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I imagine that most developers choose not to retain older versions because of support issues. Having to determine which version of the game is being used to troubleshoot the user's problem would be a pain in the butt! Of course, the solution would be a notice from the developer that they will only provide support for the latest version.

It reminds me of a bug report experience I had long ago with Morrowind. I had discovered an issue and decided to report it to Bethesda. I had to applaud the tech on this one. I was so embarrassed. It turned out I hadn't installed the latest patch, which had been out for awhile. The Bethesda tech, once realizing this, just politely told me that the bug had already been addressed in the latest patch and provided a link. 😆

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Quoting: Caldathras

And most games do exactly that. They ship their 32bit modules.(not all 32bit libraries, mind you, but still!)

And it's a shame more of them don't ship ALL of the needed libraries (32-bit or 64-bit). It's annoying to download a supposedly universal/generic installer only to have it fail on account of a missing version of a particular library. If they did, I'll bet we wouldn't have to worry as much about old native games failing in newer versions of Linux. (Missing libraries even happen with flatpaks & AppImages due to poor packaging jobs by devs.)

Looking at you, OpenMW 0.50.0!

Steam Linux Runtime 4 turned out to be the solution to getting OpenMW 0.50.0 to run on my less current but still supported version of Linux Mint (Version 21.3). I posted a how-to comment here:

How to Setup OpenMW for Modern Morrowind on Linux

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Architect of Ruin looks very interesting. The no AI stance makes it even more so.

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Quoting: phil995511

"Linux has, historically, been quite messy when it comes to software distribution. We have various distribution-specific packaging formats like .deb (Debian / Ubuntu), .rpm (Fedora) and the list just goes on and on. Canonical also went their own way with Ubuntu for the likes of Snap, but the real winner is going to end up being Flatpak and the main Flathub store."

Software distribution under Linux is anything but chaotic. On the contrary, it is extremely orderly.Each distribution offers its own software library and package format. This, among other things, increases system security. This makes it much more difficult to implant malware under Linux.

I firmly disagree. That is chaos. Every distribution has a different set of packages and versions, with security problems having to go through each distro for each package. It's not good, and chaos for developers to support - they've complained about it since forever. Having Flatpak with Flathub is great, for reasons already explained.

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I would LOVE to switch to a linux phone, but for me a daily driver has to have the following:

• banking apps for remote deposit and other stuff


• reliable maps with gps and navigation


• whatsapp & signal & sms


• bluetooth connection to car audio


• all day long battery with medium usage


• decent camera - don't need fanstastic features, just need to be able to quickly open and snap kids moments

so far I don't think there is anything?

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"Linux has, historically, been quite messy when it comes to software distribution. We have various distribution-specific packaging formats like .deb (Debian / Ubuntu), .rpm (Fedora) and the list just goes on and on. Canonical also went their own way with Ubuntu for the likes of Snap, but the real winner is going to end up being Flatpak and the main Flathub store."

Software distribution under Linux is anything but chaotic. On the contrary, it is extremely orderly.Each distribution offers its own software library and package format. This, among other things, increases system security. This makes it much more difficult to implant malware under Linux.

Snap was most certainly developed by Ubuntu to try to provide unique packages for all variants of its distributions, thus avoiding having to recompile packages x times for each of the Ubuntu versions still in use.

Flatpack will never replace .deb, .rpm, or other packages. Furthermore, unverified Flatpacks can pose serious security problems on a system.

Flatpack is used as the primary source of software access on distributions at the stage of development alpha / beta, on distributions that are immutable due to their structural complexity, or on new distributions that do not yet have enough software to offer their users. Flatpack is in no way intended to replace .deb, .rpm or other formats.

To understand Linux, analyze all of this from the perspective of developers and system engineers/architects. As an amateur unfamiliar with Linux, it is impossible to speculate on this subject without making a mistake.

From a down-to-earth point of view, Linux is free and benefits large groups such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc.

It's not Valve and its Steam client that are giving Linux a boost, but rather the other way around. Linux is provided to Valve in a fully functional state. Valve then simply adds its own layer (just like with Android for telephony), allowing them to launch an operating system bearing their name while drastically reducing research and development costs.

