I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this. The 100 dollar premium for windows takes a big bite out of a 1000 dollar gaming rig.
I built a pretty beefy workstation last year, mostly for software dev but with a high end GPU so I could check out new games. I installed Ubuntu and Windows 10 on it from the start and figured I’d boot into Windows to play games, but so far basically everything I’ve wanted to play has run fine on Linux. I haven’t booted into Windows in months.
Similar story for me. I installed Ubuntu a few years ago to try out proton, fully expecting to boot most of the time into Windows, and I could count on one hand the number of times I have used Windows in the past year.
I'm about a month into Linux Mint, and the only game I have trouble with is Eve. I replaced all OS on all of my machines except one, my Blue Iris workstation. Blue Iris doesn't run well on Wine.
You are not required to pay the windows license fee. You can simply download an ISO off of Microsoft's website and use it, you only get a watermark in the corner.
Fun fact: that watermark is created by explorer.exe, and if you're not running explorer.exe it doesn't show up. I had a box that went through one too many hardware changes and Windows decided that it wasn't on the same machine. I didn't bother contacting support for months because I had set the Windows "shell" to be steam.exe in Big Picture mode, and so I rarely got bothered by it.
Last time I tried that, it would not install any updates for Windows. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but without updates this is not a good long-term solution...
Would you mind linking to this ISO and the T&Cs? I've only ever used their ISOs for VMs -- which are how I use Windows, occasionally and rarely -- and they have pretty harsh conditions like timeoutes, etc.
It works as described. One caveat: the website won't let you download an ISO if your browser's user-agent is set to Windows, instead it'll prompt you to use the Win10 media creation tool. But you can download the ISO if accessing from Linux/macOS/Android/etc., or by using a user-agent changer browser extension on Windows.
I did this before in the past with a key off of eBay (no indication made by the seller that the key was not legit other than the suspiciously low price) and everything was fine until it came time to reformat and start fresh roughly a year later - at that point the key no longer worked and the seller vanished from eBay!
Microsoft and Google show you ads regardless of if you pay or not.
Seriously even my alarm clock app that I pay a monthly fee for tried to ask nicely if it was ok that they tracked me across web sites after Apple started enforcing their new rules.
---------
And: If anyone has a good alarm clock app for iPhone that makes sure I'm out of bed before it turns off, and that is a one time payment or a reasonable fee or even open source I'm all ears.
You're doing that either way, just like you're going to see ads regardless of whether you paid $$$ for a Windows license, pirated a key or just life with the water-mark and other limits of an unlicensed Windows.
You don't have to download windows from torrents. Just dowload it from Microsoft. You can get rid of the watermark by "registering" it with a fake registration server. No need to download and run anything. Just copy few simple lines found with google into admin console.
You are getting fully functional version with this. With updates and everything.
I try to avoid Windows (it makes git and compiles slow, just doesn't cut it in the ux department after being spoiled with KDE and Elementary and they double dip by shoving ads in my face even after I've bought the Professional license) but so far I pay.
Just as I'd like others to pay me if/when I release paid software.
That said, especially after Microsoft started double dipping Professional licenses they cannot complain if ordinary users don't see the point any longer.
My primary and only justification for using windows is games (the 30% from the article).
I do real work with Linux.
But again, I've purchased windows hundreds of times, many of those being forced "purchases" due to smoky-back-of-room deals with OEMs. Frankly, MS exhausted all of my goodwill ages ago, and I've yet to see a real change in those underlying tactics.
MS has "sold" a fair bunch of licenses that have gone unused.
I'll keep buying licenses if I use it - and keep telling people that Linux has been usable for ordinary people the last decade, is faster, more exciting and collect less data about you and your family.
PS: MS employees here, your company really had the chance to be the serious choice but after getting ads on Professional licensed machines I just don't believe the marketing anymore.
Windows costs like £5 max. All you need is an OEM key. Yeah, you might need a new one if you change enough components but it ain't gonna break the bank once every few years.
To add, if you succumb to using a Microsoft account for your main Windows account, it seems you can swap out hardware a lot more without losing your license (although I imagine you can't swap out hardware and reinstall at the same time). I've had this one key since 2015 with many upgrades, including motherboard+cpu swaps, hard drive swaps, and a few reinstalls, and haven't lost the license.
