8 ms·

The giant bugbear in this conversation is always multiplayer. That's because almost all of the big players in that space currently favor rootkits in the form of

The giant bugbear in this conversation is always multiplayer. That's because almost all of the big players in that space currently favor rootkits in the form of overly invasive anti-cheat, which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons. If you don't play PvP specifically, the rest of the library is significantly more open to you. Personally I have always favored single player experiences and indie games from smaller studios, and for the most part those run great.

godelski 9mo ago
It's unfortunate but at the same time if enough people switch to Linux then they'll be forced to change their ways. So if you can go without those games or don't play MMOs that is rootkits then switch to force their hand. Besides, them installing a rootkit on your machine is not an acceptable practice anyways. It's a major security issue. Sometimes we need to make a stand. Everyone has a line, where's yours?
- ectospheno 9mo ago
  I switched to console gaming years ago. I can still play any major release while having whatever OS I want on my computers.
  - Gracana 9mo ago
    I did this and was happily Windows-less for quite a few years. I ended up building a PC with a big GPU and so I switched back to PC gaming with a Windows installation alongside Linux, but I still think the console route is a great option.
    - int_19h 9mo ago
      At this point, I think quite a few people are basically treating their Windows desktop as a console.
      - Gracana 9mo ago
        I'll have to remember that one, that's a good way to put it.
- seanw444 9mo ago
  But standing on principle is too hard!
- abustamam 9mo ago
  This is true in principle but most gamers are just gonna take the path of least resistance. If they can't play fortnite on Linux (I'm using an example, I don't know if it's actually unplayable on Linux) then they will use whatever OS lets them play. People have been saying "vote with your wallet" every time gaming companies do something anti consumer like day one dlc or buggy releases (don't pre-order!) or $90 games, but gaming companies continue to push the envelope on what gamers will pay for because gamers keep paying for it. It's a sad reality.
  - direwolf20 9mo ago
    Take a step back. Why do people want to play Fortnite so much and not anything else?
    - jsheard 9mo ago
      Because their friends play Fortnite, for example? Multiplayer is often social, so "just play something else" turns into "just get new friends".
      - godelski 9mo ago
        There's another way. Only a small portion of friends need to change to pull the rest of the group. Pull them to a game that runs on Linux. Don't do it like "let's play this game because it runs on Linux" do it like "let's play this game because it's fun". If you want to be the one to lead this change you have to do extra work. Dual boot Linux and find a game that's fun that you can do online. Find the other friend or two in your group that will do the same (at least play the game, Linux is optional but encouraged for this subset). Just play together for a bit, give it a trial run. Then when playing the other game with the larger group say "hey, so and so and I have been playing this game, you guys should play with us sometime". They don't have to install Linux, just play a new game that their friends are already playing. That's why they're there, to play games with their friends. Don't try to get them to switch to Linux, just play games with your friends. You might have a holdout but if most people move then everyone will. But if you want to do that move you have to find what works and at least one other friend to give it a trial (who won't need to do as much work as you). That's how you do it. No crazy scheme and honestly not massive amounts of work either. Just the normal process of finding new games to play with one constraint. It just seems complicated because I stated the process explicitly.
- phr4ts 9mo ago
  >It's unfortunate but at the same time if enough people switch to Linux then they'll be forced to change their ways. Nope. Not Nadella. He'll kill windows in a heartbeat.
- Macha 9mo ago
  MMOs are actually fine. WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, all work great on Linux. They’re not really games that rely on hidden information, are not pvp first and need to simulate stuff on the server anyway, so can verify moves are valid there. It’s the competitive progression shooters and ranked esports games that go in for the restrictive anti-cheat
  - nhhvhy 9mo ago
    Even within competitive shooters there’s still plenty that run great on Linux. 90% of my time spent gaming is on Overwatch or CS2, and I’ve found that both ran significantly better on my Debian 13 installation than they ever did on Win11.
    - godelski 9mo ago
      And it's worth noting that CS2 is still the most played game on Steam. It has double the players of the second most played game, Dota 2, which also works on Linux. And that has double the player base of the number 3 game, Arc Raiders, which also works great on Linux. The idea that you'll be missing out is ill founded. Yes, there are some games that won't work. PUBG, Bongo Cat, Rust[0], and EA Sports FC 26 are the ones on the top 10 multiplayer list. But it's also not like you don't have plenty of massively popular games to choose from. I'll even say don't switch to Linux, just stop playing these abusive games. Honestly, if you're unwilling to change OSes but willing to do this then people that want to jump ship can. We all win from this behavior. Even you as it discourages Windows from shoving in more junk and discourages publishers like EA from shoving in massive security vulnerabilities like rootkits. I mean we've all seen how glitchy many AAA games are, you really think their other software isn't going to be just as unpolished and bug ridden? [0] Apparently works with Linux servers? https://www.protondb.com/app/252490 https://www.protondb.com/app/252490 P.S. If anyone wants to check for yourself: - Steam Multiplayer by rankings: https://steamdb.info/charts/?tagid=3859 - Proton Support: https://www.protondb.com/
