Ugh, whenever this happens I am reminded of Tower 57. Promised Linux port never happened... and what was released was an AmigaOS/MorphOS port...

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Quoting: Samsai

Quoting: F.UltraWouldn't the much greater marker on Android make it that much more susceptible to cheaters and thus much more profitable for a cheat-dev to write an exploit for?

A quick google shows that cheats for Fortnite on Android is just a simple APK that you can sideload, what those do is apparently to replace the Fortnite launcher with one patched to load the cheats.

It might be, if there is demand for exploits and cheats. Hell, maybe there even is a Fortnite cheating problem on Android. But clearly Epic's calculus says that it's worth the money to compromise. Otherwise they'd pull the plug on Android, right?

My whole argument hinges on the simple fact that Epic does not want to compromise with the Linux/Deck market. If Epic was willing to compromise we could hand-wave literally all the technical hurdles, because if Epic really really wanted the game to be available on the Deck then they could obviously make that happen. They aren't interested in compromising and at least claim to want to run their full-blown EAC on Linux and my argument is that it's never going to be a viable approach.

Getting Fortnite to run on Linux is not what I am claiming to be impossible here. It's the set of demands Epic is putting on Fortnite running on Linux that I am claiming as at least highly impractical.

Here is what it comes down to;
Fortnite is a money printing machine for them.
If you had a money printing machine, would you want to share that money?

I don't think Sweeney really ultimately cares if people cheat, as long as he gets that $$. But Linux still has that 'it's for hackers' reputation. So him saying some sound bites that Linux is too hackable so there isn't a way to prevent cheating, he can feel happy knowing that he'll still just be printing money.

The fact that they have supporting EAC through proton... but specifically are not allowing Fortnite that uses it 'because it isn't worth it, and OMG cheaters!' is pretty weak. He should just say 'because money money money! I love GOLD!' And stop making an ass of himself :P

(Brought to you buy dontbeanass.org)

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Quoting: ShmerlKernel level "anti-cheats" are spyware garbage that mask companies unwillingness to invest in server side AI solutions for the problem (which are expensive obviously). It's much easier to require users to install spyware and monitor their system instead. Tim Sweeny and his kernel anti-cheats can get lost.

Anyone who cares about security of their systems shouldn't come anywhere close to stuff like that.

Agreed. I honestly want to know if any game actually prompted for a root password on Linux, how many people would just immediately uninstall it. I know I do. No game should require root. Hell, GUI applications barely have a reason to have root.

Windows 10 gets away with this because the majority of software needs to be installed in Program Files(whatever), so prompts for Yay/Nay. So people ignore just giving up access...

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Quoting: HJhaving used wooting keyboard which also """"revolutionized"""" pc gaming with analog switches, I can say that this is just another useless gimmick that's gonna cause more interference (i ended up disabling joystick emulation on my wooting completely) than improvement, not to mention getting each individual game to work with something like it is a pain in the ass for very little benefit.

lastly: TKL only? seriously?

Ha, yeah I too bought a wooting keyboard because it sounded cool, and I thought it could be useful... mostly I've just had weird issues with a key going ape-shit on key presses. Seems to have stabilized recently. Also I have issues with the keys being so high off the keyboard that random shit on my desk like cables will slide just perfectly under them, and prevent the key going down (for example I have an HDMI cable coming out from my monitor I hook various devices up to for testing, and it'll get wedged under the esc key, and when I go to hit it... nada!)

I also bought a mouse with an analog stick on it... still haven't bothered configuring THAT for anything... ha
https://www.thefpsreview.com/2020/01/07/asus-debuts-new-gaming-mouse-with-builtin-joystick-at-ces/ [External Link]

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: SirBubbles

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: SirBubblesNot at all. It would only be verified as supporting the SD kernel. That kernel would also be available for other users on other distros, so it would hardly lock FortNite (shudder) to the SD distro alone.

You can't transplant a kernel to any other system like that because it's the build that's verified, not the source. It might possibly work in some cases, and would most definitely not in others. There are other reasons it wouldn't work and be pointless anyway from a technical perspective (let alone be incredibly bad for a multitude of moral reasons).