With some trickery you only need the MS account for setup. You can also transfer the key to a completely new system.
With a bit more time to prune services/apps and set up something like simplewall to block everything else, you have a pretty decent setup. Sure, it's not FOSS, but neither is Steam or any of those games.
Looking at my personal selection of long-tail games, about 1/3 work perfectly on Linux, another 1/3 don't work at all, and the last 1/3 have various levels of yak-shaving tweaking settings before they run well. That last 1/3 is why I went back to Windows years ago.
I understand that, it's why I went down my list of games to check the current state. A lot seem to work very well now, some are completely broken due to anticheat systems, and many still have discussion of tweaks and versions to coax them into running decently.
Seems like singleplayer games mostly work very well.
This has already been happening and the numbers have been going up for years now. [0] 100% compatibility not required as most gamers don’t play 100% of games.
OEMs buy licenses in bulk they do not pay $100 a pop and it doesn’t get passed onto the user as a full $100 add on. Similarly if you’re building it yourself you can buy for significantly less from a reseller, many of which are wholly legitimate.
Companies are not buying machines this way, but through resellers with drastically different pricing models (even CDNow). Outside of Office 365, I have never paid more than 50-75% MSRP for a Microsoft product using a corp reseller account, including SQL Server licenses.
This is a thread about the cost of gaming computers, on an article about Steam games on Linux.
I don't think business-targeted sales are particularly in-scope. And even if they are, that only makes it worse, as it implies they're getting an even more significant profit margin.
I don't know how you tell or care why a seller is legitimate, but it's very easy to find working windows 10 pro keys for a few dollars on http://www.allkeyshop.com/.
> I don't know how you tell or care why a seller is legitimate
Because illegitimate keys can be banned (and the hardware using them can be blacklisted) if they are found to be stolen or acquired in some other way that Microsoft does not like.
It's also a huge liability of you're doing any professional work with unlicensed and/or potentially illegal software licenses.
If you know anyone who has ever worked at microsoft they can get you a copy with a MASSIVE discount. Living in Seattle I just buy all my microsoft products through friends.
Elite controller was $99, and I laughed when it was on sale for like $150 last week as a best ever deal.
If you only need a single copy you are best suited buying from Microsoft directly.
If you need multiple copies you can work with a VAR (Value Added Reseller) to get better pricing.
CDW.com is the big name in VAR's but they have enormous turnover in staff. I try to build relationships with smaller VAR's. I like these guys: https://greenbeetech.com/ it's a small company with two guys running it who have decades of VAR experience (former CDW people).
Navigating the process of compliantly licensing Microsoft as you scale up is quite a job. Having a good partner to help your organization stay compliant is very valuable.
I'm just comfortable with Windows and I have no reason to move off of it until the transition to linux is so seamless that I barely have to do anything.
After trying to install and debug countless wifi/gpu drivers on debian distros during my university years, I jumped to the same boat as you and just continued using Windows. I pretty much gave up on linux desktop. However, last week (it has been 6 years after my graduation) after seeing many articles on Microsoft, Windows 11 and Manjaro Linux, I decided to give Manjaro a test from bootable usb drive on my new HP touch screen laptop. Everything works without opening terminal once! This is seamless enough for me.
Same. I use linux for work but windows for gaming. The linux gaming experience is 90% the way there, but that 10% of the time where you have to scour forums, bug reports, install custom versions of mesa to work with your gpu, etc… is not worth the effort.
I will probably give linux gaming another try in a few years but if it doesn’t “just work” I’m going back to windows for gaming.
I bought a Windows 10 key from eBay once for about five dollars, it didn't work so I called Microsoft support and they activated my copy for free, I don't think they care that much.
Nvidia just requires installing one extra package... It hasn't been an issue for a while now.
The nvidia driver actually works very well... The amdgpu driver wprks well but still has issues with suspend/hibernate. I'd say they are about the same IMO.
Except for Wayland, and KDE stuttering. I have an AMD and an Nvidia PC, both running Manjaro. AMD is really much less problematic than Nvidia for Linux.
No, I mean specifically things like Optimus on dual GPU laptops. Also, even if the distros do in fact either install automatically or provide a method to install it, there is simply no need to even do this on an AMD system. And then there's the matter of AMDGPU being complete open source, while Nvidia's offering is not. And don't even start on Nvidia's slow pace to properly support Wayland.
