Best Windows alternative that is still windows?


Intel honestly has the more solid CPU support for Linux right now. A few factors. One is of course the vast majority of the worlds Linux servers are running Intel hardware, its been very well optimized. Its also been very very well optimized by Intel themselves. Intel is one company that I am always torn on. I want to hate them most of the time... then I remember how much they really support Linux and open source. I guess no big company is all bad. :)

Having said that AMD has come a long way. They are not fully on board with their open source GPU drivers... and they are catching up with their optimizations for their Epyc and Ryzen chips.

Also keep in mind when you read Windows v Linux stuff... there are so many little things you can do to tweak performance under Linux. Their are entire distros such as Clear Linux with no goal other then extreme speed. (Clear Linux as an example is Intels own distro they maintain it for no other reason then to tweak max speed out of Intel hardware... they upstream what they learn and it improves Intel speed in any current kernel running distro) As more Linux server customers... and Linux gearhead programmers buy AMD. I would expect more performance will be squeezed out.

This is some interesting tests involving Linux Frequency Scaling Governor;
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-2990wx-cpufreq&num=1

Here is some more windows v linux tripper testing for you;
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=2990wx-linwin-scale&num=1

To be fair though when talking about Gamers.... multi core is still not the promise land sadly.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=threadripper-2950x-gaming&num=1
 
That's a big question to answer on a blog indirectly. The 100,000 foot fly over version (if you're an existing distro):

A program (staff or division) focused on finding the current companies enthusiast (insert gaming crowd here is fits better for your thoughts) users buy, like NZXT CAM, Corsair Link and iCue, SteelSeries Engine, Asus Strix, ROG, Creative highend cards and headsets like AE-5. This group identifies the latest and greatest being used and in demand.

I am confused, all of those things you just mentioned are niche market. In a thread about a best windows alternative, what does niche market stuff have to do with it? I can get general arguments about supporting hardware and gaming, but now you are talking about extremely niche stuff. Almost all of it has to do with the companies deciding to support Linux, not with the Linux distros themselves.
 
Just to throw it out there as well..

There is a very good reason why "enthusiast" gaming companies don't support Linux. Its not an install base issue or some other BS excuse. Its a simple loss of control issue.

Linux doesn't have a "driver" install. Hardware software is passed to the kernel team for inclusion. There is NO WAY IN Hell Linus is passing code that reports home to the kernel. So any driver a company would submit would have to be an actual pure driver.

There is no need to install third party software that advertises the latest greatest gaming GPU to you while it installs, or when you pop up the settings software. There is no need for a Razors "Cloud Managed" settings software. Or all the other complete and utter BS software packages hardware manufacturers push on the poor "enthusiast" users.
 
I am confused, all of those things you just mentioned are niche market. In a thread about a best windows alternative, what does niche market stuff have to do with it? I can get general arguments about supporting hardware and gaming, but now you are talking about extremely niche stuff. Almost all of it has to do with the companies deciding to support Linux, not with the Linux distros themselves.

Stop being silly... you asked questions and spouted off - out of being nice I answered your questions bud, you’ve went off the rails when asking for this discussion.

What you call niche is one of the strongest growing markets (why do you think we have all RGB crap and $3k titan GTX gaming cards, RGB sound cards, etc...) - I really don’t care if you don’t like this market nor am I asking you too...
 
Just to throw it out there as well..

There is a very good reason why "enthusiast" gaming companies don't support Linux. Its not an install base issue or some other BS excuse. Its a simple loss of control issue.

Linux doesn't have a "driver" install. Hardware software is passed to the kernel team for inclusion. There is NO WAY IN Hell Linus is passing code that reports home to the kernel. So any driver a company would submit would have to be an actual pure driver.

There is no need to install third party software that advertises the latest greatest gaming GPU to you while it installs, or when you pop up the settings software. There is no need for a Razors "Cloud Managed" settings software. Or all the other complete and utter BS software packages hardware manufacturers push on the poor "enthusiast" users.

Well said, I agree.
 
Stop being silly... you asked questions and spouted off - out of being nice I answered your questions bud, you’ve went off the rails when asking for this discussion.

What you call niche is one of the strongest growing markets (why do you think we have all RGB crap and $3k titan GTX gaming cards, RGB sound cards, etc...) - I really don’t care if you don’t like this market nor am I asking you too...

I don't know what you mean about spout off. I commented on your post in a discussion about the best Windows alternative.

As for the RGB stuff, you can get a bunch of it to work in Linux. My Titan cards work in Linux, my sound works in Linux. And yes, they are niche. When you consider the total number of users out there, it is an exceedingly small market that needs those things. You keep acting like none of this stuff works in Linux and keep shifting the benchmark. Originally it was just GPU and Sound devices. Then it was a bit more specific, then you got into incredibly niche devices.
 
