Portal: Revolution drops Native Linux support to focus on Proton

i am in the camp of as long as they actually support the proton version and not just using it as a second citizen, fine with them removing a native linux build if the build was highly defective

As long as it's fully playable via Proton, I don't have any problems with that.

I'm aware that maintaining native Linux games can be nasty for game devs.

Good, another project that dropped Linux support! I hope soon no one will lose time writing software for Linux anymore!

The game uses a modified source 1 engine (strata source). Source 1 is 20 years old. Linux support was slapped on 13 years ago and relies on opengl.

In my opinion, proton is the better technical choice with its modern proven vulkan-based rendering. The proton version might even outlast both the windows and the (theoretical) native linux version.

I think a lot about the JangaFX post about glibc binary compatibility whenever developers opt to drop their native Linux builds. I know a lot more consideration goes into it than glibc, but man, it's one of many reasons you can never fault developers who'd rather not tackle the gargantuan task of building games natively for Linux.

Proton in my experience is straight up better for source mods. I just wish VAC worked in it, Left 4 Dead 2 is pretty much busted on CachyOS right now.

Cool. Native Linux builds tend to be lacking in basic features and far buggier in general, so I always default to Proton anyway. As long as they properly test for parity, all good. Contributing upstream to Proton development would be even better

@hell0 doesn't Source 1 now offers DXVK as a renderer-- oh right, this is a forked version of Source 1... nevermind.

How well does Steam Linux Runtime work for making Linux executables run across all the different distributions and Linux setups, I wonder?

I recently got GZDoom and Raze compiled to run with Steam Linux Runtime using the official distrobox image...

As long as it's fully playable via Proton, I don't have any problems with that.

I'm aware that maintaining native Linux games can be nasty for game devs.

In theory, I agree with that.

But I see one problem: What do devs actually do in case there is a bug in their game specifically with Proton? Do debuggers, etc. work normally through the compatibility layer?

TBH its the better choice.. I have plenty of Native Linux games that no LONGER work native out the box but swap proton on and works great.. also have TONS of native ports that run MUCH better in proton then native.. I am of the mind set IDGAF how my games work on Linux I just want the best performance I can get and hate to burst the purest die hards most the time proton has the least amount of breakage over time and performs much better then native games


Last edited by tohur on 6 Aug 2025 at 7:37 am UTC

And now we got used to it. And it's interesting to see how it changes over time. I remember when people got upset, because of Proton in general. Then it was okay, because we could still play those games. Then people got upset because drops of native builds. Damn, the backlash Rockfish Games got, because they couldn't fix the performance issues in UE5 for Linux and went the Proton way. Sure, mostly a minority, yet pretty vocal.
It has proven to be benefical for Linux to be able to play games through Proton. It's the success the Steam Deck builds upon.
If a dev goes the way to support a native build, they have my special gratitude. If they decide to drop the native build but still make sure it works with Proton, I'm all ears.

What do we want? Playing games! Where do we want to play them? On Linux! Can we do that? YES!

In the long run a single build is easier for developers to test and support, and Proton can keep games running on Linux practically forever after developers move on or shut down. A layer to continue supporting games like Proton just makes more and more sense as time goes on.

In the long run a single build is easier for developers to test and support, and Proton can keep games running on Linux practically forever after developers move on or shut down. A layer to continue supporting games like Proton just makes more and more sense as time goes on.

In addition to this, and I keep seeing the following thrown around, but the concept of "targetting Proton" instead of plain Windows can be a thing apparently. It's a long shot but I can see this becoming a reality, where the single build devs would support would in fact be a "Proton" build, that works on Windows of course, but also Linux, MacOS and even different computers archetictures like how we've been seeing Valve working on ARM translation stuff behind the scenes.

This is all highly ambitious of course, but unless all the users who have been bringing it up are talking out of their ass, wouldn't it be a desired goal ?


Last edited by Pyrate on 6 Aug 2025 at 10:27 am UTC

In the long run a single build is easier for developers to test and support, and Proton can keep games running on Linux practically forever after developers move on or shut down. A layer to continue supporting games like Proton just makes more and more sense as time goes on.