Despite n number of games working Proton/Wine is still not ideal. The performance and frame pacing especially on graphically intensive games is significantly worse than Windows.
Depends on the game. Gems like Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal runs absolutely phenomenal. Valve's own games, including Alyx, also run as good as they do on win.
Sure, there were a few problems with Cyberpunk 2077 but they were resolved relatively quickly, given that the game has its own host of problems.
I have two almost identical high end machines running Ubuntu and Mankato. The first is more stable, the latter is simply better for gaming :/
Work and work well are two different things and most importantly the question is what’s in those 72% because you have like 1% of Steam games which have like 80% of the player base at any given moment and a lot of AAA titles and popular multiplayer games don’t work on Linux or can even get you banned if you play them due to anticheat issues.
Also if you bought Windows 7 so far you could’ve updated it upto 11 without paying anything extra if you leveraged the update Windows that Microsoft offered.
Out of the top 10, 6 are “No Go” and technically 7 if you count the fact that the player count for GTA V is based on GTA Online which still constantly issues bans when running on Linux due to anti cheat mishaps.
This list also overlooks other very popular games that aren’t on Steam like Call of Duty Warzone and Fortnite…
> This list also overlooks other very popular games that aren’t on Steam
Well yes, it is, as the title makes pretty clear, the top 50 games on Steam. That said, non-Steam games can work just fine with Proton, wrappers like Lutris make this only a couple clicks more than Steam.
Fortnite is limited by EAC: https://lutris.net/games/fortnite/, and I'm not very familiar with Warzone but I suspect it's a similar situation.
Non native multiplayer games are quite often a no go, which was my gripe with putting GTA V on the list since the concurrent player base is nearly all due to GTAO and if you run it on Linux through proton you risk a ban.
Most work quite well in my experience. I have run into small issues, like videos not playing, and sometimes games do not run at launch and take some time to patch, but all in all gaming on Linux has been a surprisingly good product experience.
My only issue is that multiplayer still won’t work e.g. for games that use EasyAnticheat or other software that doesn’t have native support for Linux or you’ll get banned or kicked the latter of which happened to me in a few titles over the past 2-3 years.
Basically unless they have a native version or a developer which officially endorses proton MP is often out of the question because it either won’t work/ban risk or the game doesn’t have client anti cheat detection which means in many cases it would be ripe with cheaters.
If you buy a laptop here it's ~100€ cheaper without an OS or Linux on it, so even if you want to use Windows you should buy the cheaper version and get a 5€ OEM key or the like. An additional benefit to that: less HW vendor crap installed.
At least that was the case with the Lenovo laptops I personally and also the company I work for (Linux shop) bought.
I think what you are being charged is a form of retail markup, by lenovo. They are paying $10-$15 max for that license. It wouldn't make sense on their cheaper laptops where they do not give you the option of linux or no OS, otherwise the laptop would lose money.
AFAIK the PC market is low margin, and the only place they really get margin is from all the crap ware they 'offer' and stuff like margins on windows licenses and such.
I think microsoft has realized the real price for windows is $10 too, which is why they are adding all the adware crap in it. Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it.
>Otherwise it's not tenable as a business for them, even if they are a selling a huge volume of it.
I'm sure that is where we are heading in the long term. I used to spend a lot of money on software for my business, now the majority of what I use is free. I can't see Microsoft being able to escape that forever.
It's hard to say for sure... if you're interested in more competitive, trendy shooters, then you're out of luck. Rainbow Six Siege and Fortnite are both perpetually broken, which makes it a pretty hard sell to the up-and-coming audience of younger nerds.
On the other hand, the games it does work with are nearly flawless. I play Overwatch, Splitgate, and Battlefield online pretty regularly without issue, and single-player titles like The Sims, Rimworld and Noita function out-of-the-box. With more and more games "just working" on the platform, I think in 2 or 3 years it will be particularly competitive with Windows 11. Today though? It's a bit of a mixed bag.
I built my own rig and bought Windows directly from Microsoft, under no circumstance am I going to risk my security by rummaging around in shady places for something as critical as an operating system.
