Or maybe you have it backwards, that Linux is the 3rd party software. Most of the core OS is GNU.

Though once you append on Xwindows and other tools, it becomes impossible to refer to any one person or group as the authors or company, yet still it's referred by the kernel and not by any other distinctive features.

But that's going a little off topic. Indeed a lot of distros include a bunch of software, some of which will never be touched, and others go bare-bones if they can, but people like the convenience. I remember in 2000 when Live CD's were just becoming a thing, a 2Gb ISO for Slackware and 99% of software i had no clue existed on the disc. fun fun.

I think we're splitting hairs here, but yeah. There's so much derivative stuff in any Linux distro that you can't really point to it and say "This other program is 3rd party, and I won't use it because it isn't 'native'." Yet, virtually all of a Linux distro (depending on the distro, of course) is 3rd party software that is not a part of the core of Linux. I think I still have some of my old disro discs! I found a lot of them from my instructor for my MCP, of all places.

Young'uns, Puh!, no dedication or stamina... ;)

Your opinion is bullshit ;P

On a more serious note, I have been using Linux for more than 10 years now, including for gaming. My last Windows build was Windows XP, and I dropped it long before Microsoft phased it out. Linux (specifically Debian) is without a doubt the more appropriate system for my use case.

But I see no point in trying to convince people who are satisfied with Windows into migrating to Linux. I have nothing to gain from it, and a system migration is never easy, be it from or towards Windows or Linux.

People who have no problem with using a corporate-controlled system (be it Windows or Mac OS) will rarely find the motivation to change habits they had for years, maybe even decades. So unless the switch is motivated by ethical/political reasons, it has very low chances to be a success.

I don't understand the purpose of the Linux vs. Windows "war", no more than I understand the "distro wars" happening inside the Linux communities. Why would I care what other people run on their computers, as long as it is not detrimental to my own activities?

Of course I can get angry when I see disinformation about Linux being harder to use (it is not, people are conflating their habits with ease-of-use) or not being able to run games. But then I try to ignore such claims instead of getting involved in a fruitless flamewar (not that I always manage to stay uninvolved, but at least I do most of the time).

Beating up on someone because they gave up after trying Linux for the first time is the worst possible behaviour in such situations. Thankfully this is something that seem to happen almost only in gaming communities, probably some spin-off of the console vs. PC or Sony vs. Nintendo things…

I know that my choice is the best one for me, but I do not have a mission to convince anyone to follow in the Light™ ;)

TL;DR
Fighting over OS choice is stupid. People doing it should stop, no matter if they come from Windows, Linux or Amiga.

Agree with what you said here. I also play games exclusively on Linux, for couple of years now. Wine has become so good that often times, when using Heroic Games Launcher (which supports EPIC and GOG games), I click to install Windows version of a game instead of native Linux game, because it almost always work without any work needed, while Linux native games often simply won't run unless I investigate, configure, resolve dependency nightmares and s on.

Well, a large part of the marketing for some OS has been about making people feel special because they get this or that OS. So, yes, some people buy into that.

This. Better to understand well what a commitment to X, Y or Z really means, and ponder what are one's priorities.
So you really think that the lack of a native Galaxy for Linux is the reason that we have standalone offline installers?

I dont like wine, i prefer native since it was meant for that platform and not using someone elses version.

Not the sole reason. But once they have Galaxy for all platforms, they no longer have a reason (in their view) to maintain offline installers, so can finally drop all the pretense about "optional forever" and go down the path they really want to go down: force that godawful client on everybody and remove the "double layer" of offline installers.

Personally, my main beef with drm is the dependency on the well being and whim of a corporate entity to install or run my game which I find extremely brittle.

Wanting to also do away with an internet connection (in essence, a constant connection to all your dependent software constantly maintained by human civilization)... I suppose you can try to snapshot your current installation and restore from that snapshot as needed and you might get some mileage out of that (if you previously installed all dependencies on that snapshot)..., but otherwise airgaping all your dependencies is a non-trivial problem that is an order of magnitude harder than simply doing away with reliance on a corporate actor to install and run your games.

Its doable. Places with the most stringent security requirements do it, but its a lot of work and personally, just for my games, I wouldn't do it. If the internet collapses worldwide, I'll accept that my game collection might not longer be solid (if I look at the dependency tree needed to run my games long term). I think that at that point, I'd have other more immediate worries.

If you really want to go there, you need to research all the dependencies you need for all your games and back those up reliably. And eventually, given that things won't get patched for new hardware, you'll need to re-do that process again with at least a temporary internet connection.

Clears throat.

It sounds like a job for Silverblue or CoreOS; perhaps something along these lines.
I'm sorry there were hidden caveats you didn't mention you couldn't deal with, though it sounds like a Network Attached Storage would be something worth investing into.

But I mean, the best tools for organizing that stuff is open source.

so let me get it right? you blame distro but you not using Wine or Lutris on Linux?
wow. anyone was expecting this outcome.

I'm sure some solutions helps with that (for example, starting with a distro that has more of your dependencies airgaped in the installer to begin with), but I strongly doubt that you'll find something where everything you need except the games is pre-installed (and of course the more you deviate from the beaten path of well used distros, the more custom adaptation work you'll have to do).

I think doing some legwork on that one would be pretty hard to avoid.

Even if I use WINE for some games, I played several hundreds commercial games that do not require WINE in any way. And I never even tried Lutris.

Playing games on Linux without some kind of game client and never running binaries built for Windows is easily doable.