WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.060 Four years, gamers have been asking, is this the year of Linux gaming? 00:00:05.060 --> 00:00:08.140 And for just as long, the answer has been no. 00:00:08.140 --> 00:00:11.820 Traditionally, Linux has actually been kind of terrible for gaming. 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:17.380 Missing drivers, incompatible games, and hours in the terminal just to launch Morrowind. 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, 00:00:22.820 --> 00:00:28.740 and games just work. This might actually be the year, but why now? 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:32.780 And how is Microsoft suddenly the one trying to catch up? 00:00:32.780 --> 00:00:36.420 For the last 30 years, Windows has been synonymous 00:00:36.420 --> 00:00:39.880 with PC gaming, not because Linux machines 00:00:39.880 --> 00:00:44.500 are not capable of running games, but because very little was built for them. 00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:48.580 DirectX, the graphics API that most games use, 00:00:48.580 --> 00:00:54.340 only works with Microsoft. Windows 95 is the game platform. 00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:57.700 Thanks, Bill. Anti-cheat has been Windows only, 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, 00:01:03.540 --> 00:01:07.460 was often hit or miss. But that didn't stop people from trying. 00:01:07.460 --> 00:01:13.660 Hobbyists built console-style Linux gaming OSes that were great for retro emulation, like Battissera, 00:01:13.660 --> 00:01:18.300 but these were always kind of tinkerer projects. For Linux gaming to go mainstream, 00:01:18.300 --> 00:01:22.140 somebody with real resources had to enter the chat. 00:01:22.140 --> 00:01:26.340 And Valve did. You guys know Valve, the makers of Steam, 00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:29.360 where you probably bought half or more of your PC games. 00:01:29.360 --> 00:01:33.820 That's a pretty lucrative business, but it relies on the platform owner, 00:01:33.820 --> 00:01:39.340 in this case, Microsoft for Windows, to allow you to conduct your business. 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:42.900 And ever since Windows 8, Microsoft has been making 00:01:42.900 --> 00:01:47.340 slow but steady efforts to move more and more app acquisition 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:50.540 to the Microsoft Store. That's a troubling trend for someone 00:01:50.540 --> 00:01:53.620 who has their own app store on Windows. 00:01:53.620 --> 00:01:57.540 Also, as just an app on somebody else's platform, 00:01:57.540 --> 00:02:01.420 Valve had no way to touch the operating system or the drivers. 00:02:01.420 --> 00:02:04.660 That's why in 2012, they started building their own stack, 00:02:04.660 --> 00:02:10.380 beginning with native ports of Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Portal 2, and Dota 2. 00:02:10.380 --> 00:02:15.940 Pierre-Luc Graffet, who led the effort, told us why that wasn't enough. 00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:19.060 Back in 2012, one of the first things that we did 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 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:28.780 our own library to Linux. We found that it was a bunch of work, right? 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:32.180 We spent a bunch of engineering, and the game is not better, 00:02:32.180 --> 00:02:35.980 the user experience is not better, it's just the same game on the same platform. 00:02:35.980 --> 00:02:41.780 And our conclusion was like, it's not gonna scale to have all the developers 00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:47.540 have to do the same thing. That's when we started looking at things like Proton 00:02:47.540 --> 00:02:50.660 and other technologies so that we could spend the effort 00:02:50.660 --> 00:02:53.940 once in a way that developers wouldn't have to do it again. 00:02:53.940 --> 00:02:59.460 So next, they tried hardware. In 2015, Valve launched Steam Machines, 00:02:59.460 --> 00:03:03.340 Linux boxes for the living room that ran SteamOS. 00:03:03.340 --> 00:03:07.380 They flopped, and by 2018, Valve pulled the plug. 00:03:07.380 --> 00:03:12.380 Apparently you just can't sell a Linux console when every game is built for Windows. 00:03:12.380 --> 00:03:16.340 So in August 2018, Valve launched Proton, 00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:21.500 a compatibility layer that automatically translates Windows games so Linux can run them. 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:24.820 Thousands of games were playable overnight, 00:03:24.820 --> 00:03:28.020 but it still stayed kind of a nerdy curiosity 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:33.020 until 2022 when Valve made the move that changed everything. 