I’d also go out on a small limb and bet that most gaming rigs are at least partially OEM. I have the knowledge to put together my own gaming/dev workstation - but I’d rather just get a prebuilt that isn’t going to become a timesuck of crappy boot times then swap some components.
I would 100% move to Linux if I was guaranteed the conviniences of windows, but that seems unlikely. When I'm in the mood for gaming, the last thing I want to deal with is technical issues. Windows has some, but they're bearable. Not sure if I can tolerate any more though.
Yeah me too. What keeps me on windows for my desktop is a couple of pro image library software packages and games. $15 is well worth my time to not deal with the unreliability of linux.
I could use a mac, but they don't have justifiable storage costs and external storage is annoying, costs more and is less reliable than internal storage, and macs don't do games well anyway and I just built a new mini-ITX sized PC. Apple is also going down a path in computing I don't like, so I don't know if they are that viable too...
Sad to say, but Linux just isn't a good experience for gaming yet. Even if games work, there's usually caveats (like needing to be run through some sort of emulation) and they almost always run faster and in a more stable manner than Windows.
Most people I know are more than happy to pay that premium compared to the hassle of dealing with Linux. Also, a lot of those savvy enough to use Linux will just crack Windows or get a key at a discount through a reseller.
In Steam you just click the play button and it launches the game under Proton.
It’s very rare to have issues if the game is rated Platinum in protondb and sometimes a setting in the Steam GUI needs to be changed if it’s gold or silver.
All in all I find it significantly less annoying than dealing with Windows’ ads and forced updates.
The user experience is pretty smooth from a high-level perspective but there are often performance issues from the emulation. Not a huge issue in many situations but not flawless either.
While it's not conventional emulation, my understanding is that the DirectX 9-11 support isn't very far removed from how shader recompilation works in modern console emulators (RPCS3, Xenia, Cemu, Yuzu, etc.). Steam now even distributes shader archives among Proton users so that they can be translated in advance instead of on-the-fly, which is something that Cemu users had been doing among themselves for a while.
The question then becomes if extra 100$ worth of hardware balances out these issues. For 500$ machines it clearly does, but I don’t know about the 1000$ price point.
Alright, emulation was the wrong word to use. Still, the performance on Proton is noticeably worse compared to playing on Windows on the same hardware, at least for a decent chunk of games. I'll generally get similar FPS with a lot more GPU/CPU usage or overall lower FPS.
> Sad to say, but Linux just isn't a good experience for gaming yet. Even if games work, there's usually caveats (like needing to be run through some sort of emulation) and they almost always run faster and in a more stable manner than Windows.
This is an outdated take, from my perspective, as someone who is an avid gamer and who is running only Linux at home currently. While no doubt it's easy to find problem games, the point of the very article this thread linked is that it's come such a long way that the majority of the top titles in terms of hours played on Steam now work in Proton.
There's been a few examples where people have compared the performance across games and found it's basically tied in the majority of games but occasionally there will be an outlier that plays better on Windows. Less often, there will be an outlier that plays better on Linux.[1]
If Valve sorts out the Anti-Cheat stuff, the number of games that don't actually run (and run well) on Linux could drop to near zero.
Proton isn't really emulation; a better way to think of it is that it's a compatiblity layer, much the same way DirectX, Vulkan, et. al, are compatiblity layers.
> Most people I know are more than happy to pay that premium compared to the hassle of dealing with Linux.
This part is more likely for far more users. However, it misses the point entirely. For a great number of years, as a gamer, I had to keep around a Windows system in order to partake in my hobby. That's not really the case anymore.
For me, when I've tried old valve native games on a 2018 macbook pro 15" with a GPU on macOS, I still get these stutters in input and other small things that happen that I don't get on even 10 year old gaming PCs today that were mid-tier back then. Those stutters and such make the game frustrating and I perform worse during key moments, which makes me go back to my gaming PC.
I can see how something would be rated 'platinum' for linux still be unacceptable in those ways. If your playing a single player game I can see how it's ok, but not for twitchy multiplayer games like MOBAs or FPSs.
Due to macOS not supporting Vulkan and other stuff required for Proton, it's been on the backburner for support from Valve for a while. Portal 2 can't even run on macOS anymore since it is 32-bit only. Most games work how they would on Windows when running under Proton vs a native port, you should try it on a Linux machine when you have time.
