Oh no! Another launcher! Well, not quite. In fact, Unified Linux Wine Game Launcher (ULWGL) is actually meant to be used by existing game launchers like Heroic Games, Lutris and others on Linux desktop and Steam Deck.
So what does ULWGL actually do? This proof-of-concept idea was put up by Thomas "GloriousEggroll" Crider, who also maintains the popular GE-Proton compatibility layer. ULWGL is designed as a helper to properly run Proton outside of Steam, it's "essentially a copy of the Steam Linux Runtime/Steam Runtime Tools that Valve uses for proton, with some modifications made so that it can be used outside of Steam".
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.
Sounds like a really great idea so all these launchers don't need to keep re-inventing a way to run games in Proton outside of Steam.
See more on the GitHub page. There's other parts to it that you can see on the GitHub list.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: fenglengshunI 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.
Last edited by raggytherecond on 23 January 2024 at 8:20 pm UTC
fenglengshun Jan 24
Quoting: raggytherecondHere'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 QtNot 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.
Quoting: NociferSo, 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.
Quoting: andriishafarIsn'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?
QuoteThe 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.
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