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All of that sounds really awesome, but I think I still stand by the conclusion I had even if some/most of my assumptions were wrong, it might be too much for a new person. I get that for you it wasn’t, but I’ve also seen people whose first distro was Gentoo. The rollback to a working state feature is really cool and I definitely could have used that back in the olden days when I first started using Linux and broke my system periodically, but those were different times (be glad you don’t know what a Xorg file is hahaha).
Overall in theory it seems that Bazzite is a system I would like to use, but I thought the same of NixOS and couldn’t get used to it. But I’ll definitely try it in the future.
As an anecdotal point I have in fact ran rm -rf /etc in the past, you are correct that the system doesn’t boot (had to do a full reinstall that time). And as a completely unrelated note be very careful with pressing enter in the middle of typing a command, for example trying to delete a folder inside /etc hahahaha.
My experience with Bazzite is very limited, so I appreciate the corrections. Since you seem to know a lot about it let me ask you a couple of things:
- Bazzite is immutable, right? I’m sure I saw that somewhere and Fedora Atomic is also immutable IIRC
Assuming it is immutable:
- How does the config changes not get overwritten? The whole point of an immutable distro is to prevent changes to files to ensure things keep working
- How are packages installed? The docs you sent recommend flatpak, which while very good in theory still has a small fleet of apps available. Also they suggest using distrobox among other things, that’s definitely not beginner friendly, although an interesting concept for an advanced user to have your main machine be an immutable host to any system you want.
Regardless of that, yes one’s first intuition should be to go for the docs for your distro, but we know that’s not the case and that most people will just Google their problems with Linux in front because we keep telling them that all distros are the same (which they are, once you know what you’re doing).
I am fairly sure Gabe expected this, in fact I think he expected more. See, back when Windows95 was first released people were skeptical that Windows would be a good platform for gaming, they cited non-existent technical issues (similar to how they do with Linux now) that drove the employees at Microsoft mad, so one particular employee had the idea to port the most advanced game at the time to Windows, they contacted ID software, and got in an agreement that they would write the Windows port of Doom and give them the code back, ID agreed and after Doom was released for Windows more and more people started to port their stuff over since it was clearly possible. So essentially Windows being a gaming platform was only possible thanks to that employee, who after working with games liked it so much that he quit Microsoft to create his own gaming company which he called Valve. Yup, Gabe Newell is responsible for both Windows and Linux being seen as a gaming platform.
Isn’t Bazzite an immutable OS with very limited package availability outside of gaming? At least that’s what I remember from a while back. If so it’s an excellent distro for getting a Steam Machine just like ChimeraOS, but I’m not sure it would be a good experience for someone just getting into Linux, since most of the help he will get online will direct him to edit config files which would get overwritten on update.
For example, say the person wants to install Skype, or something that is not in the graphical UI store on Bazzite. Most guides they would find for Linux would tell him to add a PPA, or download a .Deb, or if he manages to find something that works it would be to download an RPM and they would need to redo it every update, or they could find a guide on how to install it via flatpak (but for that they would need to know what flatpak is) or snap (and go into a lot of troubleshoot figuring out why he doesn’t have snap). We take a lot of Linux knowledge for granted, but people using it for the first time won’t know all of this.
Yes, for you and me who understand what that means it’s just the same, but for someone with no Linux experience is going to be very different. Googling any issue he has will direct him to alter config files or install packages, neither of which would be permanent on SteamOS, while the OS is the same the usage of it is completely different, so for a person with no Linux experience to try to use it as their daily desktop system it would be frustrating because none of the help online would apply to him.
Don’t use SteamOS as a desktop OS, that’s not what it’s meant to. You might be used to Windows and think that a different distribution of Linux is just a different customization of the OS, but it’s almost an entirely different OS that happens to run the same binaries.
If you’re interested in getting an alternative to Windows, try some beginner friendly Linux distros on a Virtual Machine or an old laptop. I recommend Linux Mint to newcomers, but if you’re used to the desktop mode on SteamOS maybe Kubuntu. The closest you can get is Bazzite but that’s also not a desktop OS so I wouldn’t use that unless it was for a Steam Machine. The second closest (that’s also somewhat beginner friendly) is Manjaro K DE version, but being Arch based I don’t tend to recommend it to new Linux users, but of you’re dead set on getting something as close as possible to SteamOS that’s it.
Wine was in a great state, it just wasn’t integrated on Steam so it was clunky to get it working. Long story short Steam Machines only had a handful of games available (those with native binaries) unless you jumped through hoops to install steam on wine and launch steam from steam or something of the sort.