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  >Sometimes we need to make a stand. Everyone has a line, where's yours? I just don't really play multiplayer to begin with. So I was never on the spectrum. But tens of millions are. They won't even be aware of what's happening. That's why this remains.
jsheard 9mo ago
> which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons. It's more that there's no sensible way they could do it even if they wanted to. Emulating the Windows kernel internals is well beyond the scope of what WINE is trying to do, and even if they did do it, there would be no way for the anticheat vendors to tell the difference between the AC module being sandboxed for compatibility versus sandboxed as a bypass technique. Trying to subvert the AC in any way is just begging to get banned, even if it's for beingn reasons.
aqme28 9mo ago
> That's because almost all of the big players in that space To the OP's point-- there are soooo many games nowadays, that if you and your friend group can skip some of those "big players," there are still hundreds of multiplayer games to play.
logicchains 9mo ago
The greatest PvP game, DOTA, works on Linux, and once you get hooked on that you'll never want to play another PvP game.
simoncion 9mo ago
> ...which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons. I mean, several of the major anticheats can be configured to work just fine on Linux. [0] It's up to the game dev whether or not it's permitted. So, yeah, unless the game is one where its dev makes huge blog posts about how "advanced" its anti-cheat is (like Valorant or the very latest CoD/Battlefield games) it's quite likely that multiplayer games will work just fine on Linux. And if they don't, and the faulty game is a new purchase on Steam, then ask for a refund and tell them that the game doesn't work with your OS. Easy, peasy. [0] I have 100% solid, personal knowledge that Easy Anti Cheat can work on Linux. On Linux, I play THE FINALS, Elden Ring, and a couple of other EAC-"protected" games without any troubles. I have perhaps-unreliable memories that at least one of the games I play uses Denuvo, which is only sometimes used as anti-cheat but does use many of the same techniques as kernel-mode anticheat.
- jsheard 9mo ago
  > I have 100% solid, personal knowledge that Easy Anti Cheat can work on Linux. That's no secret, but the catch is that the Linux version is much, much easier to bypass. That's why some developers choose not to enable it, or in the case of Apex Legends, enabled it but later backtracked and disabled it again.
  - simoncion 9mo ago
    > ...but the catch is that the Linux version is much, much easier to bypass. Shrug. Rumor has it that the Windows version is already fairly trivial to bypass.
    - dleslie 9mo ago
      Oh, it absolutely is; if your product doesn't update its EAC bits regularly then it may as well not use EAC at all. Even still, there are known ways around it.
  - Draiken 9mo ago
    > That's why some developers choose not to enable it That's an excuse. It's mostly incompetence or more often than not the company doesn't think it's worth the effort. With more Linux users, the balance will eventually shift from "fuck them" to "we have to figure out a way".
bikelang 9mo ago
Even PVP is starting to “just work” via Proton. Arc Raiders runs just fine on Linux and is a strictly PvP game. Over time I think this will be less and less of a problem.
- TulliusCicero 9mo ago
  Arc Raiders is a PvPvE game, like most extraction shooters.
  - Draiken 9mo ago
    Still has an anti-cheat, they just bothered to allow Linux support. Companies don't do this out of laziness/incompetence, but even some large anti-cheats work on Linux and some games simply choose to not enable it (cough, Tarkov, cough). Their problem, I'm no longer gonna play games that don't work on Linux. Funnily enough the best FPS game ever (Counter-Strike) runs absolutely fine on Linux. Thanks Valve!
    - int_19h 9mo ago
      As far as I know, all the anti-cheat options for Linux are not kernel-level, which means that they are drastically less effective at their intended purpose. That's why so many competitive multiplayer games choose to not enable it.
RamRodification 9mo ago
As a competitive old school arena FPS guy, I have also had a very hard time getting the same smoothness and low latency (input, output, whatever it is) on Linux. The games I play are very fast and twitchy, and milliseconds matter. There seems to be too many layers and variables to ever get to the bottom of it. Is it the distro itself? Is it a Wayland vs. X11 thing? Is it the driver? The Proton version? Some G-SYNC thing? Some specific tweak that games based on this game engine needs?
- simoncion 9mo ago
  > The games I play are very fast and twitchy, and milliseconds matter. Out of curiosity, what games are those? I wonder if I also play a subset of them.
  - RamRodification 9mo ago
    The Quakes! Quake Live and Quake Champions mainly.
    - simoncion 9mo ago
      Ah. Yeah, I play games very much like that (but not those specific ones). I also play rhythm games, which require precise timing. Like this guy mentions [0], for all but one of the games I've tried, [1] I see comparable or superior performance to Windows. I'm running AMD hardware, and I'm using KDE without a compositor on Xorg (that is, not on Wayland). I strongly expect that I've successfully disabled KDE's compositor because I seem to get the same performance when I use WindowMaker, which has never had a compositor. [0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799656> [1] That game is the Deus Ex that takes place in Prague... I think it's Human Revolution. It's mind-boggling how slow it is.
      - RamRodification 9mo ago
        Thanks for sharing
estimator7292 9mo ago
Vote with your wallet, as the saying goes. If you quit paying money for the privilege of installing a rootkit, maybe they'll stop selling rootkits.
- johnnyanmac 9mo ago
  Lot of wallets are voting for AC, sadly. Sometimes the tyranny of the majority is a real thing.
jmusall 9mo ago
BattlEye works on linux nowadays, so there definitely is progress in this direction!
trinsic2 9mo ago
Its not that they refuse to support the anti-cheat rootkits, its that its really difficult to emulate or abstract kernel level code. If you are using kernel level anti-cheat, you are just asking for trouble all-around.

