11 ms·

I want to buy one just to raise the signal that Linux support is important. When these machines were announced I switched to Fedora as a daily driver on my hig

by prhn 3mo ago

I want to buy one just to raise the signal that Linux support is important. When these machines were announced I switched to Fedora as a daily driver on my high end gaming rig. It’s been awesome. I still have to go back to Windows for music production unfortunately. I may switch to Mac for that so I can completely abandon Windows. I run an optical HDMI cable from my office to my TV and get to play games and use Linux in 77”. Something feels awesome about that.

JopV 3mo ago
A much better way to raise that signal, is to use that money to buy native Linux games instead.
inigyou 3mo ago
Let me guess, DAWs? Have you tried Reaper (FOSS) or Bitwig Studio (commercial)?
- intrikate 3mo ago
  Reaper is neither Free nor Open Source.
- tuvix 3mo ago
  Seconding Reaper, great software. Renoise is also extremely fun to use if you’re comfortable with trackers (for midi input not that they track you) and you make electronic music
- Melonai 3mo ago
  As a sibling comment pointed out, Reaper is not FOSS, it's fully proprietary. What makes it stand out is its great Linux support, and very generous licensing. If you want to venture into the FOSS DAW realm on Linux you have to go to LMMS and Ardour. I've played around with them, they're a little bare-bones, but they do work. Issue is I haven't been able to use them properly, because I just can't stand to look at them, they are afflicted with the medium-size open-source project curse of looking particularly horrid. I hope this isn't taken as an affront to any of the developers behind these projects, a DAW is a hard task, but I keep asking myself, out of the set of developers who work on these projects, is there really no one who feels the same way as me? Am I just afflicted with some weird pixel-peeping autism-esque disorder that makes me stare at the constantly-reocurring-throughout-all-FOSS-applications clump of jarringly gradient-ed grey buttons with white icons on them, their round corners contrasting with each other because they're clearly placed way too close together than they were meant to be? (I swear I see this in every mid-scale project using QT and older GTK!) And I also need to confirm, this isn't just a "slight annoyance" for me, I have genuine issues when I have to concentrate on a project within some application that is suffering from the FOSS UI affliction, my mind wanders to looking at those buttons again, or those #00FF00 greens, or at some label that has clearly seeped a few pixels downwards out-of-alignment with the button it was placed in... Ugh, I know I have some issues for sure, but I know someone else has to care about this too? It's the main reason why I fail at using non-textual FOSS software, and have to resort to Logic Pro or Ableton! Sorry for the rant, I had to get it out of me. I wish I had more time in a day, then perhaps I could go to these projects and help out with UI, but I have a feeling my proposals will be rejected, even if I had the time to make them, I have found most FOSS developers are quite happy with how their UI usually looks like, including many people here on this forum.
  - yolo_420 3mo ago
    No, Ardour is disgustingly ugly, so is Gimp and other FOSS apps stuck in the 90s. Some people dig that though I guess. Also isn’t the case with Ardour that they essentially want you to pay for the binary because compiling it is a PiTA and there are no instructions on how to do so?
  - bschwindHN 3mo ago
    You're not alone, I'm also constantly pixel peeping and disappointed with the UIs of many open source (and closed source!) tools.
bitmasher9 3mo ago
It’s always fantastic to read a success story of migrating to Linux gaming from Windows. As Windows gets worse and worse there will be more people joining us. Even without buying you can send Linux gaming signals by playing on Linux and participating in the hardware survey.
- awesomeusername 3mo ago
  I just did this at home, and my 9 year old, without my bias or prompting, was pointing out that sea of thieves and MSFS are both microsoft games but run better on Linux I can't believe what a non-event it was switching the kids over
gonzalohm 3mo ago
You are lucky. A lot of the games I play with friends use kernel level anticheat crap that doesn't work on Linux
- connicpu 3mo ago
  I'm somewhat lucky in that I didn't have to be the one to force that issue, another friend in my gaming group already made the decision that he would switch to Linux and no longer play any games that did not work on Linux/Proton. So it was pretty easy for me to just switch last year.
  - dd8601fn 3mo ago
    My thinking was that I’ll use the Steam Machine for whatever I can. If there’s some title that friends really want to play and that requires kernel anticheat, and it exists in geforce now, I’ll do that from the steam machine. If it’s something even less doable than that… well I’ll do without.
- dijit 3mo ago
  I work in AAA; more people using Linux means we'll actually get buy-in for working with Linux as a platform. Right now Producers and HQ don't want to support it because "theres no money there" and they're bolstered by a crew of developers who have only ever touched Windows who will reinforce the notion that Windows is all you need (because they've sunk their entire career into the platform). I remember bringing this topic up a decade ago and basically being laughed out of the room, slowly those laughs will become uncomfortable silences, then token support from the passionate, then proper initiatives. It takes time, yeah, but we're so much further today already than we were 10+years ago.
  - Atotalnoob 3mo ago
    Even if AAA supports Linux, it’s got to be without kernel anticheat. That’s a non starter for myself and many others
    - 3mo ago
archagon 3mo ago
How do you use a controller with your TV? Do you route USB over there as well?
d3Xt3r 3mo ago
I too want to buy one to support the ecosystem, but sadly, Valve doesn't want me to. > This item is not available for purchase in your region
soundworlds 3mo ago
I also work in music production (for video games) and fully switched to Linux + FOSS about a year ago. I'd say it is a lot more doable if you make electronic styles of music. Harder if you make classical styles, as many of the big sample libraries don't support Linux yet. Just in case you're interested, here's a list of everything I use: https://johnoestmannmusic.com/tooling/ https://johnoestmannmusic.com/tooling/
- Parae 3mo ago
  If you make electronic music using only virtual instruments and effects, it's ok. But if you play live, record live bands with lot's of mics and need to use physical hardware. Neither Mac nor Linux are an option. Lot's of interface simply work best with Window.
  - pkwy 3mo ago
    That is just categorically false (re: Mac not an option). I’ve been doing all of those things professionally on Macs for almost 20 years. I can’t actually think of a single one of my peers that uses Windows.
    - Parae 2mo ago
      That's great to read. I've used Windows for years for music production and recording, due to lot's of audio interfaces which performed best on Windows than on Mac and Linux. In lot's of recording studio I went, they almost always have Windows with Cubase in a case of something wrong with Mac and Pro Tools.
hypertexthero 3mo ago
Ditto. I use Macs for work and PC for games, and this little box seems a good opportunity to play The Legend of Linux on a desktop or a couch, and make it true.
sourcegrift 3mo ago
Please buy pinephone instead.
whazor 3mo ago
The Steam Machines raises the bar on PC Console gaming. Because: - GPUs don't support HDMI CEC by default, nor does the operating system offer it - Suspend mode on motherboards often suck - Many game controllers with 2.4Ghz don't properly import USB Wake events. Or the motherboard didn't implement it properly I see the Steam Machine as an expensive open source concept car that moves the needle for us PC gamers.
- mlrtime 3mo ago
  Hasn't all this been mostly solved on the Nvidia Shield Pro for ~7 years now?
  - c0n5pir4cy 3mo ago
    Not really - it's not a PC.
  - 4chandaily 3mo ago
    Sure, and this also solves those things while having better hardware. I have a shield pro, it hasn't seen a hardware update in a long time. I can game one it, but I need to use the steam link app, not run the games natively. These devices serve similar, but different markets.
ActorNightly 3mo ago
All it would take for Linux to be equal is nvidia getting their shit together and putting together drivers for Linux. But because everyone in the world wants to give them money right now, chances are that is not going to happen.

