Feral Interactive Wish To Know Why You Game On Linux

As much as I hate repeating what's already been said, my reasons are the same as many people here.

The basic question: Why do I game/want-to-game on linux? Linux is my primary desktop OS. I have no desire to dual-boot, run a second computer, etc exclusively for gaming. It's a waste of money/power/etc. So, given the choice, I prefer to game on linux. More recently, with the rush of games natively running on linux (and BIG thank yous to Feral, among others for their efforts here), there has been less and less need to have that other-install.

As others have mentioned, my preference for linux is driven by a number of factors, but not the least of which are the freedom and the security. I don't mind paying for software at all, but I appreciate having the freedom to adjust things the way I'd like. I, too, have issues with Unity and choose to run Cinnamon instead, and will never use Windows 8 because I *can't* make that kind of modification.

Because when I use Linux, it feels like it really is my machine.

I do whatever I want and I don't feel borders beacause MS don't want you to do this or that because they want you to buy, buy, buy...

It's all about Freedom!

I turned my Ubuntu 14.04 with Unity (desktop that I prefer) into a Steam Machine (Steam login) and a XBMC center (XBMC Desktop). Do whatever you like and don't wait for any authorization from anybody. I got complete control over MY pc. I choose what I want in it and what I don't want.

Since the realease of Steam for Linux, I turned all my pc into Linux systems. The Linux catalog totally meets my needs for gaming. I don't miss Windows at all.

Anyway, for me having to pay for an OS feels like having to buy the key that will start my car... It doesn't feel right.

Reasons I use linux in general:

• I'm cautious about software I can't read the source code for. I don't care when it's games or video players, or really anything related to entertainment and hobbies; but I really prefer to be able to read the source code for the full stack going from kernel, to GUI, to window manager, to code editor or web browser.


• It works how I want it. I love Enlightenment's interface, and how navigation works. Being able to switch focus from one monitor to another with a keybinding (I use ctrl+shift+right and ctrl+shift+left), switching window focus with mouseover (so that I can have a semi-transparent window in front of the window I'm typing in, with details on what I need to type), and multiple virtual desktops per monitor (i.e. when I switch to another virtual desktop, it only switches in the monitor I'm currently focused on) - Windows can't do the majority of that, and these are only *some* of the features I use to make software development more efficient.


• It's faster. The difference is noticeable in everything from having several hundred tabs open in firefox or chromium, to playing 1080p videos from an XFS partition, to running a compiler.


• Back when I used Windows, I attempted to do some customization - adding themes, changing the window manager, etc. I ended up getting a *lot* of bluescreens of death.


• NTFS has lost my data before (back in university, it got nice and unrecoverably corrupted just before I printed off a 10ish page paper).

Reasons I use linux for gaming, specifically:

• If I have to reboot just to play a game, I'm not going to do it. I tried, believe me. Dark Souls 2 doesn't really work too well with Wine, and that is my fourth favorite game/series, right after Vagrant Story, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and the Legacy of Kain games. So I grabbed a copy of Windows, installed it, and played Dark Souls 2 for about 30 hours. That's *nothing* compared to the amount of time I put in to Demon's Souls; but I just got sick of rebooting. I really want to play it more, but with all the linux games showing up these days, I end up choosing to play a linux-native game, rather than rebooting.


• I've mentioned that it's faster, right?


• It's faster.


• Software RAID on linux is faster than any cheap hardware RAID out there (including nearly every RAID chip embedded on gaming motherboards).


• Linux has *much* better multithreading support. We've been working with multiple processors for decades.


• Put simply, there are many reasons that linux runs almost all of the world's supercomputers.


• I bought and installed a custom liquid cooling system so I could get my FX-8350 to run at a little over 5 GHz. I don't want to negate all of that by running an OS that uses up tons of CPU time and RAM all on its own, without any other programs running.

In the end, it mostly boils down to the fact that linux is far more efficient for me for software development, and since I program whenever the fancy takes me (I'm a work-from-home contractor, so I make my own hours), I don't want to split my computer between work and non-work. I have one monitor completely dedicated to emacs (which I've modded to the point where it's pretty much a full fledged IDE, minus the slow startup time) at all times, so that I can work on solving problems any time an interesting solution hits me. If I had to reboot every time I wanted to work on a problem, I'd never have gotten to the point that I'm at in my career.

