8 ms·

Wine might be oddly self-defeating. Broad game support on Linux increases the viability of Linux as a desktop, which increases market share, which may result in

Wine might be oddly self-defeating. Broad game support on Linux increases the viability of Linux as a desktop, which increases market share, which may result in developers creating Linux ports as a 1st class concern, which don't need Wine to run.

Normal_gaussian 7mo ago
A solution to itself
jfaulken 7mo ago
This is the very definition of "a good problem to have."
p_ing 7mo ago
OS/2 part deux
- ssl-3 7mo ago
  Sorta, kinda, but not really. OS/2 may have been a better Windows than Windows during the Warp days 30-ish years ago. It was also a very competent operating system in its own right. We all know the story: It never had a broad base of native applications. It could have happened, but it did not happen. Like, back then when Usenet was the primary way of conducting written online discourse, the best newsreader I had on OS/2 was a Windows program; the ones that ran natively on OS/2 weren't even close. And OS/2 never had support from a popular company. There were times at OS/2's peak (such as it was) when it was essentially impossible to buy a new computer with OS/2 pre-installed and working correctly even from IBM. Linux, though? Over those same 30-ish years, a huge amount of native applications have been written. Tons of day-to-day stuff can be done very well in Linux without even a hint of Wine and that's been reality for quite a long time now. The missing piece, if there is one, is gaming. It'd be great to have more native games and fewer abstraction layers. But systems like Valve's popular Steam Deck and upcoming Steam Machine are positive aspects that OS/2 never had an equivalent to. And since Steam is very nearly ubiquitous, companies that sell computer game software do pay attention to what Valve is doing in this space. (And frankly, when a game runs great in some Steam/Wine/Proton/Vulkan shapeshifting slime mold abstraction stack, I really do not care that it isn't running natively. I push the button and receive candy.)
krastanov 7mo ago
Wine's APIs are more stable than Linux's APIs, so it seems more plausible to me that Wine will become the first class target itself.
- TehCorwiz 7mo ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if Wine eventually becomes more stable than Windows.
  - carlos_rpn 7mo ago
    It feels like it won't be long before Microsoft starts helping with that (by making Windows less stable, not improving Wine).
    - keyringlight 7mo ago
      What I wonder about is if MS wants to keep people on windows, what methods they can use to do that. For simple desktop stuff I don't think they have many options to lock in other developers (and their audiences) to windows unless they want do so themselves (putting aside web based or not PC-desktop). Bleeding edge gaming and multiplayer anti-cheat is one area where I think having a big company owning the OS probably helps them stay ahead, as that structure probably lets them work with hardware designers to get the capabilities in use (i.e. in new versions of DirectX) and available to software developers first. There's generally a lag in adoption for new features within Vulkan and then usage downstream in wine/proton to get compatibility parity with windows, then the games themselves being able to run feature/performance parity. It'd be interesting to see what cooperation would be needed to have the linux gaming stack equal at the point new features are released, and with the least amount of manual hacks or command line tweaking required for the users. As discussed a few weeks back, tough anti-cheat for linux seems like a paradox with the current methods.
      - mschuster91 7mo ago
        > What I wonder about is if MS wants to keep people on windows, what methods they can use to do that Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about private customers any more. They don't have money. What has money though is enterprise/government sales, and MS got these customers tightly locked in. Compliance audits and tooling for insurances or legal stuff (SOX, GDPR, ...) are built against a full Microsoft stack of MS Server, Active Directory, Azure, Teams, Office 365 and Windows desktops. You might be able to get away with replacing AD and GPO with Samba servers but even that is already a pain when the auditors come knocking. Everything else? There is no single FOSS based "standard offering" (i.e. a combination of everything needed to run an on-prem enterprise site, Office replacement, remote collaboration tooling), so every audit for such setups must be custom made and involves a lot of extra work. A second leg is industrial control machines, medical devices and the likes. That's all stuff built by third party vendors and integrators. They need to continue on Windows because switching to an alternative OS would require redoing everything from scratch on the software and certification side. These customers buy the LTSC IoT stuff. And that is why you see Microsoft pushing enshittification so hard on private customers... extract the last few cents you can from them. But the real money comes from the large customers.
tombert 7mo ago
I actually think it'll be the opposite. Even for games that have native ports I pretty much always run the Windows version with Proton, since that just tends to be more stable. People develop against the Windows API because it's familiar and somewhat unchanging, and that's fine since Proton does such a good job running it.