00:03:33.340 --> 00:03:36.540 And we'll tell you about it right after our word from our sponsor. 00:03:36.540 --> 00:03:40.420 Yeah, it was the Steam Deck. It exploded onto the scene in early 2022, 00:03:40.420 --> 00:03:44.060 redefining the entire handheld PC category, 00:03:44.060 --> 00:03:47.140 and suddenly millions of people were gaming on Linux, 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. 00:03:53.380 --> 00:03:57.220 Developers fixed Linux bugs because deck users reported them. 00:03:57.220 --> 00:04:00.940 Easy anti-cheat and battle eye had already added Linux support, 00:04:00.940 --> 00:04:05.020 but the deck is what pushed game developers to actually enable them. 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:10.020 The chicken and egg problem of it being impossible to get started was finally solved. 00:04:10.020 --> 00:04:13.700 So fast forward four years, and Linux gaming has gotten so good 00:04:13.700 --> 00:04:17.660 that Microsoft has felt the need to make Windows better for gaming. 00:04:17.660 --> 00:04:23.460 Finally, how the turntables have turned. They're clapping back with controller-friendly UI, 00:04:23.460 --> 00:04:27.060 performance improvements, and a handheld mode for Windows. 00:04:27.060 --> 00:04:32.700 But there's a structural problem here. Windows is a general-purpose operating system 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, 00:04:38.180 --> 00:04:43.340 describes the issue with that. So when we receive handheld consoles 00:04:43.340 --> 00:04:48.260 from chase manufacturers, they always come with a version of Windows 11 00:04:48.260 --> 00:04:52.700 for handheld systems. I've tried really hard to use it. 00:04:52.700 --> 00:04:57.900 We're not there yet. I hope that Microsoft is really working, 00:04:57.900 --> 00:05:00.940 and I believe they're working in good faith 00:05:00.940 --> 00:05:05.220 to make it more usable for everybody 00:05:05.220 --> 00:05:08.700 because today what happens is those manufacturers, 00:05:08.700 --> 00:05:13.140 they have their own overlay on top of Windows to make the experience better. 00:05:13.180 --> 00:05:18.180 It's extremely convoluted or it's very nerdy. 00:05:18.220 --> 00:05:22.780 I don't think that's what people really should focus on 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 00:05:27.740 --> 00:05:31.620 and that they can tune to their own liking. 00:05:31.620 --> 00:05:36.540 Microsoft has got oodles of engineers on this, but billions of users across the globe 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:39.580 expect Windows to keep doing everything else 00:05:39.580 --> 00:05:44.220 while they bolt a gaming mode on top. That is harder in some ways 00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:49.460 than building a gaming OS from scratch, and Valve is taking another swing at hardware 00:05:49.460 --> 00:05:52.860 with a new steam machine before the end of 2026, 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:58.900 this time with a mature operating system and thousands of already verified games behind it. 00:05:58.900 --> 00:06:04.420 But here's the thing, Linux gaming isn't one OS or one company 00:06:04.420 --> 00:06:07.540 trying to dethrone Microsoft. It's dozens of them, 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:12.060 all building on the same open source foundation that Valve has been contributing to. 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:15.420 Pierre Loup confirmed that that's by design. 00:06:15.420 --> 00:06:19.300 There's a wide variety of right now of distros that are gaming focused. 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:24.900 A bunch of these distros, these Linux distributions are basically taking 00:06:24.900 --> 00:06:28.220 all of the same components that we're shipping as part of Steam OS. 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 00:06:34.620 --> 00:06:40.140 and working on with the community is represented in all these other Linux distributions, right? 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:43.180 At the end of the day, the experience is roughly the same 00:06:43.180 --> 00:06:47.460 and everyone involved in the community and us is working on improving it 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, 00:06:53.140 --> 00:06:58.940 it's a whole ecosystem of specialized tools, each doing what they do really well, 00:06:58.940 --> 00:07:01.940 which sounds really great until you try to pick one. 00:07:01.940 --> 00:07:05.060 Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, Fedora, Bazite, Catchy OS, 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. 00:07:09.700 --> 00:07:12.980 So which one's right for you? Why not check out our video 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.