Recently the Aleph One team released the classic Bungie shooter Marathon on Steam, as I covered previously, but it's only officially for macOS and Windows despite the open source project supporting Linux. Now you can just use Luxtorpeda for it.
What is Luxtorpeda? It's a Steam Play tool (like Proton) that allow you to run games on Steam via a Native Linux build if one exists for it that's not available on Steam. Like OpenMW for Morrowind, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games with OpenXRay, and many more with Classic Marathon now added to that list. The point is it keeps it all inside Steam, and gives you what is usually an updated game engine.
So you'll use ProtonUp-Qt to download Luxtorpeda, then set Classic Marathon on Steam to use Luxtorpeda in the Steam Play Compatibility settings and it will download Aleph One and set it up for you. You can check out my previous article about Luxtorpeda being used on Steam Deck as an example.
After you launch it will do a quick download of Aleph One, set it up for you and away you go. Then you get to play the Linux version easily, which I tested working great via this method today.
Luxtorpeda is a really great project, truly useful when you think about just how many games now have various Native Linux game engines (open source or not) that provide a better experience than what's currently available on Steam. In this case though, it's just because they for some reason didn't put the Linux version on Steam so if you prefer that over Proton this is your easy way to do it.
See more on the Classic Marathon Steam page. And find Luxtorpeda on GitHub.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
TimeFreeze May 14
the steam linux SDK is like 8 years oldAfterwards i asked if there is a chance that in the future it might get one and they said i quote:
so it's not a simple as just build the linux version, unfortunately
well they have a new one in beta, which they have to pick your game to opt into
for now, it runs great with proton 9 in linux for me
I asked the Devs in their Discord on why there is no Linux version yet even though there is one available just not for the Steam version and they said i quote:
well they have a new one in beta, which they have to pick your game to opt into
for now, it runs great with proton 9 in linux for me
laziness noun
- the fact of being unwilling to work or be active
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Last edited by rea987 on 14 May 2024 at 11:15 am UTC
they said i quote:
Quote
the steam linux SDK is like 8 years old
Is that true? How is Valve and other developers releasing Linux Native games recently then?
The original steam Linux runtime is very old but they have a new one called soldier and sniper that is on much more modern base. It's an opt in thing where you ask valve to use it, there's been a few games that did so and valve uses it for dota 2 and cs2 I velieve
No. If you want to do hyperbolic complaints about the age of the target libraries because you can't be arsed to do a Linux build, you'd say that they were 12 years old. That's the original "scout" set, from the very beginning of Steam for Linux, based on Ubuntu 12.04.the steam linux SDK is like 8 years old
Is that true? How is Valve and other developers releasing Linux Native games recently then?
If you build against a "scout" container, you actually get mostly libraries from "soldier" except for those that have to be from "scout" for ABI compatibility. "soldier" is based on the libraries from Debian 10 in 2019. This (building against "scout" and getting "soldier") is the currently recommended set. You can't build against "soldier" directly and release on Steam.
There is also "sniper" for future games, based on Debian 11 from 2021. If you build against that someone from Valve has to tweak the configuration before it can be released on Steam because the plumbing for making that work with a tickbox in steamworks is being done at Valve Time.
Last edited by CatKiller on 14 May 2024 at 3:16 pm UTC
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