1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,060 Four years, gamers have been asking, is this the year of Linux gaming? 2 00:00:05,060 --> 00:00:08,140 And for just as long, the answer has been no. 3 00:00:08,140 --> 00:00:11,820 Traditionally, Linux has actually been kind of terrible for gaming. 4 00:00:11,820 --> 00:00:17,380 Missing drivers, incompatible games, and hours in the terminal just to launch Morrowind. 5 00:00:17,380 --> 00:00:22,820 I play Koji, by the way. But these days, you can pick up a Steam Deck, press play, 6 00:00:22,820 --> 00:00:28,740 and games just work. This might actually be the year, but why now? 7 00:00:28,820 --> 00:00:32,780 And how is Microsoft suddenly the one trying to catch up? 8 00:00:32,780 --> 00:00:36,420 For the last 30 years, Windows has been synonymous 9 00:00:36,420 --> 00:00:39,880 with PC gaming, not because Linux machines 10 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:44,500 are not capable of running games, but because very little was built for them. 11 00:00:44,500 --> 00:00:48,580 DirectX, the graphics API that most games use, 12 00:00:48,580 --> 00:00:54,340 only works with Microsoft. Windows 95 is the game platform. 13 00:00:54,340 --> 00:00:57,700 Thanks, Bill. Anti-cheat has been Windows only, 14 00:00:57,700 --> 00:01:03,540 and Wine, the tool that translated Windows games to Linux, in spite of the developer's best efforts, 15 00:01:03,540 --> 00:01:07,460 was often hit or miss. But that didn't stop people from trying. 16 00:01:07,460 --> 00:01:13,660 Hobbyists built console-style Linux gaming OSes that were great for retro emulation, like Battissera, 17 00:01:13,660 --> 00:01:18,300 but these were always kind of tinkerer projects. For Linux gaming to go mainstream, 18 00:01:18,300 --> 00:01:22,140 somebody with real resources had to enter the chat. 19 00:01:22,140 --> 00:01:26,340 And Valve did. You guys know Valve, the makers of Steam, 20 00:01:26,340 --> 00:01:29,360 where you probably bought half or more of your PC games. 21 00:01:29,360 --> 00:01:33,820 That's a pretty lucrative business, but it relies on the platform owner, 22 00:01:33,820 --> 00:01:39,340 in this case, Microsoft for Windows, to allow you to conduct your business. 23 00:01:39,340 --> 00:01:42,900 And ever since Windows 8, Microsoft has been making 24 00:01:42,900 --> 00:01:47,340 slow but steady efforts to move more and more app acquisition 25 00:01:47,340 --> 00:01:50,540 to the Microsoft Store. That's a troubling trend for someone 26 00:01:50,540 --> 00:01:53,620 who has their own app store on Windows. 27 00:01:53,620 --> 00:01:57,540 Also, as just an app on somebody else's platform, 28 00:01:57,540 --> 00:02:01,420 Valve had no way to touch the operating system or the drivers. 29 00:02:01,420 --> 00:02:04,660 That's why in 2012, they started building their own stack, 30 00:02:04,660 --> 00:02:10,380 beginning with native ports of Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, and Dota 2. 31 00:02:10,380 --> 00:02:15,940 Pierre-Luc Graffet, who led the effort, told us why that wasn't enough. 32 00:02:15,940 --> 00:02:19,060 Back in 2012, one of the first things that we did 33 00:02:19,060 --> 00:02:23,620 to pave the way for all this whole effort was to go through the exercise of porting 34 00:02:23,620 --> 00:02:28,780 our own library to Linux. We found that it was a bunch of work, right? 35 00:02:28,780 --> 00:02:32,180 We spent a bunch of engineering, and the game is not better, 36 00:02:32,180 --> 00:02:35,980 the user experience is not better, it's just the same game on the same platform. 37 00:02:35,980 --> 00:02:41,780 And our conclusion was like, it's not gonna scale to have all the developers 38 00:02:41,780 --> 00:02:47,540 have to do the same thing. That's when we started looking at things like Proton 39 00:02:47,540 --> 00:02:50,660 and other technologies so that we could spend the effort 40 00:02:50,660 --> 00:02:53,940 once in a way that developers wouldn't have to do it again. 41 00:02:53,940 --> 00:02:59,460 So next, they tried hardware. In 2015, Valve launched Steam Machines, 42 00:02:59,460 --> 00:03:03,340 Linux boxes for the living room that ran SteamOS. 43 00:03:03,340 --> 00:03:07,380 They flopped, and by 2018, Valve pulled the plug. 44 00:03:07,380 --> 00:03:12,380 Apparently you just can't sell a Linux console when every game is built for Windows. 45 00:03:12,380 --> 00:03:16,340 So in August 2018, Valve launched Proton, 46 00:03:16,340 --> 00:03:21,500 a compatibility layer that automatically translates Windows games so Linux can run them. 47 00:03:21,500 --> 00:03:24,820 Thousands of games were playable overnight, 48 00:03:24,820 --> 00:03:28,020 but it still stayed kind of a nerdy curiosity 49 00:03:28,020 --> 00:03:33,020 until 2022 when Valve made the move that changed everything. 50 00:03:33,340 --> 00:03:36,540 And we'll tell you about it right after our word from our sponsor. 