Patreon Logo Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal Logo PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
Latest Comments by poiuz
Valve releases Steam Deck shell CAD files
14 Feb 2022 at 7:09 pm UTC

Quoting: slaapliedjePeople bring up the Steam Machine, but they technically didn't make that, just SteamOS. Which worked just fine for its purpose, but needed Proton, which wasn't a thing until later.
[…]

As others have said, Valve not only contributes code to Wine, they directly pay money into Codeweavers... to develop Wine.
I'm trying to translate: Valve contributes to Wine as a necessity to avoid another failure.

And yes, Steam machines were driven & developed by Valve, they just didn't produce hardware. But it's still Valve's failure since the main components are developed by them (Steam & SteamOS).

Quoting: slaapliedjeNot sure of any other companies that pay for Wine development, do you?
No, but this only shows the irrelevance of Wine. Just because Valve & you think it, doesn't mean that it is in general important. Probably 99+% of the gamers world wide (this includes all platforms) are doing just fine without having heard of it.

Quoting: slaapliedjePretty sure the LLVM work is because gcc is also GPLv3.
Yes, but the question still remains: What does the GPLv3 avoidance have to do with their open source contributions?

Quoting: slaapliedjeSwift is a computer language... why would anyone release a proprietary one of those?
It was proprietary. Just like many other languages. Thankfully those times are gone.

As I already said: It is simply nothing special. It's great for you that they contribute to an area you care about. But just don't make it more than it is, they contribute for their own (selfish) reasons.

Valve releases Steam Deck shell CAD files
12 Feb 2022 at 7:40 pm UTC

Quoting: rustybroomhandleYeah, they flag compatibility kludges as "hacks"- this is good. It means they are conscious of what is clean and what not.
Because I didn't know kludge, some back translations: mess, botched-job, goof, bad job. In other words: Ugly code which never could be upstreamed, quick fixes. And no, it's not about hooks into anything, it's code to make something run. I mean, they're even execute/skip code based on the game id. To sum up, as I said: It's indeed full of hacks & contains code that will not be available to everyone (i.e. upstream Wine).

Quoting: rustybroomhandleYou seem to imply that Proton development is not benefitting wine.
No, I'm saying that there is nothing special about anything Valve is doing. But yes, not all they're doing is helping Wine in any way.

Quoting: rustybroomhandleEDIT: Ignore everything I said, I think we have a communication gap here. Can you explain why what Valve is doing is the wrong way? Because from where I sit it's just open source functioning as intended.
The right way for an open source project is obviously to write code which can actually contributed to the upstream project (e.g. DXVK does not fall into this category) and avoid forks as much as possible (vkd3d-proton seems to go in the wrong direction, too).

To go back: "Wine chose not to": That's exactly what a bad contribution sounds like. You don't dump code & expect everyone to be thankful for it.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyValve isn't primarily a software company though. If you write 5% as much software as another company, but contribute 30% as much to open source, and in more key areas, who is more open source friendly?
Where do you get your numbers from? And in what world is Proton a key area?

Quoting: Purple Library GuyAnd of course it's much smaller, but the main thing is just that this is an apples/oranges comparison. Apple and Microsoft do open source contributions mainly when they have no other choice; it's just that they do so much business that revolves around areas that have been taken over, despite their determined resistance, by open source software that the number of areas where they've had no other choice is quite large.
Apple, for example, actively contributes to LLVM which is a key area. And they don't have to because the license allows closed source forks. The same is true for Swift: They could've kept it closed & it would still be "successful" due iOS. But they decided to open it.

And I don't think what you're saying is true. Most open source projects nowadays use permissive licenses. So, yes, they pretty much have a choice.

And as I said: Apple & Microsoft are just prime examples of "evil" proprietary companies. Open source contributions are nothing special.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyValve actually chooses to use open source, and do it responsibly, in areas where they would have other choices.
Please enlighten me about the alternatives to Wine? Isn't it actually the other way around: Valve didn't have any other choice but use an existing LGPL project.

