The glibc 2.41 update has been causing problems for Linux gaming

It seems a recent update to glibc with version 2.41 release at the end of January, has been causing all sorts of problems for Linux gamers that have pulled in the update (mostly on rolling-release distributions).

Valve have already updated multiple titles to get around the issue including Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Half-Life 2 and other updates on the way for some older games. This isn't just affecting Valve though, as more and more games are appearing to have problems. Some other quick examples with the bug include Celeste and DEAD LETTER DEPT., there's no doubt many more that it will affect but I'm not going to give a really long list here.

Pictured - Half-Life 2

There's an open bug report for glibc, with a recent reply from a developer noting that due to the backwards compatibility issue, the bug was reopened "to consider possible options for the release and the applications involved". This is not the first time glibc has caused problems with Linux compatibility for gaming, like a previous DT_HASH change that resulted in Easy Anti-Cheat breaking.

Not the end of the world though this time, developers and Linux users can still solve the issue themselves if needed running execstack -c on the affected libraries. Don't just take my advice on it though if you're a developer or gamer reading this, always look up what you're doing fully. Run at your own risk.

For game devs using FMOD, they were already aware of the issue, and solved it with FMOD 2.02.00. The FMOD team said for older versions, using the execstack command is safe.

Hopefully the glibc developers will be able to do something about this breaking change for various games.