[Venn1]

This week we closed the doors on our Linux gaming podcast, which has run continuously for the past 13 years. No fuss, no drama. With the announcement of Steam Machine II (we also covered the original launch), it just seemed like the right time. Proton has evolved to the point where most things work out of the box. Few people are bothering with native support, and it’s become difficult to find new things to cover.

It really feels like everything is lined up for the year of Linux in the living room, and it’s great to see.

[J_McQuade]

I never listened to the podcast, but I see where you're coming from and thanks for doing it anyway.

Twenty years ago I was in university and had a Debian install on a cheap-ass Acer laptop and I managed to get exactly two and a half games working under Wine: the first two Fallouts and about three hours of Civ IV before crash. Getting games to run at all was A THING so a podcast for that makes a lot of sense.

Today I have a full-time job and deleted the Windows partition from my expensive PC about three years ago... pretty much every game I've ever wanted to play since then has just WORKED. Better than on modern Windows, even. Not a lot to talk about there, I guess.

One thing I wish is that Valve could publish a 'Proton spec' that people could build against to ensure compatibility, but I imagine that that this would be an IP nightmare.

[johanvts]

Anticheat is a big issue that nobody seems to mention. I had to go back to windows for online games and it’s my understanding that there are deep technical reasons why anticheat on linux can’t be done the same way as on windows.

[sph]

Not sure what you mean, in every thread there's someone that mentions anticheat as if to stress why Proton is never gonna be good enough.

You can be a true gamer™ even if you don't play the latest $90 AAA multiplayer FPS. To me not having a proprietary rootkit is a feature, and Windows is always there for those that are OK with being spied upon.

[piva00]

Anti-cheat is the only reason why I had to build a Win11 machine for games, and only games, some months ago.

Hadn't touched Windows in more than 10 years, and it's as bad as I remember it, everything is clunky, badly designed, no polish whatsoever.

The moment developers find a way to get their anti-cheat working in Linux I have absolutely no reason to ever boot a Windows machine again...

[CuriouslyC]

This is entirely possible using TDX/SEV-SNP, running in a vm alongside a host OS. It's just a big engineering lift. They're almost certainly already working on it.

[wiseowise]

Anticheat is a big non-issue that multiple people mention whenever Linux gaming is brought up. 5 popular anti-cheat games do not outweigh the whole ecosystem.

[Gareth321]

Because it's intractable on Linux and advocates don't want to admit that. The entire security model on Linux is resistant to deeper levels of access and control for applications, which is required for kernel level anti-cheat. While these forms of anti-cheats can't stop cheating, they are clearly more effective than user-space anti-cheats. For 99% of users, we gladly accept these more "invasive" anti-cheats because it means less cheating in the games we enjoy. Linux developers will never allow this kind of access because it is antithetical to their ideological beliefs around security. They gladly exclude any kernel level cheats to maintain the security model. It is a permanent impasse. One which I believe will never be solved with user-space or server-side detection. This is why the most common retort is: "just play different games."

To be frank, the argument that kernel level anti-cheats are invasive has never been all that accurate or compelling. Any user-space application already has numerous privileges which could ruin your day. You trust a developer and application every time you run it, irrespective of its access level. Valve has an opportunity now with SteamOS to impose technologies like SecureBoot and "safe" deeper layer anti-cheats which actually work. Yes, Linux enthusiasts would be up in arms, but it would mean that the most popular online FPS games would be supported on Linux, and I think that's far more important.

[abnercoimbre]

Wait, what was the reason for winding down the podcast?

> Few people are bothering with native support

Was the podcast an attempt to increase porting efforts to Linux? But Proton (and now Steam Machine II) took the wind out of your sails?

[pabs3]

Can we have a link to the podcast?

[watermelon0]

I'm quite sure it's this one: https://linuxgamecast.com/podcasts/

[tropicalfruit]

> where most things work out of the box

i really doubt this very much. i hope i am wrong.