Being a long time Linux user (and I mean long) I want my gaming happening there too.
I really look forward to the Steam (roller) machine getting up to speed. That would hopefully increase the size of the eco-system to bring more big titles, not that I'm complaining how things are currently progressing but I think Linux has some ways to go before critical mass happens.

Linux is like grilling a burger... You can season it just the way you like it, put your favorite cheese on it or have no cheese, add your favorite condiments, and at the end you have a burger you love more than any other burger.

Microsoft's Windows (any version) is like a burger from a fast food joint... You have to pay more for what you get, you get what they make you, you don't always get the condiments you like, the maker doesn't really care about the burger... only that it sells, and at the end of the day everyone it trying to make you eat this burger.

That is why I choose Linux over Windows and would like to fully replace Windows with Linux for all gaming instead of just most gaming.

Linux is really fast, lightweight and reliable, even with the heaviest desktops like KDE. Thus it is free (as in beer), which is important to me in order to avoid PRISM-crap. (though the problem is that the NSA seems to have introducted flaws in protocols directly) On my 5 years-old box it still runs well while Windows 8.1 (on dual boot) is damn slow.

And yes, I definitely prefer playing on my favourite OS, instead of having to reboot.

Proprietary operating systems like Windows and Mac are so painful for me to use, that I would not be using computers much if something like Linux had not come along. When I go against my normal policies and try to help someone get something interesting done on Windows or Mac, I normally end up getting frustrated and giving up. Basically, I hate "black boxes" that you have spend a ton of time reverse-engineering in order to understand! An open system like Linux is comparatively so inviting for someone who wants to learn, experiment, and customize.

I always spend a bit of extra money buying computers that have Linux pre-installed, so that my money is going to support people in our Free Software community instead of any money going to the control freaks at Microsoft or Apple. There is no extra copy of windows lying around, so dual-booting for some super-special windows-only game is not even an option.

Linux is...

1. REAL freedom. You can change, share, improve, contribute, build your own, ...
2. Free. You don't need to pay for it.
3. Leader in server market.
4. Leader in virtualisation (VMware, Xen, KVM, ...). MS Hyper-V is a bad joke compared to them.
5. rock solid.
6. user friendly. In normal circumstances there is no need to install a driver (gaming excluded).
7. easy. Be open minded and you will realize it.
8. doing the job. Yes, forget MS Office, Adobe, ... there are plenty apps doing the same job and better.
9. everywhere when it comes to security, availability, failover, business critical systems, ...
10. my favourite. I use it over 20 years now at home and job.
11. under YOUR control and not the other way round.
12. fast.
13. slim.
14. up-to-date.
15. ...

I love the customization and automation offered by linux. The control one have over linux and great application base can not be found anywhere else. Linux is my first OS choice by FAR. So yes, I play on linux because i am not really keen on other os'es. Rebooting is tiresome and right now breaks my hearth -- to turn off my bellowed system and turn on some s*** :>. On the other hand for me playing in VM is just ridiculous.

"Why I game on Linux" is, to me, like asking why I chose Linux to begin with. Why it is my OS of choice both in private and at work.

For me it's the freedom. The freedom to config your system to look and behave how you like, the openness, the wonderfully complex and organic nature of something as decentralized and in many ways chaotic as the Linux platform. Oh man, it's such a gorgeous beast.

I also love the professionalism at the core. The enterprise solutions. The way Linux defines and shapes the entire backbone of the IT industry. The many great companies that base their products and services on Linux.

And of course, the Linux community. There's rotten eggs here too, by all means, but overall I just feel that the Linux community is quite a few notches more intelligent than the rest. In all humbleness. :)

And finally, GAMING on Linux is awesome simply because I use Linux at work and at home, and having to reboot into that fugly Windows partition to play a game has never appealed to me ever, and even less now.

It's just so god damn awesome to see it finally happen, after all these years. I still have to pinch my arm on a regular basis.

And hey FERAL: You guys ROCK! Your Xcom port stands out as quite possibly the best port to Linux yet. Cheers!

I dont have a twitter account, and 140 words would not be sufficient to reply properly.

Why do I game in linux?
Strange, and offensive question is this.

The simplest reply I can imagine is: "why should not I, play on linux?"
And that would be enough reply.

But the question itself, makes me wonder, why some company wants to know this.
Why should one have to apport reasons, to play a game in a given platform.