This on a post of using steam on linux. Proton is "emulation" for some of the listed but it's pretty good emulation. It requires no savvy, open steam and play.
So you cannot imagine a world, say 5-10 years from now, where 100% of games work on Linux, where PC game enthusiasts choose a cheaper and equally capable OS?
You can get a key for 5-10$ and the Windows 10 crack KMSpico is one of the most downloaded torrents. Cheaper doesn't work as a value proposition, it has to be better than Windows for people to change in large numbers and get used to a new OS.
On the other hand, knowing gamers, I'm pretty sure many would change if games on Linux were 2% faster... (higher fps)
Have you tried Proton? It works great, and Valve is bringing quality first-party hardware this time around by every indication.
I don't think Linux will replace Windows for gaming any time soon, but Linux gaming has a very real value proposition in a way it didn't just a few years ago.
I mean, if you're just curious if literally anyone will do it, sure. Because you can (due to selection bias of Hacker News) find plenty of people here willing to say so.
My prediction is twofold. First, that there's very, very little chance this will any have measurable impact on the overall proportion of Steam/PC gamers who use Windows. Solutions like Steam Deck will be the most popular venue for Proton, but this will actually sell the best with people who will keep using Windows. Why wouldn't it? As someone who games a lot, the only reason I would want one is to have my already existing library on the go. It essentially solves that "I wish this was on Switch" problem, especially for indie games. But I don't think of my Switch as a replacement for my PC, either. From this POV, it's fine if some things don't work (I'm no Warzone/Apex/League addict) or the mobile performance constrains things a little, because the accessibility and my game library is overall enough to offset some of those issues.
But actual Windows gamers who use Windows exclusively, and are going to suddenly see the Steam Deck or Proton and be like, "Wow, now I'm going to use Linux, and move over my whole game library since it's obviously so great", who aren't already software engineering/SRE/existing Linux users? Practically non-existent, or so little in number to be non-existent, I'd predict. They don't even really pay for the Windows license as another comment pointed out, the OEMs do and this subsidizes the product (along with mass volume) even further. This is related to my original point: the reason your question is even getting responses in the positive isn't because there's some massive contingency of Windows gamers looking to throw away their install. It's because you're asking on Hacker News.
>I’m very curious if we’ll start seeing a move off of windows for gaming rigs with this
Not even in the slightest. Linux marketshare is still insignificant to even Chromebooks. This is just the echo chamber that is HN that thinks Linux is bigger than it is. Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01%
Edit: I love how HN downvotes because someone gives them a reality check on their beloved Linux. I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
Unlike Android, Chrome OS is actually a full fledged desktop GNU/Linux distribution. It's Gentoo-based (used to be Ubuntu) and runs desktop Linux apps.
Though even outside of that you'd be surprised where people have unknowingly used Linux. ATMs, Point-Of-Sale, Infotainment (Planes/Cars), public transit, arcades, etc. I'd estimate that a majority of people have had some interaction with a Linux-based system.
> I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
One of my grandparents runs Ubuntu and they're able to handle their email and documents just fine. Arguably better than the others who run macOS/Windows. You can find plenty of similar anecdotes online; if all you need is a browser and possibly basic word processing it's not all that different.
It's not Gentoo based. It just uses portage as a package manager in dev mode. ChromeOS has it's own rendering system separate from X and Wayland entirely.
> I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
This is what I call the "Granma case". Considering the uses case is very well defined and the possibility of using exotic hardware and services and basically never needing to install any software; this is the situation where linux shines the brightest. My mom has being using linux having 0 idea what it was and needed 0 assistance to browse the web, access social networks, see photographs and videos and listen to music. That's all she does and any modern linux is much better than windows for this specific use case. No need to care about anti-virus, degrading performance, malware, advertisements... it is perfect for that.
Yeah honestly 99% of what most casual user do on a computer is in the browser, and Linux does that just fine. And it's way less noisy in terms of random notifications, upgrade spam etc. so it is not a bad choice for unsophisticated users.
Also things don't randomly move around so much between upgrades like they do on commercial OS's.
> Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01%
Android. I'd say a huge percentage of computing device users have Linux in their pocket and quite literally touch linux on regular basis.
