Comment by Gareth321

I think Linux needs a few things before it will be ready for mass consumer adoption.

1. An equivalent of kernel level anti-cheats. Cheating really sucks. It ruins online games. Kernel level anti-cheats aren't perfect, but they're much better than user-space or server-side anti-cheats. Maybe in the future AI solves this, but inherence-based anti-cheats are likely going to be a cat-and-mouse game. Valve have stated they are working on this problem and I think if anyone is going to solve it, it's them.

2. Immutability. Right now distributing games on Linux isn't distributing games "on Linux." It's distributing games to 12 different distros with a hundreds different configurations and a thousand customisations. This is impossible to support. When SteamOS gains traction, developers will be able to target exactly one distro with fixed configurations and limited customisations. Valve will set the standard for other distros.

3. An enforced equivalent of .exe. One of the most wonderful parts of Windows is the near universal acceptance and use of the executable installation method. You just double click the file and install it. Linux is an absolute clusterfuck of installation manuals and scripts and competing app stores with their own repos and permissions and packaging methods. If Valve were to mandate the use of, for example, flatpaks in SteamOS, that will become the universal standard. I think this is one of the most frustrating parts of using Linux for regular people.

4. Better hardware support. My Fanatec peripherals don't work well in Linux. Fanatec doesn't offer drivers and open source options are limited in functionality (and stability). There are many products for which drivers support sucks in Linux. I think AI will solve many of these issues over the next few years. Unless the manufacturer has gone out of their way to encrypt of obfuscate the communication layer with the product, you can basically point Codex at the peripheral and tell it to build an interface driver. Within a few years, I imagine operating systems will have this kind of functionality built in. If the OS encounters a peripheral it doesn't recognise, it will just build its own driver on the fly.

I am more optimistic about all of these than ever before. Linus Torvalds famously said it will take Valve to fix this fragmentation problem for us, and that looks like where we are heading. No doubt there will be Linux fans who lament the loss of diversity and competition, but I think we end up with a true competition to Windows for gaming. That's when I will make the jump.