@wendell
Appreciate the collab with Linus, but I do have to say Iâm disappointed.
Disclaimer: I do not know the relationship between Linus and yourself and as such have no idea what the requirements were for the video and the script that LMG wanted to follow. Iâd like to echo some of the concerns of the community as well as my own opinion of the video.
I do not believe this was a beneficial video under the title âGaming on Linuxâ. The opening was worth a good laugh, but after the intro we start with my concerns.
The GNU/Linux copy-pasta was neat, but for me it came across as arrogant and unfortunately a majority of Linusâ audience does not know of the reference.
First off, suggesting to manually install the binary graphics driver from the manufacturer is a very big no-no on Linux. Debian explicitly states to never use manufacturer GPU driver sources. Understandably for bleeding-edge GPU compatibility this is true but as per your example (1080 & 1080 Ti) have been supported in the packaged nvidia-kernel-dkms driver since January. For a windows centric gaming channel implying that users need the driver from Nvidiaâs website seems pretty poor and contrary to most distributionsâ recommendations. The beauty of Linux is that all you really need is included and in reality very easy for a new user to setup, whereas this step contradicts this very philosophy.
Again, not sure if the editing or LMGâs direction skewed the message that you were hoping to deliver, but we now enter many minutes of installing new repositories and replacing stock packages/kernel due to age. (on a personal note this is why I do not like âfreeze and releaseâ distros like Ubuntu and why I personally use a rolling release - Debian Testing) The video rolls through a decent amount of what I would consider material that is not acceptable to present to new users. (updating kernel, updating mesa)
And now we reach my main issue with this video and where the title âGaming on Linuxâ is not accurate to the content. This video does not cover or speak of native Linux gaming in any useful capacity. A more accurate title would be âRunning Windows games on Linux in 2018 - Whatâs new from 2008?â.
At 5:16 we reach something I had been screaming internally about since WINE was first mentioned in the video. To a new Linux user, what is WINE? It is mentioned many times but never explained until almost 5 minutes in. To any unfamiliar users the first 5 minutes of content would be a complete blur, pure technical jargon without the context of how WINE fits into the equation of enabling API and compatibility between Windows applications and the Linux kernel ( & GNU utilities). It takes this long to finally get the explanation as to what you are working on and the goal that you are trying to reach as a demonstration later on.
Your explanation of WINE is pretty spot on, well said and translates easily to the common user.
9:40 - yes Linus, we all know you need a GUI and expensive software to do PCI passthrough.
When it comes down to it the entire video mentions nothing about the leaps that native Linux gaming has had in the last few years in terms of the increase in games and community development. Our message to the masses should be primarily promoting native Linux games and development, not how Linux can emulate and virtualize other operating systems. We are not gaining any ground by continuing to push for better compatibility, we should be pushing for native games. EON wrappers, bad ports, and developers outright discounting the Linux community is the issue. As I personally have experienced if I am going to bother dealing with compatibility and emulation, I might as well just run windows as the host. What do I gain by dedicating all my resources to a virtual machine or wasting hours and performance with compatibility layers?
Furthermore PCI passthrough and virtualization is portrayed as a valid alternative and it certainly is quite a feat of RedHatâs KVM, but in reality PCI passthrough is an absolute pain to get working if you run into any snags along the way and cannot be easily summed up in a single guide (as I have learned myself from my own video). I would consider PCI passthrough to be applicable to advanced Linux users, and even under that the requirements and process is overwhelming if you have not done it many times before.
I certainly apologize if you were under a difference pretense when creating this video, and the result was not what you were expecting. But as it seems from the end-user and as an avid Linux user this video mostly portrayed that Linux is not a capable gaming platform and only serves to create major hassles to avoid Windows spying.
I would have really appreciated a focus on native Linux games with a minor mention of DXVK, Lutris, and WINE.