With the widespread support for Steam/Valve on this forum because of their contributions to making Linux gaming easier, I’m now confused as to why people here are using Linux in the first place.

I personally do so out of support for FOSS software, the customizability, and actual ownership of software, which I thought were most people’s primary reasons for using any Linux distro. Steam seems antithetical to all of these. The software in the first place became popular as a form of DRM, and it gets publishers to use it for the allowance of DRM on the platform. The Steam client has the absolute minimum customizability. Your account can be banned at any point and you can lose access to many of the games you have downloaded.

Whenever I game on Linux I just use folders to sort my game library and purchase any games I want to play on itch.io or GoG. On my Linux PC I stay away from clients like Steam because I want a PC that works offline, and will work if all of my accounts were banned. It’s more of a backup PC.

Since Steam has every characteristic of Windows, 0 customizability, DRM, plenty of games that are spyware, I see no reason to really not use Windows instead for the much easier time I can have playing games.

Yes, I prefer many of the features of Linux distros, but using a client like Steam defeats the purpose of them. Ridiculous storage requirements due to unoptimized dependencies, having to have a background client running for some games and wasting resources on doing so.

So, why use Linux and support Steam, or use Linux and use Steam?

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    9 months ago

    I like Linux, so I use Linux. Before Steam came to Linux, I didn’t play many games, and now that they’re heavily investing in Linux, I’m playing a lot more games.

    It’s really that simple.

    Here’s my story:

    1. Someone gave me an Ubuntu install disk at college, so I dual booted it on my rented computer; Windows died, so I switched to Ubuntu for the rest of the school year
    2. I declared my major as CS, and the lab computers ran Fedora Linux, so I installed it on my new laptop; it worked better than Windows (Vista at the time) for class work, so I kept using it (I needed Windows for a class, so I ran it in a VM)
    3. I switched to using ViM and fell in love with the terminal
    4. I eventually tried Arch and decided Windows really wasn’t for me since I liked the control
    5. Steam started supporting Linux, so I all of a sudden had a bunch more Linux games to choose from (I had mostly been playing Factorio, Dwarf Fortress, and Minecraft, and StarCraft in WINE); this was before Proton, yet it was still a big deal for me

    I’m now on openSUSE, but my experience during college showed me that I really want control over my system. Proton is also a thing, so I’ve picked up a ton more games from Steam.

    If games stopped working on Linux, I’d just stop playing games. It’s really that simple, I pick the OS first, and games are secondary.