2024 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop, at least for my boyfriend. He's running Windows 7 right now, so I'll be switching him to Ubuntu in a few days. Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
it is kinda wild that people abandon Windows 7 because of Steam and not because Microsoft stopped patching it several years ago
Ubuntu was chosen because Proton is officially supported in Ubuntu.
I don't think Steam actually recommends any distro since some time anymore
People don't care about security until they get hit. Source: working in IT for 10 years.
I see it more in: people won't switch for security reasons if it means giving up usability
I would support a law that requires software companies to open source software that they discontinue support on.
That way, companies that disappear don't have their customers at risk.
And software companies will support software for longer.
Nvidia gpu drivers wont even install on win 7 anymore. That by itself causes huge performance issues on new games that have driver optimizations.
Probably the same story for amd drivers
All these people saying "use this or use that distro instead" is why Windows users don't go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners because that's a distro with a lot of tutorials online if not the most.
I don't get what the fuck is the problem with Ubuntu anyway.
Edit: I mean I heard the reasons many times but they are completely non-issues for me.
It's about Ubuntu behaving lightly like Microsoft with a closed source backend for the store, having had ads in the apps drawer, putting ads on the motd in cli with apt... It's small things like these
There's a lot of people out there that hate to hear this, but ubuntu is probably the best gateway to Linux we have at the moment. Go ahead, let them come in on the distro that's pretty well supported, preconfigured with everything on and newbie friendly, then once they've cut their teeth, let they have the option to move to something that's a little more tweaked.
I somewhat disagree. Sure, telling windows users they have so many options will overwhelm them so it's best to just give them 1 or 2 options. But telling other linux users who are about to put/suggest linux on someone else's computer that there's better options is good.
For example, let's take Ubuntu pushing snaps. A noob won't know what they are, and there's good chances they will have a bad experience with them and not understand what they are, they will probably think it's a Linux problem rather than an Ubuntu problem and there's a good chance they will leave linux because of them. I personally learned the problems I was having at the start of my linux journey were problems with snaps only because I read it somewhere in the zorin discord server or something like that. If it wasn't for that I would have thought it's a linux problem. Tho this wasn't easy information to find and I was already well on my way to becoming a Linux nerd and I was interested in learning more, but the average user, in my experience, doesn't know/want to look these things up and if you try to explain to them there's a good chance you'll lose them halfway through (which is normal, package managers aren't a fun topic) Telling a linux user about it and that linux mint (for exampel) may be a better introduction for their resident noodles doesn't run the risk because they're already a linux user.
All these people saying “use this or use that distro instead” is why Windows users don’t go into Linux. Ubuntu is a solid choice for beginners
You literally did the thing you're decrying in the very next sentence.
"The problem is everyone telling Windows users which distro to use. Which is why I'm telling them they should just use Ubuntu."
No I did not. My actual opinion would be to recommend Nobara OS. What I did was agree with OP's decision. It doesn't matter in the end which they use but if someone is deadset on Ubuntu and you hear several people saying "pick mint" "no pick pop os" "no actually Debian" it becomes overwhelming. Agreeing with OP's decision does not make me a hypocrite.
Don't hate on Ubuntu. It's a great starter distro for people who only know Win or Mac
It used to be, Snap ootb is remarkably horrible, I had a not-good internet plan and Snap drove me crazy with its updates, I could've settled fine if auto updates could be switched off, but nope, they're shoved down my throat, I'd say Mint is a better starter distro
Snap has really bad performance and licensing. I like that it's cross-platform and gives devs easier time to release software on Linux. (Flatpak is better, ofc)
I personally would recommend Kubuntu and Pop!OS if asked. However, think that people that think "I should probably install Ubuntu" should install it. There are a billion guides on how to do X on Ubuntu for non-tech people and people starting out on line might not know that everything Ubuntu based behaves more or less the same except for the KDE/Gnome/xfce. It's also supremely stable on top of that.
I think as a community we shouldn't judge people based on their choice of distro.
False. KDE will feel much more familiar. And using a system with a modern kde version is way better than the ancient versions Ubuntu and all of its cousins use
Windows 12 may end up being my transition to Linux, especially if they go for a subscription model. If you told me just a decade ago that Linux was a viable OS for gaming, I would have laughed at you.
Valve have outdone themselves with Proton. So have those who worked on DXVK and VKD3D.
