With the widespread support for Steam/Valve on this forum because of their contributions to making Linux gaming easier, I’m now confused as to why people here are using Linux in the first place.

I personally do so out of support for FOSS software, the customizability, and actual ownership of software, which I thought were most people’s primary reasons for using any Linux distro. Steam seems antithetical to all of these. The software in the first place became popular as a form of DRM, and it gets publishers to use it for the allowance of DRM on the platform. The Steam client has the absolute minimum customizability. Your account can be banned at any point and you can lose access to many of the games you have downloaded.

Whenever I game on Linux I just use folders to sort my game library and purchase any games I want to play on itch.io or GoG. On my Linux PC I stay away from clients like Steam because I want a PC that works offline, and will work if all of my accounts were banned. It’s more of a backup PC.

Since Steam has every characteristic of Windows, 0 customizability, DRM, plenty of games that are spyware, I see no reason to really not use Windows instead for the much easier time I can have playing games.

Yes, I prefer many of the features of Linux distros, but using a client like Steam defeats the purpose of them. Ridiculous storage requirements due to unoptimized dependencies, having to have a background client running for some games and wasting resources on doing so.

So, why use Linux and support Steam, or use Linux and use Steam?

  • @okamiueruEnglish
    4•11 months ago

    What is it you want to know? “why do you use Linux” seems like it assumes something about what you might want to know.

    Like, why Linux and not MacOS/Windows? Or, what are the Linux specific stuff you use it for? And when you say “Linux”, I’m sure you don’t mean the kernel, but likely Linux kernel + some package manager + some window manager?

    The answer to a lot of these things are true statements for me, but will come across as incredulous. They are:

    • Gnome is a more consistent user experience over both MacOS and Windows. Gnome 9/10, MacOS 4/10, W11 3/10.
    • It is the actual “just works”. (the list is looong)
    • It’s much more usable for power users.

    Are the main ones. I cannot think of a single thing either MacOS or W11 does better, that isn’t “well, you can run X software on it”, which is a fair argument and likely a valid deal breaker for many use cases/professions. But also not really the fault of the OS. And there are many, many reasons why MacOS and W11 are a pain to use.