Today Linux is much easier to access for inexperienced users, but it should not be forgotten that this is an operating system developed by and for experienced professionals.

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That's one the games I have on my radar for this year. Kingdoms and Castles was fun (even though I did not spend that much time with it), and it received updates for years. Nova Roma looks even better.

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For immutable image type setups like SteamOS, it totally makes sense, but I'm loathe to have a bunch of different versions of libraries around because Flatpak A still depends on them and hasn't been updated yet - but I'm not the target audience if I'm actually reading the list of everything pacman (or apt, yum, etc.) wants to update and actively reviewing and deciding what I'm about to proceed with. (Looking at you, holding back Mesa for months because of that SteamVR regression.)

Containerisation is potentially nice, for sure, for all the same reasons Docker or Podman are. It's also potentially a pain in the butt for all the same reasons, if you have something that really needs a whole lot of permissions in the first place. 😅

I remember the days when Windows Vista(?)'s incessant UAC prompts just pushed people into turning it off entirely, and while my (mostly Steam Deck) experience with Flatpak has never been that bad, I've had to mess with Flatseal more than I want to, for things that 'just worked' on my desktop. I think giving emulators access to Bluetooth and USB gamepads was one of them - minor stuff, but the kind of stuff you'd expect an emulator to have the appropriate permissions for out of the box.

tl;dr, Flatpak is a great option, but I'm not moving from distro-native package management any time soon, and that's okay, because it doesn't have to be an either-or, and that's why Linux (and BSD, etc.) are awesome. 🩷

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Yeah, it would be great if more developers retained old versions. It would be better if it was mandatory. Being forced to update when regressions are pushed is never going to be cool with me.

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I'm more interested in the hardware itself, and Valve has proven their support is solid. Plus, they're uniquely positioned to genuinely care, as opposed to Oculus/Meta, Sony etc. If I'm going to be jumping onto anything VR at this point Valve hardware is probably the very top of that potential list.

Very curious about the pricing, though. I'm somewhat excited for some specific games, but not THAT excited about VR in general.

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Quoting: juxuanuOn the other side, as a solo game developer being able to generate some assets for your game can mean your project is now feasible.

It'll only cost you all your ethics! A bargain!

That said, with the way public opinion is heading, particularly in the indie gaming space, I don't imagine having people find out you used AI on your game is going to gain you any fans, and some will likely see it as a betrayal. Word spreads fast about stuff like this so it's a heck of a risk.

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I hope Valve goes all in and makes an official Steam client flatpak.

Also hope SteamOS finally moves to Wayland whenever the Frame and Machine come out.

Flatpak's advantages are curious, I've noticed that the convenience benefits it brings have started to come in opposition with the security and containerization aspect it first featured. For me, I'd drop the containerization if it meant Flatpak becoming the user package manager for all Linux. Maybe there can be a standalone variant for the security benefits so that aspect is still present in a separate capacity.

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Quoting: Tethys84Except nobody will be able to afford the Steam Machine. I would be surprised if Valve didn't indefinitely delay or even eventually cancel it because of the skyrocketing prices on RAM alone.

It depends. If they made a fixed price contract early enough, they might be able to offer their boxes cheap.

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Except nobody will be able to afford the Steam Machine. I would be surprised if Valve didn't indefinitely delay or even eventually cancel it because of the skyrocketing prices on RAM alone.

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Quoting: posthum4nI made a chick crusher 2000 and now I feel bad.

With the bounding box changes do automated cooked chicken contraptions work anymore, I wonder. I'm curious if it didn't IMPROVE the rates actually.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: NumerfoltAnd of course, there's no alt text anywhere to be found. But it's probably never been aimed at vision impaired people anyway?

I added alt text to the image when the article was originally published, it is there.

Edit: or do you mean specifically in the article (I've additionally added that now)? As the image alt text was always there.

Oh, that wasnt directed at you, but at the original twitter post. Unless I overlooked something, the picture on twitter doesnt have alt text and I was lamenting that.
Thanks though for adding alt text here :)

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Quoting: ArehandoroWhat about banking apps? Is the camera quality good? Does it have NFC? What's the battery duration?

