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PayPalThat's it, I'm done, finished. It's "mission complete" now is it not? 2022 is officially the Year of Linux Gaming. Yup, that's something I am now proclaiming and I'm also putting a flag down into February 25 (the Steam Deck release date) as Linux Gaming Day every year.
While the long-running joke of "Year of the Linux Desktop" might take forever to actually be a thing, Linux Gaming is now a lot more mainstream. Thanks largely to Valve of course bringing over Steam to Linux, and eventually producing the Steam Deck — putting the power of Linux and open source literally into peoples' hands.
Of course that's not to say it's all Valve. There's a massively long list of open source contributors who have helped to make this happen. From drivers to desktop environment upgrades there's so many different people, companies and organisations to thank. We wouldn't see the Steam Deck without open source and without the Vulkan API. I've said for years that we needed "hardware, hardware, hardware" with more vendors to properly jump in. It's not enough to have good marketing, or a good desktop, people needed a reason to use it to actually sway them over and clearly the Steam Deck is doing wonders.
If you follow the Steam Deck Reddit, you'll see a lot of people trying out (and actually enjoying) the KDE Plasma desktop mode on the Steam Deck too. Plenty of the fixes coming into KDE Plasma are as a result of people trying it out too, and finding issues, which then benefits all users. You only have to look at the regular This Week in KDE blog posts from developer Nate Graham to see how much effort goes into it.
The community building up around it is quite fantastic too, we've already seen a Plugin Loader come along which will be fun to see progress. We've seen multiple emulation tools appear like EmuDeck and RetroDECK, masses of developers moving to improve their games to add in gamepad support and better text sizing and the list goes on.
There's been times recently it felt like I woke up in a different world, when sites like PC Gamer told people to stick with SteamOS and not Windows and even LinusTT thought SteamOS did better overall. Never did I ever expect things like that to happen. Heck, even Jeff Grubb from Venture Beat said this in a recent Twitter post:
Steam Deck makes me want to puke from thinking about how stifled everything is by walled gardens. The community has already made Steam Deck so much better, and it all works together because it's open source. A better world isn't just possible; it exists.
Steam Deck, Linux and open source are finally starting to get through the cracks — it's incredible. After writing about it for so long, this really does feel like the "what a time to be alive" clip that came from The Simpsons and is now a fun meme for this sort of thing.
Heck, you even have Microsoft of all companies jumping in to repeatedly talk about their games on this Linux handheld, and even doing a guide to get Xbox Cloud Gaming to work. It might not be Game Pass on Steam (yet?), but who had any of that on their bingo card? I sure didn't.
More companies are even now looking to go with Linux like OneXPlayer because it's showing its worth, something sadly GPD don't see.
Even Epic Games are doing a little like making sure Easy Anti-Cheat can work easily on Linux, and getting Unreal Engine into a better state for Linux with Unreal Engine 5.
Obviously, this is heavily focused on the Steam Deck, but you need to remember that apart from the Steam Client, practically all of SteamOS is open source software and all improvements go on to benefit Linux Gaming everywhere. I think we're finally starting to hit that turning point for Linux Gaming as a whole thanks to this. Absolutely tons of people are now learning more about it, enjoying it and sticking with it — exactly what we want to see.
Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to go sit on my sofa and load up a AAA game on a Linux handheld.
While you're here go follow me on YouTube and Twitch.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
slaapliedje Apr 17, 2022
Quoting: StalePopcornIronically(?), Inside Mac Games (IMG) forums has a popular "Mac Gaming is Dead" thread.
QuoteAspyr has taken that step even earlier, and has shifted towards consoles. After having bought by the Embracer group (i.e. THQ Nordic) earlier this year to develop completely new games, they cannot be expected to port games to the Mac at all.
interesting, that explain why they dont port games to linux, i always wondered what their fate is.
im happy to know they didnt went bankrupt, it would be a shame if the few companies that beted on porting games to mac/linux went bankrupt as a result of such decision, but fortunately that was not the case.
i hope we no longer need proton (except for backward comp) and feral in the future as well, but i dont hope that anything bad happens to valve nor feral once we dont need then anymore.
just that we dont get an monopoly, currently its "ok" because valve is the onlyones beting on linux anyway, and even now they dont have an monopoly realistically.