Valve releases Steam Deck shell CAD files
12 Feb 2022 at 5:13 pm UTC

Quoting: rustybroomhandleThe wine used in Proton is not "full of hacks", it just has hooks into Steam's platform. […]

Valve is paying Codeweavers to work on wine, who will not be doing anything to wine that will not be available to everyone.
hacks @https://github.com/ValveSoftware/wine/ [External Link]
hacks @https://github.com/wine-mirror/wine/ [External Link]

Quoting: rustybroomhandleAnd the decision to not use vkd3d-proton in wine is not because Valve is grubby about it, it's entirely the wine maintainers' choice.
Please explain in more detail with an emphasis on 'the right way' of the contribution?

Valve releases Steam Deck shell CAD files
12 Feb 2022 at 3:52 pm UTC

Quoting: mindedieComparing private (game related software and limited hardware) company with few billion in pocket and few hundred employees with mega software and hardware (hundreds working on input devices alone) corporations with hundred of billions and counting employees in hundred thousand plus...
They're just the tip of the iceberg & known for their closed products.

And as you're saying: Valve has billions, so it's nothing to them to pay a few developers. (To remind you: $1 billion = $1000 million, a developer will cost something from, I don't know, $100.000 to $1.000.000 per year?).

Quoting: slaapliedje[…] They hate GPLv3, so some software stays far out of date on their newest systems (it is the bit about modifiable binaries, or something.)
[…]
Same with VSCode being open source, but the normal binaries have telemetry turned on. […]
Please explain why this has anything to do with open source contributions.

Valve makes open source contributions and yet provide a DRM system (in fact, most of their business is based on the availability of, partly invasive, DRM). What's your point here?

Quoting: slaapliedje[…]
They use Webkit... but forked it for their own use. So now we have multiple webkit based engines and they all are incompatible.
[…]
Valve does open source contributions 'the right way'
Valve uses a forked Wine full of hacks, uses & maintains a D3D implementation outside of Wine with no chance of upstreaming it. What makes this right & better than Apple & Microsoft?

As I was saying: Nothing special, nobody but Linux kids are thinking anything about it.

Valve releases Steam Deck shell CAD files
12 Feb 2022 at 10:29 am UTC

Quoting: Purple Library GuyValve is frankly a really weird company. I'm sure all the other companies look at it and think, to quote a certain Dr. from Austin Powers, "Not Evil enough".
Why would they? Valve is nowhere near the open source contributions of other closed source companies (e.g. Apple & Microsoft).

Easy Anti-Cheat gets much simpler for Proton and Steam Deck
23 Jan 2022 at 10:02 am UTC

Quoting: MalFalse. Even today you can (try to) run any windows game on wine or proton, and if works fine, if it doesn't work the developers don't owe you support.
If this was the case then we wouldn't be having this discussion. To quote Valve (emphasis by me):
[…] it does require you [the developer] to manually enable support for your build […]
Proton without EAC => Unsupported action by users
Proton with EAC => Supported action by the developers

Quoting: kon14Except they don't need to officially support Linux through Proton either. They can just enable it for anyone wishing to play the game while clearly stating they do not offer any support or guarantees about the compatibility continuing to work in the future.
Except, by enabling it they're saying it's supported. Steam Deck users will get upset. Yes, some will enable & then forget it. But I believe developers of, e.g., the top 10 games will be more conservative.

Quoting: kon14Sure, sounds a bit hypocritical, because it is, but if this was opt-out instead of opt-in nobody would ever call them out for their game breaking at some point.
The Steam Deck users would. I believe people here somehow mistake the target audience as Linux users who are aware of the pain due to Wine. But Steam consists mostly of Windows users and that's the target audience. Another reason why I believe developers will wait and see: It's uncertain if Steam OS support is actually necessary.

Quoting: SpykerI think the situation here with Valve is different than the situation with GOG.
Because the support charge comes essentially to Valve instead of the developer.
If a developer enables EAC on Proton, the validation/testing is essentially made by Valve.
So yes they will have to support Proton, but it won't cost them as much as if they had to support native Linux.
That's my point: It'll cost them. I see no way around it after enabling support. I doubt that Valve can do anything to help with the anti-cheat related debugging.

