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That is why I bought a steam deck: to financially support Valve's Linux efforts. I barely play games anymore but thanks to the Wine devs, CodeWeavers, and Valve

That is why I bought a steam deck: to financially support Valve's Linux efforts. I barely play games anymore but thanks to the Wine devs, CodeWeavers, and Valve, I no longer have to listen to the knuckle-draggers claiming that "Linux sucks because it can't play games". In fact, now it is the opposite: Linux is outperforming Windows[0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXp3UYj50Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJXp3UYj50Q

tencentshill 11mo ago
They sold the Deck hardware at a loss, so I hope you've bought several full-price games to play on it since.
- foresto 11mo ago
  Has that been confirmed? Got a link?
tombert 11mo ago
I have a near infinite amount of respect for Wine. It seems like for at least the last twenty years, Wine just keeps getting better and better with every release. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect a lot of the work is spent sussing out weird edge cases with different binaries. This is tedious, thankless work, but it is necessary to have true Windows compatibility. Wine and Proton have gotten so good that I don’t bother even checking compatibility before I buy games. The game will likely run just as well or better than on Windows and it is so consistently good that it’s not worth the small effort to check ProtonDB. I do wish that they would get Office 2024 working on Wine. This isn’t a dig at the Wine devs at all, I am sure that it’s a very hard problem, but if I can get that then I will have even more ammunition to get my parents to drop windows entirely.
- d3Xt3r 11mo ago
  If its for your parents, then why not switch them to OnlyOffice? Its UI is very similar to MSO and it has excellent compatibility with the 2007+ file formats (much better than LibreOffice).
  - tombert 11mo ago
    Oh it’s not for lack of trying on my end. I tried getting them to play with OnlyOffice, and they said it was worse. If it doesn’t say Microsoft Office on there, they will say it’s worse. Objectivity has little to do with it. In a bit of fairness, my dad makes extremely liberal use of the VBA in Excel, and I am not sure how compatible OnlyOffice is for that.
    - cromka 11mo ago
      There's an alternative project that runs Windows apps in a VM but integrates them fully and transparently into your Linux desktop, with MS Office particularly tended to. The apps run as if they're native to Linux. It was discussed here just this past week.
      - tombert 11mo ago
        Yeah, Winboat, I might be part of that conversation you're referring to. I haven't ruled that out yet. I am planning on trying to convince them on this next time they ask me for tech support.
        cromka 11mo ago
        If you do it would be interesting to hear if/how well they adapted to it. Might do same thing myself with my father.
        tombert 11mo ago
        I wouldn't hold my breath. I've been trying to get them to switch for the better part of a year, and even Windows Update completely bricking my mom's computer [1] (look at my post history if you want more details on that) wasn't enough to convince them. I'm not sure what else could happen outside of Bill Gates personally leaving a flaming bag of dog manure on their porch. [1] I'll say it again; if anyone here works on Windows Update, please consider getting out of the software game and maybe consider a job in the exciting world of janitorial or food service, because you are exceedingly bad at the whole "software thing" and you should be ashamed of yourself and how much damage you have cost the entire world with your utterly incompetent software.
- SchemaLoad 11mo ago
  Sadly Wine only seems to be working well for games. Every non gaming app I've tried to run does not work. It does seem like Valve and the gaming community is contributing almost all the effort on the project.
  - tombert 11mo ago
    I haven't been able to get MSOffice working, but I didn't have much issue getting Toon Boom Animate to work. Which apps give you trouble?
    - SchemaLoad 10mo ago
      I've tried a range of DJ software and they are all broken in Wine.
      - The_SamminAter 10mo ago
        There is this[0], but even with re-creating this patch on the latest wine-staging tree, I was unable to get Rekordbox (6, don’t try 7) to communicate with the board. That said, I was also unable to interact with Mixxx with the board, and that wasn’t running through wine. As a sanity check, I verified that the board runs fine on Rekordbox 6 on Windows. I was able to read the midi inputs from the board just fine from other programs on Linux, so I’m honestly not sure where the issue lies. [0]: https://erhan.es/blog/using-pioneer-controller-with-rekordbox-in-linux/ https://erhan.es/blog/using-pioneer-controller-with-rekordbo...
  - password4321 11mo ago
    CodeWeavers sells app support: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover
txdv 11mo ago
> knuckle-draggers claiming that "Linux sucks because it can't play games" they still do it because you can't play all the multiplayer games with kernel level anticheats
- Zetaphor 11mo ago
  Let them have their rootkits, good riddens
stavros 11mo ago
I wonder when games will start supporting Linux natively, especially after the Steam Machine is released.
- bsder 11mo ago
  It would be better for Linux to gain native support for some of the Windows and DirectX 12 APIs. Linux gets a useful set of API targets and meets Windows devs more than halfway.
  - stavros 11mo ago
    What benefit would that have over the current situation, with Wine?
- Master_Odin 11mo ago
  Given how good Proton is, I don't think it's useful to target Linux for most indie devs unless it's a one click build for multiple platforms. Even then, I've definitely had more issues with games with native Linux builds than Proton, where there's been a number of games I've set to use Proton over native to get better performance.
  - pjmlp 11mo ago
    Until Microsoft decides it is enough.
- Telaneo 11mo ago
  Given that older Linux builds of games consistently run worse than the Windows versions of those same games through Wine/Proton, I hope never. Targeting Wine/Proton is the best of both worlds for everyone. Developers need to Just™ not use a few footguns that they mostly don't have reasons to touch anyway, and otherwise they don't need to change anything, while consumers get a game on that works just as well on Linux as on Windows.
  - stavros 11mo ago

tencentshill 11mo ago

They sold the Deck hardware at a loss, so I hope you've bought several full-price games to play on it since.

