Ironically my laptop, which has been Linux-only since 2015 or something, has finally stopped working properly. The dedicated GPU (NVIDIA Quadro K1100M) no longer has working drivers with the kernel from Ubuntu 24.04. Then again, it wouldn’t run windows 11 either probably.
I finally committed to Linux at the end of last year. Enough is working to make it preferable to Windows now. I’m still having a lot of bugs, and it’s costing quite some time. But at least my computer is mine again. No more telemetry, ads, and UIs that treat me like a toddler. No more updates forced onto me instead of being done whenever I want it.
I’m still not sure what to think of early access. On the one hand, it is too often an excuse to push a buggy mess. That shit is seriously annoying.
But if it’s done right, it can allow developers to make games that are way larger than they otherwise could. In the end development costs money, so with only X million dollars of upfront investment you will run out at some point. With early access they can extend the money pile further, and therefore they can keep extending the scope of the game way beyond what would otherwise be possible as long as the game is popular enough. But then the focus should be on delivering a mostly stable core experience instead of a buggy unbalanced mess.
Imo it worked quite well for games like Factorio, Valheim, Satisfactory. I had like 80 hours in Satisfactory way before the official release, and then another 100 hours or so with friends a bit later (also before the final release). While there were definitely some bugs, the experience overall was worth my money and I was happy to be able to play it already.