by prhn 3mo ago

JopV 3mo ago

A much better way to raise that signal, is to use that money to buy native Linux games instead.

inigyou 3mo ago

Let me guess, DAWs? Have you tried Reaper (FOSS) or Bitwig Studio (commercial)?

intrikate 3mo ago
Reaper is neither Free nor Open Source.
tuvix 3mo ago
Seconding Reaper, great software. Renoise is also extremely fun to use if you’re comfortable with trackers (for midi input not that they track you) and you make electronic music
Melonai 3mo ago
As a sibling comment pointed out, Reaper is not FOSS, it's fully proprietary. What makes it stand out is its great Linux support, and very generous licensing. If you want to venture into the FOSS DAW realm on Linux you have to go to LMMS and Ardour. I've played around with them, they're a little bare-bones, but they do work. Issue is I haven't been able to use them properly, because I just can't stand to look at them, they are afflicted with the medium-size open-source project curse of looking particularly horrid. I hope this isn't taken as an affront to any of the developers behind these projects, a DAW is a hard task, but I keep asking myself, out of the set of developers who work on these projects, is there really no one who feels the same way as me? Am I just afflicted with some weird pixel-peeping autism-esque disorder that makes me stare at the constantly-reocurring-throughout-all-FOSS-applications clump of jarringly gradient-ed grey buttons with white icons on them, their round corners contrasting with each other because they're clearly placed way too close together than they were meant to be? (I swear I see this in every mid-scale project using QT and older GTK!) And I also need to confirm, this isn't just a "slight annoyance" for me, I have genuine issues when I have to concentrate on a project within some application that is suffering from the FOSS UI affliction, my mind wanders to looking at those buttons again, or those #00FF00 greens, or at some label that has clearly seeped a few pixels downwards out-of-alignment with the button it was placed in... Ugh, I know I have some issues for sure, but I know someone else has to care about this too? It's the main reason why I fail at using non-textual FOSS software, and have to resort to Logic Pro or Ableton! Sorry for the rant, I had to get it out of me. I wish I had more time in a day, then perhaps I could go to these projects and help out with UI, but I have a feeling my proposals will be rejected, even if I had the time to make them, I have found most FOSS developers are quite happy with how their UI usually looks like, including many people here on this forum.
- yolo_420 3mo ago
  No, Ardour is disgustingly ugly, so is Gimp and other FOSS apps stuck in the 90s. Some people dig that though I guess. Also isn’t the case with Ardour that they essentially want you to pay for the binary because compiling it is a PiTA and there are no instructions on how to do so?
- bschwindHN 3mo ago
  You're not alone, I'm also constantly pixel peeping and disappointed with the UIs of many open source (and closed source!) tools.

