Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEPOh dear, purists are always such fun.

Purists? What the actual fuck? I just pointed out some blatantly incorrect shit you wrote.

Except that nothing I wrote was incorrect.
You just took offense that I wasn't impressed by your feeble attempt at making an argument.
It was amusing, though, so thanks for that.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEPMaintenance of old crap (and yes, I picked that word deliberately) slows down everything in software development. Absolutely everything.

So is Linux slowed down by not breaking compatibility? You should point that out to Linus...
Anyway, it looks like you don't know much about real-life software: maintaining "old crap" is essential, because the world literally run on that. It's no coincidence that the one market where Linux is actually significant are the servers...

You have not understood a single thing I wrote.
And you have also not finished reading.
I mean, you even kept quoting the part where I clearly say where it does make sense.
Ouch. Do you often get ahead of yourself like that? Isn't that a bit embarrassing?

Quoting: GuestDo you even have an example of this or just making stuff out of your ass at this point?

That's the amazing thing:
It doesn't happen very often - BECAUSE IT IS A VERY STUPID THING TO DO IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.
Microsoft did it. And that made it lose touch with developers and creators around the planet, something they only very slowly manage to correct.
Hell, even their own cash cow, Azure, for the most part earns them money based on Linux servers.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEPThe kernel mantra only makes sense in the rarest of rarest of occasions - Linux kernel being one of them

Please don't write "Linux kernel", it makes you look even more ignorant than you are.

That's what it's called.
There are even articles about it, in simple words, too, so that (mostly) everyone can understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_kernel
Shit's crazy, man! There's even a mascot and everything! You wouldn't believe it!
Unless, of course, you want to prove to me that the Linux kernel is not, in fact, the Linux kernel.

I know purists really like to take offense at some terms, but that one is a bit of a strange to one to get your panties in a twist for, don't you think?

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Quoting: GuestMuch of the third world doesn't bother upgrading their PCs as it is rather expensive. Besides, if I still have a perfectly usable computer, why would I throw it out if it still works?

I get that, but we're talking about what does or doesn't make sense for the teams and companies that develop software.
And those have mouths to feed so they move where the money is. And that is not in third world countries.

What I would expect is that inside of those countries themselves there would be a movement to make things work better, if there is a demand. Similar to what happened in the former Soviet countries concerning video games, etc.
As it is, it just looks to me like there is no demand to have this particular functionality.

Quoting: GuestThe support of the Nvidia drivers for the 550 GT M graphics card end from NVIDIA in 2019. You can't install the driver on a modern operating system because it is tied to an older version of xorg. And trying to install that older version of xorg breaks compatibility with everything.

I get how that is annoying, but that is hardly Linux' fault.
You are using a card that is not officially supported anymore by its own manufacturer. Blame them, if you must blame anyone.

Quoting: GuestWindows doesn't intentionally break compatibility with old drivers.

Pffft! Tons of old hardware cannot be used with Windows anymore, their old drivers not installed anymore - but can be used with Linux as a TON of drivers are actually part of the kernel (which "never" breaks things).
Drivers for NVIDIA cards are unfortunately not among them (but again, that's on NVIDIA).
Just in this particular case it seems that the old GPU drivers do still work on "modern" Windows (I mean, even win10 isn't really that modern anymore, is it?).
That's frankly more of a coincidence than anything else - there's certainly nobody at MS going "nah, we have to make sure the 550m cards don't break" ;)
Plenty of software from around 2012 and earlier doesn't work nicely anymore on Win10+.

Besides, aren't Mesa drivers supposed to work fine with older GPUs, even if they are NVIDIA ones?
I have never tried that, but that's what I heard anyway.

Quoting: GuestWhat distros are made to support old hardware?

Honestly, just google "linux distros for old hardware". Of course, not all results are going to be perfect fits, but there are so many "lightweight" distros out there meant specifically for older and/or less powerful machines it's hard to pick one.
So you pick one of those, and then the newest version of them that still supports your GPU driver and you should be golden, no?
Sure, that means you'll not get the newest versions of everything, but that is quite simply a given when trying to use decade-old hardware that isn't even supported anymore by its own manufacturer - because, again, the number of users is way too small to put effort into maintaining compatibility for a very long time.

Quoting: GuestAnd I have an issue with there being no translation layer that gives you the features of Vulcan but using opengl on old hardware. Many older games (like Deus Ex Human Revolution) work well on this hardware on windows, but barely work on Linux using opengl

I frankly doubt that OpenGL itself has much of a future ahead, at least on PC platforms, due to Vulkan.
What I don't know is what keeps Vulkan from working on older hardware. Certain features not present?