The cost for the GOG release should be negligible, too. Only the upload of the existing build is required. And it's still not happening.

Quoting: scaineI wonder whether there's an implied threat here. Do as we ask and get Steamdeck Verified.... or the algorithm might have something to say about surfacing your game on the Store.
Obviously, it's a requirement to be Steam Deck Verified & Verified title will be more prominent on the Steam Deck. But it won't change anything for Steam in general, Valve would get sued for such a change.

Easy Anti-Cheat gets much simpler for Proton and Steam Deck
22 Jan 2022 at 11:21 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: JpxsonI think most developers will enable it, it's just a question if they do it now or wait until it starts costing them money not too.
Quoting: MalUnless a studio lost the sources or the libraries, there is little excuse now to not add support.
Quoting: SpykerI fail to see why the most played EAC titles on Steam would not jump on the opportunity to easily support more platforms now.
There is a simple reason, not to ship it: If they ship it, they have to support it! That will always cost resources (i.e. money).

There are Linux binaries missing on GOG although a port is available on Steam. These developers don't have to do much but upload the existing build, besides their Windows and potential macOS releases, but simply refuse to avoid the work afterwards!

So I have my doubts that many games will be made compatible for a system of which many developers are unsure. They'll rather wait to see how many people will install Windows on the Steam Deck before committing to anything.

God of War is now on Steam and runs out of the box on Linux with Proton
15 Jan 2022 at 9:26 am UTC Likes: 2

Quoting: WorMzyOh boy, another developer that can't be arsed to support Linux, but will still benefit financially from open source software picking up their slack. Whoopee.
Where did they ask you to buy the game? You're throwing your money into their pockets like you've got no choice. Clearly you don't care about a Linux port so why should the developers?

Quoting: GuestI agree! The Open source community gets abused all the time. I've worked for so many companies that relied heavily on open source software, and when I'd ask them to donate even $100.00 a year to the developers they would look at me like I'm crazy...
It's no abuse when someone uses code as granted by a license. You may personally think that it's objectionable, but it's simply their right.

Quoting: GuestGood example of the bull:
https://opensource.org/blog/the-intriguing-implications-of-sfc-v-vizio#:~:text=The%20suit%20alleges%20that%20Vizio,its%20source%20code%20publicly%20available [External Link].
Yes, that's abusing the open source community, since it's a clear license violation. But this is a different case because the developer never intended to comply with the license.

TUXEDO release the configurable InfinityBook Pro 14 with a crisp 16:10 display
21 May 2021 at 5:21 pm UTC

Quoting: iiariYes, on their website:
The Linux lightweight laptop's internally screwed 53 Wh lithium-ion battery allows runtimes of around 8 hours (3K high-resolution display) in practical everyday use (@ 150 cd/m2 and Wifi active). In idle mode up to 12 hours are achievable.
I'd interpret this as "only screwed, not glued". There are pictures of the hardware in their gallery and the battery looks easily replaceable, too. Of course it's not hot-swappable but neither is the battery in the Framework laptop.

But I've to say that the Framework laptop board in comparison looks really well designed. The InfinityBook Pro 14 board wastes a lot of space (I guess it'll be reused in a smaller notebook).

TUXEDO release the configurable InfinityBook Pro 14 with a crisp 16:10 display
21 May 2021 at 3:16 pm UTC

Quoting: iiariThe other item of slight concern for me is the non-replaceable/swappable 53 Wh battery
Did they state this somewhere?

Quoting: TuxedoAll devices have a maintenance-friendly design. Depending on the model, the essential hardware components such as processor, drive, hard disks, RAM, WIFI modules etc. can be accessed via maintenance flaps or removable floor trays. Furthermore the battery is replaceable if not stated differently. Of course even after expiration of your warranty period we're offering replacement parts and service for many years!
I think the display of the TUXEDO provides a better resolution (2256x1504 is just weird & probably won't scale well), though it'll probably shorten the battery life. But I'll wait on an AMD system.