5 ms·

I wish I liked GOG, but they ignore Linux users, while Steam's Linux support is the best thing that's happened to Linux gaming.

aeurielesn 2y ago
As a SteamDeack owner, I'm really looking forward to see AAA games be Linux-first. Windows gaming really needs to stop.
- tombert 2y ago
  Proton has gotten so good now that this is less of an issue to me. I buy games on GOG and just load them into Steam with Heroic. I actually will often get better performance doing it this way; Jupiter Hell, for example, has a native Linux port, but I almost exclusively play the Windows version on Linux. I'm not entirely sure why this is, maybe performance issues with OpenGL compared to the D3D->Vulkan pipeline. Linux has so much fragmentation between distros and the like, the Windows API is ironically one of the easiest ways to get stuff working consistently on Linux. If you're playing games on NixOS, for example, you have to do extra work to get Linux versions working a lot of the time because NixOS kind of breaks dynamic-linking by default. If you play the windows versions on NixOS, it's often as easy as `wine myGame.exe`.
- thesnide 2y ago
  I was thinking that way in the past. But then, the only stable ABI is the win32 one. The linux kernel one is very stable, but the libs ones isn't. As soon as the dev ensure and cooperates with wine/proton to make it work nicely, i'm game. Needing those old libs in linux is rather cumbersome, if at all possible. So having wine doing the translation layer is a really good thing. As it frees the devs to be able to focus on 1 plateform. I also noted that the switch enabled a lot of linux native ports. That's also a nice side effect.
  - braiamp 2y ago
    > the only stable ABI is the win32 one TBF, that's also true when compared to Windows. The only actually stable ABI in all major OS's are Linux Win32 via Wine.
  - yupyupyups 2y ago
    You can create portable apps on Linux that will work for years to come. Bundle everything except for very core libraries, even libstd++. Things to NOT bundle would be glibc and any opengl implementation. To make apps backwards compatible with older versions of Linux, compile the app on a system with the oldest glibc you wish to support (because glibc is forwards compatible, but not backwards compatible).
    - ChocolateGod 2y ago
      This never really works in practice, far too many variations and compilation differences between distros. The Linux Standard Base was an attempt to do this and it went.... no where. > (because glibc is forwards compatible, but not backwards compatible). I've lost count of times I've had "portable" binaries not work because I'm using a newer version of glibc and the binary was compiled for Ubuntu/Debian. The only "standardised" way of making native Linux apps portable and "work for life" is to use the thing that worked in the server space, containers, Flatpak being the vendor-neutral and more widely supported for desktop apps.
  - segasaturn 2y ago
    Is this something that Flatpak could fix?
    - ChocolateGod 2y ago
      Steam can already use bwrap (Flatpaks sandbox system) with its own runtime to accomplish this, but why bother when you can just target Win32 and have it work out the box. Outside of graphic and input, game engines make use of very few native APIs compared to applications as they're made to be portable with consoles.
- ThrowawayB7 2y ago
  Your Steam Deck provides Windows API emulation so games coded to target Windows will run on it. As a Steam Deck owner, you are perpetuating Windows gaming.
this_user 2y ago
It's probably outside their scope, and they are not as large and wealthy as Valve that they can afford to invest the necessary resources. But you can use 3rd party launchers like "Heroic" that support GOG and basically give you the same experience as Steam does.
- tombert 2y ago
  I find that this is also the easiest way to get your games loaded into the SteamOS interface. On my homemade NixOS SteamOS-like gaming box, I have it boot into the SteamOS interface, and it's pretty and console-like, and it's nice to be able to quickly install my GOG and Epic games and automatically add it to Steam so it can be easily played with that interface.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  FWIW they could piggyback on Valve's open source work and help there like Zoom Platform (DRM-free shop like GOG, unrelated to Zoom) did[0]. ZP is a much smaller company than GOG (pretty much everyone in it, including the CEO, hangs out on their official Discord) and they still got someone to handle that part. I don't use the utility myself but i've seen on Discord that they -try to- provide support for people using it. [0] https://zoom-platform.sh/ https://zoom-platform.sh/
NegatioN 2y ago
Not a perfect solution, but you could just use Steam to load games from GOG on Linux though. Thereby getting "the best of both worlds". I have yet to stumble upon any major issue doing this.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  Also, running other store launchers under Steam Proton works surprisingly well. I've been able to install Battle.net as a custom entry in Steam and run StarCraft II flawlessly in Linux.
- MaxBarraclough 2y ago
  What does Steam bring to the table here?
  - NegatioN 2y ago
    You get to launch Windows games through Steam Proton. It's a no-hassle way to get up and running with gaming on Linux, although many are probably using Wine or Lutrix.
- ktallett 2y ago
  There is a gog galaxy Linux replacement called MiniGalaxy
freedomben 2y ago
What do you mean by they ignore Linux users? Every game clearly indicates whether it provides a Linux installer so there aren't any surprises there, and even in the cart you'll get a banner message saying something like, "Some of these games don't work on your operating system (Linux)" to avoid surprises. You can even search the store filtering only for games that provide a Linux installer, which is a control I use regularly. It's disappointing how few games do offer that, but it's getting better everyday (for which I largely credit and thank Valve). They don't support Linux with GOG Galaxy, but given they maintain compatibility with Lutris and Heroic and others I think I actually prefer that to official GOG Galaxy Support.
- boomboomsubban 2y ago
  >They don't support Linux with GOG Galaxy This is a bit of an issue. For example, Dead Cells offers daily challenges and has a few items locked behind completing them. They facilitate these by using the platform's tooling, which means the GOG version uses Galaxy and Linux users can't access it. And as far as I can tell, there's nothing on the site telling you this, troubleshooting the problem took a fair amount of digging. A small thing, and I still opt for GOG over anything else, but it can be annoying.
  - braiamp 2y ago
    Two things, Heroic implements a GOG Galaxy api [1], and second, the challenges work on Windows without Galaxy, the problem is that their build of SDL is not up to date [2] 1: https://github.com/imLinguin/comet https://github.com/imLinguin/comet 2: https://www.gog.com/forum/dead_cells/daily_challenges_on_linux_without_galaxy/post13 https://www.gog.com/forum/dead_cells/daily_challenges_on_lin...
  - keyringlight 2y ago
    Another aspect to this, for recent games I imagine on a certain level it's on the original developer to implement things for their games sold through the GOG channel. There is a spreadsheet [1] of games where the GOG version has lesser functionality or has been left behind compared to others, usually steam. This is one of my problems with the "PC gaming = steam" attitude that has become prevalent, PC as a platform is broad and varied, and if you're going to sell your product on multiple stores without making clear that they're different then you really should support them, otherwise be honest enough to only sell where you are prepared to. I'd say managing expectations and who's responsible only gets muddier when you're involving compatibility across different windows versions, hardware generations, or different OSes entirely. [1] - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2IoFp7PP41fraY-oFNY00fEkI/edit?gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2I...

