The Linux community is one full of passion. From the outside it may seem strange why a small percentage of people around the world care so much about an operating system, after all it's merely a tool or set of tools used to complete certain tasks.
For many of us it isn’t that simple however, and we have a multitude and wide variety of reasons which drive us to support Linux in the way we do. Be it contributing code, running websites like this one or simply advocating the OS and showing its greatness to others.
Some have different views to others, some may insist on calling it GNU/Linux and may insist on only using free software, while others may be less ideologically inclined and simply use Linux because it's the best operating system out there. What unites all these people is the operating system and the desire for it to succeed, seeing it widely adopted or improving in many areas.
In fact, this desire for success and to show the world that we exist has led many of us to take regrettable actions, ranging from abusiveness in forums to insulting the CEO of a major game development company or even going as far as threatening developers who aren’t supporting the platform.
In the gaming world, what often makes many of us flip out most (or the more level headed among us, respond in a constructive manner) is when two simple facts are stated:
1 - Linux only accounts for a small percentage of the desktop market.
2 - Many Linux gamers dual boot or have access to a Windows machine.
While there is not a huge amount we can do about the first of these two points, the second is one which always perplexes me considering it's so simple to amend. If there are so many of us who care so greatly about Linux succeeding (often to the point where we act immaturely) then why do so many of us commit the “cardinal sin” of the Linux world and use Windows?
When I set out to do the GOL survey, one of the things I expected was the number of dual booters to slowly decline as more games come out. In June of last year there were 500 Linux games on Steam. Since then, that number has risen to 1000 and we’ve had huge games like CS:GO, Dying Light, Borderlands 2, Dead Island, Civilization: BE and many AAA games right round the corner.
Despite this, and despite the passions which surround Linux, our survey has shown no significant change in the amount of people dual booting or who have a Windows partition, unlike the amount of people using Wine which seems to be showing signs of declining. In many ways, it seems as if while Linux gaming is making leaps and bounds, Linux gamers are standing still.
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The controversial phrase “Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es” (they do not know it, but still they do it) from Das Kapital comes to mind, though condescending and completely incorrect in this case. Dual booting is far more cynical, a case of “they know very well what they are doing, but still they do it”.
We are all fully aware that the thought of Linux users dual booting and using Wine as a motive not to port a game to Linux has crossed the minds of many developers and even though we may badly want that game on our OS of choice, we still choose to be part of that percentage which makes that argument a valid one.
So why this doublethink? With the recent case of the WoW petition, it is a certainty that all those signing the petition who play WoW do so either on Windows or through Wine. It is easy to see how Blizzard CEO said what he said:
From his perspective, why should he spend money on porting a game to a platform when nearly all the people who would benefit from it are customers already? The irony of the petition is that its very existence also negates its purpose (unless, of course, Linux users were to abandon Blizzard altogether).
As much as I personally loathe the idea, the unavoidable fact is that we do live in a global free market which defines culture as an industry and decides who gets access to that culture based primarily on the profit motive. Culture, in this case, is video games and to many companies giving Linux users access to that culture does not fall within the worldview of putting profit above all else.
It is somewhat presumptuous to state to people whose lives are dictated by this fundamental premise that they are wrong in their conclusions. Simply put, yes 2% (or thereabouts) may be worth it to many developers financially, but when taking into account that with a game like WoW many (if not most) of their potential 2% like the game enough to sacrifice their principles in order to play it, then the rigid logic of the free market implies that WoW (and games like it) will never come to Linux so long as those individuals continue to choose the game over the operating system.
In essence, that 2% in many cases is non-existent and rather than being its own separate "market segment", developers like Blizzard will continue to see it as a percentage of the Windows market which also happens to use Linux on the side, that is, until people stop dual booting. Simply put, there is a significantly higher chance of games getting ported if users use Linux and Linux alone.
Thoughts and suggestions
The intention of this article isn’t to tell people what to do or to shout people down for not thinking in the same way as I do (in fact, if I see discussion heading in that direction, I may well see to it that comments are deleted). The intention is to create a debate surrounding a few simple questions to which there are no right and wrong answers:
- Why do you dual boot?
- Do you see yourself first as a gamer, then as a Linux user?
- Are the 1000+ games on Steam and hundreds more on other sites still not enough for you to be a 100% Linux gamer?
- If you feel so passionately about Linux that you’ll take questionable actions to defend it, then why not do the most simple thing and stop gaming on Windows?
