Comment by ok123456
5 years ago
It's not just the community mentality of the users. Just by raw numbers there are going to be more "technical users" running on other platforms because the number of Linux users is so vanishingly small.
Most of the people trying to game on Linux are "non-technical" with regards to being able to debug random errors in some random binary. You can only really assume they have enough skill to put an Ubuntu image on to a flash drive, boot it, and follow a few prompts.
The software tools are just better for locating, reporting, and communicating these errors are just better on Linux. Not treating your users like morons and giving users actual feedback about why something crashed instead of writing out crash reports to disk that never get sent anywhere is apparently a more effective way of tackling software defects.
> Just by raw numbers there are going to be more "technical users" running on other platforms
Observation bias. The vast majority of desktop users in 2021 are found in a professional setting (offices, etc.). Those users don't use computers at home, whereas the vast majority of Linux users do.
> You can only really assume they have enough skill to put an Ubuntu image on to a flash drive, boot it, and follow a few prompts.
I'd like to see some statistics on that. Gaming has shifted to consoles and gaming on PC has been the domain of MS Windows for decades. Survey¹ says that >96% of users are on Windows and the few Linux gamers (~1%) are just as likely to run Arch as Ubuntu (0.26% vs 0.29%).
The choice of using Arch over Ubuntu is a strong indicator in- and of itself that the user made an informed decision (e.g. is tech savvy as opposed to "insert media and click 'next' a few times).
> Not treating your users like morons and giving users actual feedback about why something crashed [...]
As I mentioned that's not up to the OS but to the software in question. Also you're contradicting yourself here: on the one hand you argue that users aren't morons and have technical knowledge, while on the other hand you assume they're basically trained monkeys that can flash an image and follow prompts.
Which is it?
1. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey