It seems the days of using workarounds to play Roblox on Linux may be coming to an abrupt end, with the upcoming launch of their new client blocking Linux intentionally.
This new client appears to be undergoing testing, and users quickly noticed it wasn't working under the Wine compatibility layer on Linux. It seems the issue comes from Byfron, software for anti-cheat and anti-tamper that joined up officially with Roblox back in October 2022.
In reply to the forum post, a staff member for Roblox mentioned it is intentionally blocking:
Hello Jrelvas, Unfortunately this block was intentional. With the Windows 64-bit client launch we made the conscious decision to block the use of Wine. We came to this decision due to a combination of security and compatibility concerns. As a Linux user I am sure you understand the challenges of the Windows ecosystem. Wine is not officially supported but we are committed to working towards compatibility where possible. Unfortunately, I cannot provide a specific timeline for this support. However, I assure you that it remains a priority for our team.
It seems it may not be forever, going by what they said above and below as this new 64bit client is undergoing intense testing right now as they gather feedback, bug reports and crash logs. In a follow-up post, another staff member mentioned:
Thank you for your well thought out post. First and most importantly, we are not trying to punish the use of Wine.
Our Windows 64-bit client is in some regards quite different from the 32-bit client. We are currently gathering telemetry to analyze and hopefully fix existing issues and prevent future ones from popping up. For this process to work, it is of utmost importance to collect data from the [intended] target operating system. You will also find that we blocked the usage of VMs for the very same reason.I hope this clarifies some of the thought process behind the blocking of Wine. As MrEaker mentioned before, Wine remains a priority for our team, and we are certainly not deaf to the voices of our community.
And they seem to have no plans to block Wine use at all with Roblox Studio.
You might be wondering why they can't simply filter out the unwanted Wine results, since they obviously detect it just fine. Another few posts from the Roblox staff attempted to clear it up, as they mentioned their client will crash "compromised processes intentionally" and since they're going through so many thousands of crash logs, it would be quite a nuisance to add more to it. Sounds like it's complicated in many parts.
If / when they issue an update that does allow Wine players on Linux back in, I'll let you know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: sprocketI don't have kids (just some younger relatives who are more invested in the likes of Minecraft/Minetest, and who like sharing in the retro games that the adults in their lives enjoyed when we were all young), but was aware of a little of this (specifically Roblox's unregulated, ponzi-scheme-like nature), and of other reported issues that one would hope they'd've sorted out by now. These videos were excellent and very insightful viewing - thanks so much for linking to them!Quoting: PenglingRoblox specifically is exploitive of children. I will not let my children touch this game for any reason. Plenty of other games they can play.Quoting: legluondunetDevelopers don't want Linux users to play his game, just don't play his game and advertise it.That's true for us in the older crowd, but for the younger set games like this are a big deal, and it'd certainly be good if they can play them on the OS of choice used by the older crowd in their lives.
His game is not important, we have today enough games to play on Linux for more that a human life.
If you haven't seen this video on the subject, and you have children, you need to see this video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
Plus the follow up, which is quite damning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY
These vids certainly shed some interesting light on why they're not blocking the use of their game-making tools (assuming that that's what Roblox Studio is) through Wine, as well!
I honestly had no idea that it was anywhere near as bad as it is (I thought that it was closer to the Minecraft-alternative bracket than this), and I can certainly understand why people wouldn't want their kids using something like this, now.
Thankyou again.
Last edited by Pengling on 22 April 2023 at 5:35 pm UTC
Quoting: mamillerI'm scared how popular Roblox is right now. Is there even any game more popular among kids these days?
Fortnite. At least where I live, that's what all the young kids talk about. Even my children talk about it with "authority", having never played it (maybe at a friend's house).
Minecraft too. My kids play that a bunch. I haven't gotten to the point of putting together a server, but it might be an eventually (I'll prolly have to learn to play then...yikes)
Gotta love kids.
Viesta2015 Apr 22, 2023
Quoting: sprocketQuoting: PenglingRoblox specifically is exploitive of children. I will not let my children touch this game for any reason. Plenty of other games they can play.Quoting: legluondunetDevelopers don't want Linux users to play his game, just don't play his game and advertise it.That's true for us in the older crowd, but for the younger set games like this are a big deal, and it'd certainly be good if they can play them on the OS of choice used by the older crowd in their lives.
His game is not important, we have today enough games to play on Linux for more that a human life.