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Quoting: GuestFor example, I have a perfectly good laptop from 2012 that can still play games and has inbuilt nvidia gtx 580M that I used to play Pathfinder Kingmaker

That is probably true for you and what... 10 other people? Looking at the recent Steam hardware surveys that GPU doesn't even appear there...
Everyone else upgrades their hardware eventually.
You cannot even sell that old hardware anymore as nobody is buying it - this does flip around, though, once a certain vintage age is reached.

Quoting: GuestGuess what? On linux the support ended in 2019 and I can't use it on modern systems because of an old xorg version. That's just dumb.

The support of WHAT ended in 2019? You said xorg, but how does that prevent you from using the laptop using older versions?

And how is that dumb? They've moved on as did the vast majority of everyone else.
You'd have to be a complete fool as any project manager to use an ever-increasing amount of resources to keep compatibility with an ever-decreasing amount of users.

Quoting: GuestOn the contrary, it should be trying to get people to install Linux on old hardware (that is still perfectly usuable) by promising support via drivers and stuff, that way we can be expanding our user base as word of mouth will spread, especially in countries that still have many users using old hardware "hey you know how windows 11 can't run on your pc and windows 10 runs like trash? Well, I heard this thing called Linux runs really well and you can play all your old games on it too"

You radically overestimate the amount of people running such old hardware or how much of an impact they could make on any statistic.

Besides, Linux is already the best thing to get some use out of old hardware.
If all you want to do is run older (or less demanding) games on an old laptop, you can already do that with Linux.
Having to stick with older software (like an older version of Ubuntu, for example) on an 11 year old laptop in order to achieve that seems pretty damn logical to me.
In contrast to Windows, there are even Linux distros specifically MADE to support old hardware - I honestly don't know what your issue here is.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: TheSHEEEPWhich is one of the great strengths of Linux - it doesn't need to carry that extreme burden of having to support decades of legacy-code and programs.

Where the hell did you get this strange idea?
It's the exact opposite of what you are thinking: Linux does not break userspace!

Oh dear, purists are always such fun.
The kernel does not break userspace.
But do you know what does?
Userspace does.

And that's a good thing.
Maintenance of old crap (and yes, I picked that word deliberately) slows down everything in software development. Absolutely everything.
And it hinders improvements. "Oh we can't make this amazing improvement because it would break some old stuff barely anyone uses anymore anyway. So we either can't do it or need to do it twice as cumbersome in order to keep carrying legacy code" - and this issue increases exponentially with every decision made of that kind.

If Linux software adhered to the same mantra as Windows does (or did, they are finally moving away from that, step by step), almost none of us would be here, as the Linux ecosystem would vaguely be where it was 15-20 years ago.
You have to be willing to break things to achieve improvements in software development.

The kernel mantra only makes sense in the rarest of rarest of occasions - Linux kernel being one of them

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Quoting: CatKillerSo you need a Linux test machine, and you need to fix bugs in your game for running on Linux exactly as you would if you had a native build,

The process of bugfixing a native Linux build vs one running through a compatibility layer and/or VM is not the same, no.
And neither are the bugs you will encounter. Things that break between Windows/Linux are different than things that break between Windows/Linux-Pretending-To-Be-Windows.
The first actually has way more possible breaking points, though a lot does depend on your engine used.

When you debug something through Proton, you need a Linux machine capable of starting your game (even a VM will typically do, if the bug you're hunting is not GPU-related). That's it.
All your development will still be done on Windows, you don't need any familiarity with the platform other than "copy files to target machine".
I'd barely even call it debugging, honestly. It's make change, rebuild, launch, test if it works now.
It is rather inefficient, but also very simple and any dev can pull it off, even if they've never used Linux.

When you debug a native build (no matter the platform, actually), you first of all need a complete development environment on the target platform for all the usual development tools like running a debugger (best a debugging build if that's something your stack supports).
All of this is much more involved and requires familiarity with the platform at hand.
What it gives you is a way better toolset to find and fix bugs.

So, native development is actually way more powerful and efficient. I'd always do it if given the possibility.
The advantage of fixing bugs specifically for Proton is really only that you need no "intimidating" familiarity with Linux.
But that advantage is incredibly huge to those who (unfortunately) think Linux would be difficult to use for them due to lack first hand experience.
I don't know many devs that wouldn't prefer working on Linux after they have gotten used to it (which doesn't even take that much time). But I also know a lot of developers that will just never even try because they are too afraid of having to work with an unfamiliar environment.

I feel like all of this has a lot more to do with psychology than it does with actual attributes of the different platforms. But in the end, it is what it is, and the result is that working with Proton is a lot more friendly to Windows-devs than doing and maintaining a native Linux build.

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Quoting: CatKillerNonsense.