- As someone with a tendency towards a specific genre, do you feel the current Linux suggestion doesn't cater to your gaming needs?
Ideally, I would like to see the number of dual booters decline after reaching some sort of consensus that it would be in all our best interests. I see myself as a Linux user first and a gamer second, and haven’t had Windows on a single computer since ~2008. However, I bear no animosity towards those who think differently. If all that comes of this article is an enlightening debate surrounding these issues and perhaps leads others to oppose the statements made in this article through other articles or through comments, then I’ll still be more than happy.
Even though I may have my own views as to how things should progress which may differ from those of others, I think we can all agree that being respectful, helpful and constructive goes a long way - be it to each other or to the developers which are (or aren't) porting our games. Though dual booting might not be something will (or maybe even should) disappear overnight, aggression and abuse certainly should. Likewise, the same goes for buying Linux games before porting - something which has been repeated and discussed time and time again. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
For many of us it isn’t that simple however, and we have a multitude and wide variety of reasons which drive us to support Linux in the way we do. Be it contributing code, running websites like this one or simply advocating the OS and showing its greatness to others.
Some have different views to others, some may insist on calling it GNU/Linux and may insist on only using free software, while others may be less ideologically inclined and simply use Linux because it's the best operating system out there. What unites all these people is the operating system and the desire for it to succeed, seeing it widely adopted or improving in many areas.
In fact, this desire for success and to show the world that we exist has led many of us to take regrettable actions, ranging from abusiveness in forums to insulting the CEO of a major game development company or even going as far as threatening developers who aren’t supporting the platform.
In the gaming world, what often makes many of us flip out most (or the more level headed among us, respond in a constructive manner) is when two simple facts are stated:
1 - Linux only accounts for a small percentage of the desktop market.
2 - Many Linux gamers dual boot or have access to a Windows machine.
While there is not a huge amount we can do about the first of these two points, the second is one which always perplexes me considering it's so simple to amend. If there are so many of us who care so greatly about Linux succeeding (often to the point where we act immaturely) then why do so many of us commit the “cardinal sin” of the Linux world and use Windows?
When I set out to do the GOL survey, one of the things I expected was the number of dual booters to slowly decline as more games come out. In June of last year there were 500 Linux games on Steam. Since then, that number has risen to 1000 and we’ve had huge games like CS:GO, Dying Light, Borderlands 2, Dead Island, Civilization: BE and many AAA games right round the corner.
Despite this, and despite the passions which surround Linux, our survey has shown no significant change in the amount of people dual booting or who have a Windows partition, unlike the amount of people using Wine which seems to be showing signs of declining. In many ways, it seems as if while Linux gaming is making leaps and bounds, Linux gamers are standing still.
The controversial phrase “Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es” (they do not know it, but still they do it) from Das Kapital comes to mind, though condescending and completely incorrect in this case. Dual booting is far more cynical, a case of “they know very well what they are doing, but still they do it”.
We are all fully aware that the thought of Linux users dual booting and using Wine as a motive not to port a game to Linux has crossed the minds of many developers and even though we may badly want that game on our OS of choice, we still choose to be part of that percentage which makes that argument a valid one.
So why this doublethink? With the recent case of the WoW petition, it is a certainty that all those signing the petition who play WoW do so either on Windows or through Wine. It is easy to see how Blizzard CEO said what he said:
Michael MorhaimeLinux usage represents less than 2% of installed desktop operating systems browsing the web, and I would assume most of those people also have access to a Windows or Mac device capable of playing Blizzard games.
From his perspective, why should he spend money on porting a game to a platform when nearly all the people who would benefit from it are customers already? The irony of the petition is that its very existence also negates its purpose (unless, of course, Linux users were to abandon Blizzard altogether).
As much as I personally loathe the idea, the unavoidable fact is that we do live in a global free market which defines culture as an industry and decides who gets access to that culture based primarily on the profit motive. Culture, in this case, is video games and to many companies giving Linux users access to that culture does not fall within the worldview of putting profit above all else.
It is somewhat presumptuous to state to people whose lives are dictated by this fundamental premise that they are wrong in their conclusions. Simply put, yes 2% (or thereabouts) may be worth it to many developers financially, but when taking into account that with a game like WoW many (if not most) of their potential 2% like the game enough to sacrifice their principles in order to play it, then the rigid logic of the free market implies that WoW (and games like it) will never come to Linux so long as those individuals continue to choose the game over the operating system.