I have it on my radar, but I'm still sceptical, and after having tried the PinePhone and the Librem 5 I'm also more conservative on money spending for phones.

Banking apps tend to be a no-go due to the Integrity API. Some do work though according to reports in the Telegram channel. I've never done banking on a phone. Camera is decent and will be improved in time with post processing. Battery is excellent for me, for example overnight it loses about 5%. I'm not a heavy user and could go a few days without charging but tend to top it up everyday to about 80%. The PinePhone lasted a few hours, doing nothing!

Read the reviews and check the Telegram, it's all there 😀

Edit: my FLX1 has NFC (never used!) but the new FLX1s does not.

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Quoting: The_Real_BittermanI'm interested in whether if or when Valve will adopt Flatpak itself as their primary distribution format for the Steam Client.

Ngl Steam with flatpak might not be perfect especially if you have to grand it directory access to anything outside home. But for me personally Steam flatpak has been overall the best experience compared to their own dep package or any repack for any other distribution in their respective native packaging format.

TBH, I feel like I've had issues myself with some flatpak stuff. For Steam I always prefer to install it natively. I'm fine with flatpak getting more support but I would always prefer going through the official package manager for my distro.

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Love the anti ai stance!

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On the other side, as a solo game developer being able to generate some assets for your game can mean your project is now feasible.

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I made a chick crusher 2000 and now I feel bad.

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Quoting: vertigo

Quoting: The_Real_Bitterman

Quoting: vertigoMakes sense, it's feature complete and superseded by RTX Remix.

There is a RTX Remix? Always thought this only works on DirectX 9 titles as this is what nvidia made the remix studio for. Since OG Quake uses OpenGL as it's default engine I never expected a RTX Remix here.

Oh yeah, that's a very good point. Remix works with DX8 and DX9 games so maybe a source port would work?

Probably. I mean there was WinQuake of the first Quake which uses DirectX instead. And also made John Carmack not like DX over all 😅

I am very much certain someone will have made a DirectX port of Quake 2 over the years.

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Quoting: RedjeI consider myself a casual user.
And I don’t really get the hype for flatpak. Me and friend of mine had several big annoying bugs. For example; in the steam flatplat my nvidia 3080 mobile was not working in games. And games installed outside flatpak worked just fine. And also apps just not working with flatpak, and local app just working as expected.

Flatpak is out there for 10years+ or so? And still such big issues…

This is a distribution or user issue not flatpak I'd assume.

Flatpak will install the required flatpak Nvidia driver runtimes automatically.

If you disable auto update in Gnome-Software or KDE Discover these runtimes will not be updated, apparently. As soon as your host system installs a new Nvidia driver package. Hence, the Nvidia driver is not "properly" installed for your flats.

Same happens with Mesa. Except that Mesa on the host can work with out-of-date Mesa in flatpak and does not require both to match the exact same version.

Simply run flatpak update and all your flats will work on your Nvidia GPU. Edit: Unless you have unloaded the Nvidia driver somehow by using things like prime-select. Which is unlikely as RTX 30 series do not require it anymore due to proper power management and offloading support since GTX 16 series and newer.

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I'm interested in whether if or when Valve will adopt Flatpak itself as their primary distribution format for the Steam Client.

Ngl Steam with flatpak might not be perfect especially if you have to grand it directory access to anything outside home. But for me personally Steam flatpak has been overall the best experience compared to their own dep package or any repack for any other distribution in their respective native packaging format.

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Quoting: scaine

Quoting: RedjeI consider myself a casual user.
And I don’t really get the hype for flatpak. Me and friend of mine had several big annoying bugs. For example; in the steam flatplat my nvidia 3080 mobile was not working in games. And games installed outside flatpak worked just fine. And also apps just not working with flatpak, and local app just working as expected.

Flatpak is out there for 10years+ or so? And still such big issues…

Steam is a terrible example of flatpak - it's not created, or recommended by Valve. I'm actually not sure who created it, tbh, but it's a constant source of issues on our Discord support channel when people use it.