Jblx2 7mo ago
If you game/app runs on Wine, doesn't that reduce the pressure to develop a Linux port?
- ticulatedspline 7mo ago
  short term yeah, probably hurts native ports since "why bother". Long term though if the market share for Linux is particularly high I could see more native development. Either way my comment is intended as more humorous than truly insightful or prophetic.
- BadBadJellyBean 7mo ago
  Possibly but does it realistically matter? I don't care why my games run on linux I just care that they do. I encountered a few cases where the native version was inferior to the wine version (Cronos is one example). With wine improving there is very little downside to just using it.
  - Jblx2 7mo ago
    Could there ever be a killer app for Linux? One that would cause a not-insignificant number of people to decide that Linux was worth switching to, even if there was some pain of moving away from Windows?
orbital-decay 7mo ago
Unlikely. Games need a stable ABI and Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux.
- akdev1l 7mo ago
  Proprietary software needs a stable ABI. Not games. DOOM runs on any Linux system since forever because we had access to the source. You can build it for Linux 2.6 and it’ll probably still work today. Sadly most games are proprietary
  - fluffybucktsnek 7mo ago
    Even if all games were FOSS, without - at least - a stable API, most games will remain a hassle to run. DOOM doesn't deal as much with this due to the high amount of volunteers, but relying on community support for all games is just outsourcing labor to some unlucky fellows. At best, it's yet another pain for Linux users. At worse, it's the death of unpopular games. Either case, a hurdle for Linux adoption.
  - badsectoracula 7mo ago
    > Proprietary software needs a stable ABI. Open source software also needs a stable ABI because: a) i don't want to bother building it over and over (not everything is in my distro's repository, a ton of software has a stupid building process and not every new version is always better than the old versions) b) a stable ABI implies a stable API and even if you have the source, it is a massive PITA to have to fix whatever stuff the program's dependencies broke to get it running, especially if you're not the developer who made it in the first place c) as an extension to "b", a stable API also means more widely spread information/knowledge about it (people wont have to waste time learning how to do the same tasks in a slightly different way using a different API), thus much easier for people to contribute to software that use that API
  - Pannoniae 7mo ago
    Not really. I actually tried building an "old" game (read: not updated since 2014 or so) on Linux when I used it. It didn't work because autotools changed, some weird errors with make, and the library APIs have changed too. In the end I gave up and just used proton on the windows .exe. Unbelievable. :(
DeathArrow 7mo ago
Quiet the other way around. Wine being good will reduce incentives for game studio to produce native Linux ports.
cadamsdotcom 7mo ago
Gotta get there somehow.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago
It's interesting when old Windows games run better in Wine than in actual Windows 10/11.
- inetknght 7mo ago
  It's even more interesting when the latest Windows games run better in Wine than in actual Windows 10/11.
marssaxman 7mo ago
It seems more likely to me that the Windows API will become the de-facto Linux gaming SDK, and the idea of porting a game to Linux will become meaningless.
FpUser 7mo ago
If I had a guarantee that every windows application that is important to me runs on Wine I would switch next day. Now I use Windows to develop both - Windows and Linux applications even when primary running mode for application is business backend on Linux
kelnos 7mo ago
I don't think this is a big concern. There will still be plenty of demand for Wine even with a decent catalog of Linux-native games. People use Wine for things other than games, and even if tomorrow every single new game had a native Linux port, people would still be playing older Windows-only games for at least another 20 years, probably more. Also the Windows ABI is still more stable than the Linux ABI. Even if Linux (non-SteamDeck) gaming share went up to like 50% or more, it still would probably be less of a hassle to build for Windows only, the performance difference on Linux+Wine isn't enough to matter.
nialv7 7mo ago
There always will be old games that will never be ported to Linux.
nutrientharvest 7mo ago
In many cases for game devs/publishers "supporting Linux" now means making sure the Windows build runs well under Proton.
hrmtst93837 7mo ago
[flagged]
Grimblewald 7mo ago
Wine has always beem a bandage not a final thing. Something to drive exactly this transition to better. Through wine ive been able to transition many colleagues accross because software they need will work as they expect it to in linux and everything elese is an arcane mystery to them anyway. This means one less network effect contributing win user. Most also experience a massive jump in tech literacy as a result of the move, since a system that doesn't wall you out at every step lets you passively learn more.

