'll make my choice, of course.

Out of the few choices I'm considering:
- Ubuntu 18.04 is being released very soon, so that's a natural choice. (I do realize I'll finally have to abandon the Unity shell for an alternative, be it GNOME 3 or anything else.)
- Fedora 28 is further expected to be released a little bit later.
- Similarly Linux Mint 19.
- Debian Testing or Unstable.

I do realize I might have enough to learn: From a different desktop environment, to an alternative to APT with DEB (DNF with RPM, Flatpak, Snappy?) and more. Hopefully this shouldn't be an issue for me.

In terms of support from vendors like Valve (for Steam), it looks like Ubuntu is the most sane choice, although luckily enough I can almost always get away from contacting support directly.

P.S. I do consider getting a new rig, too (I might actually have to do this), but it might be better to not get into this now (at least not yet).

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

[Forge]

If you want to stay with the deb system, Mint is a bit better than Ubuntu as far as getting the latest & greatest for video & hardware support.
If you want to try something else, then Fedora - for the same reasons, but a different base.

If you want stable, but slow to upgrade, then stick with Ubuntu - or Debian for even more stability and slower updates.


This should help, if you want to do comparisons on packages & research:
https://distrowatch.com/

[Person of Color]

I’d just like to interject for moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!

[oasiz]

GNU HURD !

[Poorchop]

I'm really not a fan of Ubuntu but it is a popular distro for a reason - Canonical tries really hard to shoot for mass appeal and for the most part, I think that they manage to pull it off. My biggest problem is that they try to do their own thing and whether by direct means or inadvertently, they end up imposing their ideology on other distros/developers. It's also a respin of Debian and I'd rather just stick to the source.

Debian however always confused me with its own package management and I also don't like apt. The packages in stable are older than ancient and I'd say it's more suited for servers and not desktops. I never understood their relationship with upstream and even if someone carefully explained it to me, I probably wouldn't agree with the decisions anyway. Mint is nice since it kind of seemed to be aiming for the same thing as Ubuntu but it's a respin of a respin and since I don't much care for Debian, I'm not too interested in its offshoots. Cinnamon is a damn fine desktop environment though. You can also easily use it in other distros.

When it comes to desktops, I've felt for years that the major players are:

• Fedora
• suse
• Arch
• Gentoo

Suse has pretty much been my number one choice since it was first released with Fedora coming in a close second. I also liked Fedora a lot for its old package manager (yum) but I can't stand the new one (dnf). Arch is great if you really want to tinker around with your PC a lot and treat managing your distro almost like a small hobby. It's nice for building up from the bottom exactly how you want your distro to be. I've never been crazy enough to try Gentoo because I'm not interested in building every little thing from source, but it's also good for fine-tuning with respect to your hardware.

In short, Arch and Gentoo are nice for techies. Fedora and suse are good mainstream distros for just jumping in and getting stuff done without much tinkering. Ubuntu is good if you're new to Linux or you just want to play it as safe as possible. Pretty much the same thing can be said about Mint. Stick with Debian if you're reading this from a cave while taking shelter from the dinosaurs roaming around outside.