The "hype" for flatpak is two-fold. First, it's not distro-specific, so any Linux distro can install a flatpak and it'll generally give you the same experience regardless of what libraries you, personally, have installed, either manually, or through your distro. Second, it's containerised, which means that it has far less access to your PC than normally-installed software, hence less ability to negatively impact your system (e.g. through malware).

That second point is the cause of so many of the Steam issues. Games often need quite a lot of access - screen recording for Steam Replay, access to microphones, access to gamepads, sometimes even access to external filesystems (if you have a "Games" drive, for example). So a Steam flatpak was always going to be challenging. You can use flatseal to manage these permissions, or if you're on a recent version of KDE Plasma, you can manage them directly from within System Settings.

I kind of wonder if Valve will ever fully embrace flatpak and create an official version (and make it the recommended install). Might solve a few issues!

The limited access is nice on paper. I do agree, but it gives me so much extra work for some apps.
And from casual perspective, that is not a good experience.
I hope they can improve the flatpak experience in the future.

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Quoting: RedjeI consider myself a casual user.
And I don’t really get the hype for flatpak. Me and friend of mine had several big annoying bugs. For example; in the steam flatplat my nvidia 3080 mobile was not working in games. And games installed outside flatpak worked just fine. And also apps just not working with flatpak, and local app just working as expected.

Flatpak is out there for 10years+ or so? And still such big issues…

Steam is a terrible example of flatpak - it's not created, or recommended by Valve. I'm actually not sure who created it, tbh, but it's a constant source of issues on our Discord support channel when people use it.

The "hype" for flatpak is two-fold. First, it's not distro-specific, so any Linux distro can install a flatpak and it'll generally give you the same experience regardless of what libraries you, personally, have installed, either manually, or through your distro. Second, it's containerised, which means that it has far less access to your PC than normally-installed software, hence less ability to negatively impact your system (e.g. through malware).

That second point is the cause of so many of the Steam issues. Games often need quite a lot of access - screen recording for Steam Replay, access to microphones, access to gamepads, sometimes even access to external filesystems (if you have a "Games" drive, for example). So a Steam flatpak was always going to be challenging. You can use flatseal to manage these permissions, or if you're on a recent version of KDE Plasma, you can manage them directly from within System Settings.

I kind of wonder if Valve will ever fully embrace flatpak and create an official version (and make it the recommended install). Might solve a few issues!

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Quoting: fabertaweThat's already available, it's called the FuriPhone <https://furilabs.com/>. I've been daily driving the FLX1 for almost a year and it's fantastic. Don't really game on it though, apart from chess and the like.

What about banking apps? Is the camera quality good? Does it have NFC? What's the battery duration?

I have it on my radar, but I'm still sceptical, and after having tried the PinePhone and the Librem 5 I'm also more conservative on money spending for phones.

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You'll even get to craft nametags so you know who is who.

To be clear, you could already use name tags to name animals, but you could only acquire name tags (fishing, loot or trading). It's being able to craft the name tags yourself that's new.

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Quoting: datablobThat's cool, I think. Heh. I still don't entirely understand what ntsync does in practice, I saw that CachyOS also adopted it a while ago and read something about timing consistency. Can anyone elaborate?

Liam did a bit of an overview when it was about to land in Linux 6.14.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/01/ntsync-driver-for-improving-windows-games-on-linux-with-wine-proton-should-finally-land-in-linux-kernel-614/

The gist is that Windows has a function for a program to wait for multiple conditions and Linux doesn't. Wine first emulated that function in user space with the waits that Linux did have, but that wasn't great. But putting Windows in the kernel isn't great, either. So there have been progressing attempts to have the function working with proper performance whilst minimising the amount that having Windows games running bothers the kernel devs. ntsync is the third attempt, I think, with the first two approaches improving performance and the third improving correctness.

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I consider myself a casual user.
And I don’t really get the hype for flatpak. Me and friend of mine had several big annoying bugs. For example; in the steam flatplat my nvidia 3080 mobile was not working in games. And games installed outside flatpak worked just fine. And also apps just not working with flatpak, and local app just working as expected.

Flatpak is out there for 10years+ or so? And still such big issues…

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