aeurielesn 2y ago

As a SteamDeack owner, I'm really looking forward to see AAA games be Linux-first. Windows gaming really needs to stop.

tombert 2y ago
Proton has gotten so good now that this is less of an issue to me. I buy games on GOG and just load them into Steam with Heroic. I actually will often get better performance doing it this way; Jupiter Hell, for example, has a native Linux port, but I almost exclusively play the Windows version on Linux. I'm not entirely sure why this is, maybe performance issues with OpenGL compared to the D3D->Vulkan pipeline. Linux has so much fragmentation between distros and the like, the Windows API is ironically one of the easiest ways to get stuff working consistently on Linux. If you're playing games on NixOS, for example, you have to do extra work to get Linux versions working a lot of the time because NixOS kind of breaks dynamic-linking by default. If you play the windows versions on NixOS, it's often as easy as `wine myGame.exe`.
thesnide 2y ago
I was thinking that way in the past. But then, the only stable ABI is the win32 one. The linux kernel one is very stable, but the libs ones isn't. As soon as the dev ensure and cooperates with wine/proton to make it work nicely, i'm game. Needing those old libs in linux is rather cumbersome, if at all possible. So having wine doing the translation layer is a really good thing. As it frees the devs to be able to focus on 1 plateform. I also noted that the switch enabled a lot of linux native ports. That's also a nice side effect.
- braiamp 2y ago
  > the only stable ABI is the win32 one TBF, that's also true when compared to Windows. The only actually stable ABI in all major OS's are Linux Win32 via Wine.
- yupyupyups 2y ago
  You can create portable apps on Linux that will work for years to come. Bundle everything except for very core libraries, even libstd++. Things to NOT bundle would be glibc and any opengl implementation. To make apps backwards compatible with older versions of Linux, compile the app on a system with the oldest glibc you wish to support (because glibc is forwards compatible, but not backwards compatible).
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    This never really works in practice, far too many variations and compilation differences between distros. The Linux Standard Base was an attempt to do this and it went.... no where. > (because glibc is forwards compatible, but not backwards compatible). I've lost count of times I've had "portable" binaries not work because I'm using a newer version of glibc and the binary was compiled for Ubuntu/Debian. The only "standardised" way of making native Linux apps portable and "work for life" is to use the thing that worked in the server space, containers, Flatpak being the vendor-neutral and more widely supported for desktop apps.
- segasaturn 2y ago
  Is this something that Flatpak could fix?
  - ChocolateGod 2y ago
    Steam can already use bwrap (Flatpaks sandbox system) with its own runtime to accomplish this, but why bother when you can just target Win32 and have it work out the box. Outside of graphic and input, game engines make use of very few native APIs compared to applications as they're made to be portable with consoles.
ThrowawayB7 2y ago
Your Steam Deck provides Windows API emulation so games coded to target Windows will run on it. As a Steam Deck owner, you are perpetuating Windows gaming.