Last edited by elmapul on 17 April 2022 at 1:36 am UTC
slaapliedje Apr 17, 2022
Quoting: elmapulTHQ Nordic on the other hand have been releasing native Linux games. So maybe that's the part of Aspyr within.Quoting: StalePopcornIronically(?), Inside Mac Games (IMG) forums has a popular "Mac Gaming is Dead" thread.
QuoteAspyr has taken that step even earlier, and has shifted towards consoles. After having bought by the Embracer group (i.e. THQ Nordic) earlier this year to develop completely new games, they cannot be expected to port games to the Mac at all.
interesting, that explain why they dont port games to linux, i always wondered what their fate is.
im happy to know they didnt went bankrupt, it would be a shame if the few companies that beted on porting games to mac/linux went bankrupt as a result of such decision, but fortunately that was not the case.
i hope we no longer need proton (except for backward comp) and feral in the future as well, but i dont hope that anything bad happens to valve nor feral once we dont need then anymore.
just that we dont get an monopoly, currently its "ok" because valve is the onlyones beting on linux anyway, and even now they dont have an monopoly realistically.
When you think of all the work that has had to happen to get to this point by the open source community it really is inspiring.
On a side note I do think this would have been a good opportunity for GOG to do some sort of client or plugin for the deck. Does anyone know if they're doing that? Seems like a big missed opportunity for them.
Quoting: udekmp69Quoting: pete910Erm, NO and NO! And never will be !!!!
In truth I don't want it to be either, Let the idiots stay on winXX and let those that actually have brain cells between their ears come to use Linux
Have you seen some of the software reviews on GNOME Software or KDE Discover by any chance? I don't think you have to be a computer expert to use desktop linux lol.
Honestly in my opinion, people who are interested in linux are already using it in some capacity and everyone else couldn't care less. It doesn't help that the only 'gaming' PC you're going to find that comes with it preinstalled is the Steam Deck.
Can't say I've ever read Gnome/KDE reviews, never new that was a thing to be frank.
You'd be surprised how many try it that have never used it, due in part to some folk saying it's the same as windows. In which then they give up because... Shocker, it's not the same as windows.
Calling the deck a PC is a little strong, Valve have never stated that it's a "Gaming PC" that I'm aware of.
To me it's aimed squarely at console people, but I do see what you are saying .
Quoting: jo3fisOn a side note I do think this would have been a good opportunity for GOG to do some sort of client or plugin for the deck. Does anyone know if they're doing that? Seems like a big missed opportunity for them.GOG tell me there's no plans.
Quoting: BlackBloodRumDo you remember when the public used to think we were geeks/nerds? Or that GNU/Linux is obscure and difficult? Or that it can't play games? it's just for servers? These are things people used to say, but they simply don't anymore.
Well, most people I know/interact with still think the exact same way about Linux, i.e. repulsion by its highly esoteric nature mixed with a feeling of awe for those that know how to actually use the damn thing. What *has* changed is that there's more people out there who know what the heck "a Linux" is and who are curious about it. When the subject arises in a conversation and I mention I use Linux, I now get far more replies of the "oh, so you're one of them, cooool *excited panting*" variety than the "oh dear, so you're one of them huh, *rolls eyes*" variety.
Quoting: BlackBloodRumWe had to manually choose our overrides and setup our prefixes manually (some people didn't even use separate prefixes back then, imagine that)
Hey, what do you mean "imagine that"? Outside of Steam (which manages its prefixes automatically) I still use a single, manually configured prefix for all my games! Granted, nowadays I hardly do any post-setup because between Wine, Proton and Proton-GE most everything is already integrated by default (I just add a drive letter for quick access to the Games partition and install PhysX for compatibility with some older games) but still, "one prefix to play them all" is my mantra :D
Quoting: jo3fisOn a side note I do think this would have been a good opportunity for GOG to do some sort of client or plugin for the deck. Does anyone know if they're doing that? Seems like a big missed opportunity for them.
