6 ms·

This is really the nail in the coffin for Linux-native game ports. It's really, really hard to justify expending the effort

invokestatic 6y ago
I would imagine a large part is segmentation. You can’t even guarantee that X is installed on the system. This is a hard problem since most games are proprietary. Edit: commenters make good counterpoints
- Spivak 6y ago
  I mean for games you are allowed to have dependencies. If you require X or XWayland I don’t think you’ll find anyone complaining.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  This is really not an issue, Steam has a standard runtime for instance, and bundling dependencies is always possible.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Steam has a standard runtime because it's such an issue.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      Thus, a widely used, useful, solutions to the problem exists. Its not like any game developer seriously worries that X is installed.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        One of the differences between Windows developers and Linux developers is that Windows developers generally do worry about what dependencies the user has installed. They specifically do not want to make dependencies the user's problem. Linux developers historically make dependencies someone else's problem.
        throwaway2048 6y ago
        And windows developers solve this problem in precisely the same way, by bundling dependencies.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        Sure, but a Windows developer only has to bundle things that can't be relied on in the base OS. In Linux almost everything in user space fits in that category. The vast majority of Linux developers don't ever do anything with dependencies and just rely on packagers to do it for them. I hardly ever use closed source Linux software, but it has been my experience that they support at most 2 precise distro versions.
Spivak 6y ago
I don’t really mind. Having one translation layer for everything instead of two versions of every app probably reduces the overall amount of work.
outworlder 6y ago
> This is really the nail in the coffin for Linux-native game ports. It's really, really hard to justify expending the effort If things work flawlessly, do we care? If companies want to support Linux out of the box, they don't have to expend resources creating multiple builds and need only to focus on testing a single build. Even a token amount of testing from a single QA engineer (does it run?) would go a _long way_ into ensuring we can run things on Linux. From lurking in wine-dev, games that work but have a few issues progress much faster than ones that don't even boot up (or they do but don't actually work). It's a bit unfortunate that the Win32 api is being used as a lingua franca, but I'll take it.
modeless 6y ago
When companies find that their games are already working on Linux, they may be able to justify spending a little extra effort on testing and fixing a couple of bugs here and there. Then over time it may become an officially supported configuration, and they may do Linux-specific optimizations or features. It's a stepping stone. Embrace, extend, extinguish in reverse!
skohan 6y ago
Maybe in the short term, but if it means a bigger part of the steam userbase is running games on Linux, it will become economically justified for more developers to work on first-party titles.
- thrower123 6y ago
  I've been hearing that line for close to two decades. I don't think Valve even supports their old GoldSrc games that they ported to run on Linux way back.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    All Valve titles are linux native except Half-Life Alyx, including GoldSrc titles (Counterstrike, Half Life etc). VR support is still being worked on.
    - thesquidofgol 6y ago
      Half-Life Alyx has a Linux native build https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/half-life-alyx-now-available-on-linux-with-vulkan https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/half-life-alyx-now-ava...
  - skohan 6y ago
    Proton is still very new, and it's night-and-day better than any previous gaming experience on Linux. I don't think past trends necessarily apply
    - thrower123 6y ago
      It's a fancy version of Wine...
      - skohan 6y ago
        Fancy enough to be invisible to the user, such that games behave like native apps, and to give performance which is better than Windows in some cases. UX was the biggest obstacle to gaming on Linux, and proton solves it

invokestatic 6y ago

I would imagine a large part is segmentation. You can’t even guarantee that X is installed on the system. This is a hard problem since most games are proprietary. Edit: commenters make good counterpoints

Spivak 6y ago
I mean for games you are allowed to have dependencies. If you require X or XWayland I don’t think you’ll find anyone complaining.
throwaway2048 6y ago
This is really not an issue, Steam has a standard runtime for instance, and bundling dependencies is always possible.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  Steam has a standard runtime because it's such an issue.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    Thus, a widely used, useful, solutions to the problem exists. Its not like any game developer seriously worries that X is installed.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      One of the differences between Windows developers and Linux developers is that Windows developers generally do worry about what dependencies the user has installed. They specifically do not want to make dependencies the user's problem. Linux developers historically make dependencies someone else's problem.
      - throwaway2048 6y ago
        And windows developers solve this problem in precisely the same way, by bundling dependencies.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
        Sure, but a Windows developer only has to bundle things that can't be relied on in the base OS. In Linux almost everything in user space fits in that category. The vast majority of Linux developers don't ever do anything with dependencies and just rely on packagers to do it for them. I hardly ever use closed source Linux software, but it has been my experience that they support at most 2 precise distro versions.

Spivak 6y ago

I don’t really mind. Having one translation layer for everything instead of two versions of every app probably reduces the overall amount of work.

outworlder 6y ago

> This is really the nail in the coffin for Linux-native game ports. It's really, really hard to justify expending the effort If things work flawlessly, do we care? If companies want to support Linux out of the box, they don't have to expend resources creating multiple builds and need only to focus on testing a single build. Even a token amount of testing from a single QA engineer (does it run?) would go a _long way_ into ensuring we can run things on Linux. From lurking in wine-dev, games that work but have a few issues progress much faster than ones that don't even boot up (or they do but don't actually work). It's a bit unfortunate that the Win32 api is being used as a lingua franca, but I'll take it.

modeless 6y ago

When companies find that their games are already working on Linux, they may be able to justify spending a little extra effort on testing and fixing a couple of bugs here and there. Then over time it may become an officially supported configuration, and they may do Linux-specific optimizations or features. It's a stepping stone. Embrace, extend, extinguish in reverse!

skohan 6y ago

Maybe in the short term, but if it means a bigger part of the steam userbase is running games on Linux, it will become economically justified for more developers to work on first-party titles.

thrower123 6y ago
I've been hearing that line for close to two decades. I don't think Valve even supports their old GoldSrc games that they ported to run on Linux way back.
- throwaway2048 6y ago
  All Valve titles are linux native except Half-Life Alyx, including GoldSrc titles (Counterstrike, Half Life etc). VR support is still being worked on.
  - thesquidofgol 6y ago
    Half-Life Alyx has a Linux native build https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/half-life-alyx-now-available-on-linux-with-vulkan https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/05/half-life-alyx-now-ava...
- skohan 6y ago
  Proton is still very new, and it's night-and-day better than any previous gaming experience on Linux. I don't think past trends necessarily apply
  - thrower123 6y ago
    It's a fancy version of Wine...
    - skohan 6y ago
      Fancy enough to be invisible to the user, such that games behave like native apps, and to give performance which is better than Windows in some cases. UX was the biggest obstacle to gaming on Linux, and proton solves it