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I don't want anyone to port things to Linux! Sure, when it works it's great, but it's only a matter of time before the executable .sh informs me that it expects

I don't want anyone to port things to Linux! Sure, when it works it's great, but it's only a matter of time before the executable .sh informs me that it expects a deprecated version of libfucku, or some new kernel thing broke it, or etc. Instead, target the subset of the win32 API that Proton already kicks ass at. The game has thus been "brought to Linux", and will actually remain playable despite the Linux landscape inevitably changing underfoot.

rbanffy 5y ago
> before the executable .sh informs me that it expects a deprecated version of If that's the case, the developers aren't really competent. You can always dynamically link the version you want and pretty much any distro has packages covering a good couple releases back because not all software updates at the same time. This is very normal in Linux distros. And, even then, the game publisher can (and many do) provide all those libraries together with their title. If you pack a couple gigabytes of art, you can have a couple megabytes of custom binaries.
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  Porting anything to Linux, let alone doing it the Right Way, is kind of a big ask for a lot of development teams, let alone the publisher who's surely seen the (admittedly improving!) graphs for Linux use among gamers. We can dynamically link things, but I don't want to be up to the elbow in some game's ass for compatibility's sake when a better and more durable option exists, plus less-technical friends literally can't do these kinds of fixes. And this doesn't even address any anticheat the game might require! I applaud your ideological purity, but when something like Proton exists, wishing for competent devs and motivated end-users -- while dismissing anyone who doesn't meet your standards for either -- seems self-defeating to me. The referenced incompetent devs don't even really need to think in Linux terms or do much extra work -- they just have to watch their elbows and tuck in their shirts while writing the win32 calls they had to write anyway. If you were a dev team, BigCo or indie, shitty or competent, which would you rather do: target two OSes, or one?
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > We can dynamically link things, but I don't want to be up to the elbow in some game's ass for compatibility's sake Most likely it will be the developer. Also, making that effort, to build the app in a resilient way, will give lot of insights about possible bugs in other environments. > And this doesn't even address any anticheat the game might require! This is probably why one has to give up control of the game runtime environment. Publishers don’t want gamers looking under the hood, and for good reason. > I applaud your ideological purity Quite the contrary. I’m very pragmatic. I get Proton is an easy way to make Windows games work on Linux. My point is that the Windows API is not that amazing and that building games to be portable from the ground up is a better approach from a quality standpoint, even though it may not be the best in financial terms. I’m very sure the “borked” games and the reason they “bork”, if discovered, will enlighten their developers in interesting ways.
- q3k 5y ago
  > If that's the case, the developers aren't really competent. Having worked on delivering portable Linux binaries that had to access OpenGL/Vulkan and audio - yeah, no, it's actually difficult and requires tons of Linux experience. Unless you just want to target some arbitrary subset of 'popular distros', but that's not actually portable. Shipping a Win32 .exe _is_ the easiest way to get portable Linux games. It will work on _every single distro that has wine_, including weird ones like NixOS or Void or Ubuntu 14. It's an unfortunate fact, but the Linux userland ecosystem is extremely hostile to binaries built outside of a distro's ecosystem. Send me a tarball of something that draws a Vulkan cube, plays music and responds to user inputs - and I'll eat my hat if it runs on every Linux machine I have in my house.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > Unless you just want to target some arbitrary subset of 'popular distros' I looked into their website for a breakdown of users per distro, but I’m almost willing to bet that covering SteamOS, Debian Testing, and Fedora Workstation will get you almost everyone indirectly.
marcodiego 5y ago
AppImages/flatpaks/snaps were developed to fix that.

rbanffy 5y ago

> before the executable .sh informs me that it expects a deprecated version of If that's the case, the developers aren't really competent. You can always dynamically link the version you want and pretty much any distro has packages covering a good couple releases back because not all software updates at the same time. This is very normal in Linux distros. And, even then, the game publisher can (and many do) provide all those libraries together with their title. If you pack a couple gigabytes of art, you can have a couple megabytes of custom binaries.

revolvingocelot 5y ago
Porting anything to Linux, let alone doing it the Right Way, is kind of a big ask for a lot of development teams, let alone the publisher who's surely seen the (admittedly improving!) graphs for Linux use among gamers. We can dynamically link things, but I don't want to be up to the elbow in some game's ass for compatibility's sake when a better and more durable option exists, plus less-technical friends literally can't do these kinds of fixes. And this doesn't even address any anticheat the game might require! I applaud your ideological purity, but when something like Proton exists, wishing for competent devs and motivated end-users -- while dismissing anyone who doesn't meet your standards for either -- seems self-defeating to me. The referenced incompetent devs don't even really need to think in Linux terms or do much extra work -- they just have to watch their elbows and tuck in their shirts while writing the win32 calls they had to write anyway. If you were a dev team, BigCo or indie, shitty or competent, which would you rather do: target two OSes, or one?
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > We can dynamically link things, but I don't want to be up to the elbow in some game's ass for compatibility's sake Most likely it will be the developer. Also, making that effort, to build the app in a resilient way, will give lot of insights about possible bugs in other environments. > And this doesn't even address any anticheat the game might require! This is probably why one has to give up control of the game runtime environment. Publishers don’t want gamers looking under the hood, and for good reason. > I applaud your ideological purity Quite the contrary. I’m very pragmatic. I get Proton is an easy way to make Windows games work on Linux. My point is that the Windows API is not that amazing and that building games to be portable from the ground up is a better approach from a quality standpoint, even though it may not be the best in financial terms. I’m very sure the “borked” games and the reason they “bork”, if discovered, will enlighten their developers in interesting ways.
q3k 5y ago
> If that's the case, the developers aren't really competent. Having worked on delivering portable Linux binaries that had to access OpenGL/Vulkan and audio - yeah, no, it's actually difficult and requires tons of Linux experience. Unless you just want to target some arbitrary subset of 'popular distros', but that's not actually portable. Shipping a Win32 .exe _is_ the easiest way to get portable Linux games. It will work on _every single distro that has wine_, including weird ones like NixOS or Void or Ubuntu 14. It's an unfortunate fact, but the Linux userland ecosystem is extremely hostile to binaries built outside of a distro's ecosystem. Send me a tarball of something that draws a Vulkan cube, plays music and responds to user inputs - and I'll eat my hat if it runs on every Linux machine I have in my house.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  > Unless you just want to target some arbitrary subset of 'popular distros' I looked into their website for a breakdown of users per distro, but I’m almost willing to bet that covering SteamOS, Debian Testing, and Fedora Workstation will get you almost everyone indirectly.

marcodiego 5y ago

AppImages/flatpaks/snaps were developed to fix that.