Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: KlausThe other part (mostly relevant for corporate environments) is that a natively or indistinguishable-from-native running version of Microsoft Office releases from the last ten years isn't optional. I tried with OnlyOffice and LibreOffice, but the moment your working with a customer who uses Microsoft Office, you will need it somehow, or the customer will be annoyed at you for breaking their documents; The only solution working properly here is a virtual machine with Windows and native MS Office.

Office is for sure a big issue. Luckily my work doesn't really fiddle documents in that kind of detailed way where an odd looking font here and there will cause any problems, and I don't use any really advanced spreadsheets, so I can get away with LibreOffice. Which is nice, because I hate the bloody ribbon; at this point, I actually like LibreOffice's UI better. But none of that changes the fact that Office remains the standard and for a whole lot of work-type requirements, from document exchanges to high-end Excel features, you really need it.
Does Office work in Wine these days? Man, if I were massively rich I would pay some outfit to get Office, Acrobat and Photoshop all working hiccup-free on Wine, no muss no fuss, maybe with special installers or something just to give people a button to click.

Office365?

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Quoting: andythe_greatNot even openSUSE and Fedora can share the same spec file (a file that contain build instructions) since they some time use difference RPM macros. Maintaining a package across many distros are very tedious.

Yes that is one of the problems with rpm that is not really there with deb:s (I use the exact same files to build deb:s e.g when building for both Debian and Ubuntu). However in their defence, RPM:s where never intended as being used by third parties, they where intended to be used by the distribution maintainers only and there this problem does not exist. That said this is an are where rpm:s could be greatly enhanced, there is nothing in the format itself that prohibits the same .spec to work between distributions.

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Quoting: WorMzy

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: PublicNuisanceI don't have a horse in the race but here is an article worth reading as devil's advocate.

https://flatkill.org/2020/

Yes this "next generation" packaging is really the stone age packaging while rpm/apt is the real next-generation. That said, for games the security issues are basically zero (basically but not to 100%) since few games have open external ports or handle random files/data that you feed it like it is for applications.

lol, I've never seen rpm/deb described as 'next-generation'. I can kind of see it with rpm, but deb is something that deserves to be consigned to history as a terrible mistake that future generations should learn from.

Sorry to be so "slashdot" in my reply here but saying so about deb vs rpm show that you don't know how they both actually work. The thing is that rpm and deb are extremely similar with the main difference being that deb:s have far greater helper scripts that among other things means that what does require platform specific .spec files for rpm can be done in a single deb.

RPM/DEB is "next-generation" in the sense that stone age distribution is files in a archive, then came files in a archive with some basic script (this is where the current Windows installers are), then came rpm/deb which is files in a archive with several scripts (pre-install, pre-update, post-install, post-update, post-delete) and most importantly with a dependency tracker. This makes rpm/deb next-generation functionality wise of all the types of packagers available today.

Then comes flatpak, snap and so on which are back to files in a archive but now in a sandbox (sometimes). To me this is a huge step backwards, but it allows the dumb Windows type installers that millions of developers are used to so therefore it became popular.

edit: And I should perhaps add that there are some environments where flatpaks and snaps are the obvious choice and that is for people running virtualized servers.

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Quoting: PublicNuisanceI don't have a horse in the race but here is an article worth reading as devil's advocate.

https://flatkill.org/2020/

Yes this "next generation" packaging is really the stone age packaging while rpm/apt is the real next-generation. That said, for games the security issues are basically zero (basically but not to 100%) since few games have open external ports or handle random files/data that you feed it like it is for applications.

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If one looks at the source code dumps that they did for some of their older games (they where once part of the Humber Open Bundle) it's quite clear that they sent their entire codebase to an external porting house that rewrote huge chunks of the game for Linux so #1 they have no Linux devs inhouse and #2 all their Linux versions where complete separate code bases which is a huge hassle for a small studio such as Frozenbyte.

So given the situation that they are in I would say that Proton is the best choice, and as other have already said this is a decision they actually made at least 5 years ago.

