this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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Linux Gaming
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the idea that you can just jump to linux with zero research needs to go
I want to make sure I am understanding what you are intending to communicate correctly. At first I thought you were basically saying, "normies need to get good". But in reflection you could be attempting to say, "Linux advocates are communicating unrealistic expectations which lead normal people to frustration and disappointment." Or is your intent something else?
bit of both i guess? "normies need to get good" could be diluted into "do your research before going to linux", which in most sensible online discussions is already the recommended way: test things out in a VM, try out different DEs, practice configuring things, finding alternatives to your current workflow, etc etc. it's a harder sell than "just switch to linux" but IMO it's absolutely necessary
but my comment is more of a reaction to influencers not doing that at all and making le funny challenge of jumping to linux blind and breaking shit because it's good content and "trying out linux" is still trending
problem is they must be getting this idea that "linux is so easy and fun and seamless and you don't have to research anything" from somewhere, which i do think is probably way more from people in their audience hyping up linux and not necessarily the wider linux community but these voices gotta be out there
The main issue I see is that a ton of people (influencers but also users) tend to massively downplay the difficulties you might encounter when using Linux.
Every thread where someone asks whether they should try Linux is full of people claiming that it's super easy, super seamless, much less issues than using Windows, you'll never need to touch CLI and so on.
But mostly these are users that are already quite good with Linux (or users who just about managed to install Linux a week ago and haven't seen anything yet). These good users have difficulty understanding how difficult easy things are to regular users.
I encountered this when making an open source physiotherapy game console for kids with cystic fibrosis.
A big issue with CF therapy is that pretty much every therapist is doing something slightly differently, so the therapy needs to be configurable. For that I made a very simple .ini file to configure the therapy. Every single person I showed that to went into instant panic mode.
I then made a simple WebUI where people can configure the same thing, but instead of a text file there are now separate text fields for each value. And suddenly everyone gets it instantly and has no difficulty at all using it, even though all that changed was going from a text file with
key=valueto a Web UI with[label for key] [text field for value].Linux is easy if it comes pre-installed, pre-configured and with first-party hardware support both by the laptop manufacturer and each and every component in there. And first-party OS support by the device manufacturer. Like ChromeOS and Steam Deck.
If that's not the case it will be difficult for normie users. Same as installing Windows on hardware not primarily intended to run Windows or making a Hackintosh. Both of these experiences suck just as much.