godelski 9mo ago

It's unfortunate but at the same time if enough people switch to Linux then they'll be forced to change their ways. So if you can go without those games or don't play MMOs that is rootkits then switch to force their hand. Besides, them installing a rootkit on your machine is not an acceptable practice anyways. It's a major security issue. Sometimes we need to make a stand. Everyone has a line, where's yours?

ectospheno 9mo ago
I switched to console gaming years ago. I can still play any major release while having whatever OS I want on my computers.
- Gracana 9mo ago
  I did this and was happily Windows-less for quite a few years. I ended up building a PC with a big GPU and so I switched back to PC gaming with a Windows installation alongside Linux, but I still think the console route is a great option.
  - int_19h 9mo ago
    At this point, I think quite a few people are basically treating their Windows desktop as a console.
    - Gracana 9mo ago
      I'll have to remember that one, that's a good way to put it.
seanw444 9mo ago
But standing on principle is too hard!
abustamam 9mo ago
This is true in principle but most gamers are just gonna take the path of least resistance. If they can't play fortnite on Linux (I'm using an example, I don't know if it's actually unplayable on Linux) then they will use whatever OS lets them play. People have been saying "vote with your wallet" every time gaming companies do something anti consumer like day one dlc or buggy releases (don't pre-order!) or $90 games, but gaming companies continue to push the envelope on what gamers will pay for because gamers keep paying for it. It's a sad reality.
- direwolf20 9mo ago
  Take a step back. Why do people want to play Fortnite so much and not anything else?
  - jsheard 9mo ago
    Because their friends play Fortnite, for example? Multiplayer is often social, so "just play something else" turns into "just get new friends".
    - godelski 9mo ago
      There's another way. Only a small portion of friends need to change to pull the rest of the group. Pull them to a game that runs on Linux. Don't do it like "let's play this game because it runs on Linux" do it like "let's play this game because it's fun". If you want to be the one to lead this change you have to do extra work. Dual boot Linux and find a game that's fun that you can do online. Find the other friend or two in your group that will do the same (at least play the game, Linux is optional but encouraged for this subset). Just play together for a bit, give it a trial run. Then when playing the other game with the larger group say "hey, so and so and I have been playing this game, you guys should play with us sometime". They don't have to install Linux, just play a new game that their friends are already playing. That's why they're there, to play games with their friends. Don't try to get them to switch to Linux, just play games with your friends. You might have a holdout but if most people move then everyone will. But if you want to do that move you have to find what works and at least one other friend to give it a trial (who won't need to do as much work as you). That's how you do it. No crazy scheme and honestly not massive amounts of work either. Just the normal process of finding new games to play with one constraint. It just seems complicated because I stated the process explicitly.
phr4ts 9mo ago
>It's unfortunate but at the same time if enough people switch to Linux then they'll be forced to change their ways. Nope. Not Nadella. He'll kill windows in a heartbeat.
Macha 9mo ago
MMOs are actually fine. WoW, FFXIV, RuneScape, all work great on Linux. They’re not really games that rely on hidden information, are not pvp first and need to simulate stuff on the server anyway, so can verify moves are valid there. It’s the competitive progression shooters and ranked esports games that go in for the restrictive anti-cheat