To try to discover the intentions behind the question, I have made an exercise of imagination, and have figured the question in two possible scenarios. In two possible worlds, where that question would have meaning to exist. After all, if we ignore the context of the world we live in, the question would be unnecessary.

Lets assume first, that we are living in a world, where we can choose to use the operating system we want.

In this wordl, everyone should be free to choose his operating system, and the entire world's game catalog, would be available to every OS.

So here, if one chooses a Linux operating system, he will play his games in linux. This question is so plain, that's just something obvious. I mean, I use linux, and others might use some different OS. In this world, that question would have one real meanning, wich is: why do you like linux at all, over different os.... But you havent asked that. You have asked a different thing, so lets move to another context.

Lets assume now, that we live in a different world, where we must not have the right to choose. We must have the illusion we can, but cannot, in the very last, because one of the available Operating Systems, has monopolized the game market so badly, that it is the only one most people use, and that has all the gaming catalog exclusively.

In this world, that question has much more purpose of existance, but the real question you are making instead is:

WHY THE F*** ARE YOU MOVING AWAY FROM THE DOMINANT OPERATING SYSTEM, everyone's been using for so long, and have changed to linux?

Well, then, only for your market study, the best short answer I can give you is this:

I have been using a different OS before, because I have been forced to, but at the moment I can choose a different one, cos my prefered games/apps are finally compatible, I will, because I HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH MONOPOLYS

I have liked this question a lot. Because this is an indicator. An indicator that, with more of 400 linux games on steam and counting, the TIME has finally come.

Finally. One monopoly is about to fall.

Written this from my only windows windows machine, I have to use to learn UE4, until the editor can be used in linux.

I'm positive all of my reasons have been posted by page 4.. but ill contribute anyways.

1.) I use linux for everything else.
2.) I use linux for everything else.
3.) see reasons 1 & 2
4.) windows has severly gone down hill in the last decade-ish. It's bloated and resource heavy when doing nothing but being there.. which actually translates to worse performance for gaming when compared to linux. Wolfenstein: The New Order runs better at higher settings in WINE than it does on it's native platform for me. Crazy I know...
5.) this one kinda coincides with #4, customization! windows is bloated because it tries to be "one size fits all". With linux I can make it as streamlined and small as I want, for instance my laptop which eats about >400mb of ram sitting idle in XFCE. Or it can be as a multi purpse work horse with multiple WM's and DE's with specific uses. For me that is XFCE, tweaked out to create my beautiful desktop. Then I have a very basic openbox setup JUST for gaming.
6.) Being able to shutdown everything except TTY1 and start games in their own X server, thus giving them the whole machines resources.

Show me a windows desktop this awesome looking that isn't using a ton of bloated 3rd party "customization" apps that only half work and are NOT free and break with windows updates all the time...

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I game on Linux because I use Linux. I use Linux because
1. faster and smoother
2. lots of choice in programs and DE
3. open source
4. less to worry about security since blanket viruses/worms/malware don't target Linux
5. after 4 years it still runs at the same speed without having to reinstall the os (unlike windows)
6. console in widows is horrible and can't even come close to bash in number of functions
7. it takes a week to recover from a hard drive failure to make windows usable, in Linux I have a text file of all the commands to install or compile all the programs I use and it takes a less than an hour to get my desktop back to the way I want it


n-1. Linux sounds cooler than Windows
n. (absolutely the last reason) it's free

Because i don't want to buy a entire OS (Windows) just to play games.

Everything else was well explained by everyone who replied here.

BTW, thanks for XCOM:EU/EW! Awesome game. =)

Why I GAME on Linux:

Software Considerations
I haven't used windows in 16 years. I'm a Linux user.

I use KDE for work even though it's bloaty, the benefits brought on by all that bloat are flexibility, options, features, and many things I can use to craft my desktop to make me productive.

I use GNOME for non-techy users, so people whom I support (e.g. my family) can use Linux without too many sharp edges and dark alleys.

I log out of whatever, and switch my desktop to LXDE to game.

LXDE is by far the best ratio of low-use-of-resources to desktop-features/functions.
LXDE is not a compositing window manager, so my GL resources are free for gaming.
LXDE is perfect, as such, for gaming.

Hardware Considerations
For the money I would have to sink into Apple hardware I can build a MUCH beefier gaming rig for Linux.

