I don’t think Chrome is open source.

Quoting: damarrinI don’t think Chrome is open source.

You are right.

Thanks for correcting it.

It's a Freeware application based on open source components.

Quoting: damarrinI don’t think Chrome is open source.

"Google Chrome" itself isn't, but the underlying browser engine is of course. We also refer to the back end as Chrome also though. (I do, and actually have done so today already)

For whatever good that will do you. It's not like it's a user friendly community, it's pretty Google dictatorial and the ever changing build environment can be onerous, or it used to be when I was doing it. It's also a monstrous code base, and someone inclined to customize it would have to get to know it. I used to build Chromium for my browser, but I've discovered in my years that the only good thing about masochism is that it feels good when you stop doing it. I prefer to work with Firefox again anyway now.

So yeah, it's open source.

I think the "no tux, no bucks" movement was the right things to do at the times. "Native" was not the concept it is today and wrapped in an emulator windows exe counted as native. If I remember correctly, most of the Linux version of the humble indie bundle that really launched Linux as a gaming platform were done this way (I may be wrong).

I still things the reaction to The Witcher 2 eon port was the right call. Oh, I strictly condemn the excess that turn CD Projekt which was one of its few proponent with GoG wrapping old game in wine into a durable enemy of Linux but the community couldn't stay silent when a game was released at 2FPS on high end PC. Windows gamers were doing the same with the console port that wasn't playable.

Proton did a lots of goods to Linux gaming. Still Vulkan, no middleware and engine that cross compile would be the best solution. As engine gets more and more complete, there is fewer and fewer middleware so we gets to it. DirectX still exist through and remain a danger for Linux gaming. I'm pretty sure that there is a guy at Microsoft whose job is to see what change could be done to DirectX that Proton would not be able to emulate.

P.S: I did not watch the video cause I'm a zealot that block youtube :p

Quoting: amataiI still things the reaction to The Witcher 2 eon port was the right call. Oh, I strictly condemn the excess that turn CD Projekt which was one of its few proponent with GoG wrapping old game in wine into a durable enemy of Linux but the community couldn't stay silent when a game was released at 2FPS on high end PC. Windows gamers were doing the same with the console port that wasn't playable.

I bought Witcher 2 in 2012 and played it on Windows 7 back then. I'd pretty much mostly given up on Linux gaming, as most of the porting had stopped since the good old Icculus days.

In 2014 I tried it on Linux and it was worse than on Windows, I think I recall having to cut a few things down to Medium. I got through it though... I think I had Radeon HD 5870 still back then, using Mesa.

Later, with greater graphics hardware I played it again and it was OK, still felt kind of crappy as those are problems you can't even solve by throwing hardware at it (eON was pretty poor). I mean, specifically, a more powerful CPU is going to wait for i/o just like a lesser one when the problem is wasted clock cycles.

The only problem I ever recall having was it crashing at an impassable point once. I tried it several times. It didn't crash after a reboot (driver in bad state, IPC resource stuck, hardware register bits wrong... who knows) and I don't recall having any problems with it aside from lackluster performance again.

I'm getting the gumption to see that game again, I couldn't say if the Linux port even still works. I think I'll go straight to trying it with Proton first when I get around to it though.

Last edited by Grogan on 17 June 2023 at 3:43 am UTC

I think the Linux gaming landscape just changed massively over the years due to Valve's involvement in various pieces of software. Also Vulkan happened. Imagine a world where we'd still be stuck with OpenGL on Linux...

Today, I feel, translation layers are just another tool enabling a game on Linux, for those "stuck" with engines that have second-class Linux support (which sadly seems the case for most engines). This of course still demands some commitment from a game's developer. Skipping games that lack such commitment is a totally valid "no tux, no bux" move in my book.

In the end, a native version means nothing, when support is lacking. And this isn't even a Linux problem, go and take a look at some older Windows native games running (or rather not) on a modern Windows machine.

I've yet to have a smooth experience with Wine and Proton. So when I say I'm not interested, I just want to click and play...every time I hit up a LAN or LUG meeting and ppl try to sell me on using Wine and Proton they educate me all on this extra work they had to do to get the game to work and/or sell me on accepting a compromise that I'm just not going to do.

I'm glad proton and Steam exist for others to take advantage and game as they see fit but it's not for me.

I want offline, launcher free & drm-free games so that I click & play without issue. If those games go bye bye then I just stay with what I got and that's it. Even with emulation, if it's not get emulator + get rom = play....I don't mess with it. It is lazy? Maybe but I'm not going to give someone money then fuss with something that may or may not work.

Perhaps my gaming diet is just different, I still play games from the 90's because when my friends gather we can get in and keep it moving without issue. So outside of fighting games (and I get to play those for free at locals on the console or arcade units in house), I don't look forward towards any game per se like that so I'm probably not the demographic for the industry at all.

Quoting: whateverThere are only 4 gaming platforms: Win, PS, XB, Switch

I would add that android and iOS deserve a mention in this list. I'm finding myself playing more and more Playstore and apk games from the community as time passes. I have adult children that know my taste very well and they often either buy me the game or family pass me a copy on Google and so far the games they sent me have been hits for SP gaming while traveling and MP with them from time to time.

As a developer, I will say it can be worthwhile to keep a linux port running even if you choose not to release it. Memory bugs that don't cause a problem most of the time under windows can crash more often under linux. By porting to multiple systems it can make the program more stable. Also since you have all the system specific code isolated (or at least you should), it can be easier to port to other systems.

I'm building my game on Linux because it's the environment I'm most familiar with nowadays. (10 years ago it was Mac, but that's a different story.) I do test the Windows build using Wine, but there are some minor bugs that would drive me insane if I had to deal with them every moment of every day. I don't think players would notice though... Also, I won't make bets on if the native or Wine version will have fewer issues 10 or 15 years from now.

As a player, Proton is amazing! I started transitioning my workflow from Mac about a year before Proton was really a thing. I had tinkered with Wine a bit, but I'm honestly not much of a tinkerer. Like as a dev I enjoy making my own "engines" and even the occasional assembly code, but as a user, I just want something that works. It's why I used to dev on Mac, and why I found Ubuntu so inviting when I started switching. Everything basically worked out of the box, and I already treated the Mac like a "Unix machine with a nice GUI". In contrast, I was contracting on a couple XBone/PS4 games at the time and ended up making a Win10 machine for it. It was awful. I had more problems with Windows 10, and Windows Update constantly breaking things than the rest of my 30 years of computing combined. I hadn't run desktop Linux since the Gnome 2.x days and figured I'd give it a try again, and found it to be perfectly comfortable. Proton sealed my Macs' fate. Even when it was experimental it was so much better than gaming in Apple land. I built a new tower to replace my retina iMac, and bought a System76 laptop to replace my MacBook Air. That's my story.

Quoting: Liam DaweWhat do you think?

Native Linux games are ideal. But I am very happy to use Proton as long as it works. Game developers should only have to build their product one time. I'm just happy to be able to play games on Linux. It's crazy how far Linux has come. Viva La Linux!