SteamOS as a Windows replacement...

[ZedClampet]

SteamOS is meant specifically for the Steam Deck (previously the Steam Machine) and would take a little work, I think, to configure it for a laptop, but based on the Steam Deck Review on PC Gamer, it sounds like it would be perfect for my gaming/Internet laptop, which has had nothing but problems with Windows (I'm going to post about this in Troubleshooting when I'm done with this post).

If Valve put a little extra work into SteamOS's desktop and made it almost as user-friendly as Windows, I'd switch in an instant.

Anyone heard anything recent about SteamOS or anyone getting a Deck who can report in on the OS? I could just go with Ubuntu and Wine or Proton, but the primary purpose of this particular PC is just gaming, which seems like the perfect match for SteamOS.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Anyone heard anything recent about SteamOS or anyone getting a Deck who can report in on the OS? I could just go with Ubuntu and Wine or Proton, but the primary purpose of this particular PC is just gaming, which seems like the perfect match for SteamOS.

The latest reviews (I admittedly skimmed through vs read), said Steam Deck is suffering a lot from software problems. So you may want to hold off on committing to it or Steam OS. At the very least, set it up in dual boot with Windows if you can, so you can at least fall back on MS' bloatware if need be.

 

[mainer]

If Valve put a little extra work into SteamOS's desktop and made it almost as user-friendly as Windows, I'd switch in an instant.

I believe that I would as well, but unfortunately, I think wide support and compatibility for thousand of games will always be an issue. Not just new and recent games, but all those games going back to 20 years or more. Right now with Windows 10 I can play any game from my game libraries from any year with rarely an issue (some might take a bit of tweaking to run properly, but I've not run into any major issues).

A Steam OS for the desktop PC would have to provide the same wide ranging game support for me to switch. I'd love to see it happen, I just don't know if it's realistic. I seem to remember some news from years ago about Valve working on a Steam OS, but it just kind of fizzled out, in the news anyway.

 

[flashn00b]

Productivity software's gonna be the major thing that Linux will fail at when matching Windows.

Sure, there may be some Linux apps that have support for files used by Office 2007 onward, though you won't be designing kitchens or mapping out architectural blueprints on a piece of software very few businesses even care to use.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

If you're willing to go to the trouble to install it, it wouldn't hurt anything to try it out. If you don't like it, you can always just install Ubuntu and use Wine/Proton. I'm not sure how much Linux experience you have, but just keep in mind that some things are going to take some tweaking and workarounds to get working. It's not going to be plug-n-play, like playing games made for Windows in Windows. But if you don't mind doing that kind of thing, it might be worth trying out.

Let us know what you end up doing, and how it works out for you.

 

[The Hope]

You also have ChimeraOS which is quite suitable for what you want to achieve:

Turn Your PC Into a Console With ChimeraOS

You really need to give it a try.

linuxgamingcentral.com

If you are a less demanding gamer, you can argue that any OS is suitable for gaming. You can install a browser on any system, and there are currently thousands of WebGL games that perform well on any browser.

The Unix-like operating systems I currently find to be the most qualitative:

Easy and for AMD/Intel/Nvidia users: mageia, Nobara Project, Mint, ROSA Fresh, Neptune, openKylin, GhostBSD, siduction, ALT Sisyphus, EndeavourOS
Average and for AMD/Intel users: Devuan, Void Linux, OpenBSD, Clear Linux, FreeBSD, Artix Linux, DragonFly BSD, Alpine Linux
Average and for Nvidia users: Void Linux, FreeBSD, Artix Linux

 

[Brian Boru]

FreeBSD

Anything for Mac users? Isn't their current OS based on FreeBSD, so maybe…?

 

[The Hope]

Anything for Mac users? Isn't their current OS based on FreeBSD, so maybe…?

macOS is heavily overrated in my opinion. I think it was an extremely good system 13 years ago in the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard era. But the operating system has degraded over the years in most areas.

In terms of productivity, I have to say that I am more productive in literally every Unix-like desktop environment I have ever tried than in macOS. In macOS, I often have to look up how things work like clearing browser history from Safari.

Even in terms of general productivity, macOS is not something that makes you more productive. Most people who have used a Linux/BSD window manager are of the opinion that macOS is a big step backwards:

https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/comments/141mkdy

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/i3wm/comments/141mkdy/i3_linux_macos/

Thoughts and prayers brother
I have to use a Mac for a contract I picked up and holy god is this OS atrocious.
As just one example, did you know that if you download a file over another one (ie reuse the name), it doesn't update the file creation time? It feels like a ******* student project that conned people into purchasing it.

I think XFCE and LXQt are currently the best options if you want a full desktop like macOS. Both XFCE and LXQt look very basic and less pretty than macOS. But you can theme both in half an hour so that they are on par with macOS in terms of looks and workflow.

 

[The Hope]

Anything for Mac users? Isn't their current OS based on FreeBSD, so maybe…?

https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/f5k7hf

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/f5k7hf/snow_leopard_vs_catalina/


Q: Hello, i had a Mac in 2014 and I sold it in that time. Now i recently bought a new mac that comes with Catalina.
Since I was out of Mac world for almost 6 years, what are the real big differences between the old MacOSX (Snow leopard,lion) and the brand new Catalina?
My Mac is coming soon and im lost about the news that the Catalina brings.

A #1: Oh boy. - I miss Snow Leopard

A #2: Shock ton of bugs and background daemons that you cant turn off unless you know command fu. New filesystem. Run like snail on HDD machine, runs ok on ssd. But nowhere as “boot to desktop in 5s flat with ssd” snow leopard.
They went flat design (but now we at least have dark mode to fix it)
Reflective dock is gone.
Videotoolbox is cool.
iWork got less feature than ‘09
Permission woes. All store apps are sandboxed. Its sorta “iOS-ified” now more than ever with them porting them over with Catalyst.
Kextes are being deprecated in favor of driverkit (usermode drivers)
Get TotalSpaces 2, that sorta bring back spaces. You will be stuck with mojave if you strictly want iWork 09 to run tho. To be fair its not running all that well now either.

A #3: The biggest gotcha to watch out for with Catalina is it will not run 32-bit apps. That is the dealbreaker reason that I won't upgrade to it, I still have some important apps that are 32-bit only.

A #4: Mostly downhill since 10.6.