Consumers might also want to keep their wallets closed for a while after the holiday shopping season.
The company has introduced the Steam Deck, a Linux-based handheld gaming console for PC games.
It’s an ambitious project that’s generated a lot of excitement in the gaming world.
The company wants PC gamers' existing Windows games, to run well under Linux.
That’s why they’re developing the Proton library to run Windows games seamlessly.
If that happened, it would be clear that Linux gaming has arrived.
Some of this might reflect the growing presence of the Steam Deck.
Linux gaming seems to be growing organically, albeit slowly, according toValve’shardware and software survey of its customers.
There are more cross-platform development tools that make generating native Linux games easier than before.
This has meant more native games are available for Linux on Steam.
With Proton, gamers can move to Linux without having to give up their old favorites.
There are still some difficult areas hampering Linux adoption.
A lot of anti-cheat programs still only work on Windows.
Zorin OS is a distrothat explicitly targets existing Windows and macOS users by providing similar user interfaces.
In September 2022,Microsoftannounced that it would end support for Windows 10 21H1.
Asahi Linux rose to create a Linux distribution for Apple Silicon CPUs.
The project has proceeded rapidly.
In December 2022,Asahi Linux announced that it had GPU support, which was a major breakthrough.
Asahi Linux’s development will make it easier for other developers to port Linux to Apple Silicon.
Asahi Linux could prove a viable alternative to macOS.
Linux has been even more niche on the Mac than it is on desktop PCs.
It will still be interesting to see how Linux evolves on Apple hardware in the future.
In 2022, WSL was added to the Microsoft Store.
This meant that Linux was only a few clicks away on Windows.
Microsoft also added the ability to run graphical Linux apps to Windows 10.
All of this will give Windows users a taste of Linux.
As mentioned earlier, Proton is developed by Valve.
The danger is, as with OS/2, that Windows compatibility actually hampers Linux adoption.
Developers might not want to invest in a native Linux port if they know gamers can use Proton.
They’re popular in schools because of their low cost and ease of administration.
And with ChromeOS Flex, they can rejuvenate their old PCs with the ChromeOS interface.
ChromeOS, and thus Linux, is seriously challenging the Mac as the alternative computing platform.
Googleis also making a push into cloud gaming with a new range of gaming-focused Chromebooks from multiple manufacturers.
It’s not clear how this idea will pan out in 2023.
It’s easier than you think.