bitmasher9 3mo ago

It’s always fantastic to read a success story of migrating to Linux gaming from Windows. As Windows gets worse and worse there will be more people joining us. Even without buying you can send Linux gaming signals by playing on Linux and participating in the hardware survey.

awesomeusername 3mo ago
I just did this at home, and my 9 year old, without my bias or prompting, was pointing out that sea of thieves and MSFS are both microsoft games but run better on Linux I can't believe what a non-event it was switching the kids over

gonzalohm 3mo ago

You are lucky. A lot of the games I play with friends use kernel level anticheat crap that doesn't work on Linux

connicpu 3mo ago
I'm somewhat lucky in that I didn't have to be the one to force that issue, another friend in my gaming group already made the decision that he would switch to Linux and no longer play any games that did not work on Linux/Proton. So it was pretty easy for me to just switch last year.
- dd8601fn 3mo ago
  My thinking was that I’ll use the Steam Machine for whatever I can. If there’s some title that friends really want to play and that requires kernel anticheat, and it exists in geforce now, I’ll do that from the steam machine. If it’s something even less doable than that… well I’ll do without.
dijit 3mo ago
I work in AAA; more people using Linux means we'll actually get buy-in for working with Linux as a platform. Right now Producers and HQ don't want to support it because "theres no money there" and they're bolstered by a crew of developers who have only ever touched Windows who will reinforce the notion that Windows is all you need (because they've sunk their entire career into the platform). I remember bringing this topic up a decade ago and basically being laughed out of the room, slowly those laughs will become uncomfortable silences, then token support from the passionate, then proper initiatives. It takes time, yeah, but we're so much further today already than we were 10+years ago.
- Atotalnoob 3mo ago
  Even if AAA supports Linux, it’s got to be without kernel anticheat. That’s a non starter for myself and many others
  - 3mo ago

archagon 3mo ago

How do you use a controller with your TV? Do you route USB over there as well?

d3Xt3r 3mo ago

I too want to buy one to support the ecosystem, but sadly, Valve doesn't want me to. > This item is not available for purchase in your region

soundworlds 3mo ago

I also work in music production (for video games) and fully switched to Linux + FOSS about a year ago. I'd say it is a lot more doable if you make electronic styles of music. Harder if you make classical styles, as many of the big sample libraries don't support Linux yet. Just in case you're interested, here's a list of everything I use: https://johnoestmannmusic.com/tooling/ https://johnoestmannmusic.com/tooling/

Parae 3mo ago
If you make electronic music using only virtual instruments and effects, it's ok. But if you play live, record live bands with lot's of mics and need to use physical hardware. Neither Mac nor Linux are an option. Lot's of interface simply work best with Window.
- pkwy 3mo ago
  That is just categorically false (re: Mac not an option). I’ve been doing all of those things professionally on Macs for almost 20 years. I can’t actually think of a single one of my peers that uses Windows.
  - Parae 2mo ago
    That's great to read. I've used Windows for years for music production and recording, due to lot's of audio interfaces which performed best on Windows than on Mac and Linux. In lot's of recording studio I went, they almost always have Windows with Cubase in a case of something wrong with Mac and Pro Tools.

hypertexthero 3mo ago

Ditto. I use Macs for work and PC for games, and this little box seems a good opportunity to play The Legend of Linux on a desktop or a couch, and make it true.

sourcegrift 3mo ago

Please buy pinephone instead.

whazor 3mo ago

The Steam Machines raises the bar on PC Console gaming. Because: - GPUs don't support HDMI CEC by default, nor does the operating system offer it - Suspend mode on motherboards often suck - Many game controllers with 2.4Ghz don't properly import USB Wake events. Or the motherboard didn't implement it properly I see the Steam Machine as an expensive open source concept car that moves the needle for us PC gamers.

mlrtime 3mo ago
Hasn't all this been mostly solved on the Nvidia Shield Pro for ~7 years now?
- c0n5pir4cy 3mo ago
  Not really - it's not a PC.
- 4chandaily 3mo ago
  Sure, and this also solves those things while having better hardware. I have a shield pro, it hasn't seen a hardware update in a long time. I can game one it, but I need to use the steam link app, not run the games natively. These devices serve similar, but different markets.

ActorNightly 3mo ago

All it would take for Linux to be equal is nvidia getting their shit together and putting together drivers for Linux. But because everyone in the world wants to give them money right now, chances are that is not going to happen.