Unified Linux Wine Game Launcher aims to improve Windows games on Linux / Steam Deck

Isn't this what steam flatpak does? They don't use Steam Linux Runtime/Steam Runtime Tools for Proton flatpak. Linux is all about "everyone, quick, let's build same thing but different"

These are also some glorious egg rolls. 👀

Isn't this what steam flatpak does? They don't use Steam Linux Runtime/Steam Runtime Tools for Proton flatpak. Linux is all about "everyone, quick, let's build same thing but different"

Well, yes. That is what the third software freedom is about.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html#four-freedoms
A makes something and if B thinks they can do even the smallest thing better or different they can reuse as much of the work of A as realistically achievable to make it.


Last edited by LoudTechie on 22 January 2024 at 7:35 pm UTC

Well, yes. That is what the third software freedom is about.

It's what the whole human civilization is about. Improvement by iteration.
Greed manifested as patents and copyright set us back decades.

So, after years of getting his balls busted by people using GE-Proton with Lutris/Heroic/etc and breaking their games and then complaining about it, despite him patiently explaining to them over and over and over that they shouldn't be using GE-Proton outside of Steam because they risk breaking their game and that instead they should be using Wine-GE, it seems GloriousEggroll has finally caved in and decided to provide an officially nice way for people to use GE-Proton outside of Steam.

(In Tychus Findlay's voice) Hell, it's about time.

- Signed: a happy user of GE-Proton outside of Steam

The link has changed a couple of times, as it seems they're working out the GitHub organisation structure and splitting it across different things. So it's updated to the latest correct one.

We'll see if the game launchers actually start using this...

Isn't this what steam flatpak does? They don't use Steam Linux Runtime/Steam Runtime Tools for Proton flatpak. Linux is all about "everyone, quick, let's build same thing but different"

The Steam Flatpak has used regular Steam + pressure-vessel (and therefore also regular Steam Linux Runtime and Proton 5.13+) since Flatpak 1.11.1 - at least as long as bubblewrap isn't installed setuid by your dist.

In fact, the old separate Flatpak extensions for Proton haven't been updated in years and are very likely to be removed soon - they're already archived on GitHub.


Last edited by Ananace on 23 January 2024 at 8:15 am UTC

Being able to use protonfixes e.g. via Heroic would be really helpful. But there should probably be an option/detection with launcher is used, as e.g. Fall Guys on Steam doesn't need any protonfixes anymore, but via Heroic you still have to apply some steps (e.g. running the EOS installer manually).

I love just how much of a mess Wine, by itself and combined with other components, are that we need multiple projects to make it usable for most users.

Edit: Oh, I get it now - this is more like a combination of protonfixes and Lutris scripts. You can pass GameID manually, so even as a SEA gang, that's going to be useful.


Last edited by fenglengshun on 23 January 2024 at 10:49 am UTC

I love just how much of a mess Wine, by itself and combined with other components, are that we need multiple projects to make it usable for most users.

I just look at it as a component part, rather than something that's a mess on its own - a pile of thread and fabrics can look like a mess until you sew them into something.

Here's to improved and future launchers that don't use the accursed, bug-ridden Electron and Chromium like Steam and instead use native GTK and Qt


Last edited by raggytherecond on 23 January 2024 at 8:20 pm UTC

Here's to improved and future launchers that don't use the accursed, bug-ridden Electron and Chromium like Steam and instead use native GTK and Qt

Not gonna happen. Even Bottles are throwing in the towel, going to Electron for their main launcher in the next major version, while the GTK is going to be secondary priority. Like it or not, Electron seems to be easier to develop with and ship to end-user, in many different environment. I don't suspect that to change unless Qt 7 has just that much better of a tooling and have good supports for the languages devs want to write in.

This isn't going to change anything in terms of the GUI launcher situation, as it seems to be more of a back-end type of project.

So, after years of getting his balls busted by people using GE-Proton with Lutris/Heroic/etc and breaking their games and then complaining about it, despite him patiently explaining to them over and over and over that they shouldn't be using GE-Proton outside of Steam because they risk breaking their game and that instead they should be using Wine-GE, it seems GloriousEggroll has finally caved in and decided to provide an officially nice way for people to use GE-Proton outside of Steam.

(In Tychus Findlay's voice) Hell, it's about time.

- Signed: a happy user of GE-Proton outside of Steam

I'm not that surprised by this, on reddit I've encountered several posts where the person trying to explain wine/proton did not even know the relationship between the projects and just said people should use the latter no matter what.

Isn't this what steam flatpak does? They don't use Steam Linux Runtime/Steam Runtime Tools for Proton flatpak. Linux is all about "everyone, quick, let's build same thing but different"

You didn't read below, did you?

The idea is that other game launchers would use this so that all fixes and compatibility can be properly shared between them, thus making Windows gaming on Linux a whole lot easier with Wine/Proton. Protonfixes would be the same across launchers, anyone would be able to run games through Proton with no Steam required and basically it just unifies everything.