Regarding cutting 32 Bit ... look, what happened on the macos side in that regard.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Question: How do you want to play the massive games catalogue available on Steam?

If you go full 64 Bit on Steam, you kill off:
- any native 32 Bit Linux games
- any 16 Bit Windows games that still may exist (very old titles)
- all 32 Bit games that have been made in the last 20-25 years

Wine/Proton 32 Bit on 64 Bit emulation is not a magic bullet.
- it has no 16 Bit Support (older 32 Bit setup installer systems used to have at the end of the day some 16 Bit components (especially the Microsoft ones))
- Wine 32 Bit on Wine 64 STILL needs a set of 32 Bit libraries. That is not a solution, but moving the libraries around.
- there are many 32 Bit applications which do not work in that WoW6432 at all.
- performance degration, because of the double translations of system calls.
- all 32 Bit applications have to be fixed again in the WOW6432 environment.
- confusion, what exactly is 32 bit and 64 bit.

Also on the end of the day, even in 32 Bit emulation you need 32 Bit libraries and they don't bugfix themselves, don't upgrade themselves with newer distributions and doing a full host VM you certainly need some 3D GPU virtualization.

If you look at this, keepint 32 Bit around is a way less strain on resources than doing some sort of 32 Bit emulation on 64 Bit and/or full system emulation just for some applications; where you also have the issue of exporting the application window (what is ANOTHER issue on Wayland).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

yast has been at least around since SuSE Linux 5.1 (1996), it is designed to be replaced by cockpit.

Going through all these changes (yast -> agama/cockpit, dropping 32 Bit, deprecating/dropping BIOS boot, AppArmor -> SELinux, every user gets now its own primary group, favoring wayland, implementation/sponsoring of himmelblau (EntraID integration), etc) they are gearing up for "harmonization" to the Red Hat / Fedora world.

Throw in the more or less hostility of SuSE to its non-commercial user base and community (eg disallowing using the word "SuSE" in the title of the distribution), I have mixed feelings.

There is also the issue, that OpenSUSE 16 only exists as a traditional distribution due to the backlash of the community (and I guess, more due to the negative feedback of their commercial customers), but moving to a fancy immutable distribution model is only postponed. These immutable flavours already exist tho, where the only official is the GNOME flavour and the KDE flavour is a designated community variant.

They also renamed their ALP concept to something else, I already forgot.

For me personally, I have a feeling that the days of Tumbleweed are somewhat counted and one of the few things that hold me back, is software.opensuse.org. I'm looking cautiously into Arch, but Debian style is no go and Fedora ... well SuSE seems so hard to emulate Red Hat now, that is also a nope.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

There are also some other changes on openSUSE Leap 16, that are also important. Maybe these should be added to the news article.

The whole (generated) changelog is available on https://susedoc.github.io/release-notes/leap-16.0/html/release-notes/index.html [External Link], where I took other, relevant information:

- rebuilding the kernel requires a specific compiler designed for building it
- remote login via sshd is disabled in default installation unless a ssh key is provided for
- new users get their own dedicated user group (like RedHat and friends)
- new installations have now SELinux instead of AppArmor.
- firewalld is unusable on interfaces due to an upstream bug
- yast has been removed, only core backend stuff still exists due to dependency to agama.

https://news.opensuse.org/2025/08/04/leap-16-rc/ [External Link]:
If you want to do a migration, it is advised to use a new migration tool (opensuse-migration-tool) that takes also care of migration from pulseaudio to pipewire and the kernel level ia32 emulation parameter.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I just hope that Tumbleweed doesn't ditch 32 Bit. If they do this, I will have to look for another distribution...

Regarding Steam and Flathub:

1) the Steam flathub package is not made by Valve, its a community flatpak

2) even then, the Steam and flathub are fundamentally incompatible on some things, regarding application isolation, as Steam does its own wrappings. Aside that you have to go with that package pants down, so that it doesn't make much difference.

Although in the Steam Deck, you use flathub for installations outside the Steam client, Steam itself is NOT flathub based, but is an regular install in the users' home directory.

Even Valve does not do that.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CalinouI feel DXVK had such a positive impact on gaming as a whole. It did so much more than just improve the state of Linux gaming:

- Make RTX Remix possible, as it uses a fork of DXVK.
- Basically fix performance of some Windows games (mainly GTA IV, but many others also benefit). If a Windows user talks to you about DXVK, they probably tried it on GTA IV at some point. It's really that much of a requirement to enjoy that game on modern PCs :)

DXVK is also a method to make games playable on Windows 7.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

A squashed cursor block a la apple macbook again... no thanks.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TurkeysteaksSpeaking of families, does anyone know what happens if you own a game (the only copy) and someone else in the family is playing it? In ye olde families, the library owner would just kick them off with a 5 minute warning but I'm unsure who gets priority in the new system. My buddy has a habit of just leaving games running constantly, and it's yet to be a problem but I want to know I can kick him off if need be in the future haha.

Steam Families now count the amount of licenses across the Steam Family members, ie if you have 2 licenses you can play two across the group and if have have only one.. I guess you cannot.

Note that you buddy now has to live in your household or otherwise your Steam "Family" will not work.

For further questions, see https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/593110/view/4149575031735702628 [External Link]

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Liam DaweSounds like you might have a bug in the Steam client there. I would suggest gathering all info and reporting on GitHub [External Link].

May very well be, but I'm currently in contact with the developer (he is really a nice guy!) who tries to replicate that. If he does not come to a conclusion, it is a good idea to open a ticket, I think.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Didn't work for me, sadly.

It always downloads the Windows version, after going to the compatibility tab, checking it (Boxtron is displayed) and removing it, downloads the Linux version.

After closing the Steam client and re-opening it, the installation reverts to the Windows version. It's not a big deal, but slightly irritating.

View this comment - View article - View full comments