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Lutris, where would I be without you now? This excellent open source game launcher has another point release out to fix some bits up.

What's new and changed?

  • Avoid a crash if the lutris config file is corrupted
  • Install Asian fonts by default on Wine prefix creation
  • Add Vulkan ICD loaders in system options
  • Add SampleCount option to Wine (allows enabling antialiasing in old games)
  • Replace joystick panel with Wine config panel (which contains the joypad panel)
  • Display warning when installing games on NTFS drives
  • Display warning if Vulkan is not fully installed
  • Use ldconfig to determine library paths
  • Disable steamwebhelper in Wine Steam to prevent spamming logs with errors
  • Various bug fixes

Like me, have you found Lutris to be the one launcher to rule them all? Do let me know in the comments. I would be interested to know if Lutris has helped you or if you prefer something else.

For me personally, it's basically taken all the pain away of dealing with Wine for Overwatch and StarCraft II, two games sadly not on Linux that you can pry from my cold dead hands. Not just that though, managing games from so many sources has become more and more of a hassle, which Lutris kindly deals for me.

Links: Official Site | GitHub | Patreon

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Apps, Open Source
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15 comments

Cmdr_Iras Apr 9, 2019
I do like Lutris, my only wich would that in the Banner layout mode as show in the screenshot that there were some options for larger banner sizes. On my screen they can become quite small.
WorMzy Apr 9, 2019
Never needed to use it, 99% of my games are accessible through Steam, and I could add the others as shortcuts if I was so inclined.

Still, it's good to see it's so actively developed!

EDIT: I see it's a GTK3 application, which is disappointing. :(


Last edited by WorMzy on 9 April 2019 at 12:46 pm UTC
ixnari Apr 9, 2019
I think I gave Lutris a fair shake and I wound up not using it. It's great if you have a laptop with a dual GPU as Lutris can be configured to automatically append primusrun/optirun with every game launcher so you don't have to.

The area I found it lacking is Wine installations. I might be missing something, but I found installing Wine games through Lutris to be a bit confusing still. Specifically, configuring Wine with Xbox One S controller support is still a mystery to me. And most 3D games need primus to run properly on my laptop, so that's three programs I need to configure properly to have a Windows game work. After a few days of fiddling around with Lutris, wine, xinput support, primus and what have you, I just gave up.

Lutris is very nice indeed, but it's not for me, at least not at this point.
TheRiddick Apr 9, 2019
Needs scanning for already installed games, needs to also be able to scan for GOG games and humble store. ATM it assumes everything is uninstalled, even if the files are installed and flagged as installed by steam.
scaine Apr 9, 2019
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Lutris takes all the pain away for me. It's the only reason I can now play Overwatch like a native app.

Well, almost native... a couple of versions ago, I used to click the Overwatch shortcut that Lutris created for me in my Application launcher and it launched like native. But with the latest couple of versions, when I click that, it still launches... but also launches Lutris uselessly in the back ground and then it complains if I try to close it.

...and after writing all that, I went to check the status of the bug report here - yep, it's fixed. :)

Superb!
scaine Apr 9, 2019
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Quoting: GuestArgh, still needs gnomedesktop as a dependency. As much as I want to try lutris, until that's no longer the case then I simply can't use it. Ah well, still a nice project anyway.

But it's just the library, not the whole desktop, I think? Like a single .so file?
Purple Library Guy Apr 9, 2019
Quoting: WorMzyEDIT: I see it's a GTK3 application, which is disappointing. :(
Why is that disappointing?
I mean, I use like one KDE app. I expect when I click "install" in the software manager it pulls in like all of KDE, but who cares? My hard drive is partitioned, and nearly all of it is for /home because the actual system hardly takes up any room by comparison, and adding KDE stuff really makes hardly any difference and it's not like I have to manage the dependencies. So who cares?


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 9 April 2019 at 6:09 pm UTC
tmtvl Apr 9, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library GuyWhy is that disappointing?
I mean, I use like one KDE app. I expect when I click "install" in the software manager it pulls in like all of KDE, but who cares? My hard drive is partitioned, and nearly all of it is for /home because the actual system hardly takes up any room by comparison, and adding KDE stuff really makes hardly any difference and it's not like I have to manage the dependencies. So who cares?

I don't like GTK3 apps because the GTK file picker is tricky to configure when compared to the Qt one. I also don't like GTK's propensity for Client Side Decorations as it means apps don't look like they fit in with the rest of my desktop.
WorMzy Apr 9, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: WorMzyEDIT: I see it's a GTK3 application, which is disappointing. :(
Why is that disappointing?
I mean, I use like one KDE app. I expect when I click "install" in the software manager it pulls in like all of KDE, but who cares? My hard drive is partitioned, and nearly all of it is for /home because the actual system hardly takes up any room by comparison, and adding KDE stuff really makes hardly any difference and it's not like I have to manage the dependencies. So who cares?