Normal_gaussian 7mo ago

A solution to itself

jfaulken 7mo ago

This is the very definition of "a good problem to have."

p_ing 7mo ago

OS/2 part deux

ssl-3 7mo ago
Sorta, kinda, but not really. OS/2 may have been a better Windows than Windows during the Warp days 30-ish years ago. It was also a very competent operating system in its own right. We all know the story: It never had a broad base of native applications. It could have happened, but it did not happen. Like, back then when Usenet was the primary way of conducting written online discourse, the best newsreader I had on OS/2 was a Windows program; the ones that ran natively on OS/2 weren't even close. And OS/2 never had support from a popular company. There were times at OS/2's peak (such as it was) when it was essentially impossible to buy a new computer with OS/2 pre-installed and working correctly even from IBM. Linux, though? Over those same 30-ish years, a huge amount of native applications have been written. Tons of day-to-day stuff can be done very well in Linux without even a hint of Wine and that's been reality for quite a long time now. The missing piece, if there is one, is gaming. It'd be great to have more native games and fewer abstraction layers. But systems like Valve's popular Steam Deck and upcoming Steam Machine are positive aspects that OS/2 never had an equivalent to. And since Steam is very nearly ubiquitous, companies that sell computer game software do pay attention to what Valve is doing in this space. (And frankly, when a game runs great in some Steam/Wine/Proton/Vulkan shapeshifting slime mold abstraction stack, I really do not care that it isn't running natively. I push the button and receive candy.)

krastanov 7mo ago

Wine's APIs are more stable than Linux's APIs, so it seems more plausible to me that Wine will become the first class target itself.

TehCorwiz 7mo ago
I wouldn't be surprised if Wine eventually becomes more stable than Windows.
- carlos_rpn 7mo ago
  It feels like it won't be long before Microsoft starts helping with that (by making Windows less stable, not improving Wine).
  - keyringlight 7mo ago
    What I wonder about is if MS wants to keep people on windows, what methods they can use to do that. For simple desktop stuff I don't think they have many options to lock in other developers (and their audiences) to windows unless they want do so themselves (putting aside web based or not PC-desktop). Bleeding edge gaming and multiplayer anti-cheat is one area where I think having a big company owning the OS probably helps them stay ahead, as that structure probably lets them work with hardware designers to get the capabilities in use (i.e. in new versions of DirectX) and available to software developers first. There's generally a lag in adoption for new features within Vulkan and then usage downstream in wine/proton to get compatibility parity with windows, then the games themselves being able to run feature/performance parity. It'd be interesting to see what cooperation would be needed to have the linux gaming stack equal at the point new features are released, and with the least amount of manual hacks or command line tweaking required for the users. As discussed a few weeks back, tough anti-cheat for linux seems like a paradox with the current methods.
    - mschuster91 7mo ago
      > What I wonder about is if MS wants to keep people on windows, what methods they can use to do that Microsoft doesn't give a fuck about private customers any more. They don't have money. What has money though is enterprise/government sales, and MS got these customers tightly locked in. Compliance audits and tooling for insurances or legal stuff (SOX, GDPR, ...) are built against a full Microsoft stack of MS Server, Active Directory, Azure, Teams, Office 365 and Windows desktops. You might be able to get away with replacing AD and GPO with Samba servers but even that is already a pain when the auditors come knocking. Everything else? There is no single FOSS based "standard offering" (i.e. a combination of everything needed to run an on-prem enterprise site, Office replacement, remote collaboration tooling), so every audit for such setups must be custom made and involves a lot of extra work. A second leg is industrial control machines, medical devices and the likes. That's all stuff built by third party vendors and integrators. They need to continue on Windows because switching to an alternative OS would require redoing everything from scratch on the software and certification side. These customers buy the LTSC IoT stuff. And that is why you see Microsoft pushing enshittification so hard on private customers... extract the last few cents you can from them. But the real money comes from the large customers.

tombert 7mo ago

I actually think it'll be the opposite. Even for games that have native ports I pretty much always run the Windows version with Proton, since that just tends to be more stable. People develop against the Windows API because it's familiar and somewhat unchanging, and that's fine since Proton does such a good job running it.