this_user 2y ago

It's probably outside their scope, and they are not as large and wealthy as Valve that they can afford to invest the necessary resources. But you can use 3rd party launchers like "Heroic" that support GOG and basically give you the same experience as Steam does.

tombert 2y ago
I find that this is also the easiest way to get your games loaded into the SteamOS interface. On my homemade NixOS SteamOS-like gaming box, I have it boot into the SteamOS interface, and it's pretty and console-like, and it's nice to be able to quickly install my GOG and Epic games and automatically add it to Steam so it can be easily played with that interface.
badsectoracula 2y ago
FWIW they could piggyback on Valve's open source work and help there like Zoom Platform (DRM-free shop like GOG, unrelated to Zoom) did[0]. ZP is a much smaller company than GOG (pretty much everyone in it, including the CEO, hangs out on their official Discord) and they still got someone to handle that part. I don't use the utility myself but i've seen on Discord that they -try to- provide support for people using it. [0] https://zoom-platform.sh/ https://zoom-platform.sh/

NegatioN 2y ago

Not a perfect solution, but you could just use Steam to load games from GOG on Linux though. Thereby getting "the best of both worlds". I have yet to stumble upon any major issue doing this.

the_snooze 2y ago
Also, running other store launchers under Steam Proton works surprisingly well. I've been able to install Battle.net as a custom entry in Steam and run StarCraft II flawlessly in Linux.
MaxBarraclough 2y ago
What does Steam bring to the table here?
- NegatioN 2y ago
  You get to launch Windows games through Steam Proton. It's a no-hassle way to get up and running with gaming on Linux, although many are probably using Wine or Lutrix.
ktallett 2y ago
There is a gog galaxy Linux replacement called MiniGalaxy

freedomben 2y ago

What do you mean by they ignore Linux users? Every game clearly indicates whether it provides a Linux installer so there aren't any surprises there, and even in the cart you'll get a banner message saying something like, "Some of these games don't work on your operating system (Linux)" to avoid surprises. You can even search the store filtering only for games that provide a Linux installer, which is a control I use regularly. It's disappointing how few games do offer that, but it's getting better everyday (for which I largely credit and thank Valve). They don't support Linux with GOG Galaxy, but given they maintain compatibility with Lutris and Heroic and others I think I actually prefer that to official GOG Galaxy Support.

boomboomsubban 2y ago
>They don't support Linux with GOG Galaxy This is a bit of an issue. For example, Dead Cells offers daily challenges and has a few items locked behind completing them. They facilitate these by using the platform's tooling, which means the GOG version uses Galaxy and Linux users can't access it. And as far as I can tell, there's nothing on the site telling you this, troubleshooting the problem took a fair amount of digging. A small thing, and I still opt for GOG over anything else, but it can be annoying.
- braiamp 2y ago
  Two things, Heroic implements a GOG Galaxy api [1], and second, the challenges work on Windows without Galaxy, the problem is that their build of SDL is not up to date [2] 1: https://github.com/imLinguin/comet https://github.com/imLinguin/comet 2: https://www.gog.com/forum/dead_cells/daily_challenges_on_linux_without_galaxy/post13 https://www.gog.com/forum/dead_cells/daily_challenges_on_lin...
- keyringlight 2y ago
  Another aspect to this, for recent games I imagine on a certain level it's on the original developer to implement things for their games sold through the GOG channel. There is a spreadsheet [1] of games where the GOG version has lesser functionality or has been left behind compared to others, usually steam. This is one of my problems with the "PC gaming = steam" attitude that has become prevalent, PC as a platform is broad and varied, and if you're going to sell your product on multiple stores without making clear that they're different then you really should support them, otherwise be honest enough to only sell where you are prepared to. I'd say managing expectations and who's responsible only gets muddier when you're involving compatibility across different windows versions, hardware generations, or different OSes entirely. [1] - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2IoFp7PP41fraY-oFNY00fEkI/edit?gid=0#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2I...