[vinkelhake]

I recently had my Framework Desktop delivered. I didn't plan on using it for gaming, but I figured I should at least try. My experience thus far:

    * I installed Fedora 43 and it (totally unsurprisingly) worked great.
    * I installed Steam from Fedora's software app, and that worked great as well.
    * I installed Cyberpunk 2077 from Steam, and it just... worked.

Big thanks to Valve for making this as smooth as it was. I was able to go from no operating system to Cyberpunk running with zero terminals open or configs tweaked.

I later got a hankering to play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. This time, the game would not work and Steam wasn't really forthcoming with showing logs. I figured out how to see the logs, and then did what you do these days - I showed the logs to an AI. The problem, slightly ironically, with MD is that it has a Linux build and Steam was trying to run that thing by default. The Linux build (totally unsurprisingly) had all kinds of version issues with libraries. The resolution there was just to tell Steam to run the Windows build instead and that worked great.

[ascagnel_]

> I later got a hankering to play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. This time, the game would not work and Steam wasn't really forthcoming with showing logs. I figured out how to see the logs, and then did what you do these days - I showed the logs to an AI. The problem, slightly ironically, with MD is that it has a Linux build and Steam was trying to run that thing by default. The Linux build (totally unsurprisingly) had all kinds of version issues with libraries. The resolution there was just to tell Steam to run the Windows build instead and that worked great.

I've heard it said in jest, but the most stable API in Linux is Win32. Running something via Wine means Wine is doing the plumbing to take a Windows app and pass it through to the right libraries.

I also wonder if it's long-term sustainable. Microsoft can do hostile things or develop their API in ways Valve/Proton neither need nor want, forcing them to spend dev time keeping up.

[danielheath]

MS _can_ do that, but only with new APIs (or break backwards compatibility). Wine only needs to keep up once folks actually _use_ the new stuff… which generally requires that it be useful.

[pkulak]

I'd love to see a world were game devs program to a subset of Win32 that's known to run great on Linux and Windows. Then MSFT can be as hostile as they like, but no one will use it if it means abandoning the (in my fantasy) 10% of Linux gamers.

[michaelt]

> Microsoft can do hostile things or develop their API in ways Valve/Proton neither need nor want, forcing them to spend dev time keeping up.

If they decide to do this in the gaming market, they don't need to mess up their API. They can just release a Windows native anti-cheat-anti-piracy feature.

[scythe]

>I've heard it said in jest, but the most stable API in Linux is Win32.

Sometimes the API stability front causes people to wonder if things would be better if FreeBSD had won the first free OS war in the 90s. But I think there's a compromise that is being overlooked: maybe Linux devs can implement a stable API layer as a compatibility layer for FreeBSD applications.

[whatevaa]

Steam has versioned Steam Linux Runtimes in an attenpt to address that. Curently it's only leveraged by proton but maybe it will help in the future.

It's like a flatpack, stabilized libraries based on Debian.

[LaGrange]

Hear me out:

Containers. Or even just go full VM.

AFAIK we have all the pieces to make those approaches work _just fine_ - GPU virtualization, ways to dynamically share memory etc.

It's a bit nuts, sure, and a bit wasteful - but it'd let you have a predictable binary environment for basically forever, as well as a fairly well defined "interface" layer between the actual hardware and the machine context. You could even accommodate shenanigans such as Aurora 4X's demand to have a specific decimal separator.

We could even achieve a degree of middle-ground with the kernel anti-cheat secure boot crowd - running a minimal (and thus easy to independently audit) VM host at boot. I'd still kinda hate it, but less than having actual rootkits in the "main" kernel. It would still need some sort of "confirmation of non-tampering" from the compositor, but it _should_ be possible, especially if the companies wanting that sort of stuff were willing to foot the bill (haha). And, on top of that, a VM would make it less likely for vulnerabilities of the anti-cheat to spread into the OS I care about (a'la the Dark Souls exploit).

So kinda like Flatpak, I guess, but more.

[tjpnz]

>I also wonder if it's long-term sustainable. Microsoft can do hostile things or develop their API in ways Valve/Proton neither need nor want, forcing them to spend dev time keeping up.

Not while they continue to have the Xbox division and aspire to be the world's biggest publisher.

[p1necone]

Yeah that's been my experience with native Linux builds too. Most of them were created before Proton etc got good, and haven't necessarily been maintained, whereas running the Windows version through Proton generally just works.

Unfortunately it seems supporting Linux natively is pretty quickly moving target, especially when GPUs etc are changing all the time. A lot of compatibility-munging work goes on behind the scenes on the Windows side from MS and driver developers (plus MS prioritizing backwards compat for software pretty heavily), and the same sort of thing now has a single target for peoples efforts in Proton.

It's less elegant perhaps than actual native Linux builds, but probably much more likely to work consistently.

[GCUMstlyHarmls]

Sometimes you see developers posting on /r/linux_gaming and generally the consensus from the community is mostly "just make sure proton works" which is pretty telling.

It's sort of a philosophical bummer as an old head to see that native compatibility, or maybe more accurately, native mindshare, being discarded even by a relatively evangelical crowd but,

- as a Linux Gamer, I totally get it - proton versions just work, linux versions probably did work at some point, on some machines.

- as a Developer, I totally get it - target windows cause that's 97% of your installs, target proton cause that's the rest of your market and you can probably target proton "for free". Focus on making a great game not glibc issues.

I mostly worry about what happens when Gabe retires and Valve pivots to the long squeeze. Don't think proton fits in that world view, but I also don't know how much work Proton needs in the future vs the initial hill climb and proof-of-success. I guess we'll get DX13 at some point, but maybe I'll just retire from new games and just keep playing Factorio until I die (which, incidentally does have a fantastic native version, but Wube is an extreme outlier.)

[ajvs]

> Unfortunately it seems supporting Linux natively is pretty quickly moving target

With the container-based approach of the Steam Linux Runtime this should no longer be a problem. Games can just target a particular version and Steam will be able to run it forevermore.

[ehnto]

I would hope Vulkan also does a lot of work here for linux native builds but I must admit I am only now starting my journey into that space.

[drmaximus]

A wise man once said "The most stable ABI on linux is win23". It sounds like a joke, but it is actually true.

[rpigab]

In my experience, Steam client and most games work great on Debian and Ubuntu, but you should know for GNU/Linux systems, it's only officially supported on Ubuntu (maybe SteamOS is implicit), I can't find the information on Steam's website or support pages, but this is a response I got from Steam Support when reporting a Steam client UI bug on Debian with GNOME, a while ago.

[moltopoco]

Which is funny because Ubuntu is also the only distro that wants you to install the Steam snap instead, which is then again unsupported.

[runsonrum]

When I run into issues with running games on Linux (Steam or otherwise), I found it useful to consult protondb.com to see what others have gotten to work. You can filter by OS or keyword etc.

https://www.protondb.com/app/337000 for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

[dragonelite]

I wiped windows 10 from desktop. Installed cachyos and steam Installed path of exile 2

and it worked surprisingly, also i see people joking about how win32 is the only stable api on linux xD. Also heard red dead redemption 2 also works well on linux that might be the next game i will check out.

[lbschenkel]

I can confirm I finished RDR2 in story mode in Bazzite, zero issues. Never played the multiplayer part, though.

[brendyn]

It's the same with Dying Light. They have a neglected Linux version and I downloaded 16GiB before i realised to switch to the Windows version and start again.

[esseph]

I run Fedora 43 and all games (single tickbox in settings) are running through "compatibility mode" (wine/proton). Works great!