Intel honestly has the more solid CPU support for Linux right now. A few factors. One is of course the vast majority of the worlds Linux servers are running Intel hardware, its been very well optimized. Its also been very very well optimized by Intel themselves. Intel is one company that I am always torn on. I want to hate them most of the time... then I remember how much they really support Linux and open source. I guess no big company is all bad. :)

Having said that AMD has come a long way. They are not fully on board with their open source GPU drivers... and they are catching up with their optimizations for their Epyc and Ryzen chips.

Also keep in mind when you read Windows v Linux stuff... there are so many little things you can do to tweak performance under Linux. Their are entire distros such as Clear Linux with no goal other then extreme speed. (Clear Linux as an example is Intels own distro they maintain it for no other reason then to tweak max speed out of Intel hardware... they upstream what they learn and it improves Intel speed in any current kernel running distro) As more Linux server customers... and Linux gearhead programmers buy AMD. I would expect more performance will be squeezed out.

This is some interesting tests involving Linux Frequency Scaling Governor;
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-2990wx-cpufreq&num=1

Here is some more windows v linux tripper testing for you;
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=2990wx-linwin-scale&num=1

To be fair though when talking about Gamers.... multi core is still not the promise land sadly.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=threadripper-2950x-gaming&num=1


Good points - I’ve forgot about Intel’s Linux - I took one of my RHCE at Red Hat NC with Intel Dev Engineer - Thank you for information and links, good stuff - I’ve sadly focused so much more of my time on the Microsoft - this takes me back to very late 90’s, Microsoft reached out looking to build team for a MicroLinux2000 OS, few days ago I saw news release they intent to release a Linux OS in near term.
 
Good points - I’ve forgot about Intel’s Linux - I took one of my RHCE at Red Hat NC with Intel Dev Engineer - Thank you for information and links, good stuff - I’ve sadly focused so much more of my time on the Microsoft - this takes me back to very late 90’s, Microsoft reached out looking to build team for a MicroLinux2000 OS, few days ago I saw news release they intent to release a Linux OS in near term.

Ya MS is going to release a IOT azure Linux powered OS soonish. They have used Linux internally for a long time now as well.

Long term I do believe MS will eventually move windows onto a Linux base. Its only logical. MS can't keep up to Linux R&D spend forever. As it stands to day basically every other Tech company in the world is spending millions on Linux development. MS can't compete with Google+IBM+Samsung+ect ect ect... everyone else basically forever.

I'm not saying Windows (Linux version) will run Gnome and be a super open spin. More likely they switch to the kernel... and hopefully stay in keeping with HFS rules, and naming conventions. A MS windows desktop envi on top of a Linux base would be a pretty solid OS. It will be just as ugly as windows 10 in terms of phoning home ect... but at least MS would solve some of there long standing issues in terms of security and updates ect.

Valve seems to be toying with the idea of making SteamOS run windows games... and if they are the ones bank rolling DXVK. Who knows... if they gain some steam (oh no pun intended) with a relaunch that supports 99% of the games on their service. I could see MS making a Move to a Linux base a lot faster then some would expect. I could even see them open sourcing DirectX in an attempt to shut Valve down.
 
I'm not going to stare at fugly all day just to avoid using 10.

I believe my Linux desktop looks great, personally I'm not the slightest bit impressed by Microsoft's mobile inspired desktop. KDE's Plasma looks amazing.

SteamOS is designed (per Steams own words) for the living room and very limited set of hardware - SteamOS is an appliance OS vs. desktop OS capable of installing and running RGB tools, Corsair Link, iCue, NZXT CAM, Gaming Audio Cards like Asus Strix or CL AE-5.

SteamOS is just Debian with a nice front end designed for big screen gaming under Steam, virtually anything you can do under Ubuntu you should be able to do under SteamOS.

The end result is Linux OS that offers 1 click install as good or better than Windows for all the latest Enthusiast/Gaming Desktop hardware and software, and offers assurance programs to users that its actively working with all its partners (vendors, hardware, software, and all the like) for ongoing support as new products come out - also to expand as rapidly as possible the list of games and software supported.

Nvidia drivers are easier to install under Ubuntu than Windows, in many cases most hardware drivers are pre packaged .deb installers. Regarding the example I posted of the Razer mouse, all I did was go to the Open Razer page on Github, add the PPA, download the .deb installer and install the drivers. Once this was done I went to the Polychromatic page, added the PPA, downloaded the .deb installer and installed the software - Rebooted, all done. Quite often you just plug the hardware in and it works, drivers are already in the kernel, no install needed at all.

And I agree, RGB is a little silly, but sadly unavoidable in many cases and if it's going to be present than I want to be able to dim it or turn it off completely.

Linux is no where as bad as I think you're claiming it to be.
 
