It seems the days of using workarounds to play Roblox on Linux may be coming to an abrupt end, with the upcoming launch of their new client blocking Linux intentionally.
This new client appears to be undergoing testing, and users quickly noticed it wasn't working under the Wine compatibility layer on Linux. It seems the issue comes from Byfron, software for anti-cheat and anti-tamper that joined up officially with Roblox back in October 2022.
In reply to the forum post, a staff member for Roblox mentioned it is intentionally blocking:
Hello Jrelvas, Unfortunately this block was intentional. With the Windows 64-bit client launch we made the conscious decision to block the use of Wine. We came to this decision due to a combination of security and compatibility concerns. As a Linux user I am sure you understand the challenges of the Windows ecosystem. Wine is not officially supported but we are committed to working towards compatibility where possible. Unfortunately, I cannot provide a specific timeline for this support. However, I assure you that it remains a priority for our team.
It seems it may not be forever, going by what they said above and below as this new 64bit client is undergoing intense testing right now as they gather feedback, bug reports and crash logs. In a follow-up post, another staff member mentioned:
Thank you for your well thought out post. First and most importantly, we are not trying to punish the use of Wine.
Our Windows 64-bit client is in some regards quite different from the 32-bit client. We are currently gathering telemetry to analyze and hopefully fix existing issues and prevent future ones from popping up. For this process to work, it is of utmost importance to collect data from the [intended] target operating system. You will also find that we blocked the usage of VMs for the very same reason.I hope this clarifies some of the thought process behind the blocking of Wine. As MrEaker mentioned before, Wine remains a priority for our team, and we are certainly not deaf to the voices of our community.
And they seem to have no plans to block Wine use at all with Roblox Studio.
You might be wondering why they can't simply filter out the unwanted Wine results, since they obviously detect it just fine. Another few posts from the Roblox staff attempted to clear it up, as they mentioned their client will crash "compromised processes intentionally" and since they're going through so many thousands of crash logs, it would be quite a nuisance to add more to it. Sounds like it's complicated in many parts.
If / when they issue an update that does allow Wine players on Linux back in, I'll let you know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: legluondunetHis game is not important, we have today enough games to play on Linux for more that a human life.
this is not an ordinary game, its more like an "mario maker" except that you arent limited to make platform games with nintendo characters, you can do all sorts of games with this, and there is a huge comunity of hundreds of millions of users.
we cant ignore that, its more likely that those persons would install windows on their deck than give up on playing games they MADE THENSELVES not to mention games made by others.
this is like saying, "if youtube dont support linux, just dont use youtube!" actually, even worse, because with video you still have other ways to access even if that means services like hooktube wich allow you to see content from youtube creators without giving then audience in case you want to know what absurd someone say to disavow miss information, and we dont have something similiar in this case.
and linux might have better game engines (unreal, unity, godot) especially better in terms of revenue share, but they arent as easy to use as an "mariomaker" not even close, i never used roblox but afaik its quite easy to use too.
not to mention, we failed to make "supertux" become as popular as an mario game, let alone make it have as much powerups/traps as an mario maker (out of the box, without accounting for source code modification) to make an easy way to distribute levels (and host then) and so on.
in theory open source should empower people to do more, but in pratice sometimes this more (eg: code an new feature) is much harder than using the proprietary tools.
Last edited by elmapul on 22 April 2023 at 12:44 pm UTC
Quoting: JSVRamirezQuoting: legluondunetDevelopers don't want Linux users to play his game, just don't play his game and advertise it.
His game is not important, we have today enough games to play on Linux for more that a human life.
I think you underestimate the potency of peer pressure in 10-year-olds. My daughter has a Windows partition on her laptop, JUST so she can play Roblox. We managed lockdown and remote learning, even over Microsoft Teams, in Linux, but Roblox forced it.
This. One of the main reasons we have a Switch. So the kids can play with their friends. I'm not going to be an absolutist at the expense of my kids. It's a much more nuanced approach.
Quoting: elmapulQuoting: ArdjeThese days any windows server release still can not do network wise what any linux system could already do 25 years ago.can you be more specific?
it lack support for some api/protocol?
E.g Linux can out of the box perform much more advanced routing than dedicated enterprise routers, now the performance might not be the same since Linux have to use the cpu and the routers uses dedicated hw but this one area where Windows isn't even close.
Quoting: PenglingRoblox specifically is exploitive of children. I will not let my children touch this game for any reason. Plenty of other games they can play.Quoting: legluondunetDevelopers don't want Linux users to play his game, just don't play his game and advertise it.That's true for us in the older crowd, but for the younger set games like this are a big deal, and it'd certainly be good if they can play them on the OS of choice used by the older crowd in their lives.
His game is not important, we have today enough games to play on Linux for more that a human life.
If you haven't seen this video on the subject, and you have children, you need to see this video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
Plus the follow up, which is quite damning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY
Last edited by sprocket on 22 April 2023 at 1:59 pm UTC
I will say that they should hire a logging consultant. There are logging systems (Graylog, Elastic Search, DataDog, and others) that allow you to omit processing (read: save CPU and memory resources) of filtered logs. My point is I would hope a log filter in a good logging system would have been just as easy or easier than releasing a game client that blocks particular operating systems.
Quoting: F.UltraI can confirm I know of one or more Azure platform-as-a-service that used to be backed by Windows technologies (like IIS) that switched to Linux based technologies.Quoting: elmapulQuoting: ArdjeThese days any windows server release still can not do network wise what any linux system could already do 25 years ago.can you be more specific?
it lack support for some api/protocol?
E.g Linux can out of the box perform much more advanced routing than dedicated enterprise routers, now the performance might not be the same since Linux have to use the cpu and the routers uses dedicated hw but this one area where Windows isn't even close.
Quoting: EikeThe only real in windows progress does not come from Microsoft, but from AMD, NVIDIA and Valve as they keep the gaming on windows alive, and that's about the only thing that keeps windows into households, and with the big amount of lobbying and "I know that OS" keeps it in the offices.
[P/S This is not a rant towards you, just a rant in general to let off some steam.]
And all the other third party software makers. Windows desktop user space software as a whole is vastly more polished, flexible, varied, and accessible than Linux. Every time I try and convert someone to Linux there is 1 to 100 windows programs they use that have no equal on Linux and having to run a ton of things under wine does not leave a good impression.
Linux as a desktop system is an ecosystem of barely functional reinvented tires. 30 programs that do the same thing, and yet someone manage to do it worse than all the windows options that do the same thing, despite having a "better" OS to work with.
In every other sector it's great, but for the actual desktop experience it's a splintered, fragmented mess that may one day focus itself into something different, but honestly I think we have a better chance that macOS will just take over the desktop world. If Apple would ever make officially support hackintosh builds and sell macOS directly I have little doubt it would skyrocket in popularity. The only thing that saves us from that fate is Apple's own greed.
StalePopcorn Apr 22, 2023
EDIT: It looks like the change went into effect yesterday (May 3, EST).
Last edited by StalePopcorn on 4 May 2023 at 12:13 pm UTC
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