Counter Strike: Global Offensive is now on Linux.
Netflix now works in Linux native with HTML5 you do have to use Google Chrome though :(
Tropico was also ported.
Edit: Borderlands 2 out as well
Edit 2: Gnome 3.14 released
It's definitely a step in the right direction. Netflix alone is key
The past year has seen so much growth on making Linux better for the general user.
Also the driver and Kernel updates have been amazing.
^ That. My ultrabook wifi card finally has a native driver in the kernel. I just installed Archlinux without having to plug in anything other than my flash drive. it was great.
Unreal 4 engine being on GIT and having source code for a very low price is so cool.
one of the biggest Game engines being nearly open source is a massive deal.
Between the PS4, OSX, Android, SteamOS and Linux the potential user base is now huge. The economic motivation is here and we are seeing the beginning of something great.
That being said said there is still work to be done. Wayland and 3d acceleration still are quite there. Package managers still have dependency problems.
Edit; Valve also seems to moving to more open source by Gaben keynote at a Linux convention. The artwork and writing are the things that are copyrighted but the code is open.
Still needs better game support though. LOL
What a constructive reply...
I addressed what needs to be done to further Linux.
in the time you spent on your post you could have posted a bug report to GIT or sourceforge or winehq
if we want Linux gaming the users are going to have to help
I am not even a Linux user but this gets me excited. I really want to switch to nix full time. However there are several things that keep me from doing so.
I could dual boot, yes. But who wants to reboot their system every time they want to play a game? Not me, especially since I can't afford an SSD right now.
Also, there is no good editing software. And if there was an alternative to Adobe products I still wouldn't be all that excited. It's taken me long enough to learn Premiere and Photoshop. If there is a way to virtualize them and still run ok (I don't need them crazy fast, I need them for casual/personal use. Even running them in a Windows VM is fine).
On the plus side, like mentioned above, my most played and favorite game (CS:GO) has been released to run native on Linux. Along with Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). Those were two very important things for me. We've had Steam for a while. Don't use Netflix however. We just need more games to run native, and I feel like there will be a snowball effect with that.
The only way I'll be able to really learn Linux is to force myself to daily it and struggle for a week or two, and that is fine as long as the end result is a better-than-Windows user experience.
On another note, have you guys seen KDE Plasma 5? It's quite beautiful.... http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/kde-plasma-5-for-those-linux-users-undecided-on-the-kernels-future/
what you can do to help is run a VM of linux on virtual box and play indie games. if you buy games make sure you do it under Linux. Ask for Linux support on Kickstarter pages.
Give GIMP a try in window you may like it. My wife prefers it over photoshop.
Also try light works many Hollywood movies use it.
Both work in Linux and windows.
I like the fact that CS:GO is now on Linux, way to go. Linux gaming seems to be coming closer and closer each passing day, which is good. A good number of games I enjoy run on Linux fine currently just a need a few more to push me over to Linux 24/7.
Once I saw that Netflix is on Linux, the real possibility of a Linux HTPC happened. I'm not using Hulu or Amazon right now for video, do they both work on Linux aswell?
OT but do the Linux filesystems speed up writes at all?
Yes both EXT4 and BTRFS are both faster and have less issues with fragmentation than NTFS.
It is a big step forward that was taken this year!
With commercial entertainment software coming to Linux, of course this will in the first place benefit linubased software consoles like SteamOS, but at least, it's an open platform. Things like Ubuntu or SteamOS are like the Android that comes out of the box on mobile devices, it's a lot better than non-linux based crap, but nowhere near satisfactory for enthusiasts, but at least, anyone can very easily turn the software console into the real thing, and that's a huge step forward!
Netflix (anything silverlight-based) for linux has also been implemented this week, but it's not a nice thing for the user that cares. It's still a DRM-system, it's poisoned software, it belongs in an unprivileged container, from a code perspective, things like Pipelight/Silverlight, Flash, proprietary graphics drivers, the Steam client, etc... are hazardous materials, so they should be kept in a hazmat container, which is either an lxc 1.0+ or a kvm container.
To run it in an lxc 1.0+, you don't even need a CPU with virtualization extensions, it literally runs on everything, doesn't need any special hardware whatsoever. All you need is a pretty recent linux distro, not even bleeding edge, just nothing that is super old like Debian Stable or something (which is still on lxc 0.8, which has no unprivileged container capability). Lxc adds no noticeable overhead whatsoever, you won't notice any loss in performance, and it's really easy to use. Lxc is not full virtualization, it's shared kernel virtualization, which means that it will run anything that is linux kernel based, even if that is a completely different distro, like a full SteamOS install, or an Android-x86 install. It is similar but better than BSD Jails, which has had unprivileged containers for quite some time. An lxc can be set up for anything from a single application to an entire distro, so it's very flexible and there is little waste of resources.
So all those that want to bring commercial entertainment and the DRM and spyware that comes with that to their linux installs, be smart, handle these things with care, at least keep them in an lxc.
Hulu works with flash installed. So does Amazon but they are ass hats and break it regularly. Google it I am not sure if it works right now.
Yeah I am keeping Google chrome locked in a VM at the moment.
So all those that want to bring commercial entertainment and the DRM and spyware that comes with that to their linux installs, be smart, handle these things with care, at least keep them in an lxc.
I think that "containered" software is going to be the default way of distributing software, it's not just for "the smart people"
As for the DRM, in chrome , p_lease there is no way they can stop people from using screen recording software. That even works with windows in a kvm container (vga pass through, not pcie) and blue-rays, even though it shouldn't because of the acs hdcp handshake etc. stuff.
It is funny that DRM only hurts legit customers and pirates have no issues getting around it.
I kinda wish Plan 9 from bell labs took off (was supposed to replace Unix)since all software is sand boxed.
Borderlands 2 is also out now
WOOP!
I know what I am doing this weekend also the next border lands will be on Linux too.
today just keeps getting better!