That's a bit of a problem, wouldn't that involve digitally signing an entire SteamOS install? What if someone installs a few flatpaks from the package manager, or removes something? Or changes something in the configuration?
Unless you meant something else, I think it's difficult to verify an entire distro as a single signed version, when there are going to be changes of some kind inevitably.

Also, regarding the kernel, that would entirely depend on how it was certified. Considering that is a moot point, as Epic aren't going to do it regardless, it's not a big deal.
I was only trying to establish that the claim by Sweeney about distro/kernel fragmentation was provably wrong in that way, and that somehow enabling Fortnite for the SD wouldn't lock it to SteamOS alone.

I was referring to that a compiled kernel from one distro cannot simply be copied into the boot process of another distro and be expected to work. It might work, and for many cases indeed will with a little bit of messing around, but it's not exactly guaranteed and there can easily be a large proportion of the OS that will simply fall over if tried.

Sweeney has half-truths in his statements, but there there are reasons that e.g nvidia might often need to push out a new driver to support new kernels. API, ABI, glibc versions, etc etc etc. It's certainly more maintenance effort, but he's also very misleading in trying to blow it incredibly far out of proportion, not to mention that any anti-cheat trying to hook into the kernel that needs such a level of maintenance is a _very_ Bad Idea(tm) for security.

Just a 'eac-dkms' package? :P Granted that would likely violate something, and people generally don't like seeing that their kernel is tainted with some non-GPL code :P

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Quoting: F.UltraSo did a quick google (since Fortnite is not a game that I have ever played, and since I don't use cheats) and the first response was to https://www.iwantcheats.net/fortnite-hacks-cheats-glitches-aimbot/ [External Link] which have a long list of cheats for Fortnite, that works on Windows 10 and Windows 11.

The cheats are sold for money so there are monetary incentives to break EAC which points back to my earlier post that Windows is open source if you are a hacker. Not only does the closed source of Windows help it in any way possible, we can also see that Epic is lying out their teeth, there is no need for cheaters to force Fortnite to work on the Steam Deck in order to cheat, they can cheat right now using Windows (and they also carry cheats for consoles).

EAC only keeps out the amateurs, and the amateurs wouldn't know where to begin to create Linux kernel drivers in the first place either so this is all moot.

/me puts on his conspiracy generator hat;
Maybe it is less about the hacking of Windows than it is Sweeney & Co selling an 'API' to EAC so that people can create tools to break it, so they can cheat. I mean Fortnite should be making money with whatever means are necessary, right? And if the tools to cheat are sold, it's potentially to recoup any funds spent on getting access to the keyhole, so to speak.

Since the motives are there to make a ton of money, this is a conspiracy that'd make sense. Isn't Fortnite one of those 'Free' games? Got to monetize it from every aspect point...

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Quoting: Lightkey

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Lightkey

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Hamish

Quoting: slaapliedjeFun fact, Heretic II also got a commercial port on the Amiga.

Yep, for Hyperion Entertainment making Linux and Mac ports was always a side hustle, with the Amiga being their one true love.

Ha, for me the topic of building a Retro Linux computer would be to put together an old PPC mac and install Debian :P
Or you know, maybe try to put 68k Debian on my Amiga :)

That's exactly what I did back in 2005. Bought a cheap Mac mini and installed Debian on it, to show off the rare commercial ports to Linux/ppc from Loki and LGP at the Holarse booth at the LinuxTag fair.

Ooh, I have most of the Loki ports, but did not know they did some PPC ones.

I've actually tried tracking down a physical copy of Heretic II for the Amiga, still haven't been able to find it anywhere. I do wish somehow that Steam would get all the Loki/LGP ports somehow; as Shadowgrounds and a few others don't have native Linux support in Steam, even though Loki/LGP did fantastic ports on them.

Fun thing about non-x86 architectures is all of the open source reimplementations for games can now be played on them (for the most part. I don't expect anyone to have the hardware to run OpenMW on an Amiga...)