Judging by their past history and also their recent deal with Epic, I'd not bet on it if I were you ;) But to be objective, I do hope I'm proven succinctly wrong by GOG and forced to eat my hat. It's just that I've almost run out of hope at this point.
slaapliedje Apr 17, 2022
Quoting: NociferHey, what do you mean "imagine that"? Outside of Steam (which manages its prefixes automatically) I still use a single, manually configured prefix for all my games! Granted, nowadays I hardly do any post-setup because between Wine, Proton and Proton-GE most everything is already integrated by default (I just add a drive letter for quick access to the Games partition and install PhysX for compatibility with some older games) but still, "one prefix to play them all" is my mantra :D
I only use one prefix as well, unless there is some sort of weird requirement for a program to use. Most things I have thrown at wine lately doesn't take much more than 'wine $program.exe'.
Though now that GCA5 (GURPS Character Assistant) it once again does not work under wine... shame, as they finally got GCA4 working right!
Quoting: slaapliedjeQuoting: NociferHey, what do you mean "imagine that"? Outside of Steam (which manages its prefixes automatically) I still use a single, manually configured prefix for all my games! Granted, nowadays I hardly do any post-setup because between Wine, Proton and Proton-GE most everything is already integrated by default (I just add a drive letter for quick access to the Games partition and install PhysX for compatibility with some older games) but still, "one prefix to play them all" is my mantra :D
I only use one prefix as well, unless there is some sort of weird requirement for a program to use. Most things I have thrown at wine lately doesn't take much more than 'wine $program.exe'.
Yeah, it's incredible how nowadays I only get surprised and/or annoyed on the rare occasion that something doesn't work with a simple 'wine $program.exe'. Gaming on Linux has come a long way indeed!
Quoting: slaapliedjeThough now that GCA5 (GURPS Character Assistant) it once again does not work under wine... shame, as they finally got GCA4 working right!
WTF? I'm a GURPS die-hard (though admittedly I don't play all that much nowadays, nor do I lurk in the forums) and that's the first time I've heard about SJG updating GCA to a new version! Finally! Kthxbye, I'm off to try and make it work in Wine :P
EDIT: Got some errors at first but all it needed was .NET 4.6 or later (I installed the latest 4.8) to run without a hitch, at least for starting up, loading a couple of data sets and creating a character. It also runs better/faster than GCA4 and doesn't require any weird dll overrides for ancient libraries, so it's looking good in my book :)
Last edited by Nocifer on 17 April 2022 at 10:36 am UTC
BlackBloodRum Apr 17, 2022
Quoting: NociferHey, what do you mean "imagine that"? Outside of Steam (which manages its prefixes automatically) I still use a single, manually configured prefix for all my games! Granted, nowadays I hardly do any post-setup because between Wine, Proton and Proton-GE most everything is already integrated by default (I just add a drive letter for quick access to the Games partition and install PhysX for compatibility with some older games) but still, "one prefix to play them all" is my mantra :D
Fair enough!
But I always go with separate prefixes, perhaps out of habit. I always think "Now what if I need to install some library (such as DX9) at some point for this app/game/utility?"
If I needed to add a library, or an app screws up - I can just clear the whole prefix and start over - leaving all other working apps/games right where they are (working).
I did it once, I had all my stuff under ~/.wine - then one day, an application needed an update - I updated it - It needed a newer version of .NET - I updated the .NET and.. booomm ~/.wine was dead, it was easier just to delete ~/.wine/ than try to remember which libraries I had already needed and set in winecfg, remove the broken bits of .NET and somehow get the thing working.
So it was 'rm -Rfv ".wine"' and then learn about prefixes more
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