If you haven't seen this video on the subject, and you have children, you need to see this video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
Plus the follow up, which is quite damning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY
yeah, i know, i already said the samething about mario maker, because you pay to work for free for nintendo, but roblox seems even worse, i saw an video talking about it.
the issue is, you can forbid your kids from playing it, but you canot do anything about the parents who allow then, we have to inform as many people as possible, but in the mean time we need that thing to work on our system anyway.
its pointless to win an battle and lose the war, we have to pick and chose our priorities, people who are already playing roblox will not stop to use linux, instead they will hate linux.
roblox have more users than we do, so its not like we can "fight" against this comunity and "win".
on the other hand, people who already hate roblox, arent using linux yet...
i dont play roblox but i can understand the appeal of making your own games, i use to make as an kid aside from the fact that i didnt had any graphic assets nor knew how to draw and roblox provide it for free.
a lot of friends play fortinite.
and while im not interessed in fortinite mainly due to the art direction, i dont see a problem in playing Pubg aside from the crap monetization that online games tend to have.
That said, actively blocking something because it's "not supported" is borderline malicious. Fair enough if they say you can't expect any support if an error crops up, but actively blocking it is just mean!
Quoting: GuestQuoting: 1xokIt is sad that the children only find Windows and MacOS, if they can still get their hands on a desktop computer at all.Public education forces children to use microsoft products, microsoft office in particular. They teach chilren to use that, and require them to use that. I have no idea, why libre office is not used as the main office suite. I am not talking about rare cases with some excel built-in math functions, but 99.999999999% of cases, where libre office is good. That's why microsoft is so generous at providing "education" licences for free, of cheap price, so people don't even think or look for alternatives.
As far as possible, I equip all the children in my area with Linux computers (including Steam Deck). Modified Minecraft in particular runs much better on it than on Windows or MacOS.
As much as I'm regularly telling myself "don't complain, LO is free software", LibreOffice is a !@#$%^& $#@! show. Unless it's some extremely basic stuff, I'm having issues with LO practically every time I try to use it for anything serious (and so do friends and colleagues). Doing a presentation for work with non-default layout? Have fun. Need SVG with hidden elements? Hope you're on that latest version. Doing anything remotely fancy in calc, like how about multiple data series in a chart with labels? Are you crazy? Creating (or god forbid hoping for it to already exist) a standardized letter layout in write? Good luck. Some of the issues I encounter have been a thing for years and sometimes you find comments from ages ago telling you "yeah, not a thing, but you can do this and that !@#$ backwards workaround". Doing stuff in LO is just way too often, way too unintuitive and cumbersome.
The current MS Office incarnation could be equally terrible or even worse (haven't touched it in many years), but I'd take 2010 era MSO over today's LO pretty much every day of the week.
What @PixelDrop wrote is very close to my experience in, sadly, too many cases. Have someone that is content with a browser, full stop? Great. My mother is happily running a Debian system as well (not like there are no problems with garbage abandoned printer drivers or anything...). Everyone else usually has one or more pieces of "functionality" (some software) for which it's impossible to find an equivalent on Linux.
Sorry for the rant, but LO touches a sore spot of mine and makes me appreciate the "WHY THE !@#$ IS THIS !@#% A THING" feelings I often have in my Linux life and usually successfully suppress after a short time.
Last edited by iskaputt on 22 April 2023 at 9:21 pm UTC
Quoting: denyasisI won't let my kids touch Fortnite either because of theirQuoting: mamillerI'm scared how popular Roblox is right now. Is there even any game more popular among kids these days?
Fortnite. At least where I live, that's what all the young kids talk about. Even my children talk about it with "authority", having never played it (maybe at a friend's house).
Minecraft too. My kids play that a bunch. I haven't gotten to the point of putting together a server, but it might be an eventually (I'll prolly have to learn to play then...yikes)
Gotta love kids.
Minecraft is perfectly fine IMO. I just don't let my kids go online, or buy anything off their marketplace without vetting it first.
Last edited by sprocket on 22 April 2023 at 10:31 pm UTC
Quoting: ArdjeQuoting: EikeThe only real in windows progress does not come from Microsoft, but from AMD, NVIDIA and Valve as they keep the gaming on windows alive, and that's about the only thing that keeps windows into households, and with the big amount of lobbying and "I know that OS" keeps it in the offices.
[P/S This is not a rant towards you, just a rant in general to let off some steam.]
And all the other third party software makers. Windows desktop user space software as a whole is vastly more polished, flexible, varied, and accessible than Linux. Every time I try and convert someone to Linux there is 1 to 100 windows programs they use that have no equal on Linux and having to run a ton of things under wine does not leave a good impression.
Linux as a desktop system is an ecosystem of barely functional reinvented tires. 30 programs that do the same thing, and yet someone manage to do it worse than all the windows options that do the same thing, despite having a "better" OS to work with.
In every other sector it's great, but for the actual desktop experience it's a splintered, fragmented mess that may one day focus itself into something different, but honestly I think we have a better chance that macOS will just take over the desktop world. If Apple would ever make officially support hackintosh builds and sell macOS directly I have little doubt it would skyrocket in popularity. The only thing that saves us from that fate is Apple's own greed.
That is basically all down to market share. Aka make a decently useful app for Windows and you can earn enough money to start a business while Linux have too small a market share for more than a few people developing apps on their free time.
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