At the time we thought that the steam machines would make devs port their games, but that didn’t happen, so Valve invested heavily on Wine to make the games come to Linux regardless of the game devs. If Valve hadn’t invested most games that run today would still run, wine has always been an amazing piece of technology, their investment was mostly on a library called dxvk which translates directX calls to Vulkan instead of OpenGL, for technical reasons this was needed for any game that only supports DX12, but also gave some performance boost to other titles. I’m not trying to downplay Valve’s hand, dxvk was a much needed piece of the puzzle that Valve singlehandedly financed, not to mention all of the other stuff they’ve done that benefitted Linux gamers over the years, but if they had integrated wine on Steam without dxvk 99% of cases would be mostly the same (but that 1% are heavy hitters).
If you backed up your game folder yes you can. Most games on Steam have no DRM, so just copying the folder is enough to play it on another computer. Then there are badly implemented games which you would need to replace the steam library with an open implementation (which doesn’t involve cracking the game). And finally there are games with DRM which are not available on GOG so they’re irrelevant to the discussion.
This is a thread where someone claimed that you don’t own the games on Steam but you do on GOG, this is the comment the person was replying to:
In case of Steam.
With GOG I get an actual license key & terms that state my ownership.
So yes, that’s exactly what the person is saying. So the fact that GOG can’t remotely wipe your drive is a strawman fallacy, because neither can Steam, and the differences between GOG and Steam is what’s being discussed, so anything that is the same has no bearing on the discussion.
It depends on the game and how they handle steam, if they see steam as a requirement then the game is choosing to use steam as a very rudimentary (and easily bypassed) DRM. But this is more about lazy development than DRM, essentially they’re not expecting the steam APIs to fail, which is ridiculous considering they have non-steam versions, so a simple if statement would solve this issue. Also this paints those games in a very bad light to me, because if they’re doing that with some API call on steam they might be doing it with another and now the game needs to be online always.
There are plenty of multiplayer games that don’t require steam, iirc all of the paradox games you can just copy the folder to a different computer without steam and run the binaries.
And while not ideal, someone else pointed in another comment that there’s an open source implementation of the steam API, so worst case scenario you just replace the library in your backup and you’re done.
On most games yes, like I said before I’ve copied games from my computer to others to play in lan to convince friends to buy a game.
Then there are badly implemented games, where you need to either delete the steam library from the game folder or replace it with an open implementation.
And the rest are the ones that have DRM (which are not available on GOG anyways so they don’t matter for this discussion).
How is that different from backing up the game folder on steam? In both cases it’s true that:
- You’re not doing anything illegal at the moment you do it
- You can use it to play the game on a different computer (as long as the game is DRM free which is not granted on either platform)
- The company (Valve/GOG) can’t remotely erase your copy
- If the company removes the license from you your backup is now technically illegal but it’s unlikely to be enforced
I fail to see how GOGs approach is any different, they still sell you a license and you’re backing up the installer in case the license gets removed and/or you’re forbidden from redownloading the game.
No you don’t. You get the same license as you do on Steam, here’s the license btw https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/16034990432541-GOG-User-Agreement-effective-from-17-February-2024?product=gog :
We give you and other GOG users the personal right (known legally as a ‘license’) to use GOG services and to download, access and/or stream (depending on the content) and use GOG content. This license is for your personal use. We can stop or suspend this license in some situations, which are explained later on.
Which is very similar to Steam. In both cases you can keep the files you’ve downloaded on your machine, and on most cases you can copy those files to a different machine and keep playing it. GOG has better marketing on this regard, but they’re both very similar, neither enforces DRM nor forbids it entirely, although GOG does tend to be a bit stricter (but they still allow it) whereas steam is a bit looser but knowingly implemented a weak DRM and let’s you know in the game page if the game has any stronger form of DRM.
But the APIs are public, so they can be reimplemented in open source. There just hasn’t been any reason for it since currently that would only be used for piracy (in fact some “cracked” games have a mockup of the steam API that just returns the expected things as if it had contacted the servers). But the moment steam goes away I give it a couple of weeks until there’s a GitHub implementing most of the basic stuff.
the vast majority of the games I own on Steam can’t
People keep making this claim, but I don’t think this is true, I’ve made backups of lots of games, even played some in lan with some friends from just a single copy to convince them to buy the game. DRM has to be enabled by the developer, so the majority of games don’t do it, but also lots of games are badly coded and assume steam will be present so they fail to start without the steam library, but any game that’s released somewhere else besides steam probably will just work (and any game that’s only released on steam can’t be found anywhere else so they’re irrelevant).
You can’t also say conclusively that every LAN game on GOG is DRM-free on GOG either.
I read that other comment, that’s an issue with the specific game. I’ve played dozens of games without connection and not putting it on offline mode, if that specific game tries to phone home on login that game is wrong. I wished Steam would have a DRM-free tag to be able to differentiate them easily.
Never heard of that game, but I can definitely believe it, old games are where GOG really shines. But that doesn’t seem like a DRM thing, more like the game is abandoned on Steam but not on GOG, sometimes GOG patches some old games with their own runtime, curiously if that is the problem running the steam version on linux using proton (and especially proton-GE) is also very likely to work.