In essence, that 2% in many cases is non-existent and rather than being its own separate "market segment", developers like Blizzard will continue to see it as a percentage of the Windows market which also happens to use Linux on the side, that is, until people stop dual booting. Simply put, there is a significantly higher chance of games getting ported if users use Linux and Linux alone.
Thoughts and suggestions
The intention of this article isn’t to tell people what to do or to shout people down for not thinking in the same way as I do (in fact, if I see discussion heading in that direction, I may well see to it that comments are deleted). The intention is to create a debate surrounding a few simple questions to which there are no right and wrong answers:
- Why do you dual boot?
- Do you see yourself first as a gamer, then as a Linux user?
- Are the 1000+ games on Steam and hundreds more on other sites still not enough for you to be a 100% Linux gamer?
- If you feel so passionately about Linux that you’ll take questionable actions to defend it, then why not do the most simple thing and stop gaming on Windows?
- As someone with a tendency towards a specific genre, do you feel the current Linux suggestion doesn't cater to your gaming needs?
Ideally, I would like to see the number of dual booters decline after reaching some sort of consensus that it would be in all our best interests. I see myself as a Linux user first and a gamer second, and haven’t had Windows on a single computer since ~2008. However, I bear no animosity towards those who think differently. If all that comes of this article is an enlightening debate surrounding these issues and perhaps leads others to oppose the statements made in this article through other articles or through comments, then I’ll still be more than happy.
Even though I may have my own views as to how things should progress which may differ from those of others, I think we can all agree that being respectful, helpful and constructive goes a long way - be it to each other or to the developers which are (or aren't) porting our games. Though dual booting might not be something will (or maybe even should) disappear overnight, aggression and abuse certainly should. Likewise, the same goes for buying Linux games before porting - something which has been repeated and discussed time and time again. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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It's still a long way off so I can understand why some people wouldn't want to give up wine/dual booting just yet. Even if we could double that 2% into 4 companies like blizzard will probably still be waiting to see what happens with valve.
So if everyone can at least go cold turkey from windows/wine for a few months after steam machines drop that could be really helpful.
On the other hand Linux is my main choice when I do main part my work with MATLAB / PHP (vim!) etc. the efficiency, customization and automation possibilities are unparalleled. For a leisure time activities I think Linux has been ready to be used for about five years and I have been persuading my friends to switch to Linux with quite a success.
However, the windows partition is still there and from time to time it is tempting -- for example when my all times favorite game series (might and magic (the rpg)) is coming out and it does not work on Linux at all ...
Nevertheless, on Steam I buy only games which support Linux and play them on Linux -- I try to buy them when they are not on sale (if I have the funds), so that my sins would be washed out with my money :)
I dual boot generally for other reasons than gaming. First of all, probably today (I recently upgraded to 8GB of RAM) I can easily run a windows on VM, but have you ever tried to install windows? Every damn driver and software should be downloaded from a different website, go through a different installer which often try to install crapware alongside. It's a hassle I don't want to go through again. That is, I'd rather keep a 30GB partition to boot to windows rather than have to go through the trouble of installing it again (in a VM).
That said, it's true that Linux satisfies most of my needs. However, there are some things you just have to do in windows. Not because you can do them better in windows, no no no. But because they usually involve somebody else involved. Some examples are:
- You need to fill a doc file for your university/company/whatever. The doc file is made with MS word and every other word processor shows it weird (I wouldn't be surprised if MS word is rendering contrary to what it says it's rendering in its files, just to screw with competitors). You can't go through a bunch of busy non-technical people and keep talking about free this and that, Linux and that they shouldn't have used MS word. You just got to open it with MS word, fill the damn thing and send it to them.
- My parents use Skype. I hate its guts. It works terribly under Linux. I don't use it any more except occasionally (Telegram anyone?). But I have tried Google Hangouts, Viber, Firefox Hello and others, and with bad internet, usually Skype happens to better get through (no thanks to MS). I can't lecture my parents to use an alternative that is at times unbearable and have an unpleasant conversation over crappy video if I win. In this situation, I would just f*ck it, boot to windows, talk with them and boot back.
- I like to play games with my little brother (I'm 29, he's 25, so not particularly "little"). He is a totally different person, and playing games brings us together. We play battlefields (I don't even particularly like the game), a compromise on both our ends. I can't be an a**hole and limit his options to the Linux titles (very few of which are AAA) which he would never play. Doing that would be like these annoying religious people who keep trying to convert you. I just boot to windows, have fun with my brother (even though I don't like windows, I don't like origin and I don't like EA), and get back to Linux immediately afterwards.
