Linux doesn't need VMs, people need VMs. If you spend most of your time in Windows-exclusive apps and use WSL2 on occasion, then you already know what you want, why are you worried about arguing about it on the Internet?
For many software engineers, a lot of our work is Linux, and it wouldn't be atypical to spend most of the time doing Linux development. I work on Linux and deploy to Linux, it's just a no-brainer to run Linux, too, aside from the fact that I simply loathe using modern Windows to begin with.
(Outside of that, frankly, most people period live inside of the web browser, Slack, Discord, and/or Steam, none of which are Windows-exclusive.)
My point isn't that Linux is better than Windows, it's that WSL2 isn't better than literally running Linux. If you need to do Linux things, it is worse than Linux at basically all of them.
You still have to go and make sure that what you want is there and works, but it's not a bad bet. With a few major omissions aside, there is a pretty big library of supported games.
> For anything that is PvP multiplayer, this is very much not a given because of how pervasive kernel-level anti-cheat solutions are today.
To be fair, though, you probably still have a better shot of being able to play the games you want to under Linux than macOS and that doesn't seem to be that bad of an issue for Mac users. (I mean, I'm sure many of them game on PC anyways, but even that considered macOS has greater marketshare than Linux, so that's a lot of people either able to deal with it or have two computers.)
Speaking as a Mac user, it's really bad. Much worse than Linux/SteamOS actually. Not only most games just aren't there, many games that are advertised as Mac-compatible are actually broken because they haven't been updated for a long time, and macOS is not particularly ABI-stable when it comes to GUI. Sometimes they just don't support hi-DPI, so you can play it but forget about 4K. But sometimes it just straight up won't start.
I do indeed have two computers with a KVM setup largely for this reason, with a secondary Windows box relegated to gaming console role.
Fair point. I know it was rough when Apple made the break-away with 32-bit.
Still, the point is that you can make it work if you want to make it work. Off the top of my head:
- Two computers, completely separate. Maybe a desktop and a laptop.
- Two computers, one desk and a KVM like you suggest.
- Two computers, one desk. No proper KVM, just set up remote desktop and game streaming.
- (on Linux) KVM with GPU passthrough, or GPU passthrough with frame relay. One computer, one desk.
- Game streaming services, for more casual and occasional uses.
- Ordinary virtualization with emulated GPU. Not usually great for multimedia, but still.
- And of course, Steam Play/Heroic Launcher/WINE. Not as applicable on macOS, but I know CodeWeavers does a lot to keep macOS well-supported with Crossover. With the aforementioned limitations, of course.
Obviously two computers has a downside, managing two boxen is harder than one, and you will pay more for the privilege. On the other hand, it gives you "the real thing" whenever you need it. With some monitors having basic KVM functionality built-in, especially over USB-C, and a variety of mini PCs that have enough muscle to game, it's not really the least practical approach.
I suspect for a lot of us here there is a reasonable option if we really don't want to compromise on our choice of primary desktop OS.