51 00:03:36,540 --> 00:03:40,420 Yeah, it was the Steam Deck. It exploded onto the scene in early 2022, 52 00:03:40,420 --> 00:03:44,060 redefining the entire handheld PC category, 53 00:03:44,060 --> 00:03:47,140 and suddenly millions of people were gaming on Linux, 54 00:03:47,140 --> 00:03:53,380 many of whom didn't even know it. And this created what's known as a virtuous cycle. 55 00:03:53,380 --> 00:03:57,220 Developers fixed Linux bugs because deck users reported them. 56 00:03:57,220 --> 00:04:00,940 Easy anti-cheat and battle eye had already added Linux support, 57 00:04:00,940 --> 00:04:05,020 but the deck is what pushed game developers to actually enable them. 58 00:04:05,020 --> 00:04:10,020 The chicken and egg problem of it being impossible to get started was finally solved. 59 00:04:10,020 --> 00:04:13,700 So fast forward four years, and Linux gaming has gotten so good 60 00:04:13,700 --> 00:04:17,660 that Microsoft has felt the need to make Windows better for gaming. 61 00:04:17,660 --> 00:04:23,460 Finally, how the turntables have turned. They're clapping back with controller-friendly UI, 62 00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:27,060 performance improvements, and a handheld mode for Windows. 63 00:04:27,060 --> 00:04:32,700 But there's a structural problem here. Windows is a general-purpose operating system 64 00:04:32,700 --> 00:04:38,180 that's trying to feel like a console. LBRPDX, who's worked on Battissera for eight years, 65 00:04:38,180 --> 00:04:43,340 describes the issue with that. So when we receive handheld consoles 66 00:04:43,340 --> 00:04:48,260 from chase manufacturers, they always come with a version of Windows 11 67 00:04:48,260 --> 00:04:52,700 for handheld systems. I've tried really hard to use it. 68 00:04:52,700 --> 00:04:57,900 We're not there yet. I hope that Microsoft is really working, 69 00:04:57,900 --> 00:05:00,940 and I believe they're working in good faith 70 00:05:00,940 --> 00:05:05,220 to make it more usable for everybody 71 00:05:05,220 --> 00:05:08,700 because today what happens is those manufacturers, 72 00:05:08,700 --> 00:05:13,140 they have their own overlay on top of Windows to make the experience better. 73 00:05:13,180 --> 00:05:18,180 It's extremely convoluted or it's very nerdy. 74 00:05:18,220 --> 00:05:22,780 I don't think that's what people really should focus on 75 00:05:22,780 --> 00:05:27,740 when they want to have a console-like experience. They want to have something that just works 76 00:05:27,740 --> 00:05:31,620 and that they can tune to their own liking. 77 00:05:31,620 --> 00:05:36,540 Microsoft has got oodles of engineers on this, but billions of users across the globe 78 00:05:36,540 --> 00:05:39,580 expect Windows to keep doing everything else 79 00:05:39,580 --> 00:05:44,220 while they bolt a gaming mode on top. That is harder in some ways 80 00:05:44,220 --> 00:05:49,460 than building a gaming OS from scratch, and Valve is taking another swing at hardware 81 00:05:49,460 --> 00:05:52,860 with a new steam machine before the end of 2026, 82 00:05:52,860 --> 00:05:58,900 this time with a mature operating system and thousands of already verified games behind it. 83 00:05:58,900 --> 00:06:04,420 But here's the thing, Linux gaming isn't one OS or one company 84 00:06:04,420 --> 00:06:07,540 trying to dethrone Microsoft. It's dozens of them, 85 00:06:07,540 --> 00:06:12,060 all building on the same open source foundation that Valve has been contributing to. 86 00:06:12,060 --> 00:06:15,420 Pierre Loup confirmed that that's by design. 87 00:06:15,420 --> 00:06:19,300 There's a wide variety of right now of distros that are gaming focused. 88 00:06:19,300 --> 00:06:24,900 A bunch of these distros, these Linux distributions are basically taking 89 00:06:24,900 --> 00:06:28,220 all of the same components that we're shipping as part of Steam OS. 90 00:06:28,220 --> 00:06:34,620 Proton and Gamescope and Steam for Linux, Impad UI, all the work that we've been putting together 91 00:06:34,620 --> 00:06:40,140 and working on with the community is represented in all these other Linux distributions, right? 92 00:06:40,140 --> 00:06:43,180 At the end of the day, the experience is roughly the same 93 00:06:43,180 --> 00:06:47,460 and everyone involved in the community and us is working on improving it 94 00:06:47,460 --> 00:06:53,140 in a way that benefits all those distributions. So the future of PC gaming isn't one company winning, 95 00:06:53,140 --> 00:06:58,940 it's a whole ecosystem of specialized tools, each doing what they do really well, 96 00:06:58,940 --> 00:07:01,940 which sounds really great until you try to pick one. 97 00:07:01,940 --> 00:07:05,060 Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, Fedora, Bazite, Catchy OS, 98 00:07:05,060 --> 00:07:09,700 those are all valid options and we haven't even gotten to some of the more niche ones. 99 00:07:09,700 --> 00:07:12,980 So which one's right for you? Why not check out our video 100 00:07:12,980 --> 00:07:17,580 on picking the right Linux distro for your setup here on TechWiki, make sure you get subscribed.