Jblx2 7mo ago

If you game/app runs on Wine, doesn't that reduce the pressure to develop a Linux port?

ticulatedspline 7mo ago
short term yeah, probably hurts native ports since "why bother". Long term though if the market share for Linux is particularly high I could see more native development. Either way my comment is intended as more humorous than truly insightful or prophetic.
BadBadJellyBean 7mo ago
Possibly but does it realistically matter? I don't care why my games run on linux I just care that they do. I encountered a few cases where the native version was inferior to the wine version (Cronos is one example). With wine improving there is very little downside to just using it.
- Jblx2 7mo ago
  Could there ever be a killer app for Linux? One that would cause a not-insignificant number of people to decide that Linux was worth switching to, even if there was some pain of moving away from Windows?

orbital-decay 7mo ago

Unlikely. Games need a stable ABI and Win32 is the only stable ABI on Linux.

akdev1l 7mo ago
Proprietary software needs a stable ABI. Not games. DOOM runs on any Linux system since forever because we had access to the source. You can build it for Linux 2.6 and it’ll probably still work today. Sadly most games are proprietary
- fluffybucktsnek 7mo ago
  Even if all games were FOSS, without - at least - a stable API, most games will remain a hassle to run. DOOM doesn't deal as much with this due to the high amount of volunteers, but relying on community support for all games is just outsourcing labor to some unlucky fellows. At best, it's yet another pain for Linux users. At worse, it's the death of unpopular games. Either case, a hurdle for Linux adoption.
- badsectoracula 7mo ago
  > Proprietary software needs a stable ABI. Open source software also needs a stable ABI because: a) i don't want to bother building it over and over (not everything is in my distro's repository, a ton of software has a stupid building process and not every new version is always better than the old versions) b) a stable ABI implies a stable API and even if you have the source, it is a massive PITA to have to fix whatever stuff the program's dependencies broke to get it running, especially if you're not the developer who made it in the first place c) as an extension to "b", a stable API also means more widely spread information/knowledge about it (people wont have to waste time learning how to do the same tasks in a slightly different way using a different API), thus much easier for people to contribute to software that use that API
- Pannoniae 7mo ago
  Not really. I actually tried building an "old" game (read: not updated since 2014 or so) on Linux when I used it. It didn't work because autotools changed, some weird errors with make, and the library APIs have changed too. In the end I gave up and just used proton on the windows .exe. Unbelievable. :(

DeathArrow 7mo ago

Quiet the other way around. Wine being good will reduce incentives for game studio to produce native Linux ports.

cadamsdotcom 7mo ago

Gotta get there somehow.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7mo ago

It's interesting when old Windows games run better in Wine than in actual Windows 10/11.

inetknght 7mo ago
It's even more interesting when the latest Windows games run better in Wine than in actual Windows 10/11.

marssaxman 7mo ago

It seems more likely to me that the Windows API will become the de-facto Linux gaming SDK, and the idea of porting a game to Linux will become meaningless.

FpUser 7mo ago

If I had a guarantee that every windows application that is important to me runs on Wine I would switch next day. Now I use Windows to develop both - Windows and Linux applications even when primary running mode for application is business backend on Linux

kelnos 7mo ago

I don't think this is a big concern. There will still be plenty of demand for Wine even with a decent catalog of Linux-native games. People use Wine for things other than games, and even if tomorrow every single new game had a native Linux port, people would still be playing older Windows-only games for at least another 20 years, probably more. Also the Windows ABI is still more stable than the Linux ABI. Even if Linux (non-SteamDeck) gaming share went up to like 50% or more, it still would probably be less of a hassle to build for Windows only, the performance difference on Linux+Wine isn't enough to matter.

nialv7 7mo ago

There always will be old games that will never be ported to Linux.

nutrientharvest 7mo ago

In many cases for game devs/publishers "supporting Linux" now means making sure the Windows build runs well under Proton.

hrmtst93837 7mo ago

[flagged]

Grimblewald 7mo ago

Wine has always beem a bandage not a final thing. Something to drive exactly this transition to better. Through wine ive been able to transition many colleagues accross because software they need will work as they expect it to in linux and everything elese is an arcane mystery to them anyway. This means one less network effect contributing win user. Most also experience a massive jump in tech literacy as a result of the move, since a system that doesn't wall you out at every step lets you passively learn more.