So while I'm all for gaming solely on Linux, I doubt I would stop dual booting, just because in a windows world, sometimes using windows is inevitable. I wouldn't use a VM because I don't want to deal for a second with installing another windows.
I switched to Linux around 7 years ago.
At the time there were very few games on Linux, and I love games since I'm a kid.
So I managed with the games already present on Linux :)
Urban terror, Warsow, Heroes of Newerth, etc…
I didn't care, I loved open-source philosophy, not to the extrem as I don't mind using a few proprietary softwares, but still I loved the sharing and helpful ideas/community.
And then arrives humble bundle. I became a real fan of it. It was magic, they were bringing games to Linux, and along with a nice spirit (games for everybody, for the price you decide it's worth, DRM-free, support charity).
R.I.P humble bundle, they totally lost the spirit.
But there is gog now though
And I have been impressed how Valve managed and still manage to push gaming on Linux.
I have never thought Linux would run natively games we have right now, and I'm very happy about it.
So, no, I don't use dual boot, I was keeping a windows partition (in case) but I got ride of it when my hard drive got out of space with all those games :p
And I don't care anymore if Linux is adopted by many. That could spoil it.
I'm just enjoying gaming at the moment.
And you should too guys!
See you around
The problem of overcoming dual-booting is kind of multifaceted IMO. It's a bit like optimizing a complex program for performance (not that I'm a programmer): There are lots of bottlenecks all over the place and it's going to be a pain to get all of them.
But there are certain low-hanging fruit. Easier fixes or places where one fix would yield a big-ish speedup.
So for dual-booting, I suspect there are myriad reasons people do it, just because Windows has been so widely used for so long and so there has been so much software written for it, some very popular, some not so much, and other related parts of the computer ecosystem have been oriented around it for so long (hardware drivers and such).
For instance, Microsoft Office is a big barrier. LibreOffice/OpenOffice is making strides, as are cloud thingies like Google Docs. For my particular case LibreOffice is as good as MS Office and doesn't have the &$#! ribbon. But for many use cases it seems MS Office still has features other office suites lack, or they haven't managed to dig past its file format obfuscation enough to round-trip documents well. The good news is people seem to be working hard on this one.
For instance, Photoshop is a barrier. Again, the GIMP is very good but by many accounts there are things about Photoshop which the GIMP doesn't do as well. The reverse may also be true but that doesn't matter as much when Photoshop is the default that professionals build their workflow around. Also being worked on.
Actually, anything related to Adobe is a barrier, from Photoshop to Acrobat to Flash to whatever else they touch. If we could engineer the ouster of Adobe's upper management and replace them with people who didn't apparently hate Linux it would be a major victory.
For example, Visual Studio is a barrier. I don't know anything about that end of stuff but I hear it's the case.
Tax software is maybe a barrier; this is becoming less true because people are just doing their taxes on the web so the Windows-only purchased software of yesteryear is not such a thing.
And then there's all the little programs that are used by a few people each which nobody's ever written something that does that in Linux because it's a marginal thing and there aren't enough people using Linux for it to result in enough users to make it worth while. This is something that only goes away with time and increased user base and things getting more web-centric.
And then there's the gaming side of things. It's the same in spades. The big bottlenecks are the Very Popular Games, plus graphics driver problems. The little bottlenecks are all that mass of old games that will probably never get ported and aren't popular enough for anyone to have made sure they work well in Wine. I have a few of those; so far my solution has been to not play those games, which is annoying. I keep hoping Wine will get good enough that they'll start working.
The Very Popular Games will come if Steam Machines get a solid user base. So will the graphics drivers. And a lot of the Very Popular Games run very well in Wine because there are a lot of people who have worked to make that happen because they're Very Popular. Which is still annoying for the latest and greatest games, but older ones are fine, so at least there isn't a long tail of Very Popular Games which will haunt our efforts to dump the dual boot even after Linux is a popular enough gaming platform for the likes of Blizzard to target their releases on it.
Overall, overcoming the irritants which cause people to dual-boot is an incremental project. And in many cases a chicken-egg exercise (nobody will do it until Linux is more popular, Linux won't be more popular until someone does it). But one with plenty of hope; I thought the biggest barrier on the chicken-and-egg side was games, and yet here we are. I still say we could see regression unless the Steam Machine or something like it succeeds and creates the market share that the money boys need in order to continue targeting Linux as a platform. The current combination of fashion and prodding by Valve will not keep the momentum going forever IMO.