Not the person you’re replying to but there’s a big difference between: “We allow DRM, but don’t force it” to “We strongly oppose DRM, but allow it and even put it into our own games”. One is just business, the other makes you a hypocrite. And the issue with GOG is that they’re the latter.
See my other reply, they have allowed this much more than 4 times, and their own games have some form of DRM. Plus the amount of games with DRM on steam is much less than 99%, as a general rule if the game is on both platforms it has the same or equivalent DRM. So it’s essentially up to the publisher whether a game will have DRM or not, and because the vast majority of games have the same stance on DRM regardless of platform of purchase citing GOG stance against DRM becomes a moot point.
In short, games on GOG can have DRM and games on Steam can be DRM free. And as a general rule a game’s DRM stance will be the same regardless of store. So if you want to play game X and it’s available on both GOG and Steam, chances are pretty high that it is DRM-free on both, and if it has DRM on steam chances are pretty high it also has DRM on GOG.
the games I bought off GOG work, unlike Steam
Which games from steam don’t work? I’ve never had any issues at all and I have traveled internationally for years while playing my whole library. I think that might be something specific to some game and that game wouldn’t be available on GOG anyways so it’s a moot point. In other words games work or don’t by their own stance on DRM, and I’m sorry to tell you but
I love their strong DRM stance
That’s a myth. They do allow DRM on their store, there’s a huge thread discussing which games have DRM: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1
And that’s just focusing on SP, any MP game has DRM. So I’ll ask again, which game didn’t work on steam when traveling?
I can cite way more than 5 excellent games from this decade from the top of my head, We’re almost in 2025, so I’ll limit to games released in or after 2015:
- Factorio
- RimWorld
- Stellaris
- Fallout 4
- Overcooked 2 (and all you can eat)
- Life is Strange
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Before your eyes
- Dead Cells
- Shadow Tactics
- Cities Skylines
- The outer worlds
- Two point hospital
I can keep going, but this is just from the top of my head, there are always good games getting released, and very rarely they’re AAA.
I love the idea of the game, and started playing it. But realistically it needs you to commit to some continuous time otherwise you forget what you’ve learned, and I haven’t had the time yet. I played it for a few days, explored lots of places but didn’t learned anything, possibly I was looking on the wrong planets and trying to figure out how to do it right on that planet got frustrated because I didn’t have something that was needed, or something… But I do love the idea of the game, and I want to go in blind. But some of those puzzles can be really frustrating when you only have a few minutes per day and forgot all about them by the next time you try to solve them.
What issues? Who makes it out to be bad? As far as I remember everyone has always loved this game, it’s like saying “despite the issues with Fallout New Vegas, it’s not as bad as people make it out to be”, or Skyrim, or Red dead redemption 2, it’s the kind of game I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone complaining about it (except perhaps for the existencial dread caused by finishing such a good game and not knowing what to do next)
Depending on what you mean by casual, I consider Dead Cells a casual game, because whenever I’m bored I pick it up and play for a while, but it’s one of the hardest games I’ve played, however because it’s rogue like it doesn’t matter if you die a lot. Another similar example would be Factorio with enemies turned off, just go there, fix something, add something new and quit the game near the next thing you want to do so you remember it next time.
If you’re looking for a more traditional definition of casual games I tend to play those in the phone, I really like mini metro and super hexagon (although again, this one might not fit your definition of casual)
Steam also offers DRM-free games, and they don’t hide them behind a closed installer. I don’t like installers since they’re yet another moving part that can break, e.g. an installer built for windows 95 might not work even though if you were to extract the game binary from it it would work, so having an installer could make a game less compatible.
The ideal form of distributing games is compressed folders, I recognize this is less user friendly, but it is the format that most preservation effort uses (e.g. zip of a ROM, instead of an installer that installs the emulator+ROM like what GOG is doing).
I’m also not shitting on GOG, I believe they’re a good company, although I’m not their target audience since they refuse to sell me games I can play on my Linux machine. I’m all in favor of DRM-free and wished they would be more strict about it, that could convince me to buy some stuff from them. I did bought games from them in the past until I grew tired of almost no game having Linux compatibility and them not offering an official client, plus I noticed that some games had DRM and that was the last straw for me, because of I’m going to be buying maybe DRM-d games, might as well do it while giving money to a company that cares about my use-case.
I think GOG should be praised for some of what they do, particularly by their anti-DRM stance (even though they’re not 100% behind it). But what annoys me is that people seem to praise them as if they were doing this amazing work that no one else is doing, when most of the stuff people get overly excited about is just a marketing move and Steam is usually doing much better work in that regard, but is usually cited as the bad guys by the people who drank the GOG Kool-aid.
The pictures are different, so it’s hard to evaluate them the same. Objectively the bowtie makes it all too crowded around his face. On a more subjective note, it might be because of the lighting, but the necktie looks like a distinguished gentleman, whereas the bowtie is giving me serial killer vibes.