> I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
I've done this, 10 years ago with my aging Mom and Dad and it worked well. Stock Kubuntu works closely enough to Windows, Chrome and Firefox are identical, the built in photo manager and video players just worked, and it put an end to malware and viruses. Please donate the $1000 to a local food bank, please. I do not what the check.
Two weeks ago, my son and I re-purposed a three year old cryptocoin mining desktop into a gaming machine. We loaded it up with Kubuntu and Steam and ... well, I thought I'd have to install Windows. No problems. Proton lived up to the hype.
> Remove all CS majors in the world and I'd wager the amount of people who've touched Linux is less than .01%
I'm not part of the group that downvoted you, but why would the only people touching Linux be CS majors? I'm not a CS major and I think most people I know that voluntarily use Linux on a daily basis isn't neither.
I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors. You pull any random business major and they barely understand Excel. You eliminate all college majors and the average person that uses Linux has already plummeted. Regular every day computer uses want cheap and easy. Linux is cheap but not very easy, especially if you have no clue what your doing. Sure you can go into a forum on what to do, but what person that knows nothing of computers and doesn't intend on going into the field will bother with learning this stuff? Even myself I find it tedious and I know what I'm doing or can at least learn it pretty easily.
> I'm saying this because most people who use or are aware of Linux happen to be CS majors.
Android is a Linux distribution it is the #1 phone OS (73% market share this year). ChromeOS is a Linux distribution and is the leading OS by market share in K-12 schools. Both are cheap and easy. In ChromeOS's case, they are easier for both administrators to manage and users. I'm also sure the students using Chromebooks have not completed their CS degrees yet, but one can hope.
And yet zero of Android and ChromeOS games come into GNU/Linux.
Linux community likes to pat themselves on the back thanks to Android and ChromeOS using the Linux kernel, yet they are oblivious to the fact that Linux syscalls aren't part of the official stable API, only certain ChromeOS models do run Linux (a yet another guest OS, WSL style), and then what GNU/Linux gets are Electron apps.
people mentioning android have forgotten that android hides many parts of linux. and manufacturers make sure your device hardware works well with the operating system.
other have mentioned relatives who are using linux on desktop. that they are doing limited activities such as browsing and emails. that's fair but the story of how they discovered linux would be the most interesting one.
which brings me to op's cs majors point. so many things have changed that we should not dismiss the claim but think about it.
do happenstances of the past still present themselves to people today. i discovered linux through a pc magazine back in the late 90s. pc magazines back then offered young people like myself at the time a way to try new things on the computer. and i did try everything.
What? My mom has been using linux for 5 years and I don't think she even knows what windows or linux is.
She calls her computer "the memory" or "that box".
>I will give $1000 to anyone who is willing to give their parent who doesn't know jack about computers Linux and tell them "figure it out." None of them will be able to do it.
My father is tech illiterate enough that he manually searches and navigates to the unemployment website each week rather than figure out bookmarks.
He's been on an Ubuntu laptop a friend gave him since late last year. I kept expecting to have to walk him through it, but it hasn't happened yet.
I used to work in a small computer shop and there were some (presumably) 60-70 year olds who I wouldn't consider to be computer literate in the least running Ubuntu and even other distros. There were at least a couple people who refused to use any other OS including Windows. One such customer always referred to their beloved Ubuntu as "Ukabuntu" for some reason.
I did do the same with my father-in-law, about ten years ago. I installed Ubuntu on his laptop and he used it for work (photo editing, writing articles, etc.) without any complaints until he got a new one from work a few years later.
I honestly don't think giving my parent who didn't know jack about computers Windows and telling them to figure it out would be a necessarily pleasant alternative either.
How about we show some compassion and take time to help people around things, especially when they are people we care about and things we care about as well?
Exactly, that is why applications that don't want to break with each OS update don't touch those APIs, making them irrelevant for application developers.
Also, contrary to Windows, since Android 7, applications that link to undocumented APIs get terminated as security measure.
Ask the termux guys how much fun they are having by refusing to acknowledge the fact that they have to use JNI and not Linux syscalls for their stuff.
Sure it has, because it doesn't matter if it is open source or not, if it is a stable API described on the NDK documentation it is not allowed.
Something that termux guys are having some issues to swallow, regarless of Linux being the kernel, it is not allowed to do what they want, wrapping Java APIs via JNI is the only allowed way.