I believe my Linux desktop looks great, personally I'm not the slightest bit impressed by Microsoft's mobile inspired desktop. KDE's Plasma looks amazing.



SteamOS is just Debian with a nice front end designed for big screen gaming under Steam, virtually anything you can do under Ubuntu you should be able to do under SteamOS.



Nvidia drivers are easier to install under Ubuntu than Windows, in many cases most hardware drivers are pre packaged .deb installers. Regarding the example I posted of the Razer mouse, all I did was go to the Open Razer page on Github, add the PPA, download the .deb installer and install the drivers. Once this was done I went to the Polychromatic page, added the PPA, downloaded the .deb installer and installed the software - Rebooted, all done. Quite often you just plug the hardware in and it works, drivers are already in the kernel, no install needed at all.

And I agree, RGB is a little silly, but sadly unavoidable in many cases and if it's going to be present than I want to be able to dim it or turn it off completely.

Linux is no where as bad as I think you're claiming it to be.


I don't believe anyone including myself is claiming Linux is so bad, lol... simply put there are things that a few have pointed out in this thread that either don't work or could be better, to that NoOther drilled for a list of things from me since I posted in this thread. So what, I was asked to name a few things that either don't work or full features are not supported, so I gave a few examples... I'm not ripping Linux, much so the opposite... good grief.

As far as Steam goes, its not rocket science, here is from their site (which does sum it up well) - I guess from all the comments I need to add, its not a bad OS, its actually pretty cool to be 100% crystal clear, that means I like it, its great, awesome, the best in the world perhaps:


So, what is it not?
We expect most SteamOS users to get SteamOS preinstalled on a Steam Machine. Although we have made SteamOS freely available for anybody to install, the installation experience is not intended for a non-technical user.

Most importantly, SteamOS only supports a certain set of hardware (you can read more in our FAQ). We will add support for newer hardware over time, but we have no plans to add more support for older hardware.

Users should not consider SteamOS as a replacement for their desktop operating system. SteamOS is being designed and optimized for the living room experience.
 
I don't believe anyone including myself is claiming Linux is so bad, lol... simply put there are things that a few have pointed out in this thread that either don't work or could be better, to that NoOther drilled for a list of things from me since I posted in this thread. So what, I was asked to name a few things that either don't work or full features are not supported, so I gave a few examples... I'm not ripping Linux, much so the opposite... good grief.

Ah OK, I wasn't sure, hence the use of the words 'I think'. :)

As far as Linux improvements and refinements go, every month or so I'm hearing of features being added or improved under Linux that were no more than a pipe dream to Linux users years ago. I believe Linux development appears to be accelerating.
 
Most importantly, SteamOS only supports a certain set of hardware (you can read more in our FAQ). We will add support for newer hardware over time, but we have no plans to add more support for older hardware.

Users should not consider SteamOS as a replacement for their desktop operating system. SteamOS is being designed and optimized for the living room experience.

Which is fair enough, SteamOS was never designed as a desktop OS, therefore legacy support isn't really important. However, as we know Linux is very modular and everything needed for desktop support, including a DE and additional drivers can be added as easily as they can be added under an Ubuntu variant. The problem is that eventually you reach a point where it would have been easier just to install an Ubuntu variant.
 
Ah OK, I wasn't sure, hence the use of the words 'I think'. :)

As far as Linux improvements and refinements go, every month or so I'm hearing of features being added or improved under Linux that were no more than a pipe dream to Linux users years ago. I believe Linux development appears to be accelerating.

I agree... It seems the timing today aligns with what Linux needs to gain a stronger foot-hold in the desktop market. I had hopes back in late 90's, however timing was simply not right back then, google/android was not relevant (like they are today) - You're dating me now, I was there years ago, lol...
 
I agree... It seems the timing today aligns with what Linux needs to gain a stronger foot-hold in the desktop market. I had hopes back in late 90's, however timing was simply not right back then, google/android was not relevant (like they are today) - You're dating me now, I was there years ago, lol...

Old bugger signing in here also! ;)
 
You mean like almost all Debian distros such as Ubuntu and Mint?
Gaming vs Great (other) Audio/recording I can agree on AE-5 (though this isn't really a 1 sound card issue either) - The AE-5 for Gaming with Sennheiser headsets is second to none (I have Xonar, also DLX Raid, and at least 15+ other higher end gaming based cards, its a work/job thing).

That being said I do a little bit of sound (board/live sound) work - I use Tascam (also known as TEAC) products there - they are excellent, and of course entry level pro grade for latency and sound - also another example of higher end audio that simply works with Linux.

I hate all the RGB and most (not all) the silly features, however as we all see in these forums, it sells products - the enthusiast market is growing yet too.

-------

Sound Blaster AE-5 (and ZxR) is getting some Linux love:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Sound-BlasterX-AE-5-Next

and

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Sound-Blaster-ZxR-Linux
 
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