Since we have already successfully derailed the comments: while reading/writing about games is my main hobby, I've actually not played many, with Gorky 17 being one of the few I've played through (not the WINE re-release). I had already played the demo and was looking forward to playing it on the Mac mini.. and then it had a reproducible crash in the Linux/ppc build shortly after where the demo had ended, so I had to play it on x86 in the end.
I've reported it to Michael Simms (who was always on IRC, like sensible people) and he said they could not fix it, since they did not have the source code to that part. Soon after, LGP discontinued support for all non-x86 builds. :cry:

D'oh! granted at this point LGP has discontinued support for all their stuff... didn't their basement flood at one point and take them offline for like a month? And then they just never came back full force back then and disappeared.

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Quoting: rea987

Quoting: slaapliedjeI have been tempted so many times to order an AmigaOne X5000... but now they are kind of hard to find a full one in stock.

Well, if you're rich enough you might want to be quick as A-EON's x1000, x5000/20, x5000/40 and A1222 machines' CPU manufacturer NXP discontinued production and support for CPUs of those boards. Hence, it'll be (or even already is) extremely hard to find one.

https://www.generationamiga.com/2020/07/06/nxp-to-discontinue-support-for-p1022-in-2021/ [External Link]

Though it looks like neither AmigaOS 4.2 nor MorphOS support basic modern features like 64 bit and SMP that makes all AmigaOne machines underpowered/underqualified for modern applications and overpowered for classic Amiga/Commodore applications. Well perhaps some people would like to surf internet, get benefit from basic multimedia and use basic productivity software while being able to natively enjoy classic Amiga/Commodore games. Maybe... :-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS_4#Future [External Link]
https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?topic_id=13179&forum=3 [External Link]

Yeah, I knew about the discontinuation. That's basically because Apple bought all the things. What they really should do is just go with IBM's Power architecture... then again that'd probably make them even more unobtanium...

MorphOS is finally coming to x86, from what the rumors have been popping up. If OS4 went with m1 Mac support or something, that'd be really interesting, and could be seriously a sickly fast system...

In theory, the story is they have enough chips stocked up though for being able to sell some of the A1222... if it's ever actually ready to ship.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: Mountain ManKDE for some reason has the reputation of being a "bloated" desktop environment

KDE 4 had the same problem as early Gnome 3: it had bugs that affected performance, which led people to assume that it was too heavy for their machine, and it's got lots of options so it must be heavy, right? They fixed the bugs and KDE 5 is an entirely different beast to KDE 4, but once you've decided that something's a particular (and unappealing) way, it's very unusual for anyone to check it again.

Yeah, Gnome 3 and KDE 4 both were very much "We're not ready yet!" for the first few point releases, but distributions packaged and shipped them anyway...

Wellll, not all distributions. That's about when Mint got going with Cinnamon and Mate, I think in good part because Clem thought Gnome 3 sucked.

Ha, Mint literally spawned from Gnome 3's creation. It didn't exist for it to be there to make the decision too early to upgrade to Gnome shell. Of course that still left us with the split of Mate and Cinnamon (I can never remember which decided they wanted Gnome 2, but with GTK2 and one wanted GTK3). But aren't they both now based on GTK3/4?

We should really be all VERY thankful for the Gnome developers! Without them we wouldn't have Mint Linux, Mate, Cinnamon, Budgie, etc. Like seriously, how many DEs were created because people hated Gnome Shell!

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Quoting: rea987

Quoting: slaapliedjeFun thing about non-x86 architectures is all of the open source reimplementations for games can now be played on them (for the most part. I don't expect anyone to have the hardware to run OpenMW on an Amiga...)

Later iterations of AmigaOne look to be par with minimum requirements of OpenMW; especially AmigaOne X1000 and AmigaOne X5000/20.

• X1000: 1.8 GHz Dual-core PPC CPU + AMD Radeon HD 6000 GPU


• X5000/20: 2.0 GHz Dual-core PPC CPU + Radeon HD R7 250 GPU

I have been tempted so many times to order an AmigaOne X5000... but now they are kind of hard to find a full one in stock.

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