- nhhvhy 9mo ago
  Even within competitive shooters there’s still plenty that run great on Linux. 90% of my time spent gaming is on Overwatch or CS2, and I’ve found that both ran significantly better on my Debian 13 installation than they ever did on Win11.
  - godelski 9mo ago
    And it's worth noting that CS2 is still the most played game on Steam. It has double the players of the second most played game, Dota 2, which also works on Linux. And that has double the player base of the number 3 game, Arc Raiders, which also works great on Linux. The idea that you'll be missing out is ill founded. Yes, there are some games that won't work. PUBG, Bongo Cat, Rust[0], and EA Sports FC 26 are the ones on the top 10 multiplayer list. But it's also not like you don't have plenty of massively popular games to choose from. I'll even say don't switch to Linux, just stop playing these abusive games. Honestly, if you're unwilling to change OSes but willing to do this then people that want to jump ship can. We all win from this behavior. Even you as it discourages Windows from shoving in more junk and discourages publishers like EA from shoving in massive security vulnerabilities like rootkits. I mean we've all seen how glitchy many AAA games are, you really think their other software isn't going to be just as unpolished and bug ridden? [0] Apparently works with Linux servers? https://www.protondb.com/app/252490 https://www.protondb.com/app/252490 P.S. If anyone wants to check for yourself: - Steam Multiplayer by rankings: https://steamdb.info/charts/?tagid=3859 - Proton Support: https://www.protondb.com/
johnnyanmac 9mo ago
>Sometimes we need to make a stand. Everyone has a line, where's yours? I just don't really play multiplayer to begin with. So I was never on the spectrum. But tens of millions are. They won't even be aware of what's happening. That's why this remains.

jsheard 9mo ago

> which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons. It's more that there's no sensible way they could do it even if they wanted to. Emulating the Windows kernel internals is well beyond the scope of what WINE is trying to do, and even if they did do it, there would be no way for the anticheat vendors to tell the difference between the AC module being sandboxed for compatibility versus sandboxed as a bypass technique. Trying to subvert the AC in any way is just begging to get banned, even if it's for beingn reasons.

aqme28 9mo ago

> That's because almost all of the big players in that space To the OP's point-- there are soooo many games nowadays, that if you and your friend group can skip some of those "big players," there are still hundreds of multiplayer games to play.

logicchains 9mo ago

The greatest PvP game, DOTA, works on Linux, and once you get hooked on that you'll never want to play another PvP game.

simoncion 9mo ago

> ...which the Linux wrappers (mostly the wine project) refuse to support for security reasons. I mean, several of the major anticheats can be configured to work just fine on Linux. [0] It's up to the game dev whether or not it's permitted. So, yeah, unless the game is one where its dev makes huge blog posts about how "advanced" its anti-cheat is (like Valorant or the very latest CoD/Battlefield games) it's quite likely that multiplayer games will work just fine on Linux. And if they don't, and the faulty game is a new purchase on Steam, then ask for a refund and tell them that the game doesn't work with your OS. Easy, peasy. [0] I have 100% solid, personal knowledge that Easy Anti Cheat can work on Linux. On Linux, I play THE FINALS, Elden Ring, and a couple of other EAC-"protected" games without any troubles. I have perhaps-unreliable memories that at least one of the games I play uses Denuvo, which is only sometimes used as anti-cheat but does use many of the same techniques as kernel-mode anticheat.