foresto 11mo ago
Has that been confirmed? Got a link?

tombert 11mo ago

I have a near infinite amount of respect for Wine. It seems like for at least the last twenty years, Wine just keeps getting better and better with every release. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect a lot of the work is spent sussing out weird edge cases with different binaries. This is tedious, thankless work, but it is necessary to have true Windows compatibility. Wine and Proton have gotten so good that I don’t bother even checking compatibility before I buy games. The game will likely run just as well or better than on Windows and it is so consistently good that it’s not worth the small effort to check ProtonDB. I do wish that they would get Office 2024 working on Wine. This isn’t a dig at the Wine devs at all, I am sure that it’s a very hard problem, but if I can get that then I will have even more ammunition to get my parents to drop windows entirely.

d3Xt3r 11mo ago
If its for your parents, then why not switch them to OnlyOffice? Its UI is very similar to MSO and it has excellent compatibility with the 2007+ file formats (much better than LibreOffice).
- tombert 11mo ago
  Oh it’s not for lack of trying on my end. I tried getting them to play with OnlyOffice, and they said it was worse. If it doesn’t say Microsoft Office on there, they will say it’s worse. Objectivity has little to do with it. In a bit of fairness, my dad makes extremely liberal use of the VBA in Excel, and I am not sure how compatible OnlyOffice is for that.
  - cromka 11mo ago
    There's an alternative project that runs Windows apps in a VM but integrates them fully and transparently into your Linux desktop, with MS Office particularly tended to. The apps run as if they're native to Linux. It was discussed here just this past week.
    - tombert 11mo ago
      Yeah, Winboat, I might be part of that conversation you're referring to. I haven't ruled that out yet. I am planning on trying to convince them on this next time they ask me for tech support.
      - cromka 11mo ago
        If you do it would be interesting to hear if/how well they adapted to it. Might do same thing myself with my father.
        tombert 11mo ago
        I wouldn't hold my breath. I've been trying to get them to switch for the better part of a year, and even Windows Update completely bricking my mom's computer [1] (look at my post history if you want more details on that) wasn't enough to convince them. I'm not sure what else could happen outside of Bill Gates personally leaving a flaming bag of dog manure on their porch. [1] I'll say it again; if anyone here works on Windows Update, please consider getting out of the software game and maybe consider a job in the exciting world of janitorial or food service, because you are exceedingly bad at the whole "software thing" and you should be ashamed of yourself and how much damage you have cost the entire world with your utterly incompetent software.
SchemaLoad 11mo ago
Sadly Wine only seems to be working well for games. Every non gaming app I've tried to run does not work. It does seem like Valve and the gaming community is contributing almost all the effort on the project.
- tombert 11mo ago
  I haven't been able to get MSOffice working, but I didn't have much issue getting Toon Boom Animate to work. Which apps give you trouble?
  - SchemaLoad 10mo ago
    I've tried a range of DJ software and they are all broken in Wine.
    - The_SamminAter 10mo ago
      There is this[0], but even with re-creating this patch on the latest wine-staging tree, I was unable to get Rekordbox (6, don’t try 7) to communicate with the board. That said, I was also unable to interact with Mixxx with the board, and that wasn’t running through wine. As a sanity check, I verified that the board runs fine on Rekordbox 6 on Windows. I was able to read the midi inputs from the board just fine from other programs on Linux, so I’m honestly not sure where the issue lies. [0]: https://erhan.es/blog/using-pioneer-controller-with-rekordbox-in-linux/ https://erhan.es/blog/using-pioneer-controller-with-rekordbo...
- password4321 11mo ago
  CodeWeavers sells app support: https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover

txdv 11mo ago

> knuckle-draggers claiming that "Linux sucks because it can't play games" they still do it because you can't play all the multiplayer games with kernel level anticheats

Zetaphor 11mo ago
Let them have their rootkits, good riddens

stavros 11mo ago

I wonder when games will start supporting Linux natively, especially after the Steam Machine is released.

bsder 11mo ago
It would be better for Linux to gain native support for some of the Windows and DirectX 12 APIs. Linux gets a useful set of API targets and meets Windows devs more than halfway.
- stavros 11mo ago
  What benefit would that have over the current situation, with Wine?
Master_Odin 11mo ago
Given how good Proton is, I don't think it's useful to target Linux for most indie devs unless it's a one click build for multiple platforms. Even then, I've definitely had more issues with games with native Linux builds than Proton, where there's been a number of games I've set to use Proton over native to get better performance.
- pjmlp 11mo ago
  Until Microsoft decides it is enough.
Telaneo 11mo ago
Given that older Linux builds of games consistently run worse than the Windows versions of those same games through Wine/Proton, I hope never. Targeting Wine/Proton is the best of both worlds for everyone. Developers need to Just™ not use a few footguns that they mostly don't have reasons to touch anyway, and otherwise they don't need to change anything, while consumers get a game on that works just as well on Linux as on Windows.
- stavros 11mo ago