I don't care about the disk space usage -- I have ~8TB storage attached to my main system, and 9TB on my backup NAS. What I care about is that GTK3 is an unstable and hideous mess of a toolkit. I won't have it on my systems.

It's disappointing that the dev(s) used it, but I'm sure they have their reasons.
TheRiddick Apr 9, 2019
gnomedesktop, hmm not for the arch build, does need gtk3 however. I don't see the big issue, I'm using plasma5 atm.
Whitewolfe80 Apr 9, 2019
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: scaine
Quoting: GuestArgh, still needs gnomedesktop as a dependency. As much as I want to try lutris, until that's no longer the case then I simply can't use it. Ah well, still a nice project anyway.

But it's just the library, not the whole desktop, I think? Like a single .so file?

It's a python binding, that pulls in some other things, that ends up pulling in most of the desktop support libraries, and at least for me wants to then include Ruby as well. Most of it is probably there for Debian based distros. I'm just grumbling.

I mean its one guy and his reasons for preferring python are long but if you tune into the linux game cast you ll find him happy to take feedback hes always in the chat there under the handle Stycore
Cloversheen Apr 9, 2019
Quoting: Whitewolfe80
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: scaine
Quoting: GuestArgh, still needs gnomedesktop as a dependency. As much as I want to try lutris, until that's no longer the case then I simply can't use it. Ah well, still a nice project anyway.

But it's just the library, not the whole desktop, I think? Like a single .so file?

It's a python binding, that pulls in some other things, that ends up pulling in most of the desktop support libraries, and at least for me wants to then include Ruby as well. Most of it is probably there for Debian based distros. I'm just grumbling.

I mean its one guy and his reasons for preferring python are long but if you tune into the linux game cast you ll find him happy to take feedback hes always in the chat there under the handle Stycore

Well, that seems to depend on the feedback. For instance, not so much the discussion surrounding CSD: https://github.com/lutris/lutris/issues/1719
Whitewolfe80 Apr 9, 2019
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Whitewolfe80
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: scaine
Quoting: GuestArgh, still needs gnomedesktop as a dependency. As much as I want to try lutris, until that's no longer the case then I simply can't use it. Ah well, still a nice project anyway.

But it's just the library, not the whole desktop, I think? Like a single .so file?

It's a python binding, that pulls in some other things, that ends up pulling in most of the desktop support libraries, and at least for me wants to then include Ruby as well. Most of it is probably there for Debian based distros. I'm just grumbling.

I mean its one guy and his reasons for preferring python are long but if you tune into the linux game cast you ll find him happy to take feedback hes always in the chat there under the handle Stycore

Nothing against python, and indeed there's evidence of Stycore getting annoyed on the subject of the "gnome desktop library" (no, it's not the entire desktop). It's basically just the dependency chain on Gentoo being a little too long for my personal taste. Obviously some of the deps are related to needing webkit-gtk (it has a browser of sorts after all), but I'm not sure what's trying to pull in so much of Ruby just yet.
(--edit: heh, it's webkit-gtk)

I do wonder if perhaps a non-graphical lutris might be able to strip some of the deps down, but still provide the core feature set.

It could be my coding is not upto the task but maybe worth asking around to see if someone can do the work
Maath Apr 10, 2019
I am trying to understand the problem that Lutris is there to solve. I thought it was the problem of avid Linux gamers being crushed under the weight of their massive digital game libraries, but I am not sure now.

First, does Lutris require a account? If so, why? I fail to understand why an application which serves to assist in managing my game collection requires an account on some remote site.

Second, at least one person here mentioned that it cannot automatically import your existing games. I thought this would be the number one most important feature. If you have hundreds or thousands of games, you do not want to import them into Lutris one-by-one.

If I am incorrect in my understanding of these features, I apologize. But if I am right, then I ask, how do people use Lutris? If you have a huge library, how do you get it into the database? Alternatively, is there another program that can manage a huge game library, and present a nice interface for selecting a game to play?
Ehvis Apr 10, 2019
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Quoting: MaathI am trying to understand the problem that Lutris is there to solve. I thought it was the problem of avid Linux gamers being crushed under the weight of their massive digital game libraries, but I am not sure now.

Mostly a launcher/manager of games. And for those that use wine, a manager of various wine builds and features.

Quoting: MaathFirst, does Lutris require a account?

No, the account is optional. With it, you can share your library between the website and the client.

Quoting: MaathSecond, at least one person here mentioned that it cannot automatically import your existing games. I thought this would be the number one most important feature.

It can, it's just not flawless.

Quoting: MaathAlternatively, is there another program that can manage a huge game library, and present a nice interface for selecting a game to play?

There is an article from a few weeks back that mentioned "Gamehub". It doesn't do the integrated Wine management though, so it's less useful for those looking for that.
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