Quoting: CaldathrasYet, I am not sure this is entirely GOG's fault. Oftentimes, it seems like the developer is slower to update their Linux packages on GOG than they are on Steam.

It's still GOG's fault. Other platforms got to use the Galaxy SDK to handle uploads and updates; Linux builds they had to use manual FTP and wait for it to be approved on GOG's side. They improved the process somewhat after a number of years, but it's still not as good publishing Linux builds as for other platforms.

Steam just has the same build and update pipeline for all platforms.

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Quoting: ArehandoroWill all Steam Deck Verified games run at 4K@60FPS? Cause they said all Steam Machine Verified games would...

4K60 with upscaling is what they said. And if the Deck can hit 720p30 (the Deck's performance floor) in a game, the Machine should definitely be able to do that game at 720p60 with the same settings. They haven't said that games have to look good after upscaling, after all. But realistically the Machine is going to render 1080p60 or 1440p60 for a lot of games and 4K60 for some, and likely with better settings than the Deck (but not Ultra settings generally).

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Quoting: Stellamy problem with Canonical is that they actively harm the Flatpak ecosystem. Kubuntu used to ship the flatpak backend, but Canonical got really angry at that and it got ripped out in favor of snaps. Requiring users to do an extra steps to install flatpaks is not user friendly at all

Kubuntu has never shipped with the flatpak backend already installed. It's trivial to install it if you want it, but it's never been installed by default.

You're thinking of Xubuntu, who also never shipped with flatpak enabled. When they floated plans to have a third install method by default - deb and snap already being necessary for the default distro packages - Canonical said no since that's gratuitously confusing for new users. Just like with Kubuntu and Ubuntu it's trivial to install flatpak support on Xubuntu for those that want it.

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You'll even get to craft nametags so you know who is who.

To be clear, you could already use name tags to name animals, but you could only acquire name tags (fishing, loot or trading). It's being able to craft the name tags yourself that's new.

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Quoting: datablobThat's cool, I think. Heh. I still don't entirely understand what ntsync does in practice, I saw that CachyOS also adopted it a while ago and read something about timing consistency. Can anyone elaborate?

Liam did a bit of an overview when it was about to land in Linux 6.14.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/01/ntsync-driver-for-improving-windows-games-on-linux-with-wine-proton-should-finally-land-in-linux-kernel-614/

The gist is that Windows has a function for a program to wait for multiple conditions and Linux doesn't. Wine first emulated that function in user space with the waits that Linux did have, but that wasn't great. But putting Windows in the kernel isn't great, either. So there have been progressing attempts to have the function working with proper performance whilst minimising the amount that having Windows games running bothers the kernel devs. ntsync is the third attempt, I think, with the first two approaches improving performance and the third improving correctness.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI'm going to hazard a guess that in Feb 2025, the Steam Survey showed a great big surge in Simplified Chinese. 😁

+20.88%.

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Quoting: Phlebiac1) Steam Deck usage has stayed relatively flat - or more accurately, has scaled at the same rate as total Steam usage.

In particular, the proportion is staying flat at around the same level as total Linux was for years, but the release of that high profile Linux gaming demonstration device has changed the conversation; which has led to game devs paying much more attention to that device than they did to the rest of us before, and to the subsequent growth of desktop Linux.

Quoting: Phlebiac2) macOS usage declined for years, but in recent times it has scaled at nearly the same rate as desktop Linux. I wonder what factors are involved with that; I don't think Valve has done anything major on that front, and to my knowledge Apple hasn't done anything to improve things for gaming (they are actively hostile to it in some ways).

I expect that growth is from people leaving Windows 10. If Microsoft are going to make you buy a new machine anyway, do you really want that machine to be a Windows machine? For a chunk of people it seems that the answer is "no." Especially with how well-regarded Apple's Arm chips have been - I think the bump before the decline in Mac share was from the sentiment around the M1 chip.

I'm pleased that Mac is growing again. The bigger the non-Windows market, the more incentive there is for game devs to avoid single-platform tooling. Although it is a shame that Apple makes it hard to use one solution (like Vulkan, say) for all platforms. Apple having Vulkan on Macs and Sony having Vulkan on the PS6 would make multiplatform game dev much more straightforward.

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Quoting: Marlockthe percentage of linux machines with Deck-exclusive GPUs is now smaller (iirc it reached ~50% for a while) so linux growth is now driven by actual linux distros installed on PCs, laptops, etc, not a niche console that happens to have linux in it but you might never realize it, if seen as just a console

In case you'd like a graph:

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It would definitely be a good thing if Intel could get their shizz together... but I'm not optimistic that they will.

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An annoying downside to Fedora — Installing NVIDIA GPU drivers on Fedora still needs more steps than it should.

Given that most people in need of a "which distro to pick" article are going to be on Nvidia, that's reason enough to not pick Fedora.

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