RemoveWindowsAI

There genuinely are some great things about Windows as a developer. Also, I like to play games and Linux isn't quite there yet.

I'd say Linux is most of the way there considering the existence of the Steam Deck. Even then, why not use a Windows virtual machine?

Because a VM will still be running the AI components?

The VM won't have access to the GPU in a meaningful way unless you have multiple GPUs and can dedicate one to the VM.

Windows virtual machines are much slower than bare hardware, especially for things GP mentioned like games. I have also found Linux lags behind in many areas that matter to me in functionality, performance (even compared to Windows 11) and general ease of use. Lots of people Linux or Chrome OS is sufficient for them, and that's great, but it's not enough for everybody.

In response to your initial question, I believe everything must be criticized, especially things we like. Internal criticism, such as criticism of Windows, is just as important as external competitors, such as Linux.

As someone in this exact position, I swapped to CachyOS this week and have been extremely impressed. I've yet to come across a game that didn't function extremely well (I have not tested bf6 yet, which I suspect the anti cheat may fail on).

Really that's the problem - Anticheat. Sure, at this point most games work on Linux. The problem is, most people don't play most games. Most people play a handful of games, and where the players go, the cheaters follow. In response, the game studios deploy more and more aggressive anticheat measures, ultimately breaking the tiny minority of people who would've otherwise been able to play the game on Linux/Proton.

Take a look at https://areweanticheatyet.com at some of the biggest games on the planet, and how most of them don't support Linux or Proton.

I'm confused by your statement. I'm a serious gamer and I've been on Linux for years. It's there, and it's been there for a while.

I feel you on liking things about Windows though. I'm a Windows guy by nature. I genuinely like the OS, and if Microsoft wasn't being so absurdly user-hostile I would switch back in a heartbeat.

> Linux lags behind in many areas that matter to me in functionality, performance

I'd be interested to know about the gaps you see? I miss desktop excel, but not a whole lot else.

I'd be more (or at least as) worried about these sketchy 'debloat' scripts and the root kit's in your game's anti-cheat than Microsoft's AI.

Not OP, but as I'm sure you already know, there is a small but significant minority of games that don't play nice on Linux. Generally these are triple-A games that either have very competitive MP scenes, and/or which are thinly disguised casinos (e.g. Madden).

There's also more friction with gaming on Linux the moment you step off the beaten path (i.e. Steam). Yes, yes, Lutris etc, but you're still going to run into things that refuse to play ball from time to time. You can generally solve these, but it's friction you don't get on Windows, and that you might not be in the mood for when you want to play a game.

I've been a gamer on Linux for years too. I'd say it's ~80% there. (95% if you don't play competitive triple-As and stick to Steam.) It drops dramatically though if you want to play oddball 90s and 00s games, or use modding tools, etc.

Personally, I've been toying with the idea of putting Windows on my gaming PC again, after many years. It's not my daily driver, so I'm not too fussed what runs the actual games. My time is limited and valuable to me, and I do not want to spend it nailing down cryptic Proton incantations (admittedly rare, but not yet rare enough). I love tinkering, but that's not tinkering, that's a chore.

VR on Linux is buggy and worse than on Windows in some important ways.

To turn your first question around - if you care that much about games, why not just run Windows and remove the parts you don't like?

Why would you care?

I have a computer running fedora with a 5080 GPU. The newer games all work fine (e.g. cyberpunk 2077, BG3). The really old games mostly work fine (e.g. system shock 2, original Deus Ex) . The in-between games... are really hit-or-miss (e.g. I can't get witcher 1/2 or Deus Ex Human Revolution to run).

I use NVIDIA hardware which objectively have superior maximum performance compared to AMD graphics cards. I use HDR high pixel density monitors as well. I like laptops with decent battery life and decent touch pads.

Windows simply offers a cleaner, more well put-together experience when it comes to these edge cases. I have many tiny nitpicks about how Linux behaves, and every time I go back to my Windows Enterprise install it is a breath of fresh air that my 170% scaling and HDR just work. No finagling with a million different environment variables or CLI options. If a program hasn't opted into resolution independent scaling then I just disable it, and somehow the vector elements are still scaled correctly, leaving only the raster elements blurry. Nowadays laptop touch pads feel like they are Macs, which is high praise and a sea change from where Windows touch pads were about a decade ago.

If you strip away all the AI nonsense, Windows is a genuinely decent platform for getting anything done. Seriously, MS Office blows everything else out of the water. I still go back to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint when I want to do productivity. Adobe suite, pro audio tools, Da Vinci Resolve, etc, they just... work. If you haven't programmed in Visual Studio or used WinDbg then you have not used a serious, high-end debugger. GDB and perf are not even in the same league.

As a Windows power user, I want to go back to the Windows 2000 GUI shell, but with all the modernity of Windows 11's kernel and user-space libraries and drivers. I wish Enterprise was the default release, not the annoying Home versions. And I really, really wish Windows was open-sourced. Not just the kernel, but the user mode as well, because the user mode is where a lot of the juice is, and is what makes Windows Windows.

I have played through Deus Ex HR (and MD) on Bazzite albeit on an AMD GPU. You should generally be able to do it with Proton (GE recommended) either Steam (recommended) or Heroic (if you bought them from GOG).

Witcher 1/2 at least also worked OOB via steam.

For some context/ user comments, see Deus Ex HR[0] and System Shock 2[1] on protondb.

[0]: https://www.protondb.com/app/238010 (gold, deck status: playable) [1]: https://www.protondb.com/app/238210 (platinum, deck status: playable)

For all the same reasons you don’t want data leaking from a native OS running on bare metal? Not sure where you are going with this.