The money I save not purchasing Windows for my beefy gaming rig goes RIGHT into the next level up of CPU or Video card or PSU or something that'd I'd otherwise have to sacrifice to software licensing.

Conclusion
I'm gaming under Linux because I am a gamer, and I am a Linux user. It's not worth it to dual-boot, it's too much money to get on the OS purchasing treadmill..

A computer operating system as a product is a ridiculous idea, since it limits both the gamer and the developer.

Linux isn't any weirder than whatever the Nintendo Wii runs, or whatever Sony Playstations run, so why wouldn't developers choose Linux? After all, the Wii's and Playstations and OSX's and Windowses of the world will all change at the whim of their parent companies, depriving gamers and developers of long term viabilities. Linux will not unforseeingly pull the rugs out from under our collective feets, and as such presents a much more logical platform for game development and enjoyment.

Inevitable Ideological Conclusion
Everyone who embraces Linux embraces it because they can be a part of it, and not because they are a part of some Hook-Line-&-Sinker marketing advertizing product campaign of great capitalism. If you like Linux or you choose Linux, its because you can, not because it was sold to you. Nobody can out-maneuver Linux, or out-market Linux because it's never for sale, there are no commercials for it. If you don't like Linux, that's OK too. Linux doesn't care, Linux doesn't have a customer service department ready to take your complaints into consideration.

Linux is only ever what energy you put into it. Fortunately, the return on that investment is stability, flexibility, transparency, security, increasing ubiquity, supportability, control, longevity, and now MOAR GAMES! :D

I game on Linux because it's my operating system of choice. Don't have a Twitter account.

For me:

1) It's free and Open

2) The community. You help ppl, ppl help you and knowledge is created (feels awesome)

3) Linux centralized updates. In Windows every single program has it's own updater. Very very inefficient.

4) File System. I simply hate how things are dealt in Windows. "Something is not working? Well backup, format and reinstall". As for the file systems itselves, in windows the system will get slower over time no matter what. I've never had a Windwos system which endured more than 2 years without formatting.

5) Virus / Malwares / etc. 95% developed for Windows. Enough said. No antivirus needed more resources.

6) I'm in charge in my Linux System. Everything I use is there cause I wanted it to be. The funny part is that I know ppl just don't care about it, but once you taste Linux freedom you won't be able to go back to the cage never again.

7) The all dev's may think a close/proprietary is okay until somebody comes and say "hey, for now if you wanna distribute your software in my store you have to gimme 30% of your income. DEAL WITH IT"

8) As Liam brightly said with Linux and OpenGL we have our hardware features release with the system updates. There's no "DirectX 11 only on Windows 8" bull$%!. You bought your damn hardware who the hell is Microsoft to lock your hardware capacity?
Actually I think this is the big reason Valve 'switched' to Linux. As some of their presentation on the subject said the Chinese marked is HUGE and research says that 80% (don't remember the exct number) of the chinese ppl still use Windows XP EVEN WITH LATEST HARDWARE.
In other words there is a huge amount of ppl in China that is hardware locked by Microsoft. That could give Valve a edge in that market.

9) If Microsoft keeps failing I don't have to give a damn. Seriously using Microsoft only tools can be very handy in terms of performance and compatibility, ok. But if that boat sinks bro... You're screwed. Such thing will NEVER happen when you develop in open platforms.

Because I wouldn't install M$hitOS for any reason, not even if they pay me.

1) I want to game on the OS I like most
2) Community
3) Open standards/software
4) Penguins are my friend

i have been using linux for an odd 12 years now i think

1- I do everything else on linux
2- why should i not game on linux
3- I don't hate windows, but its just not my cup of tea (vendor lock in etc)
4- I'm never going back to windows, cuz see point 5
5- I fell in love with fedora and gnome3, its just awesome
6- Cuz awesome ppl as yourself started catering to me and my community and that makes me feel like I'm part of something special
7- cuz XCOM EU/EW runs better on my fedora box then it ever has on my windows 7 box (so the latter will have to go)

(no twitter account)

ps: the open source idea is the only way that leads to a society that goes forward and solves a problem once, instead of alot of company's solving it over and over each fighting over who has the best method to do so.Mr Thorval and mr Stallman are visionary's, not commercial geniuses. a world can never have enough visionary's that pave the way