71–80 of 127 posts
Neat - but who’s gaming on a Chromebook?
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It's not about Windows long term support, it's about Wine long term support (which is much better than Windows own). So I agree with your point that long term Wine offers better support than Linux native ABIs. I doubt Windows ABIs are better than Linux native ones on their own long term wise (i.e. without Wine). That said, it would be cool for someone to develop Wine-like wrapping of historic Linux ABIs into modern o…
> I doubt Windows ABIs are better than Linux native ones on their own long term wise Lots of games from the early 2000s still run as-is on Windows 10/11, and many games have updated versions on Steam or gog.com as well. However, the real question for Linux is: is there any comparable long-term stable distribution format for Linux games other than Windows binaries? If so, how popular is it?
Example: https://www.gog.com/game/vampire_the_masquerade_redemption
GOG doesn't list recent Windows as supported. But it works in Wine.
In this sense, the long term way to run old Windows games is Wine on Linux because Wine translates old Windows ABIs into modern Linux ones.
But there is no comparable translation of old ABIs for native Linux ones.
Wait - does this mean that if Steam ships on Chromebook, and Steam can be made to run arbitrary software via proton, that Chromebooks have become regular laptops?
I'd just stick to gaming on regular Linux. But I suppose it can be useful for arguing that Linux gaming market is expanding, so developers who like to excuse lack of Linux releases with market size will have less excuses now.
You and the dozens of people like you, but the Chromebook consumer market is huge. Right now Steam is only targeting higher end Chromebooks that make up a small fraction of its market share, but I’m sure they’ll improve that over time.
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I’ve seen game devs advertise that their game works natively on Linux and is seen as a positive. My guess is if steam deck takes off there will be more games trying to build natively on Linux.
I'm a Linux gamer, and when I see an indie game with native Linux build I avoid it. In my experience they always have problems, and I can't work out how to get Steam to give me the windows version with proton instead of the Linux version.
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I’ve seen game devs advertise that their game works natively on Linux and is seen as a positive. My guess is if steam deck takes off there will be more games trying to build natively on Linux.
I'm a Linux gamer, and when I see an indie game with native Linux build I avoid it. In my experience they always have problems, and I can't work out how to get Steam to give me the windows version with proton instead of the Linux version.
Now install the game.
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hey interesting - new to me.. (checks models) yep, the Chromebook on the desk is one of "the ones that have Linux" .. "Camera not supported yet" .. feature!
That's just par for the course for Linux. Write the support yourself! Publish it under the GPL! Share and enjoy! ;)
Of course, it can and hopefully will be improved by improvements to desktop Linux. I haven't kept up, but ChromeOS will probably be able to adopt newer open source desktop technologies like Wayland and Pipewire/XDG portals in order to get a better Linux multimedia experience, if they care to.
Since they didn't mention it I'm guessing x86 only chrome books ?
AFIACT, it's a "no but yes" sort of answer. Linux games are free to build binaries for any architecture they wish, but any game relying on Proton because it's a Windows binary will require x86. Good news is, any of us in here are going to buy whatever we want and aren't limited to Chromebooks. Its everyone else that is screwed by the virtual duopoly of Windows and !Windows.
My ideal dev machine would be chromeOS running on apple silicon.
As soon as linux can run on M1s stably, I think Flex would follow suit as well.
My ideal dev machine would be chromeOS running on apple silicon.
Disclosure: I work at Google and am speaking only for myself. I do not work on anything related to Chrome OS.