If it works, great; you're providing no more support than ProtonDB does. If it doesn't work then you're either saying "works on Windows, screw those guys", so no support, or you need to figure out why it doesn't work. And developers don't want to test in the first place.

Speaking as someone with 15+ years of software development (including a few years with games), you don't sound like you've ever developed anything in your life other than a fever and some kind of attitude issue against developers.

When you officially support Proton, then yes, that means you'll have to figure out why something doesn't work in Proton and can't just say "screw those guys". Duh?
The vast majority of those cases are from those I already listed (with file-related issues and codecs probably taking the biggest chunk), with solutions in most cases coming down to very small changes (such as not relying on some Windows-path-shenanigans or changing the encoding of a video to play on Proton) that any dev can do without having to dive deeper into Linux.
It is exactly as I said: It still does not require you to be familiar with Linux or develop that familiarity in order to fix an issue.
And as time goes on and both Wine and Proton keep getting better, those cases are becoming less and less.

I've seen more than a few devs that don't even do official Proton support still fix something in their game in order to make it work on Proton after someone reported an issue - without ever actually touching Linux.

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Quoting: CatKillerBut if a developer is "supporting Proton" rather than "supporting Windows and hoping for extra money from Linux users" then they need a Linux testing pipeline anyway for their Windows build in Proton. Proton saves them hardly anything, and is just a mechanism to be able to say "Wine won’t ever be something that we guarantee will work" when they aren't doing that testing.

Not true.
For Proton, they just need something that can run their game via Proton. That is decently easy to find a guide for, set up and - more importantly - does not require any dev to have knowledge about the platform.
It's more or less a "run and test if it works" kind of deal.

Which is in no way comparable to actually having to work on issues in code specific to the platform, which can be a lot of work even if you are familiar with it.
While (good) cross-platform engines can save you a lot of that work, there still remains some, especially with some topics like files, security, codecs, etc.
Sure, some games - especially smaller indie games - won't be affected by these topics, but the bigger the game, the more likely that it would be affected.

Doing Proton only saves developers a lot of time - otherwise, we wouldn't see a surprising amount of devs doing tests eg on the Steam Deck themselves.

Quoting: mr-victory

Quoting: TheSHEEEPa native client FOR A MULTIPLAYER GAME WITH SELF-MADE CLIENT-SIDE CHEAT PREVENTION

AFAIK Mac client doesn't have this anti cheat.

That would be extremely weird, I have a hard time believing it.

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Quote"For all the reasons described above, Wine won’t ever be something that we guarantee will work, but also for all the reasons described above, we’d really like to make it work."

This, to me, makes sense.

Quoting: AsciiWolfThis mindset is one of the reasons why I am still not sure whether I am happy about the popularity of Valve Proton or not...

The alternative would be practically no games working on Linux, at all.
Or only through the horrible hassle of manually fiddling around with Wine.

Linux is never going to amount to such a large player base that releasing a native client FOR A MULTIPLAYER GAME WITH SELF-MADE CLIENT-SIDE CHEAT PREVENTION would make business sense to developers.
For single-player games as well as devs using an out-of-the-box anticheat solution that does support Linux, the situation could be different depending on their circumstances (engine used, cross-platform experience, etc.).

Once Proton enters the picture, the question completely changes, as there is now a third (and fourth) option between native client and no Linux support at all.
Does Proton lead to less native versions? Of course. Well, at least I'm fairly certain it does.
Is that a bad thing? Not really.

You don't really have much of an advantage from a native Linux version compared to Proton. Very often, that version is developed once and then badly maintained, if at all. It might simply cease to function as fixed precompiled binaries tend to do on Linux as the kernel/distro itself advances. Which is one of the great strengths of Linux - it doesn't need to carry that extreme burden of having to support decades of legacy-code and programs.

The performance difference seems completely negligible to me - if it exists at all for a given care, I don't care if I could run a game at 200 fps or "just" 180 if all I need is 60-144 depending on the display.

The lack of official support, eg a game breaks Proton compatibility that it used to have but didn't officially support and then you can't play it anymore and devs don't care to fix it... I have heard of such cases, but in ~5 years of gaming exclusively on Linux by now, I don't recall this ever actually happening to me.
And if it did, I'd probably move on to one of the other hundreds of games in my library ;)

These things are all so minor compared to being able to play the vast majority of games on a much better OS.
So I'm definitely extremely happy Proton is as popular as it is and may it continue to be so for a very long time.

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Quoting: MadWolfor as EA likes to call them surprise mechanics these games need to be banned

Come on, man.
Where is your sense of pride and accomplishment?!

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"Linux kids saved from exploitative game & business practices"

Great news!

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