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Quoting: ElectricPrism

Quoting: CatKillerMicrosoft of the 90s seemed undefeatable; Microsoft now seems like they've already lost. But it might all be wishful thinking.

I'll go on record saying Microsoft has indeed already lost. According to the verge there are over 3 billion active Android devices in the world.

Numerically, Android/Linux is king. iOS is probably second, and then the desktop operating systems after that.

Edit: If you look at Microsoft's behavior over the last few years too they have started to do some odd things like create their own line of computers, begin to promote SaaS Software as a Service and strengthen their server divisions, Xbox and so on -- reducing Windows 10 price to $0 for a while -- essentially their OS license wasn't their bread and butter anymore and they realized it so they subsidized it. They also bought Mojang to get control over MineCraft and several other game studios to steer the teenage demographic back into their Walled Garden -- because they realized most kids and teens experience with electronics is on Android and iOS phones and they literally had 0 interest or need for Windows -- Microsoft was not "needed" -- a problem Microsoft intended to correct.

Edit 2: Microsoft also got the sense that their grip over developers was weakening too, developers no longer focused on their obscure technology as the web evolved and popularity rose with iOS, Android, and Linux. They also "corrected" this "problem" by buying GitHub and [ installing ] themselves into the center of the developer community to try to ensure their longevity to exert influence to ensure their survival.

RIP GitHub, especially after the illegal AI stealing code from their users and literally breaking licenses & laws to do it.

And of course there is also this: https://github.com/microsoft/CBL-Mariner no desktop, only server, but still :-)

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Quoting: mylka

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: mylka

Quoting: jens

Quoting: F.UltraConsidering how quickly they managed to port Wolfenstein Youngblood to not only Linux but also ARM Linux shows that those rumours that they had DOOM running natively on Linux way back where highly likely true.

Yes exactly, having the driver ready for ARM is one thing, showing an ARM port of an AAA game is at least equally impressive (and serves indeed food for lots of rumors :)).

switch has ARM hardware and it has AAA titles all over
afaik switch runs freeBSD which is kinda linux
so i think its not that hard to make a switch ARM TITLE run on LINUX ARM

The switch port was handled by an external company though, Panic Button, the demo on Linux ARM seams to be inhouse?!

does it make any difference? the game and all of its source codes are property of bethesda, so why would they do it all over again?

First of all not sure if the porting contracts works that way (wasn't there a game on Stadia where there did exist a native port but the studio rewrote their own native port for Stadia alone), and only means that they have a build for the Switch SDK which is it's own thing and not FreeBSD.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: TeodosioI would like to see a new game from Valve, released on GNU/Linux only.

Exclusives are bad.

yes they are, but for once it would be "fun" to hear the Windows crowd huff and puff over the evils of "exclusivity". At which point we can just tell them how easy they could just dual boot :)

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt strikes me that Lee's reaction is kind of forgetting that all the existing Linux desktops, that up to now have been the only reason for releasing native Linux games, will still be there after the Steam Deck releases. Even if people targeting the Steam Deck ignore native releases, that doesn't actually shrink the incentive to release native. So I think he might be overreacting.

Well it's not easy to see all that you have spent thousands of hours building up come crumbling down, and having once been in the same situation I fully understand Ethan:s feelings here. I do hope that he realised soon however that he is one hell of a developer and that there are millions of other things than conversions that can use a man of his talents, then at some point in time conversions will be back again and he can return to what he loves to do.

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Quoting: mylka

Quoting: jens

Quoting: F.UltraConsidering how quickly they managed to port Wolfenstein Youngblood to not only Linux but also ARM Linux shows that those rumours that they had DOOM running natively on Linux way back where highly likely true.

Yes exactly, having the driver ready for ARM is one thing, showing an ARM port of an AAA game is at least equally impressive (and serves indeed food for lots of rumors :)).

switch has ARM hardware and it has AAA titles all over
afaik switch runs freeBSD which is kinda linux
so i think its not that hard to make a switch ARM TITLE run on LINUX ARM

The switch port was handled by an external company though, Panic Button, the demo on Linux ARM seams to be inhouse?!

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