jsheard 9mo ago
> I have 100% solid, personal knowledge that Easy Anti Cheat can work on Linux. That's no secret, but the catch is that the Linux version is much, much easier to bypass. That's why some developers choose not to enable it, or in the case of Apex Legends, enabled it but later backtracked and disabled it again.
- simoncion 9mo ago
  > ...but the catch is that the Linux version is much, much easier to bypass. Shrug. Rumor has it that the Windows version is already fairly trivial to bypass.
  - dleslie 9mo ago
    Oh, it absolutely is; if your product doesn't update its EAC bits regularly then it may as well not use EAC at all. Even still, there are known ways around it.
- Draiken 9mo ago
  > That's why some developers choose not to enable it That's an excuse. It's mostly incompetence or more often than not the company doesn't think it's worth the effort. With more Linux users, the balance will eventually shift from "fuck them" to "we have to figure out a way".

bikelang 9mo ago

Even PVP is starting to “just work” via Proton. Arc Raiders runs just fine on Linux and is a strictly PvP game. Over time I think this will be less and less of a problem.

TulliusCicero 9mo ago
Arc Raiders is a PvPvE game, like most extraction shooters.
- Draiken 9mo ago
  Still has an anti-cheat, they just bothered to allow Linux support. Companies don't do this out of laziness/incompetence, but even some large anti-cheats work on Linux and some games simply choose to not enable it (cough, Tarkov, cough). Their problem, I'm no longer gonna play games that don't work on Linux. Funnily enough the best FPS game ever (Counter-Strike) runs absolutely fine on Linux. Thanks Valve!
  - int_19h 9mo ago
    As far as I know, all the anti-cheat options for Linux are not kernel-level, which means that they are drastically less effective at their intended purpose. That's why so many competitive multiplayer games choose to not enable it.

RamRodification 9mo ago

As a competitive old school arena FPS guy, I have also had a very hard time getting the same smoothness and low latency (input, output, whatever it is) on Linux. The games I play are very fast and twitchy, and milliseconds matter. There seems to be too many layers and variables to ever get to the bottom of it. Is it the distro itself? Is it a Wayland vs. X11 thing? Is it the driver? The Proton version? Some G-SYNC thing? Some specific tweak that games based on this game engine needs?

simoncion 9mo ago
> The games I play are very fast and twitchy, and milliseconds matter. Out of curiosity, what games are those? I wonder if I also play a subset of them.
- RamRodification 9mo ago
  The Quakes! Quake Live and Quake Champions mainly.
  - simoncion 9mo ago
    Ah. Yeah, I play games very much like that (but not those specific ones). I also play rhythm games, which require precise timing. Like this guy mentions [0], for all but one of the games I've tried, [1] I see comparable or superior performance to Windows. I'm running AMD hardware, and I'm using KDE without a compositor on Xorg (that is, not on Wayland). I strongly expect that I've successfully disabled KDE's compositor because I seem to get the same performance when I use WindowMaker, which has never had a compositor. [0] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46799656> [1] That game is the Deus Ex that takes place in Prague... I think it's Human Revolution. It's mind-boggling how slow it is.
    - RamRodification 9mo ago
      Thanks for sharing

estimator7292 9mo ago

Vote with your wallet, as the saying goes. If you quit paying money for the privilege of installing a rootkit, maybe they'll stop selling rootkits.

johnnyanmac 9mo ago
Lot of wallets are voting for AC, sadly. Sometimes the tyranny of the majority is a real thing.

jmusall 9mo ago

BattlEye works on linux nowadays, so there definitely is progress in this direction!

trinsic2 9mo ago

Its not that they refuse to support the anti-cheat rootkits, its that its really difficult to emulate or abstract kernel level code. If you are using kernel level anti-cheat, you are just asking for trouble all-around.