To be fair, I also forget why I exist sometimes.

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The thing about Linux is: it’s cool, and very interesting and beautiful people use it. I’ve been running Fedora 43 on my main machine for a few months now and, to be honest? It’s easy. Almost boringly easy. I got into all this expecting to have to wrestle the OS’ peccadilloes into submission, but aside from minor tinkering to get proprietary Nvidia drivers and codecs installed, it’s been smooth sailing.

Imagine my surprise. As of yesterday’s Steam (and Steam Deck) client beta update, Valve has resolved a bug causing the platform to forget its ability to run Windows games on Linux. This issue mainly affected users with significantly large libraries—though Valve hasn’t clarified how large—and the result was that Proton games could appear as ‘Not valid on current platform’. This directly contradicted the purpose of Proton, Valve’s compatibility layer that allows Windows games to operate on your preferred Linux distribution.

This latest update also brings fixes to the client’s downloads view, tweaks to gyro functionality, corrections for controller LED behaviors, and more streamlining for configurations.

The gradual shift towards Linux is arguably the most fascinating development in tech right now, particularly as operating systems like Windows become increasingly unmanageable. Many are opting for some variant of Linux, often tailored for gaming. Is it the end for Windows and the dawn of pure open-source dominance? Probably not. However, even those who had previously ignored Linux are compelled to pay attention. This newfound curiosity is healthy, and as a novice Linux user, I find it quite exhilarating.