Yes! Also developers don't need to invest time to learn developing for, or even run their builds on, Linux: they just need to keep using Microsoft solutions everywhere!
This is truly awesome!

@ExplosiveDiarrhea, yes, it actually is awesome. We get tens of thousands of games that run and run very well, and developers can spend more time actually building their games instead of focusing on fixing up issues for our (let's face it) tiny user share. Proton is a good great thing for gamers.

Proton is also properly open source with Wine, DXVK and so on. You have to remember, we're 99% of the time talking about completely proprietary games, so the open source layer to keep them running makes sense. It's a shame some are still so militant about refusing to accept the reality of our platform for gaming years after Proton was released.

Native Linux builds tend to be lacking in basic features and far buggier in general

So is that a statistic or an anecdote? Because my anecdote is, nearly all the games I play are native, and I never have any problems. When I have problems it's nearly always with a Proton game not working, even though I play far fewer Proton games. Although lately my main annoyance is for some reason my Dosbox Steam games are just not starting at all. I haven't played MOO2 in ages now because of that.
So I'd be wary of this kind of generalization. We both have anecdotes pointing in different directions, but I doubt either of us have data.

As to the usefulness or otherwise of native Linux builds, Liam's perspective makes complete sense as long as you assume Microsoft will never again be very actively hostile to Linux. This might be the case, but it seems to me like a poor gamble. Proton is a great idea and I support it strongly, but this is not an either/or thing. It's like the American civil rights movement--there's been a lot of argument over whether King was good and Malcolm X was bad or the other way around, but it is a stupid argument because they needed both (You can tell because the authorities wanted both of them dead, and probably had both of them killed). It's not that one was bad and the other was good, it's that one was the bad cop and the other was the good cop. King could implicitly say "You can deal with me being polite and nonviolent, or you can deal with Malcolm." Native Linux and Proton are not quite the same dynamic, but they are both important and I really don't think it's wise to discount either.

Put it this way: Proton is not the end game. Even if an awful lot of games right now either run on Proton because they're legacy Windows games, or are written now for Windows with some consciousness of Proton, we also want a vigorous native Linux game-writing platform. I mean, how silly would it be if we achieve world domination market share and to write a game for the world dominant platform, you have to write for DX12 on legacy Windows so a translation layer can translate it?!

@Pyrate

It's a long shot but I can see this becoming a reality, where the single build devs would support would in fact be a "Proton" build, that works on Windows of course, but also Linux, MacOS and even different computers archetictures like how we've been seeing Valve working on ARM translation stuff behind the scenes.

I could see this happening, whether or not it has M$'s support: Proton becoming a "universal" container/environment for software that allows developers to focus on one build that will run on multiple operating systems and/or hardware. If software developers want this as a standard, M$ might try to undermine it but the only impact would be that the games and other applications would not run in M$'s proprietary environment, leaving M$ out of the loop and looking bad.

Some developers might still choose to produce software native to the host environment (maybe for speed, security, or other reasons) but it leaves room for interesting possibilities that we didn't have before...

"You have to remember, we're 99% of the time talking about completely proprietary games, so the open source layer to keep them running makes sense."

I will say this is the only philosophical argument for Proton/Wine that makes any sense to me. The pragmatic argument fails, at least in a theoretical sense, because if the objective is to run the game with the least friction, with the method being irrelevant, you might as well just run it on Windows. If however you accept that GNU/Linux simply is not structured for proprietary programs (and quite probably shouldn't be), containerizing those makes more sense. I would say that getting games running on free software engines (at a minimum) is a better solution than either native binary ports or compatability layers. The fact remains however that cross-platform proprietary development is not actually impossible though, and can in fact lead to more robust and better designed code, so it still seems worth the try (if we have too at all that is). I still think that if Valve truly wanted to put their money where their mouth is, and actually support Linux, they would continue developing Proton while offering a distribution fee discount to developers for games that support SteamOS natively.


Last edited by Technopeasant on 6 Aug 2025 at 9:42 pm UTC

But, isn't native Linux also an open source layer? Proton is just an open source layer on top of the open source layer, translating into the other open source layer. I don't see how that makes things more open source. If that were true we could make it the most open source of all by adding three more open source translation layers each translating to the next.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 6 Aug 2025 at 10:30 pm UTC