I'll be the first to hope for the demise of Windows....but I thought the "subscription model" rumours were all discredited. Obviously anything could happen in the future I guess.
There's a bit of controversy regarding Ubuntu that I don't need to get into but Fedora and Pop!_OS are also really good for Proton support. Ubuntu will work fine but I just prefer not to use it. Maybe you could let him try out the live environment for a couple distros to see what he might like in terms of UI.
I'm pretty sure that this is because steam uses chromium as its backend and chromium new version doesn't run on windows 7. It's still not good because there are some games that won't run on newer systems and therefore 7 is required for preservation.
As many of you pointed out, yes I agree proton is the answer if possible. YMMV
This is the actual reason. Steam officially said that: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-800A
This change is required as core features in Steam rely on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. In addition, future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.
Lol 0.06% usage in November 2023
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
There are more linux users than windows7 users.
0.69% (nice) on windows 7 64bit. That's 0.75% total or 0.91% including windows 8 which is also dying. This is slightly under half of the linux user base according to these statistics
my boyfriend. He's running Windows 7
You saint.
That man must be packing a monster dong
Noo please don't Ubuntu. Just plain debian or mint debian instead for the closest thing without canonical. Ubuntu is based on debian and all the actual reasons to use it over debian ended probably like a decade or so ago.
I don't think there are many distro specific proton issues, if they exist at all. I've switched from arch to tumbleweed to bazzite(ublue/fedora based) and the only issues were unrelated to gaming. Proton would work on a toaster if it had a display and a vulkan compatible GPU.
Someone who's going to use Ubuntu wouldn't know what "debian," "mint debian," or "canonical" are. You should include an actual explanation or link to what you're referring to when trying to help beginners otherwise you've failed to help them
ubuntu is fine lol especially for a newbie. Zorin is really familliar for a windows user.
Like others already mentioned, I would suggest Linux Mint as well. It's better Ubuntu than Ubuntu and similarity to Windows UI would make his transition much better.
Why not Linux mint? It is way more use friendly.
Also why on earth is anyone using windows 7 in 2023. I stopped using it to move to Linux back in 2016
If he wants something similar to windows, get Linux mint, it's the best parts of Debian/Ubuntu but made modern. If you can do it on Ubuntu, you can do it in mint (like online guides cuz mint is based on ubuntu if you couldn't tell).
To be fair, steam reports less than 1% of users using windows 7. It's not as big as we think.
I suggest an Ubuntu fork workout snaps, they are a headache to remove now
Aha, just popping in here to suggest taking a look at PopOS!
Proton works extremely well on it, its compatible out of the box with everything Debian based (this includes Ubuntu) so it has a huge selection of free software, has great documentation for the PopOS! specific stuff and for all the debian/ubuntu stuff you can nearly always use older wikis on the internet if you run into a snag, and its got a custom DE that I personally find better than KDE and Ubuntu's latest rendition if GNOME.
Also, while Ubuntu is going hard into Snaps, which I hate, PopOS! is going into flatpaks, which are less bad than snaps, but still stupid imo.
If you care, its fairly easy to disable and/or remove flatpaks from PopOS. It doesnt come with any preloaded afaik, so all you have to do is go into the PopShop (the app store) settings and just remove the flatpak source.
Ive run Proton on Steam via debian sources on PopOS! for years, works fine.
Oh right! I am fairly sure that PopOS! nowadays just comes by default with graphics drivers pre-installed and preset to automatically update with the rest of your software when you run sudo apt update. All you have to do is pick the Nvidia ISO if youve got Nvidia, or the standard one if youve got AMD.
Lots of choices but I'd probably use Kubuntu if your boyfriend is new to Linux and you want this "official" Proton support (not sure that actually means much; Proton works very well on most distros). The plasma interface can be set fairly similar to windows for a newbie to feel comfortable.
It's all just personal preference of course; I just find the Ubuntu interface annoying as someone who uses Linux and windows a lot. Personally I use Mint; very nice distro, good and stable, nice for newbies, and the default cinnamon interface is very windows like too.
Proton works on any Linux distro, it comes with steam. As long as you can install steam, you should be golden.
I highly recommend Linux Mint (cinnamon) as an entry level Linux distro. It looks and feels similar to Windows, and it's based on Ubuntu, so it has a lot of support and compatibility.
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
sudo in Windows.Please report posts and comments that break these rules!