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Android’s desktop interface leaks

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Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#41

Post by pjmlp »

fooqux wrote: post #26
anonymous908213 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how they could have failed that if that was never their goal in the first place. The entire point of Proton is that the Win32 API is infinitely more stable and worthwhile to target than anything Linux distros offer, and that the financial incentives aren't there for developers to 5x their platform distribution effort to reach 1% more users. An approach that relies on developers doing that would never wor…

You're thinking of now. Proton didn't exist yet the first time they tried Steam OS. To be fair to Valve though, back then, there was a lot of movement in direct ports for Linux games. Humble Bundle (before they were bought) was spending real money on it and companies like Feral sprang up to help with titles like Mordor. It looked like there was going to be some real change. But for various reasons the momentum waned.…

Which is exactly my point, keeping game studios on Windows + Visual Studio acomplishes nothing in regards to cut the dependency on Windows gaming.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#42

Post by flohofwoe »

pjmlp wrote: post #39
flohofwoe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh, why bother? kernel32+user32+gdi32+d3d[11|12]+dxgi is a pretty great API abstraction for game development. And unlike Linux desktop APIs the Win32 APIs are actually stable, so those games will also work in 5 years, and most importantly, performance is the same or better than on Windows. It's unlikely that game devs directly targeting Vulkan would do any better, and when using a high level engine, any layering ove…

With game studios using Windows + Visual Studio, what a win!

VS2026 is actually quite decent again (surprising tbh), but the good thing today is that a lot more UI apps support Linux than 20 years ago. E.g. I would just give my artists a Linux desktop running Blender, and generally test on a connected min-spec PC (also for the devs even if they are working on a high-end Windows PC in VStudio). E.g. similar to console-development, the low-end PC is essentially the devkit. Also has the advantage that there will be no performance surprises on release when most gamers try to run the game on their laptop or RTX2060 ;)

One thing I would definitely do is to replace MSVC with Clang, MSVC is just too far behind and it almost looks like MS abandondend it.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#44

Post by fooqux »

pjmlp wrote: post #41
fooqux wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're thinking of now. Proton didn't exist yet the first time they tried Steam OS. To be fair to Valve though, back then, there was a lot of movement in direct ports for Linux games. Humble Bundle (before they were bought) was spending real money on it and companies like Feral sprang up to help with titles like Mordor. It looked like there was going to be some real change. But for various reasons the momentum waned.…

Which is exactly my point, keeping game studios on Windows + Visual Studio acomplishes nothing in regards to cut the dependency on Windows gaming.

I wouldn't say that. Software support for Linux is a chicken and egg problem. No software because there's no users because there's no software.

Proton helps fix the users part. If a critical mass is accomplished, that can have real long-term impact.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#45

Post by flohofwoe »

pjmlp wrote: post #35
flohofwoe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> otherwise we won't get away from the yearly meme What's different in the last decade is that Windows is on an undeniable quality downward spiral, it's simply not important anymore for Microsoft. E.g. desktop Linux doesn't even need to improve, it just needs to wait for Windows to become worse ;)

Unless it becomes available for normies to buy laptops with it pre-installed at Saturn, Media Market, FNAC, Cool Blue, and co, it won't matter. They aren't going to buy them from Tuxedo.

"Normies" buy smartphones and maybe a tablet, neither of those has Windows preinstalled either.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#46

Post by direwolf20 »

sofixa wrote: post #36
direwolf20 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Valve invested so much in Linux. They saw the writing on the wall of Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier). Now they have an alternative. If Microsoft charges a 30% tax on all Steam transactions and won't let Steam run unless they do that, Valve can heavily push Linux and Steam Machine sales.

> Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier) At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons, having disappearing controls depending on window size (scrollbars), or having corners so rounded that the click to drag mostly being outside the actual window. The Windows 11 UI is annoying, but at least it doesn't look like a kid's toy.

Apple's bad ideas look ugly. Microsoft's bad ideas lock you out of your computer, delete your files and give the undeleted files to the FBI.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#47

Post by palata »

pjmlp wrote: post #40
palata wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as they depend on Proton, they haven't fully solved their problem. Maybe not, but they fully solved my problem with games, which was that I could not play on Linux. I started playing again just because of the SteamDeck, I think it's a pretty big achievement :-).

Hardly any different than running MAME.

Never heard of MAME before :-)

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#48

Post by flohofwoe »

sofixa wrote: post #36
direwolf20 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Valve invested so much in Linux. They saw the writing on the wall of Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier). Now they have an alternative. If Microsoft charges a 30% tax on all Steam transactions and won't let Steam run unless they do that, Valve can heavily push Linux and Steam Machine sales.

> Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier) At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons, having disappearing controls depending on window size (scrollbars), or having corners so rounded that the click to drag mostly being outside the actual window. The Windows 11 UI is annoying, but at least it doesn't look like a kid's toy.

> At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons

That's just because Microsoft has been there done that already 2 decades ago ;) (IIRC in Windows Vista).

Same with the fine-grained in-your-face permission popups. Introduced by Microsoft in Vista, copied by Apple in Mojave ;)

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#49

Post by Moomoomoo309 »

Oh, I see Google's angle now. They want to make android a viable desktop OS in order to have more users using android Chrome rather than Windows Chrome, because the former lacks extension support, and thus ad blockers. Of course, you can still install brave or kiwi browser or Firefox to your heart's content, but most people won't. It's brilliantly simple. It's not too bad for power users, they'll probably use a different browser, or for developers, given the work they're putting into the Linux containers, but for most users...we'll see the expected result.

Re: Android’s desktop interface leaks

#50

Post by JCattheATM »

sofixa wrote: post #36
direwolf20 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Valve invested so much in Linux. They saw the writing on the wall of Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier). Now they have an alternative. If Microsoft charges a 30% tax on all Steam transactions and won't let Steam run unless they do that, Valve can heavily push Linux and Steam Machine sales.

> Microsoft becoming Apple (but shittier) At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons, having disappearing controls depending on window size (scrollbars), or having corners so rounded that the click to drag mostly being outside the actual window. The Windows 11 UI is annoying, but at least it doesn't look like a kid's toy.

> At least Microsoft haven't fallen so low as to fail basic design principles like having transparent on top of transparent buttons,

They did that but made it work well all the way back with Windows 7, maybe even Vista.

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